Still trying to put together some goosebumpy tunes for those little monsters coming to the door tomorrow night? Das Parfum’s soundtrack is done by the director Tom Tykwer of Run, Lola, Run fame.
It is that rare album that my 20-something sons will both pronounce “cool”, even if I like it too.
More on Halloween music in a bit.
So what’s running through my head at 6:30 a.m. as I settle in to work? The Star Spangled Banner, no less. What would bring about such a bizarre start?
I’m viewing the second season of Farscape for the first time, and as fans know, that is the song that Crichton sings as he and the villain grapple to insert a glowing rod into the villain’s skull at the end of one episode. This being the last thing I recall before sinking into unconsciousness last night.
As soon as I get over the bleary stage of the early morning, I’ll put on the Pet Shop Boys’ Potemkin again. Da! Nyet! Da! Nyet! Sounds like my kind of day. And then I have the Fearless soundtrack as well. So it’s more like Da! Nyet! Aaaaaiiiiieeeee!
A very, very hectic workday which hasn’t really ended yet, but I’m stopping. Starting to babble old Pet Shop Boys lyrics, but that’s okay, I’m listening to their Battleship Potemkin soundtrack. Too groggy to appreciate it just yet though.
People who listen to metal seriously know that although some countries produce more quality stuff than others (Sweden, Norway, USA, Germany, etc.) there are usually at least a few good bands hailing from almost anywhere in the world. Up until recently I hadn’t heard of too many bands from France, which seemed a tad weird since so many other European countries produce tons of great metal.
Well, I’ve lately discovered that there are quite a few good French metal bands, but I guess the French metal scene isn’t what it is in other areas, so they apparently don’t get as much exposure.. But France seems to have a pretty lively black metal scene which has spawned two of my favorite bands, Deathspell Omega and Blut Aus Nord. Other French black metal bands I’ve discovered recently include Mutiilation, Antaeus, Anorexia Nervosa, Spektr, Arkhon Infaustus, Vlad Tepes, and possibly Ofermod. I’ve also learned of bands like Gojira, Dagoba, Yyrkoon, and Scarve, all of which seem to be pretty unique and talented. So apparently France has a decent metal scene after all.
I’ve been re-reading Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho on my train ride to work, and to liven things up (not that the book needs anything additional to entertain me) I decided to keep tabs on the music Bateman listens to and is exposed to in the book. So far, aside from the obvious artists Bateman spends full chapters expressing his opinions of (Genesis, Huey Lewis and the News, Whitney Huston), he also listens to the Talking Heads, Stephen Bishop, and Christopher Cross, and is also exposed at various times to several other 80’s artists: The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Shirelles, INXS, and Belinda Carlisle, to name a few. Some of them I have never heard of, but I guess that’s not surprising.
A couple of other music-related experiences I’ve had related to the book - first, I happened listening to The Axis of Perdition during one of the more gruesome parts while reading the book for the first time. The song contained a sample from the horror movie Event Horizon, and I felt that the sample along with the violent nature of the music was a pretty good complement for the book. More recently, I was reading it while listening to random Melt-Banana songs, which was an awesome experience.. the frenetic, bizarre music and Yasuko’s chipmunk-on-speed vocals went well with the book’s dark humor and Bateman’s occaisional hallucinations. It is kind of hard to concentrate for very long when listening to them though.
Murcof posted a few videos of himself performing with Eric Truffaz and Talvin Singh at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.
Rios, from Remembranza.
Ulysses, from Utopia.
I’m kind of miffed I found this on his myspace page. I still refuse to use that site on general principle, but it seems like I’m not going to be able to avoid that for much longer.
My day job is becoming my night job as well lately, but I’m finding excellent music to work to. Tonight, it’s Time, Fly Like a Bird and I’ll Be the One from Boz. I considered buying some of his blues album, Come on Home, but I don’t work that well to blues. Depends on what I’m working on, maybe. Any kind of music is dandy when I’m taking photos, but am not doing much of that lately. Life is never dull.
I went to this show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound last night.
I’d been to a show at the RML before, but at their old location in Hunter’s Point. I’ll start off by saying that their new location is in a thankfully less scary area of SF, in the SOMA near 7th street.
I arrived 10 minutes early, and the show didn’t actually start till around 10, which was kind of annoying. I guess the first hour was for the benefit of their regular crowd, who consisted mostly of grey/black-wearing trendy-young-professional types, mixed with a healthy dose of tattooed, dreadlocked alternative-y folks. The first group is the kind you’d expect to see in a modern art museum doing a lot of chin-stroking in front of Rothko paintings. They all seemed to know one another.
Once 10 PM rolled around they lead us into the studio, which is the room pictured on their homepage. It’s an amazing space, you’re completely surrounded by speakers and a seamless wall of screens for their “surround cinema”-related stuff.
After everyone was inside, we were treated to three experimental videos which utilized the surround cinema effect. A guy who introduced himself as “Not Human” forewarned us that the first two videos were at normal volume but the third was “fucking loud” and that we were advised to utilize our earplugs. The videos were set to two Biosphere tracks, and the third was a recording (I think?) of one of the tracks Ryoichi Kurakawa played there a couple of weeks ago, and was as loud as advertised.
An aside on the loudness of their system - on the way into the studio they have a machine that dispenses earplugs, and warnings that the sound level inside exceeds 120 dB regularly. That pretty much sums it up.
After the third video and a short break, Deadbeat stepped up to a laptop plastered with an “I <3 Dub” sticker and began to play. I’ve heard people say that Deadbeat’s albums are kind of a pale reflection of his live performance, and after finally seeing him perform solo I can see where they’re coming from. It was interesting seeing him play very loudly, as his dub basslines are groovy enough to encourage dancing, yet his music isn’t quite uptempo enough to allow one’s self to actually dance continuously. Thus everyone was very vigorously head-nodding or swaying for most of his show. He ended with a DNB-esque remix of Saul Willliams - Black Stacey, which was awesome.
I didn’t know what to expect from Richard Devine, as all I previously knew was that he produced abrasive IDM. It’s kind of hard to put a description of his set into words, but I’ll try. Essentially, Richard Devine is a complete psycho, a rockstar, and his music is the electronic music equivalent of death metal. I’m almost surprised people didn’t start moshing during his set, it was that percussive. People (including Devine) were seriously throwing the devil-horns hand sign during pauses in the harsh beats. On that note, Devine was incredibly fun to watch, as he grimaces and winces like he’s struggling to defecate pieces of solid iron. After the show was over I seriously felt like I’d been beaten; the sound was so loud you could literally feel the waves of compressed air from the subwoofers travelling over your skin. Amazingly enough, the earplugs did their job and my hearing was pristine once I removed them.
Oh, and I got to watch Deadbeat rock out during the Devine set. He was jumping around with the enthusiasm of a little kid, it was great.
All in all, an amazing show. I’ll definitely be attending more events here.
Over a decade ago, I heard Another Day by an unnamed singer, probably on a jazz radio station. But what struck me most was the amazing soprano sax soaring around the vocals, doing somersaults and exuberantly playful meanderings against the rather depressing lyrics. I liked the song so much I recorded it on cassette, and listened to it again yesterday.
It took some time to find online, but it turned out to be Buckshot Lefonque, a group founded by none other than Branford Marsalis, which certainly explains the sax. The singer was Frank McComb, whose voice is compared to that of Donny Hathaway, a favorite of mine.
As Marsalis explains, Buckshot Lefonque defies categorizing, even though some say it’s a combination of jazz and hip hop.
Robag Wruhme and the Wighnomy Brothers remixed FSOL.
I kind of figured it’d be standard minimal tripe, but it’s surprisingly good. I’ve always wanted to slip the original into a DJ set but the tempo’s just a little fast and the kick drum a little weak for it to fit well with anything. Their remix solves both of those problems and still manages to be an interesting interpretation of the original.
An old article from The Wire. 10 years old, actually.
I’m tempted to declare the author not fit for writing about electronic music after describing Main Street Records as “uninspired House-y vocal tracks”, since only one of the best house tracks of all time was released on it. But I’ll let it slide, if you’re a fan of techno and not of house that’s a completely valid opinion.
I’m still on All the Roadrunning from yesterday, but at some point I wanted to hear Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten. Now I’m listening to Put it in the Crockpot by Sista Monica.
Like I said, it’s that kind of a day, and the Sista is going on about red beans and rice, neckbones and things you usually don’t hear about in a song. I see that she has a song called Cookin’ With Grease over at iTunes. Hmmm.
Started out listening to All the Roadrunning, new from Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler, then decided to go with Knopfler for a while.
This is Us - Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler
Belle Star - Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler
Beachcombing - Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler
Song for Sonny Liston - Mark Knopfler
Calling Elvis - Mark Knopfler
Back To Tupelo - Mark Knopfler
Brothers in Arms - Mark Knopfler
Private Investigations - Mark Knopfler
Your Latest Trick - Mark Knopfler
South of the Border - Chris Isaak
Some bio (Sonny), some uptempo, some mention of Marlon Brando (Tupelo) gets me to lunchtime with a minimum of harm and some productivity. Not a bad beginning to the week.
