cooltunes

There, I found it at iTunes, the song that makes you dance while washing your car.

The movie is 10 items or Less, and the car wash scenes are set to some catchy music, none of which I can find online. I could have used it this afternoon, scrubbing off spring’s pollen accumulation, and grime that may well have started back in the winter.

The Boilerhouse Boys, music producers from across the pond, are tinkering with the lost data issues of digital music files. Inspiration for their work goes all the way back to the technical aspects of the Motown sound.

It was a gloomy morning at home, but we headed toward the sunshine of outlet shopping. No one had a music preference, though one family member leans heavily toward jazz, while the other is just as deep into electronic. But I let my iPod loose.

Carolina in My Mind - James Taylor
Mexico - James Taylor
Always With You - Libera
Sandra - Pablo Milanes and Ivan Lins
Imagine America - Everything But the Girl
Parchman Farm - Mose Allison
Ailein Duinn - Meav

and so on till everyone fell into a trance. Then I tossed in something a little different.

The Future - Teddy Thompson.

It shattered the meditative stupor, and they listened, incredulous. Not often do you get Stalin, crack and anal sex in one song. Hah. Found on the Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man soundtrack.

I’m in the process of downloading the soundtrack from the original The Omen by Jerry Goldsmith. Just listening to the 30-second samples is kind of daunting, but I need to add something new to my Halloween night music.

Another pick is a different sort of haunting music, the soundtrack of the movie Jindabyne, which I’ve not finished listening to yet. The film stars Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne, sounds like a must-see.

Perhaps not since there are only two known users, Enya and Roma Ryan. Ryan cobbled together the language from various sources including Elvish, Hindi and Siberian Yupik.

Sometimes a person needs to hear music that can raise the hackles on the back of the neck (as a few of these do), but in a good way.

Going Home - Libera
She Moved Through the Fair - Meav
Rio de Maio - Jane Monheit and Ivan Lins
Villa-Lobos: Aria - Kathleen Battle
Opening Title, House of Flying Daggers soundtrack - Kathleen Battle and Shigeru Umebayashi
Always With You - Libera

I’ve been playing the poignant
‘Don’t Explain’, by Herbie Hancock, Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan a lot lately. Here’s a promo video, way too short.

I attended the opening performance for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival on Wednesday night. The event had additional sigificance outside of being the opening night of the festival - it was also the first time the festival had booked a night of only Mexican artists to perform.

The Mexicans in question, .pig and Murcof, put on an excellent show, although they weren’t as good as I was expecting.

.pig’s performance was a piece entitled “feto talk”, which consists of massively filtered and distorted turntable scratches and vocal effects. Speaking objectively, I don’t think I’d ever listen to them on my own time but as a performance they were impressive. The music was very harsh, very static-y and dissonant, so I was a little relieved when they finished after about half an hour. I think that’s probably all I could’ve put up with before getting irritated or bored.

Murcof is one of my favorite musicians of all time and I had extremely high expectations for his live performance. He has a new album coming out on September 17th, Cosmos, so I was looking forward to hearing some new material, and he did not dissapoint in that aspect. He played four new tracks from the album, ranging from one I’d heard from his myspace page, Cielo, to a couple of extremely drone-y ambient pieces that were new to me.

All of the songs were great and I’m eagerly anticipating the new album, although I’m a little surprised by the direction his music seems to have taken. The two drone-y pieces were a surprise, as most of his music seems to incorporate a fair amount of IDM-like percussion. Picture Tim Hecker-style ambient, except built from the classical sample-based palette that Murcof uses, and you’ll have something pretty close to what I heard Wednesday.

Anyway, the music was good but the performance itself left a little something to be desired - Murcof basically sat in front of his laptop and didn’t move for most of the show, except to tweak knobs on a mixer and a MIDI controller. I’m used to at least video being projected when I see electronic music acts, and its absence at this show reminded me of why it’s usually necessary with laptop-based musicians.

Most laptop artists are god damned boring to watch live.

Also, Murcof only performed four songs. The show didn’t start until 9:00 and I was out of the theatre by 10:30. What the hell.

I had tickets to the next night’s show, which Tim Hecker was performing at, but honestly, I didn’t think it was worth the effort to Bart it to the Mission, then walk to the train station and get home at 1 AM just to see him play a half-hour set.

Even if the festival has good performers next year, I’m not sure I would consider going if the format is the same. I’d much rather go to something like the upcoming Biosphere show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound.

Where else would you find Metallica, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Kronos Quartet in the same lineup?

Fifteen years ago in Basel, there was a live performance that included a soprano sax solo.

I really don’t why I like this song so much. It could be Knopfler’s incredible guitar work, his deadpan, dry delivery of lyrics, the mood he invokes. The sum of all parts maybe.