-
Brion Gysin - I Am That I Am
Thus began Thee Process
Brion Gysin can be grandly titled the man who introduced 'cut-up' to William Burroughs, and subsequently influenced a huge range of experimentation and styles in music, art and literature.
'I Am That I Am' is from a recording of sound works that Gysin was asked to produce for the BBC in 1960, and is take from Recordings 1960-81 a collection of works and conversations with him.
It's sad that so little of Gysins audio work is available considering his influence. That said there have been a couple of books published on him in the last few years; Tuning into the Multimedia Age and Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted. These contain a number of images of his artwork and details of his influence. I'd love to see an exhibition of his paintings - I believe there was one in NYC earlier in the yea
leave a comment -
Four Tet - She Moves She
I've been listening to 'She Moves She' a lot in the last few days, perhaps because I've been using it as one of the test videos for a video player I'm writing. It's not got to me in the way some of the other tracks have after relentless listening - and 'As Serious As Your Life' by Four Tet also holds up well.
I like this track, and other stuff by Four Tet (and Kieran Hebden's other guises), because of it's musical - whilst not overly dance orientated - approach towards electronic music. His use of concrete sounds and electronic music, and his folk music influences, all gel together nicely.
It's taken from his second album 'Rounds', released on Domino
Edit Forgot to publish, d'oh!
leave a comment
-
Fugazi - Waiting Room/Suggestion
Making up for lost time
Only a few weeks in and already I've managed to post hardly anything this week - and been berated for it. sorry. It's been a bit busy this week. This is a quick post before heading out to see The Hospitals and co.
I'm also giving you two tracks. My original choice was 'Suggestion', but 'Waiting Room' is to thank you for your patience. They are taken from Fugazi's eponymous first EP which has to be one of the most consistently listened to records I have in my collection since I first bought it in 1988.
The tracks are are also available on the CD '13 songs' which is the 'Fugazi' EP and their second EP, 'Margin Walker' - which has to be one of the most consistently listened to records I have in my collection - on one CD.
leave a comment
-
Jason Forrest - My 36 Favourite Punk Songs
Breakcore-tastic
Jason Forrest aka Donna Summer manages to answer that age old question 'How can I fit as many musical references as possible into one track?'. In the wise words of Pop Will Eat Itself 'Sample it, loop it, fuck it, eat it & spit it out'.
Forrest's hyperactive mind takes 36 tracks and condenses down into one 2 minute sonic assault. Part of the fun of this track is working out where the samples are from, part of it is just freaking out to it. Give a muso this album for Christmas and they can make 'spot the sample' their after lunch game. And it will get granny's blood pumping.
It's taken from his album 'Shamelessly Exciting' released on the Sonig label. The albums very very varied in style, but all using the same premise. It's a lot of fun.
leave a comment
-
MC 900ft Jesus - Adventures In Failure
Damn, I hate this job.
Mark Griffin doned his MC 900ft Jesus pseudonym after hearing an American Christian evangelist tell as story of how he had seen a 900 ft tall Jesus and used it to hustle for money.
'Adventures in Failure' is taken from his second album 'Welcome To My Dream' released in 1991. It's lyrical drawl and drole storytelling appealed to imediately, with the album moving through a range of stories and jazz influences in a truely engaging way. The humour in his lyrics, and the music, never fails to make me smile.
His previous album, 'Hell With The Lid Off' (with DJ Zero) was more hip hop and electronic in it's influences, but also darker and more gritty. The later 'One Step Ahead Of The Spider' was a more bouncy - but still equally twisted - affair, taking influences of the then emergent drum & bass scene.
The sad thing is after so much promise in three excellent and original albums Mark had enough with the music industry and got out of the business, and is training to be come a pilot. Let's hope he has some inspiring visions whilst he's up there.
leave a comment
-
Brian Eno & Davide Byrne - America Is Waiting
'America Is Waiting' is taking from the seminal album 'My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts' which was produced in 1979/1980 by composer Brian Eno and David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame). To me this record always sounds fresh and interesting - despite some dated sounding synthisizers on it. It's testament to the compositional skills of the two players, and the skills of the musicians the employed to work on it.
leave a comment
-
TV On The Radio - The Wrong Way
Cancelled.
When I decided to put TV On The Radio as today's track it was because I was going to go and see them tonight. But the gig has been cancelled due to the unexpected death of Tunde's father. My sympathies are with you.
The Wrong Way is taken from their album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes on 4AD. It's a corker of an album that's got me through a couple of backstage at photo shoots periods for SHOWstudio this year.
leave a comment
-
Plaid - Shackbu
A dancefloor favourite
Anyone who has heard me DJ my hip-hop/electronica set in the last 6 years - not that I do that very often anymore - should recognise this. It's one of my favourite crossover tracks.
Plaid are one of my favourite artists in the Warp Records family. They've never had the critical acclaim or attention of Boards of Canada, which is a shame, as they deserve to be seen as equals, if not as the influencing elder brothers.
Shackbu is taken from their second album, Rest Proof Clockwork, released in 1999.
leave a comment
-
Barry Adamson - Jazz Devil
This has been a tough choice. I've listened to every Barry Adamson album today looking for a track, after coming across Jazz Devil last night whilst listening to iTunes on Random. After that entire excursion I decided that, whilst there are stronger Adamson tracks, I do really like this one and should just put it up. This isn't, after all, about picking the creme-de-la-creme of music here, it's about putting up things I've been listening to and enjoying. So there.
Jazz Devil is taken from As Above So Below released on Mute in 1998. It is, like all of his albums, rather good.
leave a comment
-
Christoph Poppen - Sarabanda
Partita d-Moll BMV 1004 für Violine solo
Putting up todays entry has been a learning experience for me, and reminded me why I love the internet. I'm not au fait with the ways of Classical music. I didn't pay attention too much to my music teachers at school, and was more interested in guitars, synthesizers and record decks than violins and orchestras. I regret that now. A few searches and I realise that.
Today's track is from the Morimur composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. Did you know that there is an indexing system specifically for Bach's work?
To me this piece is a story told through music. A deep, resonant and moving solo violin, with a message part sadness and part joy.
Some searching around explains what it's all about. If the thesis is correct it explains why I find it so moving.
I think I'm going to have to try and get hold of the copy with the 80 page booklet to find out about that thesis.
The quote on the back of the CD is also of interest:
Ancient art has a specific inner content. At one time, art possessed the same purpose that books do in our day, namely: to preserve and transmit knowledge. In olden days, people did not write books, they incorporated their knowledge into works of art. We would find a great many ideas in the works of ancient art passed down to us, if only we knew how to read them.
G. Gurdjieff
leave a comment
