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Number Tens I Come to Shanghai - I Come to...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:16:00 -0800

Number Tens

I Come to Shanghai - I Come to Shanghai

and

Michael Pisaro - Hearing Metal 1

I Come to Shanghai are two men here in the great state of California. One of them, Robert Ashley, will show up in the final post where I talk about podcasts and such. I knew about him because he was involved with a gaming website,1up.com, as a freelance writer and podcast personality. From his Twitter updates I was getting a sense of his musical taste. He seemed to equally love Eno, The Fields, the Beatles and Animal Collective, among others. When I heard he had a band I was actually pretty excited to hear them. Someone with so much good input was sure to produce something worth hearing. Turns out, they’re great. This is their first record and it’s both incredibly straightforward and head-scratchingly weird. It’s got a power pop/college rock vibe overall, but throughout the whole thing there are aggressively psychedelic flourishes, both lyrically and musically. The two guys both write and sing and I think that’s one of the real strengths to ICTS. With just one songwriter I can easily imagine an entire album dragging but from with each shift in songwriting voice there are shifts in tone, style and weirdness. The strength I mentioned comes from their ability as a duo to make it consistent even with all the shifts, and it is consistent. Every song has it’s place and it really feels like an album in the classic sense. This isn’t just a random collection of songs, it sounds and feels like a complete musical thought. Also, “Salvation is a Country Club” is beautiful and sits right beside some of Bazan’s recent statements in terms of how eerily close to my own thoughts it is. The flash thing above plays Lazy Eye, the second song on the record.

Michael Pisaro is a composer living in LA. He’s been one of the best discoveries of 2009. Hearing Metal 1 is the only one of his records released this year so it goes on the list. It features the tam-tam playing of Greg Stuart, a rather nice man who has recently become quite enamored of the share bookmarklet for Google Reader. Oddly, Hearing Metal 1 contains the Pisaro works I’ve had the hardest time getting my head wrapped around. That said, I do like the three pieces quite a bit, and I think part of it is thinking about them in comparison to the other works of his I love. All of his works have a consistent focus that I really admire. His scores all seem like attempts to understand a particular sound or a particular relationship between sounds. Most of the recordings I’ve heard have emphasized the “Wandelweiser” aesthetic, if there is one, with a focus on soft sounds with plenty of space between them. I talked a few months ago about his work creating a space where sounds seems to exist independently and where the relationship of interest isn’t between the sound-maker and the sound as much as between the sounds themselves. Actually I think that’s a nice general description of why I like him so much. These three pieces then contain the same focus, but the material is startlingly different. Greg’s tam-tam playing has a wide dynamic range, but whether soft or loud, the feeling I get is monumentality (which is probably not a word, but should be). When I think about the title and the pieces I can’t help but think of Serra and his confusingly monumental and somehow airy feeling sculptures and installations.

So there you go, number tens.

Yearend

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:04:00 -0800

I always think I won’t put a list together, every year, like clockwork. Then end up doing something resembling a year end list for music. Last year I put together an unordered list of stuff I liked in 2008 whether they were from the year or not. In 2007 I wrote OMG like 4,000 times and also might have mentioned some records. This time I’ve decided to do something more traditional.

Marshaling the nigh-unto magical powers of the internet, itunes, last.fm and my memory I was able to actually remember/compile the albums that I’ve been listening to released in 2009. I’m taking a cue from Nick Hennies and dividing the pop-oriented stuff from the experimental records. I’ll update every day, maybe, for the next couple of weeks, each day with one pop record and one experimental record. I’m going to try and use the little flash doohickey for the pop stuff and will definitely ramble at length about both the pop and experimental records. I have some honorable mentions which I’ll cram in at the end, pop and experimental all smushed together with podcasts I liked, shows and general year-ending musings.

The lists are in some sort of order, the pop more so than the experimental. I have a really hard time with lists generally, trying to figure out if I liked a folk record better than a weirdo indie rock record mostly makes my head hurt. So I decided to go with the simplest hierarchy available, whether I remembered listening to it more than the others. The experimental stuff’s order is far more nebulous. The record I put as number one on that list is unquestionably my favorite because I found it the most exciting and challenging personally, but I didn’t listen to it the most. And after that particular record the rest blur together. So take the ordering with a large flake of kosher salt.

So I should start tomorrow. I’ll probably write it up during the day and after some hangs with a friend should have time to post my two #10 records in the evening.

putthison: Eight Days of Style Reader Lucy wrote to us to ask...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:23:01 -0800

putthison:

Eight Days of Style

Reader Lucy wrote to us to ask that we suggest eight super-basic, affordable Hanukkah gifts for her boyfriend “to replace his stained light-wash jeans and Nine Inch Nails t-shirts.” We’ll offer one choice for each day the oil burned.

Above: the Levi’s 514 in tumbled rigid. A simple, dark, well-cut jean that goes for just $30.

I just bought a used pair of these and they are my favorite piece of clothing ever. They actually fit me! And I feel cooler and more put together already.

mct: NO AEON This is strangely captivating.

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:50:28 -0800

mct:

NO AEON

This is strangely captivating.

beingtherewith: feel good, fall in love, be all awesome, be all awesome, be all awesome and...

Sun, 06 Dec 2009 16:37:48 -0800

beingtherewith:

feel good, fall in love, be all awesome, be all awesome, be all awesome and stuff.

This is a much shorter (and probably better) version of what I posted Friday night.

Also, this

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:48:57 -0800

There’s just too much going on that’s great, too much to be excited about, too much to plan, too much to do, too much to enjoy and watch and read and write. So you come home from a long day and instead of focusing on feeling exhausted and brain-dead, you make a real dinner, you clean, you play with your cat, you watch a movie filled with classy, sexy, mysterious people and end the night with some writings on wolves and rhizomes, fall asleep with a head swirling full of exciting ideas. It’s way way too easy to wallow in the unpleasant bits, to spend evenings moaning about a lack of time and energy. It’s awesome to make and do big exciting things, but it seems important to remember that on days where making and doing seem out of reach, reveling in the small, good stuff is just as vital. So here’s to celebrating the smaller things that carry you through those times when the real making, the real doing are just a bit out of reach.

It’s nearly impossible to tell what this is unfortunately. So I’ll describe...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:33:26 -0800

It’s nearly impossible to tell what this is unfortunately. So I’ll describe it!

It’s Ellen Fullman, playing her Long-Stringed Instrument tonight at the Berkeley Art Musuem. The performance was split into three pieces, each exploring the instrument in a different way. First solo, then accompanied by more traditional stringed instruments and finally accompanied by her more rhythmic version of the LSI.

Of the three the first two, “Event Locations No. 3, solo with video projection” and “Adaptations from Stratified Bands:Last Kind Words, for viola and cello in four movements” were equally great. In Event Locations she was outfitted with a wireless video camera contraption trained on one of her hands. Conceptually this was my favorite by a long shot. You’re able to simultaneously watch her move about this grand, 20 foot long instrument, slowly pacing the length, sometimes faster sometimes slower, but always graceful and purposeful; and because of the camera on the wall in front of her you can watch an incredibly intimate video feed, a close up of her fingers caressing, plucking and rubbing the strings. The juxtaposition between macro and micro, two views of the same sound-making procedure was captivating. I stayed in the same spot nearly the whole time for this piece.

The second piece with viola and cello was my favorite musically. The thing about the LSI is that while Fullman can wring a variety of sounds out of it, the default mode, while enjoyable, is perhaps not best enjoyed by itself. The most common sounds are droning tones produced by her slowly rubbing a few strings while walking the length. This creates buzzing tones that constantly shift against each other in the air. Think Phil Niblock but never as loud or as imposing. The traditional stringed instruments up against these long tones was beautiful. The cello and viola played long tones, short tones, weird cat-like mews, etc. all acting as counterpoint to Fullman’s drone. This piece could have lasted much longer. I moved around during this one, unfortunately followed by a jerk with the loudest camera I’ve ever heard in my life, still even that couldn’t ruin the music reverberating through the museum. I looked at some of the artwork on display but mostly just explored how the music sounded on the different levels, in different locations.

The third piece uses the “box bow” which is a way she’s come up with to make the LSI useful rhythmically. There were some good moments throughout, but I found the rhythms oddly distracting, and to be frank kind of uninteresting. Even so! It was a beautiful night of music, and something I hope to see again in the future. She’s a pretty amazing lady.

Ran into the lovelies from Issues too, by the by. Which everyone in Oakland should already know because it’s the best newsstand/weird record shop/bookstore/awesome place in the entire East Bay.

Hospitality - Liberal Arts, live, and wonderful.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:38:25 -0800

Hospitality - Liberal Arts, live, and wonderful.

Anecdote

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:04:37 -0800

A year and a half ago I was in a Master’s program at SFSU and incredibly unhappy with philosophy. I felt trapped in a very black and white world. There was incredibly abstract analytic philosophy or practical, applied political/ethical philosophy and neither of them spoke to me, let alone each other. Before class one night a girl walked up with a recorder and microphone and asked me if she could interview me for a podcast about philosophy. Sure! Her first question was “What do you think of the concept of infinity?” My honest response was nothing. Still would be today actually. It’s not something I find very compelling or fascinating. She asked a couple other questions and finally brought up Zeno’s paradox. It’s a problem everyone’s familiar with, right? Between any two points A and B if you go half the distance from A to B, then half the distance left, then half that, etc. you end up never reaching B. There’s an infinity of space between A and B. Which is interesting as a puzzle, right? But if A is my couch and B is the front door where someone is knocking I CAN get there. I can. Zeno can tell me I’m actually not getting there but in the end the door will be open and I will not be on the couch. This probably seemed simple minded to her, and it seemed that way to me too actually. I tried to explain myself, an attempt to save face as a grad student in philosophy. “While Zeno’s paradox is interesting as a puzzle, I feel like philosophy spends way too much time inventing problems for itself. There’s enough mystery in the crossing from one side of the room to the other to satisfy me.” I had NO IDEA what I really meant, but it felt like a Saul/Paul conversion experience in some ways. It was the point I knew that the way I’d been doing philosophy for 6+ years was no longer how I wanted to spend my time. I felt in my bones that even if I didn’t quite know what that mystery was, I was right. If I was going to have any sort of future that involved reading philosophy it would have to be a philosophy concerned with, nay, obsessed with the mystery in everyday existence.

File Under: British women who I like solely because their accent...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:32:00 -0800

File Under: British women who I like solely because their accent makes me think everything they say is far more witty and adorable than it would be sung with an American accent. See Also, Lily Allen.

"It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle from which it grows and which it overspills."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:46:15 -0800

“It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle from which it grows and which it overspills.”

- Introduction: Rhizome

Pretty sure this is totally totally awesome, especially Mr....

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:05:00 -0800

Pretty sure this is totally totally awesome, especially Mr. Hitchcock himself missing the bus there at the end.

Also this, up too loud to be safe, on the way home in the...

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:51:11 -0800

Also this, up too loud to be safe, on the way home in the drizzle at night with lights reflecting off the streets. It’s my little part of this city and I quite like it.

"He seems to take no joy in renouncing his belief, but it’s clear he finds uncertainty infinitely..."

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:32:26 -0800

“He seems to take no joy in renouncing his belief, but it’s clear he finds uncertainty infinitely more comforting, and comfortable, than holding on to a doubtful faith.”

- from this review of a recent David Bazan show. I have no interest in his music anymore, but that sentence right there describes me so perfectly it’s a little scary.

Vampire Weekend - Cousins, from the new record Contra. Shut up,...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:30:00 -0800

Vampire Weekend - Cousins, from the new record Contra. Shut up, I don’t care, I love them.

I have no idea what’s going on in the video, but goddamn...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:19:56 -0800

I have no idea what’s going on in the video, but goddamn this song is great.

"Instead of continuing to embrace the hip “specter” of realism, contemporary philosophy..."

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:55:59 -0800

““Instead of continuing to embrace the hip “specter” of realism, contemporary philosophy should begin funneling arms and humanitarian aid toward some sort of guerrilla realism—a fresh insurgency on behalf of objects themselves.””

- from Tool-Being, by Graham Harman. On to the final chapter, then Mille Plateaux. I have officially switched sides.

This was a highlight of a pretty intense night of music.

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:45:37 -0800

This was a highlight of a pretty intense night of music.

I always prefer the both/and to the either/or. It’s why object-oriented thinking is so...

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:37:42 -0800

I always prefer the both/and to the either/or. It’s why object-oriented thinking is so appealing. It’s like a pragmatism with transcendence included. The mundane and the sublime all mixed in together.

Disco Balls by Flying Lotus. Could probably just listen to this...

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:40:00 -0800

Disco Balls by Flying Lotus. Could probably just listen to this over and over for the rest of my life. I <3 Hyperdub.