Saturday, January 03, 2004
A [Virtual] Zen garden
...............................................................
...............................................................
.............((0))..........................................
...............................................................
................................((O)).......................
...............................................................
................((o)).......................................
...............................................................
...............................................................
NJS
1/03/2004 01:55:00 pm
Oh Yeah
And if you didn't already know or realise, yes I am pissing my pants with excitement at the prospect.
NJS
1/03/2004 10:41:00 am
Wrong Codename
Codename: Dustsucker is doing the rounds on SoulSeek. It's not, I repeat not, the actual album though. Rather it's the four tracks which leaked at some point last year ("Burning The City", "400 Winters", "Miss Abuse" and "Inqb8tr") interspersed with three old and relatively rare Bark Psychosis tracks ("Tooled Up", "Reserve Shot Gunman" and a remix of "Big Shot"), plus "Lazarus" from Graham Sutton's Boymerang project. I assume that someone desperate to flesh-out the real C:DS tracks into something approaching a full-length craftily burned themselves a CD of these 8 tracks and then stuck it on SLSK. For about ten seconds I was worried that Graham had only managed 4 new songs in ten years...
Two other official titles for material on C:DS are "Shapeshifting" and "Rose", and the album is due in march on Fire Records.
NJS
1/03/2004 10:40:00 am
Friday, January 02, 2004
Coming Soon...
A hundred records in a hundred sentences (part one, albums). 22 down, 78 to go.
NJS
1/02/2004 08:09:00 pm
Popular Rockism
Why is there such a huge disparity between most albums and singles lists I've come across for 2003? Singles = Beyonce, Sean Paul, Justin, Outkast, etcetera; i.e. oodles of hook-laden ultra-modern hip pop. Albums = The Rapture, Songs:Ohia, White Stripes, Strokes, etcetera; i.e. oodles of dirty rockist shite. ¿Que?
NJS
1/02/2004 03:04:00 pm
I Am Sitting Comfortably
My new futon/chair/thing has arrived. It is very comfortable and is positioned directly facing my widescreen TV and hi-fi in my living room. Henceforth I may just vanish for a little while...
NJS
1/02/2004 11:43:00 am
Crap
David Sneddon 'retired' from the music business because "the charts are full of crap". Yes, thank you. What's next? Laurent Robert retires from football because premiership teams are consistently let down by inconsistent workshy foreigners who manage their careers based on 15-minutes of absolute genius each season? Sneddon is now apparently going to concetrate on writing songs for other people. Pussy.
NJS
1/02/2004 10:16:00 am
In Authenti City
Increasingly it seems as though Mark Beaumont’s witlessly hyperbolic prose is the guiding voice of the NME. I guess this has something to do with him being head staff writer. Oh god. He came out of fanzine-land, didn’t he? No wonder every piece of two-bit garage rock he reviews bleeds with the holy ghost of rock n roll or sets fire to your cerebral cortex with white-hot guitar lines from the dusty basin of inbred Texas or shags your brain, smokes your fags, steals your soul and upsets your mother or lights up the night sky with incandescent psych-rock frenzy and terrifies old ladies with rabid wolf-howls or some such utter titwitch nonsense. I wonder just how much influence he has had over NME’s current utter terror of anything slightly technological or rhythmic?
Earlier tonight I listened to Odeley for probably the first time in three years. It was never a favourite of mine, probably more because of my slight distaste for Beck than anything to do with the actual record itself, but even I can’t deny that it’s a bloody fine record. Not experimental but… There’s a distracted sense of fun and exploration which is what I assume was mistaken for postmodernism by so many commentators back in 96; not at all avant-garde except in the narrow context of Oasis’ success over the previous 18 months, but idiosyncratic, explicitly contemporary and knowingly pilfering (stealing not just the beats of hip hop, the riffs of funk, the producers of Paul’s Boutique, the authenticity of country [a long-term quest of Beck’s, authenticity – a point which will be addressed later], the [illusion of] nihilism from grunge, but everything from everyone because A; it has no identity of its own, and B; for the next three or four years it would steal the credit from anyone who did anything even remotely similar). In 1996 it was NME’s album of the year (DJ Shadow being second and Orbital being third [what the fuck?! how did this ever happen?!]), following Tricky’s epochal Maxinquaye which claimed the top spot in 1995. And now, in 2003, we get Elephant…
Dan Emerson told me he suspects that Jack White isn’t so much obsessed with the blues because he loves the blues, identifies with its emotional clout, feels the struggle of the wronged black man, or whatever, but because he sees it as a signifier for the authentic.
The White Stripes' take on the blues and such isn't self-expression at all. [Jack White] is a man who doesn't love the music he claims to in any meaningful way; it's possession, not love. He's interested in authenticity and self-expression; but has decided that only certain forms of music are capable of facilitating it. So he's moved beyond liking music because it's real and genuine, to liking certain types of music that he identifies with these characteristics. And then he goes further, and creates music of this sort, because he reasons that this is Good Music; and what he creates has nothing to do with who he is, only to do with imitating a twice-removed facsimile of authenticity.
Dan Emerson
To be honest I’ve never given The White Stripes much thought (I don’t like them on a basic, musical level and that was [almost] enough) but I agree wholeheartedly. I see Beck in a similar light; with Odelay and his earlier material he appropriated the aesthetic of country music, the white-man’s blues, a short-cut to authenticity, but as soon as his evasive lyrics and too-ostentatious showmanship had him labelled a postmodern pastiche-merchant he had to flee. First away from the samples and referentialism and to the acoustic pastures of Mutations, and then to the perceived honesty and authenticity of swing, soul and funk with Midnite Vultures. Interviews around this time were conspicuously full of quotes about how Prince or LL Cool J or R Kelly were authentic in their brazen sexual and emotional honesty or something, as if saying you wanted to have sex with a girl all night long was the height of profound honesty (I’m not saying it necessarily isn’t), and thus Beck embraced the aesthetic of Prince (& co.) with open arms, cultivating a falsetto and lascivious (and ludicrous) lyrical motifs. Tellingly, Midnite Vultures bombed amongst the NME-crowd, where (actual real) sex is feared (how did Maxinquaye rank so highly?) and emotional honesty is perceived as equalling Starsailor’s histrionic and selfish high-end neediness, or Coldplay’s sappy, apologetic and virginal Hallmark schoolboy romance. It’s no stretch to see Jack White (who was dumped by Renee Zellweger because she realised she was seeing “a music nerd and not a rock star”) and Beck as being cut from the same cloth if you think laterally about the ontological arrival at their chosen musics rather than literally about the aesthetics.
So why is NME now so enamoured of Jack White’s bassless authenticity circus? How have they moved from Maxinquaye and Odelay to a two-piece historical review obsessed with using only vintage equipment, with having no bass, with sounding (and looking) as if they’ve been in a Blue Peter-esque time capsule. How has the alternative mainstream shifted so much in 7 years that we’re now seeing The Strokes, The Libertines, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and so on being praised where previously it was Radiohead, Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Massive Attack? Is an increasing proliferation of massively technologically innovative and accomplished music in the mainstream leading to the alternative mainstream's fearful and reactionary crawl back into a technological dark age? Possibly. Is this the whole ‘fear of the center of the body’ thing again? Drum n bass made it explicit that the bassline is the key rhythmic force when it comes to dancing because you simply couldn’t move in time to percussion that frenetic, so the answer for people ‘afraid’ of their bodies, and thus dancing, is to remove the bass completely. Thus Jack White, subconsciously eradicating the ‘inauthentic’ impulse to dance by removing the bass?
Authenticity as is understood in musical terms and circles (and I’m not talking Simon Reynolds, Dave Stelfox, Sasha Frere-Jones etcetera, but rather how the topic is so often broached in mainstream media and cultural contexts, because ultimately that’s where the average person-in-the-street gleans much of their cultural critique from) is fast becoming the absolute fucking bane of my critical life. I have mentioned Hediegger’s definition of the authentic many times before on AusPishFish and don’t want to have to go into it again, but it is the only one that actually makes any sense or has any qualifiable basis or flexibility. How is someone writing their own songs more authentic? How is someone avoiding using any equipment made after 1969 more authentic? How is ‘manufactured pop’ inauthentic when all and sundry can see every nut and bolt of the process of construction, when everyone involved is hyper-aware of what they’re doing? How is a love song more authentic than a lust-song? Why is slow and acoustic more authentic than fast and digital?
I can’t even think anymore right now. All I know is I don’t like The White Stripes and I’d quite like to shoot Mark Beaumont.
NJS
1/02/2004 01:53:00 am
I'm listening to the wrong radio station...
Once again some brainless fuckwads are bemoaning the current state of music on FiveLive, claiming that nothing new has happened in music since 'dance', that there is no one around making music that is different (apart from, it seems, The Darkness, for the love of god). Well of course if you're talking about bloody Katie Melua then you're going to be disappointed. Now someone (Miranda Sawyer?) is talking up Poptones and The Glitterati (who are of course fuck awful). You're all thirty-fucking-three for heaven's sake - pop music isn't for you anymore, rock music may be but no one else is interested. Whinge whinge whinge. The Darkness and The Glitterati are at least showmen, which is something...
"They're repeating the Woodstock movie on one of the Sky channels, and it reminds you of how good music used to be..." says some American guy. Short-sighted, selfish, whinging little asshole.
Now at last Missy and Xtina and Justin and some other people get namechecked in a positive light (by Miss Sawyer, if it is indeed her). And here comes the Beyonce mention - the words "Crazy In Love" are barely mentioned before some flatulent fool opens their mouth and says "record of the year..." as if there is no debate about it, as if it's objective fact. And you know, it's a good record, but this type of discussion of music always assumes that consensus is science, that there's no room for manouvre. So what's the point in even talking about it like this? No one's going to change their mind.
NJS
1/02/2004 12:02:00 am
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Missy
Likewise.
Missy Elliott
This Is Not A Test!
Elektra
Miss E… So Addictive, spearheaded by the epochal “Get Ur Freak On”, marked a zenith for Missy Elliott and her long-term conspirator Tim Mosley, as they presented a panoply of liquid-digital Asiatic acid-hop that saw good on their early promise to revolutionise the face of hip hop and, necessarily therefore, popular music as a whole. Inside a year they’d topped “Get Ur Freak On” with the ubiquitous backwards-twisting club-sexuality of “Work It”, which in turn heralded Under Construction, a thoroughly futurist history lesson that melded back-in-the-day-jams to Timbaland’s exquisite pointillist electronic production and Missy’s typically wild infectious idiosyncrasy. Another year on and another revolution comes surging from the factory, yeah?
Much is made of Timbaland’s undoubted skill as a producer, in fact so much is made of it that he seems to overshadow and obscure the artists he works with these days. One listen to the lacklustre new Timbaland & Magoo album reveals that he does his best work when teamed in symbiosis with a strong personality though. The exceptional “Cry Me A River”, for example, is as much about Justin’s teary-eyed lost-loverboy performance as it is Tim’s string-laden cybernetic-clone-choir making with the stereophonic beatbox. Likewise Bubba Sparxxx’s schizophrenically spiralling “Ugly” relies as much on Bubba’s own character and delivery as the extravagant sonics. In an era shaped by Tim’s own vision when every two-bit hip-pop chancer is ripping off his sound, Missy Elliott is the strongest of the strong personalities he chooses to work with, and therefore his best weapon for staying ahead of the game.
Not that the game is just about maintaining the avante garde frontline. This Is Not A Test! is less about turning hip hop on its head again than it is about Missy just doing her thing, and doing it and doing it and doing it well. Lead single “Pass That Dutch” may feature the kind of handclaps that made Lumidee so irresistible all summer, and revel in the kind of aural frippery that finds psychedelic rhythm in the neighing of horses, amongst other things, but it’s Missy’s personality that drags the track into the stratosphere, her lubescent and laconic sensimilia slur inviting all and sundry to partake in the song’s titular activity. On “Wake Up” the beatscape is so minimal that attention must focus on Missy and Jay Z, who here finds time out from his busy schedule (too busy, judging by how tired he sounds on The Black Album) to rhyme “rectum” with “David Beckham”, proving that England’s pony-tailed golden boy of soccer is now as just as global as his beloved hip hop.
If Under Construction occasionally wallowed in the mire of earnest spoken-word preaching and madness-sapping nostalgia (madness being a key component of Missy’s charm) then This Is Not A Test! evens things up some. There may be nothing as world-straddlingly crazy-brilliant as “Get Ur Freak On” or “Work It”, but moments like “Ragtime Interlude”, “Fix My Weave”, “Toys” and “Let It Bump” show-off the playful side of Missy brilliantly. The Elephant Man-starring “Keep It Movin’” brings forth the club-queen for a slice of awesome dancehall/block party fusion that’s destined to shake booties like nothing else over the coming months. There’s also time for yet more hip hop historiography, as LL Cool J, Salt ‘n Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Prince and a host of others are all referenced in one way or another over the course of the album.
One of the things that Timbaland’s lusciously detailed production does is to regress the listener to a pre-adolescent state of infant sensuality, where every minute electronic detail is a gasp-inducing joy. The palpable pleasure with which he plays around with rhythmic patterns and sources, creating a world in which anything from a human voice to digital interference to traditional handclaps or drums can form the ever-shifting (layers of) beat(s), simply adds to the effect. When paired with Missy’s wantonly lascivious delivery and interplay with her vocal partners (Nelly hollering the ludicrously brilliant phrase “go-go gadget dick!” at one point), the sensuality of Timbaland’s palette is enhanced tenfold, the listener no longer regressed to an infant sensuality but rather stripped of the hang-ups that impair an adult’s ability to free the body from the constraints of the mind. Its yet another example of why the two work so well together.
This Is Not A Test! is easily the most sexually direct and fun record since, ooh, The Love Below, but the social and spiritual conscious of tracks like “Wake Up” and “I’m Not Perfect” prove that there’s a lot more than just libido guiding Missy’s muse. She’s done it again, and the fact that we’re not surprised shows just how valuable and talented she is.
NJS
1/01/2004 04:41:00 pm
Dave Douglas
From Stylus.
Dave Douglas
Freak In
Bluebird
I’m finding myself in a strange position lately; listening to, and falling in love with, more and more jazz, but not really having the vocabulary or breadth of subject knowledge to express it, to think about the connotations and ontology, to articulate the ideas and feelings it gives rise to in me. Normally when I sit down to review a record and find myself with nothing to write it’s because I’m nonplussed, moved neither back nor forth and left with no wish to say anything. This time it’s because I simply don’t know how to say what I want. I’m not even sure what it is that I do want to say.
I’m of the opinion that Dave Douglas may just be a genius. In ten years he has helmed 20 records and guested on countless others besides, a work-rate that makes Timbaland look like Radiohead. That he has produced albums of the calibre of Songs For Wandering Souls, Constellations, El Trilogy, Charms Of The Night Sky and Soul On Soul within the last decade confirms that he is a master of quality as well as quantity. I wonder if perhaps this eagerness to write, play and record as much and as often as possible would benefit the types of (rock) bands who are content to leave two or even three years between releases in the search for elusive perfection.
Freak In marks a divergence for Douglas, who’s eclectic catalogue and broad influences (from Coltrane to Stravinsky to Stevie Wonder) testify to a career constructed out of divergences and half-opportunities observed and explored. Over the 12 tracks presented here (the last is unlisted, if not uncredited) Douglas incorporates a gentle miasma of electronic backings and booming tablas over which the rest of the group play freely. The keys, loops and electronics provided by Jamie Saft and Ikue Mori are far from tokenistic though, melding wonderfully with Joey Barons drums, Brad Jones’ bass and Karsh Kale’s tablas to provide a level of spacious detail which complements the lyricism of guitarist Marc Ribot, saxophonists Seamus Blake and Chris Speed, and of course Douglas himself. These microcosmic shimmers and luminescent diversions function as observational details, adding layers of empathy to the emotions conjured and trailed by the soloists’ flights. After electronica’s eager appropriation of the humanistic communications and narratives of jazz over the last few years, it’s nice to see the relationship moving beneficially in the opposite direction.
The title track starts with three notes of sea-bed-deep bass and a rumble of tabla before an energetic motif is established and turned over quickly, while “Black Rock Park” melts dissonant guitar and trumpet with a contorted groove that has as much in common with Boredoms as Duke Elington, acres of space opening up your ears to the exhilarating noise that punctures it. “Traveller There Is No Road” reaches rolling dynamic peaks of momentum while “Porto Alegre” sings with a sweet melancholy. “Wild Blue” experiments with spoken word moments and electric interference, but it is “November” which is the centrepiece of the album, an astounding and affecting piece which belies its delicacy and wistfulness with a powerful emotional punch and assured, suggestive sonics and playing. When the drums arrive after 3 minutes the effect is akin to blue skies slowly unfurling from beneath a curtain of clouds. Quite simply it’s about the most beautiful piece of music I’ve heard all year. That it doesn’t overshadow its fellow pieces on Freak In is testament to the sheer quality of the music of Dave Douglas.
NJS
1/01/2004 04:40:00 pm
Measure Magazine
Each year Measure Mag publishes an annual (as in real, paper&ink book type thing) of the 'best independant music journalism' from the previous 12 months. This year's edition will be featuring three reviews by your's truly; M83, Four Tet and Manitoba, all originally published on Stylus. I am, as you can imagine, quite pleased with this, even though all three reviews are basically exactly the same, so people may well end up thinking I'm a one-trick pony. Oh well...
NJS
1/01/2004 04:39:00 pm
How...
Many times have I published today? I'm guessing about 60.
NJS
1/01/2004 12:54:00 pm
Please don't sue me, Bill Watterson; I love you.
I also think Calvin & Hobbes are quite fitting.
1/01/2004 12:51:00 pm
Obviously...
As I know nothing about html this redesign process may take some time...
1/01/2004 11:40:00 am
New Year
Welcome to the All New Auspicious Fish, which is now all pasty and monochrome.
1/01/2004 11:19:00 am
That's like a new dawn, innit? I took it.
1/01/2004 09:05:00 am
1/01/2004 09:04:00 am
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Fucking hell Michael Bublé is the blandest man ever in the world ever ever.
12/31/2003 06:46:00 pm
i.e. I love all the records below, just not enough. Come March you'll understand,
12/31/2003 06:45:00 pm
The ones that haven't made the grade (yet)...
Various - 300% Dynamite
Various - Trojan 12" Box Set
Leftfield - Leftism
Various - The Sun Records Story V.1
Lambchop – Is A Woman
Bjork - Homogenic
Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Orbital - Snivilisation
Mouse On Mars - Instrumentals
Godspeed You Black Emperor – F# A# [infinity]
Radiohead – The Bends
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
The KLF – The White Room
Mouse On Mars – Vulvaland
Orbital – “Green”
Otis Redding – Otis Blue
Madonna – The Immaculate Collection
The KLF – Chill Out
At The Drive-In – Relationship Of Command
Radiohead – Kid A
John Coltrane – Blue Train
Herbie Hancock – Head Hunters
Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The 36 Chambers
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein
Mouse On Mars - Autoditacker
Mogwai – Young Team
Beastie Boys – Ill Communication
Big Star – 3rd/Sister Lovers
D’Angelo – Voodoo
Goldie – Timeless
PJ Harvey – Rid Of Me
Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland
Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley
Make Up – Save Yourself
Bob Marley – Exodus
Mos Def – Black On Both Sides
Screaming Trees – Dust
Sly & The Family Stone – A Whole New Thing
Spiritualized – Laser Guided Melodies
Super Furry Animals – Guerilla
The Verve – A Storm In Heaven
Witness – Before The Calm
Can – Tago Mago
Dave Douglas – Songs For Wandering Souls
Black Dog – Bytes
Nick Cave – The Boatman’s Call
Miles Davis - Agharta
Prodigy – Music For The Jilted Generation
Asian Dub Foundation – Community Music
12/31/2003 06:42:00 pm
I know I'm not alone in this sentiment, but I really fucking hate New Year. Not just because it's a stupid, arbitrary celebration based around a somewhat 'idiosyncratic' religious calendar (the Christian calendar starts when jesus is born, rioght? so why are Xmas and New Year a week apart? why is Xmas not until January 7th in Ethipia, which is a Xtian country? why are we not nuts about various kings and such in the middle ages nicking years off us to make themselves look younger?). What is New Year if you're not Xtian and accept that the calendar we live by is purely symbolic in terms of when it starts and ends? Not an equinox, not a solstice, not even a fucking harvest or a planting - these things I can more than understand celebrating more than some tenuous 'new beginning'. While we're at it why aren't months lunar anymore? You fucking fucks. I could do with an extra paycheque each year.
Uergh.
But most of all I hate the enforced joviality of New Year's Eve, the evil and awkward imperative to have as much fun as possible that forces people who don't understand what fun is to go out and have it. Idiots who don't know how to behave in pubs and go out one night in 365 and make life hell for people who work there (something I did for years). And the awful, crushing knowledge that if you don't go out and attempt to eviscerate yourself with alcohol, swear at people, get off with someone you don't like or probably even know, dance a shit dance, sprain your ankle and be seen desperately trying to 'enjoy' yourself, that you're going to be dubbed a killjoy fascist fun-hater.
Uergh. Assholes. This year I shall probably be staying in and watching a film.
12/31/2003 02:00:00 pm
Sunday, December 28, 2003
I'm not sure what the fuck this is, but...
12/28/2003 04:34:00 pm
|
|
