Day 21: Beethoven and Indulgence

I realized that, since I will soon be departing the beloved halls of my university, I should make an effort to get as much as possible from my library. Books, DVD's, music, sheet music, poetry anthologies all ripe for the *perusing*. I was elated to find Tinariwen and their  album Amassakoul. Since it started with an A, I felt no guilt indulging in it immediately. You might have seen this group on The Colbert Report some number of weeks ago (I have a roommate who religiously records and watches this show). Please, enjoy a sample:

To top it off, I was enjoying my roommate Scott's lovely hookah with him. Positively delicious. He ended up naming his hookah Elizabeth Bathory, Blood Countess (yes, that one). Liz for short.

After that came Beethoven, his Pastoral Symphony and something else that matters. Sadly, a special someone decided to awkwardly shuffle into my playlist. Don't worry, I'll talk all about him next time. The Rolling Stones guested in Beggar's Banquet, and Dave Matthews Band in Before These Crowded Streets. I know that DMB gets some hate, but I cannot deny the group's talent as session musicians. Just because his music attracts a lot of Bro-sey folk doesn't mean he has to be all bad, right?

Ms. Spektor also surfaced in her Begin to Hope. I remember my "Regina" phase, where I obsessively listened to her and learned to play my favorites on the piano. I can still do a mean Braille. One of my delightful finds today was Auburn Lull. As in my other pursuits, I tend towards a dichotomy of extremes. At one end I revel in bloody rhythms and raw, throaty dissonance. At the other end I delight in the calm, undulating ambience of groups like Explosions in the Sky.

Auburn Lull makes it a little harder for me to make digs at Shoegaze.

There's a beautiful simplicity to the vocal harmonies in Broken Heroes. All of the parts are balanced, with no competition for the listener's attention. The song waves back and forth, shimmering in a way that reminds me of the heat of summer. Fortunately, the percussion and bass provide just enough structure to prevent the whole thing from collapsing into tonal mush.

Music left: 160.42gb

Cheers,

Bodhisvaha

Day 20: Slightly Esoteric.

Things started off prog with King Crimson's Beat. Then a little pop with the Beatles and their white album. Revolution 9 caught me off guard. I'd heard about the song before, but actually listening to it for the first time was quite a different experience. Eventually, I came to the somber works of Arvo Pärt. Specifically, Beatus - Tonu Kaijuste. To say that his music is heavy would be an understatement. I appreciate that kind of gravity on occasion, but his work felt very stiff overall. A big part of what I value in music is its rhythm. I don't mean it has to be fast and drum-blasting, but it does have to be interesting. Although the vocals were well-done, beautiful, in fact, they didn't help shake the overall feeling that I had been coerced into going to mass after getting slipped a valium by my pervy uncle.

There were some triumphant moments in his music. The fifth section of Magnificat-Antiphonen was engaging for its awed, reverent chord progressions and its ethereal dissonances. Of course the fact that its a cappella gives it the air of something angelic. Since I'm not Christian, my experience with the music is probably different from someone of a faith to which this text speaks. However, that sense of glory and mystery is pervasive to the human condition, and I believe that it is accessible to anyone of any theological/philosophical stance. His work reminds me of Eric Whitacre and William Albright in some ways. Hopefully I'll get the chance to tell you more about them later. Anyhoo, try out part of Magnificat-Antiphonen.

If you can avoid falling asleep it can be lovely.

                                              

                                                  -My Uncle

After that came something a little more palatable: The Eels! My friend Leigh introduced me to them about four years ago, and I had only really listened to their song "Ballerina," which hooked me because I'm a sucker for the tritone in music. Enjoy Novocaine for the Soul.

 Music left: 161.85gb

Cheers,

Bodhisvaha

Day 18: Joy and Cramps

I finished the book I had been working on, Babbitt, today. I recommend it, even if The Jungle turned you off of Sinclair Lewis. Its pretty short, and very interesting to read after The Society of the Spectacle. Anyway, let's talk music.

Amy Winehouse made a posthumous visit in the form of Back in Black. I never really got into her when she was alive, and it seems disingenuous to do so now. I will say that she has a fascinating voice. Motion City Soundtrack and a drive-by Ani DiFranco led up to my introduction to The Cramps and my first venture into psychobilly. For me, the sound is tightly wound up with a romantically grungy image of late 80's and early 90's NYC. It gets filed in my head right next to Stranger Than Paradise, a quintessentially artsy black and white romp through the drifting youth of an increasingly postmodern culture. Or some shit like that.

I dig the slow swank they throw around in this song. The off-kilter vocal jumps, the crazed triplet stutters, and Lux gasping and gawking with a seedy drawl provide the right amount of grit I crave. This segued nicely to another intervention by Bad Religion. Also, Warren Zevon wiggled his way in somehow.

The next band I'd like to draw your attention to is The Joy Formidable, a trio that uses electronic haze and droning synths to create a dreamy bed for their vocals, sliding in and out of focus.

The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade starts off distantly, like its echoing from far off in the distance. The combination of the major chords and distant, almost chant-like melody with the actual chanting of "this dream is" adds to the meditative space it carves out in the distance. (By this point you have hopefully already toked out before listening to this song, otherwise you might miss this.) And this distance makes the climax in the second half more gratifying as the distant instrumentation comes together, emphatically lifting the chant "happy for you" up and away, another echo in the distance.

This chill set up was kind of shat on by Vanessa Carlton and her album Be Not Nobody. If the name doesn't ring a bell, try this. That's right, let it all soak back in. Its not that I think she's necessarily a bad singer, per se. Its why I consider Matthew Good a Mediocre Master whereas B*Witched is an aural abortion: the banality of their lyrics and conventionality of their music smother whatever talent they might have. Its not like they shaved their armpits into a microphone for an hour and tried to sell it. They just haven't made it past the "facile regurgitation" stage that artists have to go through.
Coming next time: prog.

Music left: 162.46gb

Cheers,
Bodhisvaha

Day 17: A switch up.

So far I've been able to make a nice dent in my backlog. I'm still trying to get the hang of this whole blogging business, as I haven't really tried it with any consistency before. Everyday does seem a tad excessive. Thus, I'll be switching to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. With this being the first day of classes and all, I just send off and see you Wednesday.

Cheers,

Bodhisvaha

Day 16: New letter, new terror

I officially started listening to albums that start with B today! This means that I have now listened to every single album in my collection whose name begins with the letter A. The letter A ended quietly with Ben Lee's Awake is the New Sleep. I really got the feeling that he wants to be Bob Dylan, as he relies on that lilting and melodic way of talking through songs that is the essence of any Dylan caricature today.

The letter B was inaugurated with an assortment of b-sides and rarities split between Bad Religion and Cake.

Bad Religion's got some fun in it, but it sat on the side of being too rough to want to listen to all the time. Of course, these tracks aren't their most refined representation. They've done a lot of Christmas songs, for whatever reason.

After them I got to indulge in some Infected Mushroom. They achieve a nice spacey quality in their music while still generating interesting rhythms (I'm looking at you, Eno).
However, my libraries sick sense of humor had to drop in...

I think my ears just fused together into a giant vagina. For extra laughs, skip ahead to 2:55 in the track where whoever is singing busts out into the most painful, stilted attempt at ad lib I've had to experience yet in my short life. Who do I know that actually listens to B*Witched? They mercifully broke up (the Sisters of Fate spared our universe) in 2002. All of this has been given to me by this past summer at the earliest (for those who don't know, my hard drive crashed over the summer, so I ran around reconstructing my collection from  my friends). I have to ask: Who actually intended to keep this shit?


This might beg the question: why did I listen to it? I guess you could call it some antiquated sense of "doing it right." It seems like cheating to delete an artist or album right before I have to listen to them because I assume I won't like them. That kind of defeats the purpose of this whole project. Besides, now I can say things with personal authority like B*Witched is the musical equivalent of a tampon dipped in the glitter jar at school and stapled to Hello Kitty's forehead.

Fortunately, Sigur Ros dropped in to save the day with their Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do, an unsurprisingly enjoyable EP. Next came Bowie's Baal and an actual album in its entirety by Zappa: Baby Snakes. Dude, that guy is strange. I mean, I knew that he was strange beforehand from friends who like him. But damn.

Music left: 163.52gb

Cheers,
Bodhisvaha

Day 15: Mediocre Masters - Matthew Good

I'd like to take the time to introduce a new occasional feature in honor of the embarrassingly trite musical efforts I've stumbled across through my listening: the Mediocre Masters. It's time to pay homage to the astoundingly average. Lurking between the sexy glitch-tricity of Cut Chemist, R.E.M., and the personal vice of Audioslave (don't judge me - Show Me How To Live is fucking catchy) was the oeuvre of Matthew Good. I had the pleasure of two of his long-form works today - The Audio of Being and Avalanche. It turns out that between his solo work and his band I have six hours of his radio-slathering drivel. Give me drugs.

This man. Fuck him.

He hits all of the right beats for utterly generic music. He keeps his tunes at an even keel, somewhere around 80bpm. His voice hits that sweet spot of whiny/airy and unsupported. Its as if he thinks expression is summarily tied up in breathiness. Predictable percussion with a guitar riff slapped over the top isn't enough for this pinnacle of pedestrian effort. The requisite string sections make their due appearances in  songs that try desperately to be deep and poetic, such as In a World Called Catastrophe. 

Please note the complex motifs he weaves throughout this subtle meditation on death, existential angst, and contemporary sexuality. With startling, evocative lines such as

Here it comes, and there it goes/ Another day of decomposing light

He paints a surreal landscape where his inner emotional turmoil manifests in the ambiguity of distorted syntax and surprise antecedents.

At the risk of leaving a bad taste in your mouth, please enjoy some Cut Chemist.

You may recognize the animation as being from The Animatrix. 

Music left: 164.6gb

Cheers,

Bodhisvaha

Day 14: Break

I didn't get any listening done today. A combination of errands and visitors kept me away from my computer. Fear not, more thrilling tales of my music to come.