OK it's been a while... I'm currently far more active over on the Double Shot blog... so here's an admittedly pretty random round up of a month's worth or so of stuff I've come across (or, more honestly, been pointed at)... generally been thinking about... and not putting up over there...
Having brought us collections of everything from drone pop and raga rock to the rise and rise of wobbly, the good people at Boom Kat's "compilation" imprint 14 Tracks kick off the year with an irresistibly foot-tapping set of 2-Step minimalism, featuring Groove Chronicles, Spatial and Burial. All available to stream for free, of course, or to download DRM-free as a set for just under seven quid.
Actually, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed with all the streaming music sites/music blogs/recommendations services at the moment... in a loving them kind of way, of course. At the moment, around these parts it all seems to be about (as ever) Last.fm (most especially its Recommendations Radio), Blip.fm (though I'm still not sure about the purpose of Blipping, tbh), iMeem... Also dicking about with Muse Bin and The Hype Machine. (Tip of the hat to Kate Lawrence for some of those, btw... ) If I have a New Year resolution, it's to try and make these fucking things all work together seamlessly. Then again, I suspect I'm not alone in this.
While I'm on the subject (or thereabouts), I have to say, the quality of Idiomag - which I've dissed here before - is definitely improving. A larger data set as they get more users? That's what my money's on. Today I'm looking at articles on Prince, Erik Friedlander, Lamb of God, Brian Eno and The Butthole Surfers. That's not Last.fm levels of intelligence yet, but it's pretty impressive. And no Amy Winehouse stories, for months, so that's something...
I know I'm always quoting Bob Lefsetz here and over at DS; but, once again, I was really taken with his reading of David Foster Wallace (RIP) and what his work - specifically the rejection of Total Noise Culture - might say about contemporary pop and rock music. "... I wasn’t depressed reading this article. It made me feel positively alive. Because someone saw it the way I did. I was not alone. We lost a great soldier in the battle, but this writer had picked up the flag. You succeed most when you get in touch with the common folk, the human condition. But, that’s for losers. And we live in a society of winners!"
Meantime...
... speaking as one of those "losers"... I had a lot of fun over Christmas and New Year with Djay, a an MP3 mixing app for those of us without DJing chops... or kit... or vinyl. Tellingly, I was using it to enliven middle-aged parties. Franck is busy knocking out avant-electronica sets with it. I'm cool with that, really, I am.
And then...
As ever, props to Paul Schütze for pointing out some of the more thought-provoking stuff out there. This posting on the intriguing Odd Music site about a Croatian "sea organ" is especially wonderful. I won't even begin to describe how it sounds or how it works; just check it out.
OK, OK, so he needs to get up to speed with Hassell, Zorn and Can, but still... Now I'll probably be crucified for this, but I couldn't resist... I'll let the screen grabs speak for themselves...
Ahem... sorry about that. And, yes, Stevie being quite so high on my Scrobbling is, of course, entirely down to Joe.
Oh, and lastly on a music, er, tip... a couple of things to say about jazz guitarist and composer Pat Metheny. Metheny was one of my teenage heroes, and majorly. At some point I'll write at length about precisely why I find him one of the most confounding artists alive (really, I will... sometime after I get round to writing about the aesthetic/philosophical conundrum that is shred metal. Go on, bate your breath.)
To get an "in" on my Metheny-related struggles, check this clip... It's Metheny "sitting in" with Pete Townshend, apparently in London in 1990 (but where?). That's Herbie Hancock on piano, I believe. Now the first thing to say is that, as a piece of music - as a complete piece of art - it's pretty woeful. Townshend was a phenomenal songwriter, no mistake, and at their height I'm convinced The Who were extraordinary. But this is watered-down stuff, it really is. Sub-Vegas. But, but, but... fucking listen to Metheny. It's funny, you read the comments on these clips and there's a bunch of jazz dudes saying (at best) "ah, bless" and a bunch of rock blokes going "ugh". No-one's listening to that guitar. Listen to it! It's like McLaughlin on Go Ahead John, or Eddie Hazel on Maggot Brain or that guitar on the Rotary Connection's Black Gold of the Sun (is that really Phil Upchurch?!): it's the sound of something breaking through from a parallel universe. Anyway, I'll shut up; watch this and listen:
Now the other thing I wanted to say about Metheny is that his website is an object lesson in how to run a music artist's site: packed full not just of info (although even that puts ahead of many in the pack) but full of insight into its subject. The Pat Recommends section is particularly intriguing, and really tells you where this mas is coming from. It's funny, when I heard that Metheny was thinking about The Way Up as a politcal statement I was nonplussed. But it's plain from his reading list that this is an artist genuinely engaged. Taleb, Dawkins, Barnes, Ian Buruma's book on the murder of Theo Van Gogh, Sam Harris' End of Faith... you get the picture.
And the Music 365-based PM Radio Player rocks.
OK, enough music blah. We mentioned the James Lovelock Guardian interview on the DS blog a while back. Belatedly I have A couple of things to add...
Firstly, check out the ads on the right hand of the page. I'm guessing these are served up dynamically, but whatever, it's pretty amusing to see ads for 25 quid Solar light & charger alongside an interview with a subject who calls "green lifestyle" "ostentatious grand gestures". Think I'm making this up?
Lovely.
My other point is about journalism rather than algorithms. Specifically, why does the journalist struggle with the idea that Lovelock is quite so cheerful? Strikes me as as showing pretty slight understanding of human nature to confuse an intellectual stand point with a person disposition. And that's leaving aside the vague possibility that someone might actually be cheered by the prospect of the race's demise... Weird.
Mind you, if that's dumb journalism, I'm not sure where to start with this pretty self-aggrandising attack by Jonathon Jones on William Burroughs in the Guardian earlier this week. "Burroughs is the modern writer adored by people who don't read enough modern writing. Everything he did was done better by others." Well that's us told. There's more. "Above all, I don't see how anyone's adolescent admiration for the Burroughs prose machine can survive an encounter with the novels of Thomas Pynchon - the true, dazzling titan of the avant garde novel in our time." There's the self-aggrandising bit: you don't get Pynchon, but I do. Pathetic.
Let's end more positively...
I've been taken with shipping, haulage and logistics for some time now... aesthetically, that is. (The the roof-top bar at the hotel I stayed in on a recent visit to Istanbul overlooked the mouth of the Bopsphorous; none of my fellow drinkers shared my enthusiasm for the hundreds of ships stretching to the horizon.) So I was quite beside myself when this list of super-sized shipping cargo went up on Oobject.
As if that weren't enough, check out these pics of giant floating bridges. Look out for the Chinese crane lifting Newcastle/Gateshead's Millennium Bridge into place.
Oh, and one last bit of loveliness from Oobject: 12 classic bits of Raymond Loewe design.
Here's to 09...
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