Eno/Byrne collabo once more

It’s been too long since the brilliant MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS. David, you’ve been doing your piano as room as art thing and that’s cool, but I have been thinking for awhile that it’s time to get back to working with someone who makes all your wackiness/brilliance come together so it’s pure genius. Thankfully you realized that too and you are giving me the most exciting album in uh, like 20 years: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today . Ah, just the name gives me tingles.

You’re even giving us a free song! Perhaps Eno took to heart that letter from Trent I posted on this blog a few months ago.

Noise is not dead…but we’ll publish books about it nonetheless

New York Noise–The book?

Yep, here it is: “No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980,” a visual history by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. It got reviewed in New York Times and everything.

This is the kind of book that I sneer at (a coffee table book about underground music is almost as bad as a coffee table book about coffee tables) but actually am really excited about. Suicide! James Chance! DNA! Pictures of Eno hanging out producing while ”No New York“! Lydia Lunch ranting! Gah!

Lydia sums up her era like nobody else (go read rest of excerpt here):

Beneath the scowls of derision, the antagonism and acrimony, and the nearly unbearable shrillness that was our soundtrack, we were howling with delight, laughing like lunatics in the madhouse that was New York City, thrilled to be rubbing up against the freaks and other outcasts, who somehow, for some unknowable reason, had all decided to run to land’s end and all at once scream their bloody heads off.

—Lydia Lunch, July 10, 2007

picture courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan

Skip to 2008: Thurston getting a latte and rubbing up against the outcasts? Perhaps not. But Thurston is still cool, though. No, I’ll never knock Thurston on this blog. Speaking of Thurston, noise isn’t dead and his participation in the ongoing scene in the city proves it.  A few years ago in a loft in Long Island City I saw my friend Dom of Prurient and Hospital Productions play a show with Thurston benefiting some hipster/noise-centric magazine. It was a heavy bill. I was mesmerzied by one band playing in particular: Magik Markers. Lead singer Elisa Ambrogio was like a hyperactive child crossed with a less sexed up Lydia Lunch and screamed and cowered simultaneously. Thankfully they have not faded into complete obscurity but have actually begun to put on some highly listenable albums. Here’s a track from their new album BOSS, produced by, of all people, Mr. Lee Renaldo.

Taste: Magik Markers

Lastly, I do know some freaks who still live in Alphabet City and they don’t go to Starbucks:

Courtesy of David Rogers Berry (from O’death)–music from New Adventure Violence

Arthur Russell and the first downloadable mix!

So, I’ve finally figured out how to put music online for all S.N.O.B fans to access. I realized that if Bradford Cox (of Deerhunter, Atlas Sound, and blogging fame) can find time to be sober enough to post mixes (which are quite good, check them out), fuck if I can’t do it too.

Speaking of frail, avant boy/men, so recently I discovered Arthur Russell, whose experimental dance music is a beautiful blend of ambient sounds, disco beats, cello, and “golly gee the world is big isn’t it?” lyricism. Russell died in the early 90’s of AIDS in relative obscurity outside the artsy music circles in New York. Only recently has his music been opened to a wider audience with the reissue of some of his albums. Rolling Stone wrote in 2004, “If Nick Drake had lived long enough to make records with New Order, they might have sounded something like this” of the LP World of Echo and it’s not a bad analogy. However, I think it’s a bit more like if Daniel Johnston made records with Autechre, but it’s similar point being made about what a frontrunner he was in terms of hybrid music. Russell’s story is as fascinating (he played cello for Ginsberg’s poetry readings, was an early East Village pioneer in the 1970’s and collaborated with Philip Glass and David Bryne to name a few) as his music is original.

 

Arthur Russell is, as my friend Josh put it, “dance music you can’t dance to.” This brought me back to IBM (Intelligent Dance Music), a form of “electronica” which hit its height in the mid-90s, but is constantly being revised and revisited by artists such as Boards of Canada, Architecture in Helsinki, and The Field. The pioneers of the 90’s boom, like Autechre, Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) and Squarepusher, are still quite active as well. Here is a sampling of my homage to IDM and to Russell, a mix full of intellectually important bleeps, bings! and scratches. But with some faux world music from Williasmburg and a little neo-Italo Disco (hello Simian Mobile Disco!) thrown in there. Uh, and Daft Punk and Radiohead too. 

2.20.08

Arthur Russell–Calling All Kids: This song is like if the producers of PBS’s Square One took drugs and hung out with Steve Reich (see below). Which, if you think about the early 80’s, is really not that improbable of a scenario.

Estro–Driven 

I Want I Want—Digitalism 

Every Day—AFX: Richard D. James channeling Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.

Wait for the Summer—Yeasayer: I tried describing Yeasayer the other night and I ended up saying something along the lines of “It’s like when Eno and Byrne collaborated, but uh, less Eno and more lesbian.” That’s totally not the right way to describe them (that actually sounds kind of like Thievery Corporation, come to think of it), but I love this sorta World sound, as made by post-TV-on-the-Radio (yes I am told that is a genre now) Brooklynites.  

Sleep Deprivation—Simian Mobile Disco 

Neuschenee 78–Neu! : I am also a fan of Germans channeling world music in the 1970s.

Over the Ice—The Field  

Up the Ladder—Radiohead: Best track, in my opinion, off the second cd of the In-Rainbows package. “I’m a puhhh-ppet/you can almost see the string.” Oh Thom! You and your masochism!

Montreal—Autechre 

Musique—Daft Punk: I have a lot of fond memories from high school of driving around in my first boyfriend’s car listening to Daft Punk’s Alive during the spring of the first year of the 21st century. He drove a Volvo station wagon.  He also wore one of those backpacks that cross across your chest and fasten with velcro (does anyone remember those?). And once he wore man-capris (manpris?). I always thought he was a little gay for liking his Volvo and Daft Punk so much, not to mention wearing that backpack and those manpris, but I accredited it all to the fact that he is French. However, in my dating life post high school, I’ve been involved a lot of guys who looooove Daft Punk. Dudes who don’t wear man-pris. So, I guess I was wrong. I have come to realize it’s perfectly normal for straight guys to like Daft Punk, French or non-French. It still perplexes me a bit, but uh, Daft Punk is still awesome! Those backpacks, though, well, not so much. Ditto the man-pris.

My red hot car– Sqaurepusher

End of the World—The Shocking Pinks: Newish dream-pop, distributed in the US from our friends at DFA.

Blue Jeans 2.0—Ladytron: I also like when 21st Century Germans channel the Bangles as well.

Electric Counterpoint/Slow–Steve Reich                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Enjoy! And please let me know if you have any problems.