for reasons you might imagine, i’ve recently been scouring youtube to find examples of how musicians who are more or less chained to their less-than-sexy hardware (ie laptops & things with buttons) translate what they do on to the stage.. some preliminary research that i thought you might enjoy:
Daedelus
Jamie Lidell
Matmos
assessing these vids from a technical perspective (ie what gear are they using, how much stuff do they need/use) is one thing, but trying to gauge how successful they are in engaging their audience is pretty hard unless you are actually there. but i can’t see how anyone could fail to be completely enraptured in jamie lidell’s shtick. the things he has here that others sometimes don’t: a) the element of risk, people love to watch something that could fall apart at any moment; b) an ingenious innovative approach and c) most importantly, the human element - not only is he engaged vocally (beatboxing & singing - and its just an honest unavoidable truth about music that people are more ‘into’ things that feature the human voice than things that contain no identifiable ‘human noises’) but he is also projected as a giant on to the screen behind him. you can’t really escape his performance when its that large. so even though in some ways his performance is the most abstract of the three, its easily the most engaging, largely because of this ‘human element’ (i think)
believe it or not, i never actually got heavily into ’since i left you’ and only started to appreciate it well after its initial impact had been felt by most peoples. the album remains a rare thing, a ‘timeless’ turn of the millenium big beat (ish) record that hasn’t dated like some of their contemporaries because, lets face it, it shat over most other things coming out at the time. i remember the album as the filler between moby and fatboy slim in a friends cd changer at some party, and its because of that lasting association that maybe i’ll never fully be able to get into it as an album. but why bother with that record when the avalanches drop party mixes like this? no one can rock a party in my bedroom, on my laptop, like them (or whats left of them anyway). and just to round out the nostalgia, half way through the set they drop my favourite beck track, past present or future - “beercan”. killer. this mix is apparently a couple o years old… how old is lady sov’s “random”? am i so out of the loop? yes
the crayon fields!
the kids love them! i love them! everyone love them! i think they’d probably bash me if i used the word twee to describe them, and besides that would make tim a lazy blogger wouldn’t it. so i’ll not mention the twee thing. i’ll simply mention that when i saw these guys play with cornelius in melbourne, some of their tracks seemed to translate the template to remind me of old things like the free design or the common people. it got psych.
Daedelus - Just Briefly (YouTube)
a series of fortunate events led me to this film clip, and when i saw it i was kind of dumb founded that i hadn’t seen it elsewhere, that i hadn’t been alerted to it by some breathless blog post or whatever, because its so damn good. the track itself is amazing, but the clip takes it to another level. i love this kind of blend of live action and animation. i have a few other clips that i’m enjoying at the moment, & now that i’ve worked out how to do the youtube thing, i might show them to you too. in the meantime, head over to youtube and check out the
other film clips by artists on mush records - a us label you may well know has pleasingly antipodean leanings. check adelaide’s own
clue to kalo and, of course,
CURSE!
Cassius - Toop Toop (link to hype machine)
a track that no doubt is going to grate on me in a month or so, but hell, i’m loving it right now. and if you are a nerd, you can go to
this myspace page and download the a capella
3 lucky people on the faux pas mailing list picked up free giveaway copies of the new aleks and the ramps single “they’re recording everything we say” (previously discussed
here). woo hoo! i felt like santa doing a giveaway, so i’ll definitely be doing that again. if you want to sign up for the mailing list, head over to
www.iamfauxpas.com.
like all things indie & ‘limited edition’, the single is not easy to find in stores, but hey
i just happen to have some extra copies of it, so if you want one, just get in touch with me and we can sort something out. its only $5 plus postage, & thats aussie dollars, which we all know is not real money. its more like monopoly money. note: my hand is not included in the price! note: i have more than just one finger and a thumb on my left hand, despite what that photo seemingly indicates! how else could i knock out banging synth-flute solos on my two-octave keyboard! (answer: with one hand)
featured on the single, alongside the rad stylings of the ramps, is a faux pas remix of the track “pisces vs aquarius”, which is the title track of their forthcoming album. and you can check out the remix, right now, right here, through the phenomenon of internet technology! check it out. there’s screaming, creepy organs, ping pong, folk guitar & synth bells! silver bells, silver bells, its christmas time in the city… i told you i felt like santa
i’ve been listening to the architecture in helsinki remix record, which is mostly good fun, particularly the first few tracks. its reminded me of something that i wanted to mention that happened to me in tokyo.
we were out late in the ginza district just wandering the shops and we ended up at one of the big department stores. they had a gucci outlet inside, and they were playing the remix of “its 5″ from the aih remix record. it seemed very random and i spent some time afterwards trying to trace in my mind the imaginary path of that song. and i wondered do they even know about it, that their song is being used in this way in this store? (not that i have any great objection to it - its just… the idea of relinquishing the control of your music to third parties who then distribute it to places that you may never have imagined - and you may never actually even know the specific details about where it ended up…) its conventional music business but at the same time it kind of bugs me out. but hey the truth is you never have any control about what context your music is presented in, whether it be in a public space, as part of a radio playlist, or even someone’s personal use in their private lounge rooms (and bedrooms…) well anyway its not an earth shattering revelation - not nearly as important as, say, when i found out that channel 10 had picked up the letterman show after 9 ditched it - but it seemed worth mentioning when i wrote it down in my little notebook.
on the topic of the remix record, can anyone confirm or deny for me that the
dj mehdi that appears on “we died they remixed” is the same as the mehdi i mentioned yesterday, the visual artist/musician behind
shoboshobo? my bet is no, but hey why dont we just start some rumours for fun.
this is the final post of my active suspension triptych. shobo shobo aka mehdi hercberg is the designer behind the super cute active suspension website and his website is fun for getting lost in for a couple of hours, aside from his great work he also has an extensive list of wild and wacky links to other designers and interesting web areas, so check it out. he also makes music and organises parties around paris - wouldn’t you like to be able to say that you “organise parties around paris”
another artist that i am happy to have found via
active suspension is a japanese singer songwriter - or folk ‘guitar sorcerer’ if the AS website is to be believed - called shugo tokumaru. active suspension are french but they have a few japanese connections, one of the members of the konki duet is japanese too. from the AS website:
please try to list the 5 things you like most in life: making music. movie. milk. Kyoto. UFO.
i like milk too!
an endearing message left in his myspace profile: THERE’S ONLY ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENTS THAT HE PLAYED WITH SOME SIMPLE EFFECTS. shugo has supported an impressive list of modern hippies (m ward, animal collective, iron & wine, why - he’s also a member of damo suzuki’s international network) so i’m kind of surprised i haven’t heard of him before, but i don’t think his material has any distribution in australia (please someone prove me wrong). a friend of mine would describe his music as “folk +1″. but hey all i need to tell you is to look at that photo up there - i know you can’t resist a cute japanese man with an acoustic guitar.
a label that i came across some time last year, and filed away in my brain to investigate later, is
active suspension from paris france. i’m not sure what initially got my attention, but once i’d found my way to their cute website packed with information, i was pretty hooked. reading through their artist bios, looking at their album covers - i was into it before i even heard any of the music.
i was already familiar with
the konki duet through their very very cool cover of the visage 80s classic “fade to grey” that appeared on
copy, right many moons ago. “the konki duet is three girls from tokyo, st petersburg and paris. they like to play bitter-sweet ritournelles with electric, electronic and acoustic instruments. they also like to eat chocolate, drink champagne, watch tv and they enjoy sex with friends.” whats a ritournelle?
i’m not entirely sure but i think they are pretty. i am much enjoying the latest album mountain moulon on summer evenings. from the active suspension website:
An imperfect yet ideal equilibrium between the sweet honey of Kumi, the strokes of gloominess and dysphony of Zoe´, and the hot classical excitations of Tamara. But not only. Also: the violence of love stories never entered into, of chocolate that melts too fast, the dadaism of a freakingly aggressive high tone hanging on the cotton wool fabric of a whistled melody; Bach’s or Scriabin’s piano counterpoints, the weird audio textures of mind numbing electronics, the irrational intertwinings of Robert Wyatt, the vocal interminglings of the Beach boys and of some old medieval recitative.
melbourne’s maverick banjo glock pop collective
aleks and the ramps are releasing their limited edition homemade single this friday night at the rob roy. and when i say ‘limited edition’ i mean limited edition - they are only making 100 of these suckers and they are hand-stitched and home-loved.
the single is the opening salvo of the ramps attack on 2007, which will continue with the release of a debut album in march. the single also happens to contain a remix by yours truly, i’ve taken a track from their upcoming album and given it some rough faux pas love. drums are a-tumbling and vocals are ping-ponging up the
kaboose. i’ll have an mp3 of the remix up for your pleasure soon, but in the meantime you’d best clear your friday night schedule so you can head down to the rob roy and snap up one of these singles before everyone else does. or - join the faux pas mailing list and watch your inbox like a hawk, i might do a giveaway or something.
i’ve been hanging out to listen to the new of montreal album. i’m a fan of the last few albums, but the combination of being overseas and also the amount of hype surrounding the release on pitchfork et al have led me to avoid it a little longer than i really should. today on the radio i thought i heard my first taste from the album. the voice was familiar although a little hard for me to place, but the lyrics and melody seemed classic barnes (not jimmy).
turns out its not of montreal, its the shins. the shins? am i mental? and now i’m worried that when i eventually track down this new of montreal record, i’m going to be disappointed. sunlandic twins was essentially satanic panic part 2 in my opinion - which is not a bad thing - but now hissing fauna is going to sound like a let-down if it doesn’t sound like ’sea legs’.
hissing sunlandic satanic legs? what am i talking about.
the new issue of glossy street mag
mess+noise is out today and is worth tracking down at your local trendy record store. it features some best australian albums of 2006 polls which make for interesting reading (the lists are also up on
their site), i recognise most of the names on there, but honestly i don’t think i even heard 20 australian albums last year. and i’d definitely struggle to even fashion a top 5 out of them. i need to listen more. the folks at mess+noise also kindly voted ‘entropy begins at home’ in at 20th place in their top 20 album covers of 2006, which feels a bit like coming last at the regional cross country carnival (and i know what that feels like) but is still cool. at least it wasn’t voted the worst cover of 2006, that dubious honor of course went to the abortion that was the sleepy jackson’s album.
oh and if you flick to the last page of mess+noise you’ll find a lame message from yours truly. my defense: i was having way too much fun in japan to write anything better.
edit actually reading again through this mess+noise mag, is it just me or is there a lot of japan/melbourne musical love going around, even more than usual..? even an interview with the guys from deloris, which doesn’t even mention japan at all, features a photo of them in a japanese fast food joint. is ‘going to japan’ the new ‘going to london’? i know where i’d rather be..
i want to be posting more music on this blog but the problem is the only acts that i want to write about or share are the same old same old ones. but anyway here’s a list of tracks, thrown at you more or less at random, that i think you should track down and listen to on a hot summers day like today:
homelife - harder
mid state orange - summer in disguise
cornelius - omstart
do make say think - minmin
hood - i cant find my brittle youth
nomo - book of right-on
dionne warwick - you’re gonna want me back
