A Cosmic Kubrick Ligeti Experience

I made a connection with the starry dynamo of night and the cosmos two days ago whilst looking up at the sky and listening to Ligeti’s ‘Lux Aeterna’. It was not by design, my reader, but chance that this music came on, and more than that, it’s effect when combined with all that sparkled above was terrifying, yes, terrifying, as if I had encountered God and felt the fear of God fully, a horror seeping into my very soul – and I don’t believe in God, or know if a soul exists in us.
   The association with Kubrick’s use of Ligeti in ‘2001’ was inescapable, and his rejection of Alex North’s original score was undoubtedly the right one. As good as North’s score is it does not come close to creating the same magical effect as, for instance, ‘The Blue Danube’ waltz mirroring the twirl of ships dancing in space. Neither could it match Ligeti’s other-worldly micropolyphonic masterpiece for 16 voices, or the astounding sound mass of ‘Atmospheres’, also used by Kubrick for the film.
   Yes, I felt fear, not awe, although perhaps it was a combination of both, and it’s possible that what I felt was akin to that of an astronaut’s encounter with outer space. To be up there, even without the kind of experience had by Kubrick’s pilot, must be truly mind-altering. And I was only standing on Earth, looking up at where men have been.
   Once the bond between a filmmaker’s imagery and music is formed, it is there forever in our minds. And so Ligeti’s original Latin text from the Roman Catholic requiem mass is made, remade into a hymn to the galaxies in the same way that Coltrane reached for Interstellar Space on his album of the same name.
   In ‘Are We Alone?’, the book of interviews originally intended for use in ‘2001’, Norman Lamm rightly suggests that if intelligent alien life is discovered we would have to re-evaluate ourselves, even reformulate what we are. Music such as Ligeti’s reformulates sound and causes us to reconsider what music is and what it can do under certain circumstances. Kubrick understood this perfectly, and so did I as I stood there seeing all those stars and hearing the sound of Gyorgy Ligeti. All I needed was a UFO to appear and I too would have become a Believer, yes, another so-called lunatic, but of course one didn’t. I’m still more drawn towards the faith that swears by the existence of other intelligent life forms than I am in the gods humans have made.

Time-Wasting Torment...Techno...Drexciyan Salvation

All over the musical shop this afternoon, from Kraut Rock to...more Kraut Rock on various compilations...almost finding things I like but a minute into the otherwise solid enough Prog-Funk-Rock groove some arse starts singing – happened again and again. Singing in German, of course.
   Later, having realised I’ve entered a mouse-clicking time trap, I claw my way out, finding I’ve grown a beard, got more grey hairs and hours were wasted. Huh.

   I settle on a compilation of Slovenian techno called ‘Tehnik 1’, the contents of which come very much from the school of Detroit and Berlin (of course?) which may date it, but is no bad thing since the tracks are pretty solid, no surprise sounds, but the Random Logic and Octex tunes stand out – perhaps they’re big in Slovenia and satiate huge crowds regularly. I’ve no idea when it came out and don’t care.

   So I go to the source, a batch of reissues by Tresor, which I think are now available digitally for possibly the first time or something (I’m losing my grip on trivialities such as facts around now) – and, yes Drexciya, Surgeon, Jeff Mills and Robert Hood have re-entered the bunker. I’m not hot on Surgeon because like Mills he does bang on and yes I know it’s sacrilege to slight Sir Jeff but since I’m not part of a (or the) Techno community I can get away with it, especially here in the seclusion of this remote corner of the online world which few people visit (and that, I must say, gives me a certain freedom, does it not?). I know someone who dared dis The Smiths once on his website, or at least, suggest that not everything they did was amazing. He’s still in a safe house years later.

   The brute force of Surgeon is appealing in small doses, but Drexciya are another matter. ‘Harnessed The Storm’ demonstrates what can be done with a lot of imagination, ie, reaching for those buttons few others dare touch and twisting fresh sounds to ensure elevation about the Techno herd. ‘Mission To Ociya Syndor And Back’ (who knows what the hell that means? And that’s a good thing, sound as unfathomable fiction)....’Dr Bowfins Black Storm Stabilizing Spheres’! How about that for a title? Dr Blowfin, by the way, was a mysterious character who inhabited a vast undersea dome and is said to have been the result of mating a killer whale with an African Prince...(honestly)....

   Around Hood’s minimalism there’s a whole school of conceptual philosophising and a Wire writer could tell you all about it but I can’t and like Surgeon I enjoy him in small chunks. Sometimes he sounds great, others, monotonous (yes, I know that’s the point, not monotony (the evil flipside of minimalism) but repetition). Like I said, look up a techno theorist (how about Kodwo Eshun?) for in-depth anal-ysis.
   Bam Bam’s ‘Where’s Your Child’ has also been made a digital thing. It’s evil. And brilliant. You should play it loud, especially if friends who are parents pay you a visit and never stop talking about their new baby or child...

Stan Getz Explores Another World Shock!

Strange as it sounds, right now Stan Getz is getting all modern and spaced-out, really working the Digital Delay with Moog Echoplex on a piece called ‘Another World’ from the 1977 album of the same name.

   Yes, Stan has left Earth for a trip on the Moog thanks to engineer Dave Richards who, according to Stan’s sleeve notes, wired him up whilst the band were taking a break. Stan wasn’t one for overdubbing, which he called ‘trickery’, but once he discovered that the delay allowed him to build note-upon-note, chord-upon-chord, he ‘felt transported’. That’s the spirit Stan! Unfortunately, when Richards suggested he take the Echoplex on tour with him Stan declined, he was ‘not quite ready for that yet,’ – oh Stan you old fart – still, you know, he was getting on a bit when he surrounded himself with young players for this fusion-tinged date. He was willing to accept Andy Laverne playing an Arp and Mini Moog, so he wasn’t totally adverse to the New Thing. But as you might suspect, this isn’t Stan’s answer to Herbie’s ‘Thrust’ or anything like it.
   There’s decent Fusion stuff here, along with a plain standard or two, and nothing awful to complain about, but ‘Another World’ is the track that causes the most interest (for anyone under...60?). God knows what his old die-hard fans would have made of it, but then, I doubt they’d be too enamoured with Fusion and it’s terribly modern use of the Fender Rhodes.

   The synths crop up here and there to add a little colour, a shade of ‘the new’, but this is not Stan stepping into tomorrow (well, by ’77, synths were hardly tomorrow’s world). The track, ‘Another World’, though, which is just Stan with echo and delay, works brilliantly. This one flight, sadly, was enough for him. He paid a six-minute visit to another world, but decided not to really explore it.

Single of the Week: Pruitt Igoe - Kangding Ray (Raster-Noton)

Best new thing I've heard this week...

Clash City Rocking

In those days i could drink a lot of lager lager lager always pints of lager – nothing else – and talking in the foyer and spotting faces in the crowd like ‘Oooh look there’s -----‘ whoever and so on and smoking fags, more fags, more lager, punk fucking rockers? Back in The Green Man before with the juke box chucking out ‘White Riot’ and all the punk hits of the day – excitement levels rising we’re going to see the fucking Clash!!! Drink more lager – zips pins up bondage up yours trousers lager fags faces in there from Dunstable, Wycombe, London  and all the satellite villages come to The Clash and Kris fucking Needs of course in his leather jacket of course – punk birds punk boys – we’re all young and full of cum that we don’t have much fucking use for – just a two minute walk to the Civic Centre – there’s The White Rabbit the fucking ex-hippy who’s hip to Punk and putting bands on for us for whom there was nothing else to do but go see Punk bands in this stinking shit-hole town – so the hall’s packed of course and on They come and on the go with so much fucking energy Strummer soaked in spit from wankers down the front poor bastard – faster, FASTER LOUDER and so it goes and so it went the pogoing going on and on and on – the sweat the shoving the sneers the cheers the elbows the heat the lager lager lager – and when it’s over and the encores are done and the sweat dried on I stumble around town praying I don’t meet the gangs of soul boys out for Punk blood – stumble into a cul-de-sac where my brother’s visiting someone ‘cause he’s giving me a lift but I’m so pissed i can’t remember the address he gave me so I knock on all the doors and finally find the right one – get in the car – feel so fucking sick – tell him to stop, open the door, puke up all that lager lager lager onto the verge – yeah of course I had A DAMN GOOD TIME!

Variable Resistance - Daughter Of The Revolution

Got this little package through the post the other day, which made a change from downloads – you can’t put your arms around an MP3 (you can wrap a hand around this) - not that I’ve hugged an album since I found ‘Lalo = Brilliance’ second-hand for six quid several years ago.   Design fetishism came with the LP-buying (my) generation, and how could it not when there was ‘Sticky Fingers’ to be unzipped, and the inner sleeve to ‘Led Zeppelin III’ to twirl around? Not forgetting the ‘Physical Graffiti’ windows with interchangeable inhabitants – look, Lee Harvey Oswald! And there’s Flash Gordon! Etc. The weight of that product perfectly matched the ‘heavy’ contents, as did the mind/eye expanding triple indulgence of a Yes LP, I’m sure (never owned one, honest).

   If extravagant weighty packaging matched the content of LPs I have loved it seems fitting also that so much modern music weighs nothing and does not physically exist. It’s a load of weightless, worthless crap.
   So this little box (one of only 175) is the first ultra-designed (handmade in fact) musical product I’ve bought in a very long time, so long I can’t recall the last, and looking through what remains of my vinyl I find nothing like it. There’s a market for the whole cottage industry school of production, and I admire the idea. Why not only make a couple of hundred CDs? It makes them special. Folks and purr and sigh with print from the sleeve on their hands and delicately fondle them because in this age of the download beauty of that kind is a rare thing. I feel the same about my Sun Ra Detroit Jazz Centre box, not because of the design, but the opposite, it’s crudity, complete with only basic A4 print out pages for listing and CDR sleeves for the 28 discs.
   The makers of the ‘Variable Resistance’ box, Cotton Goods, specialise in doing this kind of thing. It’s all they do. It reminds me of when I used to make a fanzine, cut’n’paste, Zerox, staple together...heady days, sniffin’ Pritt Stick...proper punk rock it was...
   Miles Whittaker of Demdike Stare is Daughter Of The Industrial Revolution. He’s an eclectic fellow operating under other guises too, making Techno as Pendle Coven and MLZ, along with the unique DS output. As opposed to me, he’s a big collector, but instead of trying to show off all those influences on ‘Variable Resistance’ he stays within a limited remit which you might call ambient, although possibly my favourite of the tunes (ha-ha), ‘Shape 4’, is to ambient what Stravinsky was to classical when he shook the world with his brand new bag. Jarring, disconcerting, ghostly echoes in submerged snapshots – it makes me imagine being able to peer into the depths of the Atlantic and see the Titanic's dead, faces pressed against the portholes – god knows where that came from...

   ‘Nutrient Flush’ is so much the bare bones of Techno, it makes Plastikman sound like Led Zeppelin – and after listening to all this restraint a few times and initially not being too impressed I’ve found it grows and thus, dear reader, does my admiration. He gets a bit lively on ‘Photon Shopping’ mind you, if only by beating you again and again with the same sound phased in and out. But if, like me, you’re partial to the sound of throbbing electronics, you’ll agree it’s wonderful.

Hongkong - Monolake

Something to do: play one track on Spotify and another from your PC library simultaneously. I was listening to Monolake’s ‘Hongkong’ and Chris Watson’s ‘Stepping Into The Dark’, by mistake, and I got to like it. Now all kinds of possibilities open up for soundclashes between, say, Z’ev and Hi-Energy disco, or Eno and Drexciya.
   Thirteen years after its release I’m hearing all of ‘Hongkong’ having only owned parts before. I’m glad there are gems still to be discovered. That much is obvious for all of us, yet something about Techno suggests immediacy, therefore immediate appreciation? Perhaps. Yet the label ‘Techno’ doesn’t do ‘Hongkong’ justice, which is not to say that Techno cannot be deep, but I’m guessing many will associate it more with the thrill of speed and noise. So how about ‘Electronic Music’? Mmm...rather vague.
   I’m struck by the similarity between ‘Mass Transit Railway’ and Vangelis’s ‘Blade Runner’, right down to the synth solo, the mood of the modern futurist cityscape. There’s even the sound of rain at the beginning of the first track, ‘Cyan’, echoing the rain-soaked mean streets down which Deckard walked. ‘Macau’ develops into a minimalist skank about halfway through; the kind of thing a robot reggae band will be playing in the future, obviously.
   As with all Monolake productions, the layering of elements is crucial, along with the depth of sound created by the judicious application of echo. There are beats, but they remain muted. The tension between key Techno motifs and the desire to undermine, or challenge their authority, is one thing that makes this music so interesting. The dynamics of rhythm played against equally prominent tones, waves, pulses, electronic scribbles and so on. This is best demonstrated on ‘Arte’ where, again, the rhythm suggests Jamaica more than Detroit, but everything else, including the sounds of waves, pulls in another direction, or rather, suggests another world.
   ‘Occam’ is the most immediately pleasing track, an instant fix of what became a trademark sound in the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction armoury. If you’ve heard much of their output, you’ll know that it became a trademark to such an extent as to seemingly trap all but the best artists.
   Thirteen years may have passed but to me this music seems to have an inbuilt source of renewable vitality which keeps it as fresh today as it was then and will be in the future.

Sounds In The Bunker

Scouting around for something sensational and new I’ve drawn a blank over the last few days...well, that’s the way it goes...ever hopeful, we perhaps dream of a sound not yet made, the one that will fuse some if not all of our favourite genres. In my case, that would be impossible, and besides, something about the purity of a genre can be magnificent in itself.

   So rewinding a couple of years (and due to the nature of its content, three decades), I’ve been enjoying the ‘Cherenkov Radiation’ EP by Der Zyklus, especially ‘Quasar’. It has the pure beauty of the best Kraftwerk tunes, which is no coincidence, yet to reduce and refine electronic music this way is, I suspect, no mean feat. The temptation must be to overload the technology. ‘Quasar’ sounds just like the future did 30 years ago. It’s that good.

   Anyway, I’m a sucker for space-oriented titles, it’s true. If Sir Cliff released an album about black holes, dwarf stars and, you know, things cosmological, I’d sit up and listen. The chances, thankfully, are as remote as Sir Elton recording a concept album about string theory (there’s a chance Vanessa Mae could name an album ‘String Theory’...in fact I think she should...and she probably will once she’s read this). So many Sirs in our wonderful Pop history...you know, I’m convinced Paul Weller will be knighted eventually...well, not convinced, exactly, but quite willing to put a fiver on it depending on the odds William Hill will give me.
   I’m sure Sir George Clinton mentions quasars in a Parliament tune but I’m damned if I can recall which one. George was into the galactic boogie theory long ago, back before the world became a zone of zero funkativity. And it came to pass, as you know, that a Germanic-Funk-Detroit connection would come together. Whilst my recall is far from total, Ruaridh Law nicks Dick’s ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’ as a title for his The Village Orchestra release. The title track’s an epic exploration on the theme of memory which requires a proper listen and I’ve yet to do that, but it does sound interesting. The three remaining tracks are easier to digest and in the techno vein but not without merit as they rise above common Earth-bound efforts to reach...oh...Pluto? ‘Lost Memory’ is the standout, building as it does for over ten minutes.
   Satisfying my seemingly daily urge to have my ear drums hammered there’s Adam X/Ancient Method’s ‘Cardiac Dysrhythmia’ EP. If Der Zyklus is a streamlined super-light space ship, this is a monster truck, and I feel, in one sense, I shouldn’t like it because it does hark back to the old days of, say, Techno Animal, and that heavy metal tech-breaks thing was OK then – but now? Perhaps I admire their willingness to pound the skeletal structure of techno into pieces and weld them onto their robot wars beast for total war in the Terminator sense. It’s defiantly retro in a way, but it has beaten me into submission.
   Gaslamp Killer looks like the kind of, hey, crazy dude who might rampage nude through LA wielding a sampler...a bit geeky, but I’m enjoying his ‘Death Gate’ EP no end. It’s also retro in a way that it carries a torch for the old days when breakbeat was fresh, Shadow was king and so on. Yet, despite the fact that while nobody mentions ‘breakbeat’ these days we know the methodology is alive and well and here’s proof. He’s not afraid of sampling ‘Psyche Rock’, that’s how crazy he is. Also Astatke, if I’m not mistaken. ‘Carpool Dummy’ hammers the breaks, but ‘Shattering Inner Journeys’ might be the best shot, an extended trip into Prog Break territory – seriously – complete with military drum and old tech as in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

High On Miles - Miles Davis At The Isle Of Wight Festival

I’m in the Miles High club, as any regular readers of my missives down the years will know...and as a member of that considerably large group (anyone with ears can join) excitement levels have peaked here in the bunker over the last 24 hours since I’ve been able to pick up discs being sold separately from the mammoth Complete Columbia Album Collection box from last year.
   Joy of joys...it means being able to get the Isle Of Wight concert, a double disc of the Plugged Nickel shows, and the DVD of the quintet’s European tour from ’67, all of which were exclusive to The Box.
   The Box is surely akin to the monolithic slab in Kubrick’s ‘Space Odyssey’, not only size-wise, but in the effect it would have should it land anywhere near you or, for that matter, on another planet. Such is the immensity of its content that I can well imagine ape-like men (ie, non-believers or, shall I say, the musically undeveloped) grunting at the sight of it, touching reluctantly, then being transformed. And as one throws his Paul Weller album into the air it magically transforms into ‘E.S.P’...
   Where was I? My head’s in a spin; a common effect of being in the Miles High club. I met one member today in the shop, browsing all the Miles titles with me. I could tell he was uncertain of which to choose (not all members are total experts, myself included...’cause, you know, Miles is someone you can spend your life ‘studying’...like Buddha...or that bloke with the beard and sandals they wrote a book about ) and having opened a line of communication proceeded to recommend the Isle Of Wight gig. I also suggested the Plugged Nickel set but found out he wasn’t keen on ‘Miles Smiles’ so I steered him away from that and since he enjoyed ‘Bitches Brew’ pointed him towards other ‘live’ sets. Yes, I forgave him his inability to appreciate The Quintet because he was on the right road.
   Oh, dear reader, it felt good to be of some use, to spread the gospel by helping a fellow traveller along the treacherous path through this square world. I used to preach from the Technics pulpit, an immediate and effective means, but now I only have the word...
   Words almost fail me for the Isle Of Wight set. It was 1970, in case you didn’t know. On the Saturday that Miles played you could also have seen The Who, The Doors, Sly & The Family Stone and...Tiny Tim...along with others. Surely a Mojo reader’s wet dream! Mine too. Superstardom writ large! Perhaps a few of the 50,000 plus audience even remember it. Glastonbury today? Pah! And yet, we know, the way these things work, there are those who will be telling their grandchildren of the legendary ‘Glasto’ week-end where they witnessed Oasis, Orbital and...er...Ned’s Atomic Dustbin...not that I know the line-ups of various Glastonbury festivals.
   So there’s all these heads, man, and the band tear into ‘Directions’ like there’s no tomorrow, no today, and no past as far as Jazz is concerned. The band are Gary Bartz, Jack DeJohnette, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Dave Holland and Airto...the names say it all, really. If you know this era of Miles you’ll have an idea. The thing here is that I think it’s the funkiest set Miles must have played around this time, a concise (35min) summing up of where he was at. It’s as if Miles said ‘Sly’s in the house, let’s honour him’, or something. Not that it’s all groove because that Jazz-Funk fusion bag was too easy, too predictable for Miles. It would never have been enough. And yet, just as Michael Henderson did, Dave Holland (looking every inch the hippy himself) absolutely runs the funk voodoo down in places....on ‘Bitches Brew’...’It’s About That Time’...and ‘Spanish Key’...christ...with DeJohnette getting all fatback, you know, tight...Corea and Jarrett playing wild and throwing down big space chords...Bartz on the straight horn charming the snakes out the trees, then alto...and Airto’s quirky but somehow vital percussive touches...
   And at the end He just walks off, leaving the band to finish...picks up his jacket...serious as hell, as always...but then, before disappearing, turns and gives a little wave by rippling his outstretched fingers...
   You can watch the whole gig here.
   I need to get back down to earth somehow...

Report From The Bunker

I’ve given myself brain ache – word/sound overload – it’s as if Bill has set up camp inside my head and spent all day conducting tape recorder experiments – playback, loop, playback – causing a riot in there. So, it’s a good job Philip Jeck’s provided an ‘Ark For The Listener’ via the Touch label. You could hardly call his sounds ‘soothing’, unless you compared them to what I’ve been filling my ears with all day, such as Wolf Eyes’ ‘Rotting Remains’ which is an evil sound. It’s not that I’ve played noise all the time, but that Wolf Eyes became the culmination, the final crushing blow that blew my brains. Jeck’s sound manipulation is acting as a kind of balm for my brain, as long as I play it quietly. Loud, it opens up another avenue down which the innocent may wander, thinking they’ve found salvation but instead entered a world of nightmarish proportions, such is the eerie ambience of the work.

   The animals going in two-by-two is natural, but three just won’t do – no sir, unless it’s a ménage a trois, of course. I don’t think Noah would approve. A three-way love-in seems set to occur in Claude Chabrol’s ‘Les Biches’(1969), which I watched last week. Stunning Frederique (Stephane Audran) picks up Why (what a great name for a character), a pavement artist in Paris played by Jacqueline Sassard, and whisks her off to St Tropez. There she lives an upper class bohemian kind of life (two great performances by Henri Attal and Dominique Zardi as the crazy scroungers enjoying Frederique’s home and money). Enter architect Paul (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and things take a turn for the worse as far as Why is concerned. I’ll say no more about the story. Chabrol’s direction is as seductive as the subjects, drawing us into the world they inhabit as surely as Frederique leads Why. There are some exquisitely framed shots filmed by cinematographer Jean Rabier in glorious Eastmancolor which, along with a great script, makes this a superb piece of work.
   Before I go and lie down in a darkened room I must tell you how I ended up in The Modern World for a while earlier this week. There was only one sunlit set of tables in the Brunswick shopping precinct so I had to buy a coffee in Starbucks. Whilst queuing I looked around and thought to myself ‘So this is The Modern World’ – there were two people reading novels, one on a laptop, of course, because someone somewhere no matter the situation must be online – all sipping coffee from gallon-sized mugs. These people were at home in Starbucks. I was not. I hate coffee served in massive mugs, it’s just not on. When I ordered mine she showed me the mug, waving it as a kind of symbol of pride, perhaps, but I couldn’t help asking if they only served coffee by the gallon. She picked up a smaller mug. Oh, that’ll do.
   Once outside two Frenchmen also took a table, making me feel a little better – why? – I don’t know, but simply the sound of their language made me imagine that I could close my eyes and be in Paris.
   I looked back through the window of the cafe at the Modern people...wondering why I wasn’t one and never would be...my age? No. My dislike for multinational domination of the cafe and the types of people who willingly submit themselves to the homogenised lifestyle of mugs of coffee and making themselves cosy in the corporate womb? Probably...

Evocation - Demons

There’s a new mix CD by Demdike Stare called ‘Industrial Desert’, which is good news, and I’d recommened it but chances are if you know their work you’ll have ordered it anyway and if you don’t...you’re even slower on the uptake than me and if that’s the case, despite having sung their praises here before I’ll do so again: BUY ANYTHING BY DEMDIKE STARE!!! He shouts from the rooftop.

So whilst listening to ‘Industrial Desert’ I surfed and find a new Soundcloud mix by Canty and Whittaker which has a track listing (unlike their CD mixes, sadly), and one of the tracks that caught my ear was by Demons, so I looked them up, found their ‘Evocation’ album from 2007 and bought it. Damned if it isn’t the best thing I’ve heard in ages. Nate Young and Steve Kenney make an incredible noise using Sequential Circuits Pro-One synths, one of which was rescued post-Katrina, both being more or less ‘broken’. According to Young they turned them on, listened to them playing themselves, and put the recordings out as Demons. A great story but somehow, as much as I like to think it’s true, more likely a good yarn, a wonderful idea, the old notion of machines taking over, or in this case, making music all by themselves. If that’s the case here, more old synths should simply be turned on a left to make their own magic. ‘Evocation’ sounds like classic sci-fi/horror soundtracks grunged up and driven to such extremes that the terror seems to stem from the nightmares of the synths rather than the minds of Young and Kenny. This isn’t pure Noise for the sake of trying to make your ears bleed, but rather four sonic excursions of shifting moods and textures. That said, play it loud in the ‘phones and you’ll probably feel a warm trickle of claret down your cheeks. Amazing sounds.

System, Raime, Sun Araw

Thinking about how much I like the ending of ‘Drk’ by System from their new ‘B’ album reminded me of the time a DJ friend of mine announced that the best thing about the Elvis record he had just played were the crackles at the end. Yes, they were the old days, when DJs talked and a room might comprise of Punks and Teddy Boys, as this one did. I suppose he played Elvis as a request from the Teds, although I can’t think why he even had the record in his box. But then, in these olden times, it was not so rare for a young DJ like him to carry an eclectic selection including popular old tunes. He was not, after all, a ‘hip’ DJ. Anyway, after the announcement a small riot ensued, the violence of which was not, surprisingly, directed at him (thankfully, because he asked us to protect his gear) but between the two tribes. I don’t recall who, if anyone, won that particular battle.

   Not only is the ending of ‘Drk’ great, but the rest of it is too. This album has grown on me over the last week or so. It’s a very clean production; nothing radical, but the sounds are organised in an interesting fashion so as to avoid boredom setting in. They go for dub at times, and although it’s not the modishly murky variety, it is well done. On ‘Well Blank’ they even do the Dubstep, kind of, but in their own way, and prove that approaching a genre from outside often produces more interesting results than those trapped within. I don’t even mind the rather clichéd skank of ‘Stanley’ because, despite the reggae-by-numbers rhythm, they play some good synth over the top. ‘WB’ is much deeper and dirtier in the rhythmic stakes. I like to think the initials stand for you-know-who, but probably, represent ‘Wobbly Bass’ or something.

  According to Boomkat Raime’s ‘Raime’ EP is causing ‘much consternation in the blogosphere’, although I haven’t checked their references to find out why. I think consternation translates as hype here, and I’m not sure why, exactly. It has a distinctive sound, a kind of tribal minimalism, you might say, with Gregorian style chants in the mix. They like using a sparse, echoed drum sound, with light ambient trimmings. I’ve listened a lot and can’t see what the fuss is about. Demdike Stare do this kind of thing so much better.

   Talking of hype, Sun Araw is smothered in it, as far as I can tell. Mind you, hype today isn’t what it used to be when it came from the old printed music press, is it? Only the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker to shape the nation’s opinion? Yes, the olde days again, when tribes went to war and supposedly ‘hip’ young journalistic guns told us all what was cool and what wasn’t. Simpler times, when you had a favourite of the three and bought it religiously, probably.

   Sun Araw would have been on one or all of their covers, I’m guessing. He does fit the bill for a celestial fusion of psychedelia and electronics, thus marrying old and new, after a fashion. Listening to ‘Off Duty/Boat trip’, I’m in two minds as to whether there is greatness at work, or excessive indulgence with little heed for proper composition (I know that makes me sound like an old fart). When the wall of noise is fully applied it proves overbearing for these ears, but when he calms down a little, it’s much more appealing and effective, as on ‘Canopy’. If the wah-wah is overused, it does at least conjure up memories of Funkadelic at their trippiest, and that’s no bad thing. Listening again, I’m thinking he is worthy of the hype, so I’ll join in and say he’s The Greatest Thing to come along for the last three days at least.

The Spaces Between - Chris Carter

Yesterday I wanted to write about the pared-down reissue of Chris Carter’s ‘The Spaces Between’ but I started by talking about how six days into the month I’d almost spent my self-allotted amount of cash on cultural objects and went on:
   ‘How can I go for another three weeks without consuming (owning) more? Ah, the dilemma of the fortunate Westerner (I don’t know why I label myself ‘Westerner’, as if those in the East are still queuing for bread and living on cabbage soup!). But, you know, I have to remind myself of how spoilt I am in comparison to...the poor...the really poor...those evoked by my folks when I wouldn’t eat my greens (it was always Biafrans in the 70s and ever since, in my twisted mind, they’ve monopolised the starving nation...market? There’s no market involved, so forgive me, I don’t know how to put it).
   But cultural objects cannot be equated with the starving since the new release of old Chris Carter recordings would be of no use to anyone who’s hungry unless they got enough to sell them to tourists on a market stall...and then, they wouldn’t make much money from Chris Carter CDs, would they? Can you imagine them trying to sell early experiments in electro to American tourists? They’d have more success with...(tries to stereotype the musical taste of the average American tourist and fails...)
   Now that ownership is a click and download time away, what hope is there of battling the urge to buy? The space between buying can shrink to become scarily small, as in minutes. Right now I’m pleased with myself for not buying every Chris Carter album available this afternoon...but tomorrow’s another matter.
   Optimo’s release of an edited (for vinyl loudness) selection from ‘The Spaces Between’ created a surge of desire for more of Carter’s music. The earlier full collection now fetches a handsome price but the tracks chosen by Optimo are such a tease that, briefly, I considered spending what was asked (cheapest was about £27). Then I came to my senses. I can live without it. We can live without all this, if we retrain ourselves. That is, live with what we have rather than sell everything, although there’s a case to be made for living like some romanticised hero from the past, ie, out of a suitcase, carrying only a battered Remington...check into 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur, The Latin Quarter...and write your masterpiece...
   How did they survive, these cultural icons/heroes? They were not trapped by consumerism, therefore did not miss a collection of CDs, DVDs and books. Perhaps this freedom allowed for the greater capacity to create. I’ve a theory that selling everything would have an astounding effect on my creativity...but I don’t think I’ll be testing it out.’
   Then I decided not to post that part. I’d got too distracted. Perhaps I was putting off talking about the music on ‘The Spaces Between’ because I didn’t know what to say and, more to the point, I was wary of commenting when I’d only just played it and you know how it is, when new releases excite you to such an extent that you feel like telling the world you’ve heard The Best Album Since ______.
   One day and several plays later the seven tracks still sound superb, which is a relief, even though I didn’t go ahead and shout about it yesterday. It’s a relief because replays have, if anything, increased rather than diminished my pleasure.
   These tracks were recorded between ’74 and ’78 represent the promise of things to come if you view Carter as a pioneer and precursor to Techno, Electro, Electronica etc. What followed more closely was the increased use of this gear and these rhythms in the rapid evolution of late-70s electronic Punk into 80s Pop, of course. But I refuse to blame Chris for the crimes committed in that decade. Were Kraftwerk unwitting Frankensteins? Maybe.
   This material proves that although multi-gadgetry of the advanced kind is great it’s no substitute for musical talent. Apologies for stating the bleeding obvious. It sounds old in a charming way (the drum machine dates it) but Carter was an early user of the 303 and 808. I’m trying not to use the phrase ‘back to the future’.
   Despite the Kraut influence there’s a sensibility that marks it as another beast altogether. For starters, the tracks are not 24-minute-one-side-long grand gestures of cosmic sonic exploration, but concise creations akin to John Carpenter pieces. And when I say ‘charming’ I don’t mean light-hearted because much of it has dark under/overtones. I won’t pick a highlight or discuss individual tracks, just end by saying that if you love electronic music you should get this release.

Spick Magazine (1954)

Those crazy art students...

The Killer Inside Me & The Killers

 Winterbottom, like Affleck’s bad cop, pulls no punches in ‘The Killer Inside Me’. Look how nasty violence can be, he tells us, as another sickening thud accompanies one more knuckle sandwich delivered by the killer. Thanks, Michael, I never knew how bad it was until you showed me. What he really showed me was that you can have too much of a bad thing and that directors shackled by censorship were forced to come up with more imaginative ways to depict what happens, to the benefit of the audience, surely.

   Perhaps Winterbottom felt that he was filming for the really stupid and desensitised, in which case, thanks again, for patronising me. What kind of oaf needs a lesson of that kind? The popcorn-munching, Coke-guzzling teenager? Maybe.

   Affleck’s got the look to play a stone-cold killer, but if I’d been watching this at the cinema I think I’d have begun to feel as sore around the backside as his victims. I got bored halfway through, thinking of what the Coen brothers could have done with it. But they’ve already mastered noir and the American Western psycho.

   Here the cop’s internal monologue is supposed to go some way to addressing the problem of translating Thompson’s masterful prose into the visual, but it fails. Thompson’s classic was brutal, but bereft of the writer’s ability to be inside this killer, Winterbottom leaves us with a cipher for evil rather than a real character. Most unbelievable of all were the lovers so devoted to this man. Here, if we give any thought to it, their fondness for him is not justified other than in some slurpy love scenes and shots of Affleck smiling in their company. This killer must have had a lot of charm, charisma...something. Instead, he’s all inside out and we don’t see what they’re supposed to therefore the relationship’s make no sense. Is the fact that he likes to play piano and listen to classical music supposed to reveal the sensitive side? Read the book instead.

 Hemingway’s ‘The Killers’ was first adapted by Robert Siodmak to create a classic noir in ‘46, then Don Siegel got a shot at it in 64, supposedly for TV, but it was deemed too violent so it got a theatrical release. Too violent then is nothing compared to today’s standards, of course. It’s most famous, perhaps, for Ronald Reagan slapping Angie Dickinson, not just because in retrospect it appears incongruous, but because it’s a slap that carries a lot of impact. Michael, less can be more.

   Winterbottom could have learned something from Siegel’s handling of the scene in which the killers deal with the blind female receptionist. Here, the depiction of evil behaviour is not lessened by the absence of graphic detail. Yes, we have to use that old-fashioned facility called imagination.

   Dickenson’s femme fatale, exposed in the glaring light of day and full colour, is no less alluring than her noir predecessors, of course. If anything, her radiance heightens the contrast of what lies in her dark heart. Lee Marvin can always convey the killer superbly, without having to actually do anything. And watching Reagan play the bad guy is fascinating in itself. His woodenness seems to be an advantage as a ruthless criminal.

   The best shot comes towards the end, when Strom (Marvin) gets out of his car. All we see is the ground, shoes, then blood dripping onto the pavement. At times it looks like a TV film, but Lee and Angie make it very watchable, and Siegel is no slouch when it comes to direction crime films. Cassavetes is good enough as the desperate speed freak, but he should have known something was wrong when someone as beautiful as Angie plays the driver groupie. He wasn’t the one taking her for a ride.