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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 25 November 2012 CE
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Nov 25, 2012, 12:49
Re: Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 25 November 2012 CE
Nov 25, 2012, 08:39
Christos Fanaras - Impermanence
Hami and I played a really nice improv gig in Winchester this week with Seb of this parish and a free improv guitar player called Mark Lamb. I hope there will be a Soundcloud stream of that set available at some point soon but the highlight for me was one of the other acts who performed this album in its entirety. On this evidence Christos Fanaras is a one man mid 70s Tangerine Dream but with a more detectable, but not especially overt or literal, classical influence. I can hear Popol Vuh, Arvo Part and the music of an older church in here. And the fuzz bass section from Tubular Bells! I have a lot of Klaus Schulze records and such like and I really cannot remember (m)any of those having such an immediate impact on me or being so instantly memorable. Every time I listen to it the arrangement seems to have a finely calibrated internal logic to it. Compositional electronic music rather than purely atmospheric. A proper record with a narrative arch, you wouldn't hear it in a lift. Or a cave.

Bjork - Vespertine, Medulla, Volta
Had another go at getting over my Bjork blind spot. To no avail. The whole thing left me feeling more than a bit pissed off.

The best way I can think to put it is that Bjork's music reminds me of that place on the coast of Portugal where you can get a certificate saying you have been to the most westerly point in Europe. A non event unless you actually fall in the water. So in the end you are left feeling "Yes .... and .... so?" before getting back on the coach in search of something resembling a real experience rather than just a consumer of a product that says you have stood on the edge.

I was interested to read in 'Listen To This' (which dedicates a chapter to her) that she dislikes minimalism. That certainly makes sense because her music is like a very bright, very talkative teenager endlessly engaged in letting you know how bright and engaged they are. Alex Ross loves the bones of her but it is worth noting that he barely listened to any pop music before the age of 20 so what he is looking for in rock and pop isn't rooted in the experience of someone who fell in love with Blockbuster or Telegram Sam at the age of 11. He is presumably looking for something with the same kind of complexity that he would have found in European Classical music. His chapters on Bjork and Radiohead certainly suggest as much in that he endlessly talks up the parts of these artists' lives that touch on the Classical realm both as consumers of music and composers. Don't think he would get the unalloyed pleasures of a Robyn record or Mott's 'Rock n Roll Queen' or Urian Heep 'Live' ....

Coming back to Bjork I am not sure any of her music will stay the course except as an example of Art World hyperreality invading mainstream pop (mainstream in terms of audience size). Bjork's music represents a short-term victory of style, ironic mannerism and commerce over content, a series of empty gestures filling a space where the music should be. The polar opposite of records like '50 Words of Snow' or 'The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver....' in that it is not saying much more than "I Am A Modern Art Personality Making Modern Art Music".

Just because the Tate Modern is one of our most popular tourist attractions doesn't mean the contemporary art within is always actually saying anything more than "You Are Now Standing On The Cutting Edge". Perhaps she should make one copy of each album, sell it for $5m and have it played in galleries rather than be selling half a milllion copies for $10 each.

Cerys Matthews - Tir, Explorer and Don't Look Down
Had the opposite experience in having a listen to three recentish Cerys Matthews albums. Along with the new Fiona Apple record this is the surprise singer songwriter discovery for me of the last few months. The music is wildly eclectic, the eclecticism serves the songs and the songs are really good. Can't ask more than that.

Wales Welcomes Womex
and am still playing this fantastic Songlines compilation. Has become a bit of a tube journey classic. Not sure why some music sounds so much better underground.

Richter & Borodin Quartet - Schubert: Piano Quintet 'The Trout'
Michael Moorcock's Deep Fix - New World's Fair
Queen -s/t
10cc - Deceptive Bends
Von Karajan BPO - Schubert: Unfinished Symphony
Morton Feldman: For Samuel Beckett
John Luther Adams - The Light That Fills the World
Anne-Sophie Mutter LPO - Mozart: Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola & orchestra in E flat major, K. 364
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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 25 November 2012 CE (1001realapes)		 Replies:
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