“Go to an extreme and then retreat to a more useful position.”
—Eno (via jennpelly)
August 2012
27 posts
“I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound. But I can’t find myself in a situation where we’re doing typical chord progressions— it just seems cliché to me. Even changing chords sounds like a cliché sometimes, though it happens occasionally in our music. [laughs] But you find ways to push yourself into the sound through repetition. It doesn’t stay the same. It morphs constantly.”
—
Michael Gira - In conversation with Brandon Stosuy over at P4k.
Gira is one of the most inspiring figures in music I think. Something about his commitment is deeply heartening and obviously the music is awe-inspiring in its own right. The new album is a complete beast and it also makes me want to listen to every Swans record back to back forever. Two hours is not enough.
“We steal everything in this city, including our ghosts.”
—
Laurie Penny - ‘London, Underground’, The New Statesman.
I finally got around to reading this after having it bookmarked for ages. It’s a fantastically well-written piece first of all and the subject matter is tough. Certainly interesting to read it now, post-Olympics. I wonder what the same tube ride would reveal today?
This is happening on Saturday! I am so excited! To fail to be there would make you a clown.
p.s. Joseph Stannard (writer & incessant clarion-sounder) has posted his Euphonic Paradigms playlist in advance of the gig here.
“And then he accused me of using the term mansplaining incorrectly, linked me to an article on the origin of the term, and instructed me on how to use it in the future. He literally mansplained what mansplaining is.”
—
“Friend #1” discusses the fall-out from Lindsay’s call-out. (via annierebekah)
Hahaha, that is pretty funny. (Because it’s recursive humour!)
But if I can make a mansplaint, and a mansplanation, I really detest the term ‘mansplaining’ (in terms of polite speech, that is - it’s not a slur or otherwise offensive term that would be truly detestable to all of us). It’s reductive, asinine and not especially meaningful; it attempts to shut down debate by moving the issue from argument to privilege and perspective (which could be a good way of framing things, if it didn’t also collapse them); and it’s not particularly clear what is non-mansplaining, save for some subjectively welcome comment.
Like I get that there are many ways in which men and others in positions of power shut down discussion. But aren’t there also ways in which good debate and the free exchange of views rest on principles that are not reducible to gender, even if they are supported by structures of power? I guess the whole thing is the Foucault v. Habermas debate, between the postmodern subversion of knowledge and the modern liberal attempt to create an even, fair transfer of knowledge. We can do both, can’t we?
(via hardcorefornerds)
Lindsay Zoladz: Don't Blame Us: Four Women Talk About Why They Didn't Make People's Lists →
lindsayzoladz.tumblr.com
The results from Pitchfork People’s List were published today, and 88% of voters were male. (12% were female, there wasn’t an “other” option, fwiw.) Since I Am The Twelve Percent and I spend a lot of my time talking about and thinking about and writing about music, I wanted to ask a couple…
Interesting thoughts on the People’s List.
Richard Youngs - 'Rurtain (Shonny Don)'
New track from Richard Youngs over on The Quietus. Deeply hypnotic. What he does with his voice is always so amazing to me. Looking forward to hearing the rest.
So Spin are streaming Oren Ambarchi's new record... →
spin.com
…and it sounds animal. Krautrockin’.
“Refused cycle through their songs with all the professional polish you’d expect from a band earning thousands and thousands of dollars for their hour’s work. It’s downright slick. The sound is perfect, crystal clear, like a studio production in the open air. The light show is synced perfectly to the cues in the songs, each break, each scream, each cymbal crash triggering a visual assault. We are bombarded by an excellently organised and realised theatre show. These are actors filling roles for pay and they have learned their lines well. Dennis Lyxzen is all over the stage, contorting his body and shaking his hips, channelling those stalwart keepers of anti-capitalist punk tradition; Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop and Bono.”
—I don’t like Refused any more.
“In this day and age, nothing is shared more than music. YouTube links fly back and forth over social media at a terrifying rate and mp3 blogs rose up in their thousands over the last 10 years. Music is everywhere on the internet. When Pussy Riot chose a band to be the centrepiece of their protest movement, they tapped into this sharing mentality. They chose the medium most open to shares, embeds and re-blogs. They understand web content and its importance, creating videos and mp3s that could be spread worldwide at the touch of a button rather than attempting to sell records bearing their message. News about them spread through music websites as much as traditional news outlets, reaching people who never read the news.”
—I wrote about Pussy Riot and their understanding of the way information travels these days for the Irish Times. People in the comments universally missing the point but y’know, whatever. I don’t think this will be the last time I write about Pussy Riot, got so much more to say about it.
Swans - The Seer →
npr.org
Only 1/8th of the way through but this is already monumental. Can’t wait to listen to it in the dark some night, hopefully with driving rain all around me.
Heard it through the Snapesvine: Gather 'round, children, and let wise Grandma Rachael tell you everything she knows (not much) →
laurasnapes.tumblr.com
Just gonna send Rachael’s excellent advice to young enquiring minds from now on. Make sure you click the “read more” button.
Sometimes I get emails from young people—young people younger than me! babies emailing babies!—who have questions about how I started writing and how…
“Even writers who SEEM totally legit—a lot of them do not FEEL legit. And if you’re doing it right you’re always going to be “aspiring” to something just beyond where you are now. That’s another thing—welcome to never feeling like your work is done! You might have moments of pride and accomplishment and professional/spiritual/etc satisfaction, but they will soon be replaced by some other intense gnawing ache that you have to go chase away with… more writing. It never ends.” - Rachel Maddux
This is all very true.
“
What is criticism? Karl Marx had a pretty good idea. On a perfect day in a perfect world, he wrote, a happy citizen might ‘hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening’ and, finally and best of all, ‘criticize after dinner,’ perhaps with a bottle of wine on the table.
Marx understood that criticism doesn’t mean delivering petty, ill-tempered Simon Cowell-like put-downs. It doesn’t necessarily mean heaping scorn. It means making fine distinctions. It means talking about ideas, aesthetics and morality as if these things matter (and they do). It’s at base an act of love. Our critical faculties are what make us human.
” —“A Critic’s Case for Critics Who Are Actually Critical.” (via marathonpacks)
Lost count how many times I vehemently agreed with this article. Brilliant stuff.
“I was opening for Pavement on a four-band bill, playing first at a long since defunct venue called Sideshows by the Seashore in Coney Island. Gerard Cosloy asked me if I wanted to play a show. I hadn’t really thought of playing live before but I said OK. I asked my friend in NY who plays arena rock guitar to play with me. I wanted a big sound to fill the room. He was my Brian May. The sound check was the part I was most nervous about, since that was the first time I’d been on stage with a guitar and voice and mic and monitor. There were a few people in the club already, friends of the bands and label people and other people. The soundman said, “go ahead.” I closed my eyes and went through a song. Kept them closed for the whole song. When I opened them the club had completely cleared out. Even the soundman was gone! (He’s supposed to stay and make the adjustments you ask for until you’re happy with the sound). My guitarist, Tim, said “fuck them, man, they don’t know your music.” A bit later when Pavement did their sound check, the people were back in the audience bobbing their heads and clapping. It was a formative moment for me as the audience looked like utter fools. Monkeys. Chimps. And that was just the sound check! The show was great.”
—
Bill Callahan on the first show he played. (via markrichardson)
Really good interview
“
The Quietus: Surely, with a mode of music that’s as obviously reactive as dance music, the temptation to please the crowd must be enormous.
Jeff Mills: But the idea of people deciding whether they like it or not gets in the way of music being a way of developing musical creativity. Making them happy denies that. I eventually decided they had to be taken out of the equation. The music is for them but your intention should not to be loved by the crowd and to make lots of money.
” —Nice interview with Jeff Mills over on tQ.
I hope to interview Mills again some time in the future, when I’m more prepared, more knowledgeable. I hope it’ll be in person.
His set at Twisted Pepper the other week was one of the best musical experiences of my life. It had the kind of over-powering musical weight that I’ve only really experienced at the best punk shows, where you’re struggling to breathe and your heart is pumping and your body is moving in ways unrelated to your thoughts. It’s all just happening at a pace you can barely keep up with. You give up control to it. Punk shows usually last about half an hour, Mills played for over three hours. An unbelievable, mind-melting, life-changing night.
REJOICE! BELIEVE! BE STRONG AND READ HARD! →
believermag.com
“A CALL FOR A NEW ERA OF EXPERIMENTATION, AND A BOOK CULTURE THAT WILL SUPPORT IT.”
Reading this I often replaced the words “book” and “author” with “album” and “musician”. It all still makes sense, it still hits home. “Snark” is a constant presence when reading album reviews these days. I even had an editor recently suggest a form of reviewing that would allow the writers to be more snarky, as if this was something to be revelled in. Bullshit. Be blunt, be mean, be angry, sure. Don’t be snarky. You’re a writer, nothing more, nothing less.
As Julavits puts it in the article, a writer is “a pawn”. If you don’t want to be a pawn, don’t write reviews that acclaim or slam without genuine reason. Don’t facilitate the business, investigate the art. Emotion, feeling and humour all have vital parts to play in criticism, as do honesty, brevity and craft. Snark has no place at all.
Ezekiel Honig's Sound Concepts →
cyclicdefrost.com
Nice interview with one of the most interesting composers out there. Good thoughts on memory and repetition and things. Would love to be a part of his class.
Those not familiar should check out Honig’s amazing Folding In On Itself LP, out last year on Type.
Insane Motion Sickness of Time Travel mix →
self-titledmag.com
Incredible 33-track mix of Rachel’s own material with detailed notes on her releases to date. Real nice.
