the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford
7.8

the bad:
a little long in the tooth at two hours and forty minutes
constant transitional imagery of clouds moving across the sky (annoying and eventually useless)
constant and many times out-of-place repetition of musical themes

the good:
beautiful cinematography
very good performance by brad pitt
fucking amazing performance by casey affleck. subtle and nuanced. the last time i remember a performance having impressed me that much was daniel day lewis in there will be blood (though casey's just a notch below that). regardless, casey's acting is incredible and fascinating. i will definitely be looking forward to any film he's in that makes use of his talent.

Muxtapes I enjoy

http://gregb.muxtape.com
I have been listening to this the most. Favorites: the 3 great Anticon songs in a row (by Why?, Boom Bip & Doseone, and Subtle), the wonderfully exuberant Lonely, Dear track, and the hypnotic, breath-taking folk of Andrew Bird.

http://definiteform.muxtape.com
Electronic with a moody techno edge. Great picks with a perfectly edible mixtape length. Favorites: Detroit Escalator Company, Boards of Canada, September Collective.

http://robu.muxtape.com
Wildly eclectic. Favorites: The second untitled track, Minnie Riperton/Les Fleur (Flug re-edit).

http://dopeman.muxtape.com
Sample-based hip hop of the smoked out and heavy on atmospherics vibe. The whole muxtape is well sequenced and well chosen. Favorites: Handsome Boy Modeling School, Mos Def, Klaxons.

http://dirtyrobot.muxtape.com
Dance rock. Favorites: The Rapture.

James Brown - Night Train Dance

MUXTAPE~!
a new, easy way to share mp3s online in mixform, and sure to be taken down soon because of questionable legality. get it while it's hot: http://negativespace.muxtape.com/

mp3: Tortoise - Seneca

a personal classic. opens with a warm roar, like an orchestra warming up, except this orchestra is genre pioneering, avant everything band that dabbles in jazz, krautrock, and minimalism. usually that kind of mix inspires sort of a lazy reflection, but then these drums come in. a powerful, monster break, like nothing i've heard tortoise do before, pounds its way through a mind melting mix of simple melodies, handclaps, and sine waves.

DMX Interview in XXL Magazine
http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=20332

read as DMX displays astounding (and entertaining) ignorance/indifference towards everything from the presidential elections to new rappers.

excerpt:

Are you following the presidential race?
Not at all.

You’re not? You know there’s a Black guy running, Barack Obama and then there’s Hillary Clinton.
His name is Barack?!

Barack Obama, yeah.
Barack?!

Barack.
What the fuck is a Barack?! Barack Obama. Where he from, Africa?

Yeah, his dad is from Kenya.
Barack Obama?

Yeah.
What the fuck?! That ain’t no fuckin’ name, yo. That ain’t that nigga’s name. You can’t be serious. Barack Obama. Get the fuck outta here.

djChairboy - Liberation Drops Vol. 1 - Find Your Spirit
http://djchairboy.selfsustainingsages.com

what it sounds like: really lush, really melodic, many layered electronic music. this is true of all the tracks, and often, there are female vocals and often, the female vocals are lyricless. all of this is operating a generally propulsive tempo. genres would be house and probably trance (not of the cheesy sort).

why it is good: overproduced, highly melodic music can often be cheesy and cloying. see most of trance, or any adult contemporary artist. djchairboy, however, has a great ear for production. the layers in these tracks often have distinctive purpose, making it so that the songs are alive with reverb and interweaving of elements, and not drowned in mush or hazy narcotic like.

listening to such lush music with so many beautiful layers the effect of the mix is often elation, rapture, or drawn-out bliss. it is difficult to describe because temporality is not commonly associated with bliss - but it is an extended bliss. it is a beautiful moment that is stretched out like a plateau, so in effect you are experiencing the same moment over and over. a temporary forever of elation. (production tricks lending to this effect that show up on several different songs are a 1) constant retriggering of samples and 2) rhythmic gating of longer sounds)

another interesting thing about the mix is the prominence of female voices. what it shows is enthrallment with the female, the feminine, and maybe the feminine is associated with beauty to djchairboy, so that in fact beauty is feminine.

also interesting are the inclusion of older tracks such as the ones by FSOL. of course they are beautiful and classic, but why they're interesting to me is that with this mix he is presenting a singular unified vision of music. it's not just a collection of the latest and greatest songs. this is his ideal of music, this is what he thinks good music should be: often complex, highly melodic, soulful and bliss reaching electronic music. luckily for me, that happens to be one of my definitions for good music too.

(full disclosure: i have known djchairboy for many years and one of our common interests has always been music)

mp3: Beirut - A Sunday Smile

it was hard for me to pick a single song from the album to represent beirut. i am not sure even if this does. nonetheless, it is a grand statement of epic trembling voices and swelling folk instrumentation. it is rare when i hear such unapologetic grandeur done uniquely in indie music.

it is an other worldly sound, and with my limited reference points, i am reminded of the brass sections of neutral milk hotel, the folk music collage of jeff mangum's (of nmh) orange twin field works, and the accordions and strings of the amelie soundtrack. looking at allmusic and wikipedia, i am not too far off.

mp3: Clark - Gaskarth/Cyrk Dedication (Tape)

this is a curious track on an EP that is marketed as a dancefloor-friendly release, because there's nothing danceable about it, even though it's the best track. it's all gentle chugging percussion, industrial wheezing here and there, and thin melodic figures. there are no hooks or anthems; nothing easy to catch your mind on to. there's no spectacle. it sort of goes somewhere, but it doesn't, really. it just kind of floats there in space.

a major part of what i find attractive about electronic music i find in this song. gaskarth evokes a druggy feeling of propulsion, like when you're in the car and you're looking through the window down at the road lines flying by, but because of the speed the lines aren't flying by but stationary and floating. quivering white stripes in asphalt. you're going somewhere and it sort of doesn't look like it. it's an illusion, but you're ok with it because it's beautiful.

Great passage from Simon Reynolds in Generation Ecstasy on the differences between techno and traditional western music:

Sampladelic dance music also confounds standard notions about creativity and authorship in pop music. Not only is the romantic figure of the creator displaced by the less glamorous curator (the DJ-turned-producer), but the lines between art and craft, inspiration and technique, are blurred. Once, it was possible to distinguish between music and its production, between the song and the recording tricks with which it’s embellished. But with dance tracks, the music is the production. Increasingly, the figure of the producer blurs with the engineer, traditionally regarded as a mere technician who facilitates the sonic ideas and aspirations of band and producer. In most dance music, though, it’s the timbre and penetration of a bass tone, the sensuous feel of a sample texture, the gait of a drum loop, that’s the real hook, not the sequence of notes that constitutes “the melody.”

The problems that rock critics have with dance music are reminiscent of the hostile incomprehension with which highbrow cineastes greet certain sorts of genre movie like science fiction and horror. They vainly search these movies for what they valorize: acting, sparkling dialogue, character development, a non-corny plot, and meaning (insight into the human condition, social resonance). Ironically, these are values that pertain more to literary or theatrical drama than to the cinematic per se.

But these elements of narrative and character are present in genre movies as a mere formality, a structural framework for the purely cinematic: the retinal intensities of uftraviolent action, special effects, and, in sci-fi movies, futuristic mise-en-scène and decor. Here, the true filmic poets are set designers like H. R. Giger (Alien) and effects engineers like Douglas Trumbull (2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters, Blade Runner). With their emphasis on the sheerly spectacular and sensational, science-fiction and horror flicks simply are his prose-poem evocations of cyberspace as a techno-sublime, not the hackneyed dialogue.

If techno can be thought of in this way — the track as a framework for the display of special effects and processing — what, then, constitutes the ‘sub- lime” in techno? The answer is sound in itself. “If I can't create a sound that I like, I find it very hard to create a song,” Kevin Saunderson told Music Technology magazine in 1988. “I get inspired by a good sound... it gives me a feeling for a rhythm or a melody. The sound’s the most important thing.” In most music, timbre and “chromatics” are the medium, the pigment as it were, through which the important thing — the melody, the emotional meaning — is expressed. in techno, melody is merely an Implement or ruse for the displaying of texture/timbre/sound matter. This is why most rave music shuns complicated melody lines in favor of rifts, vamps, and ostinatos (short motifs repeated persistently at the same pitch throughout the composition). In the ultraminimalist “tech-house” of the Basic Channel and Chain Reaction labels, simple riffs serve to twist and crinkle the sound fabric in order to best show off its properties; what you thrill to is the scintillating play of “light” as it creases and folds, crumples and kinks.

Basic Channel and Chain Reaction tracks have a curious quality: listening to them is sublime, but afterward it’s hard to retain anything but the faintest flavor of the experience. Bar the odd bass line, there’s nothing you can hum to yourself. This is because the tracks are all percussion and timbre, the two elements of music that are hardest to remember. Gracyk points out that our memory of chromatics (timbre/texture in music, color in painting) fades faster than our memory of pitch and line. Similarly, timbre and space cannot be notated on a score. Yet it’s these ineffable, untranscribable elements in music that are the most intensely pleasurable.

Timbre, rhythm, space: these elements in music are all related to sensuously overwhelming immediacy. They are the now-intensive elements in rock and in techno. Rock began the work that techno completed: accentuating rhythm, elevating timbre (distortion, effects, grain of the voice), opening up dub space. Structurally, rock and techno both fit Andrew Chester’s notion of in tensional music (complexity achieved through modulation and inflection of simple melodic units, as in African music), as opposed to the extensional structures of Western classical music (theme and variations, crisis and resolution).

Techno and house create a subtly different form of heightened immediacy than African music — a sort of future-now. (This is an effect of the music’s reliance on the vamp — originally a brief introductory passage repeated sever& times before a solo or verse in order to whip up anticipation, but in techno sometimes making up the whole body of the track). Timbre-saturated, repetitive but tilted always toward the next now, techno is an immediacy machine, stretching time into a continuous present. Which is where the drug-technology interface comes into play. Not just because techno works well with substances like MOMA, marijuana, LSD, speed, etc., all of which amplify the sensory intensity of the present moment. But because the music itself drugs the listenet, looping consciousness then derailing it, stranding it In a nowhere/nowhen, where there is only sensation, “where now lasts longer.”

2007
the awesome:
animal collective - strawberry jam
battles - mirrored
justice - +
mia - kala
matthew dear - deserter single
optimo - walkabout
modeselektor - happy birthday
burial - untrue
venetian snares - sabbath dubs ep
the first half of devin the dude - waitin to inhale

the very good:
yeah yeah yeahs - is is ep
grizzly bear - friend ep
panda bear - person pitch
stars of the lid - and their refinement of the decline
the field - from here we go sublime
dan deacon - spiderman of the rings
the tuss - rushup edge
caribou - andorra

it was a good year for electronic music, oh yes it was

Electronix

mp3: Amon Tobin - Bloodstone
mp3: Amon Tobin - Esthers

A welcome return for Amon to more organic sounds and expansive compositions rather than his increasingly dense music of recent.

mp3: Duster - Travelogue

Post-rock. This one needs volume. I don't really know how to describe it, except that it sounds like time traveling backwards.

mp3: Gangpol Und Mit - Notre Vie N'est Pas Simple.Vous Ne Devenez Pas Jeune

All the old IDM tricks you've heard before, but he uses them in such a fun way it's pretty much irresistibly good.

mp3: Isolee - Face B

Isolee employs a malfunctioning bassline to wreck you into some sort of hypno-sleep where you forget that anything else but that bassline ever existed.

mp3: Remarc & Lewi - Ricky

Old school jungle. Even today, the Amen break shows why it will always be vital.

mp3: High Contrast - Return Of Forever (Klute Remix)

Klute has something I think few other DNB producers possess - an ear for that kind of chromatic, shifting tone in good reflective/melancholy melodies. Those horns just kill me.

mp3: Matthew Dear - Deserter EP

It took me a while to decide if I liked the original mix or Four Tet's mix better. The Four Tet mix is almost the obvious choice - it's like listening to a bright spray of color fountaining over and over again. It's a very pretty listen. But then I listen to the original mix, and I hear something a lot more subtle - a weariness that pulsates and synths that strain as the melody plops down like light rain. Overall, it's a better fit for the reflective tone of his voice, and the better song.

mp3: Vitalic - Poney Part 1

- this is what house music does best: to somehow be simultaneously crushing and hypnotic; devastating and mesmerizing; visceral and dreamlike.

- with this song i realize i really enjoy hyper distorted melodies drowned in both volume and texture.

Another Beautiful Passage by John Cage

When a composer feels a responsibility to make, rather than accept, he eliminates from the area of possibility all those events that do not suggest the at that point in time vogue of profundity. For he takes himself seriously, wishes to be considered great, and he thereby diminishes his love and increases his fear and concern about what people will think. There are many serious problems confronting such an individual. He must do it better, more impressively, more beautifully, etc. than anybody else. And what, precisely, does this, this beautiful profound object, this masterpiece, have to do with Life? It has this to do with Life: we are separate from it. Now we see it and now we don't. When we see it we feel better, and when we are away from it, we don't feel so good. Life seems shabby and chaotic, disordered, ugly in contrast.

[…]

The important question is what is it that is not just beautiful but also ugly, not just good, but also evil, not just true, but also an illusion.

[…]

Someone may object that the sounds that happened were not interesting. Let him. Next time he hears the piece, it will be different, perhaps less interesting, perhaps suddenly exciting. Perhaps disastrous. A disaster for whom? For him, not [the composer]. And life the same: always different, sometimes exciting, sometimes boring, sometimes gently pleasing and so on; and what other important questions are there? Than that we live and how to do it in a state of accord with Life.

- John Cage

Palindromes

This is a movie I've been wanting to see since before it came out, but I haven't really had a chance to. I've always passed this DVD at the video store. The cover would always catch my eye - it's a cartoonish illustration of a large black girl walking in the woods. As someone who's into design of any sort, I wondered, "Why a cartoon?" It's not particularly beautiful, or captivating, or even that well-rendered.

After watching the movie, the illustration makes sense. All of the characters in the movie are cartoonish. Exaggerated, extreme, and in most cases hysterical, the characters act out people types from real life. This is what makes the movie confounding. The whole time I'm watching the movie I'm thinking - what is he trying to say? Gross exaggerations are usually not without purpose.

The funny thing is - he presents everyone as a cartoon, yet he also manages to portray the humanity in the midst of their absurdity. It's a mindblowing feat that he manages to do over and over in every movie of his that I've seen. I really want to say it's on the level of genius. Who else manages so easily and so regularly to place his characters in that precarious position between empathy and ridicule?

There is abortion, pedophilia, and rape in this movie. There are characters on every side of every issue, but even in the end you still don't know where Todd Solondz stands. Who is he for? What does he want us to take away?

A monologue from the characters towards the end of the movie - and one that is presumably Todd's point of view - may provide a clue. The character believes no one changes. We may believe we do, but we enter the same as we leave. We are the same person as 10 as we are 50. There is no choice, it's all genes and randomness. We are all stuck in situations beyond our control. And maybe that's what Todd's philosophy in art is. He shows us the absurdity of human life. It affects everyone, and therefore everyone in his films comes from this same exaggeration of humanity. Maybe he is not for or against abortion. Maybe he just wants to show how ridiculous it can be, on both sides, and how there's not really one stance that can or should be taken. If there's no political stance taken, then what's left but mere human observation? He is saying with his characters - this is who we are. We are all ridiculous and absurd, yet we are all human. We act from our past, we make mistakes, we live on, yet despite all of that, we don't change. That we all do this, regardless of what extreme stance we take on issues, is what makes us human.

This is a powerful film. I don't know if I can fully believe the cynicism, but Solondz's message is potent regardless. I was provoked, and my mind engaged. (This movie is definitely not for everybody).

MP3: N. Larson - Aviva Pastoral

Mogwai (from Mr. Beast)
1 MP3: Glasgow Mega-Snake
2 MP3: Friend of the Night

I'm a bit late to the gravy train of this climaxinghugesound sort of post-rock but it doesn't surprise me that I like it at all. If anything, I am surprised by how familiar it sounds. Almost easy listening for the avant garde set - familiar structures and sonic details, but instantly rewarding. Glasgow Mega-Snake is a huge, crushing track that I play loud as fuck in my car while other drivers think about how obnoxious I am. Friend of the Night is slower, but more gorgeous in its stride. If you share any of my musical tastes at all, you will love both of these songs.

Great Interview with Maynard of Tool

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/55757

Some choice excerpts:

AVC: Do you feel out of touch with your audience?

MJK: For the most part, I have no idea who those people are—especially when we're traveling through Europe. And it's not all our fault; it's a whole series of events. [You play] heavy music, and your record company, which has never owned an album anything like what you're doing, immediately markets you to the obvious stinky kid with the dreadlocks and the B.O. and the urine on his shoes because he's been sleeping in his own filth in a festival in the middle of the rain. They basically market right to that guy. And then you realize the only people showing up to your shows are those primates—these weird, cretin people… Then, let's say you're at a coffee shop, and you've got a friend sitting next to you, and you've been reading some Noam Chomsky, or you're reading The Onion, and you look over and see a bunch of kids [who] look like they could be made of cheese, because there are flies everywhere. And you go, "Hey, you want to go where they're going?" and everybody goes, "Fuck no." And they're wearing Tool shirts. Why would you want to go there? Why would anybody other than those kids wanna go see Tool if that's our representative in that area?

AVC: Given how little press you do, fans mostly just have these weird, disconnected snapshots of you: Maynard choking a fan; Maynard onstage in kabuki drag; Maynard performing as an evangelical preacher. Is the real Maynard somewhere between all these? You can break out the incense again if you want…

MJK: I'm just going to get in the lotus position for this one—got a little New Age crystal enema going here… Mmm. [Laughs.] But it's all slices—I mean, who the fuck is Christian Bale, really? Does it matter? I think in order for us to be entertainers—and let's face it: We're entertainers; we're not philosophers in any way—we're just basically clowns. That's what we are. So you dress up like a clown, and it makes it easier to be a clown. It allows you to express yourself freely, to step out of your own body and just have fun with the character. Hopefully, somebody gets something out of it.

"Here we are. Let us say Yes to our presence together in Chaos." - John Cage

mp3: Autechre - Acroyear

This is one of my favorite songs ever. The track starts off with a skittering, untrackable beat with only a threadbare melody to guide us through. It's chaotic and schizoid, but that melody somehow is just enough to tie things together. Somewhere in the madness is a logic, even if buried. Another melodic theme arises, as thin as the first. They bob and weave through the chaos, as it gets more intense, then, as it crystallizes into something recognizable. A mess becomes a pattern. The themes have led us. Nirvana?

1/30 Addendum: I think I was being a bit of a coward with this description. What I was getting at and didn't come out and say is that the way these songs are constructed, it's as if Autechre are presenting a life philosophy (without lyrics, nonetheless). Life is messy and fucking chaotic and there's shit flying everywhere, and is there really any constant in your life other than yourself (the melody - the human aspect in a world or song that seems inhuman) except the melody and you are also changing, so what does that leave us with except the recognition that there's beauty in change, in people, in melody, in rhythm (that never stopping propulsion that allows us to see change), in chaos, in pattern.

MP3: Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End

off key, amateur chords strumming in the dark
a weird little man in the distance trying to tell me how it is
and oddly enough, it makes sense

moved to: http://duonginjapan.blogspot.com/