Erik Satie

I've been getting into ambient music lately, which in the modern context is becoming a slightly ambiguous genre label. I've been trying to shift from modern incarnations, however, and focus on the genre's roots, which basically means I've been getting more into Brian Eno's ambient work. Eno was a part of Roxy Music, leaving them in the early 70's to produce a series of excellent, ahead-of-the-curve, electronically influenced pop records. However, during the 70's he also started going into an unexpected direction that came to be known as his ambient period, and, because it had never truly been "done before", consequently the advent of ambient music itself. This period was most fully realized with the release of Ambient 1: Music For Airports, an album consisting entirely of largely non-melodic piano music over a background hum. He accompanied the release with an essay on ambient music theory, and in it he cites a French classical composer named Erik Satie as an influence.

Erik Satie was a pianist producing work in the late 19th century and through the early 20th, until his death in 1924. During that time he fashioned a revolutionary idea of "simplicity in the extreme," which is pretty self-explanatory, as a new method of piano composition. Perhaps the best realization of this idea comes in his piece Trois Gymnopedies, a short three section piece of sparse piano music. Described by Satie as a piece that was meant to set the tone for an activity but never draw attention to itself, it basically is the first ambient piece ever composed, and it was composed in 1888.

Anyway, I recently was able to grab a huge box-set of Satie's work, titled Trois Gymnopedies & Other Piano Works, released in 1999. Trois Gymnopedies itself is just great. I made a post a while ago about music to study to, and this is just an extension of that idea, if not the basis for all the music I reccomended. Really cool stuff for being so old. You can download the piece below.

Download Trois Gymnopedies

2006, Part Five

Loose Fur - Born Again In the USA

Well, gosh darnit if Jim O'Rourke isn't awesome. And, about a week ago now, Steve Villa and I saw Jeff Tweedy, Wilco frontman, solo in concert, reaffirming to me that he is also awesome. It therefore seems entirely logical (to me) that combining the two would produce amazing results, and it has, here in their second side-project outing under the name "Loose Fur."

Producer luminary O'Rourke met Tweedy and other Loose Fur member, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, when he was called in to add "direction" to Wilco's now-classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Much of what you hear on the final result of that weird, production-heavy album is partially a result of O'Rourke's finely tuned ear. O'Rourke himself has proved to be not only a genius in more abstract composition, but also has a sizeable cult-following through his solo pop outings. Some were a little dissapointed, then, when Loose Fur's first album in 2003 was not some sort of surpassing of both O'Rourke and Tweedy's solo ambitions, but rather was just a good record. You must remember, though, that this, in the truest sense of the word, is a side-project for both men; an excuse to have fun and bounce ideas off each other, not make the everlasting statement of their careers. Born Again In the USA is a continuation of that idea. Equal parts americana, pop, and experimentation, it just sounds really, really solid. O'Rourke has always been at his best producing organic instruments, and they are leveled and layered so well in the final mix that it's just an honor and a pleasure. An undeniably fun, great record; nothing groundbreaking, no, but certainly worth a listen, especially if you're already a fan of either Wilco or O'Rourke. It doesn't need any more ornate of a description than that.

Download "Stupid As the Sun"

(download instructions: right-click "Copy Link Location" in Firefox, or right-click "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer, paste onto URL/address bar and change "hzzp" to "http", press enter, follow instructions for download. If you can't figure out how to download and listen to these files leave a comment for this entry and your Instant Messager name or e-mail address, and I will contact you. Keep in mind that if you are looking at an old entry, YouSendIt links like these expire after a given amount of time or a large amount of downloads, so the files may no longer be available. Sorry.)

2006, Part Four

Drop the Lime - Shot Shot Hearts EP

I namedropped Drop the Lime in the little blurb I wrote on Terminal 11's Illegal Nervous Habits for my Top 10 of 2005, and I'm worried I gave the impression that what Luca Venezia is doing under that moniker is not worth listening to. That's not the case, at all. I talked of him to indicate how, in my opinion, Mike Castaneda (Terminal 11) seems to have a more visionary approach to lassoing in all of these disparate IDM and drill'n'bass pastiches that have been going on lately - in comparison to someone like Venezia, at least. However, that might have been a little unfair, because Venezia is a little more unapologetically drill'n'bass/experimental, and his IDM-ness doesn't really register prominently anywhere in his music. What he is doing is fucking awesome and captivating, though, and completely worth paying attention to. This 8 song EP, a follow-up to last year's excellent This Means Forever LP, is short but still consistent. The same super-high BPM underlie Venezia's distorted yelps. His vocals are almost punk-ish; very abrasive, really ballsy, and lyrically super irreverent. It's refreshing, too, to hear Venezia slowing down on a few tracks toward the end of the EP, showing that his strength doesn't just lie in "BPM oblivion", but also real sample mastery. Really awesome stuff. Again, if you like this, be sure to check out his LP from last year, also.

Download "Cold Hearts"

(download instructions: right-click "Copy Link Location" in Firefox, or right-click "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer, paste onto URL/address bar and change "hzzp" to "http", press enter, follow instructions for download. If you can't figure out how to download and listen to these files leave a comment for this entry and your Instant Messager name or e-mail address, and I will contact you. Keep in mind that if you are looking at an old entry, YouSendIt links like these expire after a given amount of time or a large amount of downloads, so the files may no longer be available. Sorry.)

2006, Part Three

Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra Of Bubbles (2006)

Ellen Allien released an incredible piece of cross-genre dance music in 2003 with Berlinette. With really, really wonderful layered and sampled vocals over fairly inspired beats, it was simply one of the most refreshing things to be released out of any electronic sub-genre. It was therefore a fairly large (although, in my opinion, overblown) dissapointment when her followup, last year's Thrills, consisted only of throw-away house tracks with little in the way of adventurousness. In my opinion, she's completely redeemed herself with this, her first collaboration with German IDM luminary Apparat. There are more vocals, yes, but even the dance tracks are infused with more unsettling sample-based life than Ellen Allien's solo attempts, thanks to Apparat's "intelligent" command over looping and sampling. If you need something to bob your head to, look for it.

Download "Way Out"

(download instructions: right-click "Copy Link Location" in Firefox, or right-click "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer, paste onto URL/address bar and change "hzzp" to "http", press enter, follow instructions for download. If you can't figure out how to download and listen to these files leave a comment for this entry and your Instant Messager name or e-mail address, and I will contact you. Keep in mind that if you are looking at an old entry, YouSendIt links like these expire after a given amount of time or a large amount of downloads, so the files may no longer be available. Sorry.)

2006, Part Two

Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies (2006)

Dan Bejar is one of 3 notable singers and songwriters in The New Pornographers, and his really fey, distinctive voice has arguably been one of their best assets, if not an underused one. Bejar is one of the looser components of the group, however (The Pornographers are really A.C. Newman's baby), and spends most of his time touring or recording for his solo project, Destroyer. This is the third album of Destroyer material in the past five years, and, comparitively, is the sound of Bejar finally feeling a little more comfortable in his own skin. 2004's Your Blues was a great record, don't get it me wrong, but the instrumentation and arrangements hinted that Bejar was holding something back. The title track and opener for Destroyer's Rubies, a nearly 9-minute long epic, is therefore suprising. It's fucking great, though, too, with typically veiled lyrical allegories, and so many sections that it could easily be 2 or 3 seperate songs. The rest of the record is also just as solid; again much more deliberate-sounding than previous efforts. It really is one of the best things to be coming out this year, and will probably only serve to deify Dan Bejar more than he already has been in the underground music community.

Download the title track "Rubies"

(download instructions: right-click "Copy Link Location" in Firefox, or right-click "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer, paste onto URL/address bar and change "hzzp" to "http", press enter, follow instructions for download. If you can't figure out how to download and listen to these files leave a comment for this entry and your Instant Messager name or e-mail address, and I will contact you. Keep in mind that if you are looking at an old entry, YouSendIt links like these expire after a given amount of time or a large amount of downloads, so the files may no longer be available. Sorry.)

2006, Part One

This'll be the first in a multiple-part series of posts I'll do all year, assuming I don't lose interest in doing this blog before then. I'll post random 2006 releases/leaks I've been enjoying, you can follow through with buying or, uh, "buying" the whole album, or ignoring me entirely. Basically, though, checking out the artists or the new albums by the artists you already know = goal of posts.

The Knife - Silent Shout (2006)

This has been my first album-length orientation to these guys. I first heard of them through the strange video for the equally strange MIDI-synth song, "You Take My Breath Away," and, well, they certainly are strange, but wonderfully so. The work of Swedish brother-sister duo Olof Dreijer and Karen Dreijer, The Knife sort of sound, at times, like they originated inside a boombox, other times like they belong gyrating at some sweaty rave, sequencing on horse tranquilizers. Layered vocals and really cool electronic experimentation make for a surprisingly catchy record, one which the strange delivery only lends, perhaps, some credibility to. A lot of people are attending to Tiga's Sexor over this, but I think The Knife are far, far more interesting.

Anyway, you can watch the really creepy Chris Cunningham-like video for the title track at the link below, or follow the second link to download one of the better tracks, "We Share Our Mother's Health":

Watch "Silent Shout" Video

Download "We Share Our Mother's Health"

(download instructions: right-click "Copy Link Location" in Firefox, or right-click "Copy Shortcut" in Internet Explorer, paste onto URL/address bar and change "hzzp" to "http", press enter, follow instructions for download. If you can't figure out how to download and listen to these files leave a comment for this entry and your Instant Messager name or e-mail address, and I will contact you. Keep in mind that if you are looking at an old entry, YouSendIt links like these expire after a given amount of time or a large amount of downloads, so the files may no longer be available. Sorry.)

Derived or coming from Montreal

After thoroughly polishing Of Montreal mastermind Kevin Barnes' knob in my Top 25 of 2005, I reasoned I should keep everybody informed about what he's up to. A new album is in the future, although the tentative title and release date being thrown around escape me (I never said I was professional). However, a small EP release has just seen the light of day in the past week, entitled Deflated Chime, Foals Slightly Flower Sybilline Responses (I know), and includes two new tracks (the other two being "Wraith Pinned To the Mist and Other Games" and "Disconnect the Dots", from the last two LP releases). Upon first listen, it sounds like Barnes isn't about to give up his creative freedom, which, in my opinion, is a good thing, as they're pretty production-heavy. Anyway, here they are for questionably legal download:

Of Montreal - Psychotic Feeling

Of Montreal - Noir Blues To Tinnatus

Coachella 2006, etc.

So for the past two years, some variation of people I know and I have gone to this big, weird, utopia-like experience called the Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival. It's a good time, filled with weird moving baby effigies, mechanical monstrosities that destroy said baby effigies, tents, sweaty hipsters, ovepriced water, and some of the best line-ups of music to ever exist in festival form. Indeed, some of the best live music performances I've ever seen have been there, and I imagine that it will only remain that way.

This year the line-up seems a little less inspiring to some, but, really, everybody's a little spoiled from previous years. Personally, they would have to bill a 90 year old Alzheimer's patient forgetting and then remembering stories of his own incontenence again and again for me to not go; the experience is that amazing. Here's who's going to play:

Saturday, April 29th:

Depeche Mode
Daft Punk
Franz Ferdinand
Sigur Ros
Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley
Common
Atmosphere
Carl Cox
My Morning Jacket
TV On the Radio
Ladytron
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Tosca
Cat Power
Animal Collective
HARD-Fi
Derrick Carter
Devendra Banhart
She Wants Revenge
The Walkmen
The Juan Maclean
Imogen Heap
Audio Bullys
Lady Sovereign
Deerhoof
The Duke Spirit
Eagles Of Death Metal
Lyrics Born
Matt Costa
The New Amsterdams
The Zutons
Platinum Pied Pipers
White Rose Movement
Chris Liberator
Colette
Joey Beltram
Hybrid
Living Things
Wolfmother
The Like
Nine Black Alps
Celebration
The Section Quartet
Shy FX & T Power
Infusion

Sunday, April 30th:
Tool
Massive Attack
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Bloc Party
Paul Oakenfold
Scissor Sisters
Matisyahu
James Blunt
Sleater-Kinney
Mogwai
Coheed and Cambria
Wolf Parade
Coldcut
Phoenix
Digable Planets
Amadou & Mariam
Little Louie Vega
Mylo (DJ Set)
Seu Jorge
Gnarls Barkley
The Go! Team
Kasakade
Metric
The Editors
Art Brut
Dungen
The Dears
Jamie Lidell
The Magic Numbers
Los Amigos Invisibles
Jazzanova
stellastarr*
Micahel Mayer
Murs ft. 9th Wonder
Mates Of state
Gilles Peterson
Infadels
Gabriel & Dresden
The Subways
Minus The Bear
OneRepublic
Be Your Own Pet
Youth Group
Giant Drag
Kristina Sky
The Octopus Project
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

See you there. If you'd like to go with Steve Villa (my friend) or I, you probably can, or if you need advice about where to stay/what to do from some "veterans", also let me know. We avoid the hassle of getting a hotel room within 50 miles of the festival grounds and/or dealing with the jam-packed festival grounds camping by camping near that beautiful visual reminder of human dominance (or lack thereof) over nature, the Salton Sea, and would be more than happy to see somebody we knew there/share a campsite.