Category Archives: music

music, philosophy

>Repetition

2 Comments

>I’m a huge fan of repetitive, monotonous, minimalistic music, be it rap, noise, doom, shoegazer, kraut, black metal, experimental, ambient, classical, instrumental… I guess it’s the bewitching trancelike state it may put you in. I can experience total relaxation listening to the most vicious noise, which might seem odd to most human beings, but the intensity and power of something truly monotonous should never be underestimated.

Something funny happened this summer. I was going home after work and had probably had a terrible day since I was exhausted beyond comprehension. As soon as I got on the bus I drifted into darkness while listening to Om‘s absolutely stunning Pilgrimage album. Sure, I know this one is repetitive as fuck, but I remember kind of waking up from my slumber thinking ”How insane are these guys? They’ve been playing exactly the same riff for ten minutes now, no variation whatsoever! What the fuck?!” … And so I looked at my mp3-player and realized I had accidentally pressed the ”AB Repeat” button and the player was repeating only two seconds of the whole song in a goddamn perfect loop, and it had been going for ten or fifteen minutes just playing the same two seconds over and over and over again… Wow.
When I pressed the play button the magic disappeared.
I came to think of the famous horror monologue in one of my top ten movies of all time, Apocalypse Now (ignore the Redux version!).

And then I realized — like I was shot…like I was shot with a diamond…a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, “My God, the genius of that, the genius, the will to do that.” Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.

Watch Marlon Brando, in the role of Colonel Kurtz, improvise horror:

I’ve been trying several times to find that perfect loop again, but have not succeeded. It’s never as pure and complete as that day on the bus. Maybe I’ll find it on Thursday as I’m going to Gothenburg to watch Om perform live at Nefertiti. Or maybe tomorrow when I’ll listen to Mogwai at Cirkus in Stockholm. Or maybe tonight when listening to Loop… Within monotony the possibilities are endless.

On another note: Sleep (who split up in 1998 which resulted in two of the members forming Om) will perform the album Holy Mountain as well as selections from Dopesmoker and more at All Tomorrow’s Parties next year. It’ll be two world exclusive performances that will not be repeated.
Even repetition must come to an end.

Now here is Om.

music, philosophy, politics, quotes

>Chomsky on demoralized societies

Leave a comment

>

Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power pp. 397-398

The vestiges of an integrated, socially cohesive, functioning society, with some kind of solidarity and continuity to it, have just been destroyed here. It’s hard to imagine a better way to demoralize people than to have them watch T.V. for seven hours a day – but that’s pretty much what people have been reduced to by now.
In fact, all of these things really illustrate the difference between completely demoralized societies like ours and societies that are still hanging together, like in a lot of the Third World. I mean, in absolute terms the Mayan Indians in Chiapas, Mexico [who organized the Zapatista rebellion in 1994], are much poorer than the people in South Central Los Angeles, or in Michigan or Montana – much poorer. But they have a civil society that hasn’t been totally eliminated the way the working-class culture we used to have in the United States was. Chiapas is one of the most impoverished areas of the Hemisphere, but because there’s still a lively, vibrant society there, with a cultural tradition of freedom and social organization, the Mayan Indian peasants were able to respond in a highly constructive way – they organized the Chiapas rebellion, they have programs and positions, they have public support, it’s been going somewhere. South Central Los Angeles, on the other hand, was just a riot: it was the reaction of completely demoralized, devastated, poor working-class population, with nothing at all to bring it together. All the people could do there was mindless lashing out, just go steal from the stores. The only effect of that is, we’ll build more jails.
[…]
See, there’s an experiment going on. The experiment is: can you marginalize a large part of the population, regard them as superfluous because they’re not helping you make those dazzling profits – and can you set up a world in which production is carried out by the most oppressed people, with the fewest rights, in the most flexible labor markets, for the happiness of the rich people of the world?
[…]
Can you have an economy where everything works like that – production by the most impoverished and exploited, for the richest and most privileged, internationally? And with large parts of the general population just marginalized because they don’t contribute to the system – in Colombia, murdered, in New York, locked up in prison. Can you do that? Well, nobody knows the answer to that question. You ask, could it lead to a civil war? It definitely could, it could lead to uprisings, revolts.

Isn’t that pretty much what happened in France in 2005 and 2007?
Here’s what the French duo Justice has to say about it, this is STRESS (boycotted by several TV-stations):

music

>Music that matters: The Fleshquartet

Leave a comment

>

EDIT: Some good-hearted soul decided to share the Love Go album.

The Fleshquartet, or Fläskkvartetten (they switch between names now and then), got me interested in classical music and experimental stuff way back in 1987. I watched the Swedish TV show Daily Live, where their weird mix of classical music, modern rock and experimental madness made a huge impression on me. Their collaboration partners include the amazing Freddie Wadling, Stina Nordenstam, Morgan Ågren, Robyn, the great poet Bruno K. Öijer, Västerås Sinfonietta and many others. Browsing through my record collection I find that the band that I own most records with is actually The Fleshquartet. How interesting! And people think I only listen to black metal and Public Enemy…

I’ve never liked their embarrassing rap elements, though (or even worse, their rap metal elements…). Every track where Tim Wolde (MC Tim!) or Zak ”Clawfinger” Tell contribute really suck. In my opinion, they are at their best either when they freak out or when they ease down. The traditional rock songs are understandably rather boring. It’s almost as if they made these tunes to sell more records or something. Too bad, because they’ve created much more interesting stuff compared to that mainstream crap. Swedish Television has aired the concert with Västerås Sinfonietta on some rare occasions, and I think I’ve watched it a hundred times by now. It’s pure magick. I’ll try to make it available on the net in the future.
In my opinion, their best effort thus far is the Love Go album, released in 2000, to be found here. It mainly consists of modern classical music, sounds almost like a film score, and it’s jawdroppingly beautiful. Check it! Also go get Freddie Wadling’s amazing album A Soft-hearted Killer Collection if you want the best of his Fleshquartet songs.

The Fleshquartet – Lave (from the Love Go album)

The Fleshquartet featuring Freddie Wadling – 7th Day

Fläskkvartetten featuring Morgan Ågren – Off Punk

Fläskkvartetten featuring Bruno K. Öijer – En gång blommade trädet

The Fleshquartet featuring Stina Nordenstam & Freddie Wadling – Walk

music

>Female blues singers – The vocal ghosts

1 Comment

>

I’ve never been a fan of blues music. I like the stories that surround the genre, and I like that distinct bad sound quality of really old blues tracks, but when thinking of blues I think of wining men repeating themselves over and over again… And you know people who say all reggae sounds the same? That’s what blues is like to me. It all sounds the same.
But this weekend I passed that treshold of ignorance and realized it’s not like that at all. I’m still no big fan of blues, though. I own one single record and that’s it. No mpthrees, no movies, no books, nothing but that cd I bought this weekend. 24 tracks all sung by female blues singers. Yep, that’s right, female blues singers from way back in the 1920’s. I hardly even knew they existed, to tell you the truth.
Because things were quite different 90 years ago, especially on the gender role front. Women’s rights were a total joke and racism and discrimination was the normal state of the day; especially in the music business, and, I guess, especially in the blues business. Imagine being a black woman singing the blues then… What did people think about their stuff back then? How were they marketed to the public, if at all? How many copies were made? How many were sold? How are people able to find these ultrarare, superobscure recordings? There must be some mad stories to tell here.
However, many of these artists only recorded one song and for the most part there’s no information whatsoever to be found about them. Still most of these tracks are filled with so much emotion. Seems like many of them worked at carnivals, touring the vaudeville circuit. Some accompanied silent films. Still, there must be stories to tell. There are stories everywhere.

I found it strangely mesmerising listening to these old vocal ghosts (especially right before falling asleep at night). These women are wining and crying about just the same things that the men usually wine about, but from a woman’s perspective of course. In other words, they’re just as miserable as the men (Oops!). The title alone says it all: Oh, run into me, but don’t hurt me! A craving for sex, lust and feelings, ”between crudeness and despair” as stated in the liner notes.

Now you’re layin’ up in my bed, between my two white sheets
I can’t see and smell nothin’, but your doggone feet
And I’m thru, tryin’ to make a man of you
And if you can’t bring a job don’t you look for your daily stew

I worked hard from Monday until late Saturday night
And you’re a dirty mistreater, you ain’t treatin’ me right
And I’m thru, cookin’ your stew and beans
And you’re a dirty pot hound, dirty as any man I’ve seen
Lucille Bogan, Pot Hound Blues (1929)

Did some google work and found that the Document label has released 14 CD’s that includes the complete output of obscure classic female blues singers from the 1920s/early ’30s. Well, the one I got is enough for now, but if I get hooked I guess this wiki article will keep me busy for a while. Always exploring, too much is never enough.
You may listen to samples of the songs at the Allmusic site.