Story Water by Gunhild Seim at Vossa Jazz 2012

Neil Gaiman, the famous writer, once told a story about his early teens when he’d decided he wanted to be a writer. Then he read Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. Now, he wanted to be a writer and the book he wanted to write, was Lord of the Rings. Only problem, of course, it was already written. To many, this obstacle would seem unsurmountable. To Gaiman, it was a minor challenge. He figured out, if he just held onto the book and then traveled into a parallel universe where Lord of the Rings was not written, he could publish it there in his own name. A brilliant solution, of course, to a rather delicate problem, I’d say.

What has all this to do with anything, not the least Story Water by Gunhild Seim at Vossa Jazz 2012? To begin with, I’m obviously at Vossa Jazz 2012, and yesterday I attended when Gunhild Seim and her group performed their piece called Story Water. The piece was commissioned for the festival, and the performance last night was, I presume, the debut. And it was great. Really jawdropping great. What struck me, when I sat there, was that if I was going to write a piece of music, I would want it to be Story Water. Now, all I need are some music-writing ambitions and a parallel universe where Story Water has yet to surface. (Great things always do.)

 

Artist Cloud

I tried to add an artist cloud to the side bar, but the image was too wide. I think the cloud looks so cool, I’m posting it here instead. It shows what artists I’ve scrobbled to last.fm for the last 3 months. The artist cloud is generated by a last.fm tool written by shoxrocks. Obviously, I have listened a lot to Susanne Sundfør recently, but I think the image will update itself, so unless I keep listening to Sundfør, this sentence does won’t make sense in the future. Over on my last.fm profile, there is an equally cool tag cloud which shows what type of music I’ve been listening to recently.

Vijay Iyer: A Scientific Musician

Perhaps it is about time to kick this old blog back to life. I will start with a post about Vijay Iyer. I came across an interview with him, of all places, in Nature (483, p. 157). Vijay Iyer is a jazz pianist who plays a kind of progressive jazz, very interesting stuff although not entirely my cup of tea. It is nice, but not very groovy. What is extraordinary about Iyer is that he has a scientific background which he applies to his music. He started out in physics, but took a PhD in music perception and cognition. In his dissertation, he studied the perception of rhythm. From the Nature-interview:

Why focus on rhythm?
At the primal level, music is rhythm first, the sound of bodies in synchronous action. That is why there is a pulse in music. Rhythm perception is an imagined movement in the motor centres of the brain. Our skill for coordinating our actions is the real foundation of music, and possibly of civilization.

I have listened to Iyer and his trio quite a bit the last couple of days. Rhythm, and the seeming lack thereof, is an important part of Iyer’s music. What he does with the rhythm on Mystic Brew is simply amazing. No doubt, he is a highly skilled musician. It is also fascinating how he applies scientific ideas to his music in a very direct way.

How do you use scientific ideas in your music?
Some composers might write a string quartet ‘about’ string theory, but that is just inspiration, it is not really discovery. I’m more of an experimentalist. There is an auditory illusion of a constantly ascending pitch, known as Shepard tones: the musical equivalent of M. C. Escher’s infinite staircase. As the pitch goes up, the distribution of harmonics shifts down, and your ear can’t find the place where it doubles back on itself. I used this illusion in a string quartet by asking the players to perform a synchronized glissando in parallel octaves and imposing a bell curve on their amplitudes. It worked. After that, I asked, can we do this with tempo? At the end of the title track on Historicity, there is a rhythm that constantly decelerates. On Accelerando, there is a piece giving the illusion of constant acceleration, of a tempo that flexes.

What is the future of music?
People walk around with headphones on, thinking of music as a solitary, personalized pursuit. But it has connected us by synchronizing our actions throughout human history. Because we are so engrossed in the technical aspects, it is easy for scientists, and even for musicians, to forget that the effects of music are primarily emotional. That is why people keep it in their lives.

The emotional side of music is what makes it interesting, and why mainstream, popular music seldom has much appeal to anyone with more than a superficial interest.

Neil Young on Reviews

I’m still(!) reading Shakey; on page 669 I found a great quote from Neil Young:

Fuck reviews. Reviews don’t really matter. You can’t believe ‘em when they fuckin’ praise you, and you can’t believe them when they criticize you. Because if I believe them now [after Harvest Moon, which got good reviews], that means I should’ve believed them the other times and we know that they’re wrong all the fuckin’ time.

Motorpsycho in Concert: 20th Anniversary Tour

Alright, I’m back in Norway and Bergen. On Saturday, I attended Motorpsycho’s concert at Verftet in Bergen. Motorpsycho is out on their 20th Anniversary Tour through Norway and Europe. For reasons unclear, I was totally unaware that MP played Bergen on Saturday. A good friend, however, got in touch to confirm I was going! Strike of luck.

It was a fantastic concert. The definite highpoint was the last encore ‘The Golden Core.’ MP hasn’t played the song in almost 10 years, I think (partial evidence from the MP setlist archive; they did play it the night before in Stavanger, however). I’ve seen Motorpsycho live a number of times through the years, and ‘The Golden Core’ was the first song on my list of songs I’d like to see them play. Other highlights were a dynamic ‘Greener,’ the old and dear ‘Taifun,’ and an incredible ‘Superstooge.’ Snah is just an amazing guitarist. The outro of ‘The Alchemyst’ and the audience-sung chorus on ‘You Lied’ also gave me the chills. It was a fantastic way to get back to Bergen, spending the day with the family and the night with a high-powered Motorpsycho!

Sun Ra’s Other Worlds

On a rare occasion a couple of nights ago, I took the bus home at a late hour. Sufficently late, taking the bus to my place includes a 20 mins walk from the bus stop. Walking through the night, under a clear sky (a rare occasion it was, indeed) I listened to Sun Ra’s magnificent Lanquidity. I’ve appreciated Lanquidity for a while, particularly the title track. The other night, however, I discovered a couple of new aspects of it.

First, I was struck by the power the contrast between the baritone & alto saxophones generates (uh, I’m no expert by the way, that may well be a tenor sax) on Twin Stars of Thence. I was soon in for more powerful effects.

Second, I could readily imagine someone listening to the last track, There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of), with its driving rythm section, layers of flutes, percussion and pianos which all waves in and out of the sound picture, and the repeated whispering message There are other worlds they have not told you of … wish to speak to you, particularly if under the influence of some substance, to start to communicate with themself (who else, I mean, seriously, who else) on some level, fulfilling the music. Sun Ra conjures an illusion of chaos, and the surprising outro serves as an intro to the ‘other worlds.’ When silence finally settles, a void opens, and an influenced, confused mind may fill it with whatever otherwordly stuff.

Keep an open mind. Go listen.

Les Paul Dead

Les Paul, the ‘father of the electric guitar’ and the man behind one of rock and roll’s most popular guitar, the Gibson Les Paul, has died. From the Rolling Stone:

Les Paul, one of the most revered guitarists in history and the father of the electric guitar, passed away last night, August 12th at the age of 94. Paul’s manager confirmed to Rolling Stone that cause of death was respiratory failure, and a statement from Gibson indicates Paul was suffering from severe pneumonia and died at a hospital in White Plains, New York.

Almost every professional guitar player in rock and roll seem to own a Les Paul. Neil Young has a really special one, called Old Black:

Cradled in a stand in front of the amps is the fuse for the dynamite, Young’s trademark ax – Old Black, a ’53 Gold Top Les Paul some knothead daubed with black paint eons ago. Old Black’s features include a Bigsby wang bar, which pulls strings and bends notes, and a Firebird pickup so sensitive you can talk through it. It’s a demonic instrument. “Old Black doesn’t sound like any other guitar,” said [Larry] Cragg [Young's guitar technician], shaking his head.

For Cragg, Old Black is a nightmare. Young won’t permit the ancient frets to be changed, likes his strings old and used, and the Bigsby causes the guitar to go out of tune constantly. “At sound check, everything will work great. Neil picks up the guitar, and for some reason that’s when things go wrong” [p. 8 in Shakey, Jimmy McDonough's Neil Young biography].

More about Old Black in McDonough’s Shakey:

Young came to [sit in on a gig with the Rockets, the earlier band of the members of Neil's legendary back up band Crazy Horse] armed with the weapons that have become crucial elements of his rock and roll sound: Old Black, a 1953 Gibson Les Paul, plugged into a 1959 Fender Deluxe. The guitar came from Jim Messina, who found the instrument’s monstrous sound uncontrollable. “Neil’s the kind of guy that if there’s an old scraggly dog walkin’ down the street, he’d see somethin’ in that dog and take it home. That’s kind of like the Les Paul – I liked the way it looked, but it was just terrible. It sounded like hell. Neil loved it,” said Messina.

Young bought the Deluxe for approximately fifty bucks in 1967. As Young told writer Jas Obrecht, he “took it home, plugged in this Gretsch guitar and immediately the entire room started to vibrate….I went, ‘Holy shit!’ I turned it halfway down before it stopped feeding back.” The Les Paul/Deluxe combo, which remains the cornerstone of his sound, would make its thunderous debut in Young’s music on his very first record with Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere [p. 298].

David Briggs on How to Make Records

In the Neil Young biography Shakey, written by Jimmy McDonough, there’s a long quote from David Briggs on how to make records, and a little bit about what he thought of Neil Young:

I can teach you everything I know in an hour. Everything. That’s how simple it is to make records. Nowadays, buddy, the technician is in control of the medium. They try to make out like it’s black magic, or flyin’ a spaceship. I can teach anybody on this planet how to fly the spaceship. If you look at the modern console, there’ll be thirty knobs – high frequency, low frequency, midfrequency, all notched in little tiny, tiny, teeny tiny degrees – and it’s all bullshit. All this stuff doesn’t matter, and you can’t be intimidated. You just ignore it – all of it.

I walk into studios with the biggest console known to mankind, and I ask for the schematic and say, “Can you patch from here to here and eliminate the ENTIRE board?” I just run it right into the tape machines. All the modern consoles, they’re all made by hacks, they’re not worth a shit, they sound terrible. None of it touches the old tube stuff – like the green board from Heider’s. It has two tone controls – high end, low end and a pan knob – and that’s it. I had great good fortune when I was a kid and started makin’ records. I made ‘em at Wally Heider’s, Gold Star, so all the people that taught me were Frank Dimidio, Dave Gold, Stan Ross, Dean Jensen – these guys were the geniuses of the music business, still are.

They taught me more about sound and how sound is made and the principles of doing it, and it’s unshakably correct what they said to me: You  get a great sound at the source. Put the correct mike in front of the source, get it to the tape the shortest possible route – that’s how you get a great sound. That’s how you do it. All other ways are work. The biggest moment of my life – the one I haven’t been able to get past every, really – is 1961, when I first got to L.A. I got invited to Radio Recorders to see Ray Charles, and I walk into the studio, and Ray’s playin’ all the piano parts with his left hand, reading a braille score with his right hand, singing the vocal live while a full orchestra played behind him. So I sat there and I watched. And I went, “This is how records are made. Put everybody in the fuckin’ room and off we go.” In those days everybody knew they had to go in, get their dick hard at the same time and deliver. And three hours later they walked out the fuckin’ door with a record in their pocket, man.

Of course, in those days they didn’t have eight- , sixteen- , twenty-four- , forty-eight- , sixty-four-track, ad nauseum, to fuck people up, and that is what fucked up the recording business and the musicians of today, by the way – fucked ‘em all up to where they’ll never be the same, in my opinion. People realized they could do their part…later. Play their part and fix it later. And with rock and roll, the more you think, the more you stink.

It’s very easy for people to forget what rock and roll really is. Look man, I’m forty-seven years old, and I grew up in Wyoming, and I stole cars and drove five hundred miles to watch Little Richard, and I wanna tell you somethin’ – when I saw this nigger come out in a gold suit, fuckin’ hair flyin’, and leap up onstage and come down on his piano bangin’ and goin’ fuckin’ nuts in Salt Lake City, I went, “Hey man, I wanna be like him. This is what I want.” Even today he’s a scary dude. He’s the real thing. Rock and roll is not sedate, not safe, has truly nothin’ to do with money or anything. It’s like wind, rain fire – it’s elemental. Fourteen-year-old kids, they don’t think, they feel. Rock and roll is fire, man, FIRE. It’s the attitude. It’s thumbing you nose at the world.

It’s a load. It’s such a load that it burns people out after a few years. Even the best of ‘em burn out. People get old – they forget what it’s like to be a kid, they’re responsible, they’re this and they’re that…. You can’t have it both ways. You’re a rock and roller. Or you’re not.

I wanna tell you something’: Neil’s never been insecure about anything in his fuckin’ life. First among equals is Neil Young, and it’s always been that way. When Neil’s got his ax in hand, it’s like the Hulk. His aura becomes solid – he becomes eight feet tall, six feet wide. The only guy other than John Lennon who can actually go from folk to country to full orchestra. The only guy. I think when it’s all written down, he will unquestionably stand in the top five that ever made rock and roll [pp. 263 – 264].

Motorpsycho’s New Record Out in August

My favourite band Motorpsycho celebrates 20 years as a band with the release of Child of the Future! Cross-post from g35 (the band’s old fan e-mail list):

From Rune Grammofon:

”Child Of The Future” consist of six trademark Motorpsycho high energy rockers recorded by Steve Albini in his Chicago studio and bearing the classic hallmarks of great riffs, that driving tractor bass and some truly inspired guitar work. The slightly Zeppelin-esque ”The Waiting Game” is more acoustic and recorded at home. Motorpsycho, and indeed Rune Grammofon, have always been fans of music dating back to the late 60s and the 70s, also when it comes to production values and presentation. It should not come as a shock to anyone, especially not to the fans, that they have chosen to release this album on vinyl only, at least for the time being. Seeing as it is an analogue recording engineered by Steve Albini it only felt natural to release it in the format that many still consider to be the ultimate sound carrier. This sentiment also goes for the possibilities of the cover format, something Kim Hiorthøy has taken advantage of when doing this sleeve. The main sleeve has two die-cuts and has print on the inside, there is a thick colour inner sleeve and there is an amazing 60×60 poster with colour print on both sides. And before we forget, the vinyl itself is 180g and glorious white. Simply a great package and a great way to celebrate 20 years as a band.

Tracklisting:
The Ozzylot (Hidden In A Girl)
Riding The Tiger
Whole Lotta Diana
Cornucopia (…Or Satan, Uh… Something)
Mr. Victim
The Waiting Game
Child Of The Future

http://www.runegrammofon.com/artists/motorpsycho/rlp-2088—motorpsycho_-child-of-the-future-_lp_

Gotta love those song track titles.

Cortez

Built to Spill’s version of the epic Neil Young masterpiece ‘Cortez the Killer’ is fantastic! It comes in two parts (only audio):

Ben Bernanke vs. Thurston Moore, or Macro vs. Noise: The Common Feature of Macroeconomics and Noiserock

As odd as it may seem, macroeconomics and noiserock have a common feature. It struck me today while listening to Sonic Youth. (Not that odd; neither me listening to Sonic Youth nor that it struck me that macroeconomics and noiserock have a common feature.)

A musician who uses noise cannot control every soundwave; compare the virtous pianist who’s in full control. Rather, the noise-musician controls a set of parameters that shapes the overall sound picture. The control may be direct or indirect and usually extends to full control over the level.

A macroeconomist, a central banker for example, can in a similar way not control every transaction in an economy. Rather, the macroeconomist controls a set of parameters that ideally shapes the overall structure and development of the economy. The control may be direct or indirect, but the economist does not directly control the size of the economy.

Both the musician and the economist tries to control a perceivable random process through parameters partly directly and partly indirectly under his control.

The big difference, of course, is the potential consequences of their skill and luck. (Some would maybe argue that central banking has little to do with skill, but that’s a different story.) The worst thing that happens when a noise-musician makes bad noise-music is that the audience may get a head ache; head ache is the last thing you worry about when it comes to bad macroeconomic policy.

PS: I could not decide on the best title of this post, so I threw in the kitchen sink; I apologize. Here’s an explanation for those bewildered: Ben Bernanke is the current chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve ; Sonic Youth is one of the best noise-rock bands out there (check it out), and it has Thurston Moore on guitar and noise.

Dungen + The Soundtrack of our Lives

Last night, I attended a double-concert at USF Verftet in Bergen with the two Swedish bands Dungen and The Soundtrack of my Life. Earlier, I’ve mentioned Dungen as my new favourite; I’ve been aware of Soundtrack for a while, but have never listened very much to them.

It was a great experience. Dungen did both old and new songs; I was naturally more familiar with the older ones and enjoyed them sligthly more. The guitarist did a lot of truly impressive guitarwork despite seemingly having problems with the equipment from time to time. What I missed was maybe a second guitarist that could make the sound picture more complete; particularly when Gustav (the front man) was not playing his el-piano. Soundtrack did an amazing set, combining both acoustic and intense, electric moments.  My personal highpoint was when they played a Nick Drake cover. It worked surprisingly well in an upbeat rock setting and demonstrated once again to me Nick Drake’s genius.

Below is an acoustic version of Dungen’s ’Det tar tid,’ performed in the narrow corridors of an old theatre; enjoy!

Hate hate?

I’ve been listening to Broken Social Scene’s self-titled album from 2005 lately. It’s a really great album; go listen! Inside the cover it says ‘We hate your hate.’ I’m sure Broken Social Scene has good intentions; what is good about hate? I cannot think of anything positive with hate and I’m convinced that even though I’m not particularly imaginative, hate is net negative. So, all it takes is some hate and a lot of people living after the ‘hate hate’ motto, and you quickly end up in a situation with a lot of hate. Hating hate generates more hate, more hate is not good. Broken Social Scene got it wrong.

Mogwai

Mogwai was thee band that opened my eyes (and my heart) to post-rock. Someone has described post-rock as ‘non-rock music played with rock instruments.’ That’s only half true, of course. Post-rock is played with rock instruments, but what does non-rock mean? Post-rock is certainly heavily influenced by rock, and many post-rock songs could easily be generally sorted under rock. Post-rock is a strange genre of rock music, by the way; I still haven’t heard a really bad post-rock album! One of my music-geek friends could not name a bad post-rock album either. I can think of two possible explanations. Either post-rock is such an easy genre that anyone can do it, or only the really good ones do it. Maybe it is a little bit of both. Certainly, a lot of intelligent, gifted musicians play post-rock. But what does it take to ‘fail’ in post-rock? Singing too much? I don’t know, and that may be a bad sign.

Anyway, the first Mogwai album I owned was Rock Action. I was sold immediately. I love every song on that record, and I play it way too seldom. I remember seeing Mogwai on the Øya Festival in Oslo, in 2003 I think it was. The concert was a weird experience, with technical problems throughout, a short nod to Turbonegro (the headliner the previous day), and thrashing of equipment which almost ended up in a fight between the keyboardist and one from the stage crew, but it was still great. I listened to Happy Songs for Happy People (such an ironic title) on the way home, I think I bought it at the festival, and remember being a little bit disapointed at first. The album grew on me, however. Now, I regard the opener ‘Hunted By a Freak’ one of their greatest efforts; a definition I measure other post-rock bands against.

Below is a beautifully animated movie for ‘Hunted By a Freak’ (from YouTube). It is sad and grotesque in an almost Gaimanesque (see second half of post; I would prefer Gaimanic, or even Gaimanian, but Google has spoken) way.

Gigonomics

An article somewhat related to my previous post was published on More Intelligent Life (http://www.moreintellignetlife.com/); Gigonomics: Now Rock Bands Must Sing for Their Supper. The article discusses how the music industry is changing due to failing record sales. From a situation where record sales was the main source of income for the artists and record companies, it is now the live music concept that is emerging as the big money-maker.

In those days, for up-and-coming bands, touring was a loss leader. However much the gigs fizzed with anarchic energy, in economic terms they were little more than a long marketing slog to sell records. Now the tables have turned. [...] The big money is [now] in live music, and the records help sell the tour, not the other way around.

First of all, I think touring still is mostly a marketing strategy for up-and-coming bands. As the article points out, however, todays up-and-coming bands must be just as much marketing geniuses as well as musicians to break through. For a live-music lover like me, the focus on the live experience sounds like good news. It does, however, mean that records will in the future have a different position and function than before, both for the artists and the fans. Even though I enjoy live music very much, most of the music I’m listening to is conventional albums released on CD, and I like it that way. As many people, I have a natural sceptisism towards change. A change towards less focus on releasing records and more focus on the live experience sounds a bit scary to me.

Live music is to me mostly about the music. My impression is that when the music industry wants to focus on the live experience, it is about everything else than the music; fireworks, video screens with live footage, t-shirts, VIP lounges, etc. I’ve been to a few big concerts lately (R.E.M and Neil Young, both in Bergen, are the most recent), and even though the fireworks and video shows were impressive, I would not list them among my top five live music experiences (sorry Neil). When it comes to my top live music experiences, it’s always all about the music!