Adventures of a Shoegaze Cellist
Listen here:
[audio:http://www.vitalweekly.net/676.mp3]
Tracklisting:
tracklist for Vital Weekly 676:
0000 Tune
0014 Stephen Vitiello & Molly Berg – Geese
0311 Pillowdiver
0607 Cisfinitum – Hermine
0906 EGK – Interval
1206 Horchata – Satellite
1504 Oo-Ray – If We Aren’t Blind
1803 Octante
2102 Bas van Huizen
2401 Genetic Transmission – Spiral
2702 Wasteland Jazz Unit
3004 Tune
A review of an interesting sounding concert based on feedback in the NY Times.
Just saw “Let the Right One In” yesterday night. Any synopsis would make it sound trite or creepy: basically a swedish vampire flick about the love between a 12 year old boy and a 12-year old (in appearance, at least) vampire. However, it is terrifically atmospheric, fusing long external shots of winter night with dazzling bits of sometimes funny ultraviolence, and has a keen understanding for the loneliness of 12-year-old outcasts. It’s worth watching for the final phantasmagoric scene that’s filmed underwater, lending the scene a dreamy, unworldly feel.
If you are a fan of horror, you definitely owe it to yourself to see this one.
Also watched this weekend: “Milk“, the inspirational tale of the rise and untimely death of Harvey Milk, which was triumphant, quietly amazing, and filled with hope. Just the thing to watch while we wait for Obama to be sworn into office.
I do not recommend: “Synecdoche, NY”. Basically, a frustrating waste of time. Mr. Kaufman, please start taking prozac. Life may start sucking less.
For the past 6 months or so, I’ve been devouring books on music. All kinds – from books on practicing (“The Art of Practicing“, “The Inner Game of Music“), Music History (“The Rest is Noise”), Music Appreciation and Enjoyment (Bernstein’s “The Joy of Music“), Composition (Messiaen’s “The Technique of My Musical Language“), but I have never found a book that is as eminently practical and eye opening as the book I’m reading now. In my opinion, this is one of the few books nearly all serious musicians should own.
Ron Gorow’s “Hearing and Writing Music” is a book that attempts to give the amateur musician many of the tools of the trade: the ability to hear chord changes, transcribe music, compose, arrange and orchestrate music, and even the basis for improvising.
The basis for these skills is knowledge of the musical intervals and the tuning systems. Essentially, Gorow believes that by training the ear to recognize the qualities of the different musical intervals, and being able to use one’s “mental recorder” to slow down the music, one can easily gain these essential musical skills. Before you start rolling your eyes and think this book is esoteric; it isn’t. He clearly articulates the qualities of the intervals and relates them to music. For example, he writes of the fourth:
Everyone hears the lower tone of a fifth as the root. However, a fourth may be perceived with the root above, as it appears in the harmonic series, or with the root on the bottom, independent of harmonic context. This ambiguity has caused theorists to disagree for centuries over the function of the fourth. However, we need not be concerned with the role of the fourth. Our goal is to recognize the sound of the interval in any situation.
Building on the skill to recognize intervals, Gorow moves on to recognizing scales and modes. He believes that by learning the scales and modes and chords, the right brain is much more free to do the more creative parts of music:
While your right brain is composing, improvising, intepreting, your left brain is busy with the nuts and bolts of music – intervallic relationships which are transformed into notes. This transformation – the process of hearing and writing (or performing) depends on your ability to manipulate music.
This view is clearly the opposite of what many musicians think: The more theory you know, the more limited you are. Not so – by learning these nuts and bolts of music, you free the mind to use these unconsciously and increase the limitations of your music. I think this is refreshing to think that knowledge can only help you, not hurt you as so many of us think in music.
From here, Gorow moves on to transcription and understanding musical phrases – by understanding the intervals and their relationships underlying the chords and scales, Gorow believes you can really own the music. He champions learning transcription for many reasons, one of the most compelling which is to be able to “notate your own songs, and well as transcribe songs that intrigue you to discover the the secrets that attracted you’. Music becomes something that you can manipulate and own and vary to your own liking.
The book ends with discussions on how to go from “perception” to “notation” – communicating your musical ideas clearly to others, whether it is for arranging, or orchestrating, as well as discussions on preparing music for publishing and copyright.
Anyhow, this book has gotten me excited to learn and relearn the fundamentals of music, and I think it can fill in the gaps for many musicians who’d like to learn more about theory and the underpinnings of music.
Aidan Baker (of Nadja fame) is a very prolific musician, and his doom-laden drones can be absolutely emotionally devastating. Imagine my surprise and pleasure when it was announced that the fruits of his collaboration with shoegazer Tim Hecker were going to be released on Alien 8 recordings.
Fantasma Parastasie is an epic journey of 8 tracks that wed’s Baker’s expansive recording style to Hecker’s distinctive musical structures, and is wonderfully successful. Standout tracks are “auditory spirits”, where softly chiming guitar gives way to tick-tock rhythms settling the reader into a fugue state, and the mini epic “Gallery of the Invisible Woman,” which pulses with stately bass organ underneath Baker’s layers of crusty distortion.
One thing I really like about Alien 8 is the ability to preview full tracks before you buy…so definitely check it out.
Also on the playlist: Jesus and Mary Chain’s monumental box set of singles and b-sides The Power of Negative Thinking.
Just came back from watching Pedro Almodovar’s film Volver. Fantastic in every sense – the plot, the acting, the overall sense of mystery to the movie. “Volver” means “To Return” in Spanish and I can’t think of another word that describes the themes of this movie better. Penelope Cruz plays a mother of a teenaged daughter who protects her when her father attempts to molest her. We learn so much about her character in the course of the movie – why she is so fiercely protective of her daughter, why she is estranged from her parents, and what secrets the family has kept from each other and that has been tearing them apart. The movie is about literally returning to where you’re from, returning what you’ve avoided, and resolving the mysteries of your life and family before it’s too late.
Each theme of this movie is echoed in the story several times in parallel plot lines, almost to a ludicrous extent, but Almodovar wraps his events in such pure emotional truth that you accept these events as the uncertainty and chaos that life is made of. The tragic events in this movie – murder, incest, murder, and incest – all occur off screen, and Almodovar charts the impact of these events in a way that is not tragic, but instead rejoices in the resiliency of the human soul. Penelope Cruz anchors this movie with her incredible acting – you feel so much for her character when tears well in her eyes – and as her life hasn’t been easy up to this point, the tears come frequently.
It all ends like life does, some things resolved, some things not resolved, but with such an emotional tenderness about the strength of family that you can see why people live, why people return, why people go on. Definitely a must-see from my point of view.
Just watched the documentary “Touch the Sound” which is about deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Just amazing. Glennie is a bewitching personality, to say the least – dynamic and mystical about her approach to sound. Everything to her is a potential source for inspiration – whether it be cracking ice or the sounds of traffic. In terms of found sound, this movie is a masterpiece – whether recording construction or the noise of a pachinko parlor, it gets you in Glennie’s frame of mind. She talks about her ability to perceive sound as “opening herself up to the world” – training with a teacher allowed her to distinguish tones by feeling where they affected her body. Several performances show her performing on whatever is handy nearby – in a Tokyo cafe, she scrounges bottles, cans, glasses, and plates for a quick improvisation session.
At the heart of the film are recording sessions between her and avant-garde guitarist Fred Frith, recorded in an empty warehouse in Cologne. Many of their performances are hypnotic and enchanting, as when Frith wedges sticks underneath his strings and strikes them, causing the strings to twang and oscillate with the sticks.
I don’t think there is someone who can make marimbas sound as good as she does – she seems to bring the sound of the marimba out from a deep spooky place – she understands the resonances of the instrument so totally.
Just saw Michel Gondry’s “The Science of Sleep” this weekend. I think it’s one of the most personal things he’s ever done. I bet a lot of it draws directly from his own personal dreams – unfiltered, exposed, for all the world to see. I won’t try and rehash the plot – other than it’s an exploration between the borders between reality and dreams. The main character comes off as a little creepy because he’s so willing to subvert reality with his own dreams, but I’m glad Gondry took the risk with making the character this way.
This movie is rickety and heartfelt in its special effects – its hero flies above a city made of cardboard tubes, complete with monorail. The stop motion animation is so lovingly done, such as the galloping toy horse, or the simulation of water using cellophane. These seem to be techniques that Gondry started playing with as a kid and returned to as an adult. I think its very homemadeness is a triumph, especially given the prevalence of bad CGI in this day and age.
Gondry to me is an inspiration – he manages to take concepts he thought of as a child and flesh them out into reality. He is one of those people who has never lost touch with his original sources of inspiration, much like Garcia Marquez (who claims that his inspiration all comes from childhood memories before he was 5). I definitely recommend it, warts and all.
My partner, Jim, suggested we watch this movie. I’m really glad we did. Mon Oncle is the Jacque Tati film that seems to capture everyone’s heart. It’s a fond view at the absurdity of modern living, Mon Oncle views technology for the viewpoint of someone who is used to the old ways. The Arpel’s house, a visual pun in itself, is a prime example of modernity gone wacky and wrong. Everything from the ridiculous fish fountain (that is only turned on for important company), to the ultramodern kitchen (which flips your steak for you), to the completely unlivable bedrooms, just makes me laugh. This movie has aged remarkably well, preserving a somewhat skeptical view of modern living.
Over the last few months, I still chuckle at this one. There are just too many little details that are just perfect and Tati must’ve agonized about. Playtime is certainly his masterpiece, but Mon Oncle is the one that I’m most fond of.
Edit: Here’s a clip from the film, but unfortunately it’s not one that shows the house: