motel de moka

Your earlier records had a lot of tension …
Makino: Angry. And now it’s sad. [Laughs]
Amedeo: It’s when the anger doesn’t come out, there’s sadness.
Makino: Tension builds up too much, and you think you’re sad, but you’re actually really angry. I was told that once.
Amedeo: It’s a hard question to answer, because we can never think of writing a happy song or writing a poppy song. We attempt to.
Makino: We can’t afford to censor anything that comes out. Anything that comes out, we hang onto it.
Amedeo: We’ve tried to say, “Let’s write a song in a major key,” and we’ve managed a couple of things but it doesn’t really happen.
Makino: Things started to look very different to me. I started to look at a butterfly and saw it as something miserable. I felt the burden of being a butterfly. - Blonde Redhead, Magnet Magazine interview.

What do you make of the revival of instrumental music? It hasn’t been since the Sixties that instrumental music was so popular.

“There is certainly a changing climate, but, honestly, the main reason for us was that none of us was interested in singing. I can see that people have been bombarded with vocal rock music over the last decades and that, at least some of them, are craving for something different. The rock idol is still the dominant image, but there exists an audience which is looking for something different. People who are interested in us for the most part are either people who are interested in underground bands (and there really is a lot of underground rock music where people are trying to do things that are experimental in so many different forms) or people who are interested in jazz music and hip hop and whatever, where a lot of new ideas are emerging. Of course, we don’t fit in the stereotypes of the typical mainstream rock and roll audience.” - Tortoise, interview with Scaruffi for TNT release.

“Blonde Redhead - 23”

01. Blonde Redhead - Missile
(In An Expression of the Inexpressible, 1998)
02. Tortoise - TNT
(TNT, 1998)
03. Blonde Redhead - 23
(23, 2007)
04. Chris Brokaw - King Ferdinand Tournament
(Red Cities, 2002)
05. Blonde Redhead - Futurism 2
(Live, Louisville, KY 07.21.99)
06. Pere Ubu - Ubu Dance Party
(Dub Housing, 1978)
07. Chiyoko Yoshida - monsters
(Cinematic, 2001)
08. Lustmord - Dream of the Dead Name
(Paradise Disowned, 1984)

note: A night post-rock list with Blonde Redhead. They are about to release new album 23. I like their previous Misery is butterfly album, with strange mix of IDM and art rock. With 23, Blonde Redhead is returning to their earlier style but with much bigger sound and less angular and the ever present element of Sonic Youth echos deep inside their music. Overall it’s an interesting album worth checking.

see also: Blonde Redhead, Tortoise. Post-rock. Also, if you like this type of texture see sxsw 2007 (a.New Gen.)

Image: BR, evinsky