” Iconographic study No.1 ”

01. Amy Winehouse – Love Is A Losing Game (Original Demo)
Back To Black (2006)
02. Amy Winehouse – Some Unholy War
Back To Black (2006)
03. Nina Simone – Lilac Wine
Wild Is The Wind (1964)
04. Isaac Hayes – By The Time I get To Phoenix
Hot Buttered Soul (1969)
05. Billie Holiday – I Didn’t Know What Time It Was
Songs for Distingue Lovers (1957)

note: One of magician biggest trick at the end of the night is to tell how the trick is done. The best one never loses a thing afterward, instead it makes the audience wants even more and wonder what comes next. Maybe toying with tricks at home themselves. I often time think a lot of my post for MdM is a collection of little tricks and illusions trying to conjure untold story from the ether. So I thought I post a series of standard MdM methods, revealing how the tricks are done. Somewhat an instruction to pass on so more people can create better magics.

The most mysterious one is to not mention the center. Out of necessity perhaps, MdM cannot post a lot of popular songs that forms standard repertoire. Trying to convey the unmentionable centers in turns necessitate the introduction and understanding of musical forms to recreate the center without mentioning it. The mysterious centers exist but never told. This list is the unmentionable center if it is told directly. Pop soul with a touch of gospel, the very source of most modern top songs. At near ballad tempo, at spoken pace, story, narrative, lyrics forms the strongest. Like smoke in thick warm night, it lingers. The best masterpieces are done in slower pace simply because it is the hardest to pull. Voice character emerges. Recording tricks are near impossible because our hearing is so in tune for conversation, so voicest are at the truest in relation to lyrics. The best artist can tell the grandest story without screaming and with the simplest instrumentation and ornament. One feels it. Next to their peers, songs form stories, like chatter in a pleasant meet. The lingering pleasant feeling of knowing a story as told by artists is the big idea. It’s the soul of our trick.

see also: Cupid’s Chokehold
image: harold.lloyd (insert witty here)

Oh love. Timelining through Cupid, St. Valentine, Aphrodite — more so her son Hermaphrodite, Cyrano de Bergerac, van Gogh,  John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Ike and Tina, the list. goes. on. For love to be so romanticized, it is quite a trying ordeal. On this most noted of all days dedicated to love, I’ve decided to venture down the road far less desired, but far more traveled. This path of great resistance may be long and arduous, but it makes for quite the soundtrack. It’s baneful. It’s adulterous at times. It’s abasing. It’s abstract and all-consuming. It’s fleeting. But, inevitably, it’s love. So for what it’s worth: enjoi.

Yael Naïm – Toxic
(Yael Naïm/ 2008)
Lily Allen - Womanizer
(Unreleased/ 2009)
Madcon - Beggin’
(So Dark the Con of Man/ 2008)
Mark Ronson – Valerie ft. Amy Winehouse
(Version/ 2007)
Cake – Love You Madly
(Comfort Eagle/ 2001)
Jill Scott ft. Rare Essence – It’s Love
(Who Is Jill Scott?: Words and Sounds, Vol. 1/ 2001)

Sidenote: A quick and dirty list lingering on the fringe of lunacy and true love.

photo credit: flowers and fireworks, ryan mcginley

Photo: Swamibu

1. Damian Lazarus – Moment
   Moment (Get Physical / 2009)
2. Popnoname – The Movement
   Surrounded by Weather (Italic / 2008)
3. Milosh – Awful Game (Dj Troublemaker remix)
   Awful Game – Troublemaker Remix (2009)
4. Junior Boys – Dull to Pause
   Begone Dull Care (Domino / 2009)
5. Yuksek – I could never be a dancer
   Away from the Sea (Barclay / 2009)

An electro-pop sampler of some of the music that’s been sweeping me away this past few days… an office chart of my top 5 tracks of the week, so to speak…. I’ll admit the idea of posting weekly charts has been on my mind for a while but I still find it somehow self-indulgent and egotistical… perhaps if I could convince the other staff members to send me their weekly picks, we could have actual MdM charts. That could be fun. What do you think, my dear readers? Are you up for it?

Note: Inspiration for the title’s post comes of course from Spiritualized’s opus from 1997. Fans of the band will immediatly recognize the shameless rip-off of the opening chords from Spiritualized’s title track in Damian Lazarus’ Moment.
At first I have to admit being annoyed by the almost exact duplicate, fortunately the song redeems itself later on as it transforms into a delightful piece of schizoid pop which is hard not to like. This one pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the playlist, so you’ll be knowing right from the start if this is your sort of trip. Hope you enjoy!

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” Late Night Conversation ”

01. John Zorn – Zeraim
Music Romance, Vol. 2: Taboo & Exile (Tzadik, 1999)
02. Sacred System – Galactic Zone
Sacred System, Chapter One: Book of Entrance (Roir, 1996)
03. Naked City – The Bitter And The Sweet
Radio (Avant, 1993)
04. Eivind Aarset – Between Signal & Noise
Light Extracts (2001)
05. Venetian Snares – Dismantling Five Years
Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits 1972 – 2006 (Planet Mu, 2002)
06. Roni Size & Reprazent – Trust Me
New Forms (1997)
07. Mouse on Mars – Schnick Schnack Melimade
Autoditacker (Too Pure, 1997)
08. Miles Davis – Miles Davis / He Loved Him Madly
Panthalassa – The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974 (1998)

note: The opposite of previous post. This deep night list, instead of telling story comes without lyrics. Maybe it will become a conversation piece, or simply fill the air while conversing. It wants to hear stories. Thematically, this is my first attempt to figure out what to post next this year, collecting my favorite artists and type of texture. Bill Laswell, Zorn’s film work, Venetian snares and various electronica. Plus big preposition from DM Stith : better Four Tet than Four Tet? I thought this is interesting to look around trying to figure out that question. So, another very deep night list.

see also: Throughout Times
image: The Mothers. 1921 by Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945)

Often the hearts of men and women are stirred, as likewise they are soothed in their sorrows more by example than by words. And therefore, because I too I have known some consolation from speech had with one who was a witness thereof, am I now minded to write of the sufferings which have sprung out of my misfortunes, for the eyes of one who, though absent, is of himself ever a consoler. This I do so that, in comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought, or at the most but of small account, and so shall you come to bear them more easily. -Historia Calamitatum

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” Feels like Wind on the Hill ”

01. Antony & The Johnsons – One Dove
The Crying Light (Secretly Canadian, 2009)
02. Lisa Hannigan – Sea song
Sea sew (ATO Records, 2008)
03. Joan As Police Woman – Holiday
To Survive (Cheap Lullaby, 2008)
04. Vetiver – Another Reason To Go
Tight Knit (Sub Pop, 2009)
05. Trapeze – Goin Home (wiki)
Hot Wire (One Way Records Inc, 1974)
06. Ida Maria – Keep Me Warm
Fortress Round My Heart (Phantom Sound & Vision, 2008)
07. The Phantom Band – Throwing bones
Checkmate Savage (Chemikal Underground, 2009)

note: A survey of recent indie release tracks. But with mix between rock, Irish folks texture and funk, blending a little with previous posts. I pick slower tempo with sweet melodies, hence the story feel of the post. I like the recollection quality, like small room evening conversation in pop flavor. (and new MdM habit of focusing on high fidelity headphone tracks.) Mostly about love and daily life. Enjoy.

image: Michael Rodriguez. (American, born 1964). 0303. Gouache, watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper, 16 x 22 3/4″ (40.6 x 57.8 cm). The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift. © 2009 Michael Rodriguez