I think one of the important evolutions is that we no longer feel compulsively the need to argue, or to justify things on a kind of rational level. We are much more willing to admit that certain things are completely instinctive and others are really intellectual. – Rem Koolhaas

” Revisiting 1997 ”

01. Mouse on Mars – Elli im Wunderland
Vulvaland (1994)
02. Underworld – Banstyle + Sappys Curry
Second Toughest in the Infants (Tvt, 1996)
03. Autechre – Slip
Amber (Tvt, 1995)
04. Dimitri from Paris – Attente Musicale
Sacre Bleau (1996)
05. Orbital – Easy Serv
Blue Album (Ato Records, 2004)
06. Edith Progue – 12 A.M.
Timeline (Mille Plateaux, 2007)
07. Peace Orchestra – The Man Part Two
Peace Orchestra (G-Stone Records, 1999)

note: Remember the late 90′s? It was the peak of popular electronic music in big label. Even Aphex Twin was signed by Warner to produce an abstract work like Druqs. Name like Authecre, Amon Tobim, The Orb was popping out on both side of atlantic, with UK leading the output. Powerful computer software was available for the first time to everybody with little money to start experimenting just like Brian Eno. Electronica moves beyond simple dubbing and LP sampling and into tweaking the actual soundwave digitally. Exciting time, if not somewhat obscure. Moka is building a giant decade size list, maybe I should make a little side list for electronica while she is yelling at me for not helping. :P heh. Anyway, here is a short electronica list from the 90′s. Without going too far into the crazy bleep land.

image: rmx

Photo: Mr. Lomo

Unrhymed, unrhytmical, the chatter goes:
Yet no one hear his own remarks as prose.
Beneath eac topic tunelessly discussed
The ground-bass is reciprocal mistrut.
The names in fashion shuttling to and fro
Yield, when deciphered, messages of woe.
You cannot read me like an open book.
I’m more myself than you will ever look.

Will no one listen to my little song?

A howl for recognition, shrill with fear,
Shakes the jam-packed apartment, but each ear
Is listening to its hearing,  so none hear.

- “At the Party” by W.H. Auden

1. The Golden Filter – Solid Gold
   Solid Gold (Dummy / 2009)
2. Luomo – Love You All
   Love You All (Huume / 2008)
3. Sebastien Tellier – Kilometer (Aeroplane Mix)
   Disco Balearica (Mixmag / 2009)
4. Kleerup – Longing For Lullabies (Joakim Remix)
   Longing For Lullabies (Postiva / 2009)
5. The Whitest Boy Alive – Inflantion
   Kitsuné Midnight ( Kitsuné / 2004)
6. Aeroplane – Caramellas
   Nu Balearica Mixed By Fred Deakin (Ministry of Sound / 2008)
7. David E. Sugar - Although You May Laugh
   Kitsuné Maison Compilation 6 (Kitsuné / 2008)
8. Yuno – California (Phonique Remix)
   California Ep (Thorn01 / 2007)

note: An after party selection.

See also: Post Michael Jackson House, It belongs to you and me & Casual conversation as collective nihilism
Have no idea what to do on your spare time? Try this.

” Descriptive Modern Mood. Iconography No.3. ”

01. Nina Nastasia – Superstar
Run to Ruin (Touch & Go Record. 2003)
02. Nirvana – Come As You Are
MTV Unplugged In New York (1994)
03. Buckethead – Whitewash
Colma (Higher Octave, 1998)
04. John McLaughlin – Arjen’s Bag
Extrapolation (1969)
05. John McLaughlin – Pete The Poet
Extrapolation (1969)
06. Patricia Barber – Company
Modern Cool (1998)
07. John Abercrombie – Red and Orange
Timeless (1974)
08. Digable Planets – Dog It
Blowout Comb (1994)
09. Eric B & Rakim – Don’t Sweat The Technique
Don’t Sweat The Technique (1992)
10. Cypress Hill – Real Estate
Cypress Hill (1991)
11. Danilo Perez – Hot Bean Strut
PanaMonk (1996)
12. 4 Corners – Suavecito
Mi Vida Loca (1994)

Generational Angst and Modern Mood.

In the abstract, every new generation is pretty much like the one that came before it: struggling Oedipally with its forebears, embracing the Zeitgeist, and otherwise reactivating stock patterns, meanwhile being fawned upon by marketers. If there is anything unique about today’s young, it may be a precocious alertness to how such rhetorical typecasting and economic targeting work. This generation even usurps the process, by innumerable online means. Gone are the days, in the nineteen-eighties and nineties, when deconstruction-smitten academics and artists toiled to share their discovery that media and institutions are—get ready—manipulative. Viscerally sophisticated young artists are more interested in playing with materials and contexts that are purely gratuitous, or, at least, too anarchic or too desultory to be marshalled for or against any commercial interest or political tendency. It’s a timely shift, given that, this year, sales of almost everything, very much including art, are down, and that, last year, theoretical politics were obliterated by the real thing. The only sorting system for artists that matters—according to individual quality and influence—will prevail, in time, over fashion. Not that there’s anything wrong with fashion. Novelty keeps us spry, and it cleans up after itself by being gone in a minute. – Their Generation. 4/20/2009. The New Yorker.

note: Little note on finding uniqueness. There is something about MdM bigger meta project of avoiding major label’s output that often pit between expressing and communicating a set of list. And the whole deal often degenerates into simple knee jerk affair of avoiding brand names. This list is an attempt to explore and find uniqueness from a set of well known albums and work. Is it possible to create completely new “sound” and mood from top charts? Dreadful as it is, this list is a meta list of common technique that MdM use to create certain uniqueness. Texture play, rhythm transition, modal change, genre historical connection, instrument layering, and relationship of snipped of melodic pattern can be used to connect one song to another as method to create more coherent list as a whole. Making the song stay crisp next to each other inside a workable theme is big point. On top of whatever quirky idea happens to hit the day. So yes, this list is a bit excessive, more like listening to manual of MdM list making technique instead of usual entry. But, even flipping a phonebook can be entertaining right? It’s all in the strut. :D cheers.

see also: Iconograpy No.1, Iconograpy No.2.

image: Untitled. 1975. Jan Groover (American, born 1943) Chromogenic color prints, each 9 1/16 x 6″ (23 x 15.3 cm). Acquired through the generosity of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder. © 2009 Jan Groover

Crouched Man, DHSS Waiting Room, Bristol. 1984. Paul Graham (British, born 1956) Chromogenic color print, 26 3/4 x 34 5/8″ (68 x 88.1 cm). Acquired through the generosity of Shirley C. Burden. © 2009 Paul Graham

siempre, siempre: jardin de mi agonia,
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre,
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca,
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.
-Gacela del Amor Imprevisto, Federico Garcia Lorca.

” Flamenco Sketches ”

01. Miles Davis – Flamenco Sketches
Kind Of Blue (50th Anniversary Collector’s Edition) (2008)
02. Manuel el de Angustias & Eduardo el de la Malena – Soleares de Utrera
Archivo del Cante Flamenco CD 2 (1969)
03. Sabicas – Aires primitivos (Siguiriya)
Sabicas Con las voces de Camarón, Manolo Soto (1990)
04. Miriam Méndez – Concierto En Sol M, 1er Mov. (Bulería)
Bach Por Flamenco (2005)
05. Sabicas - Fantasia Inca
Flamenco On Fire (Legacy, 1999)
06. Manolito el de María & Fernández el Negro – Bulerías de Cádiz
Archivo del Cante Flamenco CD 3 (1969)

note: A list about one song, Miriam Mendez’es composition of flamenco and Bach. I’ve been listening to it for 3 days now. The utterly modern piano approach combined with an old traditional style gives such tension, I keep looking for the secret that makes it works. The dynamic of the song simply captures the tension of two distant styles being in one body.

see also: Starbucks Blues, Three Lists for Soulful Night
image: cordel

“Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The term was coined around the time of an incident in a Prague Castle in the year of 1618. The word comes from the Latin de (from; out of) and fenestra (window or opening). Although defenestrations can be fatal due to the height of the window through which a person is thrown, or lacerations from broken glass, the act of defenestration need not carry the intent or result of death.” – wiki

1. Mulatu Astatke & His Ethiopian Quintet – I Faram Gami I Faram (‘Afro Latin Soul’, Worthy Records, 1966)
2. Tangoterje – New Morning Reworked (g.a.m.m. records, 2006)
3. The Col Nolan Syndicate – Buckingham Palace (7″ Votary Records)
4. Os Tremendos – Nome Do Jogo (Adventures in Paradise, 2007 [re-issue])
5. Rabbit Rumba – Caramelos (‘Achilifunk: Gypsy Soul 1969-1979′, Lovemonk records)
6. Banda Los Hijos De La Nina Luz – Dejala Corre (7″ Soundway records, 2008)
7. Soil & Pimp Sessions – A.I.E. (Tugg edit) (Brownswood recordings, 2007)

This playlist is a sort of non-fatal defenestration of ‘genre’ – blending jazz, latin, afrobeat and a little weirdness thrown in for good measure. All of the tracks throw degrees of conventionality out the window. Tangoterje’s track is a tongue in cheek cover of Kitty Winter Gypsy Nova -  a German fusion group. ‘Buckingham Palace’ is a track from my home town, Melbourne – white men grooving out. These blends of sounds, continents and genres verge on mania… Why not leap out the window every now and then? Movement is key. To quote Douglas Adams, “It’s not the fall that kills you…It’s the sudden stop…”

pic: Yves Klein Leap into the Void, 1961

p.s. to any motel readers living in Melbourne, I run a monthly night called Outfoxed at georgeLane… come down on Friday 28th August and say hello – i’ll be the guy playing records…