” 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