A curmudgeon writes.
Duh. Nuh. Nuh nuh nuh. Dunna nunna nun nah nuh nah nah.
I am learning the shakuhachi.
That is probably a misrepresentation of the development of my ability to this point, however. Because really, even though I’ve owned a plastic shakuhachi – for there’s no point in owning a bamboo one, worth thousands, until I can play something worth a damn on a PVC, injection-moulded copy – for a couple of years now, only the most basic tones and articulations are within my reach.
Last Saturday evening I spent a little over an hour watching two percussion ensembles perform at Sydney’s City Recital Hall. It was the culmination of a couple of years of joint study and development between Sydney’s Synergy Percussion and Korea’s Noreum Machi. This show was the last of the tour, with the Korean trio set to fly out the next morning, so I was interested to see how the two would come together. Continue reading “Synergy Percussion and Noreum Machi: Earth Cry 15/8/2015”
Walking across the road from the chemist I caught a glimpse of myself in an upholsterer’s front window. I was wearing what’s pretty much my uniform these days: black jeans, long-sleeved shirt with a band shirt over the top. Today’s band is one I wear quite a bit – Einstürzende Neubauten. This particular shirt has an enormous eagle on it and red lettering, so it’s probably not surprising it gets a couple of worrying looks, given that it has a pretty political air about it.
Though the band does have a political side (1989’s Haus der Lüge‘s feature track is about the worthlessness of religion, working from the cornerstone of a house all the way up, ending in God’s suicide by firearm) it’s not really what I think of when I consider them. Instead, I think of Blixa Bargeld’s toenails. Continue reading “EN: on destruction and rebirth (and toenails)”
I like the idea of process music. I like it a lot. Something about the idea appeals to me. I suppose it’s the fact that I’ve always wanted to be an artist, but have lacked a sense of mastery over any form of tools. I don’t know how to paint, how to draw, how to sculpt. I only barely know how to create music, and even then I am not able to write down or record what I do, so it tends to be lost to the ether. Continue reading “It’s all a game (piece)”
I am sitting in a room listening to piano music. It is the music of Charles-Valentin Alkan, a man who – perhaps with a nod to musical history hyperbole – apparently died trapped beneath a bookcase. He was an older man, so I assume an bookcase hitting you would be a terrible thing. I wouldn’t like to be hit with a bookcase now, I guess, and I’m a lot younger than seventysomething.
It’s a musical death that has parallels with Jean-Baptiste Lully. I don’t mean that they died from the same thing – I mean more that their deaths are funny. I mean, who dies from gangrene resulting from a forceful beating of time? (So forceful that his staff pierced his shoe,and his foot, delivering an infection that would end him, because he decided he wouldn’t have an amputation because it would hinder his ability to dance. Being dead does too, guy.) It’s such a laughable death – laughable until it happens to you, I imagine – that when in Paris with my then-partner, we made an effort to snap a photo with his likeness in the Opéra Garnier. Continue reading “Considering my classical history”
Last night I trekked over to Carriageworks to catch Open Frame, part of ambient/experimental label Room40’s 15th birthday celebrations. Earlier in the day I’d been replaying a little Half-Life 2 and walking from the car park to the venue I was reminded exactly how much the place looks like Ravenholm. You know, where we don’t go any more, largely because of terrifying headcrabs.
Anyway, I had to dodge a number of blinged-up people heading to a Crown do two bays over – I’m not certain there’s been that many spike heels there in a while – but finally found myself in a large room full of like-minded (and statistically speaking, most likely bearded) sound enthusiasts. A screen was set up in the front of the room, and a variety of chairs and benches were already pretty filled, so it was a great turnout. I found a seat, clutching the one-eye-coloured glasses I’d been given at the door. A bunch of speakers stood around the room – I later discovered this was an eight-channel setup.
Room40‘s Lawrence English opened with a brief chat about the evening, his hat rendering him distinctly much more vengeful preacher than his recorded work would have you believe. Continue reading “Open Frame: some thoughts”
One of my favourite bands has finally set up their Bandcamp page. Yes, this means if you’ve never heard of Oxbow (where have you been?) you can sample some of their music (and buy it shortly afterwards) over here. They’re prepping a new album which will almost certainly destroy the universe upon release, so until then check out this one:
Get on it.
It’s a new year, and for me that’s as good a time as any to look at what I did last year. More specifically, to look at my consumption of books, music, games and stuff over the past year. I’m not certain it’s interesting to anyone other than myself, but given that I’m a stats nerd – odd for someone who was definitively crap at them during my university years – and because I’m into recording stuff. What I’ve listened to. What I’ve read. What movies I’ve seen. Et cetera. Some of the data’s incomplete but it’s a reasonable portrait I suppose. This’ll be a long one.
Music
I record most of my listening on last.fm, as I have done for years now. For ten years, this year. Basically, any time I play something on my computer – which, at work, is where I listen to most of my music anyway – or now, on my iPhone, it’ll send a record of it to my profile. I try to record the stuff I listen to at home – usually with this thing – but far less reliably. Given it’s been running for the longest of any recording I’ve done, there’ll be more data here to work from.
It’s a useful source of information – the sidebar listing what I’m listening to comes from last.fm data – and provides enough statistics to keep me happy. For example, the counter on my profile tells me that since 2005, I’ve listened to 132,000 tracks, more or less.
But how did I fare last year? Well, here’s a graphical representation of my top artists for 2014:
As to how those listens were distributed, there’s this helpful chart – which you’ll have to click to read, undoubtedly.
Continue reading “2014 consumption: a look at some stuff I liked”My review of a live disc of Zeitkratzer performances of Whitehouse songs has gone live (a little while ago, now) over at Cyclic Defrost. Here’s a sample.
Zeitkratzer are a great ensemble. Their acoustic mastery is undeniable, and the sounds they recreate without access to a bunch of broken boxes and fucked electronics are spot-on. But somehow the execution of the task seems almost redundant: there’s as much enjoyment to be had by the idea of a bunch of traditional instruments covering Whitehouse as there is from having the end result in your hand.
Not quite yet, but the hair’s almost there.
Yeah nah. 