Category: Music

Duh. Nuh. Nuh nuh nuh. Dunna nunna nun nah nuh nah nah.

Chillax?

CaptainFezLeave a comment

God, I hate that word.

However, it’s the only thing which comes to mind while listening to VHS Logos. Here you go:


I came across them looking at stuff on Bandcamp tagged with the vaporwave name. Think of it as the musical equivalent of vaporware – software that there’s a bunch of buzz about only it never eventuates. This is as close to that idea in the form of music. It’s like slow jams played on a tape left in the sun too long. There’s something nostalgic about it – in a big-perm, Patrick Nagel kind of way – but also something corrupted, something rotten. It’s intangible cheese.

Listening to too much of it gives you a wicked ice-cream headache.

(More soon – playing through American McGee’s Alice and Alice: Madness Returns has taken up a bunch of my time because platforming plus 3D equals lots of dying.)

TaikOz Future Directions, 14/6/2014

CaptainFezLeave a comment

2z8z0qc

Disclaimer: I learned taiko with members of TaikOz for a number of years.

It’s taken a while to write this. I’ve felt conflicted, as I am a TaikOz tragic and want them to succeed and grow – but I’m also a gig-goer with limited time and limited cash. And I like to spend my time (and money) accordingly, and to feel some kind of reward – not always in the form of back-slapping woo-consuming-arts! kind of way, either – for the investment of both.

Unfortunately, the Future Directions gig was one of the poorest shows I’ve seen from the ensemble. There’s been member injuries to contend with – artistic director Ian Cleworth was not on stage – but I feel Kaoru Watanabe‘s guest artistic direction didn’t provide enough cohesion to the performance to pull it off. Continue reading “TaikOz Future Directions, 14/6/2014” →

Cobra considerations

CaptainFez1 Comment
Ensemble Offspring play John Zorn's Cobra.
Ensemble Offspring play John Zorn’s Cobra.

I spent some of last night at the excellent Petersham Bowling Club for a bunch of Ensemble Offspring‘s latest (and free!) Sizzle concert. It’s terrible reviewer indulgence to make apologies for one’s behaviour (and missing of parts of the bill) but I will preface mine by suggesting this isn’t really a review, more some random thoughts on the thing.  Continue reading “Cobra considerations” →

Write what you know and read what you like

CaptainFezLeave a comment
My university years.

A story on Slate has sparked a bit of commentary about reading and snobbery. I suppose it’s easy clickbait – nobody wants to feel inferior about their choice of pastime – but once you read the sell, there’s really not a lot more to it:

Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.

Hm. Throughout there’s more of this looking-down-the-nose kind of thing, somehow suggesting that eye-rolling and enjoyment of what may be crap-lit are mutually exclusive. What I don’t understand is where speculation like this

These are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that’s a shame.

or

But if they are substituting maudlin teen dramas for the complexity of great adult literature, then they are missing something.

comes from. I mean, aside from hanging the whole thing on what adults might be doing.

Continue reading “Write what you know and read what you like” →

I think I can I think I can

CaptainFezLeave a comment

Not pictured: success.

On Sunday, I spent a couple of hours playing shakuhachi in a group session organised by the Australian Shakuhachi Association. I’d been to one earlier this year, after some time away. This one featured the same teacher (Riley Lee) and a couple of new faces I hadn’t seen. I was excited to take part, partially because I like any excuse to use the Association’s abbreviated name (an ASS meeting, natch) but also because in the previous week I’d seen a concert of largely shakuhachi music, and was feeling inspired to play.

So of course it would be the case that Sunday was one of those days where sound decided to absent itself.  Continue reading “I think I can I think I can” →

Shakuhachi concert, 28/5/2014

CaptainFez1 Comment

Simon Barker performs.
Simon Barker performs.

I spent part of last night at a performance of shakuhachi and percussion works at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music. The players ranged from student to shakuhachi master (and grandmaster) level, and while the event did have some slightly off-target moments, it was good to see how a casual approach to programming and execution – and at a free concert! – can yield rewards. Continue reading “Shakuhachi concert, 28/5/2014” →

This guy right here

CaptainFezLeave a comment

Lately I’ve been listening to Kirin J Callinan‘s album Embracism a lot. It’s a bizarre thing, all spiky and full of what could be joking but likely isn’t. The filmclip above should give a good overview. It’s very weird, kind of sweaty and sexual and puts me in mind of an electro Dave Graney in the way that nobody can really figure if it’s serious or not because it’s so honest. Or is it?

Regardless, it’s great. Particularly when you get to stuff like this:

I think the appeal is in that it rides the line between like and dislike so adroitly. There’s always a question in mind – do I like this? – while listening, which to me is a mark of an artist (if not good) then worth investigating at least. Doesn’t strike me as much preaching to the choir going on here.

Anyway, the reason for this post is that Kirin is currently seeking some funds to continue touring the album and making some more music. It’ll receive funding but he’ll still make a loss, so in the last twelve hours why don’t you go and help out? The list of rewards is worth a couple of bucks alone. Arm-wrestling anyone?

 

Robot songs of bookish love

CaptainFezLeave a comment

This article is great, because it details the process by which an algorithm – called TransProse, no less – can take the ’emotional temperature’ of literature and generate a piece of music on the results. Such as this, gleaned from A Clockwork Orange.

I’m kind of thrilled about this because I’ve always loved the way computers can take stuff we’ve created and make things from them. When I was younger, I used to play around with a DOS program called MARKV, which would eat any text you fed it – the longer the better – and then return output based on Markov Chains. It was random but it also relied on statistical examination of what pieces of data sat next to, so you’d receive something back which followed the kind of rules required for construction of lucid text… but in a very strange way.

I’ll wait. There’s an online version here. Go check it out. Or, better yet, feed album reviews or party political statements into it: the result is no more confusing than the real thing.  Continue reading “Robot songs of bookish love” →