The intersection of my love of music with the All. Atma is the Truth of the self. Through music, I hope to uncover that which is genuine, and examine that, which obfuscates it.
Always pretty original. Always very recommended, but only to those that can tolerate their eccentricity. Grey Oceans is pretty nifty. Nearly all tracks are on youtube, so I'd check it out there and see what you think. I really enjoy how they just do their thing, no holding back, just making their music and keeping their genuine and positive vibe.
And as predicted, Sleighbells sold out. According to something I may or may not have read on Ilxor.com, they sold out the Rock and Roll Hotel in 2 days of the tix going on sale. It's kinda predictable...but sad. I guess I can wait until next year for a festival. I wonder if "mother indie" is being kind...or is this truly, a man-made indie disaster.
Keeping it on a re-cap of the year so far, I'd have to say some of my heavy rotation currently from 2010 are, in format Artist - Album:
Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
Beach House - Teen Dream
Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
Vampire Weekend - Contra
and of course
Sleigh Bells - Treats
But there have been a lot of fantastic releases so far that either I don't know about...or I haven't listened to on heavy rotation, or I just haven't gotten around to it (like I'm pretty excited about Golden Filter).
What do you recommend so far from this year? ...so I stop missing things...Like the Klaxon's new joint...this pic just CRACKS me UP! And yes...I frequent i can has cheezburger a little more than any sane person should!
I tried to wrack my brain a little bit to understand what has happened to the beloved genre of electronic dance music.
Traditionally, this movement out of the experimentation, disco, pop and anti-pop-counterculture of the 80s bred this strain of music that was compelling and demanded the most personal and intimate of dance.
There wasn't an emphasis on the coordination and choreography, rather it was your personal interpretation, enjoyment and exploration of yourself through the music and it's associated dance. I believe, fundamentally, that's what rave culture was initially about.
Fundamental 90s EDM sample: of Prodigy's "Out of Space"
Well that and taking ecstasy...(The Shamen)
However, in the later years of the 90s came the reverence of the superstar DJ. Keoki, Oakenfold, Tiesto, Benasi, Darude and the like became more and more stylized, and more and more hyped. The music was very similar to the roots, but stylized to incorporate more overt sexuality, and electronic dance music was now oriented towards the DJ, spinning in a club. Nightclubs, of course being places for people to check each other out.
But not only was it the social aspect...this came with it an aire of exclusivity and fashionability. Dress-codes enforced, and sometimes, hotness-codes too, where you have to line up on the velvet rope whether in Miami or Mayorca to experience the hottest show in lights, 4-on-the-floor and of course sexiness.
Example of the 00s club culture: Tiesto's "Elements of Life"
Maybe it's just me...but I really get annoyed by how electronic dance music pushes this. It pushes this sexist and sexual agenda of a hyper-sexed aesthetic, of exclusives of airbrush make-up models with the greatest bodies need only apply. Whatever happened to enjoying the music?
Which is why I suppose Basshunter went from amazing trance-based songs about nerd-life to re-hashing his shit to front about girls, sex and clubs.
Basshunter's "Now You're Gone" from 2009.
Maybe I'm just jaded and should just go back into a dark room and listen to Dub Step on headphones...as it's the perfect music to express isolation and loneliness...or at least getting snubbed.
The dub-step scene, brought to you by London's Hyperdub label, Burial's "Ghost Hardware".
They've been tearing it up across the blogs, through the circulatory system of Pitchfork, the CMJ and the Williamsburg scene.
If not, welcome to the next genre bending sensation. A lot of fools try and say, "we're not defined by labels". I actually enjoy how Sleigh Bells just seem to screw all types of conceived notions and shoves up their notiony bung.
This release reminds a lot of Beck's Mellow Gold in a lot of ways. When Beck made Mellow Gold, people were trying to figure out all of the rap and hip hop influences out, trying to see where Beck got it all from...trying to make it seem like he's unoriginal.
So what if he was Public Enemy meets Bob Dylan, jilted by the church of Cobain. Beck just did it! And the music was his, he owned it.
Much like that, it seems Sleigh Bells is approaching their music similarly. People are accusing them of ripping off crunk and dirty south beats. But these releases they've made go beyond just using crunk...crunk's their beat, not the soul. Like saying Chuck Berry was unoriginal for using the "boogie".
Even their interviews were non-chalant and unpretentious...even if they made ABC NEWS and played at the NPR, CMJ, Pitchfork, IAMSOUND etc... parties at SXSW... Is this the real deal? Well, when the uppity and large word using New Yorker gives them a glowing write up, you know it's got to be the cusp of something big...like MGMT big, blowing up with hype.
(You'll never see this kind of ticket price or hand-made flyer art again...*sniffles*)
Well, it's going to be real enough that you're never going to get a concert ticket unless you've gotten it already...
Much like how MGMT sold out the 930 club in minutes of going on pre-sale when they were touring Oracular Spectacular...this is the real deal, hipster shit. Get it while it's steaming and before it gets remixed to all hell and the follow-up album sounds nothing like this ;)
(I actually like "Congratulations" a good bit...and yes honey bun, I'm enjoying Plastic Beach more and more too).
Though I would really love to hear an Alan Braxe remix of Crown on the Ground...just saying!
Youtube vidya of "Crown on the Ground" by Sleigh Bells
So no! The Jeep Wrangler doesn't have satellite radio. However, it does have probably the most insecure measure of protecting equipment...that is the zipper-canvas top. As cool as it was taking that trail ready vehicle out on the trails of pinelands New Jersey for work and getting messy and pulling off ticks and getting bit by mosquitos despite copious amounts of DEET. There is one solace. That Philadelphia has probably the crown jewel of radio, that being WXPN. From sleigh bells at 9:30pm, to interviews with Johnny Rotten cause PiL's playing the Belagio (go figure Mr. Pistol!), this station is amazing!
That and they play The Heavy...ALOT!
Now don't get me wrong! This band kicks some real ass. Great blues vocals with a real appreciation for full frontal production (GODDAMMIT PEOPLE ARE OVER-FUCKING USING SPECTRE'S NAME!!! Shame on you all!). But who the hell would know this band if it weren't for the Kia Sorrento commercial (yes, I've driven one of those too for work; they have satellite radio usually. Nice ride though...Kia's have come a long way since I test drove the terrible Rio in 2002).
So that's what I want to talk about. Is the car commercial going to give The Heavy staying power?
Let's review a couple groups I remember from the 90s that had car commercial music...but never really made it big. In fact, so much so, that I can't find the commercials on youtube, and one Jetta track is mis-attributed to Moby of all people...
All I'm saying, is that if notoriety from car commercial could mean staying power, I suppose the aforementioned bands won't be lost to the sands of time...like it seems that Meat Beat mManifesto and Download have been (though I hear Skinny Puppy is still touring after the post-Oghr albums though Goettel Died after Furnace was made). Where's Mark Spybey? I guess he's producing now and beyond the care of band notoriety as are most of these 90s heros of post-no-wave, industrial and anti-pop.
Which reminds me...nobody would have given two shits about Alan Vega, if MIA didn't sample Ghost Rider. I just heard a track off the Alan Vega solo album played today on WXPN. That is the one with Al Jorgenson from Ministry...another industrial band no one will give a shit about one day. Why, oh why did you really play the Vega album today? Come clean! Well...it is pretty brilliant stuff... To WXPN's credit, I admire that they dig into vinyl archives to pull out gems of relevant (not to Hipster Runoff again) music.
So much like Skinny Puppy's "Tin Omen"...does anyone remember Tienanmen Square? It all seems to fade into history...as music genres rise and fall. Their importance, and poignant message becomes dulled with time, with other distractions and the coolest, newest buzz.
Don't know if industrial will ever rise again though :(
How you like me now indeed! The "now" being key. Makes me wonder with my parent's generation...was there some underground music movement in the 70s that never saw the light of day? Psych-rock and electro-acoustic music are still going though...
So MIA released her new single for 2010 just recently, and I found out about it from reading Hipster Runoff today. And wow! The music video is quite amazing:
The gore is very similar to what I've seen from Japanese and Russian films about war crimes and testing weapons on live subjects, where the gore is front and center. It's also reminiscent of the attitude of depicting gore on 4chan's /b/. It's just gratuitous...but what does it really mean? It means that the internet CANNOT BE SANITIZED like the US media. People are getting pictures from the police, and from international news sources that show that violence is real, it's disgusting, and it's fucking sociopathic to go around shooting people, chopping them up with swords, and throwing heavy objects at them...which happens all the time in the world...that is thankfully not where I live or work.
So it seems that music artists are trying to reach people, but find that traditional artistic portrayals of edgy issues, isn't enough. Granted this technique was heralded by such directors and film makers like Gaspar Noe and the like that brought the unsanitized realism of carnag, violence and crime into the lens of the camera without regard for society's perception of taste.
Now, in what was normally reserved for underground metal videos with footage of snuff films and the like has finally made it out into artists that I respect, trying to make statements.
Justice's controversial "Stress" Video by the same director/artist as the MIA vidya, Roman Garvais.
Depicts scenes of violence of Parisian youth, not dissimilar to what happened during the 2005 civil unrest in Paris....perpetuated by youth of "ethnic-descent".
Thus the transgressivism continues...or should continue. What are these people angry about? Like what does Chuck Palanuik mean when your colon gets sucked out by a pool aerator?
Is this movement now to show that transgression is no longer a bold, novel step forward? Because of 4chan, ogrish and other no-taste websites desensitizing ourselves and our internet savvy youth, to where we can vicariously see scenes of violence that other peoples of less-fortunate nations are witness to every day...maybe this is what MIA was trying to say: What if we people, had to face state-sponsored genocide on our soil. How would that make us feel? How would that look? So this is actually kind of a statement for Sri Lanka, with state sponsored genocide of the Tamil......but it may be a bit to nasty to really get the message across? Maybe it's not enough?! Note the cover is showing executions of Tamil...
Her statement's pretty legit...and much like the comfort of my suburban dwelling, I am blissfully happy there and footage of murder and rape from afar, even if afar is in US somewhere that's not near me, is disturbing, but it's blissfully far away. I suppose MIA, is trying to bring the violence and message a little closer to "home," and invade my comfort. Also, fortunately for me, the only gingers in my family are cats...but I can relate. It's genocide...but not the genocide people normally see on the news. Probably the closest we've come the MIA video is something like what happened in the former Yugoslavia (euro-white on euro-white violence).
I'm sure a few sociopaths on the internet actually really like this, in the sense that they enjoy watching violence on others.
Ah well...it's all about the sample anyway. Cause remember the lyrics of the proto-punk/proto-industrial kids:
"ghostrider motorcycle hero
bebebebebebebe he's a-screamin' the truth
america america is killin' its youth"
Ah, comics, music and world politics! Suicide was so good!
