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.
So in the tradition of Japanese pop comes an underground sound that kinda parodies the pop-music industry of J-pop and in sacchrine matrimony takes our video-game culture's vintage music and makes this music, that's probably a little to fast to dance to in clubs, but probably great for some Dance Dance Revolution.
Below is a sampling of a several songs that I like, or rather have stuck in my head:
Drinking that Vegetable Juice... song by Miku Hatsune. Granted it's a video game, but it's exemplary
Plus Tech Squeezebox - My Personal Fav of the artists of this Genre
Though I have to say, their sound's rather diverse, ranging from the polysics to many nods to the immortal BOREDOMS!
Have a totally non-suggestive Honey Dip by MacDonald Duck Elclaire, which wins the coveted sounds good in japanese but what does it really mean band name prize
I think what the problem with this genre is that it doesn't really seem to be much of a genre, minus an era where people have been experimenting with revisting 8-bit sound generators and incorporating them into their brands of pop music. Though the wiki article kinda does it justice with their summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picopop
I can't help but get the feeling this is just japanese indie music...that is all. I mean, I hear the Polysics, I hear the Boredoms, I hear Towa Tei, I hear the Pizzacato 5. It's just another piece of that melange of their brand of fusion pop that borrows heavily from american and european music influence and then makes it there own.
So I don't think there's any staying power to the genre other than getting quickie ditties stuck in your head. Rather this is just an evolutionary step to modern japanese music, that isn't stuck in glam/metal like some other jap-genres I know...Or is it just all Shibuya Kei?
So I saw Joanna Newsom for the first time on the 22nd of March, 2010 at the 6th & I Synagogue in DC. Discarding cliche spiritual references to the quality of the performance aside; it was the first concert I've ever cried at.
I don't think I've ever experienced someone, at a live show, who could so perfectly emote their music on stage without melodrama and just pure, genuine talent. I was in awe. And when she broke the mood with banter and when her harp string broke, it just cut the tension like a cool wave over my body, to bring me out of a dumb struck stratospheric-zone, and back to earth for a bit to enjoy her on a human level.
At the same time, she seems to have taken criticism to heart, often equating her previous work to cats, screeching vocal artistry akin to Yoko Ono, or women in pain.
An Old Favorite, but Oft Criticized Song
Seriously, she is now showing much more command of her voice and has created a smooth croon approach to this album, and approaches the singing with more tonality. But in contrast, to me, it makes all her previous work seem purposeful in their expressions, despite their lack of mass appeal. Her current voice and delivery in the album "Have One On Me" has much less of the folksy twang, youth and cracking, favoring that croon and purposeful intonation. Her emotional impact is still the same, but at the same time, much more palatable to more people on first listen than her previous work. "Have One On Me" takes into more consideration a polyphony between the harp/piano and voice, maintaining tonality vs. the previous and in my mind purposeful flourishes of atonality. Hopefully this new release and tour will build her fanbase further, as people can ignore the whimsical vocal acrobatics and cracking and indulge in her luscious, genius and intense song writing.
As a point of comparison, "California" my favorite track on the new record:
Regardless of the criticisms of her body of work, her live performances apparenlty are always consistently beautiful. If she can continue to give this much soul, on every performance...if I had the money and time...I would make every show she gives. When I saw her, the performances of California, Emily, and '81 had me weeping with how beautiful they were. Only thing I would have preferred is if the volume of the guitar amp was about a notch and half lower.
Also, I would have liked her to play my favorite song of hers:
Sawdust & Diamonds - The song she hooked me with
Haters gonna hate though...haters shouldn't listen to her music then, or make comments on youtube.
So when examining how the blogosphere works, and getting feedback from my friends, I realize that what's key to moderately successful blogs is constant update.
It's been almost a year since my last update, before I wrote the piece about the Jonna Lee viral videos. That's not really a good way to maintain a blog.
So here's what I propose, that I will post some short-form blog posts. Hopefully the feedback will be encouraging, and these posts will invariably cure the writer's block that stops me from writing my long posts anyway. That and there'll be updates that will show up...at least on Calm Canary's google reader ;)
So I leave you(myself) with this inspiration to keep at it. Afterall, I don't have to goto school anymore, so what excuse to I have not to fill up the blogosphere with my presence.
And the beautiful series of videos purported by the mysterious iamamiwhoami has culminated to the latest and scotch-tape wrapped present of this:
b...starring Jonna Lee & the Black Cats
I don't believe this would have gotten any of the due and press it has recieved if the hype started in that seedy rumor that these videos are the responsibility of Christina Aguilera and her creative/advertising team.
However, further analysis and the buzz of the internet has shown, that nearly without a doubt in my mind, this is the work of Jenna Lee.
If the scandinavian aesthetic of the amazing video series wasn't enough to convince us that the sultry Aguilera had turned over a wonderful new leaf of sound...this ultimate reveal showing bandmates that are irrefutably, a bearded/hairier version of Jonna Lee's bandmates, along with her vintage synths/organs.
for comparison:
Also consider the evidence in my mind that an up-and-coming artist, who is scandinavian AND does of a cover of a Nizter Ebb song, it shows off that this artist is more in-tune with these glitchy and dare I say more industrial sounding textures than would the pop-sensation Christina Aguilera...unless, as I previous thought that Christina was collaborating with artists akin to when Bjork got angry and worked with and Mark Bell on Medulla (which is definitely one of my favorites). Or when Radiohead created Amnesiac...
A softer side of Nitzer: "Violent Playground"
I also invite you compare the series of movies and songs and sounds made by the iamamiwoami crew versus the previous work of Jonna Lee. In my opinion this older work is sort of thin and hollow. Her songwriting is fun, and uses some entendre, but it's not got the impact that really makes her stand out in a sea where Regina Spekter can move you with her breath, Kate Nash can color your visions cute and Karen O. can discard art-rock for a few months and win a grammy writing music base don children's whimsy! So when Jonna Lee previous-single worthy work sounds like this:
My High is cute...but not-infectious...like the viral vids...
...at least the comedown is easy.
Anyway, what this signals to me, is that someone can really spruce up their sound by taking a cue from Yeasayer (yes...I won't compare anything to how Radiohead's changed their sound).
Old-sound was good...but not as famous
Ah, now I see why the kids like Animal Collective...and we're the toast of Brooklyn!
So what have we learned? That Jonna Lee's got an amazing creative team. And learn to enjoy your electronic mouth as much as your acoustic. And...to build this hype before you make a huge US debut at it's most widely media-covered cutting edge music festival, SXSW (sorry CMJ).
I suppose what I'm hoping for is that this movement is further refined, and not discarded, like the glitchy laptop pop of the early 2000s that came out after Radiohead released Kid A. They were pioneers! However, they weren't remembered in my mind by the majority of today's hipsters. Except for Animal Collective, which really found their own, and quite inspiring, powerful voice and have also lent their hands to creating this amazing sound of the new decade. Then again, they both released their albums in 2000, which kinda could lead to all sorts of chicken-egg arguments, and then we'll have to bring in Load records, Einsturzende Neubauten, Mum, Mille Plateaux and so on.
Look what I made with a laptop! Julian Fane is amazing!
I suppose it all boils down to...that I thought that somone with Christina Aguilera's amazing voice, was actually going to turn to a more heartfelt and experimental sound at the risk of her image and brand. I suppose such thoughts are usually just whimsy and want, and don't really do anything real except fuel rumormills.
I recently re-aquired Farouk Ejineer (Arms Bazzar is pictured). This album is a classic in age, due to its release in 1997, but also due to enduring quality that it represents.
Often improvised music of happy accidents when working with tape-loops can feel contrived, and a bit arcane. What makes the music that muslimgauze creates transcendental is its complete lack of pretention. This is music created with a that fiery passion and dedication to the art.
The steps are deceptively simple.
Take some field recordings of middle eastern folk music, often made by the marginalized groups of people labelled as terrorists...or often enough, he has acquired unadulterated recordings of extremist groups creating music. These "drums-of-war" are just as provocative as the intimate recordings of the mother & sons around the cooking-oven.
The next step is to take these inspired recordings and imprint one's love into them. Muslimgauze has a pallete of tools relating from cuting the tape and mixing in "happy accidents" of analogue artifacts and magnetic interferance. Doubly, the processing equipement can filter/gate/chop the recroding and loop it into a wonderous osenata. This ostinnato alone can be masterpiece, the evocative music of the muslim world is there, but on top of that is the hum, hiss and pop of the world unseen. Can we actually hear the aether that exists beyond this mortal plane? A collegue of mine once called this sound, the sounds of cicadas...of course that remark can make it seem paltry. But I ask you to go out into the woods when the cicada's emerge again, and meditate to their sound...how alike is that pulsing to shunting of blood inside us. Are we not connected?
Finally comes the synthetic, external elements. Muslimgauze accomplishes this through using drum machines, synths or other equipment. Often he will use his own drums and instruments to lay his own tracks. Rather, to lay his own vitae upon the pieces of music. The drummer/studio musician is the person that can lay the backtrack down for a wonderful piece of music. It is the master that instead presents us, the blessed listener, with the intimate portrait of his being, nay a portrait of our very own being, and thus it transcends the limits of the media and the relationship of the listener to musician.
Of course, this can only happen when one allows yourself to listen to the music and let the the sound wash over you and permeate the barriers we impose that protect us from the NOISE of our routine.
It must be said, though his discography is massive, his life was tragically cut short. I suppose in a way, this blog is a way to give him my memorial service for him as have many others.
Though I must caution, he is also vilified because of his anti-american, anti-zionist/israeli and pro-palestinian political views. This is a large part of the fuel that fed his fiery belly. It's a large part of the venom that many had against the man behind the music project. I deign to call any of his discography propaganda. I don't think that's what really drives his creativity.
I invite you to listen to the excerpt provided below, mull it over and then begin your musical journies anew, hopefully with some new perspective if you've never heard of muslimgauze, or if you have, that this has bent your trajectory, ever so slightly into a rewarding exploration.
Is this really dark music? Is it really fearful music? Is it really joyful, somber, morose? How does it make you feel, as each minute passes? Merely noise?
Meditate and stretch each second out, pondering the way you feel in that very second, the passing moment. I believe there is something more there than islamaphobia, more than sadness when empathizing with poverty more than glorifying violent rebellion? I believe once the trappings of politics are divested, we become naked. Once the trappings of the physical are divested, we become divine...or at least in that moment of communion with music and the envrionment (cheesy I know, but try to let it happen once (a few seconds of time?) while listening to this).
Perhaps this can give us some sort of perspective on why there are such cultural rifts between the muslim world and the one I enjoy here in US. I very much invite your commentary and look forward to hearing of your experiences.
