Unchained - The Happy Stirrup (2007)

Here is the last work of my solo noise band, Unchained (ex-Knifestorm, etc.), entitled The Happy Stirrup, and self-released on CDR in 2007. Of all the solo releases I've done, today I am most satisfied with this one. It was the first time I worked with other musicians for something I considered "solo" work: the songs are constructed from the practice tapes of two bands I was playing in at the time, Gateway Evening Colours (with Alex Farrill on drums and Brian House on bass) and Innnocent Delights (with Miles Huston on drums and vocals and Sam Mehran on keyboard and guitar). In both bands I was playing guitar through a no-input mixer setup (Behringer Eurorack mixer, Boss compression/sustain pedal, Boss digital delay, Rat Distortion pedal, Roland volume pedal, and sometimes a Boss octave pedal). Gateway Evening Colours was working on a kind of deep blues/country-rock noise-wall sound, very minimal and 'jammy'. Innocent Delights was less rock-ish, more free, psychedelic sounding. The majority of the songs consist of loops cut from GEC and ID practice tapes, cut and pasted with a computer wave editor, and also EQ'd and tweaked on a computer. While the source tapes were collective efforts, the editing process was my own solipsistic endeavor. However, I still feel that the collective spirit is audible here, and I think it is for this reason that this recording sounds better to my ears than others which were wholly created in an artistic solitary confinement of sorts.
The first song, "Falsini Fop or Blade" is my fake collaboration with Franco Falsini of Sensations Fix, one of my all-time favorite musicians. This was no real collaboration: instead, I created loops from his Cold Nose solo album, played these through my mixer setup, and played guitar and sang over them. Though Falsini had recorded his part three decades before I added my own part, I still felt that the result was enough of a collaboration to create a fake band, Faux Batard (named after a Sensations Fix song), which supposedly had myself and Falsini as members. This is perhaps the most "noise" song of the album, and also comes the closest out of any recording I've ever done to replicating the sound of my live shows as Unchained.
"Spetters" (named after the Verhoeven film), "The Happy Stirrup" (named after a line from a famous translation) and "Suncanal" are all based on practice tapes of Gateway Evening Colours. With these, as well as the Innocent Delights tracks, I wanted to focus on the golden moments of group improvisation, when things suddenly come together into a song form that seems planned, though it isn't. What I wanted to do was isolate these moments, and cut and paste them into a larger composition: in other words, to force an element of postmortem compositional order onto small moments of improvisational magic. It was this combination of the non-control of group improvisation with the hyper-control of cutting and pasting alone on a wave editor that intrigued me. The GEC tracks are marked by more laid-back grooves, more Grateful Dead where the ID tracks are more free-noise.
Innocent Delights was short-lived. "Crystal Drops of Quilmes" and "Licking Tides" were the only recordings that resulted from our collaboration. We jammed 3 or 4 times, and played once live (the massive show for the opening of The Redemption Center in Brooklyn). Miles used to be in Dreamhouse, with whom I did a US tour in 2004, and now helps run the gallery Know More Games. Sam is now getting some recognition as Outer Limits Recordings. These recordings were also improvised, even Miles's vocals. I'm don't think he's actually singing real words, just like sketches for future words—which makes it even funnier when they are looped by me. Instead of developing compositions through the act of improvising, here the improvisations themselves become the compositions.
I made about 70 or 80 copies of this CDR. If anyone is interested in re-releasing it, please get in touch.

Unchained - The Happy Stirrup (2007, CDR)
1. Falsini Fop or Blade
2. Spetters
3. Crystal Drops of Quilmes
4. The Happy Stirrup
5. Suncanal
6. Licking Tides

********
UPDATE: The Happy Stirrup will be reissued as a double LP (w/ bonus tracks) by New Images Ltd., hopefully by late May. More info here: http://newimagesltd.tumblr.com/

Pro-Blog

Though I ‘look at’ Twitter (one can hardly call it reading) and have even ‘tweeted’ a couple times, and while I often get ‘very important information’ (EPL transfer deadline-day, etc.) faster by Twitter than conventional news sources, I think its an inherently flawed method of communication, one which is leading internet society down a very annoying path. The reason for this is very simple: Twitter is designed to be a mouthpiece for snark (for those of you lucky enough to not be familiar with the concept, it’s a self-explanatory portmanteau of “snide” and “remark”). Being limited to 140 characters, Twitter users can either send a short bit of compacted information (sometimes useful, more often useless), or a poorly thought-out attempt at an aphorism—i.e. a snarky one-liner, something which can only be uttered with an air of smug self-satisfaction. I have to clarify: these are not aphorisms. They are not even aphoristic. I have yet to read a good aphorism on Twitter. Aphorisms are perfect jewels of wit and intellect, labored-over and re-written, not shat out on the train to work.
(Karl Kraus: “One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.”)
The gravest dysfunction becomes apparent when one wishes to comment on something someone else has said. My main problem with Twitter is that one cannot reply to messages in any meaningful manner. The only choice is to write a return @ message, which most users have difficulty following. Furthermore, one's commentary is restricted in form: one is compelled to reply in turn with a snarky one-liner, and we should have all learned in third grade that no meaningful conversation can take place when one is limited only to snarky one-liners. The internet is a magnificent medium for interpersonal communication, and I find it really depressing to see its standards of dialogue deteriorate into a mess of fractured, half-baked, smug, thoughtless, and closed-minded snark. Why, why, why? This is not merely the “dumbing-down” of the internet, its the transformation of the internet into a big, spoiled child.
(Twitter users: if you’d like to defend Twitter in the comments below please limit yourselves to 140 characters or less).

Different Prizes pt. 2

Replying to a previous post, Brandon (The Enthusiast) writes:

I've been thinking more and more on those prizes— those "external goods" dangling around here and New York, that seem to keep working their way further and further inward— and it makes me really stick closer to that Internal Good.

I hadn’t considered the issue precisely as Brandon has portrayed it here: for me, I was thinking of Doc in the Boston Aquarium (from Robert Kramer’s Route One USA) musing on the “different prizes” of the culture that strays from the standard ideal of bourgeois America. In Doc’s (and my) original conception, prizes are differentiated between cultural norms, and it is in some sense the burden of those who have devoted their lives to a particular culture that they may only strive towards their culturally-determined prizes. Different pathways lead to different prizes, neither are objectively worth more. Doc’s goal in this little pep-talk is to remind the non-bourgeois individual, whose heart is heavy when he catches a glimpse of the comfortable, domestic life from which he has opted out (I use the masculine, because it seems likely that Doc is directing his talk self-ward, or possibly at director Kramer), that his choice of a different path also brings with it certain opportunities, its own lonely, precarious, yet noble prizes as well.
Brandon’s conception of the “external good” versus the “inner good” considers the situation from within a single cultural milieu, separating the prizes of an endeavor itself (in the university, the love of learning, the φιλοσοφία) from those which stem from the social and economic factors which affect those who partake in said endeavor (the cushy jobs, salaries, stipends, wine and cheese receptions, esteem of peers, cultural capital, etc.).
I’m sure Brandon is thinking also of the art world in NYC, where the actual artworks on the walls are often the least important things at a gallery opening—and are duly ignored by the majority of the socializing crowd. Artworks are sold not for their aesthetic value, but for the current position of the artist/gallery on the market. This position is always determined 90% by pure marketing, 10% by the quality of the artist’s oeuvre as a whole (although there’s no accounting for taste), and 0% by the quality of the work in question. No one would deny this, I think. (And if I sound bitter, it’s because I am: Chelsea is an absolute shit-show these days).
In the academy, the situation is different, and perhaps much more naive (which is not necessarily a bad thing: cynical collaboration is sometimes much worse). It is, in fact, pounded into the heads of incoming students that they are here to learn, to enrich their minds, to become better people. The motto "non scholae sed vitae discimus" (we learn not for school, but for life) provides the cover for what is at heart a training in docility and discipline, picking up enough cultural capital along the way to clear the path towards the highest-paid positions of bourgeois society. The ones who really get fooled return to the fray, and let themselves be trained to do such training, navigating an intricate obstacle course of groveling and pedantic ostentation, ending up with tenure in middle America. The first thing thrown aboard is this ideal of learning for life—the pure encounter between living man and printed word—rather than for school. Unlike the art world insularity, which is openly accepted, the academy never acknowledges the fact that it operates as an enclosed economy, that learning occurs as a stepping stone not towards enlightenment, but towards academic success—the key which (supposedly) unlocks the reservoirs of capital.
All this what I’ve just said is pure Übertreibung (exaggeration), yet to quote Thomas Bernhard, “ohne Übertreibung kann man gar nichts sagen.”
At any rate, I think its important to point out that there are certain ‘prizes’ in the academic world which have naught to do with the “inner good” of the literary experience, and everything to do with the sociological function of the university in present-day capitalistic society. Unlike the art-world, which (for better or for worse) accepts its new role (however ironically), the academy naively presumes idealism where there is only cynicism.

Trikitixa Zoom (1991) / Faruaji (1987)

I would be extremely grateful if anyone could help me find the following two albums:

Kepa Junkera - Trikitixa Zoom (1991, Euskal Herria)


La Ciapa Rusa - Faruaji (1987, Italy)

Cosas

>>>Ernst Tugendhat interview (from 4 years ago) @ signandsight

Villa Tugendhat, Brno.

Here [in Germany] there's a lot of bragging in universities. In England and the USA, people have a different way of addressing you, particularly with me, because my style of thinking is rather Anglo-Saxon. Many German colleagues have it easier in America because there people think, oh, that's some German profundity that's so profound that it can't be understood anyway. [...]

As far as the behavioural sciences are concerned, I think that people are too rash in looking for analogies – for example between human morals and animal altruism. That is what Konrad Lorenz, among others, did. As for brain research, I think it's rather crazy what's going on today. [...] They can only find out what types of processes are going on in which parts of the brain. But then those professors of brain physiology appear and present theories about the nonexistence of human freedom. And those theories are only based on the fact that they see themselves as scientists and believe in determinism.

>>>Philippe Meyer on France @ French Politics

Un pays qui prend Bernard Tapie pour un entrepreneur, Bernard-Henri Lévy pour un philosophe, Jacques Attali pour un penseur, Claire Chazal pour une journaliste, Alain Minc pour un économiste, etc. ne peut s'étonner d'avoir Nicolas Sarkozy comme président de la République.

(And in related news, Michel Serres thinks that at this particular junction in history we need to figure out if Astérix was a fascist.)

>>>Autumn's coming @ The Trad

>>>Edwin Fischer 78s @ 78 toeren klassiek

Artmann describes himself

I recently borrowed The Best of H.C. Artmann, a German (despite the title) anthology of Artmann's work (Suhrkamp, 1970), from my university library. The book did not yet have a bar-code, and so had to be entered into the computing system before it could be checked out. When the student at the desk finally handed me the book, I noticed that my stamp was the first to be placed on the yellowed library slip inside the back cover of the book. The book had probably been sitting in the library since 1970. "Does this mean that I'm the first person ever to check out this book?" The student nodded. I felt as though I had discovered something precious, a small treasure that had awaited my curiosity so patiently.
Artmann is an undervalued writer, one of the first as well as last writers of the post-war Viennese literary avant-garde. He founded the Wiener Gruppe, along with younger writers such as Konrad Bayer and Gerhard Rühm, and served as the president of the Grazer Autorenversammlung. Wikipedia reports that he also apparently founded an "Anti P.E.N. Club", about which I would love to know more, but can't find any information about it (if anyone can enlighten us about this group, please do).
Below is a translation I've just done (hastily, I might add, so please feel free to offer any corrections if I've botched something) of a short Selbstbeschreibung written for the collection das suchen nach dem gestrigen tag oder schnee auf einem heissen brotwecken. eintragungen eines bizarren liebhabers, published in 1964. (Source text from H.C. Artmann, The Best of H.C. Artmann, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt, 1970). (German original follows English below).

____________________

My homeland is Austria, my fatherland Europe, my place of residence Malmö, my skin color white, my eyes blue, my courage varied, my mood moody, my intoxications correct, my endurance strong, my concern erratic, my longings like the compass rose, in a flash content, in a flash vexed, a friend of cheerfulness, in principle sad, affectionate towards girls, a big moviegoer, a lover of the twist, a lousy swimmer, a marksman at the shooting range, careless at cards, a zero at chess, not a bad bowler, a master at battleship, shot up in war, cut up in peace, a hater of police, a despiser of authority, an emetic to the left, itching powder to the right, uneasy with parents-in-law, a father of children, a Judas to mother, loyal like Pilatus, soft like Puccini, laid-back like Doctor Ward, shy at first, energetic towards morning, evenings always thirsty, bored at concerts, happy at the tailor, baptized in St. Lorenz, divorced in Klagenfurt, in Poland poetic, in Paris a breather, in Berlin floating, in Rome more timid, in London a bird, in Bremen a raindrop, in Venice an incoming letter, in Zaragoza an awaiting fuse, in Vienna a cracked plate, born in the air, teeth acquired through waiting, hair combed forward, beard tried on like a tie, lived standing with women, squeezed alphabets out of trees, observed carousels in woods, crawled up stairs with lisbonite women, waited for the morning with tourainian women, exploded and shot through the roof with glasgowian women, betrayed catanian women, astounded cairene women, idolized bernese women, advised praguian women, said grüßgott, stolen figs, discovered revolvers, stepped out of boats, cursed kites, fabricated masks, rented catacombs, invented festivals, lost apartments, loved flowers, destroyed records, driven 150, smelled trash, admired lanterns, compared moons, broken noses, abandoned umbrellas, operated malay, devised positions, squashed candies, shaken jukeboxes, been thankful, felt mortal fear, run like the deer, had lungs in the mouth, tarried amid roses, tinkered with toys, bungled dress-arms, read Mickey Spillane, thrown out Goethe, written poems, said bullshit, performed theater, smelled like puke, broken a bottle of Grappa, whispered mi vida, pulled faces, stammered ciao, gone away, said a, did b, thought c, became d.

Everything that one undertakes turns out differently as one hopes…

____________________

Meine heimat ist Österreich, mein vaterland Europa, mein wohnort Malmö, meine hautfarbe weiß, meine augen blau, mein mut verschieden, meine laune launisch, meine räusche richtig, meine ausdauer stark, meine anliegen sprunghaft, meine sehnsüchte wie die windrose, im handumdrehen zufrieden, im handumdrehen verdrossen, ein freund der fröhlichkeit, im grunde traurig, den mädchen gewogen, ein großer kinogeher, ein liebhaber des twist, ein übler schwimmer, an schießständen marksman, beim kartenspiel unachtsam, im schach eine null, kein schlechter kegler, ein meister im seeschlachtspiel. im kriege zerschossen, im frieden zerhaut, ein hasser der polizei, ein verächter der obrigkeit, ein brechmittel der linken, ein juckpulver der rechten, unbehaglich schwiegereltern, ein vater von kindern, ein Judas der mütter, treu wie Pilatus, sanft wie Puccini, locker wie Doctor Ward, schüchtern am anfang, schneidig gen morgen, abends stets durstig, in konzerten gelangweilt, glücklich beim schneider, getauft zu St. Lorenz, geschieden in Klagenfurt, in Polen poetisch, in Paris ein atmer, in Berlin schwebend, in Rom eher scheu, in London ein vogel, in Bremen ein regentropfen, in Venedig ein ankommender brief, in Zaragoza eine wartende zündschnur, in Wien ein teller mit sprüngen, geboren in der luft, die zähne durch warten erlernt, das haar nach vorne gekämmt, die bärte wie schlipse probiert, mit frauen im stehen gelebt, aus bäumen alphabete gepreßt, karussells in wäldern beobachtet, mit lissabonnerinnen über stiegen gekrochen, auf tourainerinnen den morgen erwartet, mit glasgowerinnen explodiert und durchs dach geflogen, catanesinnen verraten, kairenserinnen bestürzt, bernerinnen vergöttert, an pragerinnen herangeraten, grüßgott gesagt, feigen gestohlen, revolver entdeckt, aus booten gestiegen, papierdrachen verwünscht, masken verfertigt, katakomben gemietet, feste erfunden, wohnungen verloren, blumen geliebt, schallplatten verwüstet, 150 gefahren, unrat gewittert, lampione bewundert, monde verglichen, nasen gebrochen, parapluies stehengelassen, malaiisch betrieben, positionen ersonnen, bonbons zertreten, musikautomaten gerüttelt, dankbar gewesen, heidenangst verspürt, wie der hirsch gelaufen, die lunge im maul gehabt, unter rosen geweilt, spielzeug gebastelt, rockärmel verpfuscht, Mickey Spillane gelesen, Goethe verworfen, gedichte geschrieben, scheiße gesagt, theater gespielt, nach kotze gerochen, eine flasche Grappa zerbrochen, mi vida geflüstert, grimassen geschnitten, ciao gestammelt, fortgegangen, a gesagt, b gemacht, c gedacht, d geworden.

Alles was man sich vornimmt, wird anders als man sichs erhofft...

It's more realistic for a man to be singing alone.

Room Sound Marienleben

>>>Hindemith's Das Marienleben @ Squirrel's Nest


This 1950 recording of Hindemith's song-cycle Das Marienleben has reminded me of how much I treasure a good, vintage "room sound." By room sound I mean that it sounds as though it were recorded in a small room—judging by the reverb in this recording, I would guess it was recorded in a room measuring about 14'x18' with a ceiling no higher than 10', perhaps with a window open and several listeners smoking pensively on plush chairs. This, for me, is chamber music sounding its best. Why would you record chamber music in a church or a large concert hall? The music is written for 'room sound'—it is delicate music, with changes in dynamic which require the subtlety of close reverb to be heard. The extended reverb of a great hall drowns such nuances, demanding to be filled with the sonic might of an orchestra. Chamber music is private music: living room, salon, or even bedroom music.
This recording is of the second version of Das Marienleben from 1947, Hindemith's "final word", going against that of Schoenberg, who preferred the 1927 version (which I assume is somewhat less neoclassical, though I have not heard it). The music is classic Hindemith, confidently straddling the gap between atonal formalism and neoclassical impressionism. Hindemith works best as chamber music, where his understated experimentalism is allowed to blossom comfortably within a similarly demure aural sphere.
I haven't yet paid much attention to Rilke's text here, although if Beckett is right, that Rilke, like Klopstock, suffers from "the fidgets"—and has the "childishness to which German writers seem specially prone" to "call the fidgets God, Ego, Orpheus and the rest"—we should be grateful to have such fidgeting transformed into bold, semi-tonal Lyrik. (Poetry can be useful). "The mystic heart, geared to the blaue Blume, petrified!" Hindemith thankfully escapes fidgeting mysticism (perhaps thanks to the ever-steadying close reverb of a small room), producing instead a set of modernist devotional Lieder for the listening pleasure and sober meditations of the refined Christian atheist-aestheticist.

Rote Blumen (1983)

>>>Fit & Limo - Rote Blumen CS (1983) @ Tape Attack


This tape seems like the next step onwards from the wonderful Im Blickpunkt side of a split tape with Stratis which Mutant Sounds posted ages ago. A few of the same tracks are reproduced here, along with a couple newer versions of same or similar songs. This is the pure Küchenpop sound, the result of F&L's induction into the world of DIY recordings direct from the 70s German hippy milieu — by which I mean that they were influenced only by the positivity and self-empowered ethos of the European punk movement, without picking up any trace of the alienated negativity or politically-conscious protest spirit. F&L are one of the only examples I know of the Überleben of a 70s psychedelic orientation within the cultural milieu of 80s DIY, electronically enhanced, lo-fi new wave. These songs thrive as unironic, homemade syntheses of adventurous sonic experimentalism and heartfelt pop instincts.
This tape was self-released on F&L's own Servil label. I would love to hear more of the label's offerings, especially the s/t The Lie tape, as well as the early Pure Luege material. Do get in touch if you have access to such gems.

Heidelberg

In Heidelberg on the night of Michael Jackson’s death, heading to Antonio’s place with DB and others after a poetry reading and a tour of the local bars. We pass a bookshop near the Theodor-Heuss-Brücke, where we are presented with an entire window display devoted to the newest offering from Richard David Precht: Liebe – ein unordentliches Gefühl. From our position on the other side of the glass, outside in the dark summer night, we marvel at the brightly lit pile of hardcover books and the large cardboard profile of Precht’s smiling image. Before any of us has a chance to comment, Antonio leans backwards before swinging his torso swiftly forwards, discharging a large glob of mucus which crashes messily against the large window, directly in front of Precht’s visage, beginning to slowly trickle downwards toward the pile of books. DB jokes about the impending start to my graduate school career: “When you get there you should meet with the Brecht specialist and be like, ‘Oh wait, you work on Brecht? I came here to study Precht!’” When we walk past the bookstore the next morning, the dried spittle is caked onto the window, blocking the passerby’s view of Precht’s facial features.

LINK: Melancholie unterm Regenbogen

@ Revierflaneur >>> http://www.revierflaneur.de/2011/09/15/melancholie-unterm-regenbogen/

 

"Der geniale Einfall von Willy Fleckhaus, die Umschläge der ersten Taschenbücher im Suhrkamp-Verlag ohne Abbildungen zu gestalten, einfarbig und mit einer schlichten Linotype Garamond; und dass die Farben in der Zusammenschau aller Bände das gesamte Spektrum abbildeten – dieser Einfall hat sicher manchen Buchliebhaber dazu verführt, möglichst ausreichend viele dieser Bändchen zu erwerben, um daraus einen schönen Regenbogen ins Regal zaubern zu können."

Preverb

Going through a pre-verbal moment: lots of thoughts about literature, the internet, Ron Paul, Fat Studies, and cinematography, yet nothing coming to fruition.

Woman Reading

Film 2

Film

Advanced Humanism

"My point is that to turn a jungle baboon into a seminar baboon is a cruel, irreversible process. I understand why you won't ever be happy around the waterhole again."

Nathan Zuckerman's agent (from Philip Roth's Zuckerman Unbound) is referring to the scarring that results from higher education, how four years of training in "Advanced Humanistic Decisions" can make it difficult for an individual to navigate the less advanced humanism of society outside the university. While I think this is true, I've also noticed (in myself and certain other colleagues) that the reverse is also the case: that too much time spent outside the academy leads to dissatisfaction with the functionings of the academic world. After finishing a somewhat botched undergraduate degree, I spent five years enjoying the freedom of a nu-bohemian creative lifestyle—inclusive of autodidactic efforts to approach literature and philosophy outside of a university perspective—before deciding that the time was right to reenter the academic fold. At first I treasured these five years, believing that they gave me a certain perspective that my fellow students (many of whom entered their doctoral programs directly from college) lacked. I am beginning to see now that this brief taste of freedom had its price: that, opposite to Zuckerman, whose academic experience makes it difficult for him to be content in the "real world," my five years out of the academy also represent an irreversible shift, a break from the academic winding-up process, making it very difficult for me to be happy around the university waterhole.
To go back to the clip I posted of Paul McIsaac in Robert Kramer's Route One USA, it's not always a matter of choice which "prizes" one ends up striving for. With academia, as with bourgeois America, it is a matter of being able to enjoy its system of rewards. With any enclosed cultural ecosystem, a dose of perspective can spell exile for the curious participant.

Walk the Walk

Here's a short example of Robert Kramer's cinematography, from Walk the Walk (1996). I'm pretty sure Kramer operates the camera for most of the shooting of his films. In his cinematographic style one can see the soul of a photographer, starting always from the primacy of the first-person image, of shooting film as "looking" (as Paul McIsaac calls it in Dear Doc). What separates Kramer from other "looker"-filmmakers is his lack of the egocentric will to self-exposure. Kramer starts from the personal-visual element, but always manages to weave these aestheticized tidbits of experience into a grand narrative which transcends his personal individualism.