stillness is the move

I've wanted to post that for awhile. I loved "Bitte Orca" last year's Dirty Projectors album. And this song was all over the place. It's a great cover Solange has. The reason I post it now is because of this interview which is awesome and fascinating about music racism and the navel gazing nature of music (and really all criticism). Check it out.

Fiddle-tastic!

Two Girls. Two Cups.

It's not gross. but is the one on the right wearing a towel?

from Lulu and the Lampshades “You're Gonna Miss Me.”

What I'm Listening To

So AS has once again turned me on to some amazing stuff. Mamer, a Kazakh-Chinese alt-country rocker. Go find this album. It's on Amazon. It's amazing.

Here's the video;



Here's a great review:

Eagle opens with a bait and switch. First there is a shrill crash of Chinese opera. This lasts for six seconds, long enough for us to take it in and prepare ourselves for more. Then the opera is interrupted by a newsreader’s voice, followed by the buzz of a dial swerving through different radio channels. Then there is something very different, the sound of folky plucked strings picking up their heels at a steady pace like good horses. We continue with the strings, men singing, guitar, dombra, a twang, a drone, boings from a mouth harp. The message the listener has been given runs like this: “This—this operatic crashing—is what you’ve been told traditional Chinese music sounds like. But it is not always like that. It can also sound like my dombra.”

The swerving radio device and the idea of switching from one style of music to another are hardly new.

Madera Limpia played a similar game earlier this year on La Corona, letting the listener think that they were about to hear old Cuban music and then seguing into a crossover between a traditional style and hip-hop. In Eagle, though, I think the switch has a more serious purpose. Cuba’s indigenous African-European cross-pollinations are likely to sound familiar to English-speaking listeners in a way that Chinese music does not. The Chinese have been migrating around the globe in the millions, yet their impact on the popular music of English-speaking nations has been minimal. Music travelling from a Chinese musician like Mamer to an English-speaking audience comes up against problems that don’t affect—or, at least, not to the same degree—a traditional musician from Africa or Western Europe. The music often needs to be framed or introduced in some way before it can be grasped.

The simplest way to tackle the obstacle is by writing a set of album notes. “This music,” the writer might explain, “comes from the nomadic people of such-and-such a place. Instruments need to be small and light so that they can be easily carried.” Then the reader will know not to wonder why the musician is not playing a piano, or a balafon, or anything else that is large and bulky. Eagle comes with a very short Mamer biography that serves as a quick introduction to the music as well as the musician: “[He] grew up in the furthest flung corner of Chinese central Asia, near China’s border with Russia and Kazakhstan… he learnt the instruments and songs of the area from his father and grandfather… a collection of songs that deal with universal grassland themes: the nature of man, the delicate balance of nature, and the temptations of modernity.” But the album would work without it.

Musical cues have been integrated into the songs themselves. In “Proverbs” the thrumming notes of Mamer’s singing have been furnished with sound effects, shuffles, and softness, and, near the end, a recording of two old men talking. There’s intimacy, possibly nostalgia, in this conversation. You don’t need to understand the language to come to a conclusion about the song. Maybe it’s one of those songs about “the nature of man”—or maybe the two men, talking about their youth and comparing it to the world around them today, are thinking of “the temptations of modernity”. Whatever it is, you get an idea of the song that is unlike the one you’d get if you were listening to it in its unmodified form, sung by an everyday person in “the furthest flung corner of Chinese central Asia”.

Mamer demystifies the experience and keeps the beauty of the sound. And Central Asian music is beautiful, with a beauty that can seem unearthly, the singer aching and transported into song. He has the faintly gurgled purring tone that you tend to hear in male singers from this part of the world, as if the lyrics are being somehow chanted by a huge cat. His dombra is companionable and folkish, avoiding the hard downward strokes that have jarred their way out of some of the other dombra recordings I’ve listened to. The dombra is an instrument on a supremely human scale: the sound is light, a fine tenor, and each note carries upwards, as if the instrument is turning its eyes to the sky and looking thoughtful. Mamer plays mouth harp as well, along with a few other instruments.

Ilchi, whose work should be familiar to anyone who picked up last year’s Introducing Hanggai, provides throat-singing. Both Eagle and the Hanggai album are being presented to us under the auspices of a new sub-genre called Chinese alt-country. Its appearance in the repertoire of British record labels seems to be the work of Robin Haller and Matteo Scumaci, two Britons working in Beijing, where these musicians are based. So far “Chinese alt-country” means Central Asian music clarified with modern touches. This is the same path that the Tuvan Albert Kuvezin pioneered with Yat-Kha, and that other bands with much less Western exposure have worked on in turn. The label seems likely to be misunderstood—surely at least one person is going to put on this album expecting to hear a Chinese singer making music in the American country style—but if it helps to coax people in, then I’m all for it.

The Spoon Box

The Books, from Western Mass are amazing. I still listen to their albums all the time,years after JS introduced me to them lo those many years ago in the Pioneer Valley. I remember him opening up for their show at the Iron Horse, which to this day is still one of the best live shows I have ever seen.

BoingBoing got this explanation of the Spoon Box from them:

This will take a little bit of explaining. I built this prototype of the Spoonbox out of wood, plexiglass, zinc plates, measuring spoons, and closeout radioshack parts. It hooks up to a CD player and small amplifier which cause the spoons to dance. There are small speakers behind the spoons that move in response to the sounds on the CD which I carefully composed using low frequency sine waves and kitchen sounds. The speakers, in turn, blow small puffs of air into the spoons which cause them to bounce/vibrate in rhythmic patterns. It really must be seen to be understood, but this video might give you some sense of what it does.

Modern Lovers

How have I not heard of this awesome band before? Why didn't any of you tell me it had members who went on to join other bands like The Cars and Talking Heads? How could it be that I was so out of the loop, is it because this band broke up before the album was even released?

I blame you.

What I'm Listening To

Thanks to EW for turning me on to this. Album drops 9/9/9

Stevie Wonder Drum Solo

From YesButNoYes:

Damn, He's freakin' talented.

Ring of Fire

via Boing Boing: Ray Charles doing a fantastic cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." It's from The Johnny Cash Show, a variety show that aired from 1969 to 1971.

Music is the most natural thing in the world

Via Buzzfeed.

Electronic Music from Kids Movies

ViaUrlesque:
Pogo is an Australian musician who composes songs from sounds sampled from kids movies like Mary Poppins, The Sword In The Stone, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland.



Expialidotious


White Magic


Alohamora


Alice

Star Wars "Cantina Band" on Chapman Stick

Via Boing Boing comes this cool video of my favorite song from the Star Wars soundtrack.

Musician Guillaume Estace plays a rendition of the famous "Cantina Theme" from Star Wars IV on a Chapman Stick, a guitar-like instrument designed solely for finger-tapping. It's really cool the way it lets him play the bass and melody simultaneously

America's Folk-Parody Competition

Not sure if it's a fight to the death or not. Probably not.

Jonathan Coulton: Best known for nothing. He is hilarious. I saw him once in Portland troubadoring for John Hodgman.



Vs.

Flight Of The Conchords: This duo from New Zealand is best known for their hilarious self-referential HBO show. And one of them from Outback commercials.

Ragtime Re-mixed

Scott Bradlee re-interprets classic 80s songs.

Pharcyde: She Said (Amsterdam Version)

Borderline

Flaming Lips and Stardeath cover Madonna's "Borderline". Video by George Salisbury.

2009 Borderline from George Salisbury on Vimeo.

Via "..., new chap?"

Dueling Banjos

Not sure why BoingBoing had this up recently, but its great. Talented fellow that Steve Martin. I hope he managed to do something with himself since 1977.

In B-Flat Major

PROJECT In Bb 2.0

VSL today directed me to this site, (where you should go right now), which collects 16 YouTube music videos most of which are in the key of B-flat major. You can then mess around with them and make some awesome music. VSL argues that what the site’s creator, Darren Solomon, has really invented is a new kind of instrument. Additionally, astronomers have discovered that black holes emit one note, a B-flat major...

Beatboxing World Championship

Great NPR story here. It takes place on May 28-31st in Berlin.



Julia's the wildcard winner.
(via boingboing. and earlier hwickline.com)

Scarecrows Dancing

Sam & Dave's "Hold on I'm Coming" performed by Italian scarecrows.