26.5.12
Mix No. 18 - Out goes the candl / Out goes the lite / Out goes my story / And so Good Nite
23.5.12
me being boring
another note: currently learning Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 because it is so incredibly beautiful. the second movement of that is literally a work of the gods.
-
i will never enjoy performing. i will never like showing off what i've learned, what i've attained, what i've accomplished. i will never be a pianist, in the truest sense of the word, because i have redefined the word in my mind to mean someone who plays the piano. not well, not for fun, not for money, not for fame. just someone who plays the instrument. and that's all i am.
 |
| everything has become whole |
Kolya - Kolya
Kolya were a midwest band who created this full-length and two EPs in the late 90s/early 00s. As stated elsewhere (just, elsewhere), it's a Slint-inspired band in terms of instrumentation and delivery, for sure. To me, however, there is another undefinable quality to Kolya I don't really find in Slint. There are the same narrative-type vocals but there is also passion, rage, urgency. Think La Dispute - truly moving delivery of lyrics. "Astronaut" is pretty, reminds me a lot of Polvo, and the last two tracks are absolute perfection.
Edit: "Horizon," the final track, is the epitome of post-hardcore perfection
.
uncertainty is not too easily shaken
Edit: "Horizon," the final track, is the epitome of post-hardcore perfection
.
21.5.12
Kunteynir - В Гавно
03 В ГАВНО
04 Е
05 ПОДСТАВИТЬ СТУЛ
06 ЧИШИРСКИЙ МИКС
07 В РОТ
08 АНДЭРВОТЭР
09 HARDCORE SCREAMO
10 ИДУ
11 ИСТОРИЯ
12 МОЙ СРОК КОНЧАЕТСЯ
13 НЕНАДОИНТРО
14 КОСМОС
15 ОН ВЕДЬ НЕ БУДЕТ
16 МИКС - ДАУН
17 FREESTYLE
18 ПРИДЕЛ
19 СВИСТУЛЬКА
20 BONUS FREESTYLE
Kunteynir is a Moscow-based collective of underground hip-hop artists (Техник, Блёв МС, Смешной) and В Гавно is their second album.
It opens with the notes of Schubert's A-flat Impromptu, and from then on a terrifyingly brilliant mishmash of jazzy, abstract beats and lyrical accompaniment unfolds in a mesmerizing, nighttime-colored, fun-filled ride through a fuzzy alternate world. Cigarette smoke and shiny, expensive cars. Grease and sweat and filth. Classy streetfights and flickering lamps. Shadows of shivering trees and the rubbing of tennis shoe on pavement. Mystery all around.
i really despise black metal elitists, and for the record any typical, artless fan will make me cringe as well. whoever or whatever that entails, i don't really mind. i am against you all.
there is really no one i can talk to about music because it has, finally, dawned on me that it should be a solely personal experience, to engage with music. when others try to convey to me their experiences everything is lost, and the same is true if i attempt to share my love for a song, an album, an artist, even a particular second at the end of a track. an offhand remark, a circumstantial little moment in time that only i would find the words to call special. special to whom? does it even really matter? it is a little easier on the internet because words are all you have, really, and written words are far emptier than spoken ones, but i think music exists outside of words, outside of labels. many have said that before of course, but to actually take that sentiment to heart, to apply it to routine thought, is an entirely other matter.
listening: GZA/Genius - Liquid Swords & new Alcest album. nostalgic, boring, pretty.
there is really no one i can talk to about music because it has, finally, dawned on me that it should be a solely personal experience, to engage with music. when others try to convey to me their experiences everything is lost, and the same is true if i attempt to share my love for a song, an album, an artist, even a particular second at the end of a track. an offhand remark, a circumstantial little moment in time that only i would find the words to call special. special to whom? does it even really matter? it is a little easier on the internet because words are all you have, really, and written words are far emptier than spoken ones, but i think music exists outside of words, outside of labels. many have said that before of course, but to actually take that sentiment to heart, to apply it to routine thought, is an entirely other matter.
listening: GZA/Genius - Liquid Swords & new Alcest album. nostalgic, boring, pretty.
 |
| happy endings are a myth, designed to make us feel better about the fact that life is just a thankless struggle. |
15.5.12
Life's Blood - Defiance
International Harvester - Sov Gott Rose-Marie
This is an absolutely, absolutely ABSOLUTELY stunning album. Completely stunning. Listening to it now on repeat, I am just in utter awe of the perfect, intimate beauty of these songs. I am reminded of some Bergman films, like Summer with Monika and Wild Strawberries. A mystery that is transcendental, warm and radiant. Communal peace and stability achieved through glorious repetition. Candid minimalism - children yelling as they play, the music grows dark yet women still sing. One can just envision charcoal-colored smoke rising from a gathering, many heads hung over a fire as the music carries their souls across worlds and universes unknown. A dog barks. Each track on Sov Gott Rose-Marie (Sleep Well Rose-Marie) is like a hand-crafted wooden sculpture. This album is a work of psychedelic magic, mantric lyrics hypnotically chanted in both Swedish and English while traditional melodies and rhythmic, battle-like drums spin away as in some dreamy medieval orchestra on a grassy hillside.
I am in love with this treasure of the past.
Notes:
- Tracks 1 to 13 were originally released as an LP in the spring of 1969 by Love Records (Finland).
- Track 14 is an previously unreleased bonus track.
- The first eleven tracks and bonus track (14) were recorded on August 10-12th 1968 in Nacka Aula, Stockholm, directly on two channels with natural acoustics. The effects were made afterwards.
and suddenly i realize that you are bound to die
7.5.12
my body is a dead language
I am not going to provide download links from this point on, with the occasional exception, due to their presently nefarious nature.
WITH THAT SAID, I have some new music to share with you.
Wipers - "Youth of America" from Youth of America (1981)
I've been really digging this song, which comes off of the band's 1981 album of the same name, a mix of punk rock, grunge, and post-punk. Wipers is from Portland, Oregon, and they have released a number of albums during their active years, which were mainly during the late 70s and 80s. So far, I am thoroughly addicted to Youth of America.
My Autumn Empire - "Hatchlings" from The Village Compass (2010)
50 Ways to Kill Me - "Put a Bullet in My Brain" from Fun Funeral (2006)
Grimes - "Genesis" from Visions (2012)
Steaming Coils - "Proposed Pink City" from Sometimes Live
Roky Erickson - "The Times I've Had" from The Holiday Inn Tapes (1987)
Upsidedown Cross - "Redrum" from Upsidedown Cross (1991)
Okay, that seems to be enough songs for right now. I recommend getting all of these albums, and if you have trouble finding anything send me an email, but I don't suspect you will if you are perseverant enough.
Disfigured Robot Child new album EＲＲ0Ｒ is halfway up on their bandcamp.
WITH THAT SAID, I have some new music to share with you.
Wipers - "Youth of America" from Youth of America (1981)
I've been really digging this song, which comes off of the band's 1981 album of the same name, a mix of punk rock, grunge, and post-punk. Wipers is from Portland, Oregon, and they have released a number of albums during their active years, which were mainly during the late 70s and 80s. So far, I am thoroughly addicted to Youth of America.
This is the final track off of this one-man acoustic indie/folk project My Autumn Empire's latest album, The Village Compass. Click here for a link to purchase as well as more information on his work.
So yeah. 50 Ways to Kill Me is the cybergrind/suicidepop project by Jay Decay, and Fun Funeral was released 06/06/06.
Grimes - "Genesis" from Visions (2012)
I am just finding about Grimes, the dreampop/pop whatever girl Clair Boucher from Canada, and this is a track from her latest album Visions. I do not dislike her music, but I am not super in love with it. This song, however, is one of my favorites atm. Enjoy.
Steaming Coils - "Proposed Pink City" from Sometimes Live
Here is the amazing band Steaming Coils performing this song live at the Covergirl Club in 1988. So FUCKING obsessed with not only this band but also this song. ❤
I just love this song. A friend of mine said that every so often when he feels empty he listens exclusively to Roky Erickson, and then when he feels like he is full, he will wait to listen to him until he is empty again. I don't know, I thought it was quite sweet.
Reeeedruuuum. This is one of my favorite songs off of one of my favorite albums. Upsidedown Cross was the first album by the doom punk/sludge band Upsidedown Cross, who formed out of the ashes of Kilslug and contain members of Dinosaur Jr. and Kilslug. I loooove it.
p. s.
Album of the year/century: Vampire Rodents - Lullaby Land
Artists to check out:
P. Miles Bryson
J. Mascis
The Bran Flakes
Paco Sala
Freshly Wrapped Candies
Earthlings
MF Doom
St. Vincent
Here is Garrick Ohlsson performing the third movement of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. I am absolutely in love with the part that starts right at 2:29 - it is honestly the most beautiful thing you will ever hear in your lifetime. :')
Album of the year/century: Vampire Rodents - Lullaby Land
Artists to check out:
P. Miles Bryson
J. Mascis
The Bran Flakes
Paco Sala
Freshly Wrapped Candies
Earthlings
MF Doom
St. Vincent
Here is Garrick Ohlsson performing the third movement of Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58. I am absolutely in love with the part that starts right at 2:29 - it is honestly the most beautiful thing you will ever hear in your lifetime. :')
 |
| Very nice nighttime noise. |
You're here to entertain the Suit's kids, and that's IT.
That's going to change, isn't it, boys and girls?
That's going to change, isn't it, boys and girls?
2.5.12
i love, i hate
It has been a while since I've posted anything on this blog. I'm not just talking about albums, either... I haven't written anywhere about my own musical experiences for the past few months or so, and this is because I have been having a very minimal amount of these experiences.
One could say I have given up. But that wouldn't be entirely true. There is some light shining through. Starting around late February/early March, a really intense apathy grew inside me regarding school, life, and music. I didn't practice the piano as much, I didn't listen to as much music, I didn't talk to anyone about anything. I pretty much stopped caring, and no it is not all better now. BUT, it is getting better. Here is how.
When I turned 14, I decided it was time I start learning real things on the piano. No more kid-oriented things that had no musical significance (in essence, or for me). I went to the music store and urged my mother to let me get a big lavender book of Frédéric Chopin's Complete Ballades, Impromptus & Sonatas. I had no idea what a Ballade, Impromptu, or Sonata was, and I can't remember if I even knew who Chopin was. I must have, or I wouldn't have been so interested in buying it. I opened the book and could not read a single line, even without being at the piano, but I knew that I MUST learn something out of it, even if it took me a century, I would do it. I bought it and took it home. I had just gotten a new piano for my birthday, (and I still love the shit out of that piano), so I was anxious to start playing some real music on it. The first piece in the big lavender book was Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. To this day, it is my favorite piece of Chopin's music. I cannot find a single fault with it. I was able to play the first page no problem, and would often play it for my mother while she sat outside on the porch because it was just so beautiful. I remember turning the page and deciding to go ahead and tackle the whole thing - who would want to hear just the first page? I learned the second page, the third page, and then on the fourth page I realized that I had probably gotten really over my head. So I skipped pages four and five. Six wasn't quite as bad, so I picked that up as well, and while seven was tough I liked to pretend I could get through it. I went through the rest of the thirteen pages like this until I could safely say I "learned" this piece, for better or for worse. I played it every day, over and over again. I started at all different places, almost never the beginning, until I memorized virtually every single note in the entire piece (except, of course, pages four and five). I still have journals in which I documented my progress with the piece, writing how badly I want to learn the whole thing, how badly I want to memorize it and play it straight through by myself. I wanted to internalize the piece and be completely consumed by it. I bought a recording of the piece played by Ashkenazy or something and would sit with the score in my lap and turn it all the way up. I didn't know the terms with which one would describe the things Ashkenazy did with the music, such as rubato and rallentando or a tempo. I just took a pencil and wrote things like "nothing too fancy at first" and "some tone quality, but not full-force" and... what else... "bring this out" and "play fast" (I even wrote, literally, "take time plz" at one part) and notes saying to sing out the melody as if I were a singer. I was coaching myself to play the piece exactly like the recording. I was reminding a future-version of myself to play as I hoped someday to play. I was so encompassed by the piece, but there was always something missing. I had a few teachers hear me play it, and they never discouraged me but there were definitely some wrong notes that I had learned due to wanting to learn as much as possible over a short period of time. As I grew up, however, and moved to other pieces... I did stop playing it. I stopped opening up my big lavender book, I stopped spending hours on a single piece until my hands screamed for rest. I stopped drilling passages that I thought were simply IMPOSSIBLE to be conquered, stopped playing and re-playing sections that my hands were just not large or agile enough to handle. I moved on. Aside from some pieces that I do not care for, I barely played any Chopin again.
Now, three or four years later, I find that I am tired of learning piano music written by people who didn't understand the piano quite in the same way that Chopin did. Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Ravel, Bach. These are the composers to whom I have been dedicating nearly all of my creative and physical energies. I am not at all saying these are not amazing writers of piano music, but you have to admit, none of them can compare to Chopin. Rachmaninoff was a mystery, constantly searching. His music is never satisfied. It is an emotion. It is a nebulous, dark thing. Brahms' music is much the same way, slightly more pointed but still far from elegant or balanced. Ravel and Bach both wrote mathematically lovely pieces, their colors and harmonies incredibly gorgeous and sometimes highly complex and mystifying. AND YET, as a pianist, I had almost forgotten how utterly frustrating it was to play anything in the entire universe besides Chopin. His music does what you want it to do, it follows the natural flow of pianist expectation, and yet it does just the opposite. You are surprised, you are taken aback, you are confused, you are moved to exhaustion or breathless excitement or just plain melancholy. Whatever it is, there is nothing you can do but succumb to it.
I opened up my big lavender book and played through the Ballade, still skipping pages four and five because I have the rest of my life to learn those two goddamn pages. I am falling in love with Chopin's piano music again. Even though I stopped playing his music, I never stopped listening to it. It is not a perfect collection of music, his, and it's a well-known fact that his music is played and played and played and... played. All day, every day. Chopin piano music. But does anyone really understand it? Really, truly, honestly? I don't know the answer to that question. Anyway, yeah. This Ballade is magical. It clicks with me immediately, and I suddenly find myself immersed in a time where I never had to worry about all of the shit that occupies my mind nowadays. A carefree life where I thought for myself and existed completely inside myself. Fucking paradise. It was such an amazing feeling... And this is nothing new, I have known for a while that incredible things can lie in the pages of music long untouched. Entire memories are enclosed in the black-and-white print of manuscript, preserved almost perfectly, and when opened again (especially when you didn't even mean to) the experience is mind-blowing, shocking. I can't really explain it. It's a warm feeling, and I imagine my hair blowing in the wind or something.
AHH okay. I am learning the Ballade again, or rather fixing it up because my fingers' muscle memory has remained almost completely faithful, and those two pages are a piece of cake to me now. Maybe not quite, but very close. I have no worries about it, the whole piece seems much easier now that I have gotten through so much in the interval between now and when I first tried to learn it. By the end of the summer, I will have the Ballade down, and I will know it better than anyone alive or dead. The end.
Currently loving with ALL OF MY HEART:
Les Rallizes Dénudés
Wipers
Nisennenmondai
Gauze
Dinosaur Jr.
Ed Hall (<333333)
Currently learning:
Frédéric Chopin - Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 1 & Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Étude-tableau No. 8 in D minor, Op. 39 & Suite No. 2, Op. 17 for two pianos/four hands (focusing on 1st and 3rd movement)
Béla Bartók - Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (No. 3)
J. S. Bach - Concerto No. 7 in G minor, S. 1058 for piano and orchestra
Claude Debussy - a bunch of random things
Schumann - Traumerei, just because it's incredibly lovely and dreamy
yes i'm quite busy with all of that but it keeps me happy, keeps me sane
no more brahms for quite a while
no more haydn, ever
Movies I want to see: Waking Life
still reading IQ84.
I don't like the idea of people laughing. It makes me nervous. I'd like to cut down on the amount of happiness.
Why's that?
Because I'm not crazy about the idea of happiness. I think it's a mistake.
On whose part?
On the people who have to put up with it, you know what I mean?
One could say I have given up. But that wouldn't be entirely true. There is some light shining through. Starting around late February/early March, a really intense apathy grew inside me regarding school, life, and music. I didn't practice the piano as much, I didn't listen to as much music, I didn't talk to anyone about anything. I pretty much stopped caring, and no it is not all better now. BUT, it is getting better. Here is how.
When I turned 14, I decided it was time I start learning real things on the piano. No more kid-oriented things that had no musical significance (in essence, or for me). I went to the music store and urged my mother to let me get a big lavender book of Frédéric Chopin's Complete Ballades, Impromptus & Sonatas. I had no idea what a Ballade, Impromptu, or Sonata was, and I can't remember if I even knew who Chopin was. I must have, or I wouldn't have been so interested in buying it. I opened the book and could not read a single line, even without being at the piano, but I knew that I MUST learn something out of it, even if it took me a century, I would do it. I bought it and took it home. I had just gotten a new piano for my birthday, (and I still love the shit out of that piano), so I was anxious to start playing some real music on it. The first piece in the big lavender book was Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23. To this day, it is my favorite piece of Chopin's music. I cannot find a single fault with it. I was able to play the first page no problem, and would often play it for my mother while she sat outside on the porch because it was just so beautiful. I remember turning the page and deciding to go ahead and tackle the whole thing - who would want to hear just the first page? I learned the second page, the third page, and then on the fourth page I realized that I had probably gotten really over my head. So I skipped pages four and five. Six wasn't quite as bad, so I picked that up as well, and while seven was tough I liked to pretend I could get through it. I went through the rest of the thirteen pages like this until I could safely say I "learned" this piece, for better or for worse. I played it every day, over and over again. I started at all different places, almost never the beginning, until I memorized virtually every single note in the entire piece (except, of course, pages four and five). I still have journals in which I documented my progress with the piece, writing how badly I want to learn the whole thing, how badly I want to memorize it and play it straight through by myself. I wanted to internalize the piece and be completely consumed by it. I bought a recording of the piece played by Ashkenazy or something and would sit with the score in my lap and turn it all the way up. I didn't know the terms with which one would describe the things Ashkenazy did with the music, such as rubato and rallentando or a tempo. I just took a pencil and wrote things like "nothing too fancy at first" and "some tone quality, but not full-force" and... what else... "bring this out" and "play fast" (I even wrote, literally, "take time plz" at one part) and notes saying to sing out the melody as if I were a singer. I was coaching myself to play the piece exactly like the recording. I was reminding a future-version of myself to play as I hoped someday to play. I was so encompassed by the piece, but there was always something missing. I had a few teachers hear me play it, and they never discouraged me but there were definitely some wrong notes that I had learned due to wanting to learn as much as possible over a short period of time. As I grew up, however, and moved to other pieces... I did stop playing it. I stopped opening up my big lavender book, I stopped spending hours on a single piece until my hands screamed for rest. I stopped drilling passages that I thought were simply IMPOSSIBLE to be conquered, stopped playing and re-playing sections that my hands were just not large or agile enough to handle. I moved on. Aside from some pieces that I do not care for, I barely played any Chopin again.
Now, three or four years later, I find that I am tired of learning piano music written by people who didn't understand the piano quite in the same way that Chopin did. Rachmaninoff, Brahms, Ravel, Bach. These are the composers to whom I have been dedicating nearly all of my creative and physical energies. I am not at all saying these are not amazing writers of piano music, but you have to admit, none of them can compare to Chopin. Rachmaninoff was a mystery, constantly searching. His music is never satisfied. It is an emotion. It is a nebulous, dark thing. Brahms' music is much the same way, slightly more pointed but still far from elegant or balanced. Ravel and Bach both wrote mathematically lovely pieces, their colors and harmonies incredibly gorgeous and sometimes highly complex and mystifying. AND YET, as a pianist, I had almost forgotten how utterly frustrating it was to play anything in the entire universe besides Chopin. His music does what you want it to do, it follows the natural flow of pianist expectation, and yet it does just the opposite. You are surprised, you are taken aback, you are confused, you are moved to exhaustion or breathless excitement or just plain melancholy. Whatever it is, there is nothing you can do but succumb to it.
I opened up my big lavender book and played through the Ballade, still skipping pages four and five because I have the rest of my life to learn those two goddamn pages. I am falling in love with Chopin's piano music again. Even though I stopped playing his music, I never stopped listening to it. It is not a perfect collection of music, his, and it's a well-known fact that his music is played and played and played and... played. All day, every day. Chopin piano music. But does anyone really understand it? Really, truly, honestly? I don't know the answer to that question. Anyway, yeah. This Ballade is magical. It clicks with me immediately, and I suddenly find myself immersed in a time where I never had to worry about all of the shit that occupies my mind nowadays. A carefree life where I thought for myself and existed completely inside myself. Fucking paradise. It was such an amazing feeling... And this is nothing new, I have known for a while that incredible things can lie in the pages of music long untouched. Entire memories are enclosed in the black-and-white print of manuscript, preserved almost perfectly, and when opened again (especially when you didn't even mean to) the experience is mind-blowing, shocking. I can't really explain it. It's a warm feeling, and I imagine my hair blowing in the wind or something.
AHH okay. I am learning the Ballade again, or rather fixing it up because my fingers' muscle memory has remained almost completely faithful, and those two pages are a piece of cake to me now. Maybe not quite, but very close. I have no worries about it, the whole piece seems much easier now that I have gotten through so much in the interval between now and when I first tried to learn it. By the end of the summer, I will have the Ballade down, and I will know it better than anyone alive or dead. The end.
Currently loving with ALL OF MY HEART:
Les Rallizes Dénudés
Wipers
Nisennenmondai
Gauze
Dinosaur Jr.
Ed Hall (<333333)
Currently learning:
Frédéric Chopin - Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23 1 & Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38
Sergei Rachmaninoff - Étude-tableau No. 8 in D minor, Op. 39 & Suite No. 2, Op. 17 for two pianos/four hands (focusing on 1st and 3rd movement)
Béla Bartók - Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (No. 3)
J. S. Bach - Concerto No. 7 in G minor, S. 1058 for piano and orchestra
Claude Debussy - a bunch of random things
Schumann - Traumerei, just because it's incredibly lovely and dreamy
yes i'm quite busy with all of that but it keeps me happy, keeps me sane
no more brahms for quite a while
no more haydn, ever
Movies I want to see: Waking Life
still reading IQ84.
Mix No. 17 - why won't you let me eat you?
- Les Rallizes Dénudés track taken from France Demo Tape, 88-89. This is all of the information I have regarding the track title: 恋の物語 88 win-89 spr : ST, meaning it was recorded 3/29/89 in the studio.
- p.Wrecks & Xrin Arms taken from here, which I highly recommend you check out.
- p.Wrecks & Xrin Arms taken from here, which I highly recommend you check out.
- DJ Clent track taken from here.
- Dinosaur Jr. track taken from Get Me EP (1992).
- Dinosaur Jr. track taken from Get Me EP (1992).
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