OKSRNA Blog, Comments And Discussion

The Benefits of Noise

I've always been one of those people that thrives when working in a crowded, noisy environment. A new book goes on to detail how noise can actually benefit you. Here's a sample from an interview with the author from the latest issue of Wired:

"...in his new book, Noise , Bart Kosko argues that even the most annoying racket can be beneficial. The USC professor draws on his degrees in electrical engineering, law, mathematics, economics, and philosophy to connect the finer points of calculus, game theory, and court precedent to all kinds of random, unpredictable energy"... "The more you can concentrate with background noise, the more it strengthens the brain. Isaac Asimov used to set his typewriter up in stores and other loud places to work. His claim was that you get really good at writing when you’re in a crowd. You want to be energized by that background noise, rather than distracted."

Thanks to Boing Boing poster Cory Doctorow for the link!

Music Recommendations From The PLI #7

Well, back again with some new sounds to recommend.

1) Terry Day - Interruptions

I love finding a record like this. Completely out of nowhere, and worth a large amount of rejoice. This collection of Terry Day's work from 78-81, is 32 short tracks, full of invention and excitement. Day was a member of Alterations and The People Band when health issues curtailed his activities. His ability to play instruments started to become limited. Rather than stop making music he started using all kinds of toys and noisemakers in conjuction with his instruments. Day's miniatures are full of strange skronks, oddball techniques. A nescessity.

2) Keiji Haino and Yoshida Tatsuya - New Rap
3) Keiji Haino and Sitaar Tah! - Animamima

Keiji Haino is prolific and on occasision, it's bit too much for even the devout fan to keep up on, but these two recent collabs warrant attention. Those unfamiliar with Haino's work, are trully missing out, his abstractions of rock idiom are fascinating and often ugly and beautiful in millisecond gaps and even sometimes all at once.

New Rap packs a powerful punch. Haino and Yoshida Tatsuya (of Ruins) carve out an exciting blend of Tatsuya's drums, and Haino's vocals and guitar. Almost taking the trend of basic guitars and drums as starting point these two great of Japan's avant rock set show them how it's done with an absolutely eccentric and creative take of singing, guitars and drums. This record is chock full of jagged points and unexpected twists, and it is wonderful.

The two-disc Animamina is almost a total antithesis of New Rap. Haino leads a twenty-plus piece orchestra into a trancey drone along the lines of Taj Mahal Travellers. The many players act as one droning voice. While not as unique or as essential as New Rap it's still pretty incredible. A large sounding yet detailed drone with some very interesting surprises. Haino's an old master with plenty of tricks left to show the many he's influenced.

4) Wolf Eyes - Six Arms and Sucks
5) Wolf Eyes w/ Anthony Braxton - Black Vomit

Are Wolf Eyes profound leaders of the American underground noise scene or drooling monsters? Wolf Eyes took this onus when Sub Pop put out their album, Burned Mind back in '04. They were introduced to underground at large with one aggressive beast of a record. Where could they go after this feat? As a record on Sub Pop, was probably as close to the mainstream as they'll ever get. So they've taken a step or two back to the material of the Fuck Pete Larsen and Dread Hills days to their long lurching thuds to take step foward into darker, more disturbing atmospheres.

Six Arms and Sucks is hopefully named after my favorite joke about Def Leppard (what's got nine arms and sucks? You guessed it) . This slow churning death atmosphere marks a turn away from the awesome but already covered territory of songs like "Stabbed in the Face" and "Black Vomit". They create very tense atmospheres but avoid explosions. On Black Vomit, an unlikely pairing of Wolf Eyes and avant jazz great, Anthony Braxton. Braxton weaves gorgeous webs around the dense and disturbing noises created by Wolf Eyes. Braxton integrates well into the Wolf Eyes lineup sometimes his alto gets lost a web of noise. This teaming warrants further recordings.

6) Dr. Octagon - The Return Of Dr. Octagon

When I first heard that this record was in the works I had to do a double take. I couldn't believe my eyes. Kool Keith reincarnated the mighty Dr. Octagon persona and my god, the world needs Dr. Octagon now more than ever. The production team, One Watt Sun from Berlin take over for the Automator and give Dr. Ocatgon's sound an update. More twisted lyrics, more crazy sci-fi samples, this record is the best hip hop I've heard in quite a long time and lives up to it's sole '96 predecessor. One listen to "Ants", "Trees" or "Aleins" and it'll feel like the Doc's never been gone, worth the wait.

Music Recommendations From The PLI #6

1) No-Neck Blues Band - Letters from the Earth
2) Yellow Swans - Psychic Secession

Noise is king, right now, anyway. Freak folk is on the way out. Or, rather the extent to which the newer noise bands in the New Weird America/noise area look to the hippier acts (ie Sunburned Hand of the Man, Wooden Wand, etc.) is now seeming reaching out into hardcore and industrial. Yellow Swans are clearly exhibiting an influence of punk on top of their noisier more Wolf Eyes type leanings.

Psychic Secession in the latest of like a million releases. It's on Load (Lightning Bolt, Sightings, Noxagt) and in good company there. They built melodic drones and cut the space up with drum machine beats. It's the darker side of areas that BXC have explored. It's nice trade off of John Wiese style pummeling attacks through thick and pleasant fogs.

It's very timely and telling that we now see a reissue of the No Neck Blues Band's 1996 masterpiece Letters From The Earth. The boom in of work in the New Weird America and New Noise America we're in the thick of right now, was anticipated by NNCK ten years ago. This double disc set has it all. Tribal jams of melodic noise, crunched chords, alien atmospherics, and freak out scary drones. What amazes me about this record is how contemporary this record sounds listening to it today. Think about it, what were you doing in '96? I know I was working at a Wal-Mart photolab and freaking out over OK Computer. NNCK anticipated Double Leopards, BXC, Sunburned Hand, Jewelled Antler, and many others. This is a pretty necessary purchase.

3) Scott Walker - The Drift
There's very little point to write another article praising this record. Yet, I want to praise this record, and I hope I can at the very least praise it in a different way than it has been praised in most publications. Is this record pretentious? Sure, to disagree with the Wire's review. Is it worth all the hype? Definitely. I will admit right away, I had not heard of Scott Walker until Pitchfork covered the release of his boxset back a few years. However, one spin of the Drift, and you too may add him to your MySpace musical influences list.

Walker's voice is unusual and completely put on. You can tell where Antony gets it from. His songs are dramatic and full of twists. "Clara" will make your head spin. Yet the drama and creativity of his songs and the spare, yet imaginative arrangements are a little piece of perfection. This reminds me a bit of David Sylvian's Blemish record. It's great damned record and finally the hype is right.

4) Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
The fact that Sonic Youth are still this good is very amazing. It's a conscious return to poppier (relatively) music than the previous record, Sonic Nurse. It's good thing on many levels, Murray Street, their late period peak is so excellent that they couldn't possibly out do themselves in that direction. I do miss Jim O'Rourke's presence but this band has taken every set back and turned it into gold. Rather Ripped is evidence of that. They've made an indie-pop version of themselves, only showing their teeth in a few places. So, if you can stand to miss their noisier freak-outs, it's a solid indie-pop rock record.

Return To The Four Chambers, About The Painful Leg Injuries' Podcast Series 11

I began to hear those strange ghostly echoes, in the subway chambers and on the NYC streets. When I did the Series 3 version, Underground Chambers, I wanted to make something that had that ghostly technology damage sound that Philip Jeck's work has. My theory was this, using the idea that I got from Alvin Lucier's Chambers, where sound is sculpted by the environment, added to the idea of technology damage, from Jeck's work, I came up with an approach. I would record street musicians, I'd let the cell phone's bad mic and now in the new series, the memo recorder's bad mic, interpret the sound of the environment we are in, and the sometimes beautiful and sometime horrible sounds of the public musicians into the source material of these collages.

So, I made tons of field recordings of various public musicians using my memo recorder. Including, in full seriousness, your typical sax and horn players, two different guys playing a chinese lute, flutes, a string quartet, a blues band, guitarists, accordians, violins, a guy in a loincloth who sings and plays violin, and someone playing an extremely well known pop song on a muscial saw.

The first episode, Central Park, May 6th 2006, Pet Adoption Fair (For Crindy), was all sourced on that day at that location. The sources include the loincloth violin guy, chinese lute, steel drums, horn players, and the string quartet.
Episode Two, It Takes Six Strings To Laugh Again is dedicated to all those brave souls who pull out a guitar and sing in the face of public scrutiny. Episode Three could be my most devestating podcast yet, one sample looped in various pitches and phases, of a man playing a chinese lute, That Frightening Moment When The Sleeping Giant Wakes Up. The fourth is dedicated to all those heartbroken souls playing horns, who become the tragic backdrop to every subway ride, The Bill Byrne Elevenbilliontet. Those of you who read this blog, know my love of jazz and this is my fantasy of being a jazz band leader, with a G5. The fifth episode is another monster made of a sample of a very famous pop song (I'll let you guys figure out what song it is) being played on a musical saw, Above Us Only Sky. Finally the sixth episode is a lovely and fun sample of two men playing an accordian and violin. I've called this one Me As An Old Man In Palermo Sipping On Espresso Watching the Children Play.

My intention is not to exploit these musicains but to call attention to them. They are the soundtrack to many hours of our lives. It's a profoundly New York feeling they give the millions of commuters. I take their gift to the public home with me and collage it into the greater context. The important thing to me is that they are out there and sharing, in much more direct ways than weekly podcasts. Hope you enjoy the music thanks for listening.

The Grey Ghost Album

It's nice to see that musicians, who have been around since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura were state governors, since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura lit up the screen in "The Running Man", since before Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura duked it out with a space alien in "Predator", it's nice to see that these musicians, who have been around since before those halcyon days are now catching on to the possibilities made possible through recent technological advances. In this post-Grey Album world, I find it comforting that Neil Young is streaming his new anti-war album over the internet airwaves and that Brian Eno and David Byrne are making available some of 1981's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" to be downloaded and misappropriated at will. So if you would be so kind, please put down that acappella "Black Album" you've been tinkering with for the last two years and have a looksy!

Brian Eno and David Byrne are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs from their "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" Album through a Creative Commons License in an effort to encourage the remix and sampling of these works. You are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. You are able to post your own songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate, if you are so inclined.

To launch the Remix site click this!

Music Recommendations from The PLI #5

1) J Spaceman - Guitar Loops
2) Evan Parker - With Birds
3) Coxon, Prevost, Wales - Acoustic Trio
4) Coxon, Parker, Sanders, Wales - Trio With Interludes

So this is one big mass recommend from the Treader label. Coxon and Wales are Spring Heel Jack, techno/drum'n bass provocateurs from way back when. Around 2000-2001-ish they abandoned all dancey stuff and moved into free jazz, recording an excellent series of CD's with Matthew Shipp, Evan Parker, William Parker, Han Bennink, Wadada Leo Smith and Tim Berne. If you don't own these four records, they are worth finding (Masses, Amassed, Live and The Sweetness of Water) They cherry picked the best improvisers in the world and blasted sheets of noise from their laptops and the improvisers were left with the task of using that as their start point.

Now they've started the Treader label. Each record has beautiful packaging. Pastel color cardboard with a gold embossed animal on the cover. Each record has some amazing qualities and these four are my favorites. Trio With Interludes is a busy kinetic powerhouse. Evan Parker With Birds is a beautiful collection of the sax player dancing with a bird song projected at him by Wales and Coxon. Acoustic Trio shows Coxon and Wales moving away from electro-driving jazz into AMM territory, thanks to Prevost. This spare record is anything but a lightweight however, they achieve some massive density. Lastly their best seller to date, J Spaceman's Guitar Loops, is exactly that, Spaceman's one take performance of some exciting experimental guitar work (I'm not sure if Coxon and Wales were heavily involved in this one) sounding anywhere between world music and Sonic Youth.

All these Treader CD's are very limited, so if you see one grab it. A very good article on Coxon and Wales was in last month's Wire. There's been talk of an upcoming Coxon, Wales and Bennink recording that's supposed to be a real blistering monster, I can't wait. Check out their site if you can't find them in a brick and mortar, www.treader.org

5) Parts & Labor - Stay Afraid

Finally a record that rocks and doesn't feel overburdened with cliches. This record reminds me of Death From Above 1979's record from last year. Take the Lightning Bolt/Sightings/Wolf Eyes template of hardcore arty noise and add songs on top of it is the formula both bands use. While DFA's songs sounded in places like bar rock, Parts & Labor swap that for sounding like late 80's mid west hardcore. They sound like Lightning Bolt covering Husker Du. I can't get enough of this record.