Look at Stars (Fall Breaks and Back to Winter)

Did this one a little while back but sat on it for a while, undecided as to whether it merited posting, until I decided wtf. Another one of those strung-together jawns, compressed mix of some (only some) tracks that I'd been listening to over the past 6 to 8 months. Some recent releases as well as a few artists with varying degrees of history, and an odd allotment of style to be found amidst the entire batch. So have at it, if you're so inclined.

::: DL :::



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Nobody Here (The Marinettis Bring Home a Computer)

So, after months of wanting to read it and sounding off on the topic myself, I only recently got around to reading Simon's Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. Thoroughly enjoyed it, of course. Simon's book covers its topic from a variety of angles, and offers a lot to mull over. Far too much to go into here, actually. But I might have a point or two to address.

But one surprise, for me, was the few pages devoted to highlighting the artist Oneohtrix Point Never (aka Daniel Lopatin) in the early stretch of the book. I'd long been taken with Lopatin's music, but am even moreso now that I learn about Lopatin and the ideas that inform his music. Quoting from the book:

"...Yet the speed of technological advance means that each beloved machine is rendered obsolete with ruthless rapidity. With individuals and businesses throwing out info-tech every two to three years, obsolete computers are a huge environmental problem. ...'I'm super into the idea that that the rapid-fire pace of capitalism is destroying our relationships to objects. All this drives me back, but what drives me back is a desire to connect, not to relive things. It's not nostalgia.' He argues that the idea of 'progress' itself is driven by the economic imperatives of capitalism as by science or human creativity. In a 2009 manifesto-like article, he decries the fixation on linear progress, proposing instead the opening up of 'spaces for ecstatic regression. ...We homage the past to mourn, to celebrate, and to time travel.'"

The cited article, "synthemas and notes 1", can be found here and it offers a deeply interesting read. As a manifesto-ish text, it provides an explanation as for a specific semantics of sound. Lopatin begins by describing his attraction to synthesizers, particularly those of a certain vintage, due to their sonic capacity for suggesting "allegorical landscapes." This ability, he states, is the result of the instrument's own limitations -- the "grain" of its sound being the product of the instrument "striv[ing] and fail[ing] at mimetic representation." The act of creation becomes the act of exploring the abilities (but chiefly the limits and flaws) of the gear's "closed-circuit universe." "The more you enjoy process, limitation and defeat," he muses, "the more potential there is for chance and adventure."









The idea or aim of achieving any degree of originality in this process isn't a factor, since the notion of originality is little more than a threadbare modernist notion, a notion that too often is found riding shotgun with the problematic idea of dynamic and relentless progress. "If our generation can be defined artistically in a single way," he offers:

"It is that of the collector-archivist. We are naturally disposed towards nostalgia, and deep freeze cultural informatics is our greatest cybernetic feat. To understand the euphoria and confusion of my generation is to loop the part of Bill & Ted’s in which Beethoven rips a decisively Steve Vaiesque guitar solo on a synthesizer, and thus we intrinsically understand the nature of the eternal rip."

The reasons for doing so being that:

"The lessons of the past are moments in time that are eternally engaged, and the ability to transmit and interact with ~previous systems~ is evidence of the deep melancholy which arises from our inability to stop time just long enough to experience it."

Which perhaps sounds a bit bleak to some, if not like conceding aesthetically bankruptcy in the face of a cultural/creative impasse -- endlessly staring back down the avenue that led to a certain "postmodern" dead-end. About which I have some further thoughts, but they'll have to wait for another post.

The rain, it raineth...

Dog Faced Hermans, live in Lincoln, NE, 1994. Full show in a single hour-plus clip. Same kind soul that recently uploaded it also up'd this other one, captured in Brussels the same year.

That is all.

That's No Moon...

Fortunately, Owen Hatherley's a prolific blogger and writes for numerous online publications. I've long been curious about his two books on architecture, but they're not the sort of thing that circulates very widely here, on account of the fact that they're very British/Euro in focus -- be it his revisionist take on Brutalism, or his attack on generic contemporary urban architecture. The latter being his book A Guide to the New Ruins of Great Britain. Thing is, the critical thrust of the latter isn't an exclusively U.K. phenom, since the sort of architecture he critiques has (it seems) become something of a new International Style. The glimmering yet soullessly homogenized buildings that seem to be going up in (if not glutting) every middling/large city -- not just here in the U.S. or in Britain, but many other places as well.

I gathered this scenario was much more common that I reckoned a while back when I was checking the traffic to a particular recent post of mine. The post had generated an unusual (for this humble blog) amount of hits and linkage. One link went to a blog written by someone hailing from a town in Portugal, where the author could relate to the very thing I was talking about.

I lived in Chicago for the better part of 16 years. In that span of time, I watched the city "turn around" in some respects; with certain parts of the city being developed to the point of being unrecognizable from how I'd know them during the 1990s. This became especially true as the housing bubble began to emerge back around the beginning on the Noughties. River North, Printers Row, Fulton Market, Greektown, and many other neighborhoods sweeping with generic boutique-y rows of shops, filling up with blocks and high-rises of bland and blocky "luxury" condominiums. In some cases, I suddenly found it difficult to navigate or orient myself in places I'd previously known quite well, because all the landmarks had been erased or were obscured by high rises.

In some instances, these new (over)built environs felt downright oppressive. A not-uncommon plan for some blocks of condos -- wedged into this or that span of street -- was to a multi-level parking deck for the residents, with the Lego luxury abodes stacked atop. Thing is, city ordinances reputedlym dictated that these parking levels had to be walled in, could not be open. So as you walked along a row of one of these things, you'd face a solid concrete wall extending up about 2-3 stories running down the length of the street. A dingy chasm, effectively -- dwarfing, alienating, drab. (I believe once upon a time, the popular word for this sort of effect was "dehumanizing.")

Which brings us to the song above, up there in the Youtube clip. Wifey and I caught the Country Teasers back in 2006 when they hit the U.S for their The Empire Strikes Back tour. They trotted out this tune ("Mos E17ley"), and it immediately became something of a recurring trope in our lives. Inevitably we'd find ourselves driving or walking through a neighborhood like those described above, and one of us would mutter, "This place...is like the fuckin' Death Star."

This too shall pass...

Simon recently popped up with a few stray thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs, which I found amusing because I'm more-or-less of the same mind on the matter.

Somewhat more interesting was this piece at The Contrarian. Or at least potentially interesting, since unfortunately it's a bit of tease; a wind-up followed by...the author directing the reader to read some New Yorker article that requires a subscription. Still, the author gets at an interesting contradiction that rests at the heart of the Jobs legacy. That being: The whole Zen idea of technologically-enabled impermanence and intangibility -- the dematerialization of music, books, etc. -- versus the fact that what Jobs & co. ultimately excelled at was getting everyone hooked on gadgets that were constantly being rendered obsolete in the ever-escalating turnover of upgrades and next-gen models. Because really, I think we can all be certain, despite what some parties would have us believe, that the path to Enlightenment isn't paved by slavish consumerism.

Which is an odd legacy to have, particularly since we're talking about someone who was of "a certain generation." So to with the whole i- angle -- the tech-enabled culture of solipsism/autism that Simon points towards in the latter half of his own post.

- sent from my iPhone™

Ritual (Interlude)

Ingram Marshall: "Gambuh I" for Balinese flute, synthesizer & tape delay (1975).


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