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"77 Boadrum was quite special. But then again, the things that I want to do, after all, have a little..."

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:16:17 +0100

“77 Boadrum was quite special. But then again, the things that I want to do, after all, have a little bit of that as well. It’s an expanded version of what you want to do in a band, in a circle. There are four of us working in this band, but something like a circulation system completes it. It’s Vipassana-like, in a static state. There aren’t any ups and downs, just these fine undulations. In times when everything is completely balanced, it feels as if we can become a huge playback device. The efficiency in access gets totally heightened. It’s something emotionless, a world of mu (emptiness), actually more like komu (nihilism). It’s an amplitude; a sense of playing something huge—that, to me, is cosmic disco. Disco is the most excited and hyper state. My own image of the formation of the universe is static and infinitely connected disco music that a DJ plays continuously.”

- BOMB Magazine: Boredoms by Hisham Akira Bharoocha

fascinated: IMG00167-20091215-1705.jpg Always protect your...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:54:41 +0100

fascinated:

IMG00167-20091215-1705.jpg

Always protect your network, kids!

Summer 2009, Tjörn, Sweden. The Tough Alliance - The Last...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:48:00 +0100

Summer 2009, Tjörn, Sweden. The Tough Alliance - The Last Dance

Even videos by The Tough Alliance’s fans look as glorious as TTA’s own videos. ‘Gotta find something that moves us tonight, baby!’

The Tough Alliance - Holiday

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:44:52 +0100

The Tough Alliance - Holiday

Dirty Projectors - Wittenberg III Ich liebe den Moment wenn der...

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:02:55 +0100

Dirty Projectors - Wittenberg III

Ich liebe den Moment wenn der Refrain aufhört und dieser verteilte Gesang losgeht.

"The band released the track for free in a blitzkrieg on numerous websites—MoveOn.org, MTV.com,..."

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:27:16 +0100

“The band released the track for free in a blitzkrieg on numerous websites—MoveOn.org, MTV.com, I don’t fucking know, Pets.com or something. Hilarious Wired-style tech “experts”—all of whom hopefully lost their jobs many times over by now—lauded this revolutionary move to give away free music as a victory for the future of the industry. They predicted a utopia where bands would have an open dialogue with their fans and release everything for free—yay! In reality, it predicted the 2009 we have, but only the part where bands dump every studio-floor turd and half-assed remix humanly possible on the internet in hopes of getting blog traffic, leaving things like “quality control” and, well, “quality” as antediluvian relics of the ’90s.”

- The 50 Worst Songs of the ’00s, F2K No. 26: Beastie Boys, “In A World Gone Mad”

So brutal wie witzig wie traurig weil wahr.

"People are wont to invest the traditions and practices of generations past with the highly dubious..."

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:26:47 +0100

“People are wont to invest the traditions and practices of generations past with the highly dubious gravity of nostalgia, particularly if those traditions seem suddenly and perhaps unfairly obsolete. But the initial popularity of tape as a recording format for underground music was not the result of any fascination with the medium’s specific aesthetic, but our of sheer necessity: it was the only method of releasing music which made any financial sense. To presume an aversion to contemporary recording formats and promotional tools and distribution methods on the part of elder underground artists is an anachronistic projection of wary posturing onto a subculture that never had the opportunity to reject or accept either way. The original champions of tape culture weren’t interested in the product so much as the function: to get their music out there, into the hands of kids who wanted it, in a way that was fiscally feasible with modest budgets. They were never afforded the opportunities for simpler and wider distribution available cheaply today. Who’s to say K Records wouldn’t have been a MySpace phenomenon? And what would have been the problem if they were? Releasing your underground album on cassette may be a symbolic gesture in tribute to DIY culture, but the product yielded shows nothing for movement but unfortunate misunderstanding.”

- Reconsidering the Revival of Cassette Tape Culture < Features | PopMatters

"So wurden etwa am Hof von Franz I. in den 1530er Jahren Künstler damit beauftragt, vieldeutige und..."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:14:23 +0100

“So wurden etwa am Hof von Franz I. in den 1530er Jahren Künstler damit beauftragt, vieldeutige und verschlüsselte Werke zu schaffen. Besucher sollten gezielt intellektuell überfordert werden. Und so war es das Priveileg des Königs, seine Kunstschätze zu interpretieren, um auf diese Weise seine Überlegenheit zu beweisen und seine herausgehobene Stellung zu rechtfertigen. […] […] Anstrengende Kunst ruft bei Außenstehenden Unterlegenheitsgefühlte hervor — und lässt dafür denjenigen, der sich damit umgibt umso cooler und stärker erscheinen. […] Auf diese Weise werden rätselhafte Kunstwerke zu Siegeszeichen und exklusiven Trophäen: zu Beweisen dafür, dass der Sammler ein herausragendes Maß an Stärke und Vitalität besitzt.”

- kunst - fachdings in eigener sache

Imagine if the internet as we know it now was around in 1988, and a bunch of (mostly) out-of-touch cranks got together to viciously rip on "Teenage Riot."

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:13:46 +0100

Imagine if the internet as we know it now was around in 1988, and a bunch of (mostly) out-of-touch cranks got together to viciously rip on "Teenage Riot.":

agrammar:

At some point in the past, many people’s response to the sound of indie/alt music was that it was weird or wrong or incomprehensible or maybe not even really music. This was the response I grew up around, anyway — certainly one you’d have gotten to Daydream Nation — (“what is this? it doesn’t even sound like anything”) — and a dynamic that hasn’t evaporated nearly as much as we like to pretend it has. (You should have seen the comments box when MTV put a No Age video on the web.)

And if you’re of a certain indie/alt mentality, that dynamic is kind of gratifying, insofar as it flatters you that you find beauty and excitement in something other people are unable to even really approach or comprehend, so you can write them off as unimaginative or conventional and sit in peace with your peers, appreciating something others are unable to, glowing with a sense of your own sophistication and discernment, while elsewhere Lex threatens to slit your throat.

This was the dynamic a lot of indie fans seemed used to when they emerged into the burgeoning 00s world of Talking About Music Online — a fact which created some fun for those who didn’t like indie. People who didn’t like indie could take legitimate joy in flipping that dynamic over — criticizing indie acts not because they didn’t understand them, but because they understood them far too well: knew a lot about them, maybe once enjoyed them, but were over it, bored with it, now enjoyed plenty of things (e.g., pop singles) that made indie fans look hidebound and incomprehending. They could rhetorically underline the fact that they really did get indie, son, they just didn’t care for it — and plenty of indie fans would be confused and alarmed by their first experience of seeing the music attacked from a position of knowing all about it.

This is good, because that glow of being specially discerning about something others can’t comprehend should probably be distributed as equitably as possible.

"Part of my fascination was the disconnect between the milieu of these songs and how this music was..."

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:03:41 +0100

“Part of my fascination was the disconnect between the milieu of these songs and how this music was coming at me in my day-to-day. Blogs posted these songs would inevitably say something along the lines of: “This tune would be perfect for a day at the beach” or “This is the soundtrack to summer— sounding good!” At some point after the solstice I started to wonder: Who are we kidding? We’re all sitting in front of our computers all day. We’re not listening to this stuff in our woody with our boards strapped to the hood. If we were spending so much time at the beach, we wouldn’t have time to keep up with all of the lo-fi bands writing songs about the beach. We’d be listening to the radio in the car on the way to somewhere. Probably to Sublime.”

- Resonant Frequency #65 - In My Room (The Best Coast Song): Nine Fragments on Lo-fi’s Attraction to the Natural World

Fight Like Apes - Do You Karate?

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:16:18 +0100

Fight Like Apes - Do You Karate?

Views Of Montreal: Braids Vincent Moon ist immer noch der König...

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:48:51 +0100

Views Of Montreal: Braids

Vincent Moon ist immer noch der König seiner Disziplin.

"1. Indie rock has depended on rock crit much more closely for survival than have genres such as pop,..."

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:29:54 +0100

“

1. Indie rock has depended on rock crit much more closely for survival than have genres such as pop, dance music, R&B, country etc. all of which have alternate means of finding their market (the radio, the club/dj endorsement etc.).

2. And insofar as the above is true, it’s also true to say that the status of the rock critic is elevated w/r/t indie rock. Britney, Beyonce et. al. were going to be big no matter what was written about the quality of their music, whereas there is strong evidence to suggest that, say, Pitchfork “broke” The Arcade Fire to the public by pushing them so hard.

3. To the extent that indie is, by and large, not experienced socially (except at live concerts and perhaps increasingly through film and tv soundtracks…) the crit (and crit-like-discussions) becomes perhaps the primary means by which people can seek to share their experience of the music.

4. The above are all mutually reinforcing, in that (1) people look for new indie via music criticism; (2) they therefore pay attention to what the criticism is doing and saying, (3) the language and forms of music criticism seep into their own discussions until they are essentially engaging in amateur rock crit (but is there any other kind); and (4) they start to take seriously the debates and crusades of music criticism, such that they feel obliged to e.g. “have an opinion” on the new Animal Collective.

”

- Tim F (via 67752)

"You can download O’Rourke’s album, of course— illegally. But its..."

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:50:26 +0100

“You can download O’Rourke’s album, of course— illegally. But its construction— a single track, almost 40 minutes long, with lots of space and quiet and subtle detail— flies in the face of where music is headed. This thing that he cares about is disappearing. People at the forefront of technology tell us that the future belongs to customization. People want interactivity, to have their media arranged and delivered according to their particular desires and preferences. Anything standing in the way of that risks being marginalized. But the method of delivery and consumption is just a part of it— it extends much further. People also want to get inside the music and see how it works and maybe even have a say about the basic elements of construction. There is no end product, and content is never fixed. Maybe the same people listening to music in front of their computers will take a few samples, their favorite bits from a few different records, and combine them into something of their own. Now they’re making music, not just listening to it. How important are those lines?”

- Pitchfork: Resonant Frequency: Resonant Frequency #64

St Vincent - Black Rainbow on ACL (mehr hier) Noch drei Wochen!

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:36:20 +0100

St Vincent - Black Rainbow on ACL (mehr hier)

Noch drei Wochen!

Major Lazer - Keep It Goin’ Louder (feat. Nina Sky &...

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:56:20 +0100

Major Lazer - Keep It Goin’ Louder (feat. Nina Sky & Ricky Blaze)

Fan Death - Reunited Wer kann ohne Schummeln alle Popstars in...

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:32:26 +0100

Fan Death - Reunited

Wer kann ohne Schummeln alle Popstars in diesem Video identifizieren?

"In 2009, CMJ effectively discovers no one. Their booking is determined, in fact, almost entirely by..."

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:35:49 +0200

“In 2009, CMJ effectively discovers no one. Their booking is determined, in fact, almost entirely by what’s already been discovered: that’s why the work of putting together showcases has effectively been contracted out to every PR firm/music blog/media outlet in the city. (Don’t believe me? Look, to take just one example, at the Cake Shop’s day-show slate. Or at Pianos’, next door.) Because that’s where discovery happens now: online, at Stereogum and Pitchfork and at every level below. CMJ shows for bands like Surfer Blood, for instance—or Black Kids, for that matter—are coronations, not introductions.”

- Why Does CMJ Exist, Exactly?

Erase Errata - Tax Dollar

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:58:37 +0200

Erase Errata - Tax Dollar

Micachu & The Shapes - Golden Phone

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:50:49 +0200

Micachu & The Shapes - Golden Phone