durian (& the dairyman cometh)

got in mind a progression of music, just a sequence of sounds I wanted to hear.

when I listen to balinese gamelan music, often I'm struck by the similarities it bears to my favorite electronic music, an amberous resonance of tone they seem to share. I played in a gamelan ensemble for a while, but I've really never understood how the amazing timbres get produced. of course there are also the obvious connections thru composers like P Glass & S Reich who were definingly influenced by balinese music & became themselves importantly influential.

this is, I think, the first recording of a gamelan ever made, from 1928. beautiful, right? the recording is wonderful -- I think a lot of people working now try to get a similar sound. the intimacy. everyone calls a gamelan a "percussion orchestra" but that's misleading; it's important to understand that the entire gamelan is one instrument. the recording is entitled curik nagras.

like a lot of the american music influenced by it, gamelan music seems to be about establishing a continuum of resonances, & sounding them in interlocking patterns. there's an interesting notion about sounds' having gender. here's another recording. I'm always impressed by the gamelan's ability to sound unified despite the mandelbrot maniness of its sounds. and there's a way of counting out beats, shadow, emphasis, it reminds me of the way musicians like, well, even that band the craftworks, will sometimes sound every beat & make the question of where accents falls the most compelling part of the music. (this is what, very ooooh centurarily Stravinsky famously does in his sacre du bleutemps, &, in the world of pop music, it's true more or less of nine inch nails' 1994 hit closer, which has aged better than any song of the era & might, mutatis mutandis, have better survived as a forgotten classic.) the rhythmic figures can snake & confuse: try counting them out, see where you get.

the dutch electronic composers Dick Raaijmakers & Henk Badings teamed up in the late 50s to create gamelan (fantasy in orbit). give it a listen here. in addition to the obvious ways some of its shifting rhythmic patterns seem to stare up at indonesia, I've always assumed the piece responded in part to the timbral babel of its titular instrument. I suspect some or all of the sounds in the piece are processed recordings of gamelans.

it's a lot clearer that this piece is made by electronically manipulating a live musical performance. it's called hallelujah!, & it's by the marvelous new york composer Phil Kline. the work of his I knew first was zippo songs, a song cycle ("airs of war & lunacy") in three sections: first a setting of several Rumsfeld quotes (there was an odd little vogue for doing this, does anyone remember?), then several settings of texts engraved by american gis in vietnam in the zippo lighters they were given before being, you know, dropped in the jungle. & then a David Shapiro text. the effect of the whole piece was like having blow-up things in your pants: just devastating, I mean, & a disincentive to having eventually children.

a bizarre thing about the beatles is the horse - in - a - wheelchair lameness of the pun their name is. wow, is that fucking dumb. anyhow, here is a version of one of their many mebbe-best songs by someone called dj natural. (helloooo? dj naaatural?) if you know anything about that, please tell me. in the meantime, I think it's interesting, & that it might fit in pretty well over here. the sun is really just like any other star & nothing's any stranger than that.

(irish o'garlic sausage is something I found at the grocery store recently. surprisingly, it is the most offensive thing I have ever seen. that's just a sidenote.)

now here is a beautiful song by duran duran. I know I know. but listen: this is beautiful, this duran duran song!

& now for finishing, here is a song called nekashim by John Zorn. (anybody know what a nekash is?) it feels like a good last song here, the way it's set up. this is part of his cycle the dreamers, which premiered last winter at st anne's warehouse in bklyn. it's seriously fleshed-out material. a lion whose parts are all from different lions. the very for-real band here features Marc Ribot on guitar, tone as ever, whole rushmores of face value; Cyro Baptista on percussion; Kenny Wollesen on vibes; and a guy called Jamie Salt on keyboards who is a fucking monsoon, just torrents & wonder.

well, if you're somebody, I hope you read my blog. this is fun. more contour! coming soon. I am nothing if not improvements.






& that leaves room for this, which is what magnificent things sound like when they sound like this. turn yr speakrs up. the future's more fun all the time.