Author: musicforcougars

Josephine Foster – An Die Musik

An Die Musik is part of a fascinating release by Josephie Foster which presents a modern revival of a tradition in German music known as a lieder. Lieders refer to the practice of setting the words of German Romantic poets like Goethe to music which was particularly popular among composers like Schubert and Schumann. Though music has accompanied poetry for about as long as both poetry and music have existed, the term lieder or lied often describes a setting for piano and solo vocalist, though some were composed for a full orchestra. Foster recasts this tradition with her haunting vocals and interleaving guitar strumming and distorted electric riffs for her second album A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. I found this release because it was recorded and mixed by John Dawson of New Riders of the Purple Sage fame, whose discography I’ve been known to peruse from time to time. This lied was originally composed by Schubert and is a setting of a poem by Franz von Schober.

Foster has released a number of albums of her own compositions since the release of A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Her most recent album, No More Lamps in the Morning, was released on Fire America Records earlier in 2016.

Tin Pan Alley – Yellow Magic Carnival

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbZnyhPmILc

Following the release of Happy End’s final studio album, Haruomi Hosono and Shigeru Suzuki teamed up with Tatsuo Hayashi to form the short-lived group Tin Pan Alley. Yellow Magic Carnival comes off the groups studio debut though there is a necessary disclaimer needed when discussing these groups. The rock scene in Japan was highly collaborative so drawing firm boundaries between particular groups can be fraught. For example, the three members of Tin Pan Alley released material as Caramel Mama a few years before their self-titled debut. Hosono is certainly well known to fans of Yellow Magic Orchestra, and I’d encourage exploration of the material from the early 70s, especially for fans of the California folk rock scene active around the same time.

While Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, and Ryuichi Sakamoto had long and productive solo careers, exploring the members’ pre-YMO work shows just how rich and collaborative this scene was. As an example, Hayashi contributed percussion to Hosono and Takahashi’s solo releases and if I had any understanding of Japanese I could probably find more examples. If you dig this release and haven’t heard Kazemachi Roman by Happy End be sure to check that out because it’s been hugely influential on Japanese rock music. I did a short-run radio show about the context of YMO and while licensing seems to have wiped out some of the episodes, the episode about the pre-YMO stuff seems to be still available on Mixcloud and gives a broader sample of this scene.

Hermes Trismegistus

This material was recorded around the end of 2015 and 2016. I had been playing a lot in open D tuning and found some simple, pleasant finger picking patterns. If there is any real-world inspiration for this it is a trip I took to Alaska in July of 2015. The sheer scale of the terrain, along with the tremendous resilience and oddity of the people who live in the more remote areas is remarkable. I felt compelled to work towards expanding my musical vocabulary from playing around with synths and Ableton effects to live recording using more traditional instruments. Somehow it made me feel like less of a hipster dickhead, though I think most would still rightly label me as such. I don’t pretend to be a gifted guitar player, but it has grown to be one of my favorite pastimes and going forward I anticipate making even greater use of the instrument.

Recording Notes:

Though I had certainly played these guitar parts before, all of these recordings are mostly improvisational in that I started with a repetitive hook and went from there. They were recorded on a single mic built into a Fostex MR-8 multi-tracker with some reverb added upon recording and some effects added in Ableton, though the only substantial edits to the audio itself was to remove some pops and clicks resulting from the primitive recording setup. I mention this setup only because I’m timidly proud of how the guitar fades out in the final two tracks since this effect was achieved only through playing and not through fading a guitar track out in post-production. I recognize that despite this feat, there is much I have to learn in the way of recording methods, but as I’ve been preparing the final release I just thought I’d mention it since it still sounds pretty good to my ear despite all the creaks of my chair while recording.

Opossum Sun Trail – Rest Stop Birds

Rest Stop Birds comes off what appears to be the debut cassette for Opossum Sun Trail, American Chemtrails which they appear to be self-releasing through Bandcamp. This is the type of thing that makes me bemoan my new car’s lack of a cassette deck. The group’s only other online presence as far as I can tell is a video for The Long Valley, a track off American Chemtrails. There wasn’t a ton of information online about these guys, but I did find a Facebook event for a show that that they played with Daniel Bachman. I’ll definitely keep my eyes peeled for another repeat of that lineup because that would be one helluva time. This whole release exudes the sparse desert vibes that I really love in artists like William Fowler Collins, though in this case Opossum Sun Trail is channeling a bit of Ennio Morricone. And that’s just fine by me.

Sign “O” The Times

In my high school there was a rumor that would occasionally circulate that Prince attended for one day before switching to Minneapolis Central. It’s almost certain that this is not true, but it speaks to just how badly people wanted a piece of him to belong to them. What makes him so remarkable is just how hard that was to do. He gave up only what he wanted to and nothing more and got away with it. As one of the most prolific, popular, and respected artists of the last four decades he could have done whatever he wanted. So he built his own studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota and recorded material that we might not hear for another decade, if at all.

It’s not enough to say he was prolific. He was on a mission, and only he’ll know if he completed it or even what it was. I’m sure a lot of remembrances will mention his dogged efforts to keep his music off the internet, some painting it as a quixotic crusade and others as evidence of his desire to truly own his art forever. People might snicker at his DMCA complaints against Vine clips featuring his work, dismissing it as a bizarre power grab from an artist past his prime. But is he wrong? Is it really that crazy for someone with a work ethic most people would kill for to work to prevent its passive consumption?

Another comment people might bandy about is his view of the internet being “over”. Again, people can laugh him off as quixotic but is he wrong? I’ve read more thinkpieces than I care to mention that make the same basic point: “the internet will kill music”. I don’t agree that the internet will kill music and I don’t really think Prince would either. Because he didn’t fight that stuff to protect himself from us. I think he did it to protect us from ourselves. He labored for it because it had a value that is wholly separate from streaming revenue or record deals or intellectual property. He gave a shit, and he wanted everybody else to give a shit too.

He didn’t have his team of “female black lawyers” take down Vines because he didn’t want people to enjoy his music without giving him money. He did it to try and get people to focus on that ineffable quality that he spent his whole career trying to put out into the world, and the outpouring of grief and remembrances tells me he more than achieved that aim. He recorded under different names and assembled new groups because the market couldn’t support the amount of material he wanted to release. I suppose it’s reasonable to snicker about his idiosyncrasies, but there’s a lesson that is as universal as he was unique: music is not its delivery mechanism and art is supposed to matter enough to people that they devote their lives to it, not consume it in the most convenient way possible or refuse to create unless it’s economically viable. When people say the internet is killing music what they really mean is it’s killing the music industry, an industry Prince spent a career bending to his will through work ethic, determination, and the kind of talent that people usually only get through deals with the devil. I’m certainly in no position to know or guess how music will reach people in ten years, but I’m guessing people will want to listen to Prince on it and I have a feeling that if we can hear his music it’ll be on his terms. RIP.

Plateaus – Do It For You

Plateaus comprises Chris Rosi, Elliot Moeller, Jon Green, and Kevin Gist, who have been active since around 2011. Do It For You was released as a single on Hozac Records in 2012 and appears on their self-titled debut put out by Art Fag Recordings that same year. Those familiar with Hozac won’t be surprised to find these guys in their catalog, since Hozac has been putting out lo-fi gems for the better part of a decade, including work by Heavy Times and Radar Eyes. For fans of Jay Reatard and Ty Seagall, this should be a welcome addition to your collection. You can find more updates about tours and new releases on their Facebook page, and if your curious this track also has a kick-ass music video.

Ueh – Cambous

This track was featured on a compilation entitled Do Whatever You Want, Don’t Do Whatever You Don’t Want!! which features works relating to the Japanese collective known as Acid Mothers Temple. The collective got started around 1995 and have gone through many different incarnations based on who was performing at the time, including Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, Acid Mothers Temple SWR, Acid Gurus Temple, and Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. This track from Ueh originally appeared on a self-titled release put out on the house label for Acid Mothers Temple. Though Ueh doesn’t actually share members with Acid Mothers Temple, it is associated with the group through both releases on their label and a split release, Pataphysical Overdrive To My Cosmos with Makoto Kawabata. That came out in 2004 and it doesn’t look like there has been anything else put out by Ueh, though members Benjamin Gilbert and Audrey Ginestet has been active with a group called Aquaserge since Ueh went on hiatus. I’d recommend digging into Acid Mothers Temple, though the sheer size of their discography can be a bit intimidating. I’ve got some recommendations below in case you’re ready to dive right in:

Dark Stars in the Dazzling Sky

Pink Lady Lemonade

The Beautiful Blue Ecstacy

Amanaz – Khala My Friend

This track comes from a vibrant rock scene in 1970s Zambia affectionately referred to by collectors/enthusiasts as Zamrock. According to this Guardian profile, the Zambian government issued a law mandating that 95% of music on Zambian radio must be from native Zambian artists, and many groups put their own spin on the psych sounds that were creeping into the country from the United States. While the scene was short lived because of an economic recession which hit the country in the late 1970s and the influx of more outside radio programming, it has left behind a wealth of fuzzed-out garage gems. Paul Ngozi, an alias which translates to Paul Danger, is credited with introducing the Zamrock sound through his solo work and releases under the name The Ngozi Family. Another group, W.I.T.C.H. (We Intend to Cause Havoc) released a number of albums throughout the 1970s and are closely associated with the Zamrock sound.

Amanaz released only one album, Africa, in 1975 on a label called Zambia Music Parlor that released a lot of the Zamrock material from the period. It has been reissued by Now-Again Records, who also put out a fantastic psych compilation called Forge Your Own Chains which I can’t recommend enough. Now-Again has been releasing a lot of material from this period in Zambia and if this album is any indication there is a lot of good music to (re)discover.

OM – Bhirma’s Theme

OM rose from the ashes of the group Sleep, one of the early pioneers of stoner/sludge metal and originally comprised Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus. Cisneros and Haikus first worked together in a group called Asbestosdeath and released their first record under the Sleep moniker, Volume One in 1991. It was their next release Sleep’s Holy Mountain the following year that cemented their role in the development of stoner metal. The group went on to release two versions of similar material, first Jerusalem in 1997 and then under the name Dopesmoker in 2003. The estimable folks at Southern Lord have reissued Dopesmoker a few times over the years and it’s wall to wall goodness.

To the chagrin of many, the group and its founding members seemed to slow down after the release of Dopesmoker. But Cisneros and Haikus returned as OM with 2005’s Variations on a Theme. Bhirma’s Theme comes from a 2007 release on Southern Lord entitled Pilgrimage and its worthy of reverence and (dare I say it) pilgrimage, though luckily you shouldn’t have to go very far to hear it.

Jordan De La Sierra – Music for Gymnastics

Jordan De La Sierra was a classically trained pianist who began his recording career with a double LP of hypnotizing long form ambient works in the minimalist style of Terry Riley, Philip Glass, and La Monte Young. It anticipates a lot of the work that would make Windham Hill a new age juggernaut, but his debut record, Gymnosphere: Song of the Rose, was released on a small label called Unity Records in 1978. Though it received little attention at the time, it has luckily been given the Numero treatment since then, and I would argue the world is a better place for it.

The original release came with a 16 page booklet which includes some original artwork, an essay by the artist called “The Tableau of Space” and a greeting from the artist (image from Discogs):

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Now who isn’t charmed by that kind of earnestness. It reminds me of the art of Gilbert Williams, who really embodies the sort of hypercolor utopia that I find so irresistible:
 
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In short, put on your peasant shirt and dangly earring, get out your crystal prayer bowl, and become a being of pure light.