Those first days after returning from vacation are always the worst, aren’t they? Everything seems bizarre and alien. Your desk is cluttered with strange objects you’ve forgotten how to operate. One of them keeps making horrible noises and placing it to your ear only reveals another person making other, horrible noises. Most of the day is spent slapping at your keyboard trying to get your computer to do anything. It’s terrible.
Luckily the internet is always there to keep you distracted from your nigh complete ineptitude. Take, for instance, this spectacular bit of time-lapse photography by Terje Sorgjerd, filmed on Lofoten, an archipelago in Norway. Set to a beautiful piece of music by Marika Takeuchi, it’s three minutes of blissful peace — after which I really should get back to relearning how to uncap a pen.
Praise. IMMENSE praise– for the creative development of Katie Stelmanis and her rare, tremulous bird voice, swooping and soaring higher than ever, supported by her bandmates in Austra and the epic production value on their recent release, Feel It Break. Kudos to Bjork/Prodigy/UNKLE producer, Damian Taylor, for lifting them up on his capable shoulders. Such a strong, vivid dream of an album; a “100% dud-free collection”, as Stereogum puts it.
The inevitable Zola Jesus and Karin Dreijer Andersson comparisons are pouring in, and let them. There are some parallels, for sure: dark witchy prowess, shamanic danceability, classically trained chops, sharp songwriting skills, unconventional presentation. It’s electronic pop steeped in earnest ritual.
But dial back the scrumptious bleep and bloop effects a bit. When the arrangement is primarily just Stelmanis and her piano (as with the final, breathtaking track “The Beast”), it becomes clear that the album’s most powerful magic lies simply in that voice. There’s something humbling, and deeply healing, about that.
Sometimes you just have to take a break and watch as a man in a purple suit and a luminous, gold tie does an extended magic trick to the smooth, sultry tones of Sting. The man in the aforementioned suit is Shawn Farquhar, and the trick performed won the World Championship and Grand Prix of Close Up Magic in Beijing, China in 2009, — the “Olympics of Magic” according to the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (International Federation of Magic Societies) or FISM. And while I am no great fan of Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner’s work, the trick is pretty mesmerizing. It’s either that or I’ve just been blinded by that tie.
A human being, while undoubtedly a wonderful construction, lacks a certain structural element: a built-in music-playing system with unlimited playlists. Back in the 1950s and 60s, far-sighted producers tried very hard to provide a solution to this inconvenience.
A former silent movie actress (who appeared in a number of films alongside Stan Laurel, Charlie Chaplin and her brother, “Bronco Billy” Anderson), Leona Anderson (1885-1973) did everything in her power to prove that her sobriquet, “The World’s Most Horrible Singer”, was absolutely well-deserved.
After years spent on desperate and futile attempts to learn proper opera techniques, Leona decided to make her apparent lack of talent her greatest selling point. Combining her vast knowledge of the opera –a lifelong passion– with her undisputed charm and a knack for comedy, “The Worst Opera Singer” shared her talents with viewers of the Ernie Kovacs television show, and eventually released the one-of-a-kind Music To Suffer By. The record consisted not only of delightfully slaughtered standards like “Habanera” from Carmen, but also original compositions, such as the haunting “Rats In My Room”, and “Limburger Lover”… quite possibly the only Limburger cheese-themed love song ever made.
The record’s presentation reveals Leona’s high musical literacy and a sense of humor and class, elevating her mock-opera collection above mere parody. Rather too sophisticated for outsider music, Music To Suffer By is oddly enchanting largely because of Leona’s self-awareness. She knew she wasn’t capable of ever learning how to sing properly, hence she put all of her efforts in creating this wonderfully bizarre gem of a record. It’s a perverse pleasure to suffer by.
The legendary collectible, previously available only on vinyl, has since been remastered and re-released in CD format by the infallible Trunk Records. An assortment of Leona’s mp3s can also be found on WFMU.
Other poised, yet off-kilter singers worth enduring:
Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which will open its doors at in 2015, has acquired Parliament’s Funkadelic Mothership (the second incarnation, that is — the first having long-since departed for other galaxies).
The legendary stage prop will serve as a crucial building block of the museum’s permanent display permanent music exhibition. Via Funk Music News:
When the band lowered the Mothership from the rafters of the Capital Centre in Landover in 1977, the response was rapturous. Not only was it instantly stunning — it felt like a cosmic metaphor for the sense of possibility that followed the civil rights movement.
That symbolism isn’t lost on the Smithsonian.
“With large iconic objects like this, we can tap into . . . themes of movement and liberation that are a constant in African-American culture,” says Dwandalyn R. Reece, curator of music and performing arts for the museum. “The Mothership as this mode of transport really fits into this musical trope in African American culture about travel and transit.”
It will be exhibited alongside other artifacts from American music history — Louis Armstrong’s trumpet, James Brown’s stage costumes, Lena Horne’s evening gowns. But it will be the only spaceship.
YES!! “Free your mind and come fly with me… it’s hip! On the Mothership. Swing down, sweet chariot, stop, and let me ride…”
A dear and lovely chum from New York, singer Robert Conroy, has just alerted us to some splendid news! The Boy Friend (1971), one of Ken Russell’s most elegantly outrageous gems, was recently released to DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection. It’s a remastered disc of the 136-minute UK version, and it’s… oh, if you haven’t seen it before, just watch a wee bit, see what you think:
Some background info, courtesy of the YouTube clip:
Working at the height of his formidable powers, Ken Russell braids a whole new layer of story onto the hit stage musical that made Julie Andrews a star and opens it up to some astonishing flights of fancy. Wrapping a narrative frame around the original – a seaside theatrical company mounts a production of the ’20s musical spoof The Boy Friend – allows Russell, in turn, to explore and parody the conventions of ’30s musicals with elaborate fantasy sequences, slapstick, and sentiment. RESTORED DIRECTOR’S CUT/ROADSHOW presentation with Intermission and Entr’Acte, as Ken Russell intended the film to be seen. SPECIAL FEATURES: vintage “behind the scenes” making-of featurette about the film and theatrical trailer.
Jillian Mayer is a visual and performance artist exhibiting her work across the US and internationally and is part of the permanent collection at the Frost Art Museum and the Girl’s Club Collection. Last year, Mayer’s experimental musical “Mrs. Ms” was commissioned by the Miami Light Project, premiered at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, FL. Mayer’s latest video work has been screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art and at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in NY, Bilbao, Venice and Berlin.
Mayer has recently been commissioned to create a performance-based television art show at the De la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space for Basel 2011. Mayer will develop and produce several live segments of a conceptual variety show in a cable access-styled television program, which will survive as a cultural time-capsule under the guise of animal fascination. World Class Boxing is also commissioning Mayer to create a new video work for the gallery for Basel 2011. Recently, the Borscht Film Festival commissioned Mayer to create short film told entirely through installations by Mayer which features legendary Luther Campbell (Uncle Luke of musical group 2 Live Crew). The film is a modern Miami adaptation of the 1962 French short film “La Jetee”, “The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke”.”
Allrighty! Definitely one to watch. (Perhaps with a mixture of glee, revulsion, and kinship.) Plenty more Mayer mayhem at her website, and on her Vimeo channel. (“Scenic Jogging”‘s especially intriguing.) Click here to read a great Interview Magazine Q&A with this burgeoning OMGWTFBBQ multidisciplinary art star.
Beats Antique, photographed by Sequoia Emmanuelle.
Those cheeky loves from Beats Antique want to give us all a cheap thrill on Fri 13th. Actually, a FREE thrill– in the form of an agitated, super bass-heavy Beats Antique remix of composer Harry Manfredini’s Friday the 13th bombast.
It’s pretty sick:
Beats Antique’s touring schedule is extra intense this festival season. Chances are, if you live in North America, they’ll be in your time zone at least once over the next few months. Check their calendar here. David, Zoe and Tommy put on a stellar live show that’s fulla heart and playfulness. Not to be missed if you like to dance, laugh, and bliss out.
