It is possible that you may be one of the many trapped by the newest winter storm that has much of the US in its icy grip. The new single from The Tree Ring, case “Wore It Deep”, viagra sale has a funereal melody that will perfectly compliment the next few days as you huddle with your family, burning your furniture for warmth, and drawing straws to decide who gets eaten. If you are not snowed in you may enjoy it as well. Just know that the rest of us hate you.
An oldy but a goody, posted both for those who have never heard it, and those who have heard it a hundred times already. The serene and mysterious ambient music of Jupiter as captured by NASA Voyager:
These sounds are the result of “the complex interactions of charged electromagnetic particles from the solar wind, planetary magnetosphere, etc.” (Via Andy Ristaino, thank you.)
There’s something deeply comforting and astonishing about this, isn’t there? Our universe is so far from silent. A wide range of heavenly bodies are constantly emitting unique electromagnetic signals that we can pick up and process, provided we have the right instruments. The stars do sing.
I feel like I’ve seen dozens of videos like this one: images and sound diced and then spliced together in order to form short, musical compositions. This familiarity does little to dampen my enthusiasm for them. I find myself often hypnotized by sounds; transfixed by sounds. Sounds are sexy. I suspect Mr. Zdziebko would probably understand what I mean. His piece “Sampled Room” is, you may be unsurprised to learn, a collection of sounds from some common household objects — a roll of tape, a wine glass, a camera — spliced together to form a short, musical composition. It’s fantastic. Some things, I suppose, just never get old.
This past week I have found myself embroiled in a losing battle with a nameless affliction affecting my corner of the northeast United States. Wracked by a hacking cough, nearly every orifice leaking fluid of various and sundry forms, my brain stewing in hot fetid juices I continue with my daily routine, a zombie with a cold.
As such my judgment, perhaps, should not be trusted. Of this I am well aware. I am also aware that those who would allow me access to their readers in such a state are also undeserving of trust, but that is a different matter entirely. No, I merely offer this as a preamble to the two videos presented here.
Both are no doubt better suited to M.E.R.’s ongoing Better Than Coffee series but, as a cold, unfeeling machine, I’m sure she won’t care though, no doubt, she’ll use it as an excuse to pump Justin Bieber through the speakers in my cell at eardrum-shattering levels. In my current state, however, it seems worth the temporary deafness. Above you will find a delightful video of a tiny penguin, frolicking with nary a care in the world and below you will find the significantly more amusing heavy metal remix in which a tiny penguin stalks his territory, filled with an unspeakable rage.
Shannon Funchess radiates a certain low, rumbling power unlike anyone or anything else around her. And her voice… O Holy Fuck, that VOICE. It belongs in a cathedral, or an abattoir.
The Brooklyn-based musician’s previous work as a frontwoman, and with NYC indie darlings like TV on the Radio and !!! and Telepathe is all very cool, but it’s only more recently, with the platform of Light Asylum — her duo with electronics maestro Bruno Coviello– that Funchess’ vision and strength seem to have reached a fulminating state.
This is the raw, real stuff right here, hearkening back to ultra-early Ministry, dance hall Cabaret Voltaire, or any of 4AD’s most toothsome output from back in the day. Think Ian Curtis at his most tuneful, Grace Jones at her most carnivorous, or Clan of Xymox with roid rage… then think far, far beyond that, because, with Coviello matching her, it seems like Funchess now has the space she needs to commit to ritual that pushes even further into the dark. Light Asylum songs, at their best and most grandiose, seriously feel like they’re on the verge of some sort of Crossing-the-Abyss-at-the-Discotheque type of working. (Is that statement too bombastic? Maybe. Maybe not. Go to one of their live shows and decide for yourself.)
“To me Light Asylum is a metaphor for the lack of genuine self-expression in the world, where people suppress their sexuality, their creativity, their entire lives. This music is for them and for people to realize that they’re not alone. The music is dark, but it’s at a place where you can see there is light at the end of the tunnel. The darkness isn’t all around us; it’s inside us.” [via]
The Michigan Theatre. Photo by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.
Yesterday, having recently seen links about them in a couple differentplaces, I tweeted: “Haunting, tragically beautiful photos of derelict Detroit by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre: http://bit.ly/fwDwPg [from the UK Guardian]”
They really are breathtaking images. A lone copy of Marchand and Meffre’s (rare?) book The Ruins of Detroit is currently on sale at Amazon, if anybody with a whopping $237.94 to spare is interested.
The ruined Spanish-Gothic interior of the United Artists Theater in Detroit, and Light Court, Farwell Building. Photos by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.
Here’s the thing, though: in American cities like New Orleans, the Salton Sea, and (most vocally) Detroit, frustrated residents who see scores of photojournalists touring their neighborhoods just to take pictures of the sexy devastation and leave again have started calling these sorts of de-contextualized photo series of their backyards “ruin porn”.
“Here in Detroit, we’re sick of how the ruin porn runs rampant around the world, and everybody loves to use it to show how things have degraded here. Know what? There is a big resurgence happening here, and things are getting better.” That’s a quote from Ryan Cooper, a Detroit resident reacting to Dangerous Minds’ coverage of the Ruins of Detroit photobook.
Only I hadn’t read that, yet. I’ll admit it: when I linked out to the Guardian feature, I’d never even heard the term “ruin porn” before. About an hour after I aired that tweet, someone in Australia called datacorrupt responded bluntly with: “Detroit Thrives.” And a link.
Clicking through to Palladium Boots dot com, I promptly had my ruin porn-disseminating ass handed to me by the following half-hour documentary featuring not just several of those same sprawling abandoned spaces that captivated Marchand and Meffre, but also a rich variety of local entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, urban farmers and prodigal shopkeepers of Motor City who have been steadily reclaiming and reviving substantial portions of the urban grid, creating robust communities in a crumbling realm that was:
“Once the fourth-largest metropolis in America–some have called it the Death of the American Dream. Today, the young people of the Motor City are making it their own DIY paradise where rules are second to passion and creativity. They are creating the new Detroit on their own terms, against real adversity. We put our boots on and went exploring.”
Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Williamsburg anymore…
Product-shilling and Johnny Knoxville-yukkstering aside, Detroit Lives is an inspiring point of entry into the tenacious world of modern DIY Detroit. After watching the doc, I spent several more hours online exploring other links and sites (several of which are listed below). These kids are making and growing and building and yes, thriving. They seem committed, fierce, and in fucking earnest. Check ’em out.
Any Detroit badasses reading? Please forgive me; I… I still love my ruin porn. Can’t help it. But in all sincerity, I love what you are doing far, far more. I’m surely not alone in that. Long may you thrive. Please come say hello if you like. We would love to hear more from you, and about you.
When I experience genuine reverence for a band, it is my solemn duty to immediately share with the people of Coilhouse. Enter The Irrepressibles: a UK 10-piece that has combined all that is grand about glam, baroque, and pop, wrapped it into a beautiful, melodramatic performance package and released it into the world in early 2010 with an album titled Mirror Mirror.
Lead singer and chief saboteur Jaimie McDermott’s countertenor wails and whispers amidst the accompanying orchestral rush in the video below. Recorded at The Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the “Mirror Mirror Spectacle” presents the group as enchanted music-box ballerinas in origami ruffs, playing in mirrors and flickering lights.
Yes, he is singing his own name in the chorus, what of it?
Mc Dermott’s passion for the theatrical translates into performances so daring, in 2005 they cost him the entire first incarnation of the band. Fortunately, these days he seems to be managing his imagination [and his ego] more successfully. From a report in The GuardianUK:
Recently, they presented an “air spectacle” in Italy, which involved “1,000 balloons, LED lights, 21 fans and costumes made from plastic bags from Leylands”. They have performed in the middle of a lake at the Latitude festival in Southwold, and floated 10 metres off the ground at the Roundhouse in London. It’s reached a point, says McDermott, where “my band have written in their contract that they can say no to me. They’re scared about what I’m going to do to them next.”
Here’s hoping The Irrepressibles tour the world and record at least a few more albums before their leading man accidentally shoots the lot of them into space. Meanwhile, we can buy Mirror Mirror, and keep up with them on Facebook and Twitter.
Having trouble getting in the holiday spirit? Burnt a batch of Christmas cookies for the fourth time in a row? Can’t find that perfect gift for great-aunt Mildred in the throng-flooded mall? Lamenting the tragic lack of traditional French Yuletide songs in your life? Fear not, cialis sale because Siouxsie and her cheerful band of merry-makers are here with a little ditty to remind you of the true meaning of the season: drinking so much that you can’t even manage to clash cymbals properly.
God is dead – that’s nice! Sunglasses worn on head – that’s nice! (Minty, “That’s Nice”)
It’s official: the 1990s are back and Rediscovering Completely Forgotten Music phenomena (especially the Next Big Things which never became truly big) is about to become a fad. It’s quite probable that revival mania and pop-archaeology will eventually lead to finding a trace of Romantic Modernism, or Romo in short – one of the most ephemeral music movements of the past decade, which was born (and soon faded) in the UK circa 1995.
Said to be a stylish answer to Britpop’s penchant for sweatshirts, pubs and ‘lad culture’, Romo bands and their fandom tried to revive the glamorous spirit of 70s and 80s and merge it with ultra-modern, pre-millennium decadence. Japan, Roxy Music and Soft Cell were their model idols, but the early, eyeliner-and-leopard-print incarnation of Manic Street Preachers would be an equally appropriate reference.
The term (heavily promoted especially by Melody Maker‘s Simon Price) was an attempt to label a couple of bands which had little in common – except for ruffles, velvet and musical eclecticism pushed forward to the point of awkwardness. Most of these bands failed to release more than a single (those released are probably going to become rare collectibles very soon) and hence remained an obscure curiosity: Sexus,DexDexter, Plastic Fantastic, all of whom found themselves on the cover of Melody Maker before even recording anything. The Suede scenario definitely didn’t work in their case. Maybe because all of the aforementioned bands focused on their (honestly, amazing) looks rather than on writing good songs.
Two of the Romo bands were a bit more lucky – read about them after the jump.
