Sunday, December 15, 2013

The Electric Egg Nog Acid Test (Interplanetary Christmas Psych-tacular #2)

Playlist

1. Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht- Ponderstone
2. Elvis Herod's Christmas Treat (edit)- Elvis Herod
3.  Last Christmas- Eaters
4. Santa Dog- The Residents
5. Psycho- Thirsty Dave's Western Caravan
6. Santa Came on a Nuclear Missle- Heather Noel
7. Flying Machine (for Christmas)- Flo Price
8. The Night Before Xmas- Andre Williams
9. Snowflakes and Frozen Lakes- Baby Pac Man
10. Merry Christmas- Glass Boy
11. Groovy Christmas- The Groove Academy
12. Santa Claus is Coming to Town- Joseph Spence
13. Spiritual March- Delphine Dora
14. In Exelsior Vaginalistic- The Flaming Lips
15. The Meaning of Christmas- Ergo Phizmiz

Download The Electric Egg Nog Acid Test!


Well, I've put together the most demented Christmas music podcast for all you kids on Santa's naughty list and Satan's honor roll. At times you may find that listening to this episode is like wearing a bad Christmas sweater. At times it may seem like there's something stronger than rum in the eggnog this year. A number of tracks come courtesy of the Free Music Archive, including Ponderstone, Elvis Herod, Eaters, Glass Boy, Delphine Dora, and Ergo Phizmiz. "Santa Dog" was the Residents' 1st single, released in 1972 and reportedly sent as a Christmas present to Richard Nixon. "Psycho" is a Christmas twist on the sick and brilliant Leon Payne ballad, which you might know from Elvis Costello's cover. "Santa Came on a Nuclear Missle" is one of the more infamous products of American Song Poems, a business that turned amateur songwriter's lyrics into studio-produced pop gems. (Not the most infamous, though. That title would have to belong to John Trubee.) The sci-fi cheese of Flo Price's "Flying Machine" and the saccharine song from the Baby Pac Man book come via the great collector of weird holiday records, Andy Cirzan. If you liked this episode, you'll want to check out his yearly compilations. Andre Williams is doing his usual thing, giving us an X-rated Xmas tale, while the Groove Academy provides pure Afrobeat bliss. Bahamian folk guitarist Joseph Spence delivers an incomprehensible version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," and The Flaming Lips finally take Santa's nuclear sled into space with a chilly tune from Christmas on Mars.

Merry Christmas, Space Cadets! 

Monday, December 9, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #10: Subliminal Seduction

Playlist

1. Listen Carefully- The Poetics
2. Group Autogenics 1- The Books
3. Strange and Unproductive Thinking- David Lynch
4. Excerpt from The Medium is the Massage 1- Marshall McLuhan
5. The Law of Repetition- The Tape-Beatles
6. Brainwash- Flipper
7. Excerpt from The Medium is the Massage 2- Marshall McLuhan
8. Right for the Job- The Tape-Beatles
9. Excerpt from The Medium is the Massage 3- Marshall McLuhan
10. Deeper- The Tape-Beatles
11. Atomic Clock/Chart #3- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
12. Group Autogenics 2- The Books

Download Interlude #10

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Music from the Black Hole

This movie was a flop but I remember loving it as a wee raylad. Maybe it was the music.



And if there's something here faintly familiar for indie heads,


Sunday, November 24, 2013

Episode #18: Foreverfloating

This is the epicsode I was planning for Interplanetary Music's first anniversary, but we're, ahem, a little behind schedule. Space travel is timeconsuming you understand. Fair warning, this is 5 hours long. 5 hours of brilliance and glory.



Download Episode 18!

Playlist

1. Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space- Spiritualized
2. Clouds- The Stark Reality
3. Variations on Canon in D Major: 1) Fulness of Wind  2) French Catalogues- Brian Eno
4. Untitled 1- Love Cult
5. Rhubarb- Aphex Twin
6. Soliloquies for Lonely Suburbs- Jacques de Villiers
7. Djed- Tortoise
8. Some Things Cosmic- Angel Olsen
9. Lullaby- Raymond Scott
10. Peace Piece- Bill Evans
11. Gymnopedie #1- Erik Satie
12. Fingerbib- Aphex Twin
13. Wonder Wheel- Future Home
14. To the Shore- Flying Saucer Attack
15. Drifting Concepts- Glaze of Cathexis
16. Pluto the Planet- Mary Lattimore
17. Deep Blue Day- Brian Eno
18. Cloud Song- The United States of America
19. Little Miss Echo- Raymond Scott
20. Dreams of Ai- Paneye
21. Spiritual- Tom Verlaine
22. The Sky is Bleeding- Maxim Engl
23. Catatonia- Techno Animal
24. Variations on Canon in D Major: 3) Brutal Ardour- Brian Eno
25. Disintegration Loop 1.1- William Basinski






Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Monster Masque: An Interplanetary Music Nightmare

Back from the grave, but not yet out of the crypt. Don't forget to check out last year's horrorshow.


Playlist

1. It's Halloween- The Shaggs
2. Look Out, There's a Monster Coming- The Bonzo Dog Band
3. Night of the Vampire- The Moontrekkers
4. The Mummy's Bracelet- Lee Ross
5. Flesh That Walks- Savage Republic
6. I Knew a Jew Named Frankenstein- Sun City Girls
7. Werewolf- The Holy Modal Rounders
8. Monster Cocktail- Les Maledictus Sound
9. The Spider and the Fly- Wicked

[Transmission from Saturn]

10. Please, Mr. Gravedigger- David Bowie
11. Crazy Bones- The Four Freshmen
13. Now I'm a Spook- The Spooks
14. Giorno di Neve
15. What's He Building in There?- Tom Waits
16. Jack the Ripper- Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages
17. Ripper Territory- Whitehouse
18. Son of Sam- The Poetics
19. I Need Your Head- Hasil Adkins
20. Night Stalking- Jealousy

[Transmission from Saturn]

21. Proserpina's Gardens- Magdalena Solis
22. The Closet- Teenage Jesus & the Jerks
23. Excerpt from XS- Rhys Chatham
24. Thriller!- Pere Ubu
25. A Hanging- Swans
26. Triumphatus Sad- Jacula
27. I Wake Up and I See the Face of the Devil- Diamanda Galas
28. La Nina de Hiroshima- Aguaviva
29. Dominus Sathanus- Burzum
30. It took the Night to Believe- Sunn O)))
31. The Sexy Midnight Torture Show- Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation
32. Gate of Solomon (Beast Version)- Beherit
33. Black Magic Rituals and Perversions- Electric Wizard
34. Burn the Flames- Roky Erickson

Download Monster Masque: An Interplanetary Music Nightmare!


Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Debussy, "Preulude to the Afternoon of a Faun"

After Beethoven, the two most important composers of the 19th century are Wagner and Debussy. The later two explored chromaticism in similar but distinct ways. Ok, enough pedantry:


Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #9: Independence Day

They told you in school about freedom, but when you try to be free, they never let you.

Playlist

1. The Pledge- The Holy Modal Rounders
2. The Star-Spangled Banner- Jimi Hendrix
3. The American Metaphysical Circus- The United States of America
4. The 4th of July- Charles Ives
5. Hungry Freaks, Daddy- Frank Zappa
6. American Ruse- MC5
7. American Waste- Black Flag
8. War Song- The Fugs
9. Exorcising Evil Spirits from the Pentagon October 21, 1967- The Fugs
10. Freedom- Charles Mingus
11. Stop Look and Listen- Ricardo Ray
12. Freedom Voice of My Soul- Art Boys Collection
13. Freedom is a Hammer- Vera Vanderlaan
14. Revolution- Spacemen 3

Download Interlude #9!

More Metal Machine Music

Someone actually covered Metal Machine Music ("The Greatest Album Ever Made!"- St. Bangs). And it's Fantastic. Listen:





And here's a pretty decent mashup of MMM & No. 9:

Sunday, June 23, 2013

In the Bloom of Madness Pt 2: Un-Raveling Bolero



In the Bloom of Madness pt 1: Louis Wain Before & After Schizophrenia

"He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves."- H.G. Wells


Steve Reich, "The Desert Music"

As to the meaning of the text and music I hope that it speaks for itself. I have loved Dr. Williams' poetry since I was 16 years old and picked up a copy of his long poem Patterson just because I was fascinated by the symmetry of his name -- William Carlos Williams. I have continued reading his work to the present. I find Dr. Williams' finest work to be his late poetry written between 1954 and his death in 1963 at age 80. It is from this period in the poet's work that I have selected the texts for The Desert Music -- a period after the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Dr. Williams was acutely aware of the bomb and his words about it, in a poem about music entitled The Orchestra struck me as to the point: "Say to them:/ Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant/ to know how to realize his wishes. Now that he can realize/ them, he must either change them or perish." When I began work on The Desert Music I thought those words were too grave to set and thought I would use a tape of Dr. Williams reading them instead. When the time came to compose the third movement in the summer of 1983 I did know how to set them because the character of the harmonies in the third seemed to generate just the right setting. I was very glad now I did not resort to using a tape. In the center of the piece is the text, also from The Orchestra, which says, "it is a principle of music/ to repeat the theme. Repeat/ and repeat again,/ as the pace mounts. The/ theme is difficult/ but no more difficult/ than the facts to be/ resolved." Those at all familiar with my music will know how apt those words are for me and particularly this piece which, among other things, addresses that basic ambiguity between what the text says, and its pure sensuous sounds. 


Sunday, June 16, 2013

Alabama United Sacred Harp Musical Association, "The Last Words of Copernicus"

Gets me every fucking time, too. 



Ye golden lamps of Heav'n farewell,
   With all your feeble light;
Farewell thou ever changing moon,
  Pale empress of the night.
And thou refulgent orb of day,
   In brighter flames array'd;
My soul which springs beyond thy sphere
  No more demands thy aid.

Ye stars are but the shining dust
   Of my divine abode,
The pavements of those heavenly courts,
  Where I shall see my God.
The Father of eternal light
   Shall there his beams display;
Nor shall one moment's darkness mix
  With that unvaried day.
No more the drops of piercing grief
  Shall swell into my eyes;
Nor the meridian sun decline,
  Amidst those brighter skies.
There all the millions of his saints
  Shall in one song unite;
And each the bliss of all shall view
   With infinite delight.

And check out this experiment in echo I performed on the song.

Found out today by chance that there's a church that sacred harp singing right down the street from me. 


The Minutemen, "June 16th"

The world's wordiest novelist gets an instrumental tribute song.



Saturday, June 15, 2013

Tweeting and Tumbling in the Widening Gyre

We're rocking a tumblr now. Check out Cosmic Debris for literature, esoterica, erotica, anarchy, and all-around trippy shit. Stay here stay stoned stay tuned for all your musical kicks.

Yeah, I am still planning on doing video episodes on Youtube.

Yeah, I am still doing full episodes. A megamotherfucker of an anniversery ep is gonna drop the 21st. 

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Lennie Tristano, "Descent into the Maelstrom"

Recorded in 1953.

The Telescopes, "Flying"


Rodney Howard Browne & the Congregation of Revival Ministries, "Angels Sing all with People"

Holy shit. Via Music of Mind Control.




On the one hand, I think protestant evangelicalism is about the most religiously and culturally ignorant thing anywhere, and it sows idiocy wherever it it goes. On the other hand, I'm totally down with speaking in tongues, holy rolling, fiery sermons, snake handling, and this collective cosmic yodel right here. 

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

You Don't Know Yoko Ono

Most people only know the name Yoko Ono as a byword or a punchline. She is neither. I can't think of a single artist or celebrity with such a more undeserved reputation. If you don't know Ono, let me give you the skinny: Yoko hate is 1 part philistinism, 99 parts PURE SEXIST BULLSHIT. If you don't like avant-garde art or strange music, she won't be your bag. But neither (most likely) will David Lynch, Salvador Dali, Crispin Glover, John Cage et cetera. But these male artists don't get the kind of hatred Ono inspires, because it's expected that they are artists whose role it is to challenge and provoke. People don't think about Yoko Ono this way because, 1) she's a woman, and 2) she was John Lennon's girlfriend.

If you like the kind of crazy noise we often traffic in at Interplanetary Music, you should really give Ono's music a listen. Some of it is not good. Some of it is incredible, particularly the Plastic Ono Band album. The following documentary (you'll have to watch parts 2-6 on Youtube, because embedding is disabled for some stupid reason) helps debunk some of the Ono myths (and they are all myths, except for the one about her being a witch), but it doesn't do much in the way of appreciating her as an artist.







Friday, June 7, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #8: Songs of Innoncence

Playlist

1. The Boo Boo Song- King Coleman
2, Shortnin' Bread- The Ready Men
3. Chicken Licken- Okie Duke
4. Animal Kingdom- The Meat Puppets
5. King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O- Chubby Parker
6. Froggy Went a Courting- Danny Dell
7. Effervescing Elephant- Syd Barrett
6. Lonesome Cowboy Dave- Pere Ubu
7. Shaggy Dog- Mickey Lee Lane
8. Bullfrog Hop- Nervous Norvus
9. Since I Lost My Tooth- Daniel Johnston
10. Bike- The Pink Floyd
11. Cuckoo- The Monks
12. Bubbles- The Free Design
13. My Pal Foot Foot- The Shaggs
14. O Frabjous Day! (The Jabberwock)- Harry Partch
15. Jabberwocky- The Bards
16. Time for Bed/I Know You'll Do Well- The Apples in Stereo
17. Put a Straw Under Baby- Brian Eno

Download Interlude #8!

Monday, May 27, 2013

Buttress O'Kneel, The Four Seasons

Four different recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons superimposed on one another. This is not a deconstruction, like Brian Eno's variations on Pachelbel's Canon in D, but rather kind of kaleidic amplification. 

Balam Acab, "Apart"

Tip of the hat to Space Cadet Anni (who is my gf, & pretty much the most radical babe in the universe, and originally came from space, natch).



Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Wagner Today

Today is Wagner's 200th birthday.

Porn Vortex: Hometape's "Redtube Album"

NSFW, obviously.

What could be a more apropos experiment for our time than an album composed of nothing but samples from a free porn site? Is it a critique of the male gaze or a celebration of online eros? The opening track "Hey There" and its video suggests the former, while the song "Rec" (my favorite on the album) seems more like the latter. More likely it's all in the eye/ear of the beholder, and the intent of the album was simply, as the artist says,  "a technical exercise to teach myself how to sample" that "got a bit carried away." Happens to the best of us.

Read more at Disinformation.





Stockhausen: Tuning In


Monday, May 20, 2013

Amen

Couple of notes here: 1. It's not "ironic" that "Whole Lotta Love" was recorded in the same year as "Amen Brother." It's just a coincidence. 2. I love Squarepusher, chinstroking and undanceable as it may be. The same things were said about Charlie Parker.

Friday, May 17, 2013

Drumslinger

Elvin Jones is one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time, noted in particular for his work with John Coltrane, but I am also in love with his late work with Sonny Sharrock on Ask the Ages. He also apparently did this thing:


Monday, May 13, 2013

Episode #17: Autumnal Spring

Playlist

1. Ramblin'- Jack Wilson Quartet
2. The Seasons Reverse- Gastr Del Sol
3. I'll Remember April- Bud Powell
4. Jacking the Ball- The Sea and Cake
5. Fleurette Africaine- Duke Ellington
6. Smoke Signals- Eddie Harris
7. The Credits: Outtakes from Terry's Movie- Leo Kottke
8. The Train and the River- Jimmy Giuffre Trio
9. Hermosa Summer- Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars
10. Black Horse- Gastr Del Sol
11. Sweet Rain- Gary Burton Quartet
12. TNT- Tortoise
13. Honeysuckle Rose- Dick McDonough
14. Blue Crystal Fire- Robbie Basho
15. Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul- Davey Graham
16. I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You- Lennie Tristano
17. Heart of Glass- The Bad Plus
18. The Workplace- Jim O'Rourke
19. Manha de Carnaval- Sandy Bull
20. Samba de Orfeo- John Fahey
21. This is My Story, This is My Song- Thelonious Monk

Download Episode #17!


Eddie Harris, "Silver Cycles"

Uploaded by Christomacin, with imagery from abstract filmmaker James Whitney

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The Ticks Turn Into Tocks and the Tocks Turn Into Ticks: Derek Bailey

Derek Bailey is a controversial guitarist. (Just look at the comments under these videos at YouTube.) For my part, while I would never want to completely give up traditional melody, dynamics, or even good old power chords, when I hear this I feel like I should put down the guitar forever if I can't find something new to say, or at least develop my own voice with it.


Sunday, May 5, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #7: Endless and Empty

Good evening Space Cadets! There is a slew of full episodes that should be ready soon, scouts honor. Until then, it's time to turn off your mind, turn off your heart, turn off your soul, and give yourself up to universal and irrevocable entropy with Interlude #7.

First up is Bardo Pond, shoegazing stoners whom we met in episode #13. Next is eclectic postpunkers 23 Skidoo with a track an untitled (or at least I can't find the title) from a live bootleg (found here).  After that is Meat Kiosk, described at Year Zero Records as "an International (Franco-Anglo-Australian) collaborative project, performed over the Interweb," with part 3 of their Ipcress Symphony. We end it all with a live performance by Nadja.



Playlist

1. Montana Sacra ii- Bardo Pond
2. ?- 23 Skidoo
3. Resistance Through Pain- Meat Kiosk
4. The Bungled & the Botched (Live)- Nadja

Download Interlude #7!





The Bungled & The Botched (Nadja) / CC BY 3.0

Friday, April 26, 2013

Techno Animal, "Catatonia"

A great track played to the imagery of Russian filmmaker Vladimir Kobrin, who applies his avant-garde style to educational science films. Thanks to humoongus.




The cinema I'm engaged in can be called 'psychedelic puppet action,' where the characters-both the live and the lifeless-behave according to the laws of a cosmic theater . . . To my mind, an artist is a person whose mission is to close the space between Earth and the Cosmos. Otherwise he can't be called an artist. That is why I see my task as a film director to consist of wiping off the mirror in which man and mankind as a whole look, and to show that this world (this performance without God, that is, without the point where all our puppet threads come together) is senseless and deserves no sympathy or pity.- Vladimir Kobrin, program notes, "HomoParadoxum V Kobrin," ArtWorkshop

Monday, April 22, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #6: Solar Eclipse

There is a serious dearth of Sun Ra covers out there. These are all great, though. (Also check out the MC5 doing "Starship" on Episode 1.)

Playlist

1. Interplanetary Music- General Strike
2. China Gate- Cul De Sac
3. Nuclear War (Version 2)- Yo La Tengo
4. Rocket #9- NRBQ
5. Nuclear War (Version 4)- Yo La Tengo [Mike Ladd Remix]
6. Rocket #9- The Poetics
7. Nuclear War (Version 3)- Yo La Tengo
8. China Gate (Reprise)- Cul De Sac

Download Interlude #6

Saturday, April 20, 2013

DJ Shadow, "Midnight in a Perfect World"



The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, the time is going by and I recline alone.
The sinking moon has left the sky,
The Pleiades have also gone.
Midnight comes--and goes, the hours fly
And solitary still, I lie.

The Moon has left the sky,
Lost is the Pleiads' light;
It is midnight,
And time slips by,
But on my couch alone I lie.

-Sappho

This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the 
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
-Walt Whitman

Friday, April 19, 2013

Steve Reich, "Music For 18 Musicians"

The minimalist masterpiece. (Whut's minimalism? Why, according to its enemies, it's fascist-consumerist-narcissism. In otherworlds, it's classical music's Rock 'n' Roll. Sayeth the dour serialists: "God indeed does throw dice,/ but never does he ever/ say the same thing twice.") "Dean" Christgau gave it an A minus. Well, one is tempted to hedge a bit with such a reputation on the line. On the other hand . . . 


Swans, "No Words, No Thoughts"

Swans. The Swans. The Fucking Swans. The Motherfucking Swans. The Holy Motherfucking Swans.


Saturday, April 13, 2013

Bonobo, "Cirrus"

I'm pretty much a novice in the DJ/electronica world, but I've been digging the artists Ninja Tune puts out. This song is not mind-blowing, only quite pleasant. But this video . . .

Friday, April 12, 2013

Buffy Sainte-Marie, "God is Alive Magic is Afoot"

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen, from Beautiful Losers. "Cohen" means priest. "Sainte-Maire" is French for, of course, Saint Mary. Hat-tip to Space Cadet Anni.




Thursday, April 11, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #5: Existential Epistles

Playlist

1. Freedom- King Coleman
2. The Swedish Nada- The Fugs
3. Next to Nothing- Savage Republic
4. Being is More Than Life- Baby Grandmothers
5. Franz Kafka- The Prefab Messiahs
6. Requiem for Martin Heidegger- Panic
7. Killing an Arab- The Cure
8. The Truth is What We Make of It- The Agrarians
9. Nausea- X
10. Boredom- The Buzzcocks
11. You and I- Silver Apples
12. Forge Your Own Chains- D.R. Hooker
13. You're Gonna Die- Destroy All Monsters
14. The Angel of Death- Hank Williams

Download Interlude #5!

Hawkwind & Stacia

Stone-cold classic space-rock with Stacia. And yes, Lemmy from Motorhead.


Monday, April 8, 2013

Black Pus, "Hear No Evil"

Via Pitchfork. We're riding the tail of the zeigeist, baby! I think neo-psychedelic rock is one of the biggest games in town. At any rate, one of the best.


Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Seeds, "Pushin' Too Hard"

Everything about this is hilarious. A caveat: you shouldn't push too hard if you're gassy.


The Sound of the Silence of Sounds

Personally, I like sounds that talk to me, sounds that are in love with each other, as well as the sounds that don't mean anything (or at least don't mean to mean anything). Artists often have to choose (or think they have to) but we listeners do not, and thank god for that.


Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Demon's Claws, "Fed from Her Hand"

This video . . . well, it's not really what I pictured when I heard the song. The uploader is from guess where? Hungary! Ha ha! Get it?

Don't eat lions, folks. That is not what they are for, and the meat tastes bad.


Monday, April 1, 2013

Episode #16: Cosmic Chaos: The Music of Uqbar

Playlist

1. Heliocentric- Sun Ra
2. Imaginary Landscape- John Cage
3. Variations on a Mexican Flute- Pierre Schaeffer
4. Piece for a Tape Recorder- Vladimir Ussachevsky
5. Agricultural Em Crateras- Hronir
6. Flotenmenschen 2- Dom
7. James- Cluster
8. Tides of Manaunaun- Henry Cowell
9. 4 (glagolitico)- Catasto Elettrico
10. Incantation- Otto Luening & Vladimir Ussachevsky
11. Womb of My Mind- Szbuta Soroh
12. Pfigstoratorium (Spiritus Intelligentiae Sanctus)- Ernst Krenek
13. Fantasy in Space- Otto Luening
14. Untitled- Blank Realm
15. Dogstar Regions Episodes 1, 3, 5 &7- R.S.P. (Radigast Space Project featuring Heartfieldjohnny)
16. Arnold School 1- The Mighty Acts of God
17. Cosmic Chaos- Sun Ra

Download Episode 16!


Hand-Rolled Oblivion (Various Artists [mymwly]) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0


Sunday, March 31, 2013

Sympathy for Jesus

Too lazy even to put together my own mp3 mix today, so here's some videos. And here's some shit I wrote some time ago.


Sunday, March 24, 2013

You're Goddamn Right My Kid's Gonna Lean About Krautrock!

I think a good gauge of how much of a music snob I am is that not only do I know about Krautrock, but I prefer the term Kosmische Musik.


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #4: The World as Meditation

Ok, folks, a new official episode for real is coming. It requires some research, and I've been quite busy lately with my delusions and self-analysis and existential abysses opening up beneath me, with too much masturbation and bad food, with the dozen books I'm a quarter of the way through but still uncommitted to, and with THE ENDLESS NOTHING ON THE GODDAMN INTERNET (also all the cool stuff- yeah, my stuff is here, too: it's both). But until I get shit together, here's a bunch of songs with no thematic connection (actually that's not true: there's a thruline or two- can you pick them out?), only that they've provided what peace and joy I've had recently.  For those who think my voice is the worst part of these shows (as I do), this might be your favorite episode.

"The World as Meditation" is stolen from my favorite poet, Wallace Stevens. Laurie Anderson is a NYC-based performance artist (more on her soon), and "O Superman" might be the best pop song of the 80's (even better than anything off ZZ Top's Eliminator!). Muscles of Joy are a group of lasses from Glasgow (a Glasgow lass group). Tyrannosaurus Rex is the hippie precursor to the glam-rockin' gong-bangin' on-gettin'-it T. Rex. Tall Dwarfs are giant/tiny mythical creatures from New Zealand. Faust are Ger-men who sold their souls to a minor demon for the gift of perpetual but respectable obscurity. The Vertigo Swirl sound a lot like Captain Beefheart's Magic Band on this eponymous track, and I mean that as no slight. More Beefheart knockoffs please! (Oh, not you, Tom Waits. You just uh, carry on.)

Playlist

1. O Superman- Laurie Anderson
2. Interchangable Letterset- Muscles of Joy
3. She Was Born to Be My Unicorn- Tyrannosaurus Rex
4. Nothing's Going to Happen- Tall Dwarfs
5. Jennifer- Faust
6. The Vertigo Swirl- The Vertigo Swirl
7. Water Breaks Its Neck- Muscles of Joy


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Robert Harrison on Jimi Hendrix

Looks like Jimi Hendrix is on the charts again. This is only interesting because, uh, I guess charts are still a thing in music. But it's really a pretext for me to turn you on to the show Entitled Opinions, if you've never heard it. This is an intellectual talk show based at Stanford University, and broadcast on KZSU. It's been a big inspiration to me in doing both the Interpletary Music and Anarchy & Culture podcasts. Here's a monologue on Jimi Hendrix by host Robert Harrison. There's also been great shows on Heidegger, Wallace Stevens, Nietzsche, Dante (Harrison is a Dante scholar), Kurt Weill, Freud, the Unabomber, Jesus, and a shit-ton more.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Interplanetary Interlude #3: Eiridh Tonn Air Uisge Balbh

Playlist 

1. Shay Fan Yan Ley- Linda Thompson
2. Astral Weeks- Van Morrison
3. The Rocky Road to Dublin- The Pogues
4. Killarney Boys of Pleasure- Ceoltiri
5. Blackwaterside- Linda Thompson
6. Polska Set- Ceoltoiri
7. Far Away- Ceoltoiri
8. The Balinalee- The Pogues



Tuesday, March 12, 2013

I Want My Avant-Garde TV

This video is great (hat tip to WFMU). I'm a bit dismayed by some of the comments on Youtube, though. For instance, someone remarked, "I really wanted to mute all idiots laughing... bunch of ignorants." To which someone else replied, "I think Cage considered the idiots laughing as part of his music." 

Now, I totally agree that Cage considered the audience reaction as part of the music. But I don't think he would have considered them idiots. Why? Because art is supposed to be stone cold serious? Do you think they laugh because they don't "get it?" Do you think you get it?

If you do, then you don't. If you don't, then you do. Get it?

These comments completely ignore the influence of Zen on Cage's work. This is the musical equivalent of a koan. There's no "getting it," as in rationally understanding it. It is its action. It is what is happening. You either enjoy that or you don't, and there's no prescribed way to enjoy it (though Cage himself says he prefers laughter to tears, and hear hear for that). The only people who really don't get it are the dildos who pay to go see/hear 4'33" and then just sit there in silence. The piece isn't supposed to be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, it's simply four minutes and thirty three seconds. Cage didn't believe in silence, so that's actually the one thing the piece can't be.

By explaining the music this way, have I indicted myself along with people who think they understand it and look down upon others who don't? Perhaps, but I don't mind the paradox. I find it appropriate, and it amuses me.

Humorlessness, pretentiousness, and conformity is destroying the arts. I want my avant-garde TV.


Saturday, March 9, 2013

Calling All Mutants!

Os Mutantes are coming to Salt Lake City! "Os" is the second-person familiar plural pronoun in Spanish (and I assume Portuguese as well), so there name translates roughly to "You Mutants." (Or, as I like to translate it, "Y'all Mutants.") So I'm calling on all you mutants out there in SLC to come join me at Urban Lounge on May 10.

Also check out my "Song for Sunday" entry, in which I do an impromptu and ill-informed occult reading of "Bat Macumba."





Sunday, March 3, 2013

Experimental Sunday: Einsturzende Neubaten

Howdy folks. Are you having a good time? Enjoying the chants, the drones, the sacred noise? Good. More is forthcoming. More writing will be forthcoming as well. Which you might not care for. But this is not about you. Just gloss over it and crank up the jams.

Y'know, I do like to read from time to time. Too bad the internet distracts me from the fact that I have an amazing library of mostly unread books. I could be spellbound by Fearful Symmetry or The Golden Bough, but no I'm on goddamn twitter or ok cupid trying to impress people with my stupid nonsense. Anyway, one of the things I've most enjoyed reading recently (last night, until 5am, because somebody left a case of PBR at my house, and I am a madman) is a blog called "Fuck Theory." You love it already, no?

There's a great post on the German industrial band Einsturzende Neubaten. It's a band I keep hearing about, but have yet to really investigate. Till now. Love it. Like a postpunk Faust. Here's the part (of the post) that really got to me:

I was not a happy teenager.  Without too many maudlin details, suffice to say that the domestic situation I grew up in left scars quite a bit deeper than the average teenage angst.  By the time I was 15, every fucking day was a wild oscillation between nuclear rage and terrible, self-loathing depression.  I had all of these pent-up energies, and no idea what to do with them.  And then, at the age of 14, I discovered two aesthetic investments that would change my life forever - Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs, and Einstürzende Neubauten. 

Replace "Einsturzende Neubaten" with "The Velvet Underground," and I could say the very same thing. But I'm not going to get into that now or here. This is about the music. First though, I'll say that while I'm just an amateurish idiot who don't know shit about crap, I think what this guy's doing with this blog is very interesting, entertaining, and there's a lot I can endorse here. For instance:


On the one hand . . . 



. . . but on the other.

This is a philosophy blog, btw. Again, I don't know Deleuze from my own dick, but I know authentic writing from academic wankery. I keep finding bloggers, who make no money and have no cultural capital to speak of, but who can write and think glorious blazing circles around the New York TimesNew Yorker, et al. Chuck that shit, my friends. They aren't smarter than you, they aren't cooler than you. They're privileged and therefore clueless. (Oh, and did you know they lie, like all the time?) What you think is valid, is beautiful, is true. They're main street. They're a park bench on main street. We're in the fucking jungle, the fucking desert. We're in fucking space.

But, oh yeah, this is about the music. Which is about everything. Here's Neubaten:




One of the band members plays the shovel. Neato.




Now I know what "industrial" music actually means.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Friday, March 1, 2013

Channel Interplanetaire

I've started a YouTube channel for some videos I'll be making from Interplanetary Music episodes. It's under my own name, because I'm too lazy to start a new channel under Interplanetary Music.

Sign up, space cadets.

Where has pop surrealism gone?

Down with boring "indie" music (and film)! Up with pop-punk surrealism! Let us stop being cool and start getting weird.

Why can't you have your cake and eat it too? 
Why believe in things that make it tough on you? 
Why scream and cry when you know it's through? 
Why fall in love when there's better things to do?


[Check out the appearance of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs at 1:11.]

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Stanley Kubrick's Diaries

The other day I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time in years. This, more than any other film, opened my eyes and my mind to the possibilities of the medium. I've often cited it as my favorite movie, but I've only seen it a handful of times. At any rate, I've gotten back into Kubrick in a big way. In fact, last week I had a dream that Kubrick was driving me in a truck at high speed down a highway at night and demanding that I play all of my cassettes. Then I decided to make this little tribute video using the song "Stanley Kubrick's Diaries" by the German postpunk band Janitors of Lunacy.


Saturday, February 23, 2013

Not Coming to a Theatre Near You

I haven't seen any of these movies. But I love the trailers. Good music, good editing, freakish imagery.

Manly P. Hall on Pythagoras and the Music of the Spheres

Having once established music as an exact science, Pythagoras applied his newly found law of harmonic intervals to all the phenomena of Nature, even going so far as to demonstrate the harmonic relationship of the planets, constellations, and elements to each other. A notable example of modern corroboration of ancient philosophical teaching is that of the progression of the elements according to harmonic rations. While making a list of the elements in the ascending order of their atomic weights, John A. Newlands discovered at every eighth element a distinct repetition of properties. This discovery is known as the law of octaves in modern chemistry.

. . .

It is probable that the Pythagoreans recognized a connection between the Seven Greek modes and the planets. As an example, Pliny declares that Saturn moves in the Dorian mode and Jupiter in the Phrygian mode. It is also apparent that the temperaments are keyed to the various modes, and the passions likewise. Thus, anger (which is a fiery passion) may be accentuated by a fiery mode or its power neutralized by a watery mode.

. . .

Pythagoras conceived the universe to be an immense monochord, with its single string connected at its upper end to absolute spirit and its lower end to absolute matter- in other words, a cord stretched between heaven and earth.

. . .

Many early instruments had seven strings, and it is generally conceded that Pythagoras was the one who added the eighth string to the lyre of Terpander. The seven strings were always related both to their correspondences on the human body and to the planets. The names of God were also conceived to be formed from combinations of the seven planetary harmonies. The Egyptians confirmed their sacred songs to the seven primary sounds, forbidding any others to be uttered in their temples. One of their hymns contained the following invocation: "The seven sounding tones praise Thee, the Great God, the ceaseless working Father of the whole universe." In another the Deity describes Himself thus: "I am the great indestructible lyre of the whole world, attuning the songs of the heavens."

The Pythagoreans believed that everything which existed had a voice and that all creatures were eternally singing the praise of the Creator. Man fails to hear these divine melodies because his soul is enmeshed in the illusion of material existence. When he liberates himself from the bondage of the lower world with its sense limitations, the music of the spheres will again be audible as it was in the Golden Age. Harmony recognizes harmony, and when the human soul regains its true estate it will not only hear the celestial choir but also join with it in an everlasting anthem of praise to that Eternal Good controlling the infinite number of parts and conditions of Being.

-from The Secret Teachings of All Ages



Karlheinz Stockhausen: Stimmung

From Wikipedia:

"The German word stimmung has several meanings, including 'tuning' and 'mood.' The word is the noun formed from the verb stimmen, which means 'to harmonize, to be correct,' and related to stimme (voice). The primary sense of the title 'implies not only the outward tuning of the voices or instruments, but also the inward tuning of one's soul'."