2011 Year's End Thangs

Since I can no longer sleep normal hours I'm gonna pass the dreaded 7am - 8am painful realization of dusk coming on with a kind of year end "favorites" list. Like those great ones you see in such relevant and timely publications as Entertainment Weekly. I'm keeping it (mainly) provincial and not really strictly to music (although there are plenty of music things on this list).

1. CS13


CS13 was an "alternative" art gallery in Cincinnati that did a lot of things. Egalitarian music space (they hosted so many bands, local and non, that I'd never heard of), literary hub ("The Things That My Friends Say" monthly reader series as well as other literary events), a community kitchen (their amazing "Courses" series they did over the summer, where they renovated the space into a working kitchen and invited local chefs and food related folk to come talk and cook), and, of course, an art gallery. Their final exhibition, "Utopia, OH: A Love Letter" was a beautiful and museological exhibition about a real place in Ohio, but further about the idea of a utopian space in general (some photos: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150346716987201.343348.73151372200&type=1) In a way this final exhibition was a kind of summation of what CS13 was; a space malleable to be about and for anything you wanted. When they quietly closed their doors for good a few months ago it was a sharp contrast to the aggrandizing farewells from the press towards another local art gallery that closed forever in Cincinnati this year, but perhaps this is the more appropriate exit for a place like CS13. Quiet legacies tend to permeate better than those shouted from the rooftops anyway.



2. Leif Fairfield - Sun Drips EP



Cincinnati performance artist/musician/wearer of pasta helmets Leif Fairfield recorded an 11 song EP covering the songs of another local band, The Sleeping Sea (who I've admittedly only heard once). There's a lot to hear on this thing, with songs ranging in sound from Bowie vocals over Nintendo to music to weepers such as "Wicked Witches" that does a bit of Black Heart Procession/Sunset Rubdown/Fever Ray thing. You can download it free from Leif's blog: http://www.cosmonautfarm.blogspot.com/

3. Jennifer Jolley - "Press Play"


Jennifer Jolley is a Cincinnati composer whose work I first became aware of during her collaboration with Andre Alves for his "Mute Motives" exhibition (I wrote all about it here: http://aeqai.com/main/2011/07/it%E2%80%99s-oh-so-quiet-%E2%80%93-andre-alves%E2%80%99-mute-motives-at-semantics/). From my introduction to her work in that exhibition she's become one of my favorite brains behind things to hear and see around here. "Press Play" (a reworking of Bach on children's instruments) is the kind of 20th C. composer influenced smarts coupled with some whimsy that I feel encompasses most of what she does, and its one of my favorite things I've heard in general this year.

MP3/Streaming:
http://soundcloud.com/jenniferjolley/press-play
website:
http://www.jenniferjolley.com/composer/news.html

4. Steve Kemple - "The World is Everything that it Isn't"


This was my favorite exhibition I've ever seen, locally and beyond. If you want to read more about my thoughts on it go here: http://aeqai.com/main/2011/05/steve-kemple/ (I promise I'm not picking these things so you can read my Aeqai articles).
You should also look at everything he does here: stevekemple.com

5. PIPRIRL (Post Internet Poetry Reading in Real Life)


This is the only thing I'll put on this list that I had any real involvement with (and besides, my role in this was really only gatherer of equipment and provider of an art space). The idea came from the artist Caitlin Robinson who eschewed the tried and true conventional poetry reading for a conceptual one, looking at the muddy Marisa Olson coined "post-internet" term (a kind of updated Marshall McLuhan physical/digital optimism) and creating an event that felt kind of like a 21st Century Cabaret Voltaire. Readers came in from all over via various internet teleports (skype etc.) and lots of things were slow to load and at times incredibly grating to sit through...yet, despite its technical difficulties the whole damn thing had such a bit of 60s nostalgia blanketed in something so contemporary you couldn't help but enjoy it all.
Here's a bit of it on ustream. Second Life reading is by Caitlin and the "irl" (but not in this case) reader is Mark Mendoza.
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/piprirl
Caitlin's site:
caitlinrobinson.com

6. Vaclav Havel RIP
Next time you hear some dingy neo-McCarthyite on talk radio or tv go on about communists hiding in your toaster waiting to pop up with an evil message on your toast, think of this one (of countless) lines from communist and former Czech president (and one of my favorite authors) Vaclav Havel, who died the weekend before Christmas: "We must not be ashamed that we are capable of love, friendship, solidarity, sympathy and tolerance, but just the opposite: we must set those fundamental dimensions of our humanity free from their "private" exile and accept them as the only genuine starting point of meaningful community." - from "Politics and Conscience" ed. Flagg Taylor
Recommend:
The Garden Party and Other Plays
To the Castle and Back

7. The Tree of Life/Beginners/The Future
There weren't really a lot of great movies this year...maybe I'm getting pickier or maybe movies are just getting worse (The Smurfs). Combine em all into a hybrid super indie and you'll get the crux of what they are all about: how hard love is when forces oppress it (social, cultural, and just good old boredom). Also, the Tree of Life has dinosaurs.

8. Eleanor Friedberger - "Last Summer"


When I stumbled across this I really didn't think it would be anything I'd like as much as I do. I've always kind of liked the Fiery Furnaces but would never call myself a "fan" per se. Somehow this became my favorite album I've heard this year (St. Vincent "Strange Mercy," Oneohtrix Point Never "Replica," get #2 and 3) and maybe its the same problem with the movies...either I'm missing a lot of things or music has been kinda hit or miss in 2011. SEE FOR YOURSELF:

http://www.crocko.com/1916650419/Eleanor_Friedberger_-_Last_Summer_(2011)_[MP3]_ES_3649070.rar

9. Video Daughters - ZooS


Video Daughters are a band from NYC and this is just a great, noisy, big Albini tears, release of an album.

http://videodaughters.bandcamp.com/

10. "Louie"
Just fucking brilliant. Louie CK winds up making probably one of the best TV shows I've ever seen by subverting formula and not being afraid to go for emotional broke.

Brian Eno/Robert Fripp - No Pussyfooting (1973) and Boredoms - Seadrum/House of Sun (2005)

These are two albums I put on when I want to be able to concentrate on something else and need some kind of background noise...also, combined, they are probably 4 of my favorite songs (each album has just 2 tracks). No Pussyfooting was recorded by Brian Eno (on the cusp of quitting Roxy Music and just months before his first "proper" solo release Here Come the Warm Jets) and King Crimson's resident "genius guitarist" Robert Fripp over the course of three days. Eno supplied manipulated tape loops of synthesizers etc. and Fripp just kind of noodles over it on his guitar. It should be awful but it's really not...Eno's loops prefigure most of his ambient work that would come later and sound somewhere between Terry Riley and Steve Reich, and there are some of Fripp's (using his own custom built "Frippertronics...no joke, look em up) mightiest riffs on here. The album gets (slight) critical acclaim for "Heavenly Music Corporation" but I prefer "Swastika Girls" aside from its 70s "shocker!" name. Which one will you like better? YOU CHOOSE. (It also has an awesome cover).

The Boredoms are/were a Japanese avant/noise/psychedelic group that seemed to move further and further away from the noise punk thing and into Frank Zappa/Alice Coltrane/Santana/Tribal- Jazz territory as their career progressed. This album is indicative of that, five years or so after their last proper full length,"Vision Creation Newsun" which, in my opinion, is their best. "Seadrum" is probably closest to the sound on that album, with "House of Sun" veering more towards the jazzy-psychadelic sitar 60s thing. Neither of these albums, in description, may sound like anything potentially listenable to while attempting focus on other things, but whats interesting to me about them is that, given all their avant-garde sensibilities and experimentation and predecessors that were admittedly "difficult listening" both albums are downright pleasant to listen to, if not, at times, even calming.

Eno/Fripp:

http://www.mediafire.com/?ntu37c3ph4x172u

Boredoms:

http://www.mediafire.com/?fzzotdldj3w

Sunforest - Sounds of Sunforest (1969)

This was one of those late 60s psychedelic bands that just, despite their hippy blend of sonic instruments (i.e. loud organs and guitars) mixed with pastiche and Grateful Dead-ish farmhouse anthems, couldn't cut the paisley mustard. They recorded this one album and called it quits, but a few years later Stanley Kubrick employed 2 tracks from this album "Overture to the Sun" and "Lighthouse Keeper" for the film "A Clockwork Orange." The soundtrack is where I first heard both of these tracks of course, yet no credit is given to Sunforest, just the respective writers of the song (i.e. "Lighthouse Keeper" is by Erika Elgen on the record sleeve). After a little detective work (read: its 4am and I've got nothing better to do) I figured out that these songs came from this album AND....that's about it. The album itself is all over the place, with "jams" alongside strange Arthurian themes, and pop-baroque arrangements (there's even a children's song sounding track about a bee named "Mr. Bumble"). While its not anywhere on par with the kind of psychedelia their much more popular peers were making at the time, its an interesting listen and, oddly enough, given the forays bands like the Flaming Lips have made into these kinds of territories, it doesn't sound too terrifically dated. (Also: highly recommend the Clockwork Orange soundtrack...moog covers of classical music = who can say no?).

http://www.mediafire.com/?jongtwztjwd

The Advantage - Elf Titled (2006)

I'll start off by saying I hated the NES "Advantage" controller, an arcade style pad with a joystick and some awkwardly placed buttons. It just seemed like a whole lot of trouble compared to the flat little controller pad (however the Advantage was crucial to saving New York City in Ghostbusters II...it's what they used to steer the Statue of Liberty into the city and smash the slime covered museum to stop the possessed painting ghost from using the infant as a vessel to...I'm realizing this is a complicated comedy movie and a complicated digression). The Advantage that I'm featuring here is not a Dan Ackroyd payola prop nor is it a controller, but it IS indicative of the kind of music this band makes: all NES game music covers, done in a kind of "math rock" (remember math rock?) hyper metal style by members of the (defunct?) other mathy/metal group Hella. For me, its nostalgia coupled with genres of music I like, but for those who aren't familiar with the "Solar Jetman Theme" it's indicative of just how (sometimes) great, and ridiculously complicated these video game compositions truly were (the composers often had limited capability due to the size of these video games, having to find tricky ways to extend just 2 or 3 notes). If yer into this one their self titled is just as good.

http://www.mediafire.com/?o5k6psorlsh

Warp 9 - It's a Beat Wave (1983)

I literally can find no biographical information about these guys. That said, they sound like a logical extension of The Jonzun Crew, whose "Lost in Space" was a record I found on the street one day, took home for the sake of taking someone's trash into my house and eventually listened to, albeit for sinister ironic purposes...because, a song called "Electro Boogie Encounter" can only be enjoyed in such a fashion, right? Initially, sure, but, like most things that start out that way, it inevitably merges into "I actually kind of like this" territory. Listen for yourself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGDJF4MUVJA

Warp 9 are sort of one of those forgettable post Parliament/Funkadelic, early 80's Herbie Hancock meets Sugar Hill Records kind of groups, probably more likely to be heard as a sample on a Beastie Boys album than on its own. Yet, for all of its generic framing (and what an awful cover) there are some pretty damn solid jams on here, with "Light Years Away" and "Nunk (New Wave Funk)" closer to something you'd hear on an Arthur Russell or ESG album than you would from Parliament. Perp it:

http://www.mediafire.com/?jd2v2u7dlzuk81g

White Noise - An Electric Storm (1968)

If you just loved Major Organ then you will surely love this. While much less sunny in tone, this album employs many of the cut- up, synthesizer driven, tape loop, strategies just a good thirty years before. One of the first solely "electronic" groups to get a high profile recording company to try and market them as a sellable pop group (I would think the musical break for orgasm noises in the middle and ending of "My Game of Loving" would have been enough to make them second guess this decision, but who I am to discourage an ambitious A & R man) White Noise was mostly the work of the American living in London, David Vorhous, who employed help from other early electronic musicians such as Delia Derbyshire (who composed the original Dr. Who soundtrack). The album, as you'll be able to tell the instant you listen to it, didn't generate any commercial success, but remains a fairly influential staple for anyone who has had any success diddling around with a synthesizer in the subsequent 40 years after its release. Truly a strange but nonetheless fun listen or "experience" if you are one of those people who like terms like that. Plus what a great cover.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dgczqp2845ytd7l

Major Organ and the Adding Machine - 2001

Something recent-ish (but still a decade old)! This is one of my favorite albums of all time and here are some reasons why:

1. It features nearly every member of the Elephant 6 Collective (who gave us bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, The Music Tapes, etc.)...so if you like any of those bands there is something for you to like here.

2. That said, no one in any of these bands is willing to divulge their involvement...the official explanation is that these are the recordings found by a mythical bandleader named Major Organ (although you can clearly hear Jeff Mangum and Kevin Barnes on various tracks).

3. Pitchfork gave it a 4.5/10 and the review has inexplicably vanished from their website

4. Thematically it covers everything from a sad woman named Madame Truffle baking pastries in the shape of Kris Kristofferson, to an avenger named Francisco saving a band of children to a French counting song to eyeballs looking like Moonpies.

5. Musically it sounds somewhere between "Revolution #9" Beatles/Pierre Henry musique concrete and every psychedelic pop album from the 60s.

Admittedly it has "difficult" moments so if its not your cuppa tea at least give "His Misters Pet Whistles","Madame Truffle", and "Life Form" a listen, but I recommend listening to it as a whole multiple times either loud or through headphones. Does anyone remember the candy Brach's Rocks? They were gross.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wxdauzkr5mhr45u

Sparks - Kimono my House - 1974

Sparks, is a duo consisting of brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who used their appearance (one wears a suit and a pencil 'stache, the other looks like an uglier and glammier Roger Daltry) and their strange piano driven songs to scoot right into England's glam scene in the 70s. Musically think Bowie and Eno, with a tiny little hint of prog (but not the masturbatory variety), and an American guy singing like a British guy with a falsetto. This album, its title being a play on Rosemary Clooney's song "Come-on-a my house," is considered to be their best and I happen to agree. WILL YOU?

http://www.mediafire.com/?favmrtjvk6mg1sh

Raymond Scott - Reckless Nights and Turkish Twilights

What to say about the great Raymond Scott? While his name doesn't immediately ring bells in the average listener's head, his compositions likely will, as they have been heard in countless cartoons: Looney Tunes, The Simpsons, Ren and Stimpy and so on. While the music wasn't made for cartoons (but for the casual 1930s radio listener), just listening to the manic energy of the compositions (performed by what had to be an exhausted ensemble of musicians) can lead one to understand why early Warner Bros. cartoon composer Carl Stalling saw them fitting to sample. Aside from his work here, Scott was an early pioneer of electronic music, putting out several (admittedly difficult) records of electronic music for babies, and inventing several early forms of synthesizers, including The Claviox, the Electronium, an "instantaneous self composing machine" (pictured at the top (sub parenthesis: and is owned by Devo leader Mark Mothersbaugh)), and the totally awesome Videola, a sort of ultra primitive version of the video mixer on Virtual DJ. I hope that you love this as much as I love this.

http://www.mediafire.com/?540u2n84b1zak8o

Portsmouth Sinfonia - Plays the Popular Classics -1974

And so, inspired by the consistently rad musical uploads over at over at thttp://www.cosmonautfarm.blogspot.com/ (or hell, forget "inspired by", I pretty much

a good idea) I've decided to share with the internets some of my favorite records...some are classics, some are forgotten classics, some were never popular at all, and for some there are reasons they were never all that popular. My first choice, "Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the Popular Classics" falls under that last category, and, despite having some of Britain's foremost avant garde musicians under their umbrella (Brian Eno, Gavin Bryars, among others) AND, a top 40 hit in the UK, their records never really stood the test of time (not even enough to make it to a legitimate cd repressing). The concept was pretty simple: get a bunch of musicians (and non-musicians) together, put them with an instrument they have no real idea how to play, and start a self dubbed "world's worst orchestra". Some pieces (this album is all classical piece reworkings) are hilariously bad, but at the same time it's kind of amazing that they are able to get as close as they are to sounding like the original, given their circumstances. There is another album by them, "20 Classic Rock Classics", in which they play the Rolling Stones etc., but that one comes off a bit too "novelty" for me...I know, I know, you are saying, "but you are putting up a gimmick album", to which I direct you to that old saying of "Beauty is in the ear of the beho..." no, you're right, this is a gimmicky album, but one charming enough, I think, to be worth a listen.

Portsmouth Sinfonia - Plays the Popular Classics:

http://www.mediafire.com/?whzj2f55i4hkeu3