music

Today I found out that there are two new cds by David Lynch and looking for a place to listen some snippets on the internet I saw that there are even more albums of the man that I didn’t know.
Just out is Polish Night Music which Lynch made together with Marek Zebrowski and which appears to be a very monotous soundscapes of classical music. What I heard of it so far, this is not really my thing.
Also new is a single called Ghost Of Love. Two songs with a soft jazzy and weird sound with apparently Lynch himself on vocals. These songs sound quite nice with the whawha guitars and stretched sounds.
Further there is a Twin Peaks New Season Two Music Soundtrack CD which does not have music from the series, so I guess it’s a new musical interpretation of the series. I’m not sure if the music is of Lynch himself.
Continuing there seem to be two albums from 2004, one called Jazz Lobster which is not bad for a jazz album with some nice elements such as electric bass and normal guitar, this album doesn’t get better as it continues though. New View Through The Window Vol. 3 suggests that there are more of them. This is a jazz rock / fusion album, not really my thing. And indeed, there are two more with about the same sound.
What I heard isn’t quite as good as the Blue Bob album, but some music might be interesting enough to listen to properly.

Do you ever wonder what is in my player when I don’t have new music to review? Since I play music when I am at home almost constantly, it would be a dayjob to keep up with that, but maybe every now and then, just to give you an idea and just to give you an idea of what albums are good enough to play when the novelty is gone. On Wednes- en Thursdays my girlfriend is mostly not at home when I come home from work. That is when I often play the more extreme things that I don’t want to bother her with too much. Then it is often tekno, digicore, power electronics and sometimes metal. Yesterday I suddenly felt like playing metal, something like Dimmu Borgir (Enthrone 97), nah, Cradle of Filth? not today, Ancient (Mad Gradiose Bloodfiends 97), hmmm; but then my eye fell on At the Gates so I played their only good album: The Red In The Sky Is Ours (92). While reading later on I put on the first two Stoa cds (Urthona 93 and Porta VIII 94), man I hadn’t heard them in decades. When reading I play something more tranquil of course. On the way home from work today I was already thinking what to play after At the Gates. That other album (With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness 93) isn’t that good. Dark Tranquillity (my favourite metal band)? In Flames! Another thing that I haven’t heard in ages. So I put on Lunar Strain (94) and Subterrenean (95). I think that will be enough of metal for a few months to come!

In the Golgatha/Dawn & Dusk split an advertising leaflet of CMI is inserted (as always). It has a very promising remark under “upcoming”:

MILITIA presents the MekanOrganiK project – Extracting Sunlight from Cucumbers CD

Does that mean that my favorite eco-anarchists will release a new album and even on CMI? Now that is something to look forward to!

[edit]: Hmm, what a little ‘Googling’ can onearth, a quote from Wikipedia:

Militia side project MekanOrganiK

In collaboration with the Bilzen Cultural Board, Militia’s side project MekanOrganiK organised the Bilzorganic festival, a street festival featuring several theatre acts and experimental music artists. MekanOrganiK presented a concert for 15 cement mixers and dance performance. See: http://www.cultuur.bilzen.be/site.asp?CID=7135

MekanOrganiK is also involved in the organisation of workshops, teaching young people how to create self-made music instruments and how to play the didgeridoo and percussion on empty oil barrels. In the youth club Club 9 in Koersel, MekanOrganiK organised the workshop “percussion on oil barrels” during the Fair Trade happening, see http://www.club9.be/on_stage.htm

MekanOrganiK will release a full studio CD based upon the adventures of Liamel Gulliver (Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift ), called “Extracting Sunlight from Cucumbers”. The music is slightly more techno and sounds are being generated from sand, stones, cucumbers, water and so on, in combination with electronics and percussion.

Tempting! So I guess on this place I can give tell you something about the (very few!) concerts that I go to or even put some news or something? “Now playing”? Hmmmm.
No idea about concerts really, but I can tell you that in the past days I have enjoyed myself with some extreme electronics: Propergol, Anenzephalia, the first cd of Steinklang Industries II, that sort of stuff. I have that sometimes 🙂

About a year ago, I saw the famous opera “Die Zauberflöte” of Mozart for the first time. It was a filmed performance shown in a cinema. Later I bought the complete piece on cd and because an opera has a big visual part, I also got it on dvd. The local theatre had a Zauberflöte last Saturday and we decided to see it for real too. The anouncement and information on the internet said that the “Nationale Reisopera” (”national traveling opera”) had a special way of playing it, and they sure had!
Before the opera started, there was an awfull introduction. A man stating that initiation in ancient times is what we now call “psycho therapy”, that the rites in “Die Zauberflöte” are rites de passage and that Freemasonry since Mozart also accepts women…
Fortunately the piece itself was a lot better. The people who have worked on the opera had quite a focus on the Masonic and especially on the alchemical symbolism of Mozart’s piece and there was no cutting in the tests and rites.
The ’speciality’ of this performance was that the singers/actors had to do their thing on an almost empty stage and there were serveral puppet theatres where the story was also shown with puppets. These theatres were filmed and projected on a big screen. The opera was sung in German, but subtitles in Dutch were also given. The puppet theatres sometimes added to what you could see from the actors, sometimes it was the other way around. The puppets also added a lot of humour to the part. One extra special thing was that one show has one Papageno made of two ‘half’ Papageno’s, since one actors couldn’t walk (so he stood singing on the side of the stage) and the other not sing (vocal cord injury).
All in all “Die Zauberflöte” remained a masterly opera and the performance was very nice as well. I noticed that it was the last performance of the travelling opera’s tour, so there is no change that you can go yourself. You will have to do it with photos then…

Last weekend we were in Antwerpen and while looking around a massive shop with sellout prices for cds and dvds (of course all crap), my eye fell on a booth with what seemed to be comics. There were a variety of book on the shelves with a strange format. Apparently they contained cds or dvds, so when I had the “Cinema Fantastic” in my hand, I had the idea that this was a book about music and fantasy films with a dvd with examples. There were also books about jazz and things I couldn’t quite make out. I decided to just buy two (they were cheap, so…) and I went home with “Cinema Fantastic” and “Left For Dead”, since most of the others had French texts. Well, the “Cinema Fantastic” is indeed a comic with some information about classical music used in fantasy films and contains two cds with parts of scores. “Left For Dead” is not really a comic, but a story about the suppression of the native American culture by the imported culture. There are some drawings, but mostly text. Also here two cds and however I expected (Amer)Indian music, there is actually a variety of some kind of 70′ies progrock, jazz, blues and soundscapes and here and there alternated or mixed with traditional Indian singing; not really bad actually, but there is always the monotous speaking voice with pro-Indian and anti-American texts.
There seem to be a lot more of such books available, about individual artists, but also about subjects. The website of the publisher has these releases as “BD”s, contrary to “CD”s or “DVD”s, so I guess the idea is “book disc”. Quite an interesting development, especially when you think of it that I only paid 5,70 euros for each book, while Nocturne.fr has them for 14 euros or more.
I have been thinking if I should include these two items in the musicreviews section, but eventually thought that that is not quite the right place.

Did you ever see a double acoustic guitar? I don’t remember I did, but I am sure that I never saw two men playing it together!
Flairck is a Dutch band that is almost as old as myself and they have an ever changing line-up, safe for one person. Since the band is this old, I have known them for many years, but never really bought records or visited a show. Yesterday there were in a theatre not too far away and my girlfriend got a discount, so we decided to see what Flairck is all about. The music is losely based on folkmusic from all around the world and has a folky/medieval touch sometimes, but the band never just plays traditional music as far as I know. Currently the band consists of the band’s heart who is an aging guitar virtuose who brings a lot of instruments to his shows. Then there is another guitar virtuose, but this time from Mexico, also bringing several instruments, under which an acoustic bass guitar and some really weird-looking guitars. An old and new member seem to play any wind instrument, from the tiniest flute, to a massive bass fagot, a ’super German flute’ and several clarinets. Then there was the young, good-looking academic violin player. Each musician gets plenty possibility to show that (s)he is top-of-the-class (I think auditions are held for new members). Then there was a gigantic wind-organ played by a laptop (”an old one”). These people can surely play and make a party on stage with some very odd humerous (to even silly) elements. “Stoomwals” (”steam roller”) surely made a nice Thursday evening! This tour is almost done, but there are 22 cds (just rereleased in one box) you can listen to and the band lives from touring, so undoubtely they will be on the road again sometime soon.
Link: Flairck

Well, mr. Tibet had put together a varried final day of the Roadburn festival which resulted in a nice, varried audience. The day was not sold out, but the big venue of the 013 was pretty crowded. The sunny day started in the big, dark room with Baby Dee. This proved to be an artist that I expected to come with Current 93. One person behind a piano making strange music that reminds music made in American ‘night pubs’. Every song some bandmembers entered the gigantic stage. Baby Dee doesn’t really make my kind of music, but there were a few nice songs. The awfull Skitliv (some black metal like project of one of the Mayhem singers) gave us some time to have dinner in Tilburg and halfway Hush Arbor we were back. One guy on the stage with a guitar and supersoft popmusic, kind of boring. Because one band had to cancel, Current 93 gave a show of almost 2 hours. It went as expected. Weird and dramatic, with not too great music and a few magnificent songs. I didn’t know any of the songs played, even though I have four or five albums of C93, but it seems that almost the entire new album was played. The room was stuffed and it sure was nice to see this live some time. The last band Æthanor, gave away some metal-soundscapes, not interesting enough for long, so we were home quite early. I took quite some pictures and tried the film function of my camera, but I haven’t had the time to copy it all to my computer. Maybe I will post something in this little story some time.

I have know Current 93 for a great many years, but besides a few good albums (the ones made with Douglas P.), this is not really my music. Still I sometimes have the idea that I would like to see David Tibet live some time, but every time he is around, I am in doubt, usually about the ticket price. I skipped a show in Antwerpen a few years ago and about two months ago friends said that Tibet would play at the Roadburn festival in Tilburg. This is actually a rock festival, but Tibet is asked to “curate” the last day and this includes a show of Current 93. Me and my girlfriend were just in the process of buying a house and making plans to move, the ticket price is way above what I usually pay for a concert, but how many more chances would I get? So, I ordered the tickets, had (or better said: have) a busy time moving and coming Sunday is the day. It seems that there are still tickets available, so if you are interested in a day of Current 93 and friends, go to the Roadburn website for more information.

This time of the year everybody seems to be looking back and all kinds of lists are made with the best films, records, whatever. I thougth that it would be funny to see what such lists of my own would look like. I figured making a top 10 of 2007 cds, but I found out that there were not 10 really good records released this year, so this had to be cut to a top 5. As for films, I usually don’t see films in the year they are released, so also in this case it is a meagre top 5 (which is more like a top 3 with two alright films on 4 and 5). Let me start with the film list:

1) INLAND EMPIRE by David Lynch (of course);
2) La Antena by Esteban Sapir;
3) Beowulf 3D by Robert Zemeckis (seriously);
4) Bug by William Friedkin (a nice film);
5) Klimt by Raoul Ruiz (also a nice film).

Music releases then:
1) Rome * Confessions d’Un Voleur d’Ames;
2) November Növelet * Magic;
3) Ex.Order * Corporate Control;
4) Von Thronstahl * Sacrificare;
5) Sistrenatus * Division One.

(Almost on the list were Cosmos Enthropy and Wrong Number, but I couldn’t make it to 10!)