I’m going to post about one album I’ve really enjoyed lately, and then post a few words about other neat finds. The Big Pleasure: Eluvium’s Lambent Material Maybe you don’t like The Orb; I can understand that, but please don’t make the mistake of thinking all ambient music is like The Orb. For example, consider Brian Eno. Consider the soundscapes of John Cage. And please, definitely consider the music of Matthew Cooper, who records under the pseudonym Eluvium. My first impressions listening to it, right now, are that it is a kind of sweet, slow, Brian Enoesque thing, but with …
Category: REVIEWS
Traneimation
Here’s a funny little animation based on John Coltrane’s Giant Steps. I’m not crazy about it but it is kind of neat as a one-time diversion. (via a thread on Last.fm.)
That’s Where Beck Got Them….
Those funky string lines, that is. What’s that song by Beck with the wonderful string lines, from I think it was the Sea Change album? Oh, yeah, “Paper Tiger”. Well, anyway, the bulk of the good stuff was stolen from Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson. Maybe that’s credited somewhere. Actually, a little judicious Googling shows that Beck was pretty forward with the information, but still, it’s kind of a surprise and certainly, to me, a disappointment that so much of what I like about that particular song was simply a copy-and-paste job. Though, at least, it makes me think …
Ezra Pound Update
If you can’t see the lengthy update I posted tonight regarding our discussions of Pound, and my own thoughts on the Cantos we’ve studied so far (Nos. I – VIII), it’s because you’re not signed in. Users who have signed up — a quick, free process — can see the big posts on Pound. Others can’t. Most readers probably will be grateful for this effective omission, but for those interested, sign up: it’ll take you but a minute, and you’ll get hours worth of my work for free!
Early Thoughts on Pound
I find that in reading Ezra Pound, the joy I receive is not a simple, pure joy. It is not like hearing a candence finally sliding into resolution at the end of a melodic line, nor the perfectness of a set of angles in a Kandinsky, nor is it the brilliance of a single turn of phrase or moment in a novel. The pleasure I find in Pound is somewhat more like the pleasure one finds in a good, serious Scotch that costs too much for one to enjoy it too often. There are these layers, these faint particles of …
The Music of Ezra Pound
With samples. I’m not kidding. And as much as I like Pound, some of this stuff ain’t so hot. (Though some of it’s actually bad for a barely trained musician.) Not any example of musical modernism, but interesting enough, some of it.
radiOM.org
Yes, these is an avant-garde webradio station:radiOM.org: Sounds Like Tomorrow Web Radio. Sign up and you can hear concerts from the heyday of the minimalists, an interview with a lover of Ezra Pound’s, and all kinds of other things.
Intense Studies And Sneezing
For some reason, I woke today with a serious, uglyfaced cold. I feel like crap. Sneezing, sniffling, the odd ache: it’s all there. I dread waking up tomorrow, and worse, I dread my 14-hour day on Tuesday. But anyway, I decided to stay at home all day, and decided to make a productive study-day out of it. Would that I had studied more: I could perhaps have finished my current Korean study book and moved on to the next. Alas, I studied only Ezra Pound, Cantos IV – VIII. We discussed Cantos I-III last week, on Wednesday, and a lot …
More Vamp/Lycan Coolness
I don’t care what you thought of Underworld, because personally, I loved it. And now I’m even more pleased to know a sequel is on the way. Here’s a trailer. Via Burrrn.net.
Ezra Pound and the Occult
This is a somewhat incomplete paper and at points the author makes a few claims I’d say constitute “a stretch”, but it’s still worth a look and linking up to the things I’m interested in Pound, anyway. More on Pound coming soon.