John Darnielle had teamed up with Aesop Rock before on the track “Coffee” with fantastic results. This time Rock is remixing a Mountain Goats tune off their new album Heretic Pride with accompanying video by Sketch Theatre artist Nate Frizzell. One can only hope that very soon these two decide to do an entire album together.
An ode to the upper lip accessory by the Brothers Mael accompanied by a perfectly fitting video of keyboardist Ron Mael shaving of his Hitler/Chaplin ’stache. One hundred hairs make a man, indeed.
Xanopticon’s music is often strange and alienating, with a speed and complexity matching most IDM but it’s sentiment being closer to dark drum+bass. It has been described as “waves of breaks: almost calming ambient music built out of intense rhythm structures.” Due to this heaviness, he is often compared to Venetian Snares, who has an equal ability for manipulating small snippets of sound.
Gentlemen.
This vibrant flyer represents the work of one of my most dutiful digital students, DJ Intoner, who was graciously allowed to remix this macro photograph of my very green eye for his noisy purposes: an electronic music recital.
Mention Ectoplasmosis at the door and get absolutely no discount. But find me in the seething morass, inquire about the rumpus, and I will sketch an Octobee just for you. This offer is unique! It boils with worth and charm, just like my rumpus!
British emcee Elemental busts a fresh flow on the subject of Ectomo’s preferred beverage: delicious, delicious tea. We at EctoCorp support this bold new direction for rap music and advocate the adoption of tea as the favored subject of choice for “sick rhymes” in lieu of the woefully oft’ preferred bitches, hos, and the pimping there of. Pith helmets, while optional, are highly recommended.
Knowing that absolute negatives are in bad form I will say this: I cannot recall ever having sufered from insomnia. There have been occasions where, having consumed what I felt was a perfectly reasonable amount of amphetamines before bed I found myself quite incapable of forcing my eyelids shut, let alone attempting to sleep; but these occasions are few and besides, one grows accustomed to such small chemical induced inconveniences when one lives the life of a person who hammers listlessly at a keyboard a writer.
Indeed, sleep is one of my finest talents, one of the few things of which I am truly capable of and, until recently, felt little embarrassment about. I say until recently because, after having co-habited with another person for some time it was explained to me — tactfully and gently — that I was actually quite bad at it. In fact, far from the peaceful, relaxing repast I thought I had engaged in it was actually a violent, fitful affair full of wild thrashing, mumbling, and the odd shriek about honey badgers eating my intestines. Needless to say I found this newly attained knowledge… disheartening.
It is in the spirit of my uncontrolled, nocturnal gesticulations that I present “When You Sleep” by Cake, a song right in line with the rest of the band’s offbeat and always entertaining catalog. It asks hard questions, questions that, really, only others can answer. Questions, perhaps, best left unasked.
I am not a man that slumbers peacefully. My irregular comatose states are plagued with an endless menagerie of horrors that my brain, to its credit, takes great pains to obfuscate from my waking mind. But fragments of my nocturnal trauma find their way into the day; all the more terrifying for the half-remembered haze through which I see them.
Strangely, the soundtrack to many of these nightly horror-shows is Sleepwalk by Santo and Johnny Farina, and has been since I was but a wee sprog. When the first, all-too-familiar squealing strains of the song begin to echo through my somnolent skull I know, with a bone deep dread, that the night has terrors in store. In spite of this song’s inextricable association with my inability to truly rest I find it soothing; as if the beginning of my nightmare soundtrack indicates it’s time to relax into the comforting powerlessness of absolute fear.
It is in the spirit of this week’s Noise du Jour theme, Sleep Deprivation, that I make the flagship post: too late, too little, and fobbed in with dolorous haze. I cannot recall when or where I posted this before. I am posting it now.
I am only dimly conscious of this being a Tuesday, though I typed this in the late-night-Monday continuum, club-wise (bass grinding my girders and garters at the Glas Kat, natch). Which is exactly the sort of music to which we are not listening, in this post. Here, They Might Be Giants do something beautiful en regard staying awake.
Let us chew over that ectoplasmosis is, in fact, the name of a disease. Literally translating, the office chair scholar would assume something sneezy and spiritual, but the writers here (New Scum and Old) have not been vaccinated, and manifest unghostly symptoms.
For example, my adopted, bastard brother, Qais Fulton, suffers from debilitating chronoxysms, during which he sleeps little, or too much; remembers little, or too much; and nightly wrestles with somatic terrors and blisses. Qais reports that he “loses time”, a classic symptom of encroaching Multiple Personality Disorder. The stabbing kind.
My own affliction, experienced maybe trimonthly, takes the form of twelve-hour blackouts packed around intense dreams. The dreams portray the basic cast, characters, and set dressings of my waking life, but coaxed into scenes still more believable, and enjoyable, than the smoked-quartz window of “reality”. Osmotically, dreaming and waking life reach equidistance, and I waver through bifurcated days.
Ross’ sleeping habits, like his parentage, are obscure. I hesitate to question the dreams of a man who contributes to such dark journals as the Weekly Geek. I assume he is at least burdened with insomnia, or hypersomnia, and probably a full set of shining groinal pustules (itchy).
As for my dearest Florian, nee’ Brownlee, his phlegmy slumber is well-documented, webcam-wise, from a trip we took to Tokyo. He jams his fez on, cinches the sash of his smoking jacket, and is snoring within seconds. I had to sleep in the hall, where maids politely trod on me with their tiny Japanese feet.
I’d like to apologize in advance for this. I know that the combination of Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears — who has become completely Ectoppropriate since her swandive into complete and total batshit madness — isn’t going to be up everyone’s alley, but bear with me here for a minute.
This mashup, which if I do say so myself is quite well executed, takes two songs that I absolutely abhor and makes them not only listenable, but, much to my chagrin, actually fairly good and well worth a spot in my iPod. Those that can’t even stomach the musical mad-science stylings of DJ Surge-N in this instance have to admit that the subsequent mashing of the videos for each track is simply fantastic. Say what you will of the individual tracks, but between Gwen Stefani’s stunning costumes and Britney Spears’ strange Aeon Fluxian theme I simply can’t help but enjoy the videos.
If nothing else, DJ Surge-N has at least made it unnecessary to mute your speakers in an attempt to avoid the shallow, saccharine mien of these courtiers of bubblegum pop.
Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album may be one of the most well known mash-ups in recent memory. Created by a then relatively unknown producer, it combined a commercially released a cappella version of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and music taken exclusively from The Beatles’s The White Album. The result was a meticulously constructed and fluid combination both sonically and thematically. The effort required to mix the two so seamlessly was extraordinary and both fans and critics recognized that almost immediately.
EMI, who held the copyright for The Beatles, also took notice and on February 10th, 2004 they sent out a cease-and-desist order to Danger Mouse as well as a number of stores who were selling the extremely limited pressing. This prompted the activist group Downhill Battle to organize an event they dubbed Grey Tuesday, claiming that “the sampling is fair use and that a statutory license should be provided in the same manner as if a song had been covered.” On February 24th they and roughly 170 others hosted the album on their sites for download for twenty-four hours, during which time it was downloaded 100,000 times.
The video featured above was a promotional piece — specified for legal reasons — for the single “Encore” which features samples from the songs “Glass Onion” and “Savoy Truffle”; the video footage itself is taken from a Jay-Z performance and the film A Hard Day’s Night. Even with the occasionally clumsy CG animation the video still succeeds in cementing the integration of these two seemingly incompatible icons. I’ve always found myself impressed with this album not so much in terms of the music — insofar as I am not a fan of either The Beatles or The Hova — but from a technical angle. It is much more a testament to the abilities of Danger Mouse than either of the aforementioned parties and I am quite happy to appreciate it for that.
Who would have thought the pairing of Siouxsie Sioux, 80’s goth nymphette extraordinaire, and Justin Timberlake, panty-dampening pop-star, would result in such a glorious piece of music? A Plus D, apparently. The self described “bastard pop creations” the duo churns out are simply amazing, if for no other reason than the shock of hearing the frankensteinian combinations resultant from their deranged musical ministrations.
That 1 Guy is the stage name of one Mike Silverman, a former jazz bassist who plays an instrument of his own invention, which he calls the Magic Flute Pipe. In actuality it is a collection of pipes, attached together in the rough shape of a harp with one two strings, running its length. He augments this electronically while also playing kick drums. The result is something that could be described as a rock industrial one man band, and it is brilliant.
This is the video for the single “Buttmachine” from his new album The Moon is Disgusting and it is about as absurd and infectious as one could hope for. There is clip of Silverman performing it live which gives a much better indication of how the Magic Flute Pipe operates. It’s well worth a look.
At first glance, listeners may be tempted to dismiss Wendy Ho. Indeed, her trailer trash sensibilities and absurd, clown-like afro seem like reasons enough to simply stop listening and go do something more worthwhile, like file your taxes or make a sandwich, however this would be a mistake. Certainly her choice in hairstyle is unfortunate, but to focus on her follicular shortcomings would be ignoring the power and depth of her verse, to overlook her natural, lyrical talent.
Take “Bitch, I Stole Your Purse”, the first single from her new album. Here we have an anthem, a declaration, from a woman seeking to claim her territory, to draw a boundary between herself and her rivals. It can be argued that, in many ways, the stealing of a purse is a metaphor for superseding another’s femininity. This is encapsulated by the lines:
I own your purse, it reminds me of a cunt.
Empty it out like that time of the month.
Clearly Ho is saying that she not just taken another woman’s purse, but that she has absconded with her reproductive rights as well; by emptying her purse —read: womb — she has cut down a potential rival. By the time Ho relates to us that she has also carried on an affair with her rival’s mate there can be no doubt left to the song’s underlying theme. It is in this theme that “Bitch, I Stole Your Purse” proves itself to be more than just a well crafted song and instead shows itself to be a stunningly realized, neo-postmodern-sex-positive-anarcha-feminist™ manifesto in the form of a modern day Eddic poem, detailing the challenges faced by today’s white, urban — and possibly meth-addicted — women. Truly it is the work of a fearless artists, willing to present herself and her world to her audience with unflinching candor. I for one applaud her.
It was, perhaps, inevitable that Trent Reznor would have a hard time of it after The Downward Spiral, having been almost universally praised as both a commercial and critical success. The Fragile was certainly his most musically mature and complex work but the lyrics, already a favorite target of detractors, were doing his cause no favors. After another meandering journey through substance abuse he presented With Teeth, an album so transparent as an effort to fulfill a contractual obligation while trying to expand an audience that most critics and fans treated it thusly, though certainly there are many who pointed to it as a sign that Reznor had finally lost it, or at least shown himself to be the untalented sample man that they always thought him to be.
Tettix, formerly known as Cicada, is a prolific electronic musician who has spent the last decade creating an astounding body of work. His latest release, “Technology Crisis”, is the soundtrack for a game that never existed, and one that I want very badly to play. Much like Bogart Shadwuck he has released the entire album for free on his website. For his generosity and masterful modern melodies Octobee demands you pay tribute.
Once in a great while, the art and discipline of music is elevated to genius, and for a few brief moments (say, for the length of a single album), my ears bleed butterscotch and I am at peace. Blessed, unctuous peace.
Such an album is Bitch, Go Buy Me a Hot Dog. This work of genius was brought to my attention savagely, violently, by good friend DJ Intoner. “Fucking listen to it,” he yelled over the subwoofer at the local spooky club, “Don’t fucking argue with me, don’t even give me that look, just cram it in and turn it on,” and he thrust the sticky jewelcase at the spot where the strobelights had revealed me last, and crouched back over his decks. I didn’t argue, I didn’t even give him that look, I just went home (crying) and did as he instructed.
This is a concept album. The concept is that I tell a bitch to go buy me a hot dog, and she does. While she is buying me a hot dog, I wait patiently, and do The Robot. I eat the hot dog and it is delicious.
I offer this album in full here, as it is available for free download here. I do encourage you to tip Mr. Shwadchuck some of that sweet, sweet PayPal.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
