tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-325644202024-03-07T21:18:05.702+01:00Fire in the Mindfrom embrace à embarrasManic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-47569377844969548062007-10-02T22:10:00.000+02:002007-10-02T22:11:30.323+02:00I've always wanted a post that said...This blog is on an extended leave. Until that day!Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-14263696700947028002007-09-30T16:03:00.000+02:002007-09-30T16:06:35.442+02:00For the recordI am not really putting a full stop to this blog, since with my overall tendency to get tired of things in the blink of an eye, I may just return once in a while.<br /><br />Those who understand Dutch, will find me <a href="http://dezijlijn.blogspot.com/">here</a>.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-7201976038318748392007-09-30T14:49:00.000+02:002007-10-02T18:00:56.115+02:00Service Announcement / DienstaankondigingAs some may have noticed my posting has taken a dive recently, due to a new job and the fact that after a day's work behind a computer screen my feelers for the nuances of the English language are close to non-existent. And since I am writing for <a href="http://www.digitalisindustries.com/foxyd/index.php">Foxy Digitalis</a> now, I will reserve my use of that language for my reviews there.<br /><br />So....<br /><br />Vanaf nu ga ik opnieuw in het Nederlands schrijven. Co-ordinaten volgen nog, aangezien ik heb vastgesteld dat de naam Fire in the Mind tamelijk populair is en ik natuurlijk absoluut origineel wil zijn en met een übercoole naam voor de dag wil komen. En laten we eerlijk zijn: schrijven doe je toch maar beter in je eigen taal. Ik ben Cioran immers niet (gelukkig maar).Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-48178743507164253982007-09-22T17:32:00.001+02:002007-09-23T16:58:12.762+02:00The Death of the MediaThe last few weeks there have been some - belated to say the least - discussions in Belgium about the quality of the media. People are grumpy about the quality of the restyled national radio, that has lately been oozing the kind of Fun! Fun! Fun! approach to the medium that people (I purposely do not include myself, because I have not been listening any radio now for at least ten years) find irritable. I do not need to listen to the radio to know that they are right (because, as a working person with a desk job I am obliged to at least unconsciously listen to the barrage of bullshit music that is streaming out of the office radio's).<br /><br />Another thing was the constatation that the television news is spending more and more time on violence and crime, let's call it the belated Americanisation of the European media. Of course, again the critics are right.<br /><br />These are both truisms, so I will not comment on them. What really bugged me, though, was the sheer poverty of the arguments with which the executives, editors and programmers defended their respective stances (about turning radio into 'a nice passing time for nice people' and showing more violence and reporting more about crime). As always, they were argumenting that 'the people want this' and that they 'are only reflecting what happens in society' and other unholy bullshit that was stale 30 years ago. They do not even bother to construct a sophism or two. No, they just stick to the old and proved untruths.<br /><br />Who said that we want more fun on the radio? Who said that we want more crime reports? Nobody said that of course. Because most people just do not know what they want. They merely take what is there. The real reason of course is that the traditional media are losing more and more ground to new media like YouTube and the internet in general. So these marketeers* (i.e. people who know what YOU want), instead of producing the kind of quality that is lacking in these new media, resort to pitiful lies that are as empty and transparent as the head of Paris Hilton (another 'brand'?). You cannot possibly hate these people, you can only pity them. And that is just what I will do to my last second.<br /><br />Just needed to get that out of my system.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-64563029027843147792007-09-20T23:18:00.000+02:002007-09-20T23:37:19.245+02:00Trivia BelgicaTo be honest I do not in the least feel inclined to write a post about the so-called troubles in Belgium. Not only because it would require a post as long as a slim novel, but more because I am convinced that eventually the Belgian political caste will do what it does best, that is: compromise.<br /><br />In case I turn out to be wrong I will have to move house to the French-speaking part of Belgium, because I am most certainly not going to live in what is one of the most rightist regions in Europe, by which I mean my beloved Flanders, also known as The Country Beneath The Church Tower. I also think people outside Belgium are making a lot of fuzz for nothing. If you are born and bred in this country, like myself, you will have seen and heard a lot worse than what is happening these last 100 days.<br /><br />Another typical Belgian thing I just read somewhere: it would seem that Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian who shot Franz Ferdinand and consequently ignited the first world war, bought his gun, manufactured by <i>Les Fabriques Nationales</i> in Herstal, from a Belgian deserter who fled to Belgrade. Because guns are, beside chocolate, one of our finest achievements. If they are fighting a civil war anywhere on this godforsaken globe you can be sure there is an FN gun in play. The difference is: we do not use them to kill each other. For the time being that is.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-25518956742670878112007-09-12T22:27:00.000+02:002007-09-12T22:33:06.695+02:00Nazi France Fuck OffIt would seem that these days in France they have an institution that goes by the enlightened name of The Ministry of Immigration and National Identity. Am I the only one who thinks this rather crass?Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-80286625292739369422007-09-05T22:05:00.000+02:002007-09-05T22:06:34.212+02:00St-st-st-st-strange<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/flkgNn50k14"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/flkgNn50k14" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-42388823408783509262007-08-29T21:20:00.000+02:002007-08-29T21:55:28.772+02:00Shit where you eatRevealing, if not terrifying, post by Carl over at <a href="http://theimpostume.blogspot.com/2007/08/ive-just-had-conversation-with-bloke.html">The Impostume</a>. Interesting because I have seen this kind of political behavior already happening in Belgium and The Netherlands. The bottom-line is of course (and how this makes you sad!) that the formerly oppressed all too frequently join the ranks of the oppressors when they themselves are no longer oppressed. This way a situation becomes apparent in which something like 'being oppressed to the second degree' becomes reality. The Jamaican guy with whom Carl and his mate had a talk is most probably still being treated in a racist way fairly often. For some people he will always remain an Other. Now this Other reaches a mindset with which he, in turn, behaves in a racist way towards other Others.<br /><br />Still, there should be no doubt that this kind of political behavior is entirely new. In the past immigrants migrated to what they perceived as a kind of Promised Land. They wanted jobs, they wanted to assimilate themselves culturally (naturally not in an absolute way, but relatively: one always retains at the very least a nucleus of the culture from which one springs). Now, we have a immigrant population who no longer view western culture as something to strive for (with, sadly, always one exception: when there is money to be made). Frequently they even view it as evil, something to reject and oppose.<br /><br />And so you get the kind of situations like the one Carl describes, where those who used to be strangers treat others like undesirables. And then some people dare talk about globalisation and multiculture and all the good things those will bring us. Where, in fact, it would seem that for the greater part <i>our</i> (western) bad habits have been globalised.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-45909511816363025452007-08-27T22:55:00.000+02:002007-08-27T23:31:28.744+02:00Just started reading the new Gibson, <i>Spook Country</i>. It is like stumbling upon an old friend. I promised myself I would savour it, rather than speed through it, but I fear I will have finished it well before the weekend.<br /><br />I still find it remarkable how this guy has eyes and ears for all things futuristic. Even more remarkable is the fact that, while his last two novels have the present as a setting, you do not for a moment have the feeling that he is no longer writing science fiction. A bit like Ballard, but at the same time, worlds apart. Ballard writes about the dystopia inside all of us, while Gibson will always be writing about what is to come, but really already here. I know that sounds like a paradox, but this is a paradoxical age and Gibson catches the simulacrum of the era like no other. The dictum "<i>The future is now</i>" seems invented especially for reading Gibson.<br /><br />A bonus, for me personally as a Belgian, is that the (ambiguous) man in the background in <i>Pattern Recognition</i> as well as in <i>Spook Country</i> is the Belgian advertising guru Hubertus Bigend. I cannot possibly imagine a Belgian with a name like that, but somehow he fits the profile nonetheless. I could not begin to fathom how Gibson manages to grasp the essence of what it is to be Belgian, but he does.<br /><br />It is always a challenge to find the right music to go along with the reading of a Gibson. At the moment the latest Dopplereffekt releases and the most sinister parts of the Drexciya discography suit me just fine, with Tangerine Dream's <i>Zeit</i> and <i>Atem</i> as perfect replacements, should the reading turn nocturnal.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-10240418905453017372007-08-25T22:57:00.000+02:002007-08-27T22:43:53.395+02:00In Vinyl We Trust<span style="font-weight: bold;">Cobblestone Jazz - DMT</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cobblestone Jazz - Put the Lime in da Coconut</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Joel Mull - Begun the End Has (Mathew Jonson Tiger Remix)</span><br /><br />If previous years were infested with absolutely killing Mathew Jonson tunes then 2007 is turning into a <i>grand cru</i> year for Cobblestone Jazz. It helps of course when said Jonson is one of the three Jazzers. The single-sided 'DMT' is probably the darkest minimal tune to hit the decks in 2007. Rightout creepy with those muffled voice samples but well worth your money.<br /><br />Regular 12" 'Put the Lime in the Coconut' combines the best of Jonson's wobbly techno rhythms (think 'Put Your Booty Shorts On') and the trio's jazz-inclined melodies. Don't care too much for the flip, though.<br /><br />Jonson's Mull remix has been out for some time now but it is surely his best remix ever and one of the best dance tracks of the year. A cosmic delight from beginning to end.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kelley Polar - Chrysanthemum EP</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Henrik Schwarz - Walk Music</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Osunlade - Elements Beyond</span><br /><br />House is in a state of resurrection after years of slowly bleeding to death. But it is striking how most good house records have taken in a lot of techno influence. Kelley Polar strikes again with a beautiful three-tracker that, apart from the electro foundation, is rife with Age of Aquarius-style disco choirs and achingly beautiful melodies all around. Stunning as usual.<br /><br />Henrik Schwarz's newest is, I humbly dare to state, without a shadow of a doubt his best yet. A tad more techno than house in a pumped up Basic Channel way and proving that Schwarz is one of the best producers in dance music right now.<br /><br />The new Osunlade (on Strictly Rhythm of all labels) was a mighty surprise after years of Afro-tinged noodling from the man. There are at least five masterpieces on his new longplayer. This guy understands house (i.e. he knows that techno and house are an eternal twin) and that kind of understanding is growing rarer with the year. Amaze yourself and take a listen.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">UR - Electronic Warfare 2.0</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">UR - Ma Ya Ya</span><br /><br />Apart from some mid-nineties posing by Alec Empire Mad Mike's Underground Resistance remains the one and only truly political project in the whole of techno. The second episode of <i>Electronic Warfare</i>, as ever, makes no concessions at all, be it on the sonic or on the ideological side. Knife-sharp analog terror beats go hand in hand with soulful - albeit noisy - Red Planet-style techno. With lyrical snippets like "<i>I'm gonna kill my radio station before it kills me</i>" and "<i>I am / U R / We will / Re-sist</i>" it would be all too easy to point out the militant naivity. But only those who do not realize that every revolution requires an honest dose of <i>naivité</i> would come up with that kind of judgement. Essential as ever and comes with a nifty 7-inch sporting a raucous bonus track and an a capella of standout track 'Kill My Radiostation'. Judge or be judged!<br /><br />'Ma Ya Ya' is from a few years ago but I only managed to lay my hands on it a few weeks ago. The combination of funky electrobeats, afro chants and accordion is just pure genius. Underground Resistance forever!!!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q Lazarus / The The - Dark & Lovely 6</span><br /><br />More tasty edits from Pilooski, here assisted by Krikor, who comes up with a heartbreaking electro edit of the Q Lazarus track, once part of the original <i>Silence of the Lambs</i> soundtrack. Pilooski himself beefs up The The's 'Giant', a track that was waiting to be reintroduced to the new dance generation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Marc Ashken - Skream Remixes EP</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Skream - Box of Dub</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Andy Stott - Fear of Heights EP</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mala - Lean Forward</span><br /><br />Dubstep's zenith is far from reached when someone like Skream (a genius that youngster) keeps providing the dope. The two remixes for Marc Ashken, originally minimal techno, are among his darkest tracks ever and they are oozing bass like snails ooze slime. The sample that rightly decries "<i>R&B shit</i>" is an added bonus.<br /><br />The 12-inch drawn from the <i>Box of Dub</i> compilation on Soul Jazz sees him in straight-out dub mode. One might have doubts when there is only one extra track on this two-tracker, but 'Pass the Red Line' is one of the dubbiest tracks to ever emerge from the movement and certainly essential.<br /><br />Andy Stott is the guy who cannot choose between techno and dubstep and it should come as no surprise then that the sublime <i>Fear of Heights</i> refrains from crossing the divide and insteads bridges both styles. Melancholic like Detroit techno and meditative like the best of Deep Chord, with, of course, deeeeeep bass.<br /><br />The new DMZ comes courtesy of Mala who returns to murky dub waters after the techno cross-over of 'Left Leg Out'. 'Lean Forward' is the more dancefloor orientated track with a skanking climax after the Haile Selassie invoking break, while the slower 'Lean' reminds of Loefah's classic 'Mud' . Another topper indeed.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-70383841351188822752007-08-22T22:20:00.000+02:002007-08-23T22:14:33.451+02:00After what seems like ages (indeed, internet moves at the speed of light compared with non-e life) I am relieved to be back online. Not too burdened though by the e-pause. Gave me some time to catch up on my reading. Rediscovered Nietzsche after way too long a time and have voraciously reread <i>Jenseits von Gut und Böse</i>, <i>Der Antichrist</i> and <i>Der Fröliche Wissenschaft</i>. Am raving about Badiou, who is rapidly becoming the in-house thinker over at Fire in the Mind's. Almost bought <i>L'Être et l'Événement</i>, but settled for <i>Le Siècle</i>, which I think is just what we all need. Am thoroughly enjoying myself with Neal Stephenson's <i>Cryptonomicon</i>, kind of a light version of <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i> (which must then be the next to-read). Have finally managed to obtain a nicely paid dayjob enabling me again to go raiding the vinyl shops once a week (reviews to follow). All things come to those who wait. Anyway, writing should restart from this weekend on.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-46433089787497072132007-07-21T20:16:00.001+02:002007-07-24T08:28:02.004+02:00Son Electronique<span style="font-weight: bold;">2562 - Channel Two</span><br /><br />To myself it has always been an immediacy, but hopefully it will, thanks to Appleblim and Shackleton's latest releases, Ewan Pearson opening his latest Fabric mix (sort of) with it and records like this one, become clear to the general techno/dance populace as well: (minimal) techno and dubstep were always made for each other. Take these two razorsharp technodubbers by young Dutch producer 2562 and mix them with off-kilter minimal techno, say of the Villalobos persuasion, and nobody should even notice that you are no longer playing techno. Great divides being closed, if the world at large does not start with it, it may as well be happening in music.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Shackleton feat. Jackson Del Rey - Next to Nothing </span><br /><br />Strangely enough I find the usual Shackleton magic not entirely present on this outing for Crosstown Rebels. The techno remixes by both Guillaume and the Coutu Dumonts and Exercise One are for once far superior. They stick to the percussion and the result is two very memorable and funky as hell club stormers. Essential.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Aril Brikha - Ex Machine</span><br /><br />Aril Brikha has to be one of the most unlucky producers of all time. He started out with 'Groove la' Chord', without any doubt one of the ten best techno tracks of all time (if not the best). It just could not get better after that. It almost did a few months ago with 'Berghain'. But there is not a single note on <i>Ex Machine</i> that so much as equals the power of the two aforementioned tracks. Everything is incredibly beautifully produced, everything sounds lush and warm. But it leaves me colder than both poles combined. Terrible, is it not?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cybotron - Clear (Cobblestone Jazz Remix)</span><br /><br />This could have been an outrageous sacrilege. But surprisingly it is far from that. It is actually very good with the Cobblestoners doubling the length of the original and adding subtle and non-invasive effects. But it will forever remain anyone's guess why they did not call this 'The Mathew Jonson Mix', because it is overly clear that those are Jonson's settings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">B12 - Slope </span><br /><br />Talking about retro. The return of B12 is at the very least quite unexpected. After a silence of almost a decade the duo are back and they deliver. Only three tracks for the time being but 'Slope' itself can be played out by any self-respecting techno dj. The other two tracks are more akin to their previous incarnation, but even there you can hear a definite progression away from their eternal post-Transmat leanings. Awesome and welcome back.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Innersphere - Phunk (Ricardo Villalobos Remix)</span><br /><br />Ricardo does one for the floor. It was about time. No self-reflection, darkness or ultra-minimalism this time (mind you, not that I have anything against that), just an original interpretation that will give this classic a second life. Villalobos The New Remix King? Pretty sure.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-48049222245144680972007-07-20T20:11:00.000+02:002007-07-21T02:31:39.336+02:00Silence (and what to do with it) Part 2<a href="http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/interviews/malfatti.html">Terrific interview</a> by Dan Warburton with <b>Radu Malfatti</b>, a composer and player I have become obsessed with over the last few months. Almost seven years on his ideas about music (and the absence of it) still are more relevant than ever. He is also totally my kind of guy, sparing nobody and nothing, saying what has to be said and ever looking forward.<br /><br /><hr /><br />Addendum:<br /><br /><span style="color:#333333;">Following extract is, I think, the most important passus of the interview. I will deconstruct (and reconstruct) this further in the following days when I have got the time. For the time being I will refer to an earlier post of a few months ago which led to a minor discussion with <a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/009125.html"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">K-Punk</span></a> at the time (who got his point from - or agreed with the point of - Simon Reynolds) and whose argument I find I have neglected to rebut. The dichotomy/oppposition under discussion has nonetheless been grinding at the back of my mind ever since. (Incidentally, it also ties in with Ralf Wehowsky's quote I referred to <a href="http://fireinthemindmk2.blogspot.com/2007/06/rather-raving-about.html">a few posts below</a>.) Anyway, more on this the following days.<br /><br />"Warburton: <i>(...) I can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse to be fantastically aware of very tiny details (acoustic or otherwise) of wherever you happen to be.</i>"<br /><br /> Malfatti: <i>For me it's a blessing: the more we are aware of things the better. We can decide later if we "need" them or not, but look at all those people who are unaware of most of what's going on around them. Sure, it would be a curse if every little detail entered our brain and passed through the short-term memory gate and stayed in long-term-memory - then we really would have a lot to carry around with us! - but someone once said that we don't use more than 65% of our brain capacity, and I'm absolutely sure that most folk don't even use that. I assume that this is the underlying structure or meaning of the meditational aspect of certain human knowlege. <b>What happens if we elevate the known into the realm of unknown, the unimportant into the realm of important? We sharpen the consciousness and I think we then are able to become aware of the acoustic environment surrounding the music - and: the music itself!!</span></b></i>"Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-80248863067082336052007-07-16T03:00:00.000+02:002007-07-16T03:01:56.005+02:00<a href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece">No words</a>.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-84533722100064953382007-07-15T15:14:00.000+02:002007-07-15T15:20:31.754+02:00A funny side effect of reading the news headlines when you are only half awake is that your linguistic interpreters are still half asleep too.<br /><br />So I am reading this headline on the BBC News site: "LA Church in record abuse deal."<br /><br />Could you believe that the first thing I thought was: why would anyone, and especially the church, abuse <i>a record</i>?Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-31332058770899903702007-07-13T21:44:00.000+02:002007-07-13T23:34:09.563+02:00The Beast is Back<a href="http://www.beasthouse.co.uk/"><strong>216.</strong> So now we're encouraged to think of the world of the 1970s as glittery, but with the occasional off-colour joke, whereas in fact it was a world where the threat of violence seemed almost omnipresent. We might like to imagine that we've made progress, although never forget, this was the decade of petrol shortages and power-cuts. If the people of 2007 lost the use of their televisions, broadband connections and mobile 'phone rechargers for just a single evening, or were told that they'd have to leave their cars at home for the next week or so, then I'm fairly sure the riots would make Bloody Sunday look clean by comparison. Consumerism makes us less volatile, but only as long as it's there and it's working properly. Today, people tend to go berserk if the video goes wrong for any reason. So imagine what would happen if everything blacked out simultaneously, the way it often did, thirty years ago.</a><a href="http://www.beasthouse.co.uk/"><br /></a><br />I have spend the last two evenings plowing through the - no less than - 243 snippets over at Beasthouse (indeed, my social life is non-existent; only when I <i>choose</i> to, of course) and I will continue to spread the word about this guy. If you have to be depressed and angst-ridden to write up things like this, I would like to be depressed and angst-ridden.<br /><br />OK, that's stretching the point a little, I suppose (were it only for the fact that half of the time I actually am depressed and angst-ridden, though that is still a better average than most people in the Western world can claim), but this is by far my favourite blog of 2007. Culture-at-large, linguistics, psychology, politics, society and even health care are discussed and thoroughly dissected and... Deleuze, Lacan and Derrida are <i>not</i> referenced, not even cursorily. Ah! Those were the days...<br /><br />It would almost re-point you to the all too often forgotten fact that <i>funny</i> and <i>to-the-point</i> should be near identitical. Or make that: it should be no crime to be funny and to the point at the same time. Which of course is mostly the case (I won't even add 'these days' to that last sentence, because I suspect from experience with pre-80ies fun-ness, that it used to be even worse).<br /><br />And, more importantly, you might learn something. For example, did you know who Sax Rohmer was? Bet you didn't. Not that it does matter in the least. But still...Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-69279894808326636362007-07-13T03:49:00.000+02:002007-07-13T03:51:00.522+02:00<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hh2yGKN6DKs"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hh2yGKN6DKs" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-59061594911237686372007-07-12T21:48:00.000+02:002007-07-13T08:02:16.777+02:00It seems I am more and more retreating from the world of 'normal' music these days. One way or another these days I always end up, or listening to a whole lot of unstructured improv and noise assaults, or investigating the merits of this or that modernist composer (Scelsi, Webern, Xenakis). It goes even that far that a lot of my time is spent listening to silence on disc. With 'silence on disc' I mean the kind of music that makes you wonder whether it is your computer humming, the house squeaking or, indeed, the music that you put on that you are hearing at a given moment. Anyway, if less is more, nothing is everything.<br /><br />None the less I am again amazed at the gullability of the common music scribe to believe that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Interpol</span> has anything whatsoever to do with Joy Division. I have never detected a single trace of Joy Division-ness in Interpol and the new album makes that point even clearer. I almost threw up when that overacting singer pointed out to the world that "<i>it's not so bad</i>". Ian Curtis would never have daigned to come up with a silly line like that. For Christ sakes', not only <i>is</i> it that bad, it is even worse. Then again, <i>Our Love to Admire</i> is easily their least irritating record to date, though there is not a single note on it that even comes close to the brilliant 'Evil', the group's only non-irritable sequence of notes.<br /><br />On another tip: whether it is Richard James or not (I think it is him, though), I think <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Tuss</span> is absolutely worth your time.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-26467740504288971722007-07-06T14:29:00.000+02:002007-07-08T21:56:53.070+02:00Melting Vinyl ... So Hot<span style="font-weight: bold;">Appleblim/Shackleton - Soundboy's Ashes Gety Chopped Out and Snorted</span><br /><br />A shame for those who bought the cd, but this is easily the best Skull Disco release up to date. Probably the darkest too. Appleblim's 'Vansan' eerily approaches dubstep's equivalent of the Basic Channel esthetic. Those Carl Craig-ish syncopated synth lines are an added bonus. Shackleton keeps to what he does best: developping the bass to unearthly deepness with leading ritual tribal percussion and creepy whispers as superstructure. Minimal as fuck, too.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Avus - Furry Hat/Spnkr</span><br /><br />Go for 'Spnkr', Border Community's bid for 'Spastik'-fame. Do not know if it will outlast the ages, but at the moment it sounds damn fine.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tolga Fidan - Venice/Tanbulistan</span><br /><br />Veeeeery hot shit, this one. Between minimal house and techno with eerie voice samples and some ethnic atmosphere thrown in to make this one of the ep's of 2007. Huge!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Luciano - Fourges et Sabres/Back to Front</span><br /><br />Not really dance floor material but addictively well-constructed and full of little detailed melodic fancy. One of his best and one of Perlon's most maximal. Luciano and Perlon still make a mighty duo. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">John Edwards - Codeine (Tim Paris Rework)</span><br /><br />Tim Paris and elegance? Never thought I would combine them. Toned down Initial-style house with lots of musical elements from the original well employed. And like the best records the climax comes right before the end. Tasty!Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-23357627011258667102007-06-30T21:19:00.000+02:002007-06-30T21:21:01.766+02:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmEbO3hri_QAAy75-dkt7_137cosGaONNtYNS6mAoDnTFvS4obuXo8P859V-aoLbDtaKFcr6WpnDsfBjxgY9Pnr1NOGPGMLDDr2Wng823osMx52r8X6rUpJ78atmM9aOM9iYy/s1600-h/lenouveaugibsonestarrive.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmEbO3hri_QAAy75-dkt7_137cosGaONNtYNS6mAoDnTFvS4obuXo8P859V-aoLbDtaKFcr6WpnDsfBjxgY9Pnr1NOGPGMLDDr2Wng823osMx52r8X6rUpJ78atmM9aOM9iYy/s400/lenouveaugibsonestarrive.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5081939442908149586" border="0" /></a>Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-19268868472392765982007-06-30T15:22:00.000+02:002007-06-30T15:23:44.034+02:00Mad Mike interview online <a href="http://www.de-bug.de/texte/4639.html">here</a>.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-62169910029814340112007-06-30T14:50:00.000+02:002007-06-30T14:51:36.192+02:00"<i>I realised, more than before, that the talent is to use simple words to explain difficult concepts and not to hide simple concepts behind difficult words.</i>"<br /><br />Thank you, Jacques Attali.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-89240039135764811942007-06-28T01:39:00.000+02:002007-06-30T15:00:45.809+02:00Rather Raving (about)<span style="font-weight: bold;">Helmut Lachenmann - Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelholzern</span><br /><br />It was bound to happen. After listening to noise, improvisation and free jazz for some time I just needed to submerge myself into modern composition. Do not ask me any musical specifications about this one because I am far from steeped in the finer points of counterpoint, pitch, serialism or twelve-tone theory. But I sure know this is one of the best things I have ever heard. As you can guess from the title this is sort of an opera. There are actually not too much vocals, rather vocalisations and <i>Sprechgesang</i>. I just wish now that I had taken up musical theory when I was younger, because now I can only tell you that I am playing this to death. I think, though, that it, again, has to do something with the recurring silence and the minute gradations of volume in this kind of music. And of course with the fact that Ralf Wehowsky (of P16.d4) once pointed out in an interview that this music sounds right and everything by Madonna sounds wrong.<br /><br />[It would not be honest to throw that last bit in the reader's face without providing any context, however. What Wehowsky meant was that to listen to pop music you do not need to adapt yourself, because the melodies are for the most part quite simple and harmonically pleasing. Listening to dissonant, unpredictable music requires of your brain that it adapts itself to patterns that it is not used to. Adapting is learning and learning is acquiring more knowledge. Anyway, I think he is right.]<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Karl-Heinz Stockhausen - Mikrophonie I & II / Telemusik</span><br /><br />Einstürzende Neubauten, but 25 years earlier. These are probably the Stockhausen works that were most ahead of their age. The musical equivalent of stealing the fire from the gods. Amazing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cornad Schnitzler - Rot</span><br /><br />I knew Schnitzler from his pioneering roles in Kluster and Tangerine Dream, but I had not yet checked out his solo works. So this came on like a revelation. 'Meditation' is a mechanic ambient soundscape much in the vein of Seesselberg or Vangelis's <i>Beaubourg</i>, while 'Krautrock' is the real works: lots of bubbling proto-industrial electronics with an ensnaring percussion loop being segued in later on. Schnitzler's music (and there is an awful lot of it) always sounds a bit like an automatic factory turned into music, so refrain if you are looking for emotional satisfaction. Of course I am exaggerating here, because there are pleasing sweeping synth tones woven through most of 'Krautrock'.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh</span><br /><br />Mostly when people reference Magma it is to ridicule them for their self-invented Zeuhl language and general hippy antics. But then they better take heat of this. This reminds me of Archie Shepp's <i>Attica Blues</i> and that's saying something. Probably one of the best prog records ever. Shows that these guys were highly knowledgeable of the most interesting periods of black music (Tribe, Strata East, Black Jazz). You have got to take the ridiculously high female chanting for granted, though, otherwise you will not be able to sit this through.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Robert Ashley - Automatic Writing</span><br /><br />Robert Ashley now makes experimental opera's but this is something different altogether. The title track consists of no more than two voices, one female whispering in French (think <i>L'Année Dernière à Marienbad</i>, and closer to home Nurse With Wound's 'Echo Poème', which is a total rip-off of Ashley) and one slowed down to a sort of unholy grunt, plus some unidentified background noises.<br /><br />On 'Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon', when a girl's voice is talking about a guy who puts his fingers between her legs and then tries to put that finger in her mouth (and so on) over the sound of a music box, things get very creepy, as if you are listening to an excerpt from <i>Sex, Lies and Videotape</i>, but without any help of context.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span>'She Was a Visitor' is no more than that same sentence repeated ad nauseam over particularly uneasy listening.</span><span><br /><br />One of the most powerful and impressive pieces of sound art </span>you are bound to hear. Ever.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>Do not play this with the lights out, unless you want to end up in an asylum for the mentally challenged.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Robert Ashley - Private Parts</span><br /><br />After <i>Automatic Writing</i> this is almost easy listening, though it is also far from that. Basically it is a guy with a soothing but also slightly bored voice reciting a text of seemingly unrelated text fragments over tablas, piano and delicate synth tones. Alienating to say the least, though less psychologically invasive as <i>Automatic Writing</i>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mordant Music - Carrion Squared</span> <a href="http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/da/57016"><br /></a><br /><a href="http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/da/57016">Mistah Fisha</a> is going all "hauntological" over this ("Music is dead. Long live hauntology!", LOL), again, although he hastens to set aside this release from the label's usual output. He'd better, because this album was made for library music publisher Boosey & Hawkes* and consists of no less than 40 mini-drones à la Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler or Seesselberg. So no "hauntology" then, but <i>kosmische</i> music, though of course the shortness of the pieces contradict their cosmic nature. All very confusing, but that's "hauntology" for ya, I guess.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Threshold Houseboys Choir - Form Grows Rampant</span><br /><br />Being Peter Christopherson's first outing since the demise of John Balance, Coil's other half. This actually sounds like an instrumental version of the new Throbbing Gristle album. That it contains heavy trace elements of the later Coil (and Balance's voice for that matter) will not surprise either. Themes and even melodies of certain Coil records are leisurely reemployed (especially the heavy use of vocoders from post-mortem album <i>The Ape of Naples</i>) and thus this sounds a lot like the slightly perverted fairy-tale music that the duo were famous for in their later carreer. And yes, you are probably right about the homosexual innuendo contained in the project's name, given the fact that Christopherson has been living in Thailand for some while now. Intriguing as ever nonetheless.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Box of Dub</span><br /><br />Always nice to notice that dubstep has some margin for progression. The top dogs of the game come up with roots inspired dubstep and show along the way that dubstep is really only at the beginning of its odyssey. Which in this case means going back to the roots of the style and toning down the overall darkness.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Rumble in the Jungle</span><br /><br />A supreme compilation that shows after the fact where jungle went wrong. No electronic basses or metallic percussion here, just vocally hyperactive rude boys and superfunky drum'n'bass. Party time music.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Burial - Ghost Hardware</span><br /><br />No sign of slacking here. Three tracks in the style of the album with lots of wet background noises and sad echoing vocals. Nothing new or much progression compared to his previous outings but that need not always be the case as we all know. I would have wished he'd chosen another title, though. "Hauntology", is there no escape?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Digitalism - Idealism</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Justice</span> - <b>†</b><br /><br />Or I'm getting old, or I just don't like this. The Digitalism album, though, is much better than the Justice abomination, which is just plain vulgar in its desire to please the less discerning ears. Furthermore I always will despise people who choose a symbol as title for their album. I am not going to waste any more words on this, neither am I going to vilify these guys. I just think Daft punk was better. So it would seem I am getting old after all. Nevertheless I am pretty sure that these two will tear the roof off in a live setting. Mixed feelings, then.<br /><br />* There are two ways to interpret the fact that Mordant's "hauntology", a music that has library music has one of its main influences, is now in turn being used as library music. You could, if you are a believer, say that "hauntology" has come full circle. One could also, more viciously, state that it pre-empts itself, having turned into a sort of parody on its own influence. Probably the truth lies somewhere between a bit of both.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-70450963544745759112007-06-27T02:17:00.000+02:002007-06-27T02:31:42.362+02:00Epiphany<i>"Madness and Civilization</i> was also famously criticised by Jacques Derrida who took issue with Foucault's reading of René Descartes' <i>Meditations on First Philosophy</i>. Derrida's criticism led to a break in their friendship and marked the beginning of a fifteen-year–long feud between the two. (At one point, in a 1983 interview with Paul Rabinow, Foucault seemed to criticize Derrida's reading of Plato's <i>Phaedrus</i> in <i>Of Grammatology</i>, considering the writing/speech distinction unimportant.) They eventually reconciled in the early 1980s (<b>reportedly, this reconciliation was due in part to Foucault's defense of Derrida after the latter was alleged to have been caught with marijuana in Prague</b>)."<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">from</span></a><br /><br />Derrida and marijuana? Things are suddenly becoming much clearer. What's next? Deleuze and acid?<br /><br />Of course we know that Derrida was indicted by the communists for speaking up against them during a conference. Still you can't but wonder.Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32564420.post-2844579238524670642007-06-24T00:35:00.000+02:002007-06-24T00:38:32.394+02:00Il convient que la poésie soit inséparable du prévisible, mais non encore formulé.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">René Char</span>, <i>Partage Formel</i>Manic Inventorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18109509931037508417noreply@blogger.com0