I have loved Man or Astro-man? since the first time that I heard them. The album was “Is it Man or Astro-man?” and unfortunately I hadn’t heard it until after the band had put themselves into cryogenic freeze. It was several years before they thawed themselves out and made another appearance, though they had trained some clones to serve as them around the country, but that’s a whole other story.
Since they have been re-animated, my favorite sci-fi obsessed surf-rock band from another planet has been touring pretty regularly and on May 21st of this year they released a new album entitled “Defcon 5…4…3…2…1” through Chunklet. There is one track up on Communicating Vessels. That song is “Disintegrate” and it can be heard below.
I managed to see Man or Astro-man? twice in Chicago last summer when they played the West Fest street festival and later that same night when played a nearly completely different set at The Empty Bottle. Though the songs were different the shows still involved fire, a theremin and a Tesla Coil. So get out there and see them if you can, they are a lot of fun live.
The album can be purchased in a variety of forms and combo-packs. Follow these links for your preference:
They are currently on tour throughout Europe. Catch up with them on Facebook for all the latest tour updates. If you want to hear more Man or Astro-man? check the video below of their live set for KEXP in Seattle:
There is a direct connection between my love for Thee Oh Sees and my love for The Blind Shake. I’ve talked about it before, the first time that I saw both bands at the Empty Bottle in Chicago in July of 2012.
Since that time I have kept going back to their album “Seriousness” and it looks like they are picking things up and getting ready to start a tour once again. And again that tour is going to be supporting Thee Oh Sees all over the U.S. and Canada. All of this also in support of their forthcoming album “Key to a False Door,” which is set to be released by John Dwyer’s (of Thee Oh Sees) Castleface records on September 17.
Brooklyn Vegan has posted a song, “Garbage on Glue” from the forthcoming album and you can check it out here. And if you haven’t heard “Seriousness” then you can check that one out in its entirety on their Bandcamp page (highly suggested) and it can be purchased on vinyl or digital download from the bandcamp page as well. It’s on Spotify as well, if you are so inclined. But seriously, just buy the album already. And no matter what, see them live. You will not be disappointed.
You can find The Blind Shake and Thee Oh Sees on tour in a town near you on the dates below:
Thee Oh Sees — 2013 Tour Dates
10/10 The Chapel San Francisco, CA with The Blind Shake, OBNIIIs, Fryborg
10/11 The Chapel San Francisco, CA with OBNIIIs, The Blind Shake, Old Light
10/12 The Chapel San Francisco, CA with The Blind Shake, OBNIIIs, Dreamsalon
10/16/2013 The Rickshaw Vancouver BC
10/18/2013 Republik Calgary AB
10/19/2013 VFW MIssoula MT
10/21/2013 The Amsterdam Minneapolis MN
10/22/2013 The Empty Bottle Chicago IL w/ The Blind Shake, OBN IIIs
10/23/2013 The Empty Bottle Chicago IL w/ The Blind Shake, OBN IIIs
10/24/2013 The Shelter Detroit MI
10/29/2013 Irving Plaza New York NY w/ The Blind Shake, OBNIIIs, Dreamsalon
10/30/2013 Underground Arts Philadelphia PA
10/31/2013 Kranky’s Winston-Salem NC
11/02/2013 Terminal Atlanta GA
11/04/2013 The Stage Miami FL
11/08/2013 Fun Fun Fun Fest Austin TX
11/10/2013 Low Spirits Albuquerque NM
11/12/2013 Bar Pink San Diego CA
11/13/2013 Observatory Santa Ana
The Blind Shake – 2013 Tour Dates
Sep 26 GONERFEST 10 Memphis, TN
Oct 10 The Chapel San Francisco, CA
Oct 11 The Chapel San Francisco, CA
Oct 12 The Chapel San Francisco, CA
Nov 13 Constellation Room at the Observatory Santa Ana, CA
You wouldn’t think that the abrasive and angular music of Shellac would have much to do with Marnie Stern’s music, or that either of them could be linked to one of the most prolific, brilliant, thought provoking and curious concert pianists of the 20th century, but they are. Canadian pianist Glenn Gould has influenced generations of pianists, but I don’t think that anyone has ever discussed his influence on artists outside of the concert hall.
Gould was a Canadian pianist, born in 1932. Even those with just a passing knowledge of his work are at least somewhat familiar with at least one of his recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Those recordings work like the bookends of his recording career. When he was first given a record contract he decided that the then seldom heard, obscure Bach piece would become his debut recording. That was in 1955. Some 26 years later his re-recording of the same piece would lead to heated debates in the music community for decades. Those two recordings only give a tiny bit of insight into the way that Gould’s mind worked. He was constantly deep in thought and concerned about his role in the interpretation of the works that he performed. Without a doubt the man was a genius.
Not only was he obsessively driven toward pushing himself, he was intensely interested in pushing the bounds of how music could be realized in the age of new recording technologies. Gould would often remark that the state of recorded music (keep in mind when he was alive, from 1932 to 1982) would not only allow musicians to push the bounds of music, but that people at home would soon be able to create and modify those recordings through their own “knob twiddlings.” Of course he was talking about the way that music could be manipulated on home stereos via various volume, balance and equalizer controls.
It was his contemplations on the effect that the recording studio would have on music that drove him to be one of the first true “recording artists.” In documentaries such as The Alchemist viewers can watch as Gould endlessly annoys the recording engineer, constantly telling him where to cut the tape while referring to the score. Gould’s score had indications for not only the usual dynamics and articulations, but also indications of where the sound would be. Would part of the score sound distant and reverberant while another sounded more up front? How would those things be able to work together. Gould was truly able to use the recording studio not to simply preserve his performances, but also as an extension of his abilities as a pianist and musical mind.
Gould was not only interested in recording the works of Bach, Webern, Scriabin and others, but he was also interested in composition. His compositions came in the form of a 3 part “contrapuntal radio documentary” called the Solitude Trilogy. “The Idea of North,” “The Latecomers” and “The Quiet in the Land” explored Gould’s interest in the northernmost part of Canada, which reflected his own comfort in solitude and singularity.
Shellac. Steve Albin, Todd Trainer, Bob Weston.
When Steve Albini says that Shellac only writes songs about two things “Canada and baseball” it could very well be true, most notably in the song “The Idea of North.” This one is kind of obvious, being that the song takes its name directly from Gould’s radio documentary. Perhaps the same desolate mood of isolation and prohibitive environs that Gould explores in his documentary are interpreted by Shellac in the opening of their song. The sparse, spacious bass line invites listeners to consider the ambience that surrounds it. Perhaps Albini’s vocals that near complete obfuscation are meant to evoke the image of someone thinking outloud (barely) to themselves as a representation of the inquisitive, often self-obsessed way that Gould would.
On the other hand we have Marnie Stern, with her song “Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling,”takes the idea of Gould’s radio documentaries a bit further. In this song Marnie creates a tone poem of sorts where after narrating the actions of characters those actions are then assigned an idiosyncratic sound or motive. She begins by explaining “I will paint you a picture that’s inside my head.” Following that introduction she begins to describe that you are now standing in a room while “around you is a solitude trilogy,” and a bit later “you sit down and start to think of ideas of the North,” which is followed by it’s sound that is a chromatically ascending line. After the narration is complete and the scene has been set she begins to place the motives on top of one another, creating a contrapuntal sound collage much in the same way that Gould did with his intercut ambient sounds and multiple interviews at once. In this way Marnie is creating a bit of a miniature homage to Gould’s radio broadcasts.
We can now see how these two artists have made their influence blatant, but it still remains to be seen why they chose to do so. What is the deeper connection between Gould and his work and that of Marnie Stern and Albini and Co.?
Gould’s singular personality broke down a lot of the barriers that existed between classical music and popular music in his day. He was famously quirky and thoroughly interesting, not to mention self-aware. He knew that people were sometimes more interested in the spectacle of Glenn Gould, the character that was Glenn Gould perhaps more so than they were interested in the performances of the man himself.
Glenn Gould was punk rock before punk rock was punk rock. He did things his way and he couldn’t possibly care less what people thought of that. He knew that he was brilliant enough to do his own thing, to do things his way, and not to let anyone else dictate to him how his art should be presented. He was obsessed with his own perfection and never stopped wondering how he could better express himself. This much is clear simply by listening to (as mentioned up a few paragraphs) his two renditions of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. He didn’t just perform and record a piece to leave it behind. No, those pieces, everything that he played, stayed with him and he was constantly thinking about them and learning to think about them in new ways.
This sort of work ethic and perfection is mentioned several times by Marnie Stern across all 4 of her albums. Obsession and a focus on her passion are a consistent theme in Marnie’s lyrics. In “Grapefruit” the lyric “keep on keep at it, keep on, keep at it” is repeated like a mantra. On her most recent album “The Chronicles of Marnia” in the song “You Don’t Turn Down” she states, nearly a cappella that she’s “Got to get obsessed and stay there now.” “Keep on, keep at it, keep on, keep at it” from “Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket!!” cover these themes in both its lyric and the song’s very title.
I think that Shellac’s awareness that they are a band unlike any other band around today, and that they staunchly disassociate themselves from the music industry as much as they can, supporting Touch and Go since the begining. And I think that this anti-industry stance is pretty well known because of Steve Albini’s famous tome against the corporate music world. In addition to all of this It seems that they relate more to Gould’s overall attitude, whereas Marnie Stern relates more to his obsessive desire to improve.
I’m sure that there must be other examples of Glenn Gould’s influence, even in slightly more indirect ways, can be found throughout independent rock music. It’s clear that, as Alban Berg famously said to George Gershwin, “…music is music.” It doesn’t matter how it is classified or how it is created, and perhaps the clearly constructed borders between genres that one imagines are in fact not there at all.
///
For more information on the life of Glenn Gould, and to hear the entire Solitary Trilogy follow these links:
“The Idea of North,” “The Latecomers” and “The Quiet in the Land” can all be heard in their entirety at the CBC’s site as part of their legacy audio collection. “The Idea of the North” was commissioned by the CBC as a way of introduction for themselves and have become a large and important part of Canadian culture, just like the man himself.
There are several books on the life of Glenn Gould. The first “biography” written about him was less of a biography and more a study of what made Gould the genius that he was. His habits, his practices, how he thought about music. It’s by Geoffrey Payzant and is called “Glenn Gould: Music and Mind“
You should also check out the documentary by Bruno Monsaingeon called “The Alchemist.” He actually did a whole series of documentaries about Gould, but this one is my favorite for showing Gould at work in the studio after he had permanently left the concertizing life to focus on his recording career.
Finally, my favorite movie of all time “32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.” It mixes interviews with Gould’s contemporaries alongside vignettes depicting his life. Colm Feore does an incredible job at portraying Glenn Gould.
A few weeks ago when I was putting together my posts for Cindy Lee and Viet Cong I kept following links around bandcamp just to see where they would take me. I found myself tracing the paths of each of the members of Viet Cong according to what people were saying on last.fm and just basically chasing threads wherever I could find them and following them as far as I could go.
I came across Friendo, Mike Wallace’s former band. If you’ll remember Mike is also the former drummer of Women and the current drummer for Viet Cong. I think that there was some overlap with Friendo and Women, by the way. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Friendo is really active at all anymore, but you can still download a bunch of their stuff for free, and of course pay to download their entire “Cold Toads” album. They were a band that sounds to be equally influenced by ’60s rock with the added noise and jangle of current art and experimental rock. Similar to the sound of Women in some ways, but the influence of the ’60s is much more prevalent in Friendo than it was in Women (except for say the odd track like “Grey Skies.”)
Right now on their bandcamp page you can listen to and download 3 tracks from “Cold Toads” and also the song “Pass Times” from the Faux012 7″ that also included songs by Women (“Bullfight”), Cold Pumas and Fair Ohs; you can also download 3 free demo tracks.
Everything that was actually released in a physical format, both the “Cold Toads” LP and the Faux012 7″ have long since sold out, but digital downloads are still available. The LP was released through St. Ives Records, but distributed by Secretly Canadian and the Faux 7″ can be purchased as a digital download here.
Just like their bio says, their songs can be gentle and breezy or disjunct and a bit more abrasive. They work equally well on both ends of the spectrum as can be heard when listening to “Callers,” a gently rocking slower song with ethereal harmonies and delicate guitar. Follow that with a song like “Oversees,” or “Counter-Time” which are both everything that “Callers” is not. These two songs showcase their noisier side with a guitar that isn’t quite in tune and rhythms that consistently drive things straight ahead. All the tracks that are up on their bandcamp page are worth checking out, and the entire album is worth the purchase.
Buy Cold Toads//Bandcamp//Facebook (you never know, maybe they’ll come back and post something. Their last update was November 2012.)
If you couldn’t tell from my earlier post, I am excited about the new Quasi album. I always get excited when I first get into a band and they decide to release an album – let alone a double album – not long after. That they have been together for 20 years now is something that blows my mind. I guess that I’ve been missing out for some time.
Now that we have two songs we can start to get at least a little bit of an idea of how this album is going to come together. Maybe that’s a long-shot, as there is a 24 song track list. But “See You on Mars” (track 2 on the player above) at least gives us an idea of the diversity of the album. It starts off as a bit of a straight ahead, bass-thumping pop-tune (ok, when I said “straight ahead” I was lying, it’s in 7/4, more specifically in alternating bars of 4/4 and 3/4, but straight ahead within that framework. Ok, hey, the point is that every beat in the measure is accented) before breaking off into a bar-room rock tune that reminds me more than a little bit of a tune that could be on Sloan’s “One Chord to Another” or “Between the Bridges.” Of course the ending features a bass guitar glissando that slides up to #4 (sharp 4, not number 4) and never resolves to 5, which is going to drive me crazy every time I hear the song. If the next track doesn’t start with a C# somewhere in the opening chord I might just loose my mind.
“Mole City” is out on Kill Rock Stars on October 1st. Pre-orders for the limited edition vinyl are still available and a lot of the other packages are up for grabs too. You can also download this track as well as “You Can Stay But You Gotta Go” from the band’s bandcamp page. Check out the links below.
You should also know that the entire 20 year output of Quasi is available for streaming on spotify, and of course I would suggest checking it out. “Hot Shit” and “When The Going Gets Dark” are also among my most listened to of their albums. Sloan’s entire discography can be found there as well.
Quasi on tour:
October 3 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
October 4 – Kansas City, MO @ Record Bar
October 5 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway
October 7 – Birmingham, AL @ The Bottletree
October 8 – Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn
October 9 – Chapel Hill, NC @ Local 506
October 10 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
October 11 – New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
October 12 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot And Saddle
October 13 – Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory
October 14 – New York, NY @ Mercury Lounge
October 16 – Allston, MA @ Great Scott
October 17 – Buffalo, NY @ Tralf Music Hall
October 18 – Cleveland Heights, OH @ Grog Shop
October 19 – Chicago, IL @ Schubas
October 20 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St. Entry
November 3 – Boise, ID @ Neurolux
November 4 – Salt Lake City, UT @Kilby Court
November 5 – Denver, CO @ Hi Dive
November 7 – Denton, TX @ Dan’s Silverleaf
November 8-10 – Austin, TX @ Fun Fun Fun Fest
November 11 – Phoenix, AZ @ Rhythm Room
November 12 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
November 13 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
November 14 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Soho Restaurant and Music Club
November 15 – San Jose, CA @ The Blank Club
November 16 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
November 21 – Vancouver, BC @ The Biltmore Caberet
November 22 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
November 23 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
I’ve been wanting to do a post like this for a long time. I think that periodically it will be fun to actually write about music theory stuff, considering that is what I am going to school for. I’m going to try to cover stuff that I find in rock tunes that I think is interesting, things that I would teach to my class. I’ll try to do this as clearly as possible. The main purpose, for me, is to maybe take some of the mystery out of music theory and also to help people possibly develop a little bit more of a critical ear.
The first song that I am going to use is “Arms Against Atrophy” from the first Titus Andronicus album “The Airing of Grievances” from 2009. Here’s the song:
Now, the first guitar we hear is playing two Cs an octave apart, and the 2nd guitar part comes in playing an A-flat major chord. So we can visualize it this way:
Based on the chord progression through the verse, an oscillation between A-flat major and F minor, we can say that this section of the song is pretty solidly in the key of A-flat major. Notice the key signature of 4 flats (B-flat, E-flat, A-flat and D-flat) and that neither an A-flat major chord or an F minor use any accidentals outside of that key signature, because both chords are diatonic, in other words – they belong to the key. The A-flat major chord is built on scale degree 1 while the F minor chord is built on scale degree 6, so in theory terms we would call these chords tonic and sub-mediant respectively. Basically the A-flat major chord is the most important, everything leads back to it.
Now, when I say that the chord is “built” on certain scale degrees what I mean is that the scale degree, of which there are 7, serves as the pitch that the rest of the notes in the chord are based on. Chords are formed by stacking thirds. For example the A-flat major chord would begin with A-flat and then a third above that (staying in the key) is C, and a diatonic third above that is E-flat.
A-flat major scale
Above we have the A-flat major scale. Scale degree 1 is A-flat, 2 is B-flat, 3 is C and so on all the way back up to A-flat. So if we stack thirds on top of each of these pitches we have something that looks like this:
Diatonic triads of A-flat major
From left to right we have tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, and leading tone triads. The ones that we are going to focus on are the tonic and submediant. I won’t bother going into Roman Numeral analysis here to try to keep things simpler.
Looking at the diatonic triads we can see that the pitches in the A-flat major tonic triad are A-flat, C and E-flat; while the pitches in the submediant triad are F, A-flat and C. We can see that both of these chords have two pitches in common, the A-flat and the C.
Thinking back to that opening guitar line, the 1st guitar part that strums the C octaves in eighth notes. That C is a common pitch shared between both chords that appear in the verse, which allows the 1st guitar to keep those eighth notes constant throughout the verse. This is important to how the song is going to modulate.
When we say that a song modulates we are saying that the song is changing key. The most common modulation for a song that begins in a major key is to modulate to the dominant. One of the reasons that this is so common is because the keys are so close to each other, in a manner of speaking. The key signature for A-flat major, for example, is 4 flats, as we have seen above. The key signature for E-flat major (the dominant key) is 3 flats. The tonic chord of E-flat major can be taken directly from the key of A-flat major without changing anything, it remains E-flat, G, B-flat. We would say that these keys are closely related because they are next to each other on the circle of fifths.
Without going completely off course here, the circle of fifths is the way that we think of key relations. Basically this means hopping from one dominant to the next. For example A-flat, E-flat, B-flat, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#/A-flat …that is the complete circle of fifths beginning on the key that we are looking at here for this song. The further away from your home key, the more distant the relationship between the keys and the more chromatic alterations are necessary to maneuver between the two.
A modulation to a distantly related key, i.e. more than 2 steps on the circle of fifths, can be accomplished a few different ways. Again, I’m not going to go too far into it, because things get complicated pretty quick. One of the ways that you can, however, is through the use of a common pitch that exists in both of the keys. “Arms Against Atrophy” modulates to the key of C major in the bridge (2:20). Thee’s that C again.
Let’s compare the two scales, A-flat major and C major:
A-flat major scaleC major scale
Note that the C major scale is lacking flats (or sharps, for that matter) in the key signature. This is because it is 4 steps away on the circle of fifths. Tonic of C major, C, is the same pitch as the mediant of A-flat major. Remember how A-flat, C, E-flat and F, A-flat, C made up the two chords of the verse, A-flat major and F minor respectively, with that C common between the two? Well the bridge here moves to a C major tonic: C, E, G. We know that it is a modulation and not just using the mediant triad because of the chord progression that follows that establishes the pitch C as the focus, or tonal center. Think of it like the center of gravity that all the pitches are drawn to. The chord progression in the bridge moves from tonic to dominant to subdominant and back to tonic again. We say that this progression establishes the tonic because it basically (simplifying again here) moves toward the dominant and returns to what is now being called tonic.
We would say, then, that “Arms Against Atrophy” by Titus Andronicus modulates from A-flat major to the distantly related key of C major through the common pitch of C. You can even hear the shift that happens, listen to the very beginning of the song. Hear those opening Cs, and then hear how they fit into the chords that guitar 2 introduces. Now go to 2:15 and listen to those very same Cs and hear how guitar two comes in now.
As a quick conclusion, you may be asking, “well the song returns to the verse after the bridge so…how do we get back to A-flat major tonic? I don’t hear the C-octaves again.” Well, first off I would say that it is true. Hey, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over, right? The final chord of the bridge is F-major, or the subdominant in the key of C major and is made from the pitches F, A and C. Notice that this is only one pitch away from the F minor chord (F, A-flat, C) that was 50% of the verse. The last line of the bridge “…and she’s got the nail clippers at my throat,” (3:04-3:07) is where we are preparing to move back to A-flat major. The F major chord is used underneath “…and she’s got the nail clippers at my” and then they drop the A of the F major chord down a half step to A-flat on the word “throat” to create an F minor chord. That pitch, A-flat, then rings (3:07-3:17) alone until the verse picks up again with an A-flat major chord and we are up and running again, establishing the original tonic again. To be more technical this is referred to as a chromatic mediant relationship.
I hope that you were able to follow along here and that I could help you to understand the way that this song works and how music can work in general. This is only one tiny subject of many so I expect that I’ll be doing more of this in the future. Thanks for reading.
This third and final installment of posts about Merzbow’s “Takahe Collage” focuses on the closing track, the mere 12 minute “Grand Owl Habitat.”
Probably the least active and cluttered of the album, “Grand Owl Habitat” takes a clearly sectionalized approach that even may vaguely (in some ways) resemble ABA form. Or, if it can’t quite be thought of as ABA form (and really it can’t, but hear me out) there is at the very least elements that appear and disappear at intervals making it sound as if the spaces without the pitched, more focused sounds form a point of recurring repose against spaces that contain those sounds and therefore stand as a contrast.
Just as with the previous tracks there is introductory material here as the underlying beat is generated. The first section of the song, that which lacks the presence of pitch material for the most part, continues for the first minute. Following that is the entrance of some of the erratic pitch material and sound envelope manipulations.
The main thing, as far as this song is concerned, is that each time the more focused, pitched sounds enter they do so with an increased intensity with each recurrence. Meanwhile the sections of the song that alternate with these increasingly active sounds remain fixed. The stasis is fixed in sound and in tempo. No alterations whatsoever are made to the initial underlying beat that is generated at the beginning of the track.
From 2:06 to about 2:18 there is a drastic shift in texture that marks a new section, where everything is stripped away, save for the underlying structure. We have seen this many times before in the previous tracks, where there is a frequent stripping away and subsequent re-building of material to create motion through the song from beginning to end. There are even some interesting rhythmic moments in “Grand Owl Habitat” that can be heard when a lot of that material is stripped away. For example, at about the 6:40 mark there is a sort of polyrhythmic effect going on with two of the layers just before a screeching sound of a free-jazz saxophone bleat begins to dominate the texture. That sound, as it happens, will remain throughout the remainder of the track.
What I think may be most notable, other than the drastic ebbs in texture through this track, is the way that Merzbow manages to bring the piece to a close. As a composer it is absolutely crucial for one to know their compositional language inside and out, for that is how you learn to phrase your material and, more importantly, how to begin and end a piece. Essentially, when the material that you are using is created via a hierarchy that doesn’t included strictly pitched material, how does one go about cadencing, or closing the piece?
The way that Merzbow answers that question here appears at the 10:52 mark where suddenly that underlying rhythm is taken away. In an instant only the focused, more or less pitched material is left and seems to float above the surface. But without that underlying structure it is only a matter of time before they are not able to sustain themselves anymore and about a minute later they begin to fade out. This, in my opinion, makes for a truly satisfying end to not only this track, but to the entire album.
The second track from Merzbow’s “Takahe Collage”,”Tendeko,” is a bit different in its plan than the album opener. The titular song works really well as an introduction as there is quite a bit to grab on to. This track, however, is a bit more stable and fixed. That is not to say that there certainly aren’t some exceedingly interesting elements throughout.
Just as with the previous track we have some introductory material that lasts for about the first 20 seconds. The steady white noise backdrop is introduced and about another 20 seconds after that the sound spectrum begins to widen, and once again Merzbow is making use of a low pulsation, though this time around it is not quite as prominent. Pitch material also doesn’t seem to be playing quite as important a role in “Tendeko.” We are given what I would refer to as “open” and “closed” sounds.
By using the terms “open” and “closed” I’m referring to the overall shape of the soundwaves where sounds that I would consider to be “open” would be those that have more frequencies appearing at the outer edges of the spectrum (highs and lows but no middle) whereas closed sounds would have frequencies more clustered toward the middle of the sound spectrum. These sounds could be produced using something as simple as a bandpass filter, or a guitar wah pedal.
There is a much higher degree of stasis throughout “Tendeko,” and it doesn’t initially appear to be broken into large sections. There are occasions where thin, high pitched sounds will suddenly erupt from the stasis, while there are other times (around 9:50, for example) where regular beats develop and remain and become significant. This part in the track is alive with variation, Akita is heard to be clearly playing with beats and at the 11:30 mark seems to turn the entire track around on itself. The layer of stasis is stripped away, but not in the same way that it was in the opening track. This is a more gradual process, introducing new sounds rather than cutting everything away at once.
At about the 7:35 mark a quick thinning of the texture allows a brief descending arpeggiated sound to come toppling down, before it is swallowed up by the deep sea of distortion that remains underneath the entire song as a sort of support structure. When a sine wave is introduce at around 13:30 it leaps across frequencies, slicing through the ground layer from top to bottom and becoming a prominent element for a large duration.
Something resembling a vintage synth sound enters ever so briefly during a period where the percussive sounds are made more obvious with more crisp attacks rather than simple pulsations. That synth sound remains as a high pitched rapid rhythm and all that is beneath it is stripped away until we are left only with it and the percussive attacks. Eventually the rapid fire high register rhythm flatlines before it begins bouncing across several octaves, the percussive sounds disappearing suddenly with siren type sounds that come from below.
Standing in significant contrast to that of “Takahe Collage,” “Tendeko” exercises a greater use of stasis and shifting levels of textural density. Larger sections of the piece are less apparent in this track than its predecessor, though the latter half introduces a significant number of changes in sound, though not each introduced as parts of what I would think to call new sections. Rather it seems as though the stasis of the first half is drastically contrasted in the 2nd half with increasingly wild sonic gesticulations. There clearly is a different approach to this song, and the way that the sounds are organized and paced throughout the track are evidence of that.
The third and final part in this series will appear tomorrow and discusses the closing track on the album, “Grand Owl Habitat.”
I’ve wanted to cover some Merzbow tracks for a long time and I think that I am about ready to give it a shot.
For those of you that don’t know, Merzbow is Masami Akita, who has been cranking out noise since 1979. In some ways Merzbow is like an electronic Jandek. By saying that I don’t mean that there are necessarily similarities in the aural qualities inherent in the music of both, but rather that both Jandek and Merzbow force us as listeners to re-evaluate our own idea of what music and sound can be and what it can mean.
Most reviews of Merzbow’s output that I have seen often wander into this philosophical territory, but I want to try and capture the elements in this album that give each song structure and how I think they may be organized. This seems to be, by and large, one major thing that people seem to avoid when talking about the music of Merzbow – and for good reason – it’s pretty complex stuff, most of which could easily be cast off as disorganized noise. What I would like to do in this three part series is deconstruct the way that these songs are put together. I’d also like to do away with the idea of there being much that is disorganized in this music. Being that there are only three tracks on the album, two of which are around a half-hour long each, it might be for the best to examine each song in a separate post.
The album is the 2nd of 6 albums that Merzbow has released so far this year. To my ears, as far as the albums that I have heard, this stands as one of his most accessible. “Takahe Collage” opens the album with skipping static and buzzed bass sounds that immediately resemble a glitchy bass and drums breakbeat. This intro section lasts for about 37 seconds before the grinding bass sound dissipates into the ambient structural level that remains in the background for the duration of the track.
The proper first section of the track introduces high sine wave sounds with honest-to-goodness repeated gestures that allow us to get some footing. By 3 minutes into the track the high range is expanded before it disappears past the range of our hearing.
There is a control of the overall density of the sound throughout, though the aforementioned low ambient drone remains. Pulsations that dwell in that lower register are varied, giving the overall sound texture and shape. At about the 5 minute mark the previous sine-wave seems to have mutated at some point into a more square or sawtooth wave and begins mimicking a syncopated line, counterpoint against the pulsations below.
The breakdown and dissipation of the upper sounds with their consequent formation and buildup happens at semi-regular intervals lasting a couple of minutes. Moments of chaos serve to break up those sections of more cogent material. Noise and ambient pulsations become a new silence against which the material is actually projected. That material underneath does not remain as noise. How could it? At this point we are so used to hearing it that it becomes a given. It’s not so much noise as it is the new silence.
At 11:40 there is a major shift where all of the material but the bass ostinato are removed completely before new sounds can eventually coalesce. Elements of the material previous to this section seem to flash in and out of focus trying and failing to re-form. A mid-range pitch, middle-C, begins to cut through all other material. It weaves in and out of the texture, seemingly holding its own against a barrage of frequencies from every direction. This pitch is rather important as it is the same pitch as the lower pulsation, but two octaves higher. The structural prominence of the ambient pulsations is becoming more apparent as the track is developing them as they stretch out into other layers of the track. Frequencies in the upper range work their way higher until, after repeatedly fighting through thick clouds of grinding frequencies, at around the 15:20 mark a G# about 3 octaves above middle-C is reached.
The section that begins with that high G# then becomes all about retaining that pitch. Merzbow slides around it, always returning to it and at about 18:25 he holds on to it for a significant amount of time. There is an extremely wide voiced chord taking shape now with several overtones of the low ambience steadying themselves, becoming a solid, fixed point of reference.
Finally at the 20 minute mark we arrive at the next significant shift in sound. There are large swaths bordering on silence as a rather thick D is hit at about the mid range. The middle-C and high G# have disappeared by this point (just before the 20 minute mark break) and we have moved on to a section that is focused on a quick and steady ascending glissando to that D. The ambience moves back in to its place, and before long the track is going at full density again.
The 32 and a half minutes of “Takahe Collage” are broken up into a few large sections, which are in themselves broken up into even smaller sub-sections. Each of these sections have direction, shape and even to some degree a motivic structure. What one would possibly label as “noise” is in actuality, for the purpose of this work, simply the backdrop against which the simpler ideas are placed against.
With this approach, my next post will cover track 2 of the album: “Tendeko.”
When I first heard the EP “Trees, Swallows, Houses” by Chicago’s Maps & Atlases, I couldn’t get enough. All of the tapping (pre-Marnie Stern era…and yes, I know she wasn’t the first to do it, or the most well known, but it will be a cold day in hell when I start talking about Van Halen on this blog) the melodies and breakdowns. Everything about that EP is brilliant. I mean, I still can’t listen to it enough.
I remember around that time (2006), on Myspace, repeatedly checking their page. I was waiting for a follow up, or at the very least hoping that I would see them on one of my many trips to Chicago. The EP’s frenetic nature really hooked me. I would drive around all summer with it blaring from the speakers. My friends probably started to get sick of me playing “Songs for Ghosts to Haunt To” over and over while doing the typical “wait…hear that?…I mean this!?..this” with my words effectively preventing them from hearing (and consequently caring) about what I was even talking about.
The perfectly synchronized guitar parts, the prog/math-rock nature of the whole affair, the punch of the drums and the deft bass playing. Everything on that song wraps up the entire EP solidly. The only thing I could think to compare it to in order to try and sell it to my classic-era British-prog of the 70’s loving friends (and yes I was not too long before that in their shoes) was to say that the song kind of sounded like Yes. The virtuosic guitar, the busy bass work, the singer with the weird voice, tricky meters. I at least got some of them to listen.
It took 4 long years to get a follow up to that EP. “Perch Patchwork” was released, with lead single “Solid Ground.” That song was immediately underwhelming. It wasn’t even that the song seemed like it would be a grower. “Solid Ground” never, well, leaves the ground and the album is full of mid-tempo dirges that sort of lie flat. “Will” starts the album off on a note that distances itself severely from anything that appeared on “Trees, Swallows, Houses.” With it’s finger picked acoustic guitar and the generally more spacious aesthetic, it’s surely a huge leap in the direction of developing a different sound, and it certainly comes as a surprise. This is not the album that I think anyone was expecting. Certainly not I.
To be fair, the album does show the band thinking in much larger terms. They seemed more interested in creating a narrative arc, or at least an aesthetic arc, that connected each song across the album in a much different way than previously attempted. That the songs are considerably more straight-ahead and poppy, even repetitive, is somewhat disappointing. It seems as though the bottom fell out, energy-wise. “Perch Patchwork” just hobbles along. Granted these songs are well crafted for what they are, but it left me wondering about what could have possibly led to this drastic shift in sound? Had they run out of ideas for their previous writing style? Did they want to avoid being pigeon-holed and therefore decided to ditch one of the things that truly made them stand out? I mean, what happened in those 4 years between EP and LP? Where there was once not a wasted second there were now filler instrumental tracks like “Will,” “Is,” and “Was.” “Carrying Wet Wood” and “Pigeon” start off promising, but only come close to capturing the band’s former glory before backing off. Both tracks turn into these strange, neutered, watered down Rusted Root sounding fake folk.
2012’s “Beware and Be Grateful” is really no better. The album focuses more and more on Davison’s vocals and spaciousness. Again, the energy just isn’t there anymore. The sound of “Perch Patchwork” is developed now to include sterile production and even less instrumental work. “Silver Self” seems to go on for an eternity, bringing in terrible sounding synthetic drum loops and layers of vocals. The Talking Heads did this type of thing so much better 30 years ago. Not even a flashy guitar solo (that goes on far too long, wandering well into masturbation territory) can help the track. In fact I would say that in that case it does more harm than good. “Remote and Dark Years” takes its cues from the bombast of 80’s production values, rendering it simultaneously introspective and overblown. One saving grace may be “Winter,” which is actually a good song as far as verse-chorus-verse things go. Good changes, nice arrangement and interplay amongst the entire band. Though, unfortunately, “Winter” is the anomaly. When they return to something energetic like “Be Three Years Old” it does away with the rawness and urgency that the band used to be so good at capturing.
The point, if there is a point, is this: when the energy left and the band stopped highlighting their strengths and what set them apart, that is when they gave in to mediocrity. It’s hard for me to understand why any band would seemingly make an effort to start over almost from the beginning. They went from standing apart, perfecting their fresh and exciting sound, to instead hurling themselves headlong into a vast ocean of bland rock music.
