Louis Andriessen

Bang on a Can All-Stars performing Louis Andriessen's Worker's Union

When the Bang on a Can All-Stars came through a couple months ago, the highlight of their six-hour performance was the above piece (this might have been taped at the Baton Rouge performance, from looking at it.) From BoaC's David Lang:

Workers Union (1975) is the young(ish) Louis Andriessen's contribution to this approach. Everything is specified in this piece except the notes - the rhythms, the phrases, the attitude are all there, but not the notes. It is clearly a piece that owes something to the American experimental tradition but what that thing is is hard to hear. To me, that's interesting.

Basically, it is an indeterminate piece to be performed by a group of loud instruments acting as one, the melodies and overall output being determined by the collective actions of the performers; in other words, it will continue as long as the performers continue and when one stops, they all stop. Simple enough, the principle on which all things should go when you think about it, and then more profound when you really think about it.

This is the kind of big conceptual talk that got me excited as a young music explorer, but have found over the years that the results rarely can pay the check the score tends to write. This is a glaring exception. Everyone in the hall, all 43 of us anyway, were ready to take to the streets with this piece to set the establishment ablaze with our zeal, to topple the towers with the fresh wind of collective endeavor.

Performance of Andriessen's Dances by an ensemble of the
Rotterdam Conservatory conducted by Henk Guittart (in four parts)

This is a far more contemplative side of Andriessen, or at least at the beginning, twinkling progressions of notes like footprints in the snow, disappearing into the fog. Thanks to the percussionist Oscar Alblas for posting these, and for YouTube for conducting whatever its nefarious secret purpose may be that allows these things to be available. As it progresses, it almost gets a little South Pacific, like drowsy dreams of languid hula girls have invading the closed-circuit thinking of the academy.

PictureMail

PictureMail, originally uploaded by real_voodooboy.

testing....

The new iGoogle is very cool

a feeling of fiery passion.

image from here

Listening to the exquisitely titled For O, for O, the Hobby-horse Is Forgot for Percussion Ensemble by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Pandora offered up the following "Features of this song":

Modern stylings
a chamber ensemble
non pitched percussion
chromatic harmony
atonal harmony
a moderate tempo
an exaggerated, dramatic aesthetic
a feeling of fiery passion
a sense of anxiety
a strict rhythmic feeling

which seems an almost clinical detailing of the highly expressive array of clatters and clanks, but that is how Pandora and its Music Genome Project work.

I got to show Pandora founder Tim Westergren around when he stopped in Baton Rouge on one of his whistle-stop tours around the country back in 2006, and here is the play by play.

[The Record Crate] Talking Demonic and Burying Strangers

Talkdemonic "Final Russians" - live at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR 2007

I didn’t make it out to the Monotonix show this past week, and by all accounts I missed one of the most incredible rock spectacles possible. It’s OK though, dear reader, for I feel a connection with you through the auspices of this column and by your being there, I felt I was a little there, too. Just as long as one of us goes and keeps this live music thing going.

Among the list of shows that one of us should go see is the Thursday appearance by A Place to Bury Strangers, a Brooklyn power trio that mines the feedback throb of shoegaze bands of yore (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Mighty Lemon Drops, etc.) to devastating effect. UK fellow travelers Sian Alice Group are in support.

One of the best CDs to come through my mail slot recently is Talkdemonic’s Eyes at Half Mast, a scintillating array of rock instrumentals straddling the line between post-rock and trance. It is the kind of music that fills the room like a fog when it’s on, the kind that reorients you into its dense rhythms. They will be appearing with Born Ruffians and Plants & Animals at Spanish Moon.

The South Coast Coalition, the hardest working crew in regional underground hip-hop, will be celebrating the release of their latest DVD Classic Material at The Caterie this week with an appearance by their in-house MC T-Bo, Max Minelli, Sam I Am and more.

If none of that entices you, your favorite local band Melters will be melting it up at North Gate Tavern on Friday night. Somewhere in there, I think there is plenty for us to do this week.

Link to original with local events calendar

Sweet Tooth #3

Issue 3 is now available online...

Number Three

When we started this issue of Sweet Tooth at the beginning of the summer, the writers were presented with the question "What do we have here?" with the idea that they would mull over the various phrasings: what do we have HERE? What do WE have here? etc etc.to critically illuminate aspects of the city that the people living in it might not notice. Pulling out what is right, what is wrong, finding a greater message in the details is the aim of this publication.

Whatever we had here back at the beginning of the summer was suddenly battered, demolished and/or rebuilt with Hurricane Gustav, a storm which illuminated both our vulnerabilities and strengths as a community, and despite being turned into a giant brush pile overnight, I think the city is a stronger one for it. We've had to take a long look at what we do wrong and what we do right, at what we have here so that we can now assess what we want to do with it. Do we want to build on potentials of bike commuting? Do we want to tear down monuments crafted out of idealism? Do we want to support our local artists in a meaningful, tangible way so that they don't need to go elsewhere for support? Do we want to continue stepping forward without having to take the expected two steps backward? These are the questions we are posing to you, Baton Rouge, hoping that you come up with some good answers.

Alex V. Cook, Editor
10/7/2008

"You guys don't know Don Williams?"

asks Lambchop's Kurt Wagner incredulously during his NPR Tiny Desk concert. Lambchop is not unlike this podcast, I wholeheartedly appreciate and support them it and I have been a long time subscriber but rarely remember to listen to them.


The Vic Chesnutt one starts with this poignant moment while he strums his guitar waiting for the producer to shut up so he can start playing, and continues in a sweet, tragicomedic parabola from the broken heart to the cosmos. Plus, mouth trumpet! which he uses to great and hilarious effect on his new album Dark Developments, which you should also check out. You can still not-really-like Elf Power who work with Chesnutt on this record and still love it - I kinda think Vic has an almost parasitic way with collaboration, taking over their whole system and slyly converting it into a means to project himself. He's like a virus that makes your band better.

"Glossilalia" is one of the highlights - Vic says Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) came over to his house and sang a melody to him, asking that he write words to it, and out of this came this touching song about lonely atheists living in crowded Christian world. You can hear it totally as NMH song, with soaring changes like jerking a car off the main road onto a gravel driveway, and Vic lives in the song quite well. I think a collaborative album between them would possibly be the best record ever, and given that the reclusive Mangum recently popped in on some Elf Power shows, it s not out of the realm of possibility. And if this post is somehow a letter to Santa that makes this collaboration appear, let me ask for cameos from Jonathon Meiburg from Shearwater and Antony from Antony and The Johnsons and you will have the ultimate Alex V. Cook Battle of the Male Indie Rock Divas album.

Oh, and bring them all back for a star studded version of Danzig's "Mother."

Here is a whole Shearwater concert if that sweetens the deal. I agree with Bob Boilen that Rook is one of the best records of the year. Thank you NPR! Almost makes me want to follow through on sending that pledge!