January 2009
CBC Radio’s The Best of Ideas Podcast
The Best of Ideas podcast is updated every Monday. Please note: podcasts are archived for 4 weeks only. This is without a doubt the best informational podcast out there. Check out “How to Think About Science” and of those, the talks with David Abram and Sajay Samuel are fantastic
With this album, Momus seems to have brewed together all the elements of his musical history-- including his oft-discussed member-- into the crazy, glitchy electro-folk record that he has christened Folktronic. Incredibly fun. Incredibly bawdy.
Francis Dhomont FORET PROFONDE (Deep forest)
Forêt profonde (Deep Forest) is an acousmatic melodrama, based on Bruno Bettelheim’s essay The Uses of Enchantment (Alfred A Knof/Random House, New York 1976), of which this is the third version; an extensively modified version, almost double in length compared to earlier versions. It is a listening on three levels — novelistic, symbolic, musical — more disconcerting no doubt, but more active than an unidimensional listening. -from liner notes.
Captain Beefheart TROUT MASK REPLICA
Given total creative control by producer and friend Frank Zappa, Beefheart and his Magic Band rehearsed the material for this 1969 album for over a year, wedding minimalistic R&B, blues, and garage rock to free jazz and avant-garde experimentalism. This album is never far from my grasp and provides an endless stream of whimsy and unrestrained inspiration for me.
THIS AMERICAN LIFE, the FREE weekly podcast.
What else can I say? This show continues to amaze.
Ry Cooder & Manuel Galban MAMBO SINUENDO
About the recording of this album says Cooder: "Galbán and I felt that there was a sound that had not been explored a Cuban electric-guitar band that could re-interpret the atmosphere of the 1950s with beauty, agility, and simplicity. We decided on two electrics, two drum sets, congas and bass: a sexteto that could swing like a big band and penetrate the mysteries of the classic tunes. This music is powerful, lyrical, and funny; what more could you ask? Mambo Sinuendo is Cuban soul and high-performance."
These four Studies are the fruit of my immersion in the Inuit culture of the Canadian Arctic; the country where there are no trees. Upon entering this world where nature bears down with all its weight on life, where the boundary between art and games is tenuous and words are used sparingly, the necessity of a ‘speech of sounds’ imposes itself. In this world, the relationship between the sonic environment, language and music is such that electroacoustic work takes on its fullest meaning. The sounds, inextricably connected to life, begin to breath of themselves. The result is that this speech of sounds generates a work where music, Inuit conversations, laughter, the wind and the light exist side by side and intertwine. In traveling through these Studies, I sought to weave the sounds into a living material, endowed with breath and with a soul, as have humans, the animals and the elements.The term ‘study’ (étude) underlines the speculative nature of these works. It is a line of work that, without being properly scientific, is nonetheless supported by investigations into Inuit culture and language. The result is a personal and poetic reading of this world. It should be understood as an autobiographical account. The form of this account is based on a particular trait of the Inuit culture in which one can create a new myth by the linking together of pre-existing myths. This is also characteristic of games and chants. These Studies are therefore an attempt to create an agglutinative and integrated musical form.
The CD title Titakti is a term belonging to moderm Inuktitut. It refers to ‘white music’ and is used mostly on Baffin Island. The word probably is an onomatopoeia where titaktitaktitakti… would be the way to sing the music of the whale hunters. This fact was told to me by Leah Nutaraq (107 years old) from Cumberland Sound (Baffin Island).
-Philippe Le Goff, Paris (France) [i-95] from the CD’s liner notes
Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart BONGO FURY
Bongo Fury is a mostly live album released by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart in 1975. The live portions were recorded in May 1975 at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas. Studio tracks were recorded in January 1974. An Absolute joy to listen to from start to finish and the opening 8 bars of the guitar solo in “Carolina Hard-core Ecstasy” ranks among the most engaging musical moments I have ever heard.