Showing posts with label takemitsu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label takemitsu. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 November 2018

Log #112 - A Fantastic Voyage To The Centre Of The Ear

Eddy Bamyasi


Some very surreal titles this week. We have Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches, followed by The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish, and a Journey To The Centre Of The Eye before A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden. Now how to make a blog post title out of that lot?

Kid Loco - Presents Jesus Life For Children Under 12 Inches
Talvin Singh - OK
Keith Berry - The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish
Nektar - Journey To The Centre Of The Eye
Hidden Orchestra - Archipelago
Takemitsu - Quatrain / A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden

I wonder if Journey To The Centre Of The Eye was inspired by the classic 1966 Sci-Fi film Fantastic Voyage? The movie, starring Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasence, has a submarine crew being miniaturised and injected into a man's body in order to seek out and destroy a brain tumour.




I remember seeing this film as a young boy and thinking it was one of the most fantastic things I'd ever seen. Today, obviously, the special effects are, let's say, dated, to be kind. In fact it was on TV recently and I did record it but the only bit I've bothered watching so far is the key scene where the submarine and crew are reduced before injection into the man's body:





I should watch the end too. I remember they were plucked out of the patient's eye before being restored to proper life size. A good idea for a sci-fi plot in any case, and one that's been returned to a few times since I believe.

The Nektar album is a concept album (of course) by German prog rockers Nektar. I say German but I think they were actually a British band but were formed and based in Germany. The members' names would certainly suggest this:

Roye Albrighton - guitars, lead vocals
Mick Brockett - special effects
Allan "Taff" Freeman - keyboards, synthesisers, backing vocals
Ron Howden - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Derek "Mo" Moore - bass, keyboards, backing vocals
Keith Walters - special effects

The album is dated but has a great musical theme running throughout and features some lovely raw guitar and Hammond organ. I get the feeling the musicianship is not up to the standards of other contemporary prog rock bands of the time such as Yes or King Crimson for instance but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They are more akin to psychedelic era early Floyd (think Astronomy Domine, Careful With That Axe Eugene, Interstellar Overdrive). The clip below features the beginning of the album:





From eyes to ears. I found The Ear That Was Sold To A Fish by London sound-artist Keith Berry by accident. I was actually searching on ebay for William Basinski (a New York minimalist musician most famous for his The Disintegration Loops series in homage to 9/11) and this album popped up under the search. It was good value with a classy cover (a carefully crafted cardboard gatefold with beautiful artwork), rave reviews and intriguing song titles (I didn't even notice that the ebay seller was Keith Berry himself!). Furthermore there was a bonus CD offered too.

I loved the album - a record of atmospheric otherworldly drones and classical minimalism with lush sustained synth chords augmented by distant rumbles and crackles that echo around your speakers like gunfire in a deserted urban street or walls of sheared off ice sliding into rising seas. It's a dense foreboding sound that suggests wide open barren landscapes scarred by war or ecological disaster, and death.


A barren desolate landscape - from Ken Russell's The Devils


At the start of Can You Elevate Yourself When Surrounded By Dark Waters?... there are loud tears in the fabric of the music that literally sounds like an earth scarring fire has taken hold.

Yet paradoxically there is also birdsong and insect sounds, and running water and the heavy rainfall of an Amazonian rain forest, full of life (Berry himself likens his music to like "closing one's eyes while drifting down a nighttime river"). Or is this just the stirrings of post apocalyptic life only: cockroaches and cicadas emerging tentatively from the ash?

A sonic ecosystem to be experienced, cherished and immersed within.
Bryon Hayes


The sounds are synthetically produced on the whole yet half way through the album the listener's consciousness is jolted by a guitar or koto adding a more stark texture in Knelt Over the Water... It is so surprising it seems out of place at first but like the whole experience actually serves to add further interest to this meticulously constructed album.

Checkout these track titles:

The Sun Rays of Another Pale Afternoon Gently Caress My Hatless Head, Sparkling an Imperceptible Combustion of Illusory Comfort. Your Luminescent Mantle Allures; My Reasons Are First Redeployed, the Disappear Completely While the Glowing Orange of Your Scales Are Convincing Me To Quicken My Decision

Cars Keep Passing By; I Feel Like Rebelling To My Immobile Legs. I Always Dreamed of Translating a Tangible Apprehensiveness Into the Negation of the Present. Suddenly, Everything Seems Futile, Except Our Intense Look To Each Other.

To Me, It's Just an Oddness, For I Listen Through Fingers and Heart. Even If I Can't Hold You In My Hands, I'd Surely Wish You Had It Instead of Me. Do You See Me Now? What Form Do I Have? What Colour, Then?

My Backward Voyage To the Spring: Memories Are Smashed To Smithereens. I Never Thought Much About My Schoolmates, Always Had To Enter That Door Much Earlier Than the Others. Little Did I Know I Would Have Met You There.

Can You Elevate Yourself When Surrounded By Dark Waters? I Wish I Knew - I Couldn't Find the Courage To Jump, That November Evening. I'm Paddling To No Avail, Trying To Find You. Your New Condition Put a Distance That We Need To Shorten.

Fuscous Presages Don't Help Remaining Cool. Numberless Reproaches Have Blocked My Escapes and No One Ever Will Give Me a Ride To Your Place. No One Will Miss My Silences, Too. It's Not Really Inestimable - Still It Has a Value To Me. You Just Seem Not To Care; an Eternity Awaits For You To Understand.

Knelt Over the Water, My Whole Being is a Perfect Zero If Looked From Above. My Devoutness To Intuition Will Deliver Me From Sorrow.

Tomorrow I'll Become Adult: Still I Don't Know Why Should I. Levigating New Angles of Harsh Realities is Not What I Am Supposed To Learn.

You Left Me Behind - But I Can Swim.

Brilliant. There is an interesting mind working here that's got to be worth investigating, agree? I will investigate further, not only other Keith Berry music but also other titles from his home, the Infraction label which seems to specialise in beautifully presented ambience and sound artistry.



Two more very classy albums in the list above this week, both different. Hidden Orchestra play powerful jazz instrumentals with big beats. Their closest contemporary I can think of would be The Cinematic Orchestra who I believe are yet to make an appearance on the blog. I'd say The Hidden Orchestra are slightly heavier. The album certainly sounds best at loud volume. No more time to analyse this week but it's a goody and one I'll return to.

The Kid Loco album is also very classy at what it does. It's a compilation of remixes but holds together very well as a whole album. Very enjoyable and sure it's made a few appearances in my blog before. It certainly feels like one I return to quite often. Tracks are:

The Pastels The Viaduct (On The Right Banke Of The River Mix)
Uriel You Who Are Reading Me Now (Love Experience Mix)
Saint Etienne 4-35 In The Morning (Talkin' Blues Mix)
Talvin Singh Traveller (Once Upon A Time In The East Mix)
Kat Onoma La Chambre (Where Were You Mix)
The High Llamas Homespin Rerun (The Space Raid Mix)
Pulp A Little Soul (Lafayette Velvet Revisited Mix)
Gak Sato Penetrare (Belleville B-Boy Mix)
Badmarsh & Shri The Air I Breathe (Land Of 1000 Strings Mix)
Mogwai Tracy (Playing With The Young Team Mix)
Cornu Youpi (Space Spaghetti Mix)
Tommy Hools Les Réprouvés

See the Talvin Singh number doubles up on his OK album too.




Sunday, 11 November 2018

Log #111 - Quiet, Quiet, Loud, Simmer, Simmer, Crash!

Eddy Bamyasi

Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of (CD 1)
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of (CD 2)
Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Jazzland - Remixed
Jan Jelinek - Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records
Takemitsu - Quatrain / A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden

It's not a huge leap from ambient electronica to modern classical although they are actually very different to listen to. The Toru Takemitsu (Japanese "classical" "modern" avant garde composer 1930 - 1996) album is definitely "classical". By that I mean it is orchestral rather than electronically produced. Takemitsu employs traditional classical instruments but there the similarity with what you'd think of as a traditional symphonic orchestra ends. So there are pianos and clarinets, violins and gongs, and even some guitar (Takemitsu did compose some solo classical guitar pieces). The pieces ebb and flow; subtle patches of peaceful beauty regularly burst forth into huge powerful crescendos. The instruments battle out constant questions and answers like jazz players. The music frequently sounds like the soundtrack to a Hitchcock film. Quiet, quiet, loud, simmer, simmer, crash! It sometimes feels like the composer has thrown everything and the kitchen sink into the score. But, boy, is it interesting. It's not an easy listen, but it's fascinating. If Vaughan Williams recalls an English country meadow in The Lark Ascending, Takemitsu's A Flock Descends flies in the opposite direction and sounds like the soundtrack to a New York street at rush hour.


photo credit : bbc



Sunday, 13 August 2017

Log #46 - No Change From Me

Eddy Bamyasi


1. ELO - Out of the Blue
2. JJ Cale - Naturally
3. The Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me
4. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
5. Takemitsu - Quatrain, A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden
6. Foals - Total Life Forever

It's the holiday season and my musical listening has transferred temporarily from the 6-Cd magazine to my ipod and all that that entails - ie. random plays and playlists. This isn't a state of affairs to be encouraged as I do believe a good album is a tangible entity in itself and is greater than the sum of its parts. See my essay on this phenomenon here>>.

Sunday, 6 August 2017

Log #45 - Naturally

Eddy Bamyasi


1. ELO - Out of the Blue
2. JJ Cale - Naturally
3. The Doobie Brothers - The Captain and Me
4. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
5. Takemitsu - Quatrain, A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden
6. Foals - Total Life Forever

Sunday, 30 July 2017

Log #44 - Nu rock, Old Rock, and other Nostalgia

Eddy Bamyasi


A bit of a sweep out of the magazine this week and what an eclectic bunch of pot pourri I've found lurking on the shelves: Plenty of nostalgia in more ways than one, some new rock, or nu rock, or post rock (I don't know what any of that means but I'm referring to The Foals), and some "modern" classical.

1. ELO - Out of the Blue
2. Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water
3. UFO - Phenomenon
4. Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
5. Takemitsu - Quatrain, A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden
6. Foals - Total Life Forever

First up ELO. They were my favourite band, and this was my favourite album when I was about 14 or 15 (when I first got into music). I remember buying my first real record. It was an EP of 4 tracks from ELO. I really wanted Out of the Blue but thought buying this EP would be ample consolation and I honestly wouldn't need any more records (reminds me of the story that my sister went to her first day at school thinking that was it, for her whole school career, one day!). A few years later after probably at least 50 album purchases my mother said "I think you've got enough records now" as if music collecting is a finite thing! Here I am 30+ years later with probably a four figure album collection.

The EP was excellent - from memory it contained Can't Get It Out of My Head, Ma Ma Belle, and a couple of other older tracks but... Out of the Blue was something else. Everyone loved it, it swept the awards season, spawned numerous hit singles, and came on blue vinyl in a luxurious gatefold sleeve and a cardboard spaceship apparently (I don't remember getting one of them).

I loved the blue vinyl. It looked so slick and clean compared to the black. I loved the cover which I pored over (I noticed there were 7 tiny figures on the inside sleeve corresponding to the band members. The music was amazing - great songs (apart from The Jungle which still annoys) peaking with Mr Blue Sky which remained my favourite song for ages. I loved the reprise part which my Dad told me had been done before by the Beatles. I didn't know what he meant until I heard Day In The Life (the "got up, dragged a comb across my head" section). I was proud to be an ELO fan and thought it especially cool that they had violins and cellos (I expect this was something to do with trying to impress my parents with "proper" musicians). I did a project on them for school which concluded with the unavoidable view that with their follow up albums of Discovery and Xanadu they had almost certainly declined from their 1977 magnificence. I did really try to like Discovery for a long time but it was a bit rubbish to be honest and tracks like The Diary of Horace Wimp just tried far too hard.

Jeff Lynne today - it could be 1977

Leader Jeff Lynne is still going strong still looking and sounding the same (witness his Glastonbury set last year). Why do so few of these long haired pop stars lose their hair in their later years?

ELO - Out of the Blue - Inside gatefold

Lie la lie, lie la lie lie lie la la lie!  (The Boxer) There are so many familiar tunes and lyrics on these amazing songs from the classic Bridge Over Troubled Water album. Many people have the Greatest Hits album which contains practically all these tunes plus some more but I always prefer to hear complete albums in their original context.

I remember these songs from my childhood as it was one of the few albums my parents had, and they played it a lot. When there wasn't such a choice in those days (60s, early 70s) it stands to reason that many households would have the same records. I also think the gatekeepers of quality were more discerning and only the best stuff got through (less so now when anyone with a laptop and an internet connection can get an album out).

Playing the album again it strikes me how melancholy a lot of the music is despite the number of upbeat songs like Cecilia, and the very Beatles / Beach Boys-esque Bye Bye Love etc. Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Boxer are pretty depressing. My favourite then and now is The Only Living Boy in New York.

I haven't followed Garfunkel or Simon in their solo careers. Art had the voice, and Paul had the songs, and together, like all good groups, they were greater than the sum of the parts. I saw Paul Simon on Jools Holland recently and he still sounded excellent and Art is still touring too. I can only imagine the fees they could command for a reunion.

Cover album this week is Phenomenon from UFO. A great little spunky rock band and this album has all you need to hear really. There's the famous Doctor Doctor Pleeeaaase! and Rock Bottom but the class is in the slower tempo blues tracks like Oh My, Too Young to Know etc. Also the cover is a classic. Look closely and you can see the UFO is the hub cap from the car - a picture I recreated rather well with a saucepan lid once! I understand guitar god Michael Schenker (where is he now?) was 17 when he recorded this album with UFO. Wow.

Michael Schenker - here he is, still going

Public Service Broadcasting set samples of literally old public information films to music. It's been done before but rarely as well as this. For the full experience see some of their Youtube videos. I saw them live at a festival and they didn't have the video backdrop which was disappointing. But they were still great fun and don't take themselves too seriously. Favourite track from this album is the exciting Go!


The very geeky, the very eccentric Willgoose and Wigglesworth aka PSB

I love this Takemitsu album. It's modern minimalist discordant classical music and makes for very interesting background ambient sound. I reference this to an aquarium I bought many years ago which coincided with having this album. I remember watching the orange platies against a lush green plant background with this otherworldly music accompaniment.

The Foals are one of the classiest of modern rock bands offering to my ear something a bit different (I'd stick them at the top of that modern prog rock league which contains contemporaries Coldplay, Elbow, and Muse). They have a great singer and an interesting melodic rhythm and vibes section. Key track on this album is Spanish Sahara.



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