Here’s something from nineties political cut-up video artists Emergency Broadcast Network for your delectation. They were to video what Steinski was to vinyl.
Monthly Archives: May 2008
RYM – Some final thoughts
A few weeks ago I wrote a fairly innocuous article about online discography sites, and in particular Rate Your Music and Discogs. I happened to mention that I’d encountered homphobic, misogynist and borderline racist comments on the former site. I wasn’t implying that these were endorsed by the site, or the work of more than a few obnoxious posters who probably thought themselves rebellious and controversial. Even so, it seems I sparked up quite a debate judging from the number of linked hits I got. I’ve not bothered to read it – I’m guessing that there was a fair amount of invective aimed my way, before everybody got bored and moved on to the next poor sap who said something they didn’t like.
Since then, I’ve discovered something far more disturbing about the Rate Your Music. In my trawls I’d discovered a couple of albums by obnoxious white supremacist skinheads Skrewdriver cropping up in lists. What I didn’t realise was this was just the tip of the iceberg, and that there are things on the site that make (the late and very much unlamented) Ian Stewart’s mob look like Guardianistas. Neo-nazi and National Socialist bands? Check. Bands whose very name advocates racial violence? Check. Bands who use images and descriptions of misogynist violence and rape as their ‘selling point’? Check. It’s all there.
So how do the site’s moderators justify it?. It’s the old freedom of speech cliché. “I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it” as Voltaire famously never said. This, coupled with the even less convincing “we are simply compiling a database of what exists – you don’t expect a dictionary to be censorous”.
Now I’m no prig (a prick, maybe, but not a prig). I’ve always been against censorship, and pro-freedom of speech. Censorship is a thorny issue, because it always ends up having faceless people determine what others can or cannot see / do / say. There are people offended by a nipple exposed in a photograph, a mild swearword, or any less than hallowed reference to Jesus/Mohammed/Diana or whoever else they are scared might be fatally tarnished by someone telling a joke about them, or drawing a cartoon of them (OK, better not go there). If we were that frightened of upsetting anyone’s delicate sensibilities, than there would probably be no art at all.
There is a line. It’s one thing to be offended by something – another to live in fear of violence, or even death, because of it. There is a reason that Germany and other countries have rigorously enforced laws against the advocation of ‘hate-crimes’. Much of the material I’m describing on RYM breaks these laws. I’m no expert on legal matters – indeed, I have no idea how the laws in England and Scotland work in these areas. But even if having this material on show is not illegal, it is still morally reprehensible. And inexcusable. The claim that these things will be ostracised for what they are, thus creating a community-based rejection of what they stand for is naïve beyond belief. RYM has in fact created a one-stop shop for information on all your neo-Nazi (and other) needs. “Oh, I didn’t know they had another three records as well – must track those down”. In other words, it’s unwittingly acting as a propagandist site.
I’m not for one minute suggesting that anyone who works on the site endorses any of this crap. But their naïve, idealistic libertarianism helps no one but those who seek to destroy the liberty (and lives) of all who don’t fit into their own warped and sick world view.
Cult Albums: #2 BEAUMONT HANNANT – Basic Data Manipulation: Tastes and Textures Vol. 2 (1993)
One for the “whatever happened to” file. Beaumont Hannant was a York-based electronic producer who was one of the most respected (and prolific) artists around the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ boom in the mid nineties (OK, IDM if you must). Recording for GPR, the Black Dog’s pre-Warp label, he released three full length albums and a whole bunch of EPs and singles between 1993 and 1996. Basic Data Manipulation was the first of these (also known as Tastes and Textures Vol. 2 – volume 1 being his first EP).
It’s an eclectic work, ranging from neo-acid stompers lie “Sc931” to symphonic synth-scapes (the aptly titled “Sym-phon5”), and pretty much all bases in between. It’s powerful stuff, sometimes hard and breakbeat-driven, sometimes cinematic and richly textured and sometimes dark and foreboding, and very much the equal of the works of his more celebrated contemporaries. Texturology and Sculptured are also both fine albums. In fact, there’s little choose between the three. Sculptured is more song based with Lida Husik (with whom he also made an album of straightforward songs called Evening At The Grange) providing vocals on four of the thirteen tracks.
In 1996, Hannant and his engineer Richard Brown formed Outcast, a fairly non-descript trip hop group who were signed to One Little Indian for one album. He did a few remixes for the likes of Björk and Autechre, and after that, there was very little more heard from him. He crammed a hell of a lot of good music into four years. It seems strange that he just stopped. I think all of his records are currently out of print, and not very easy to track down. Starting prices on Amazon, for example, range from £35 to £55 for the first two albums. If that proves anything, it’s that there is still interest in him out there.
Tracks
1 Basic Dialog 4:33
2 Sym-phon5 7:13
3 Sysex 4:36
4 T-gh6493 6:23
5 Sc931 6:30
6 Lude 2:41
7 Anokhi 6:15
8 The Hunted 5:29
9 Dei-form 7:07
Originally issued December 1993, GPR GPRCD02.
Album: TRUE COLOUR OF BLOOD – All Of The True Things I’m About To Tell You Are Lies (Gears Of Sand 2008)
True Colour Of Blood is the recording alias of Eric Kesner from Washington, DC. All Of The True Things I’m About To Tell You Are Lies is an album containing ten tracks of dark ambient dronescapes put together using guitar, mixer and tape manipulation. There are no keyboards or samplers involved. Kesner says on his website that “I haven’t used any keyboards because I feel that I can get a more interesting sound out of a guitar. I also find it to be more of a challenge to get the sounds I want from a guitar. Let’s be honest, anyone can get atmospheric, ambient soundscapes out of a keyboard. I’ve been playing guitar for over twenty years and I would feel like I was cheating if I used a keyboard, it’s too easy. It feels more pure to me to use guitar.”
The music is slow-moving and dark – like a creepy urban counterpart to Stars of the Lid’s pastoral melancholy. Some tracks are so minimal that the subtle changes barely register until after a few listens. “Of”, for example, is a sixteen minute piece that gets from A to B only to find that the difference between the two is barely apparent. This is not a criticism. When changes do occur, they are almost jarring. “Illegally Jailed For Applauding The Violent Death Of A World Leader” (great title) has a subterranean pulse that is barely audible, and a sinister series of almost dissonant chords. This is menace on an almost subconscious level.
“A Man Alone Is Simply God” takes the ambience to extremes, barely registering as sound at all. “Once Was Blind But Now I’m Deaf” is almost violent in its intensity by comparison. “Somnifer”, at seventeen minutes, is probably longer than it need be and sounds much like “Of” part two. The title track introduces a defined melody that actually sounds like it’s played on a stringed instrument. It’s a hauntingly beautiful coda, that brings a kind of post-apocalyptic dawn to the unrelenting night that has passed before it.
All Of The True Things I’m About To Tell You Are Lies is an excellent example of minimalist ambient drone. It’s not recommended as something to go to sleep to, unless you enjoy very dark dreams.
Tracks
1.Upon These Shores 4:03
2.Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow Creeps In This Petty Pace From Day To Day 4:13
3.Of 16:38
4.Defy 6:06
5.Illegally Jailed For Applauding The Violent Death Of A World Leader 6:55
6.A Man Alone Is Simply God 5:36
7.Once Was Blind But Now I’m Deaf 4:45
8.Somnifer 17:17
9.Sisyphus 8:19
10.All Of The True Things I’m About To Tell You Are Lies 3:46
Websites
www.tcobambient.com
www.myspace.com/tcobambient
TV Review – The Passions Of Vaughan Williams (BBC4)
This August sees the fiftieth anniversary of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ death, and this has given rise to two films about the composer already this year. After Tony Palmer’s magnificent three hour film O Thou Transcendent shown on Channel Five on New Year’s Day, we get the BBC’s offering, The Passions Of Vaughan Williams. It was a frustrating film. It didn’t seem to know what it wanted to be – a serious discourse on England’s greatest twentieth century composer, or a tabloid style piece of tittle-tattle about his love life. On the one hand, there was some serious and illuminating points made about works like, for example, the Pastoral Symphony, and how it was more inspired by the devastation of the Western Front than English meadows. Then later we have a debate about whether Ralph and Ursula shagged on their first date. The flimsy linkage being that RVW wrote passionate music because he was a passionate man. Next week, BBC4 reveals the crapping habits of bears.
There is a place for an exploration of Vaughan Williams’ relationships within a musical biography, but it was altogether overdone. Palmer’s film was more balanced on the subject. Writer / director / narrator John Bridcut, to his credit, seemed to find more interviewees than Palmer, and the musical sequences were superbly performed and staged. But overall it was an uneasily balanced film.
While I’m on the subject, a major disappointment of Alex Ross’s otherwise excellent book The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth Century, is the almost complete absence of Vaughan Williams (and Elgar, Holst, Walton and Delius for that matter). OK, his international reputation is nothing like his reputation at home, unlike true world figures like Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Shostakovitch. But to have a whole chapter on Benjamin Britten? That’s just barking.
Cult Albums: #1 MIMI & RICHARD FARINA – Reflections In A Crystal Wind (1965)
There are probably thousands or more great records that have, for whatever reason, fallen through the cracks of history. Some are by obscure artists, and some by better known acts which have been unfairly overlooked. Then there are others that have a devoted cult following, but which are virtually unknown outside of their constituency. I thought I’d write about a few of them that I like. First up, Mimi and Richard Farina’s second and final record Reflections In A Crystal Wind.
Richard Farina was born in Brooklyn on March 8th 1937. He was an active member of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the late fifties and early sixties and was briefly married to Carolyn Hester (who is best known these days for the fact that Bob Dylan made his studio debut contributing harmonica to her third album). The pair divorced after Farina became involved with Joan Baez’s teenage sister Mimi. The two married in 1963 and moved out to California. They didn’t re-emerge on the scene until 1965 when they had their debut album, Celebrations For A Grey Day, issued by Vanguard. They got a spot on the main stage at the Newport Folk Festival, and were an immediate hit. Their annus mirabilis was completed by the release of Reflections In A Crystal Wind in December.
With Richard playing dulcimer and Mimi autoharp, the pair’s music had a slight eastern flavour, with the twangy drones of the instruments sounding more in tune with the markets of Marrakech than the blue hills of Kentucky. The second album saw their bluegrass influenced folk beefed up with the addition of a full band on many of the tracks – sometime Bob Dylan collaborator, guitarist Bruce Langhorne was particularly important to the sound of the album. Indeed, many of the band arrangements had strong echoes of Dylan’s own explorations of a folk-rock sound the same year. The final, crucial ingredient was the couple’s voices which sounded as natural together as, say, Simon and Garfunkel’s. Mimi’s was like a more earthy version of her sister Joan’s, not dissimilar sounding, in fact, to Gillian Welch. Richard’s tenor wasn’t as strong, but blended perfectly.
Highlights of Reflections In A Crystal Wind include the title track which is uncannily prescient of some of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ work. “House Un-American Blues Activity Dream” is a rocking, Dylan-like stream-of-consciousness protest song, and “Bold Marauder” a droney, proto-psychedelic piece that anticipated some of the more acoustic things that Jefferson Airplane came up with a couple of years later. It was covered by former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith on her 1995 4AD album Five Ways Of Disappearing (which was the starting point for my discovery of the Farinas). Closing track “Children Of Darkness” is a stunning ballad, and features what is perhaps the couple’s greatest vocal interplay.
Reflections Of A Crystal Wind seemed to open any number of possible directions that Richard and Mimi could take their music in. Alas, it was not to happen. On April 30th 1966, two days after the publication of Richard’s novel Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me, he hitched a ride on the back of a friend’s motorbike. It crashed, allegedly doing 90mph at the time, and Richard was thrown off the back, dying instantly. It was Mimi’s 21st birthday.
The album is still in print. There is also an excellent compilation called Pack Up Your Sorrows which contains most of the couple’s material, including all but three tracks from the second record.
Tracks
A1 Reflections in a Crystal Wind
A2 Bold Marauder
A3 Dopico
A4 A Swallow Song
A5 Chrysanthemum
A6 Sell-Out Agitation Waltz
A7 Hard-Loving Loser
B1 Mainline Prosperity Blues
B2 Allen’s Interlude
B3 House Un-American Blues Activity Dream
B4 Raven Girl
B5 Miles
B6 Children of Darkness
Originally issued December 1965, Vanguard 79204
“Bold Marauder” with Pete Seeger looking like a proud dad - from a show called Rainbow Quest
