Such A Long Post
Scott Walker, "Such A Small Love" - People who say that irony is useless as a critical tool obviously need to listen to more Scott Walker, or, failing that, probably ought to just give up and move inside my head. Walker, to be certain, is something of a hip musical crush at the moment, so I don't want to pass myself off as some sort of expert; like many lonely, overpaid dorks over the last thirty-odd years, I found myself in the record store holding a copy of Scott 4, then a few days later in the same store with Scott 1, and then it's just sort of snowballed since then. But don't think for a moment that I haven't been reaping the rewards of my half-assed efforts anyway - I've learned huge lessons about music from exceedingly limited slices of an extraordinarily prolific artist's catalogue in the past, and the lessons I'm learning from Walker so far are up there with the most profound. In fact, therein lies the irony: the lessons I'm learning from Scott Walker records might as well be continuations of the ones I learned from Brian Eno's.
On the surface, of course, this may not seem all that ironic; after all, both Eno and Walker made their names making fairly convetional (if wildly unconventionl within the musical idiom in which they were conceived) records before taking a hard left on Experimental Music Avenue. But no; the irony isn't that I'm finding that On Land ends right where Tilt begins, but rather that its torch is picked up in my head by Walker's first four albums, all of which are shatteringly conventional when compared to something like Music for Airports or Apollo. I mean, a song like "Boychild" or "Seventh Seal" may veer off in some rather imaginative directions compared to other pop songs, but fuck, at least it's still a song, a category under which I'd have a hard time filing any of the tracks from Music for Airports. And yet somehow, the two artists have become inextricably linked in my mind, in part because of how I use their respective records (it can't be an accident that the record Scott 1 had to depose in order to become King Of My Morning Drive-Time CDs was On Land), but more honestly because the two seem to be teaching me the same lessons, regardless of how exceptionally different they are as objects.
And what might those lessons be? Honestly, nothing much in particular - mostly just little notes to myself about aspects of music that I hadn't fully considered, but nothing too earth-shattering. And I'm perfectly fine with that; if there's one thing I know about music, it's that no matter how lucky we are that it exists, it's not going to save the world or anything (this, incidentally, is exactly why Bono should be fired directly into the hottest part of the sun). What's important, rather, is the learning process at work in the cases of both Walker and Eno; both have been profoundly instructive when it comes to forcing me to learn how to listen to their music, and unless you're a starving Ethiopian personally handed a bag of millet and a copy of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Bob Geldof, that's about as sweet a fruit as music's going to be able to bear you. It's easy, after all, to find songs that you like or identify with, or at least as easy as it is to find a sitcom that makes you laugh - all you're really doing is holding up your end of the bargain. But music that actually forces you to do something, even if that "something" doesn't go past "putting the record on while you sit on your ass, get trashed, and read the War Nerd" - that's the stuff that stays with you, both in your head and in your record collection.
And in the case of both Eno's ambient experiments and Walker's lavishly-orchestrated weirdo balladry, the thing I'm being forced to do is as simple as PAY SOME FUCKING ATTENTION. I think a lot of the times, when confronted with exceedingly conceptual music, people - and I freely admit that I'm first in line behind the piper on this one - tend to acknowledge the concept at work, decide whether or not they like it, and move on, which is fine if you don't see a problem with treating a Tangerine Dream synthdirge like a Pipettes b-side. But the more stuff I listen to, the more I find myself drawn to stuff that actually gives me space to think about it. The "concept" of Music for Airports, for instance, is comprehensible without ever even actually playing the record; all I needed in order to form an opinion about it was a one-paragraph blurb the backpages of CMJ when I was in junior high to figure out everything I needed to know about the album. Needless to say, for the longest time I was convinced that it was a big ol' pile of shit; I just couldn't see the virtue of listening to a record engineered to soothe people hustling through Idlewild airport to catch their connecting flight to Duluth. Then, of course, I actually listened to it and found myself knocked right the motherfuck out; I may have understood its function, but I had no idea that its function had been executed with such supernatural elegance, or that it might be a function that I might find useful.
And that, people, is the torch that Scott Walker picked up. I mean, Scott 1-4 is full of music that your parents, if not your grandparents, could easily listen to, assuming they're in the habit of listening to songs translating Ingmar Bergman movies into music or songs very illustratively titled "My Death" - in short, full of stupid bullshit nobody in their right minds would listen to if it weren't for the not-insignificant fact that it sure does sound kinda really amazing. And, to be fair, the way Scott Walker's songs sound gives it as tangible a leg up over Music for Airports as the latter might have to someone who just crawled out of a cave having only listened to John Cage for the last thirty years; the Scott records are as lush and meticulously arranged and built to sound like cinema as anything I've heard not actually on the Goodfellas soundtrack, and you don't have to be some self-punishing music dork to notice it. But the devil isn't in the bombast - you've got to crane your ears to hear the stuff that's really worth hearing, like the way the weight of the horn section drops through the floor when the chorus sweeps in on "Such A Small Love", or the way the elegant organ tones seem to hang in the air vibrating, or the way that Scott Walker - not exactly a singer known for his vocal restraint - has to lash himself to the front of the ship just to get the title phrase out in the chorus... and then, late one night when you're driving home, you happen to notice that all those little details combine to form something quite useful, like a song about how hard it is to retain composure when you come face-to-face with the ineffectiveness of your presence on the planet and the way that can lead emotions to just come exploding out of you when you finally acknowledge them. And I don't know if stuff like that has any traction in your lives, ladies and gentlemen, but it most certainly does in mine. The biggest question left, I guess, is whether or not it's got as much traction as the way I came to encounter it. (Click here to buy Scott 1 from Amazon.com)
Jori Hulkkonen, "Lo-Fiction" - Songs like this are the devil. I mean, it's one thing for a song to simply sound outstandingly, arrestingly great, but it's another thing entirely when a song just so happens to confirm about a thousand poorly-constructed stereotypes with the sumptuous effortlessness with which Jori Hulkkonen happens to sum up pop music from north of the Benelux in "Lo-Fiction". Call me prejudiced, call me an early victim for the PR behind both Bjork and Roxette, call me whatever you want, but I'd like to think that music from that whole region is marked by resignation and poignancy in equal measure, and that's exactly what every element of "Lo-Fiction" pulls off with nearly preturnatural grace, from that gently insistant synth burble to that elegantly desperate refrain, "I'm into giving up my needs". And frankly, I can barely stand it - how the hell am I supposed to start buying shit off Hybris or Labrador willy-nilly if I've already heard an exact summation of their ideal form? I mean, the Libertines may have blown all competitors out of the water, but at least they didn't do so in a way that makes me think twice about spending money I should probably be saving up for that kidney transplant - I mean, dammit Jori, do you want me to go get a life or something? (Click here to buy Dualizm, the album containing "Lo-Fiction", from Amazon.co.uk)
Keith, "Mona Lisa's Child" (Mr Dan's mix) - Yeah yeah yeah, but that's why pencils have erasers - for those times when you trip and fall ass-backwards overa song that ever-so-casually strides past something you've already flipped out over (and, to be sure, still love the hell out of - Braxe and Falke's 2006 may well end up being comparable to Jacques Lu Cont's 2005 when the dust settles, and for my money, their remix of this song is waaaay up there on the list of things the duo have ever released). But what can you do? Some songs just work better in some styles than in others, and as it turns out, "Mona Lisa's Child" works a whole hell of a lot better as a particularly jangly slice of Hacienda-pop than it does as a slinky retrofuturist disco anthem,
probably due in no small part to the fact that the original was already a pretty indie affair to begin with (i.e. it works on the same basic level as the DFA remixing Liquid Liquid). And then of course there's my well-avowed suckerhood for all things piano, a fact which kinda kept raising its hand in the back of the short bus called my mind and going UH TEACHER YOU GOTTA PICK ME about three seconds into the song and stopped only when the whole shebang wound down to a close. And then there's all the new stuff the Braxe & Falke version excised in favor of aerodynamics; having still never heard the original song on its own, I can't say whether or not the sneery, White Rose Movement-y second verse packs the same gutpunch that it does here on Mr. Dan's mix, but I JUST DON'T CARE. Jesus - it's hard enough to get me to admit I was wrong about liking stuff in the first place; why don't y'all cut me a break and try listening to the remix instead of me for a while? (Click here to buy the "Mona Lisa's Child" single featuring the Mr. Dan remix from Juno)
On the surface, of course, this may not seem all that ironic; after all, both Eno and Walker made their names making fairly convetional (if wildly unconventionl within the musical idiom in which they were conceived) records before taking a hard left on Experimental Music Avenue. But no; the irony isn't that I'm finding that On Land ends right where Tilt begins, but rather that its torch is picked up in my head by Walker's first four albums, all of which are shatteringly conventional when compared to something like Music for Airports or Apollo. I mean, a song like "Boychild" or "Seventh Seal" may veer off in some rather imaginative directions compared to other pop songs, but fuck, at least it's still a song, a category under which I'd have a hard time filing any of the tracks from Music for Airports. And yet somehow, the two artists have become inextricably linked in my mind, in part because of how I use their respective records (it can't be an accident that the record Scott 1 had to depose in order to become King Of My Morning Drive-Time CDs was On Land), but more honestly because the two seem to be teaching me the same lessons, regardless of how exceptionally different they are as objects.
And what might those lessons be? Honestly, nothing much in particular - mostly just little notes to myself about aspects of music that I hadn't fully considered, but nothing too earth-shattering. And I'm perfectly fine with that; if there's one thing I know about music, it's that no matter how lucky we are that it exists, it's not going to save the world or anything (this, incidentally, is exactly why Bono should be fired directly into the hottest part of the sun). What's important, rather, is the learning process at work in the cases of both Walker and Eno; both have been profoundly instructive when it comes to forcing me to learn how to listen to their music, and unless you're a starving Ethiopian personally handed a bag of millet and a copy of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Bob Geldof, that's about as sweet a fruit as music's going to be able to bear you. It's easy, after all, to find songs that you like or identify with, or at least as easy as it is to find a sitcom that makes you laugh - all you're really doing is holding up your end of the bargain. But music that actually forces you to do something, even if that "something" doesn't go past "putting the record on while you sit on your ass, get trashed, and read the War Nerd" - that's the stuff that stays with you, both in your head and in your record collection.
And in the case of both Eno's ambient experiments and Walker's lavishly-orchestrated weirdo balladry, the thing I'm being forced to do is as simple as PAY SOME FUCKING ATTENTION. I think a lot of the times, when confronted with exceedingly conceptual music, people - and I freely admit that I'm first in line behind the piper on this one - tend to acknowledge the concept at work, decide whether or not they like it, and move on, which is fine if you don't see a problem with treating a Tangerine Dream synthdirge like a Pipettes b-side. But the more stuff I listen to, the more I find myself drawn to stuff that actually gives me space to think about it. The "concept" of Music for Airports, for instance, is comprehensible without ever even actually playing the record; all I needed in order to form an opinion about it was a one-paragraph blurb the backpages of CMJ when I was in junior high to figure out everything I needed to know about the album. Needless to say, for the longest time I was convinced that it was a big ol' pile of shit; I just couldn't see the virtue of listening to a record engineered to soothe people hustling through Idlewild airport to catch their connecting flight to Duluth. Then, of course, I actually listened to it and found myself knocked right the motherfuck out; I may have understood its function, but I had no idea that its function had been executed with such supernatural elegance, or that it might be a function that I might find useful.
And that, people, is the torch that Scott Walker picked up. I mean, Scott 1-4 is full of music that your parents, if not your grandparents, could easily listen to, assuming they're in the habit of listening to songs translating Ingmar Bergman movies into music or songs very illustratively titled "My Death" - in short, full of stupid bullshit nobody in their right minds would listen to if it weren't for the not-insignificant fact that it sure does sound kinda really amazing. And, to be fair, the way Scott Walker's songs sound gives it as tangible a leg up over Music for Airports as the latter might have to someone who just crawled out of a cave having only listened to John Cage for the last thirty years; the Scott records are as lush and meticulously arranged and built to sound like cinema as anything I've heard not actually on the Goodfellas soundtrack, and you don't have to be some self-punishing music dork to notice it. But the devil isn't in the bombast - you've got to crane your ears to hear the stuff that's really worth hearing, like the way the weight of the horn section drops through the floor when the chorus sweeps in on "Such A Small Love", or the way the elegant organ tones seem to hang in the air vibrating, or the way that Scott Walker - not exactly a singer known for his vocal restraint - has to lash himself to the front of the ship just to get the title phrase out in the chorus... and then, late one night when you're driving home, you happen to notice that all those little details combine to form something quite useful, like a song about how hard it is to retain composure when you come face-to-face with the ineffectiveness of your presence on the planet and the way that can lead emotions to just come exploding out of you when you finally acknowledge them. And I don't know if stuff like that has any traction in your lives, ladies and gentlemen, but it most certainly does in mine. The biggest question left, I guess, is whether or not it's got as much traction as the way I came to encounter it. (Click here to buy Scott 1 from Amazon.com)
Jori Hulkkonen, "Lo-Fiction" - Songs like this are the devil. I mean, it's one thing for a song to simply sound outstandingly, arrestingly great, but it's another thing entirely when a song just so happens to confirm about a thousand poorly-constructed stereotypes with the sumptuous effortlessness with which Jori Hulkkonen happens to sum up pop music from north of the Benelux in "Lo-Fiction". Call me prejudiced, call me an early victim for the PR behind both Bjork and Roxette, call me whatever you want, but I'd like to think that music from that whole region is marked by resignation and poignancy in equal measure, and that's exactly what every element of "Lo-Fiction" pulls off with nearly preturnatural grace, from that gently insistant synth burble to that elegantly desperate refrain, "I'm into giving up my needs". And frankly, I can barely stand it - how the hell am I supposed to start buying shit off Hybris or Labrador willy-nilly if I've already heard an exact summation of their ideal form? I mean, the Libertines may have blown all competitors out of the water, but at least they didn't do so in a way that makes me think twice about spending money I should probably be saving up for that kidney transplant - I mean, dammit Jori, do you want me to go get a life or something? (Click here to buy Dualizm, the album containing "Lo-Fiction", from Amazon.co.uk)
Keith, "Mona Lisa's Child" (Mr Dan's mix) - Yeah yeah yeah, but that's why pencils have erasers - for those times when you trip and fall ass-backwards overa song that ever-so-casually strides past something you've already flipped out over (and, to be sure, still love the hell out of - Braxe and Falke's 2006 may well end up being comparable to Jacques Lu Cont's 2005 when the dust settles, and for my money, their remix of this song is waaaay up there on the list of things the duo have ever released). But what can you do? Some songs just work better in some styles than in others, and as it turns out, "Mona Lisa's Child" works a whole hell of a lot better as a particularly jangly slice of Hacienda-pop than it does as a slinky retrofuturist disco anthem,
probably due in no small part to the fact that the original was already a pretty indie affair to begin with (i.e. it works on the same basic level as the DFA remixing Liquid Liquid). And then of course there's my well-avowed suckerhood for all things piano, a fact which kinda kept raising its hand in the back of the short bus called my mind and going UH TEACHER YOU GOTTA PICK ME about three seconds into the song and stopped only when the whole shebang wound down to a close. And then there's all the new stuff the Braxe & Falke version excised in favor of aerodynamics; having still never heard the original song on its own, I can't say whether or not the sneery, White Rose Movement-y second verse packs the same gutpunch that it does here on Mr. Dan's mix, but I JUST DON'T CARE. Jesus - it's hard enough to get me to admit I was wrong about liking stuff in the first place; why don't y'all cut me a break and try listening to the remix instead of me for a while? (Click here to buy the "Mona Lisa's Child" single featuring the Mr. Dan remix from Juno)
posted by James at 4:14 PM
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1 Comments:
Keith deserve props for the sole fact that they cover "La Ritournelle" (and pretty much pull it off) and can get such incredible remixers as Braxe/Falke and SMD and co. on their singles. I'm ridiculously excited to see a Mr. Dan remix I didn't have up here, as I'm trying to find as much by him as possible. From the three tracks I've heard from him so far ("Ritournelle", Tellier's "Broadway", this one), dude seems untouchable.
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