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jgthirlwell · 5 years

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2019 year in review

This year I also invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2019

JG Thirlwell

Composer Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

30 Albums of 2019 (although not all of them came out in 2019) Damon Locks & Black Monument Ensemble Where Future Unfolds (International Anthem) Le Grand Sbam Vaisseau Monde (Dur et Doux Caravaggio Caravaggio 2 & Turn Up (La Buissonne) Swans Leaving Meaning (Young God Records) 13 Million Year Old Ghost (Chaykin) Ben Frost Dark Cycles 1 & 2 (Invada) Sote Parallel Persia / Sacred Horror In Design (Diagonal) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Anna Meredith Fibs (Moshi Moshi) Kelly Moran Ultraviolet (Warp) Thom Yorke Anima (XL) Hildur Guðnadóttir Joker Soundtrack (Water Tower Music) Lingua Ignota Caligula (Profound Lore) Igorr Savage Synusoid (Metal Blade) Oli XL Rogue intruder Soul Enhancer (Blo-onm) Red Fang Murder The Mountains (Relapse) Michael Kiwanuka Kiwanuka (Polydor) Richard Dawson 2020 (Weird World) Idiot Flesh Fancy / The Nothing Show / Tales Of Instant Knowledge and Sure Death (YouTube) Ikarus Echo / Mosaiasmic (Ronin Rhythm Records) Poil Sus / Mula Poil (Dur et Doux) Orange Goblin A Eulogy For The Damned (Candlelight) Nivhek After its own death / Walking in a spiral towards the house (Yellow Electric) Ni Pantophobie (Due et Doux) Andrew WK You’re Not Alone (Sony) Rustin Man Drift Code (Domino) Kishi Bashi Omoiyari (Joful Noise) Liturgy HAQQ (YLYLCYN) Croatian Amor Isa (Posh Isolation) Schnellertollermeier Rights / X / Zorn einen ehmer üttert stem!! (Cuneiform) Scandinavian Star Solas (Posh Isolation) Synth Sisters Euphoria (EM records) JPEGMAFIA Veteran + All My Heroes Are Cornballs (EQT)

Notable Concerts I went to dozens of concerts and events in 2019. Here are some of the most notable. All in NYC except where noted.

Jan 8 Matt Marks Tribute at Protoype Festival. Roulette Jan 19 Lemon Twigs MHOW Jan 26 Julia Wolfe / NY Philharmonic Fire In My Mouth Lincoln Center Feb 16 Lucretia Dalt Issue Project Room Feb 23 Willliam Basinski Ambient Church Mar 13 Lou Reed Drones St John The Divine Mar 18 This Heat LPR + July 31 at Elsewhere Mar 20 Oran Ambarchi Fridman Gallery Mar 28 Fire! at Zurcher April 11 Aphex Twin Avant Gardner May 4 Zombi El Cortez May 11 Lawrence English Knockdown Center May 13 The Who + Orchestra Madison Square Garedn May 15 Alva Noto Metropolitan Museum June 11 Andrew Cyrille Marathon Roulette June 13 Christeene / Nastie Band Brooklyn Bazaar June 26 Simon Hanes National Sawdust July 27 Nick Zinner 41 Strings Rockefeller Center July 30 Flaming Lips / Lennon Claypool Delirium Capitol Theater Portchester Aug 2-4 Bang On A Can LOUD Festival Mass MOCA Notth Adams Aug 27 Pharmakon St Vitus Sep 5 JD Emmanuel Issue / First Unitarian Church Sep 18 Lingua Ignota St Vitus Set 21 King Crimson Radio City Oct 10 Melvins Warsaw Oct 19 Helm Cafe Oto Nov 1 Marc Almond Brooklyn Bazaar Nov 6 JPEGMAFIA Bowery Ballroom Nov 23 Caterina Barbieri Unsound Fest, Knockdown Center Nov 30 Knower Bowery Ballroom

Film & TV These films were flawed but resonated with me.

Chernobyl Ozark Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Joker Midsommar The Irishman Uncut Gems

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Matt Johnson

The The https://www.thethe.com/

Looking back on 2019 I decided to list a handful of political / alternative news websites rather than films, albums or books. In the UK the corporate media stooped to shocking new lows during our recent General Election campaign. Such dirty tactics are to be expected of conglomerates owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch and his fellow right wing billionaires but this time around, previously ‘liberal’ outlets such as the BBC and Guardian also fully participated in the outrageous lies, smears and character assassination against the leader of the opposition Labour Party. The British population were now being forced fed the Establishment’s propaganda du jour from every possible direction. Personally I try to gather my information from as many alternative outlets as possible to contrast with the 24 hour corporate brainwashing we’re subjected to these days. I’ve listed just five sites from the dozens I regularly visit and although I certainly don’t agree with everything expressed on these sites I do feel that it essential that in supposed free and democratic societies we are at least exposed to a variety of viewpoints and opinions - rather than being trapped inside social media echo chambers in an Internet that is increasingly controlled and censored by sophisticated algorithms and where politically correct digital lynch mobs accuse anyone with an opinion that contradicts the official narrative of being a Russian agent! Anyway, a Happy New Year to you all and here’s hoping 2020 sets the new decade off in roaring style!

https://www.medialens.org/

https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/

https://www.corbettreport.com/

https://thesaker.is/

https://thoughtmaybe.com/about/

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Tristan Perich

Composer www.tristanperich.com

Here is a rather random selection of 10 of my favorite tracks of 2019, mostly courtesy Spotify recommendations over the year...

Full playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6OUSFLqLsAwhRQRF44yxWN?si=r33XRUuGR_iIOZHg4thuyA

Lechuga Zafiro: Para Abajo feat Matmos & Seba TC https://open.spotify.com/track/2xMnSTIBNZ8AT6w6TdZyU9

Kelpe: A Year and a Day https://open.spotify.com/track/4ANoLzEjtGOBl5qCvEiLov

Shida Shahabi: All In Circles https://open.spotify.com/track/5qMnq88JPMJQ81x5szpN3t

The Vernon Spring: Strength of a Young Man https://open.spotify.com/track/0zQUqR1UcXoPRSrTt0WuPs

Dessert: Thunderbird https://open.spotify.com/track/5rAguSvXxyo5zBq9a5RQWd

Yves V w/ Icona Pop: We Got That Cool (Robert Falcon & Jordan Jay Remix) https://open.spotify.com/track/1lEtudJvZNiibWzXc5m4mh

Selena Gomez: Look At Her Now https://open.spotify.com/track/4yI3HpbSFSgFZtJP2kDe5m

Masahiro Sugaya: Umi No Sunatsubu https://open.spotify.com/track/43egCanD1UNNvoCo2K4veC

Konradsen: Baby Hallelujah https://open.spotify.com/track/6TBnYhxTzSiiVmMBjpZ3gH

Slow Magic: Girls (DJ Clap Remix) https://open.spotify.com/track/31Sdj7aF1h4emCJtkxdy1A

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James Ilgenfritz

Composer https://infrequentseams.com/

James Ilgenfritz's favorite witnessed events, by month:

Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future (January, Guggenheim) Anaïs Maviel: who is this ritual for and from? (February, Roulette) Roscoe MItchell, SPACE, Wavefield Ensemble (March, Park Avenue Armory) Blank Forms: Nadah El Shazly (April, Brooklyn Music School) Barre Phillips Solo (May, Zurcher Gallery) Heiner Goebbels: Everything That Happened And Would Happen (June, Park Avenue Armory) Zodiac Saxophone Quartet: Charles Waters, Ras Moshe Burnett, Claire Daly, Lee Odom (July, Scholes St) Tie: Judith Berkson: Partial Memories & Juho Laitinen: Robert Ashley's The Wolfman (August, Ostrava Days, Czech Republic) Zeena Parkins / William Winant / Ikue Mori (September, The Stone) Vinnie Golia / Bobby Bradford Quartet (October, Edgefest in Ann Arbor) LA Philharmonic: Wubbels, Macklay, Sabat, Smith, Perich (Los Angeles, November) Art Ensemble Of Chicago (December, Washington, DC)

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Carl Michael Von Hausswolff

Artist / Composer

https://cmvonhausswolff.net/

10 special artists of 2019 in no specific order: • Hildur Guðnadóttir - her film music • sunn o))) - their Life Metal and Pyroclasts albums • Ilpo Väisänen - his concert in Stockholm • Cindy van Acker - her choreographic work • Jónsi & Alex - their old Riceboy Sleeps album and 2019 tour • Swans - their leaving meaning album • Flowers Must Die - their Där Blommor Dör album • Bigert & Bergström - their climate awareness art • Vanessa Sinclair & Carl Abrahamsson - all their work during 2019 • Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Tim Story - their Lunz 3 album

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Ryan Martin

Label Boss, Dais Records

www.daisrecords.com

Richard Youngs & Raül Refree "All Hands Around the Monument" Sarah Davachi "Pale Bloom" James Hoff "HOBO UFO (v. Chernobyl)" Wojciech Rusin ‎"The Funnel" Caterina Barbieri "Ecstatic Computation" Solange "When I Get Home" Kali Malone "The Sacrificial Code" Deathprod "Occulting Disk" Vatican Shadow "Kuwaiti Airforce" Ben Vida "Reducing The Tempo To Zero" JPEGMAFIA "All My Heroes Are Cornballs" Dean Hurley "Anthology Resource Vol. II: Philosophy of Beyond" Sean McCann "Puck" Oren Ambarchi "Simian Angel" Tyler, The Creator "IGOR" Helm "Chemical Flowers" JAB "Erg Herbe" Emptyset "Blossoms" E-Saggila "My World, My Way" Jacob Kirkegaard "Black Metal Square" Boy Harsher "Careful"

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Weasel Walter

Composer/performer / label head https://weaselwalter.bandcamp.com/

2019 was far from my favorite year. Regardless, I managed to release not one, but two new double albums by The Flying Luttenbachers (as well as two European tours with the unit) in addition to the usual slew of improvised music gigs and releases, and co-ordinating and producing an archival release of vintage NYC weirdness (Ozone). I also rocked Mexico City with Lydia Lunch Retrovirus, played a ridiculous gig with Encenathrakh, and disbanded Cellular Chaos (for now, at least).

When I become obsessed (or re-obsessed with something), it usually leads to a ton of proselytizing Facebook status posts. Combing my 2019 posts, it seems that my musical obsessions this year weren't very highbrow. Ha ha ha. Yes, I'm super into Xenakis, Cecil Taylor and whatever else, but dumber music can supply great creature comfort, and I guess I needed that in large amounts, so that's what it was. Sometimes badass modernists have to take time out to stay in bed all day and read comics because it's a hard cold world out there.

Weasel Walter top 10 musical obsessions of 2019 1. Kid Creole and the Coconuts (1980-1985 era) 2. Redd Kross 3. The Saints "I'm Stranded" 4. Jane Aire and the Belvederes 5. Miles Davis 1972-1975 6. Khanate "Things Viral 7. Mandy Zone & Ozone "Live at Max's Kansas City 1981" 8. Mayhem "Grand Declaration of War" 9. Comedy Bang Bang Episode #554 w/ Middleditch, Sanz 10. Weezer "Pinkerton"

Weasel Walter worst thing about 2019

1. Windows 10

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C.Spencer Yeh

Composer / Performer https://twitter.com/cspenceryeh?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Ten live music highlights of 2019 - The Brandon Lopez Trio (Lopez/Steve Baczkowski/Gerald Cleaver) at Fridman Gallery, June 18 - DeForrest Brown Jr., Pennies From Heaven series at CONTROL, January 15 - Charmaine Lee, Nothing Changes at Saint Vitus, January 30 - Bloodyminded at Apartment 202, December 14 - Longmont Potion Castle live QnA, Spectacle Theater, March 23 - Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, Roulette, July 1 - Helm, Elsewhere, September 21 - Korn, Radiohead, Red Light District, October 26 - Mdou Moctar, Max Fish, September 1 - Mayo Thompson plays "Corky's Debt to His Father," Le Poisson Rouge, December 8

Speed round – five various still on the mind at the end of 2019 - Charlotte Moorman / Nam June Paik long sleeve t-shirt, Boot Boyz - Acacia leaf omelet and shrimp in sour curry, Jitlada, Los Angeles - Lynnée Denise, presentation for Omniaudience (Side Two) presented by Triple Canopy/Nikita Gale/Hammer Museum at Coaxial Arts, May 4 - PARASITE (2019) - ANIARA (2018)

Also, Spectacle Theater turns ten in 2020 and you should really come visit us.

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DJ Food

Artist / composer / DJ / curator

www.djfood.org

Music / podcasts: Pye Corner Audio - Hollow Earth LP (Ghost Box) Various - Corroded Circuits EP 12" (Downfall Recordings) Chris Moss Acid - Heavy Machine 12" (Balkan Vinyl) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Fishing For Fishes LP (Flightless) Pictogram - Trace Elements cassette (Miracle Pond) Vanishing Twin - The Age of Immunology LP (Fire Records) Big Mouth podcast (various) (Acast) Beans - Triptych LP (Gamma Proforma) Roisin Murphy - Incapable single (Skint) Ebony Steel Band - Pan Machine LP (Om Swagger) People Like Us - The Mirror LP (Discrepant) Coastal County - Coastal County LP (Lomas) Adam Buxton podcast (various) (Acast) Ghost Funk Orchestra - A Song For Paul LP (Karma Chief) Jon Brooks - Emotional Freedom Techniques LP (Cafe Kaput) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Organ Farmer (from Infest the Rat's Nest LP) (Flightless) Jane Weaver - Fenella LP (Fire Records) Polypores - Brainflowers cassette (Miracle Pond)

Design / packaging: Pepe Deluxé - The Surrealist Woman lathe cut 7" (Catskills) Various - Science & Technology ERR Rec Library Vol.2 (ERR Records) DJ Pierre presents ACID 88 vol. III LP (Afro Acid) Mark Ayres plays Wendy Carlos - Kubrick 7" (Silva Screen) Tomorrow Syndicate - Citizen Input 10" (Polytechnic Youth) The Utopia Strong - S/T LP (Rocket Recordings) Jarvis - Sunday Service LP (ACE records) Andy Votel - Histoire D'Horreur cassette (Hypocrite?) Sculpture - Projected Music 5" zoetrope picture disc (Psyché Tropes) Lapalux - Amnioverse LP (Brainfeeder) Hieroglyphic Being - Synth Expressionism / Rhythmic Cubism LP (On The Corner Records)

Film / TV: Sculpture - Meeting Our Associates (Plastic Infinite) This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC) Avengers: Endgame (Disney/Marvel) Imaginary Landscapes - Sam Campbell (Vinyl Factory) What We Do In The Shadows (BBC2) The Mandalorian (Disney+)

Books / Comics / Magazines: Beastie Boys Book - Mike Diamond & Adam Horowitz (Spiegel & Grau) Cosmic Comics - A Kevin O'Neill Miscellany (Hibernia Books) Electronic Sound magazine (Pam Com. Ltd) Moebius - 40 Days In The Desert (expanded edition) (Moebius Productions) Rock Graphic Originals - Peter Golding w. Barry Miles (Thames & Hudson) 2000AD / Judge Dredd Megazine (Rebellion) Silver Surfer Black - Donny Cates/Tradd Moore (Marvel) Help - Simon Amstell (Square Peg) The Scarfolk Annual - Richard Littler (William Collins) Wrappers Delight - Jonny Trunk (Fuel)

Gigs / Events: Vanishing Twin @ Prince of Wales Pub, Brighton Stereolab @ Concorde 2, Brighton People's Vote March 23rd March, London Wobbly Sounds book launch @ Spiritland, London Confidence Man @ The Electric, Brixton, London Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul Festival, Moseley, Birmingham Bluedot Festival, Jodrell Bank, Manchester HaHa Sounds Collective play David Axelrod's Earth Rot @ Tate Exchange, London School of Hypnosis play In C @ Cafe Oto, London Palace Electrics, Antenna Studios, London The Delaware Road, New Zealand Farm, Salisbury Breaking Convention closing party, Greenwich, London Jonny Trunk & Martin Green's Hidden Library @ Spiritland, Southbank, London Negativland / People Like Us @ Cafe Oto, London HaHa Sound Collective plays the David Axelrod songbook @ The Church of Sound, London, Sculpture, Janek Schaefer, Mariam Rezaei + the 26 turntable ensemble @ The Old Baths, Hackney, London Vanishing Twin & Jane Weaver's Fenella @ Studio 9294, Hackney Wick, London

Exhibitions: Sister Corita Kent @ House of Illustration, London, Augustinbe Kofie @ Stolen Space, London, Victor Vasarely @ Pompidou Centre, Paris, Mary Quant @ V&A Museum, London, Stanley Kubrick @ The Design Museum, London, Tim Hunkin's Novelty Automation Museum, London, Keith Haring retrospective @Tate, Liverpool, Nam June Paik, Tate Modern, London, Takis @ Tate Modern, London, Shepard Fairy @ Stolen Space, London, Damien Hirst 'Mandalas' at the White Cube, London, Bridget Riley @ The Hayward, London, Museum of Neo-liberalism, Lewisham, London.

#playlist #DJ Food #JG Thirlwell #C.Spencer Yeh #Weasel Walter #Ryan Martin #dais records #Carl Michael Von Hausswolff #James Ilgenfritz #Matt Johnson #The THe #Tristan Perich #2019 year in review

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deepartnature · 5 years

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John Zorn’s Naked City – The Marquee Club, New York City, NY, 1992-04-09

"John Zorn’s Naked City April 9, 1992 The Marquee Club, New York, NY pro-shot (a neckey – voltarized upgrade) Personnel: John Zorn: Alto Sax Bill Frisell: Guitar Wayne Horvitz: keyboards Fred Frith : Bass Joey Baron: drums Yamatsuka Eye: vocals 01–opening titles 02–sunset surfer 03–asylum 04–terkmani tepee 05–party girl (false start)/party girl (right version) 06–shock corridor 07–speedfreaks 08–poisonhead 09–bonehead 10–blood duster 11–the catacombs (aka the vault or the inferno) 12–thrash jazz assassin 13–hellraiser 14–dead spot 15–sack of shit 16–metaltov 17–snagglepuss 18–the yodel (Big John Patton/Grant Green) 19–bone orchard 20–the list of adrian messenger (Jerry Goldsmith) 21–a night in tunisia (Dizzy Gillespie) 22–blood is thin 23–blunt instrument / end titles"

NeuGuitars (Video)

2009 March: John Zorn, 2010 August: Spillane 2011 October: Filmworks Anthology : 20 Years of Soundtrack Music, 2012 September: Marc Ribot, 2013 January: Bar Kokhba and Masada, 2013 September: Masada String Trio Sala, 2014 January: Full Concert Jazz in Marciac (2010), 2014 March: "Extraits de Book Of Angels" @ Jazz in Marciac 2008, 2015 June: The Big Gundown - John Zorn plays Ennio Morricone (1985), 2015 July: News for Lulu (1988), 2016 March: Film Works 1986-1990, 2017 March: John Zorn Is Rolling The Stone From Avenue C To The New School, 2017 September: Naked City (1990), 2019 July: The Book Beri’ah (2018)

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lepartiprisdeschoses · 6 years

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All the odd numbers for the music asks please🌸

3: What is the last single you bought?Back in 2015 I bought individual songs from some John Zorn albums on Amazon when I was curious about the album, but didn’t have enough money or the songs weren’t uploaded to Youtube yet. Last song I remember buying was something from his album “Inferno” which featured a heavy-metal organ trio. If that doesn’t count I got a free download for Paul McCartney’s “New” back in 2013.

5: A song which is better than its music video?Heartbeat by King Crimson, I think that was their first and hopefully last venture into making music videos tbh.

7: What is your go to tidy-your-room album?Last album I remember listening to when cleaning my room was another Zorn album he did with Bill Frisell and George Lewis, “News for Lulu” which has minimalist covers of jazz tunes from the 50’s/60’s. It’s interesting hearing what guitar/sax/trombone can do all by themselves.

11: Which album is your favourite from your favourite band or artists discography?Naked City’s debut for changing my perspective on music, some of their album covers are nsfw (or nsfl) tho so be careful if anyone looks them up!

13: Most played album?There’s quite corresponding to different eras of my life. Minor Threat’s Complete Discography, Rubber Soul by the Beatles, the Division Bell by Pink Floyd, New Maps of Hell by Bad Religion, California by Mr. Bungle, and Naked City’s debut again.

15: Do you collect greatest hits albums? Not really, I have one for Stan Getz and Miles Davis because there weren’t any of their ‘real’ albums available at the store. I guess having a greatest hits doesn’t feel as good as having a classic album.

17: Favourite movie soundtrack?Han Zimmer’s score for Dunkirk, or Curtis Mayfield’s for Super Fly (even if I’ve only heard two songs from that..)

19: Favourite album of this year so far?It’s not officially out yet, but I pre-ordered John Zorn’s Book Ber’iah boxset and have access to a generous amount of songs. It’s the last release of his Masada project, and has 11 different artists performing arrangements from the same book of tunes based on traditional Sephardic (I think?) scales. Some of my favorite songs so far come from the avant-garde metal band Cleric, the Spike Orchestra (big band jazz), Klezmerson (psychedelic rock & traditional Mexican music) and Secret Chiefs 3. They each get an album so I should pick just one, but I can’t :p

23: An album you like from the year you were born?I’m sure there’s one but I can’t think of anything atm, sorry!

#thanks for the ask #ask games #ask game #surrealistwaltz

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annotator · 6 years

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Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg - Cobra Kai (Ep. 32)

Zach co-composed and oversaw all music production for YouTube Red's first developed sitcom, Sing It!, created by YouTube superstars, Benny and Rafi fine. He again collaborated with the Fine Bros for 2017's feature film, F The Prom. He also wrote the theme song for USA Network's NFL Football Fanatic. In parallel to his composing career, Zach creates 1980's inspired electronic music under the pseudonym D/A/D.

Composer Leo Birenberg’S music is featured in Fox’s celebrated hybrid animation series Son of Zorn. Leo has also been a frequent collaborator of composer Christophe Beck, working as a writer, arranger, and producer and has contributed additional music to a number of films, including Frozen, Edge of Tomorrow, Ant-Man, and The Peanuts Movie.

Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg have co-composed the score for YouTube Red's mega-hit series Cobra Kai, which takes place in the Karate Kid universe thirty-four years after the original film, THE KARATE KID, and stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka reprising their original roles.

In this episode, composers Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg open up their original score for COBRA KAI and reveal how they resurrect the spirit of the original KARATE KID. While moving in the music in a contemporary direction they invoke classic retro 80s synth and guitar, traditional flutes and japanese koto, while building to a climactic finale incorporating a 70 piece orchestra.

ANNOTATED TRACKS

02:33 - Ace Degenerate 03:51 - King Cobra 04:54 - Miyagi Memories 06:24 - Final Match 07:24 - Miyagi's Tomb 08:31 - Slither 10:20 - The Cobra and the Mongoose 10:58 - Miyagi-Do 12:43 - Time Out 14:14 - Quiver 15:19 - Stone vs Diaz 16:53 - Sensei Sam

SOUNDTRACK The original score can be found on Amazon.com, itunes or streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSER You can also hear more music and find out more about Zach Robinson and Leo Birenberg at their respective sites: http://zachrobinsonmuisc.com and http://leobirenberg.com or follow the composers on twitter @zachrobinson @leobirenberg

ABOUT THE ANNOTATOR

Produced by Christopher Coleman (@ccoleman) and you can find more episodes at THEANNOTATOR.NET or you can subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher Radio or wherever you find quality podcasts.

iTunes

Spotify

Stitcher Radio

Google Podcasts

RSS Feed

Twitter @audioannotator

Facebook @TheAnnotator

Email [email protected]

#cobra kai #zach robinson #leo birenberg #soundtrack #composer #commentary #podcast

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snuggly-cuddlebug · 7 years

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Patton and the X-Ecutioners Three hip hop DJS in the form of The X-Ecutioners join forces with Patton – well, more like go to war with him on the wonderfully weird General Patton Vs. The X-Ecutioners. Produced entirely by Patton, this sample-heavy, trippy hip-hop mess is contemporary and gritty yet grand; The X-Ecutioners built the music around samples from records and films suggested by Mike. The finished product genuinely plays out like the soundtrack to some sort of upper-tier B-movie. In the best possible way. The methodology went like this: Mike Patton sends hip-hopping turntable masters the X-Ecutioners a bunch of oddball records, then the X-Ecutioners create "sound blocks" out of the albums and send them back to Patton for final tweaking and song-building. Two years in the making, the collaboration feels more like a Patton project than an equal-footing outing, but that doesn't narrow the sound down much, does it? On one hand, there's Patton's penchant for the aggressively avant-garde. On the other, there's his not-as-wild-as-you'd-think appearance on Handsome Boy Modeling School's White People. Ridiculously long and cryptic song titles might point to a crazed, "out there" experience, but General Patton vs. the X-Ecutioners is surprisingly crisp and funky over half of the time, and it's a good guess the X-Ecutioners were the ones to bring the noise. Crazed turntable workouts that recall the crew's greatest underground DJ battle tapes appear throughout the album. They sound untouched for the most part, leading the listener to believe it was Patton's choice to make the overall experience smoother. It takes eight tracks to get to anything approaching John Zorn territory, but this hip-hop noir that Patton's pushing is surprisingly fun and filling. Dirty Harry quotes, kung fu sound effects, and that "this is a journey into sound" sample are some of the clichés that appear and make this album more Gorillaz than Boredoms. While the Gorillaz can brush against smugness and cleverness, Patton's passion for this project comes through loud and approachable. Free jazz, glitch, and whooshes of studio trickery are drama-building devices, each leading to the next hook or the next solid beat. There's an antiwar motif that pays off in the end along with a couple drop-dead hilarious moments, one involving some furious scratching and a porno movie. General Patton vs. the X-Ecutioners has enough passion and inspiration behind it to make it an easy recommendation.

#Mike Patton #patton #General Patton vs. the X-Ecutioners

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noiseartists · 4 years

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The Academy Of Sun: Psychaedelic Pop from Brighton

Formed in Brighton nine years ago, The Academy of Sun is a four-piece comprised of Nick Hudson (piano, synths, hammon organ, harmonium, vocals, percussion, synths), Kianna Blue (bass, synths), Guy Brice (guitars) and Ash Babb (drums). Together, they present dystopian fantastic creations that combine the deeply personal and the poetically arcane. Dark yet buoyant, this is a controlled explosion of psychedelic and dark power pop with atmospheres couched in vast and expansive landscapes and cinematic arrangements.

Nick Hudson's musical juggernaut has been active in various incarnations since 2012, always transcending expectations. The Academy Of Sun has collaborated with Massive Attack's Shara Nelson, members of NYC's Kayo Dot, David Tibet of Current 93, Asva and Matthew Seligman (Bowie, Tori Amos, Morrissey). Hudson has also collaborated with Wayne Hussey of The Mission, as well as Canadian queercore icon GB Jones. Known for explosive and psychedelic live shows, The Academy Of Sun has performed in a medieval castle in Italy, a boat on the Thames, an abandoned railway carriage in Offenbach, colossal churches, The London College of Fashion, The Old Market theatre in Brighton, the MS Stubnitz in Hamburg, Brighton Dome, and a string of L.A. shows in 2019. Having toured 3 continents, highlights include appearances with Mogwai, Toby Driver and Keith Abrams from Kayo Dot, and Timba Harris (Mr Bungle, Amanda Palmer). 'The Parts That Need Replacing' is out now, available across online stores and streaming platforms such as Spotify. The full album 'The Quiet Earth' will be released in summer of 2020 on CD, as well as digitally.

THE INTERVIEW

Who are the group members?

Myself, Kianna Blue, Ash Babb, Guy Brice.

How did you meet?

A poet introduced Kianna and I. We ended up living together, In our modest cottage on the edge of a cliff we kept house goats. Guy was one of them. It became quickly apparent that if he kept his hooves pedicured, he had an incredible way with a guitar. Ash and I met in a local tavern, courtesy of a mutual online awareness via the blog of author Dennis Cooper.

How did you come up with your name?

I'd been reading literature on pagan sun-worshipping cults and came across Heliogabalus, the queer teenage anarchist emperor of ancient Rome. Artaud wrote on him. So I wanted to unleash and harness the unkempt nuclear blaze of that energy within a formalist framework.

What is your music about?

It's about invigoration and alchemy – stimulating the mind and soul in tandem with the body. Music to dance and cry to. It's about pole-vaulting transgressive and subversive narratives over the iron gate of mainstream normativity. Spiraling wells of energy and dynamism. Loud and shimmering vibrancy. “Did I really hear that?”

What are your goals as an artist artistically/commercially?

Artistically I just want to continually evolve my craft, critical faculties, and general state of awareness so as I can get ever closer to precisely articulating the atmospheres, geometries and ghost stories that circle my head like ever-mutating angels, day and night, on the brink of expelling light and form. And in doing so, to gather those who are similarly drawn to peering through the cracks. Commercially, I - and we - really just want to connect this with a bigger audience. We're aware that we're a weird band, and that it's a long game. So it demands stoicism, patience and persistence. The ideal would be to get to a level where we have sufficient economic backing to be able to actually deploy all the ideas we have without compromising on logistics or production values.

What are you trying to avoid as a band?

The music industry.

Why do you make the music you make? Is it in you? Is it your environment?

It's more interior than exterior. Albeit I respond very palpably to landscapes, just not the one that I'm writing this interview from within! Haha. I'm drawn to severe, wild landscapes, and likewise to art and music that evokes such landscapes.

What inspires you for the music or for the Lyrics?

I've always written prose and poetry, and so a key factor in my embarking upon songwriting fifteen years ago was preserving the conditions of unabashed literary aspirations in my lyrics. I like to think/strive to ensure that as much as they might stand successfully alone on the page they also transmit the melodies with ease. I'm drawn to art in any medium that explores and expresses extreme states of being – modes of transcendence, ultimately. Ecstasies, agonies, the uncanny, the transgressive, the sublime. Stillness can also be extreme. Lots of nature imagery. European cinema and literature.

Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds. Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

I think we all share a delight in unusual sonics – there were some genuinely experimental moments in the studio – for example, the first sound heard on the record is a drone created by my playing a pre-recorded vocal through the speaker of a cassette recorder into the pick-ups on Guy's guitar, which was then sent through waves of delay. We created a MIDI church organ by recording the bass pedals of the church organ of St Mary's, Brighton and turning that into a MIDI instrument. The idea of pitch-bending such a monolithic and defiantly analogue instrument was irresistible. There's one track where we recorded the drum part four times and placed each take peculiarly across the stereo field. And there are field recordings scattered throughout, evoking radioactivity and harsh landscapes. I usually, with each track, have a pretty clear idea of the aesthetic and formal parameters within which experimentation can occur, and we go from there.

Explain your songwriting process.

Sometimes I'll be improvising on piano and motifs will surface that later impose their will upon my subconscious, continually knocking until I open the door and allow them to become a song. Other times I'll have the completed lyrics and sit and just experiment with ways to place them, and edit, and edit until they're homed. Some songs arrive in one swift nuclear wind, and others take years to ferment. I keep a lot of audio notes on my iphone.

Describe your palette of sound.

Rich but not cloying, Psychedelic but not nostalgic. Adventurous. Green and gold. Complex but not arbitrarily technical. Deconstructing, rerouting and inverting obvious formal choices but not at the expense of comprehension.

Who would you want as a dream producer, and why?

Trent Reznor, Bjork, Tim Palmer, David Lynch, Danny Elfman. I thought I'd compensate for not saying 'why' by instead listing five, haha.

If you could guest on someone else’s album, who would it be and why? What would you play?

Well I know he's technically on the cusp of retiring, but assuming this questions dwells in an amorphous temporality (as we do ourselves under quarantine), I'd say Ennio Morricone. Because he's peerless. I would love to have played piano/organ on one of his sixties/seventies film works. To say I've been produced by Morricone and appear on, say, the Sacco and Vanzetti soundtrack, would see me fairly ecstatic.

What musical skills would you like to acquire or get better at?

I'd like develop further fluency in classical notation and orchestration.

Which other musician/artist would you date?

I don't really subscribe to coupledom or its rituals but maybe Jack from These New Puritans. NB. I would never, EVER date a musician. Haha.

Is there a band that if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be making the music you make?

Probably Mr Bungle. In that they not only blew my mind at a young age with their own music, but laid breadcrumbs for me to explore the family tree of John Zorn, Tzadik, and the sprawling concentric circles of artists making up the experimental underground of LA and NYC.

You are from England. What are the advantages and inconvenient?

Hold my hair back. Well. Its primary advantage is its proximity to the European mainland.

Its disadvantages are manifold and voluminous – aside from a micro-percentage of wonderful, compassionate, intelligent and progressive entities and institutions, its a nasty little hotbed of misplaced Churchillian hubris and post-imperial egocentrism, ruled as a playpen by which neo-liberal public schoolboy millionaires can move their assets around and grow their wealth while 'ironically' masquerading a paper-thin veneer of concern for the public interest and welfare.

Boris Johnson and his monstrous cabal aside, the UK treats its musicians appallingly. I've toured Europe, America and The Middle East and it shames me to say that the worst treatment I've experienced out of any of the countries I've played is that of the UK. I'm not alone in this assertion either.

There are exceptions of course, but as a rule, this sadly remains the case. Ten years of Tory rule certainly hasn't helped this.

What are some places around the world that you hope to play with your band?

There's that amphitheater built into a rock face somewhere in Central Europe. I'd like to do a tour of churches and cathedrals. And acoustically-dynamic natural rock formations.

It's my dream to take The Academy Of Sun on an extensive tour of Europe, but we'd need solid economic backing to be able to do so with production values intact, let alone keep us all afloat while doing so.

So that's something to push for. There's a pueblo in New Mexico called TAOS – obviously it's pre-destined that we play there. I went to Svalbard in the Arctic last year, and there's a beautiful concert hall called Huset right between two glaciers. I'd love us to play there. (Johannes, are you reading this?)

When is the next album/EP due?

June! We inevitably had to postpone the release from its intended release in April, when the whole world went on pause. We're super-excited to have you all hear The Quiet Earth.

Some artists you recommend

I can't get enough of Oingo Boingo right now – Danny Elfman's band that split in 1995. Peerless songwriting, arrangement, production and performance. Otherwise, Arca is amazing. I'm listening to a lot of Nico. Devouring Clive Barker's early novels. Revisiting Diamanda Galas' earlier catalogue. Watching a lot of Chris Marker and Maya Deren. And I just read Marina Abramovic's memoir, which is profoundly inspiring.

Anything else you want your fans to know?

Mainly – thank you for your support, engagement and enthusiasm, especially during this wayward, hazy and anxiety-inducing time. We hope you'll enjoy the record, and we're super-psyched to play shows all over the place when concerts are indeed a viable concern once again. Stay well, breathe deep, and celebrate and nurture the connections that enrich, comfort, soothe and embolden you.

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joneswilliam72 · 6 years

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Review: Pavo Pavo's second album Mystery Hour mines their own failed relationship to weird and wonderful effect

A pair of experimental musicians who spend six years as lovers and end the affair with one partner singing the other’s songs about the break up of their relationship may seem like a plot for a Spike Jonze remake of A Star Is Born, but then Pavo Pavo are no ordinary band, and their second album Mystery Hour is certainly no ordinary record.

Lovelorn and triumphant, it walks a trippingly weird route around the messy slum of a failed relationship in which neither partner seems to have secured the upper hand, and yet neither is obviously reduced as a result. Perhaps mutual respect has helped to smooth the creative process. Whatever the intimate details, the results are extraordinary.

The former couple’s musical educations are impeccably storied; meeting as members of the same string quartet at Yale, they have since, separately, worked with some of the world’s foremost innovators. Eliza Bagg has lent her soprano vocals to compositions by, amongst others, Meredith Monk, Julianna Barwick, Ben Frost and John Zorn. Oliver Hill, who writes all but one of the tracks on Mystery Hour, has provided string arrangements for Dirty Projectors, Helado Negro and Wet, and tours with Kevin Morby and Vagabon. It’s a wonder they found time to fall in love at all.

The aching ‘Goldenrod’ suggests they did indeed get in deep. The album’s closer recalls the Flaming Lips’ melancholic brittleness – a descending cascade of bubbling keyboard overlaid across a tricksy time signature that is so riven by drama that it could be the centrepiece of the aforementioned movie. It even burns out before it can find proper resolution – the same old story. ‘The Other Half’ could be on the La La Land soundtrack, such are the reserves of longing it summons up.

That isn’t to say the album is entirely blue. Latest release ‘Check The Weather’ is very now indie funk a la All We Are, or any number of other recent acts, and seems to be the band’s attempt to secure some radio play for an album, which is otherwise so diverse as to potentially warn off first time listeners. Those who give it the attention it deserves will find layer after immaculate layer of melody and sentiment. ‘Mon Cheri’ provides the skeletal strut; ‘Around Part 1’ feels like a loving homage to ELO, at one point even seeming about ready to launch into 'Mr Blue Sky'.

Hopefully, the romantic disentanglement of Pavo Pavo won’t impact on their artistic future. Mystery Hour is a wistful, weird collection that shows once again that break up songs are the best.

from The 405 http://bit.ly/2DCdTj4

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krakowergroup · 6 years

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PR: Cobra Kai soundtrack

LA-LA LAND RECORDS PRESENTS COBRA KAI: THE KARATE KID SAGA CONTINUES – ORIGINAL YOUTUBE RED SERIES SOUNDTRACK (Burbank, CA – May 21, 2018) La-La Land Records is proud to announce the release of the COBRA KAI CD soundtrack on May 22, 2018 at www.lalalandrecords.com, followed by a general retail release June 1, 2018 and on LP later this year. The hit YouTube Red series, produced by Overbrook Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television, debuted on May 2 and stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka reprising their roles from the original 1984 feature film “The Karate Kid.” As a special exclusive, 300 units of the CD will be available packaged in a 1980's-style replica longbox, via the label’s website (www.lalalandrecords.com), as a tribute to The Karate Kid Saga’s origins. The album features the original score by composers Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson (SING IT!, SON OF ZORN), with the CD release featuring several exclusive, CD-only tracks.

“For COBRA KAI, we created three unique score worlds that each support a different story being told on the show,” said Birenberg. “We like to say Johnny's music is the representation of how he hears himself: as the ultimate badass, scored with face-melting guitar riffs and bruising arena drums. Daniel La Russo’s theme is supported by more orchestral, Japanese-influenced sounds and his tonal palette our through line that connects us to the earlier films and Bill Conti's legendary score.” In the highly-anticipated return of two iconic characters, the arch-rivals from the legendary Karate Kid film series reunite over 30 years after the events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament. Now living in the affluent hills of Encino, Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) leads an enviable life with his beautiful family, while running a successful string of car dealerships throughout the valley. Meanwhile, his high school adversary, Johnny Lawrence (Zabka), whose life has taken a rocky turn, seeks redemption by reopening the infamous Cobra Kai karate dojo. Their lives inevitably become intertwined and the rivalry is reignited, setting forth the next generation of “karate kids.” Composer Zach Robinson explained, “We have the new Cobra Kai students, who are scored with a blend of hard rock (inherited from Johnny), '80s inspired synthwave, and modern EDM. Part of the fun of having established these musical identities was when we got to mix and match them based on the interactions happening between the ever-twisting story arcs of the characters.” La-La Land Records is proud to announce the release of the COBRA KAI: THE KARATE KID SAGA CONTINUES soundtrack CD being released at www.lalalandrecords.com on May 22, 2018, followed by general retailers (Amazon, etc) on June 1, 2018. A digital version is available now from Madison Gate Records. La-La Land Records will also release an LP edition later in 2018. # # # www.lalalandrecords.com For more information contact KrakowerGroup[at]gmail.com, or @KrakowerGroup on Twitter About Composer Zach Robinson Zach Robinson is an LA based composer, music producer, and electronic musician. Most recently, he co-composed the score for YouTube Red’s new mega-hit series Cobra Kai, which takes place in the The Karate Kid universe thirty years after the original film and stars Ralph Macchio and Billy Zabka reprising their original roles. The score features a 70-piece orchestra and a diverse musical palette that includes everything from synthesizers and electric guitars, to asian flutes and chamber strings. Previously, Zach co-composed and oversaw all music production for YouTube Red’s first developed sitcom, Sing It! created by YouTube superstars, Benny and Rafi Fine. He again collaborated with the Fine Bros for 2017’s feature film, F The Prom. Zach’s other scores include the horror-comedy Bad Exorcists, racing documentary The 200 MPH Club, and the western short Born Again Sinner. He also wrote the theme song for USA Network’s, NFL Football Fanatic. After receiving his degree in music composition from Northwestern University, Zach cut his teeth working with acclaimed film composer, Christophe Beck, writing additional music for films such as Ant-Man, Edge of Tomorrow, Frozen, Hot Pursuit, Sisters, and The Peanuts Movie About Composer Leo Birenberg Leo Birenberg has catapulted to the forefront of TV and film music, becoming one of the industry’s most sought-after composers. Currently, Leo's music is featured in YouTube Red’s celebrated mega-hit series Cobra Kai, which takes place in the The Karate Kid universe thirty years after the original film. The series, which stars Ralph Macchio and Billy Zabka reprising their original roles, features an eclectic score that includes a 70-piece orchestra, synthesizers, electric guitars, asian flutes and chamber strings, among other elements. Leo's work can be heard in projects across a multitude of genres. He scored Fox’s hybrid-animation comedy series, Son of Zorn, which starred Jason Sudekis and Tim Meadows. In addition, Leo scored Seeso's signature comedy series Take My Wife, truTV’s Adam Ruins Everything, Comedy Central’s action-comedy series Big Time in Hollywood, FL, and the critically acclaimed documentary, Red Army. He also produced songs for YouTube’s original series Sing It!, created by the Fine Brothers. Leo has been a frequent collaborator of composer Christophe Beck as a writer, arranger, and producer. He contributed additional music and produced the scores to a number of films, including Frozen, Edge of Tomorrow, Muppets Most Wanted, Ant-Man, and The Peanuts Movie. Kentucky-born and Chicago-raised, Leo spent his childhood making movies and playing woodwinds, eventually combining the two by studying composition at NYU and USC. Originally a woodwind player and vocalist, Leo’s musical background is diverse, with influences from classical, jazz, bluegrass, show tunes, rock, world, and electronic music. Upcoming projects for Leo include indie comedy Plus One, the documentary In Search of Greatness, and the DreamWorks’ upcoming series, Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny, which is set to premiere on Amazon Prime Video. Leo currently resides in Los Angeles. When not composing, he enjoys working out, playing pennywhistle, and going on walks with his fearsome beagle, Napoleon.

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ricardosousalemos · 8 years

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Jim O’Rourke: Bad Timing

In the early 1990s, years before he joined Sonic Youth or partnered with Wilco or tried his hand at singing, Jim O’Rourke was a kind of prodigy in the experimental music underground. He recorded albums in his early twenties for labels like Sound of Pig, Amsterdam’s Staalplaat, and John Zorn’s Tzadik. He made music with whatever was at hand and was proficient on many instruments, and he often performed in the context of free improvisation. But O’Rourke’s first instrument was guitar, and one of his deepest musical loves was the art of arrangement—the precise placement of this note in this pocket of space, the choice of this instrument for that note. The two obsessions met in glorious fashion on his 1997 album Bad Timing.

In the 21st century, we take music built around steel-string guitar for granted. New practitioners have emerged (William Tyler, James Blackshaw, Ben Chasny), a latter-day legend has come and gone (Jack Rose, R.I.P.), and an endless series of reissues of albums by major figures stream by (hello, Bert Jansch). But 20 years ago, the notion of solo acoustic guitar as a medium for expression of album-length ideas was only just emerging from hibernation. Some of its resurgence during that period could be traced to the work of critic Byron Coley, who had written an article in SPIN in 1994, in which he’d tracked down the then-obscure John Fahey in Oregon. Fahey had barely recorded in the few years previous, and was living off the grid and on the edge of poverty, occasionally sleeping in homeless shelters. That SPIN piece, along with the Rhino compilation Return of the Repressed, which put his out-of-print music back in stores, cemented the guitarist’s status as an icon of American music. Neither he, nor his instrument, have left the conversation since.

In North America, the acoustic guitar is often associated with “folk” music of a certain mood; from 1970s singer-songwriters to the ’80s emergence of new age and then onto the rise of “unplugged” music in the ’90s, the acoustic became associated with relaxation, intimacy, quiet contemplation—a sound ostensibly more closely connected to the natural world than its electric counterpart. But Fahey’s vision for acoustic guitar was something else entirely. He was among the first to fully grasp that the the instrument had uniquely expressive qualities, that its possibilities as a device for melody, harmony, and rhythm were untapped, and alternate tunings gave it further flexibility other instruments couldn’t match. In Fahey’s hands, the guitar became an orchestra in miniature, and long, multi-part pieces with the thunderous sweep of a symphony could sit alongside rustic evocations of the past. Fahey’s guitar became a tool for collapsing time and space, able to incorporate the grand sweep of music history in a flurry of strummed chords, fingerpicked melodies, and raga-like repeating rhythms.

Fahey’s mid-’90s resurgence served as a backdrop for Bad Timing, and the connection colored how it was received at the time. The Fahey connect was further underscored by O’Rourke’s earlier work in Gastr del Sol, his post-rock duo with David Grubbs (they covered Fahey on their 1996 album Upgrade & Afterlife.) But while Bad Timing has deep spiritual connections to Fahey’s work, the actual music comes from a very different place. You could almost think of Bad Timing as as a record that’s trying to be a Fahey album but keeps getting derailed and ends up going somewhere even more interesting. It was originally written to be a solo guitar record, and O’Rourke has performed versions of the pieces in that setting, but as he worked on the music, he decided he wanted to take it into another direction, one that would incorporate his obsession with carefully arranged sound.

Expanding Bad Timing allowed O’Rourke to paint on a much larger canvas. “For me both Happy Days and Bad Timing were about my myths,” O'Rourke explained to writer Mike McGonigal in a 1997 interview in the zine Music. “A big part of my head is Americana. But the Americana I know comes from listening to Van Dyke Parks, John Fahey, and Charles Ives. That doesn’t exist, and I have to face the fact that it doesn't exist. I have to address that it’s nothing but a construct.” O’Rourke has always wrestled with the “Why?” part of record-making. He’s an avid and thoughtful listener and has absorbed a mountain of music, so with each project, he considers exactly why he should be adding to the pile. Bad Timing may be an homage to some of his heroes, but he takes their collective influence and bends it into a peculiar shape, a tangle of deep reverence and exuberant skepticism. It’s a fantasy that is aware of itself as fantasy, a self-conscious evocation of an individual artist’s obsessions that also functions as a neat historical snapshot.

Parks’ lush arrangements and his gentle irony; Fahey’s vast scope; Ives’ clash of folk simplicity and avant-garde dissonance—these elements are all over Bad Timing, and minimalism is the final piece of the puzzle. Though it draws heavily from the music of other cultures, particularly India, minimalism as a compositional technique is closely identified with American icons, in particular the work of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and LaMonte Young. Glass, Reich, and Riley are best known for repetition—they build meaning through gradually shifting clusters of sound. Young’s music has alternated between repetition and carefully tuned and deeply physical drone. Two other composers, Phill Niblock and Tony Conrad, both of whom O’Rourke work with, further extended Young’s drone conceptions. For this group, held tones become a form of change; from moment to moment in a drone piece, you expect shifts and development to happen, and when they don’t, you’re constantly re-discovering where you are in the now.

Bad Timing has this mercurial quality. It flows beautifully and is easy for a newcomer to enjoy, but it’s also a series of head-fakes, regular juxtapositions that jar the music off course as it moves from one mode to the next. The opening “There’s Hell in Hello But More in Goodbye” starts off almost as a carbon-copy of Fahey in his most whimsical mode, with a sunny finger-picked melody that one could imagine a turn-of-the-century farmer whistling as he strolled across a field. But after a few bars, it drops into a single repeating pattern played on just a small handful of notes, like a needle slipping into a skipping groove, and it stays there, as a lone chord is examined, poked at, and wrung dry. Other subtle instruments fold in—organ, piano—and as “Hello” unfurls it becomes a pure drone piece, quieter and prettier but not so far from the Niblock-inspired hurdy-gurdy blast that defined O’Rourke’s previous album, Happy Days. What started as “folk” ends as a kind of raga meditation.

This kind of shell game happens throughout Bad Timing, as the individual pieces convince you they’re one thing while they’re in the process of becoming something else. “94 the Long Way” opens with a tentative, lurching fingerpicked section, hinting at possible songs behind it, but not quite committing, until finally a pattern emerges that mixes a lurching bass-string loop, repetition in the middle register, and a simple descending three-note melody that becomes the center around which the rest of the track orbits. It at first sounds too simple, like it’s barely even a melody, but O’Rourke adds cheery keyboards, gorgeous pedal steel guitar, and trombone, and it starts to feel like a John Philip Sousa march—you think of fireworks and parades and kazoos and guys in funny hats and rolling expanses of land stretching to the horizon.

The construction of the piece is impressive as new instruments are added every few bars and they all lock into place. But there’s also something joyously silly about it all, a cartoon of civic engagement. The bumptious cheeriness evokes children performing an exaggerated “whistle while you work” march, pounding forward in service of some high-minded collective ideal. The hint of camp extends further. I’ve always taken the “94” in the title to be a reference to I-94, the interstate highway that runs through Chicago. If you’re in the Midwest and you want to take a road trip, you’re almost certainly going to find yourself in I-94 at some point. O’Rourke’s song can be heard as an ode to the freeway, his acoustic Americana version of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn”—indeed, the structure of the two songs is similar, and the snaking pedal steel is evocative of the gliding guitar in the Kraftwerk tune. It’s a soundtrack for looking out the window as you roll through the farmland of Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Americana” is an inexhaustible descriptor entirely dependent on perspective. American music, after all, is by its nature fractured, a bottomless well of influences that zig-zag around the country and then around the world. Hyper-local folk forms are “discovered” and stolen from and then sold back in a gnarled form by professionals from far away. Aaron Copland, composer of “Fanfare for the Common Man,” was a gay, cosmopolitan Jew with communist sympathies, and he created work steeped in American myths, dreaming up places where he might not be entirely comfortable (or welcome) if he were to actually visit them. O’Rourke’s musical fantasy is steeped in the past but also feels ripe with the possibility of the present moment; it’s of history but it sits outside of it.

The second side of Bad Timing is essentially a single 20-minute piece split into two sections that grows steadily stranger while playing with ideas of nostalgia and memory. O’Rourke presents ancient notions of “American music” and then toys with them. The title track opens with another playful folk guitar figure before losing itself in haze of keyboard melody. For minutes on end, the song seesaws between two slowly plucked chords as hints of accordion nudge the tune along. You keep listening for changes, and you think you might hear something shifting, but you’re also happy to get lost in the repetition, the simple twinkling beauty and building tension of the arrangement.

And then it explodes: a huge distorted power chord launches us into “Happy Trails,” the final piece. Suddenly we’re in the middle of a psychedelic rock record, and it’s like a light switch thrown on, or explosive laughter that sucks the discomfort out of a room. After the lengthy fallout from that blast, there’s another extended fingerpicked acoustic passage, and then the song is overwhelmed with a crashing marching band fanfare (a possible nod to Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 4, where a brooding string passage is interrupted by blasts of horns that sound borrowed from another piece). Adding further contrast, pedal steel guitarist Ken Champion, whose impossibly beautiful swells of sound add so much poignancy to “94 the Long Way,” returns with a downright loopy solo fit for the Country Bear Jamboree. Then the song sunsets in a golden-purple haze of muted horns, returning to uncanny beauty one final time.

This seesaw between mischievous subversion and slack-jawed beauty is the key to O’Rourke’s best music. His sense of humor is both generous and slightly dark; there’s irony in his touch, but it’s not a negating one. It’s more about being open to hearing every possibility in a given piece of music. In a 2001 interview O’Rourke was asked if Bad Timing had an element of parody. “Not a parody at all, or infatuation, it’s more like trying to reconcile what is imagined, learned, real, and imaginary.” And then he added, “Is it really that impossible to believe that something can be funny and sincere at the same time?”

Bad Timing, and O’Rourke’s solo career that followed, is a convincing argument for creation in the face of self-consciousness. The “Why?” of music-making is under-explored. Does your individual record need to exist? For O’Rourke, and especially for his solo albums on Drag City, he justifies their release by lavishing care on every detail, and embracing the music of the past in all its complexity. O’Rourke has always been very careful about how his music is packaged and presented. He only allowed it to be released digitally in the last couple of years, and the downloads on Drag City’s newly created Bandcamp pages urge the listener to “please download the best possible quality.” He’s fighting against his music being reduced, whether that means shrinking the artwork, compressing the digital files, or removing individual tracks from the context of the whole. He’s asking for a lot from the listener, but giving even more in return. Bad Timing was where so many of these ideas came together for the first time, a glorious imaginary world that becomes real every time it plays.

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