Clark: OK with Beats

Chris Clark was once the new goldenchild at Warp, the grandest electronic label in the world. He made this brilliant little IDM record in his college dorm room that they put out and he was going to be the next Aphex Twin. So what does he do? Rather than buckle under the pressure and go AWOL, or deliver a stinky sophomore effort, he just starts churning out material like mad, probably becoming the label's most prolific artist - he's been averaging a record every one to two years for a while now. But poor Chris Clark, the buzz has worn off. He's no longer the new thing and that's how people make brilliant music and get taken for granted.

He has a new album, it's called Turning Dragon and he's not fucking around. Clark's always had an amazing command of his gear and next-level arranging skills - his tracks are the un-linear. Hulking, breathing, flexible compositions, tricked out in every direction and avoiding solid beats like they're The Man. But he's lashing himself to the grid a bit on this new one, seeing how the other half lives. It's all burnt popcorn beats and toasted melodies. And then there's the distortion. My god the distortion. Clark clearly likes his peanut butter crunchy. The whole record sounds like he mastered his mixes through a Darth Vader mask.

Clark - "Hot May Slides"

Clark - "Mercy Sines"

All Hail the Cassette

Today, let's celebrate the sound of melted cassettes, wherever we can find it.

This Neu! track is always welcome in the shuffle mix. Because it is the most destroyed a track can sound, and has these great careless edits, it comes on like a break from the monotony of "correct" production. "Cassetto," is from the album Neu! 2 and, with its warbly, tape-stretched sound, is aptly named.

I don't know how long you have to bake your mixes to get them to sound this crispy, but I have a feeling Neu! were using their own cookbook.

Neu! - "Cassetto"


In the book "Dream Brother," a biography of Jeff and Tim Buckley, there are some really strange anecdotes about the weeks preceding Jeff's death, stories that make it sound as if he were going batshit. Like the one where his tour manager walked in on him in the bathtub and found him giggling, with blood dribbling down his chin (the blood turned out to be red ink from a pen he had chewed through, but still). Or the friends and neighbors who told of how he'd show up to their homes at odd hours, wanting to talk but with no sense of what time it was, having been awake for days.

I don't know if he went crazy. But if you listen to the four-track cassette demos they found near the milk-crate studio in his shack of a Memphis house, Jeff sounds, at the very least, unwell. "Let's Bomb the Moonlight" was left off the commercially released collection of Jeff's works in progress Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk. Who knows why. Was it because it sounds like it was recorded inside a jet engine, mid-flight? Are the screeching tornado sirens that drop in at the 4:00 mark too beautiful? Or was it the unsettling contrast between his exorcist scream at 5:15 and the cherub coo harmonies he overdubbed?

Who cares why they shelved it. Music this oily has a way of seeping out anyway.

Jeff Buckley - "Let's Bomb the Moonlight"

Mystery Piece + Noise Soup

I have a few unidentified mp3s on my laptop that I've gotten really attached to. They're all classical, which makes identifying them even harder, since even if I figured out the composer and the piece, recognizing the specific performance and recording would be near impossible.

Today I'd like to post one. I have Benjamin Britten labeled as the artist in iTunes, but no other information. I have no idea how or where I got this sublime recording, but I'm glad I did.



The thing I'd like to point out here is how much ground he covers in under 3 minutes. He starts things off with the main hook, first with the winds and later the soprano, but then there's all this exposition and journey. When you consider that three minutes is thought of as a succinct length for a pop song, just a couple of verses and choruses and maybe a bridge, Britten is absolutely cooking here.

If there are any classical fans out there with golden ears who can tell me more about the identity of this piece, I'd appreciate the info.

Benjamin Britten - Unknown Piece

To me, a little classical goes a long way. I'm pretty much a habitual shuffler now with my mp3 player and every time a classical piece comes up, I like it because it kind of cleanses the listening palette with its open space and softer textures. Then if, say, Queens of the Stoneage is the next random track in line, I'll have a new sense of appreciation for just how abrasive and heavy they really are with my rested, recalibrated ears.

Ambient noise tracks have the same effect (and a little also goes a long way). Only rather than cleansing the palette, it's more like pouring liquid Drano down it. When you've just listened to ten pop songs in a row and suddenly the noise soup of Fennesz comes blasting in all of its humming, crackling glory, it's like hearing every pop form and device boiled down into one elemental current of sound. Then if, for instance, a Sam Cooke cut follows, you're going to have a new appreciation for its warmth and simplicity.

I mentioned Fennesz because his disembodied sonic melt is nearly an art form unto itself, something which nobody else I've heard comes close to repeating. But the album Way Blank by Axolotl almost does in places. "Occiput the Brain Is the Seat of the Dnine Part" is all blast, no drip, but there are melodies buried deep in the gush of distortion.




Axolotl - "Occiput the Brain Is the Seat of the Dnine Part"

We Won't Call it Reggae

About three years ago, a friend turned me onto the Trojan Records Originals box set, a collection of early reggae recordings, some of which later became hits when other groups covered them (Like "Red, Red Wine"), but all of which were the first productions of the songs. We were particularly fascinated with a track called "Please Don't Make Me Cry" by Winston Groovy and its brilliantly goofy arrangement that featured a use of synthesizers about three decades ahead of its time.

As I borrowed and began to absorb the box set, I quickly got obsessed with these recordings. The productions are often shockingly quirky, with really bizarre and angular hooks, the warmest drum sounds of all time, and an addicting distortion in the mixes. There are deeply soulful performances featuring some of the greatest soul singers I've ever heard. Genius actually, and I don't use that word lightly. I think that some of these guys, like Alton Ellis, Ken Boothe, Delroy Wilson and Dennis Brown are easily on par with the great American soul singers like Sam Cooke, Al Green and Smokey Robinson... only weirder. Unfortunately, while those American artists received recognition in their lifetime and a lasting legacy, many of their Jamaican counterparts were mostly unknown outside of their native country (sometimes even in their native country) during their paltry "careers" and are today largely forgotten.

I've always had a bad association in my mind with the word "reggae" that probably stems back to college and the abuse of Rasta paraphanalia in dorm-hippie culture. Bob Marley is the name brand for the genre, and his most famous records left me cold (I've since come around to the greatness that is early Wailers). And I'm not sure if I can really get with music being made today under the reggae label. But after getting hooked on the Trojan Originals box set, I began a dig for more material of similar style and quality, and it's an obsession that is still going strong. I now have probably between 50 and 75 cuts that I personally consider essential.

I think that the emotional quality of this early Jamaican soul music (which is how I've decided to refer to it) just fits my life and temperament better now than the darkness and theatricality of the groups I used to get off on, like Fugazi, Radiohead or PJ Harvey. There is definitely a melancholy current flowing beneath the surface of these tunes, a kind of resigned sadness that is part of most third-world culture. But there is just as much joy and warmth, which is just something I find more interesting these days. Not a fake, peppy joy, but an earned joy, that was yanked from down deep. Plus, it's just rhythmic Christmas for me, with pockets so sick that all I can do sometimes is just laugh at how good they are.

It's weird. These days, besides electronic music, I listen to Jamaican soul music probably more than anything else, but I've barely blogged about any of my discoveries. I guess part of me just wanted to keep it to myself or didn't know if other people would hear and appreciate the same things I was hearing (my girlfriend, for example, couldn't care LESS). But today, I'll start adding a pinch of it into the mix of this blog.

Since I already made the Detroit/Jamaica comparison, I think a good place to begin would be with two cover versions of the track "You Keep Me Hangin' On," which was a huge hit in the 60s for Motown group The Supremes.

The first version, "Set Me Free," is by Ken Boothe, who occupies about as much space on my mp3 player as any other artist of any genre.



Ken Boothe - "Set Me Free"

I first heard this track in a restaurant outside of Cincinati. My band was there to play a show and when we got to the venue, it was closed - the promoter had flaked. Luckily someone pointed us to a local burrito joint. The place nearly saved our souls. Besides serving burritos the size of watermelons, the jukebox was stocked with tons of old soul and reggae. When this track came up on the system, I think I had an out-of-body experience from the combination of good 'rito and good jams.

I love how Boothe doesn't even bother to use the original title. I also love the whacky Ennio Morricone meets Shuggie Ottis instrumental tag on the intro. Eventually, the track descends into extremely crude dub in its second half, but it doesn't matter. Boothe did his damage. Listen to how Boothe's singing constantly plays with going flat. It's kind of his signature move. He stops just this side of letting it get ugly every time.

As much as I adore Boothe's rendering, I think I might love this Mike Dorane version even more. It's more low-key, but the way he arranges the chorus is brilliant, singing a falsetto harmony of the traditional melody instead of the melody itself. He's basically banking on the fact that the listener already knows the tune, and that that implication is strong enough in the listener's mind to supply the hook while he provides embellishment. It's a bold move, and totally works.

Sadly, I couldn't even find a decent photo of Mike Durane on the internet.

Mike Durane - "You Keep Me Hangin On"

Add Shuffle

I don't know if you know this, but Radiohead's track "My Iron Lung," off '95s The Bends, was recorded live in concert. Their producer, John Leckie, felt that they weren't capturing the immediacy he had sensed during pre-production, when the band had performed their new material for him. So he rented a mobile studio and followed the group to their gig at the London Astoria. If you're listening on headphones you can hear phasing (swishy sound), a problem created when the same sound is being picked up by different mics at different distances - and exacerbated by the unruly acoustics of a live venue room. Which makes it not only a feat of delivery but of engineering as well. Anyway, I always appreciate this track more knowing that it's a live performance, especially with all of those abrupt transitions and tempo shifts. Radiohead have said that they didn't figure out how to be a good live band until the Kid A and Amnesiac tours, but clearly they had it going on long before that.

Radiohead - "My Iron Lung"


I'm jealous of the name Hot Chip. It's perfect. It's one of those perfect band names that comes along every five years. Like Sonic Youth or Daft Punk. The words "hot" and "chip" together seem to imply so much goodness. Like melting circuit boards inside a malfunctioning keyboard. Or spicy snack foods. And these are all things that Hot Chip delivers musically. Loads of analogue and soft synths in service of a master funk, hot beats and hook city. This is from their new one, Made in the Dark.

Hot Chip - "Ready For the Floor"

Shuffling

These three tracks came up on my mp3 player this morning, which was set to shuffle. (Baby was a good DJ this morning.) They're all older, but way ahead of their time.


Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill

The Police - Bring on the Night

Genesis - The Carpet Crawl (live)

Child Mind Magic: The Art of Yeondoo Jung

Yeondoo Jung takes childrens' drawings, recreates them in "live action," and photographs it. It's the most beautiful thing. Here is a
website link.