Twittering Machines

Burial
Untrue

Burial’s new release and it’s another mind melter. Kode9 calls it “weird soul” and “downcast euphoria”. Burial describes an earlier take of an album full of music he scraped as “more technical, all the tunes sounded like some kind of weapon that was being taken apart and put back together again.” But he had a conversation with his mum “Just do a tune, fuck everyone off, don’t worry about it”. So he did.

Full of ghosts, angels, sampled unidentifiable vocals, bass (“warm like a womb” from the Wire interview) and crackle. It may sound trite but the experience of listening to this is more like a tour of a strange, dark city. A trip.

My friend Joe sent me this link which is a collection of links to YouTube post-punk music videos. Lots. Here’s a taste of someone I know I’d forgotten all about.

Life follows fiction. In his novel Pattern Recognition, William Gibson describes how the character Blue Ant wears a black L-2B Rickson’s Flight Jacket. The wrinkle was, there was no “black” L-2B Ricksons flight jacket in real life. There was a Rickson’s L-2B, just not a black L-2B.

Buzz Rickson’s got so many inquiries because of Gibson’s novel, they created one. The perfect holiday gift for that guy/gal who thought they had everything.

And for the William Gibson admirer, you’ll want to check out his blog.

He’s got glow-in-the-dark eyes (3 of ‘em for extra insight), a removable skull cap which reveals…glow-in-the-dark brains. Perfection?

I was going through some notes and found this one. I think we could expand on this theme and create a long list.

There are any number of temptations that lure the audio reviewer. Let’s start with an obvious one;

The Temptation to…

#1. pretend you know more than you know.

iPod dock, CD player, FM and remote. Black, white or red. Medium, large and X-large. $500 – $1,275.

Milford Graves
Percussion Ensemble with Sunny Morgan

Milford Graves is an acupuncturist, herbalist, inventor of his own style of martial arts – yara, teacher (Bennington College) and drummer/percussionist. He brought African and Indian musical instruments and influence to free jazz drumming in the ’60s. These days, Milford is studying the relationship between the human heart, health, healing and the beat “biological music, a synthesis of the physical and mental, a mind-body deal” with the help of a 2000 Guggenheim grant.

This recording is from 1965 and was re-released by Abraxas in 2001. Graves and Morgan are fierce, nimble and quick. Gongs, bells, shakers and drums, the tracks are all titled “Nothing…”. I find it best to just let this wash over you like a storm.

Faux Audio Systems & Interiors (www.emperorsnewclothes.com) has taken the Hi-Fi Industries snake oil salesmen and gurus to the mat! Based in Watertown, NY the concept behind FASI is simple, explains CEO & President Peter Azzhole “The concept of DBT [double-blind testing] has been proven time and again using the scientific method. Our approach at FASI is to leverage this scientific fact and deliver what every audiophile has been unable to obtain until now: the perfect hi-fi for every budget and every room.”

Faux Wilson Interior

Proponents of the DBT method insist that all competently designed audio equipment sounds the same; it’s just our other senses and ego’s that make us think we hear a difference. FASI’s products and services attack this human frailty head-on. “We provide faux, or the painted illusion, of any audio equipment you want.” explains Azzhole “And sitting behind this false front sits our proprietary audio technology. Your eyes are happy, your ego gets stroked and your ears get to hear perfectly competent musical reproduction.”

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Dear Twittering Machines,

What’s up with Coltrane? I’ve tried very hard to appreciate his music but so far, no luck. My system is all state-of-the-art including a DCS stack, Nagra, Avantgarde and all Acoustic Zen silver cable. Do you think its my interconnects?

Sincerely,

Joe

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The top-of-the-line Wilson Alexandria loudspeaker was found living in a mobile home. In an exclusive photo obtained from Reuters, the rumors of beer guzzling and binge eating appear to be all too true.

With CES just weeks away, there’s little chance Alex will get back to her former svelte self in time for the audio catwalk. David Wilson could not be reached for comment but Wilson Audio released the following statement: “Of course we’re disappointed in Alex. But on the bright side, initial measurements indicate an improved low frequency response. Or as Dave likes to say – Booty Call!”

Various
The Blues at Newport/1964/Part 2

Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, Reverend Robert Wilkins, Elizabeth Cotten and Willie Doss recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival on July 23/24 1964.

Simply stunning performances all around. Skip James is crushing singing “Sick Bed Blues” written while in the hospital just weeks before this appearance.

He walked away, mumblin’ very low
He said, ‘May get better
But he never get well, no mo’

But the real killer here (at least for me) is Elizabeth Cotten. Maybe its because I expected to hear something I expected or already knew. Whatever the case I’m buying up all of her recordings to see if she’s as wonderful as this 2-song performance implies.

An audio journalist was shot dead today during a 20 amplifier shootout.

Details are still coming in but an inside source claims one participant demanded performing the test “double-blind” and accidentally shot the reviewer. “That’s some bad mojo” said the unnamed source.

John Coltrane
Kulu Se Mama

Recorded in 1965 in between A Love Supreme and Meditations, Kulu’s title track features the then standard Coltrane quartet – McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones plus Pharoah Sanders, Donald Rafael Garrett on bass, bass clarinet, percussion, Frank Butler on drums and the very important addition of Juno Lewis (his recording debut) on vocals and percussion. Lewis penned the poem that he sings in Afro-Creole dialect as a dedication to his mother and this side-filling track is an explosion. Beautiful, raw and powerful.

From Nat Hentoff’s liner notes: “I would only add that the performance is an absorbing, almost trance-like fusion of tenderness and strength, memory and pride. And fitting its ritual nature, the singing and much of the playing by the horns have the cadences of a chant.”

Side 2 features 2 wonderful Coltrane tracks, “Vigil” and “Welcome” but Kulu is the jewel.

Here’s one for the oddity book – The Life of Nikola Tesla in International Morse Code. Yup. His whole life told in “dots” and “dashes” or “dits” and “dahs”.

Interesting tidbit (from Wikepedia): In speed contests between expert Morse code operators and expert cellphone SMS text messaging users, Morse code has consistently won, leading to speculation that cellphone manufacturers might someday build interfaces for Morse code input. This interface would translate the Morse code input into text, so that it could be sent to any SMS-capable cellphone, thus the recipient would not need to know Morse code in order to read it.

Listen to the introduction to the Tesla LP here (no joke)