VOTD 6/28/2023 #2

 Michael Abels: Get Out OST (Waxworks)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

Hello once again, dear reader, second time today. I find myself wondering why I'm doing this blog at all. It has nothing to do with the numbers of people who read it (most times five or fewer per post) because I really don't actively promote this page. It's tied to the fact that I enjoy collecting records (and less commonly these days, CDs) but I know that I've been accumulating a lot of stuff. These are things I've written here before. I guess part of this has been a personal but public journal, part of it analysis and history, part of it record review, part of it routine.

I mentioned in my post yesterday about being away from home this past week, in Oregon where I have family. I didn't mention that one of the things I came home with was COVID. I assume you've heard of it? Let me tell you, COVID sucks. Bad. If I felt this shitty after four shots (or five? I've lost track), I can only imagine what might have happened if I wasn't vaccinated. I seriously wouldn't rule out fatality.

I'm mostly over it and was able to venture out today for some errands. CMU has a vending machine that supplies a COVID test and two KN95 masks for free each week, so I have been well supplied and masked up with the good stuff today. I've also been cleaning my hands often. Previously, it was protection for me, now it's making myself safe for others.

I've written how Jerry's had a dump of a number of Waxworks vinyl releases, and to my surprise several of them haven't been sold off yet. The soundtrack to C.H.U.D. has been sold apparently, which I might have bought but I knew it would be 80s FM-synth stuff that I didn't need to buy. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but too late to regret it now.

I decided to splurge on one more, the two-LP Get Out soundtrack by Michael Abels. Here's a case where I actually have seen the film, and remember small bits of the score even if it was largely unobtrusive.

If I'm remembering correctly, that was a great year for films. The Shape of Water, Baby Driver, Logan, The Disaster Artist were all better-than-average commercial releases, and I saw two of my favorite documentaries ever: I Called Him Morgan and Dawson City: Frozen Time. I highly recommend them both. 

Get Out (or at least the people behind it) accomplished something amazing: it was a kind of event film that harkened back to an older age of cinema. "It is required that you see Psycho from the very beginning!" shouted that film's ad. Get Out didn't do that directly, but it was a similar word of mouth campaign. I heard repeatedly, "I can't tell you what happens, just go see it" or "Don't tell me what happens!" There was applause at the end, even in the all-white Manor Theater audience. I might have one or two quibbles with it, but by and large it really is a good film, Jordan Peele's best so far in my opinion. I've liked the other two as well, but this one came as such a surprise, it packed a stronger punch. 

Michael Abels' score is solid. At times the music recalls Bartók or Penderecki, as good horror movie music is likely to do. There's occasional chanting, words I don't understand, that to me being more African roots to mind. I'm certain that's intentional. It tends to be broken into smaller segments, as opposed to the longer, flowing statements that Bernard Herrmann would create for Hitchcock. That's not a criticism, just an observation. 

I was thinking while I was listening, what would this music suggest to me if I didn't know the film? The feeling I had more than anything else was of loneliness. Perhaps it's due to the extensive use of solo harp. It's befitting, since I suppose the Armitage family preys on loneliness in the narrative of the film. 

When reading the credits, I noticed "orchestrated by." That credit goes to Drew Krassowski. Neither Drew nor Michael have more than a few discogs.com credits. I don't know much about either of them. Drew must be given much of the credit for the success of the music though. I'm sure the composer was specific about some of the orchestrations, but I don't know how much. It's very well orchestrated, occasionally bringing Morricone colorations to mind. I'm pretty certain it's all done with orchestra and voices, but in a few spots I wasn't initially certain.

Are there any film composers who do their own orchestrations anymore? Perhaps Howard Shore. Maybe John Williams. Hans Zimmer? Probably, though he's also involved with electronic sound design and production. The days of auto-orchestrators such as Morricone, Herrmann. Waxman, Korngold, has largely passed. I know one reason Herrmann orchestrated and even conducted his scores was to earn more coin out of the deal. Thankfully he did, because nobody could have matched his inventive orchestrations.

I think I'm going to have to sit down with this one again soon.

Oh, and as of today, Jerry's still has a vinyl copy of Michael Einhorn's Shock Waves score, which I recommend. 

And by the way, COVID sucks. Really. 

VOTD 6/28/2023

 Jon the Postman's Puerile: Puerile (Bent Records)

Purchased at Fungus Books and Records

Another vinyl oddity. Like yesterday's post, this has a handmade cover, rubberstamped. Befitting the artist, it appears to have been sent through British post in 1978. 

This turned up in the Fungus racks. What the hell is it, I wondered? I know a great deal, and if I don't, there's usually enough information on the cover to figure it out. This just had the title on the thin cover, no inserts, while labels on the record. 

Whoever was at the desk at Fungus put it on for me. Was it serious? One side, cut at 33 1/3, is a super sloppy, mostly spoken version of "Louie, Louie" with no attempt at recreating the original lyrics. And that sounded remarkably like Mark E. Smith from The Fall speaking at the beginning. It just keeps going and going and going, a real room clearer.

Side two was cut at 45rpm. Some moaning vocals, followed by super-primitive punk rock. 

I was almost surprised to find there there is a discogs.com page for this artist and release, and discovered that I'm missing the inserts with credit information. For example, that IS Mark E. Smith at the start of the first side. "Guinea Pigs" is/are credited with backing vocals on one song, and in fact I think it's a literal recording of Guinea pigs mixed into the song. 

So what was Half Japanese doing at this time? Their earliest tapes precede this, but their first commercially released records came later. No New York was released the same year.

I guess I'm trying to find a context for this record. There was a lot in the air at the time, and I think it's fair to say that punk rock was a much more vital cultural force in England than the US. JG Ballard said so. The Sex Pistols documentary, The Filth and the Fury, has some good insights as to why it all began too. 

And is this any more or less listenable than any Jandek record? 

One commenter on discogs: "This is arguably the worst thing I've ever heard on record." Not much arguing with that, yet here it is, 45 years after its release, and I'm trying to say something serious about this. Maybe there just isn't that much to say, and it's another snapshot of a time and place.

VOTD 6/27/2023

Spider John Koerner with Willie and the Bumblebees, also featuring Tom Olson: Music is Just a Bunch of Notes (Sweet Jane Ltd.)

Purchased at an export shop in Portland, OR

For the two-three people who check this blog regularly, you would have noticed my output of writing has gone from less regular to non-existent for over a week. I've been away from home, visiting family in Portland OR and vacationing on the coast. Unlike a generation that seems to want to publicize every movement they make and each meal they eat, I'd prefer to not tell people that my house will largely be empty for an extended period of time.

There's a fun export shop in Portland named Cargo, on the eastern side of the Willamette River. It's largely Asian goods, much of it clothing, Manga books, Chinese propaganda, the like. I didn't know they also carried a number of boxes of used records. I find looking through collections such as those more frustrating than ever. Everyone thinks they have treasures and charge too much money.

This record stood out. I'm always on the lookout for vinyl weirdness, and this immediately checked a lot of boxes. Handmade cover: check. Unusual location (Minneapolis): check. Strange title: yup. Three pages, copied from typewritten originals, with needlessly extensive liner notes: indeed. Price: $8. Sold. 

Music is Just a Bunch of Notes dates to 1972, which itself seems strange. Bona fide artist-run labels would be common in under a decade, but not so at this time. Thinking as I do, December 1972 was when the first record produced by The Residents/Ralph Records was issued. 

This record isn't nearly as weird (not even trying to be). It's largely charming, lo-fi folk-rock. Think lower-end The Band, that might put you in the right territory When I say lo-fi, it's not that it's grungy or murky. All the band cuts (voice, guitar, bass, piano, drums, often augmented by horns and strings) were recorded live. The voice is audible but a touch low in the blend, and more importantly could used  better microphone. The record is also underproduced to the point of making the silent time between tracks entirely too long, long enough that I wondered if i should pick up the needle and move forward.

Where it goes into stranger areas are the spoken word pieces, with Tom Olson affecting an exaggerated Minnesotan accent. In one, he depicts sitting at a red light hoping not to run out of gas (he does), in another he's on a boat that won't stop. Is he funny? Not even remotely, but that adds to the "just what is this?" weirdness vibe. 

I should be more specific about the cover. It's rubber stamped with magic marker accents. The image below is taken from discogs.com, but mine looks different. 

Here's an example of the specificity from the notes: "The room measured 15' x 30' with 11' ceilings and had plaster walls, skylights, and an attached six by four hallway/alcove. The control room was an 8' x 8' x 8' frame construction covered with wallboard, insulated and set in one corner of the room." Etc etc etc. More often I find records having too little data, but this is ridiculous. He lists all of the recording gear, microphones, mastering, budget, wholesale and retail costs. If this session was of major historical significance, this could be valuable information. Even then I would guess it's too much, and it's not a session of major historical significance. 

VOTD 6/18/2023

 Various artists: Musique Concrète (Candide)

Purchased used, not certain where

I've written before that I'll pretty much collect any early electronic music LPs if the price is right. I left the $4 sticker on the cover of this one, making it a prize find. 

The pieces on this collection are all from the French RTF studio, the center of musique concrète production in the early post-war era. The composers included: Pierre Schaeffer, Françoise-Bernard Mache, Michel Philippot, François Bayle, Luc Ferrari, Ivo Mallec, and Bernard Parmegiani. Schaeffer makes perfect sense, as he ran the studio. I know Bayle and Ferrari's names, the others not so much. 

The phenomenon of French musique concrète vs. German elektronische musik seems silly in retrospect. I have to check myself a little; the story of the French vs. German schools makes for an easy narrative, but the truth is more complicated. It ignores the studios and schools popping up in the US, Italy, Japan, and other places during the 1950s. If I'm teaching current (traditional) music composition students who have no sense of history at all, it does make for a convenient source of both a narrative and assignments. 

I had a thought while listening to this record. The early German WDR studio-generate works (entirely synthesized sound sources) are sometimes difficult to tell one from another, or at least whose hands are on each one. How do you tell one composer from another? There are ways in some cases, but the sound sources tend to neutralize the the differences. 

At times I could say the same of these works. When many of the materials consist of short edits of percussion sounds, frantically moving in and out of a sonic field, how does one composer distinguish himself from another? A reversed piano sound for Schaeffer sounds the same was one for Philippot. 

Or am I being far too critical? The same could be said of any genre. As I quoted Nizan Leibovich in a previous post, how can you tell one second movement from an 18th century symphony from another?

Listening to this, my mind seems to be leaning towards the questions more than the answers. 

What strange music this can be. That's something I find especially interesting about the post-war era, how far composers and other artists intended to take their work. It's so easy to say that this isn't casual listening, something you put on for "entertainment." These works aren't simple. Often the sources of sound are difficult or impossible to identify. It's an interesting collection though, and does demonstrate some of the variety of works coming from the RTF studio. Bayle's work "L'Oiseau-chanteur" adds some range to the works included. Its sound sources are largely traditional instruments, playing most likely composed passages, at times with quick editing of bird-like sounds and other things. (They happen very fast at times.) Several of the pieces have such fast editing, it all feels like the works have short attention spans. 

And yet, every one of those edits was work. It's SO easy to edit audio digitally now. I do quite a bit on Audacity and it couldn't be much simpler. And that brings me back to a point I've made before: one thing I like about this music is the sweat on it. It took a lot of work. 

The collection was compiled by Ilhan Mimoroglu, a significant electronic music composer and producer himself. He'd have an ear for collecting solid examples for an album like this. 

CDOTD 6/10/2023

 Alexander Skryabin (Scriabin): The Mystic Skryabin (Altarus)

Given to me by Donna Amato

I know some talented people. I guess we all do, don't we? I mean scary talented. Donna Amato comes in at the top of that list for me.

I came to know Donna when working with her in a Quantum Theater production in 2003 (jeez, where does the time go?). The chamber opera, Kafka's Chimp, required the musicians be on stage with the singers and dancers. I was asked to take part because there's a soprano saxophone part in the score, requiring me to act almost as another character. It's a gig, right?

The production was at an all-purpose room at the Pittsburgh Zoo. A scaffolding was erected for the stage and seating, making the audience look like it was in a cage, viewing the work. Behind everyone and in the middle, Donna played a baby grand piano. She was essential for keeping everyone together. When I looked over the score, it became clear she was playing some difficult passages so gracefully, they didn't sound nearly as difficult as they looked.

Donna showed me what she had started to work on: the Sorabji Piano Symphony #5, a monumentally difficult, long, and demanding work. Despite having been written decades before, the work had never been premiered. She told me she wanted to play the work before she got too old to physically be capable. 

Later, I attended a preview of her debut in New York. It's 2.5 hours of hard piano playing. Yes, difficult, but I also mean pounding. Demanding of the performer. Donna played it through with no break except to stand up once or twice between movements, and only one page turn gaff the entire time. 

Impressive isn't a strong enough word. 

Donna and I have remained friendly; it's nice to run into her once in a while in the halls at CMU. I've given her my recordings when I've released them (and she's clearly listened, commenting on the interesting setting of my duet session with Anthony Braxton), and she's given me hers if she has them on hand. 

So here's Scriabin/Skryabin. He might be most famous of attaching colors to different pitches, and creating some sort of "color organ." I can't speak for certain whether he truly had synesthesia, or as I suspect with Messiaen, he had an intuitive response to sound, pitch and harmony.

The pieces on this disc represent Skryabin's final works, opp. 66-74, before his untimely at age 44. The last movement of the final work possibly even sound cut off. Skryabin's music is pushing past triadic harmony at this time, sitting in a kind of ambiguous space between tonality and atonality. There are passages that will end with a chord that's astray from any sort of traditional Western harmony, and I think, how did he arrive at that point? What's that sound?

Donna told me she planned to record all of Skryabin's solo piano works, which would take up about three CDs of length. She also said she wanted to record the last (and strangest) works first, in the event that she wasn't given the chance to record the complete cycle. 

And that's what happened. Donna has other releases on the Altarus label, but this is her only program of Skryabin. 

I probably wouldn't have known about the Altarus label if not for her releases on it. Most of their releases are solo piano music, ranging from the impossibly obscure (Sorabji, Sewickley's own Ethelbert Nevin) to the familiar (Messiaen's Vingt Regards). The label appears to be inactive now. Which I understand, I mean, how can a label producing physical CDs of unheard piano music possibly sustain itself in this day and age? 

Skryabin makes an interesting contrast to his contemporaries. Not as floaty and low-key as Satie, not as expressionist as Schoenberg, more ambiguously tonal than late Debussy. He's kind of in between all of them. 

And I'll always support that. that in-betweenness is some of the most interesting territory. Once again I think, where was he headed to, had he lived longer? 

And Donna, thanks. 

VOTD 6/09/2023

 Penn Sembles: Introducing the Penn Sembles (Marjon)

Purchased at that weird hoarder store in Greensburg

I've just checked out of the library Dust & Grooves: Adventures in Record Collecting. It's a coffee table book about record collectors, with pictures of their collections, holding prized records, with a few interviews. Perusing it at the library, I opened the book almost directly to the pages with Jerry Weber of Jerry's Records. One collector hunts down so-called private pressings, the kind that sometimes have the same cover image with different text superimposed. 

I say so-called because, well, is that what my one and only LP is? I knew I've never be able to sell 300 hundred copies, why press even that many? I'm referring to the Flexure LP, by the way. Each has a unique cover, sometimes painted and mutilated records glued to the cover, sometimes torn-up record covers. https://www.discogs.com/release/5080382-Flexure-Insert-Title-Here

There are particular kinds of records I collect without hopefully being too obsessive about any of it. I'm always on the hunt for early electronic music LPs, old school industrial records, in addition to always looking for recordings of particular artists. It's rare that I'll pay premium prices for things, just as I'm trying to resist the temptation to buy too many $3 Duquesne University records put out at Jerry's. 

Almost surprisingly, there is a discogs.com page for the Penn Sembles, for a listing of one record. It's on a regional label, Marjon International Records, from Sharon, PA. This is listed under their "Custom Series." Does that make it a private pressing? The artist page lists them as starting in 1969, the release as being from 1974. From the indistinct pictures on the front cover, I doubt anyone is younger than their 50s. 

It's Tamburitzan music. Lots of tremolo-plucked strings, mostly with vocals and largely choral. Imagine being in a Slavic social hall, with a group of about forty pluckers and singers, playing songs that everyone knows. Professional it ain't, even if there is a strong solo voice or two in the bunch. 

I don't know if I'll put this on ever again. My wife and I were in Greensburg, where in the center town there's a major hoarder thrift store. I mean, really, I wouldn't be too surprised if the floors were to cave in one day. And typical of stores of this nature, he generally wants too much money for his junk, with an occasional deal to be found. On a previous visit, I found a decent copy of the Mothers' We're Only In It For the Money for $10, a very reasonable price. This record was a dollar or two, which I bought with a couple of other things, just so we could buy something without spending too much money on trash. 

How many of these types of western Pennsylvania records are there? There's a pretty serious Slavic presence in the region, particularly when you head towards Johnstown. 

How many copies of this even still exist, in playable condition? Who cares about them? Nearly fifty years later, do any of the Penn Sembles players remain alive?

VOTD 6/08/2023 #2

Richard Einhorn: The Prowler OST (Waxworks)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

Here's the second of my purchases of someone's Waxworks vinyl dump at Jerry's. I wrote about Altered States yesterday. 

I might have passed on this one.  I don't know the film The Prowler at all, I guess it's an early entry into the 80s slasher craze. It's not a genre of film in general known for their standout soundtrack music, with the exception of Halloween of course. 

What caught my eye was the composer, Richard Einhorn. He's not someone I know anything about except that he did the music for the excellent Shock Waves. It's more-or-less the first Nazi zombie movie. It's a bit slow at first, but gets eerie when the dried up yellow-skinned undead Nazi supersoldiers start ascending from the water in and around a remote tropical island. Peter Cushing and David Carradine may get top billing, but the real star is Brooke Adams from The Dead Zone and 1978's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It has an excellent electronic sound track by Einhorn, something of a favorite of mine. That was enough reason to take a chance on this.

The biggest surprise is that it's not really electronic at all except for a little bit of processing, maybe a synth in one or two spots. It's a studio orchestra playing the music, telling me that it was very thoroughly scored. Einhorn has some skills, to be sure, even if this isn't exactly what I was expecting. There's a bit of lush romanticism. I saw the trailer and the beginning is set at the graduation dance in 1945, so no doubt that's the connection. It's a bit later in we start hearing more of the horror movie tropes: glissando strings up and down, tone clusters, flutter-tongue flute, driving percussion. A later cue, a chromatic figure, would sound especially at home in a 70s-era Italian horror movie.

I don't want to say nostalgia, because it's not quite the right word. But, this seems like a well budgeted soundtrack for a real orchestra (albeit probably not a large symphonic orchestra), something that probably wouldn't exist for such a film within a few years. And when MIDI production becomes a factor, forget it. So much can be accomplished by a single person sitting at a desktop. I like the power that puts into a single person's hands, but it would take a tremendous effort to make something that sounded as rich as Einhorn's orchestrations. 

I've noticed that the mastering on this and the other Waxworks I bought is by Thomas Dimuzio. He appears to be their go-to as a mastering engineer. Good for him, I'm happy to see him earning off projects like this. Being a Buchla-based free improvisor will only earn you so much. The audio itself sounds great, though the pressing a little questionable, especially on disc one. It looks great, fatigue-green, light green, and rose splattered vinyl. But ultimately, I guess black vinyl still sounds best.

VOTD 6/08/2023

 Olivier Messiaen/Toru Takemitsu: Turangalîla Symphonie/November Steps (RCA Victor)

Purchased at Jerry's Records from the Duquesne University collection

If you go back through this blog, you'll find a lot about Messiaen. I'm sure much of it is rambling and only moderately coherent. During the lockdown, I bought a 32-CD brick of Messiaen's music on DG. It's not everything he wrote that's in circulation, but almost certainly at least 90%. The works are organized by category, not chronologically; the solo piano works first, organ music after, followed by works for orchestra, then choral/orchestral compositions, dwindling down to miscellaneous. At times it was beautiful, and sometimes a slog. I couldn't quite maintain a one-disc-a-day pace. 

It was interesting to take in a complete overview of his body of work. I came to a simple conclusion: the period from 1940-1950, Messiaen was unbeatable. There were a few pieces pre-1940 that stood out, but I largely found the (existing) early works to be unexceptional post-Debussy post-Romanticism. After the 1950s there are many great works, but nothing that stood out as having the inventiveness of his "golden period."

But that decade, still a young artist but matured artist, it's as if he could do no wrong. Quatour Pour la Fin du Temps, Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine, Harawi, and especially Vingt Regards sur L'Enfant-Jésus and Turangalîla Symphonie. Just incredible. 

A friend of mine likes making lists of things such as his 100 favorite composers, and posting comments on some of them. I'm not as inclined to codify such things, but I have decided that Turangalîla is my favorite symphonic work, probably by a wide margin. I haven't spent as much time listening to any other work for the symphony orchestra as much. 

It's not enough for me to just say it's my favorite; the question is, why? What appeals to me about this work?

There is one thing I like about Messiaen in particular: even though he's working with a chromatic harmonic language, he's not afraid of a major triad and knows how to use it to great effect. Maybe more broadly, this is a work that both looks back on the past and forward into the future. It's unabashedly romantic at times (in the best possible sense) but also suggests the stormier atonality of the post-War generation to come.

I've seen Turangalîla performed twice in person, and had a similar experience both times. The work is ten movements long, and takes about 80 minutes to perform. After the first movement, I thought, wow, nine more to go? How long is this going to take? At the end of the piece, I thought, is that all? There isn't more?

How did that up-and-coming generation of composers hear this work? Did Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, Xenakis, Berio have the chance to hear this composition in their early lives, and did it sound fresh to them or a harkening back to earlier times? Unless any of them wrote about the piece, I guess we'll never really know.

Even though I have at least two versions of this piece on CD, and even though I'm trying to be a little more selective about my vinyl purchasing, I still paid the $3 for this particular copy. Seiji Ozawa, that's a good sign, but especially the sisters Loriod on piano and Ondes Martenot made this worth the small cost. Yvonne (Olivier's wife) was known to come onstage and play her husband's music by memory. It's already staggeringly difficult music to play, let alone to so fully digest the work as to commit it to memory. I don't assume she plays it by memory here, being a recording session with her husband supervising the performance. I've recently noticed a recording by Yvonne of the notoriously difficult Barraque piano sonata (I wrote about a recording of that piece here a few posts back) and I think I need to listen to more of her apart from her performances of her husband's music.

I shouldn't ignore the fourth side, devoted to a single Takemitsu work. It was another reason this seemed like a good $3 deal. It's funny, I think I've made note before of Morton Feldman's observation of the modern 20-minute work. So many pieces he heard last 20 minutes. I don't think this can be coincidental with the rise of the long playing record album. 

November Steps starts sounding like a kind of modernist orchestral work, a bit clustery but not so much on the severe side, but then opens up to passages of shakuhachi and biwa. The work alternates between lush orchestrations, and these emptier moments. Takemitsu was always a Japanese composer, I don't doubt that. It's more a question of whether how blatantly he draws on Japanese musical roots at any given time. I wrote previously about his In an Autumn Garden, set for Gagaku orchestra. Can't get much more Japanese than that. 

Looking over his discography, I'm noticing he was involved with more soundtrack work than I realized. I was aware of Woman of the Dunes and Ran, but not much else. More things to investigate. 

So okay, this was worth $3. And like pretty much every Duquesne LP I've bought, everything I want to get probably was barely played when in the university collection. My gain, even if I didn't need to take up that little bit of space for yet another double album.

PS: A Robert Indiana "Love" image for the cover? Can't do better than that?

VOTD 6/07/2023

 John Corigliano: Altered States OST (Waxworks)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

It was about ten years or so ago I started to notice fairly high-priced soundtrack albums in a local store. What was the place, 720 Records and Books? It was in Lawrenceville. When I say high-price, I don't mean in the $100 range, but they were often more than $20. At the time, these records were on the Death Waltz Recording Co. label, which a few years later merged with Mondo Tees for a single outlet of largely movie-related collectables. Mondo is best known of newly commissioned screen printed posters for various movies, often of a horror or sci fi nature. There's a documentary on the topic, 24X36, about the dimensions Mondo and other similar companies print these posters.

Other similar record labels have popped up, most notably Waxworks. The first DeathWaltz records were rather plainly packaged: black border around a circle, and inside that a new image based on the film. The packaging has become more distinctive and elaborate since then; Waxworks albums most often come in a gatefold cover, Death Waltz sometimes too. Often they're in multicolored vinyl, sometimes multiple variants. 

It's pretty rare to see any of them pop up used in the wild, so it was surprising to find about a dozen of them at Jerry's today. Even then they didn't come cheap, and I limited myself to only two: this, and Michael Einhorn's The Prowler. I chose this one in part because I'm familiar with the movie, though I haven't seen it in decades. I did recall though that the soundtrack plays a significant part in the experience of the film, so here's where I put my money.

In general John Corigliano isn't a composer who particularly interests me. I'll acknowledge that I possibly am not being fair in that assessment. I was reading just now about the significance of his Symphony No.1, composed during the height of the AIDS crisis. The music I've heard seemed to me to be full of technique but little interest. Someone with tremendous and enviable skills, but not someone who distinguished himself musically. I'd say the same thing, maybe more so, about Richard Danielpour. Wonderful technique, and a bore to my ears.

But then, take Bernard Herrmann, my favorite film composer, with only Ennio Morricone even coming close. Herrmann's scores are often amazing, inventive, and stand alone as listening statements apart from the visuals. But I've heard some of his non-film concert music, and none of it (so far) has been nearly as good as his film work. Perhaps the visuals help inspire his creativity?

It's also in that spirit that I decided to buy this. How does Corigliano stack up when he's composing for film? Altered States is a preposterous Ken Russell film, ridiculous even by his standards. Corigliano proves himself up to the task; the composing is lively, colorful, hyperactive at times. There are bits of classicism, smaller moments of microtonality, lots of raucous percussion at times. There's some sort of musical quote at the beginning I think, tossed around in a trippy way, befitting the film. There are some electronics mixed into the closing sections (probably during the heaviest tripping concluding scenes), a technique far more commonly used today.

It sounds very good. Okay, I admit I like the smeary purple vinyl. I try not to be a sucker for things like that now, it's not enough reason to buy something. I still like it. For crying out loud, the Matango vinyl issue on Death Waltz looks great but, $35 for a single LP?  https://mondoshop.com/products/matango-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-lp-numbered-edition

$30 for Space Amoeba? https://mondoshop.com/products/space-amoeba-original-motion-picture-score-lp

That's playing up the fetishization of vinyl and collectables, and I have my limits. And those did not turn up used at Jerry's, otherwise it's what I'd be writing about right now.

VOTD 6/03/2023

 Stevie Wonder: Innervisions (Tamla)

Purchased at Dave Kuzy's yard sale

Paul Thompson asked me recently what I thought of Steely Dan. A question like that is sometimes difficult for me to answer. I mean, I don't hate Steely Dan. I bought a $1 CD copy of Aja at a (different) yard sale. I don't especially care about Steely Dan, I don't hate them. I like some of the songs. If you weren't alive or aware to know Aja when it was released, you really have no idea what a sensation it was. I heard every track on the radio, including the most obscure "Home At Last" at least once or twice. I find them a little too tightly wound for my taste, too precious, too perfectionist. I'll admit though that I had "My Old School" running through my head for days after the last (and final) time I drove by my old high school. I'm never going back to my old school...

There's the part of me in which I have to guard against being the self-appointed voice of the avant-garde in Pittsburgh, that I shouldn't enjoy music that is mainstream. In other words, just like what I like, be critical of everything (both the positives and the negatives), and most importantly, don't believe my own bullshit. It's not necessarily good if it's obscure, not necessarily bad if it's popular.

So what do I make of Stevie Wonder? Like Steely Dan, if you weren't around in the 1970s, you don't know how omnipresent his music could be. There was practically a chute from the Grammy awards to his living room; he's won 25 in all to date. I'm recalling this through the gauze of memory, but I seem to recall even AOR rock stations would play his music sometimes. I know I'd hear a piece of his occasionally, and I definitely didn't sit and listen to top 40 radio. It's unimaginable now to suggest Stevie Wonder find airplay on WDVE now. They'd rather play Stevie Ray Vaughan's vastly inferior cover of "Superstition" than the original. God help em if they played any Black artist other than Jimi Hendrix, but that's a rant for another time and place. 

So let's get this out of the way: an album such as this, Music of my Mind, and others of the period are amazing accomplishments. Stevie plays the majority of the instrumental tracks, sings the majority of vocals. It's mostly drums and keyboards, but I have to pay close attention to even hear if it's keyboard bass or not. 

I saw a short clip of Stevie on TV once, in which he was laying down synth voices like a horn section. First of all, no MIDI and all of its editing conveniences. He was playing the parts individually, and talked about hearing some inflection on the middle voice, and added a little pitch bend to it. Such attention to detail! He knows his own pieces at an atomic level. 

The easiest comparison I can make would be to Prince. There are records in which he played most or all of the instruments. He's his own songwriter. I'm going to incur the wrath of the gods (or at least many of my friends) when I say that I have always found Prince to be a little overrated. Let me qualify that statement. The way some people go on and on and on about Prince, it's an almost cult-like fanaticism. I know I can be extraordinarily enthusiastic about my own preferences and likes, but even I can't get that wrapped up in any artist. 

I prefer Stevie. This might in part be generational; his music was a part of my youth, even though I didn't own any of his records then. Prince was a great guitarist, I'll give him that much. If anything, I personally wish he'd focused on that more, but that's just me. But truth is, I like Stevie Wonder's best songs more than Prince's. I find them to be more harmonically rich, for example. I think Stevie has a broader sense of harmony. And talk about funky! "Higher Ground", can't get much funkier than that. Of course Red Hot Chili Peppers wanted to butcher it.

It can't be helped that some tracks stand out. This is the album with "Living for the City" and "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing", for example. Nothing on it is bad though, no stinkers or clunkers. It's not an easy thing to accomplish, especially considering how much music Stevie was creating at the time. 

I'm going to make one negative point though it's not about Stevie himself; it's that of his legacy. Stevie has a great voice, amazing really. I find many singers since his heyday, particularly those in the r&b world, copy the affectations without the quality. In other words, there or so many copycats, but few match his ability. Lots of screaming, growling, long runs (melismas). Stevie by comparison seems restrained. But that's not a critique of him; he's better for it. 

This is clearly a great album. Now the question is, do I find it to be his best album? Not enough information, yet.

VOTD 6/02/2023 #2

 Frank Zappa: Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention (Barking Pumpkin)

Bought at Dave Kuzy's yard sale

Dave is the guitarist for the band Microwaves, a band I greatly respect, in addition to appearing onstage with them. I wrote in my previous posting that Dave had this in a box of vinyl, with a sticker that read "$1/it sucks." And I said, yes I know, but even these records have maybe that one piece on it that I like, worth $1. 

Let me back up. Since writing to this blog (semi-)regularly since late December 2022, I've written about Frank before. Ergo I might be repeating myself; I haven't exactly gone back and reviewed my own missives, just thrown them out spontaneously come what may.

Frank Zappa has a distinctly important part of my musical development. I'm certain I've shared this before that discovering two reel-to-reel tapes in my father's collection with Hot Rats, Absolutely Free, Uncle Meat, We're Only In It for the Money (I think) and a little of Cruisin with Rueben and the Jets was one of the first really epiphanous musical moments in my life. It sounded like music that was created for me. I was "that guy" in high school who was telling others to check out Zappa. The first thing I wrote for my high school paper was a review for Sheik Yerbouti (I honestly hope no physical copies of that issue still exist). 

As I've grown older, as I've checked out more of Frank's body of work, my opinions have become more varied and hopefully nuanced. Something I didn't see at the time, and is easier to view in hindsight, is that Sheik Yerbouti for me now is an approximate marker for when I think Frank's work takes a turn for the ugly. It's not a hard and fast point where I think it happens, there are signs on earlier records. SY has varying degrees of homophobia and (probably more notably) misogyny that would come more to the surface in subsequent records.

Frank was nothing if not self-promoting and driven. I'm tempted to write that he was also supremely self-important, except he really was a vital artist at one time. That wouldn't be entirely bluster. What I do believe though was that he, by the time of this record (1985) had largely lost the ability to be self-critical. I think he really failed to see why his earlier records were significantly better than this, grungier they may be. I think he failed to recognize, or at least underplayed, the importance of particular musicians on his music. There's nobody on playing on here that approaches the flexibility and humor brought by George Duke or Napoleon Murphy Brock. His choice of players sounds increasingly robotic as he headed into the 1980s: Tinseltown Rebellion, You Are What You Is, Them Or Us, The Man From Utopia, this. 

And then there's the Synclavier. He seemed to love his Synclavier, which I'd expect he would considering the six figures the thing cost. Now he had a device that made music that truly was robotic. The music he produced on it initially sounded startling, but to my ears has not weathered well. His sampled remixes of voices from the Senate hearings on "Porn Wars" is more annoying than anything. The Synclavier, cutting edge technology at the time, now makes this sound dated. And, I don't know if the technology even exists to transfer the data to MIDI format. Assuming his or anyone else's even works any longer, it's more outdated than a crumhorn now. 

Which brings me to another self- for Frank, self-righteous. He made a personal campaign of appearing before the Senate, on hearings that more or less didn't amount to much of anything. I could never get too upset about the idea of a warning label for lyrical content, especially when it was self-regulated. Ironically, the lyric warning label became a selling point, particularly in the newly burgeoning rap/hip hop world. Even the "label" on the cover of this (probably his worst cover art ever) reads: "Warning guarantee: This album contains material which a truly free society would neither fear or suppress. In some socially retarded areas, religious fanatics and ultra-conservative political organizations violate your First Amendment Rights by attempting to censor rock & roll albums." etc etc etc etc etc. 

If you think using the word "retarded" seems to have aged poorly, listen to Ike Willis' "Thing-Fish" speaking in exaggerated, fake African-American vernacular popping up on this album. It was embarrassing then, let alone now. I know the character, the talk, was intended to be satirical, but it's just awful. 

If Zappa thought things were bad in the Reagan era, he had no clue how much worse it could get. And believe me, I don't look back on the Reagan era with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. While I love/loved the boom in independently produced music at the time, while I met my wife and my daughter was born during that time, that decade of America was shitty. 

I've probably written this before, but it's worth repeating. There are days when I wish Frank was still around to give his acerbic opinion on current events. I'm sure he would have called out Trump for the illiterate moron he is. Frank Zappa, J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Charles Mingus, how I would have loved to read your opinions on current events. Reminds me that I was lucky to share a planet with those men in my lifetime.

As for the record? Even the best tracks ("Alien Orifice", "What's New in Baltimore?") are tertiary-level quality pieces. This record, as Dave wrote, does indeed suck. 

VOTD 6/02/2023

 VA: Ecstatic Music of the Jemaa El Fna (Sublime Frequencies)

Purchased at Dave Kuzy's yard sale

Hello.

It's kind of amazing that I was as diligent about maintaining this blog as I had for the first half of 2023. My week of so absence from writing isn't due to anything in particular. Without being on a regular schedule currently, it's easy to sit back and watch too much Mystery Science Theater 3000. I have been working on some compositions, including a big project I've suggested here previously. I still can't discuss it, I still need to know I can pull it off. I've been playing some gigs here and there. And even when I have written on this site, I always promise myself I'll spend as much time working on music as listening and writing. 

Here I am again in confessional mode, I suppose. Blah blah blah, get stuff done, Ben.

I went to Dave Kuzy's yard sale today, knowing full well I didn't intend to leave empty-handed. He unloads a few things, I accumulate more. At least I'm mostly limiting myself to records/CDs, occasionally a book, and musical equipment; other collectables, I really have to want it. I've spent enough money and used enough space gathering objects.

Out of his box of vinyl: Stevie Wonder's Innervisions, a reissue of Joy Division's Sordide Sentimental 7", and Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. On a sticker for the latter, he wrote, "$1/it sucks." Which I know it will, but I'll buy a record such as that for that one track I know will be okay. He had all three volumes of Joe's Garage for cheap, but I have it in CD and I know hate most of that work anyway. I've written about Zappa on here before, maybe I'll have to put on today's buy later as a reason to share some thoughts on late-period Zappa. 

And this record. On a stick Dave wrote, "Face-melting jams, with liberally applied distortion." $5.

Sold.

The region? Morocco, Marrakesh in particular. A practically mythical location. Jemaa El Fna is a square in town, thick with magicians, fortune tellers, and soothsayers during the day, and ecstatic musical performances at night. With three groups (one a solo oud player) in a total of nine tracks here, there's a flavor of the music on this compilation. What I assume is that while these tracks sound like complete pieces at times, that the full performances go on much longer.

We have a different sense of time and scale in Western music than in places such as Asia and Africa. It's probably been compounded by a reduction in our attention span due to hyperactive media that is never far from our senses. Generally, I have no problem with either approach: compacting ideas into as short a time span as possible, or stretching ideas out well past the time they might seem "interesting." There's one of those John Cage stories I'll paraphrase, in which he says (not verbatim here), "If something bores your for a minute, listen to it for ten minutes. If it bores you in ten minutes, listen to it for twenty, etc. Eventually you discover that it's not boring at all, but interesting." This of course didn't stop him from questioning why Morton Feldman's pieces were so long.

The recordings on this comp are appropriately noisy and grungy. Studio quality this ain't, but wouldn't that defeat the point? There's always some sort of stringed instrument at the center of things, either "banjo" or "mandolin" in most cases, always super-overdriven in sound. Liberally applied distortion, indeed. Sometimes there's group singing, sometimes percussion. 

It's rare to hear anything this nasty sounding on a "world music" broadcast. But then, in general that wouldn't sell it, would it?