It's (Nearly) Halloween

Your soundtrack to the holiday.

Cultural Famine

From Walter Mosley's piece in the Oct 23 issue of The Nation.

The deprivation of famine is certainly at its worst when people waste away and die. But there is also the possibility of another kind of famine: a dearth in the human soul. This barren emotional landscape, this spiritual famine is in full swing today among our people and in much of the rest of the world. Hopelessness, emptiness and senseless cynicism have taken up residence in so many of our hearts that we seem to be wasting away even while we are surrounded by riches and blessed with potential unequaled in human history.

...

America stands on a fiscal precipice here at the start of the twenty-first century. China and India and South America present powerful challenges to our economic hegemony; Europe's united economy also imperils our dominance. Our money is worth less daily, our children's potential is dwindling; our medical insurance, Social Security and ability to make choices about when and if we retire are fast eroding.

We cannot, with our present economic system, compete with Asia's burgeoning workforce. We are no longer superior in technology or the culling of natural resources. We can't even afford to pick our own vegetables or dig our own graves.

We've made enemies of the adherents of Islam, socialists, the French and much of the rest of the world. Most of our citizens are in debt over products that were made according to the lawful conspiracy of planned obsolescence, and we are mired in a war that we cannot win and yet cannot stop waging.

We say, and most of us believe, that our form of government is democratic at its root. But contradictorily, we suspect that it is the wealthiest among us who control Congress, the legal system and the presidency itself.

If we are lucky enough to achieve old age we know that all of our savings must be lost before we are interred in public nursing homes that have the smell and feel of detention camps--the last stop in the American Dream.

Our prisons are overflowing with undereducated and angry people of color, poor whites and the mentally ill.

Fast food clogs our arteries, and sugar is sprinkled over everything like fairy dust on ever-expectant Cinderellas. Television distracts us, and the Lotto is one of the minor faiths under the greater religion of Capitalism.

This is America. This is our home.

...

What would be wrong if our belief in our people made us less wealthy on an international level? What if we worked harder but ate better? What if we educated more of our children to become doctors but paid our doctors less? What if we built homes that anyone could afford to live in and limited the pain that profit often demands from our workers?

What if we demanded that we get value from our dollars and called out the credit card companies for what they are: loan sharks? What if we stopped policing the rest of the world and joined together with all nations as an equal looking for parity rather than professing our superiority because of our access to gold and the weapons we wield?

What if we recognized the crimes we've committed from Cambodia to Cuba, from Alcatraz to Africa? What if we recommitted ourselves to health, education and a minimum degree of wealth for all of our people? This would only serve to make us stronger (if not richer).

Voluptuously Monochromatic

Making significant use of the theme from Werckmeister Harmonies, composed by Mihály Víg, this is the new mix, Voluptuously Monochromatic, just under 71 minutes.



Part One
27:18

Olivier Messiaen "Oraison" Ellipsis Arts 2000
WH: Explaining the Eclipse
Superpitcher "Tonite" Kompakt 2006
International Pony "Our House" Columbia 2005

Part Two
15:31

Susanna & the Magical Orchestra "Jolene" Rune Grammofon 2004
The Field "Over the Ice" Kompakt 2006
WH: The Mob Attacks

Part Three
28:08

Skatebård "Data Italia" Digitalo Enterprises 2006
Trentemøller "Miss You" Poker Flat 2006
Junior Boys "When No One Cares" Domino 2006
Clara Rockmore "Tchaikovsky's Valse Sentimentale" Ellipsis Arts 2000
Thom Yorke "Atoms for Peace" XL 2006
WH: Nothing Counts

Art Brut & T.I.

Not much to say about the show, except that We Are Scientists have a number of problems to solve before they're a good rock band. I think they could be fun with a tweaked sound: add more cymbals, double or triple all vocals and guitar lines, speed up a bit. Apparently I did not blog about Art Brut when Charles, Kevin and I saw them in March so here it is: Art Brut is one of the most endearingly humorous pop-punk bands you will ever see on stage. Eddie Argos has shaved his mustache, but still looks like the sort of guy who likes to sit in the corner at social gatherings, picking his nose and staring off into space. You will want to listen to the record(s) before or after the show to catch the lyrics because they're that good.

Anyway, I was inspired by Teague's list to make my own of bands/performers I've seen. I excluded some very small acts and openers who failed to make an impression. I'm not sure the whole list is interesting to anyone but me, however, here are the ten most charismatic bands I've seen. That is to say, these bands sold the idea of themselves and their music to the audience best of those I've seen, though my list of top concerts might differ. My Morning Jacket is excepted since I can't tell if it's the stage presence or just the reverb that gets me at those shows. Also, I've seen a lot of fun techno/DJ acts, most notably Reggie Watts in Synthclub, but showmanship fits into the overall experience in a very different way.

Arcade Fire
Art Brut
The Black Keys
Bloc Party
The Decemberists
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
United State of Electronica
White Stripes
Wolf Parade
Yo La Tengo

And finally, since I don't pay as much attention to hip hop as a lot of other stuff I didn't catch this when it came out early this year, but I downloaded T.I.'s "What You Know" this week and have been listening to it more frequently than maybe any song ever. As Tom Breihan put it, the track's got "epic streaking synths and gut-churning Dario Argento synths weaving in and out of each other until they build each other up into this titanically huge thing...it's kind of breathtaking."

Film Art: Asia

From David Bordwell's great new blog:

Since the 1980s, movies from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Mainland China, South Korea, and more recently Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines have offered an almost unrivaled range of accomplishment. (Want names? Tsui Hark, John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Kitano Takeshi, Kore-eda Hirokazu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang, Jia Zhang-ke, and on and on.)

Fall Movies

Talking to Charles tonight he asked what I'm excited about seeing this fall. I only have a vague idea, so I thought I'd go through and make a list of what I think might be interesting. Before that, here are the movies I've been most excited about since this post.

• Fanny & Alexander [Ingmar Bergman, 1983]
• The White Balloon [Jafar Panahi, 1995]
• Head-On [Fatih Akin, 2004]
• Last Days [Gus Van Sant, 2005]
• Junebug [Phil Morrison, 2005]
• A History of Violence [David Cronenberg, 2005]
• Half Nelson [Ryan Fleck, 2006]
• Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and J.S.A.

Hopefully I'll be seeing Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance before the end of the year.

Upcoming:

Mutual Appreciation [Bujalski]
Idiocracy [Judge]
Old Joy [Reichardt]
Broken Sky [Hernández]
The Departed [Scorsese]
Flags of Our Fathers [Eastwood]
The Prestige [Nolan]
Babel [González Iñárritu]
Climates [Ceylan]
Volver [Almodóvar]
Fast Food Nation [Linklater]
The Fountain [Aronofsky]
Curse of the Golden Flower [Yimou]
Pan's Labyrinth [Del Toro]
Inland Empire [Lynch]

October Listening

1. James Murphy DFA Radio Mix 2

After letting this sit on my hard drive forever I finally gave it a listen last Saturday as I packed up my stuff to move out of the MVS house. It's more or less what you might expect from Murphy, a lot of dance/disco stuff spiked with some tastelefully tasteless rock/metal. See also his recent "Random Rules" interview with The A.V. Club.

2. Trentemøller "Miss You"

I haven't spent much time with the album yet since I've been swimming in good new music lately, but I'd bet it'll be in this list next month. Here's Andy Kellman's post from a couple months back. I really like what he's been doing with his site lately, not least the charmingly simple plain-text interface.

3. Four Tet "Slow Jam" / Kalabrese "Skamel"

I imagine "Slow Jam" as the soundtrack to the end of some male bonding movie after they've gone through the ordeal and are starting the long drive back home as the sun starts to set. You don't expect the same from "Skamel," and it's a little more subtle and complex, but the last 1/3 of the track or so accomplishes much the same thing from a different angle.

4. Mobius Band "The Loving Sounds of Static (Junior Boys Remix)"

I've been slow in getting around to this as well, but it's just like a slightly rejiggered version of a proper Junior Boys song, except maybe Ben Lee's singing (not really). You've got the winding synth lines that seem like they could go on forever, the bouncy, stuttering percussion, the wistful vocals. Magic.

5. Grizzly Bear Yellow House

Sort of like a more pleasant and engaging version of Animal Collective's last record. "Knife" is the closest they come to a pop song in the middle of this experimental/psychedelic folk parade.