I've only just now gotten around to getting the full album from Asa Chang and Junray. I saw them in concert a while back but I hadn't heard anything from them before, or since. Until yesterday that is.
And it's great. "Jun Ray Song Chang" is highly recommended, especially the first track, "hana". It's renewed my faith in "avant garde" music that is still listenable... see also, dat politics, the fiery furnaces (though they're maybe not all that avant), william basinsky, deerhoof and others. Do not see the animal collective, latter day tv on the radio, wolf eyes, or xiu xiu.
god I hate the animal collective.
I'm sure it's only "avant garde" from where I sit. Most of the albums I linked were from 2002, 2003... and of course all reviewed by pitchfork (now, both a mark of indie cred, and of lack of indie cred).
(also, apologies for last night's entry)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
wow, i wonder how you manage to get to that conclusion. the fiery furnaces are so lame! deerhof is only a little less lame because they have someone cute and japanese singing. it would help me if you could explain why you don't like those other groups? i... don't.. understand!
Well, I did say "avant garde that is still listenable".
Wolf eyes and xiu xiu and both very unpleasant listens for me. I have no place in my life for catharsis like that... maybe if I took drugs, or was surrounded by darkness and violence I'd "get it".
I think I find a better catharsis on the other end of the emotionally extreme... that is the nauseatingly bright, like dat politics, or even (get your "I hate nate t-shirt on") Blümchen.
The animal collective worked with vashti bunyan, and that is a very cool thing, but the only song I've heard from them is "you could win a rabbit". I can't say why, but I viscerally hate that song. For me, it's literally more unpleasant than nails on a chalkboard, or any of those nightmarish screeching type sounds that everyone hates. I am not going back for seconds.
TV on the Radio, eh, I just don't get it. The concept, execution and lyrics all just seem sloppy, and lazily done. Again, limited listens, but everything they do sounds like a spin on "freedom" from Mingus.
This is good avant garde
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/eceprojectsland/STUDENTPROJ/2002to2003/lil2/
i guess you could argue about in what way exactly something that just sounds pleasent is 'avant-garde' music at all. that's simply not what you look for. maybe you mean, remotely progressive sounding, in the sense that it sounds a little different than conventional music, but still the same enough that you don't have to get your ears used to something new?
honestly, wolf eyes, to my ears sounds like things I've heard before. as does xiu xiu. I think of them both as internally consistent music on an outside fringe.
Jun Ray and Asa Chang are the real progressives of the bunch. It's like linguistics teachers learned to play drums like maniacs.
By your logic, if I don't like it, it's my own fault. The only critique of avant garde music possible if you assume that you have to train your ears to like it is that it's not "original".
Maybe I am inherently anti-avant garde in this regard, but whatever this "originality" is, I think it's meaningless on it's own. Even challenging music only succeeds in challenging because of an underlying "likability"... or "quality".
Though I'm just a casual fan. I'm not eager to educated myself out of being able to enjoy a pop song on occasion.
and i don't think you should. it's just that the music of the fiery furnices strikes me as particularly uninventive and boring (i don't even know how you thought of labeling them as avant-garde), while xiu xiu, the animal collective, wolf eyes etc. sound particularly interesting to my ears. it must be a matter of taste after all..? also, i judge mostly from their performances, and hardly listen to wolf eyes on a cd.
i don't think that subjectively 'unlistenable' music (because to me it's not unlistenable at all) is good and *will transform society to be a better place for all eventually just wait* just because it's unlistenable to some, but i think that it's a step ahead in some way at least from the real obvious kitsch that goes after instant preconceived emotional reactions. i'm also drawn to noise because i enjoy enjoying something that i know is a product of accident rather than skill and training, because skill and training tend to make me depressed.
also,
> think of them both as internally consistent music on an outside fringe.
i absolutely think that you are right with this. they have become the 'chart music' for this fringe group that is pretty coherent in their taste and doesn't really meddle with a lot outside.
eh, i have more to say, will clean my new kitchen now. nate, i've moved!
It's fun having friends all over the map (literally and figuratively). Congrats on the new place. I saw the borrowed bed on your blog.
I've actually been immersed in japanese music lately. It's a really interesting thing that happened in Japan in the mid to late nineties. Some crazy innovative people totally took over the pop charts, and made Japan cool. It actually became cliche to be searching for obscure 1970's european jazz LPs, or to play os mutantes in a club.
This stuff sort of changes my thoughts on "inside" and "outside" music.
also: I'm sorry you feel that way about the fiery furnaces... I think blueberry boat is a really interesting album, even if no particular song is all that good. Something about the narrative and the strange production (the super crisp voices are really weird to me, kind of advances the "storytelling" aspect) sets it far apart from the regular indie scene, though I suppose you're right that it's not particularly forward-thinking.
hmm, i admit i haven't listened to it. i also admit that im really biased toward guitarmusic/rock in general, and don't even feel like giving it another try.
on the other hand, i'm excited that there is a whole new cosmos of good music awaiting me in other places. i would love to know more of japanese music. please do share, yes.
also, there is so much interesting stuff undiscovered by me that is completely common place where its made and would be just outrageous in pop music.
have you heard of after dinner? are they a big deal in japan?
ba ba ba.
Well, it's not exactly like japan has ditched the guitar or anything. It's not really so much a country of experimental music. Japanese pop in general is less experimental than American, but there are certain bloodlines that are really different.
For the most part, there are a lot less genre rules. For example, where european hiphop almost always tries to replicate the "authentic product", japanese hiphop is a little more comfortable in it's own skin. So you get some weird ass product.
I understand the will to give up on guitar music. I gave a good long listen to new "indie" darlings, Wolf Parade, and despite what a lot of people are saying, they really are quite boring. But what's played out about it for me isn't the guitar so much as the whiny self obsessed tone.
It's hard to get excited about a 90'S revival when the same lame attitude has been the only soul in rock for such a long time. I'm already on board for a ninties japan revival though.
>whiny self obsessed tone.
yes exactly. you never hear that in japanese pop music.
i am not at all excited about American 90s revival. i'm actually afraid of it. as of now i get allergies when i hear anything from the 90s, "it really makes me all depressed and mad. me me me me me!"
i am excited about japenese 80s avant-garde music revival, like the plastics or this group after dinner a friend has just introduced me to. but that's probably just because i missed out on it so far, and it's all new to me.
i don't know enough about it, but it seems like japan has a lot of experimental music. maybe it's not labeled as it, because everything is generally more open to experimentation.
ps. is there any way on this blogger thing how i could be informed when i have a reply, it gets really annoying to have to check up on this old post? why aren't you on livejournal? is there a practical reason i don't konw about?
japan seems to have a lot of experimental bands for the same reason that decades french movies all seem dreary and existential... that's just the only thing worthy of export. What gets consumed by the domestic music market, and the international image are pretty far apart.
Yeah, japan is a freaking lively climate for music, but the extent to which lame pop rules is even greater than in the states. Most of the younger artists wannabes have a very keen eye on the potential to make money with their music, according to my contacts. If you looked at the japanese pop charts right now, you wouldn't see anything that looks experimental at all.
No, I've never heard of after dinner, and if they're avant garde in the way you like, they might not be my cup of tea. Still I'll keep an ear open. If there is any kind of "80's japanese avant garde" revival in the works, it's only as part of a bigger avant garde revival. The icons of japanese experimentalism, The boredoms, zeni geva and melt banana really had their heyday in the nineties.
oh, company coming. gotta cut it short.
but what about german experimentalism? Are you entirely jaded on your own country and culture's ability to kick out the jams? Your blog seems like it has a lot more photos than words, but why don't you make an entry on what's going into your ears?
also, there's nothing objectively wrong with livejournal... but subjectively, it's stupid and smelly. I'm vurry happy with blogger.
except i always have to come and check if you have replied. and that's Annoying, and subjectively, i am likely to stop doing that some time soon, and we will never talk again.
i have never thought about why i never blog anything related to music, when i spend so much time making/enjoying it. i think it's just a different medium for me, one that i don't feel the need to combine with writing. also, i'm not much of a writer anyway.
and i also feel sort of ambivalent about writing about music right now. partly because the only kind i'm exposed to is the "in MY MY MY opinion, this is bad, this is good" kind (see everyone's fav momus) that tends to make me mad and is not really the way i want to think about music at all. funny our discussion started by me doing exactly that.
in MY opinion, experimental music from germany is JUST GREAT. in the 70s i would have knelt before can, neu!, neubauten, cluster, faust (for being neu), ton steine scherben (for the naive raf charme), but I don't know what is going on more recently, haven't been here since 1978, you can tell. (it's only symptomatic that i have been exposed to most of these while living in the U.S.).
of course i'm totally into stockhausen, webern, schönberg, who isn't?
i think right now it's mainly kitty-yo and morrmusic that kick out the jams, the best i know, but what to write about it?
if i were to write a manifesto, it would be titled "music ought to be made, not wined about." by as many and as much as possible. until it stops being a commodity or industry, or something elevated that the other people do, and starts to be a common good again(?) that belongs to everyone. dem Morgenrot entgegen.
yes, i want to play it with my friends instead of sitting around smoking cigarettes. yes. will you? wait, what was the question?
I don't get to play with my friends. My superego says I have to stay in and study.
but I'll make a concession. I'm making a new music post later this evening and we can talkies there.
well done. maybe when you are done studying you will find some time to become the universal super talent i'm talking about in the afternoon, and go fishing at dawn.
Post a Comment