aesthetics
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On Drumming, Primitiveness, Wood, And Overtones: Michael Gordon’s “Timber”
You could make the argument that percussionists are as defined by their musical actions as by the objects of those actions–by the fact that they percuss on whatever can be percussed upon. And they don’t just play snare drums, timpani, and xylophone either. Partly thanks to the influence of “world” percussion traditions (of Indonesia, sub-Saharan Continue reading
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On Less Is More: El Fog’s Rebuilding Vibes
I don’t quickly absorb music that’s new to me. As a listener I’m inherently suspicious of what I’ve not yet come to know (and this includes my own works in progress!) It takes me a while to get–let alone trust–a music. Because of my tendencies, there’s not a ton of sound on my iPhone. In Continue reading
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On The Trickle Down Of Electronic Dance Music Aesthetics II: Maroon 5’s “Move Like Jagger”
Almost everywhere you listen in mainstream American popular music today you hear bands coming to terms with electronic dance music’s most thumping contribution to 21st-century sonic entertainment: the “four-on-the-floor” bass drum pulse. This is the pulse that drove (and still drives) disco, electro, techno and house, as well as all kinds of derivatives of these Continue reading
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On The Nature Of Blogs
Metaphorically speaking, a blog is a garden a laboratory a pulpit a node in a network a diary a moving vehicle a multimedia artwork an x-ray an idealization a set of roots a mixing board a sympathetic vibration a perishable good a consciousness a web of desires a memory for tomorrow a map of a Continue reading
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On Sonic Persuasion: The Music Of Oneohtrix Point Never
Over the past few months I heard about Oneohtrix Point Never (aka Daniel Lopatin)’s electronic music in at least two disparate places–in Simon Reynolds’ fine book Retromania and in a recent article by Sasha Frere-Jones in The New Yorker–so I decided to buy his most recent recording Replica and check it out. Compelling music sometimes Continue reading
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Sound Advice: Frank Gehry Speaks
“Your best work is you’re expressing yourself. Now, you may not be the best at it, but when you do it you’re the only expert in it. When I teach students in architecture I try to get them to understand that they have a signature– their body, their hand-eye coordination, their biological make-up.” Continue reading
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Letting Randoms In: On The Music Of Burial
“I don’t really go on the Internet, it’s like a Ouija board, it’s like letting someone into your head, behind your eyes. It lets randoms in.” – Burial Although I’m clearly a few years behind the curve with this particular bit of music news, I’ve been thinking about the music of acclaimed London-based producer Burial lately and what Continue reading
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On Simon Reynold’s Retromania
Recently I spun through the New York City FM pop radio dial and in the space of a few minutes heard a slew of old music from the past few decades, including The Animals’ version of “House Of The Rising Sun”, Brian Adam’s “Run To You”, Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”, AC-DC’s “Back In Black”, and Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean” Continue reading
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On Boredom, Music and Time
One of the symmetries between the psychological state of boredom and the experience of listening to music is that they both shape how we feel time. In his book Boredom (Yale University Press, 2010), Peter Toohey quotes the poet Joseph Brodsky speaking of boredom as representing “pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor” (186). Elsewhere, Toohey also Continue reading
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On Music and Socialization
17 Views On Music Music takes us unawares, through a good beat, a sneaky melody or cloud of harmony- working our circuits of desire, to beckon our bodies and respond to love and its pleasures- proposes a solution to its own internal problem, a sonic equation of fugal symmetries and angles- triggers the memory tombs Continue reading
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