Told Tray-Sure

So Percussion and Matmos: Treasure State

Cantaloupe Music 2010

http://www.sopercussion.com/

These guys get it.

So Percussion and Matmos teamed up for their last album, which I have finally come to hear in it's entirety. SoPerc are part of the new breed - 21st century classical music at it's finest, driving another nail in the coffin of the art/pop music schism. They're in good company too; Nico Muhly, the Bedroom Community Label, Eighth Blackbird, Kronos Quartet, Third Coast Percussion Quartet, the Bad Plus and Bang on a Can are stateside allies in the dual front against auto-tunage and elitism alike.

So's bio says it best: "Edgy (at least in the sense that little other music sounds like this) and ancient (in that people have been hitting objects for eons), perhaps it doesn't need to be defined after all."

Western percussion has evolved as an experimental craft - we work on our sounds with the same intensity with which violinists work on tone. With percussion, however, there are no "good" or "bad" sounds - there is only what is right for the job. All sounds can be music, and our instruments are defined by context. We're in the business of sound collecting, sometimes taken to an absurd level. The generation of Edgar Varese and Henri Posseur took experimentation to an extreme - suddenly orchestral works called for airplane propellers, and musique concrete pieces were created from recordings of trains. Despite the public's feeling of alienation, these mad sonic scientists were central cultivators of a richly expanded palette of sounds, as well as a newfound appreciation for the wielders of these noises, whistles, sirens, tin cans and wind machines - us guys in the back.

Matmos is right at home here. The experimental-electronic music duo has cultivated the same appreciation for sound in the abstract, taking noises out of context and recombining fragments into musical work. So P. is no stranger to the realm of electronic music - the reserved, atmospheric "Amid The Noise" made ample use of computer-generated noises and processed instrument sounds - and the Matmos collaboration forms a seamlessly cohesive unit.

There is a subtle beauty in the way tuned metallophones, cymbals, gongs and found instruments alike are warped by the computer processing, creating a kind of auditory surrealism that's most evident on tracks such as "Shard" and "Swamp." I'm reminded of "TNT" by Tortoise. But where "TNT" told stories, "Treasure State" creates environments.

This isn't a groundbreaking record by any means. That's good - we don't need "groundbreaking" in music. Pierre Schaffer, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen were groundbreaking, tearing down arbitrary walls between what is and what isn't "music." But there's a certain irony in works like Cage's note-less 4'33"; a piece that's built on ambient sound is akin to screaming "Appreciate the subtleties, dammit!" In many ways, SoPerc/Matmos succeed where Cage and his colleagues failed - their poetic use of sound draws you into an dreamscape world made up of everyday noises. When it's over, you'll start to hear the music around you.

Monster Camp

Just read this in the New York Times. So much cooler than the standard canoeing-archery-arts-and-crafts type of summer camp (well, maybe we'll keep the archery - that will be useful for camp middle earth).

Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? Kids are the ones who invented role playing games. What kind of Tolkein- or Lewis- or Rowling- or Pullman- (blasphemy!) reading child would turn down monster camp?

....Can I come too?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I'm adding a fresh coat of paint, moving things around, adding music, maybe throwing on some podcasts... things are going to look a little different around here.

I apologize to the five or six of you that read this blog and have gotten used to it. It will still be very green.

What I learned from Las Vegas

There comes a time in every boy's life when, yearning to see a larger world of sex, booze and slots, he ventures to America's soulless desert playground.

The time comes even sooner when the plane ticket and hotel are paid for, along with a few meals and a $25 per diem allocation.

But what I learned from Vegas was not how to pick up a prostitute at 7:30 in the morning - they literally wait for you in the hotel lobby and won't take no for an answer (but apparently "I'm gay" does the trick). My revelation had nothing to do with that bafflingly awful Rihanna song (although Rihanna, who is raunchy without being clever or even bothering to rhyme, says a few things about our generation. At least Madonna could sing) And I already knew that slot machines are a giant waste of time.

I stayed at the Palms Casino and Hotel, home of the world's only Playboy club. Pretty classy, right? The casino likes to advertise that it caters to a younger audience, and plays this up in all of their advertisements featuring - what else? - busty, bikini-clad women.

While strutting around the pool, proud of my status as the palest, skinniest dude around, I was stopped by a bachelor on vacation.

"You know why Vegas is awesome?" he asks, "coming around now - that's why Vegas is awesome"

To my right passes a barbie doll - fake blond hair, skin some shade of bronze, and t&a that would make a centerfold jealous. I swallow my puke - this whole place feels so very wrong.

"You know what that's called?" he asks
"No. What?"
"Magnificent"

Later on, I try to understand this - why am I, a heterosexual male, so completely turned off by this standard of beauty? Not only that, but most men I know feel the same way. Real guys go for real girls - the plastic female image is not only not beautiful, it seems surreal and inhuman.

My friend believes a generational difference is to blame- men in the 26-30 age group, the pioneers in the MTV generation, go for this idea of attractiveness. Some refuse to accept that they're aging, some just read too much Playboy (they picked the Palms for a reason, I guess). But this doesn't explain why the Vegas trip was a major flashback to high school, where the plastic image reigned supreme.

A few years a go I read Ariel Levy's "Female Chauvinist Pigs." High school made a lot more sense after that, but I still couldn't wrap my head around the nation's warped and contradictory attitude toward sex. We are puritanical serial monogamists who think sex is a sin unless you're married or in a committed relationship or drunk on your birthday. We coerce women into objectifying themselves until they consider it "liberating" to be topless on camera. The very idea of waxing makes me want to cringe, but countless women view it a small price to pay for beauty. On top of all of this, we still debate over the "sanctity of marriage" (The state that gave us Hollywood and Beverly Hills thinks gay couples are a threat to their "sacred family unit"? Right).

But now, passing over the grand canyon, I realize that the terrible implications of the barbie doll ideal. Vegas is like the plastic woman - shimmering, glitzy, expensive. It catches your eye, but before long the sparkle fades and you realize it has no soul. We call this place "America's playground," among other things; maybe it's time to grow up a little bit.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for having fun, partying, and general debauchery, but why does it have to be so sexist? Maybe what we need is a kind of neo-chivalry: respect, honor and honesty without the medieval prudishness. Men and women could partake as equals, as we are meant to be - take back knighthood while taking back the night.

"Neo-chivalry..." it has a ring to it. I wonder how it would sound in a Rihanna song...

Sonic Aurora

Just heard that John Luther Adams received N.U.'s Nemmers prize for 2010. He's the second composer from the arctic circle to take the prize, after Kaija Saariaho won it last year.

Interestingly, both composers write music that is often described as "visual." I prefer to think of their work as spatial - each composer uses unique means to transport you into a sonic environment that feels like an actual "place." The experience isn't just visual; it's much more immersive than that. You feel as if you've stepped into a different world, one that existed before and will continue to exist independently of the timeline of the piece.

The showing for the Nemmer's prize has been very strong so far - Postminimal superstar John Adams won it in '04, followed by world-class conductor/composer Oliver Knussen in '06. It can be really good publicity for Northwestern... which leads me to ask - why is it so low key????

I stumbled upon the latest J.L. Adams announcement by complete accident while browsing the recital schedules. The $100,000 prize guarantees a residency of only 4 weeks, which is about enough time to throw together a few performances and masterclasses. Outside of the composition and music tech faculty - and contemporary music geeks like myself - few people are even aware of the prize.

This conversation happened last week:
Me: "...so John Luther Adams took the Nemmers prize for next year."
Senior Violinist: "oh. Who's John Luther Adams?"
Me: "He's a composer who writes in a minimalist style."
V: "Right, I think I've heard of him..... What's the Nemmers prize?"
Me: "it's when the school gives a composer 100 grand for being a BAMF"

(pause)

V: "....that's it?"
Me: "That's about it."

In Limbo

It's now clear to me that we are in a videogame renaissance, aided in part by XBLA and the Playstation Store. "Artsy videogame" is no longer an oxymoronic title.

This bizarre little nightmare of a game, called Limbo, should convince a few remaining non-believers.

Meaty

This Video of Super Meat Boy came out the other day. Looks like a winner - be sure to check it out once it's released.

I would've loved to be at the sales pitch for that one... "A glob of meat leaps over buzz saws and dodges projectiles in an attempt to save his girlfriend from a nefarious cyborg in a tuxedo"

- if you can sell that idea, you can sell anything.