Ylvis: What Does the Fox Say? (((and it's not what you think)))

Every generation re-writes the past. We see this in fiction, in film, and in music. The changes that occur are more-often-than-not hidden and difficult to unravel.

The changes that are happening in the landscape of music are in many ways invisible. We've moved past the conversation about the merits and pitfalls of releasing digitally - legal or not - into a conversation about MEANING.

A song is, after all, a message. For a while now, the focus has been on the visuals (eg, Miley's 'Wrecking Ball'), and perhaps the dominance of YouTube as a conversation starter has lead musicians down a path of the visual as opposed to verbal. But, as in nature, the strongest forces are the invisible ones, the ones that can't be measured or monetized. Words are the one things we can all hold on to and make our own (ENTER Lorde).

Sometimes, rarely, a song comes along that both invites and defies understanding. Ylvis' 'What Does the Fox Say' is one of those songs whose message is so wrapped in irony and The Absurd, that it leaves all in its wake, befuddingly knackered.

I've always believed that resonance only takes place when the many layers are hidden and hard to decipher. 'What Does the Fox Say' is not (only) a song about the sounds various animals make. It is a re-invention, a new imagining of a post-modern fairy tale. It is a re-telling, a re-tooling, a neoteric fictive landscape which is at once freakish, fantasic and frightening.

It is a song that recruits manifold layers of sonic textures and tonalities to help tell its tale, reminding us that sound — in-and-of-itself — is a conveyor of 'MESSAGE' (eg, M-O--O-O-R-S-E code) as much as words. And let's not forget how important a role Dance & physical gestures play in the making of that message, how in synch each movement is with each moment of music, how impeccably & perfectly it conveys intention. (for more on this, visit my blog/lecture 'Dance as Analysis: Degrees of Freedom' at SVA)

Questions that are addressed are: Where is the mystery in a world where everything is known? How much can we understand when useless prattle and blather holds sway? How do we eschew Political divisions and blaze our own future/s? How do we express that ancient fear that is embedded in the human condition? How can we escape the confines of our own expectations?

'What Does the Fox Say' is not (only) about all of the things it seems to be on its surface. In many ways, it is that ever-deceptive Sheep wrapped in a Wolf's - or in this case, a Fox's - clothing. The song - words & music - go to our collective abstraction from the wild ( a must-read, Jack Turner's 'The Abstract Wild'), and speaks to a primal, pagan-like connectivity - an admixture of magic, mystery, and the sublime - that we still feel with nature: an enduring continuity that we carry in our voices, bodies and minds.

Beautiful & new from 'Soft Metals' + props from Bop2Bop

"We featured Soft Metals awhile back on here, and are digging the dance elements of new single, Voices. We also like the trippy vocal treatment which remind us of our favorite tripster, Vanessa Daou. The cool video is inspired, not suprisingly, by the films of Suspiria director, Dario Argento. Soft Metals are a psychedelic synthpop duo out of Portland who have recently released their debut cd. Definitely worth checking out if that is your thing."

SOFT METALS - VOICES (OFFICIAL VIDEO) from Dumb Eyes on Vimeo.

Bop2Bop

Amy Winehouse: A Passion Plays Out

Amy Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011): her short, snuffed-out life was painful to watch, a public Passion Play: jeered at, cheered at, derided,

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praised, rebuked, lauded, accused, acclaimed: hers was a short life of brilliant and blazing contrasts. She was the victim not only of the drugs she took, but of the media that we as a society feed off of, similarly, symbiotically, like a drug. 

The death of Amy Winehouse shines as much light on our prurient selves as it does on the life of this bedraggled fallen star. The sad, tragic fact is that we've become inured to the strange and bizarre. Amy's brief life played out like a scratched LP, its vertiginous twists and turns making bold attention-grabbing headlines and inspiring infinite Tweets and hash marks. But, Truth is often the thing that is not spoken or written about; when it comes to the bottom line, a dead martyr is worth more than a living artist whose creative capital has been spent.

Perhaps only in Holylwood do we see the same degree of mockery and mean-spiritedness heaped on fallen stars by the very media that enables the kind of meteoric rise that we witnessed with Amy Winehouse. But as the media hovers voyeuristically, vulturistically around the lurind details of her death, let's not forget that that Truth - that bitter pill - still holds stock in certain circles.

We are witnessing a new kind of artist cum martyr: one that lacks the glamor of Marilyn Monroe or the heroic stature of Jim Morrison. The new martyr prototype is defiled, ragged at the edges: Anna Nicole Smith and Curt Cobain being the 

penultimate dead examples; Courtney Love and Lindsay Lohan being perhaps the best living examples. Perhaps the whole idea of beauty has become obsolete, anachronistic. But let's not forget that it was the brilliant, blazing and beautiful Amy Winehouse of 2007 that the world fell in love with, and that it was her music that won our hearts and minds. Have we become so besieged by, so bombarded by the image of beauty, that we've become bored by it?

Link

So the question remains: after the sales of her last album peaked, what were the impediments to Amy Winehouse's addiction seeing as it was her tawdry travails - not her music - that kept her in the press? 

Seeing as her last album was in 2007, five years later, and that her demise has been a steady spiral down since then, one thing is for certain: it was unlikely that she would ever create another album as brave and brilliant as her last.

The questions we naturally ask after such an untimely death usually have to do with particularities; we ask ourselves why? how? when? But if we pull back and look at the large scale of things, we can see the pattern emerge, one that has more to do with a Music Busine$$ that - like Wall Street - has grown into a gluttonous, bloated behemoth which lacks all proportionality and any self-governing moral code.

To be sure, there will be voluminous articles, blog posts and tweets about how many albums the death of Amy Winehouse has spurred. But will her demise serve as a lesson to this generation of UK teenage addicts?

Let us all wait, watch and see: as "Amy Winehouse's Record Label Scrambles for Unreleased Tracks", will Universal Records have the moral backbone to donate the profits to charities that address problems of teenage addiction, charities like Addaction or Teen Challenge? Will Lady Gaga? Who will notice if they don't?

Sent from my iPad

Let’s Get Physical: The Not-So-Surprising Vinyl Revival

“After light enters the ocean, it interacts with the phytoplankton, dissolved organic matter, particles, and water molecules. Some of it is eventually scattered back up through the surface. This light is called the water-leaving radiance, and it can be detected from space." Water-leaving Radiance

As with all ephemeral phenomena, there's a caveat: in order to draw the proper conclusions, you have to gain the proper perspective in order to discern and accurately analyse the data.

In an analogous way, we haven’t yet been able to properly evaluate how the concept of downloading music has affected our role as listeners: how re-conceptualizing a song as a digital download has altered our mental construct of what a song is. The fact remains; fundamentally, our perception has been irrevocably altered, in some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse. 

The relatively recent vinyl resurgence [see here, here, here, here, and here] leads one to wonder: when it comes to music, does a vinyl record carry more emotional and intellectual weight than a digital download? Some would say - myself included - indisputably, yes.

Although there's still no consensus as to how to go about protecting the intellectual - albeit invisible - property of artists, there is universal acknowledgement that our digital dilemma is a necessary byproduct of the unfettered rights we all enjoy as free-roaming citizens of the World Wide Web. As with all things digital, this isn't a case of black or white. There are many shades to consider.

Most of the conversation surrounding downloads revolves around the idea of its legality: websites like Limewire (currently under court-rdered injunction) and Pirate Bay forced us early on to confront these dilemmas. We can debate, dissect, and eventually masticate the issues, but somewhere along the way, we’ve forgotten that what we are talking about is not just a song, but an experience, one that is often crafted with the songwriters blood, sweat and tears. 

A great song and lyric is more than the sum of its parts; it is the experience of the writer’s lifetime compressed, condensed into a few minutes of pure pleasure, pain, confusion, redemption, regret, surrender... So when Hayden Thorpe coos "A crude art / A Bovver Boot ballet / Equally elegant and ugly" in The Wild Beasts’ "Hooting and Howling", he's not just singing words; he's re-contextualizing our reality and transforming the pedestrian into Poetry. What he's doing is an admixture of alchemy, magic, mystery, story telling, documentary; he's not just singing a song, he's inviting, challenging us to re-consider the critical importance of words in the music we cherish. While the ease of digital downloading has taken a serious bite out of what was once known as the Music 'Industry', it is universally acknowledged that the free-(down)loaders are not those who would normally pay for their music to begin with.

This defection - from listeners to looters - has a rationale, and we can trace the trajectory. The scavenging for free mp3s began after listeners learned that the bulk of their money was going into the coffers of the Record Labels and not into the pockets of the Recording Artists themselves. This plundering has led to a hunger amongst listeners who are starved for good music and thirsting for the good-old-days when music was made and not manufactured.

One unintended consequence of this was that it has created a listening public that now burns for rarefied experiences, a new as well as older generation that is willing to spend whatever the asking price on music that moves them in a format that impacts their lives: live performance and vinyl records.

But History - like a scratched record - does tend to repeat itself, and as it turns out these periodic blips in the radar, when Musicians are pressed by the exigencies of a fickle and fluctuating market - as with the recording ban of 1942 and the birth of Be Bop - musicians have risen to the occasion and squeezed out some startling and staggeringly beautiful music. And while you won’t find (most of) it on the Pop charts, a listener can, with some digging, enjoy these treasures buried beneath the surface.

Meanwhile, there has been a quiet burgeoning of intense and immense creativity amongst musicians who have thrived under the radar. In fact, finely attuned listeners have their antennas up, and have been made skeptical of any music that bears the insignia of a major record label. It's a question of authenticity, and most of us who really listen - who don’t consider the songs we love 'downloads' - most of us deeply care about how authentic the music that we listen to really is. It's a question of intrinsic value, and the merit of a great song has more to do with its inherent worth than its price point. 

Appetite for Self-Destruction:
The Spectacular Crash
of the Record Industry in the 
Digital Age by Steve Knopper 
Link

We've seen the rise and fall of the music industry, and it is safe to say, nobody is lamenting its demise save Music Industry stalwarts who still think that taking the pulse of Pop culture means monitoring the Top 40. But the days of Casey Kasem are long behind us, and we can all take a deep breath and cease to bemoan the loss of our collective innocence. Instead, those of us who exult in the the birth of this new era - one that is "equally elegant ant ugly" - know that the past is a path we have all waled to get here, and the future is a road we will all travel together.

The future... Yo-Yo Ma & Lil Buck Dance Performance of The Dying Swan

'The future hasn't happened yet', so the saying goes; well, here it is...

Yo-Yo Ma & Lil Buck in Stunning Dance Performance of The Dying Swan

(via Andrew Plumb via Laughing Squid via Official Hype via YouTube : )

'Weird Tales for Winter' 2011

Weird Tales for WInter 2011

It wouldn't be winter without Johhny Mugwump's 'weird tales' radio series on Resonance 104.4 FM (UK)...
 
For lovers of what's dusky and lurid - of murky & miasmal mindscapes - don't miss this year's grim & glorious offerings...

Link here

V

Music that moves me: Dive Index - 'Agatha (feat Patrick Cooper)'

Dive Index - 'Agatha (feat Patrick Cooper)' HD from Neutral Music on Vimeo.

Art of the Song: Fever Ray's 'When I grow up'

What is a great song & what makes a song GREAT....?

It's about transformation, it should tell a story, present its own unique, unmistakable & unshakable reality; it should provoke, insinuate itself under your skin & reveal "the secret ranges of the voice" as Colette writes in Vagabond

There are many layers & facets to a good song: what is a great song & what makes it GREAT?

I asked this question on FB - 

• Alex said: "A great song has claws, or fingers, or tendrils that work their way inside you, grab hold, and never quite let go."

• Benjamin said: "That is a good definition...somebody i met recently said that they felt it was a kind of abuse to use a song repeatedly to bring back an emotion."

Words, music, melody. These 3 components constitute a song. Complexities arise with the addition of the human voice which communicates manifold layers of emotion, intimacy or distance, intention, implication, urgency or nonchalance.

'Fever Ray', the voice behind The Knife, uses all the weapons at her disposal to relay various messages through her voice: angst, regret, hope, refusal. She can be accusatory and self-deprecating all in the same breath. Brilliant, beautiful, caustic, commanding.

 

Lyrics:

When I grow up, I want to be a forester
Run through the moss on high heels
That’s what I’ll do, throwing out boomerang
Waiting for it to come back to me

When I grow up, I want to live near the sea
Crab claws and bottles of rum
That’s what I'll have staring at the seashell
Waiting for it to embrace me

I put my soul in what I do

Last night I drew a funny man
with dark eyes and a hanging tongue
It goes way back, I never liked a sad look
From someone who wants to be loved by you

I’m very good with plants
When my friends are away
they let me keep the soil moist
On the seventh day I rest
for a minute or two
then back on my feet and cry for you oooh oh

You've got cucumbers on your eyes
Too much time spent on nothing
waiting for a moment to arise
The face in the ceiling and arms too long
I wait for him to catch me

Waiting for you to embrace me

Link to Lyrics

Music that moves me: Dive Index | Burn Their Bodies, featuring Cat Martino

Will Thomas - of 'Dive Index' - produces another infinitely beautiful song featuring Cat Martino. 'Burn Their Bodies' is today's top tune on KCRW:

"Dive Index is a collaborative down-tempo electronica project based in New York City and spearheaded by Will Thomas. Their latest recording, The Surface We Divide, features Joseph Arthur and Cat Martino, who sings on Today's Top Tune, "Burn Their Bodies." Download here

The new Dive Index album The Surface We Divide

Check back in for announcements of Will Thomas' remix of 'Heart of Wax' featured on the upcoming release of the JOE SENT ME 'Moonshine Mixes' -

XOVanessa

Etienne Daho: The Invitation

Etienne Daho is a voice drenched in the sensual, engulfed by a Poet's truth and fueled by Love's fire. 'L'invitation', his latest album, speaks to every heart that is drawn to the equally destructive and seductive flame of Desire.

With a profound understanding of Desire's manifold facets, Daho puts into words and sings about its many intangible flickers: pleasure and pain, power and surrender, a simultaneous loss and discovery of self, the beauty as well as the bruising of ones manifold illusions. Daho explores the many subtle angles and sharp edges of Eros - self-doubt, self-destruction, self-sacrifice - and invites us to join him on his journey of Love and Desire through his Music and Poetry. Do we dare follow...?

I've translated 'L'Invitation' below.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Invitation

Ah I burn I burn, your tentacles trapping me from the depths of Hell
giving me the cruel sensation of walking barefoot on glass.
The goodness of your hand, generous and perfect,
beckons me to come, giving me the sweet feeling
of being alive again, invited, invited.

At the table of the guests where one lives until one dies
from those things that satiate, you invite me to take my place
to divide the honey of the honors of your heart.

Willingly I accept the best treatment that is reserved exclusively
for the guests at the naked feast, which makes the tongues
of the evening come untied.

Oh now I burn I burn to taste all these dizzying nectars,
whose black and crimson poison make the blood of lovers beat indecently.
Your confident kiss calls me to another adored destiny,
giving me the sweet feeling of being alive again, invited, invited.

What can I do, I want to share the volatile liquors
at the table of poets, of assassins, all like me, invited here.

Willingly I accept the best treatment that is reserved exclusively
for the guests at the naked feast, which makes the tongues
of the evening come untied.

L'invitation

Ah je brûle je brûle, les tentacules m'attrapant du fond des enfers
me donnent la cruelle sensation de marcher pieds nus sur du verre.
La bonté de ta main généreuse et parfaite qui me fait signe d'avancer,
me donne l'aimable sensation d'être à la vie de nouveau convié, convié.

A la table des convives, convives
Qu'on vive jusqu'à ce que repu l'on en meurt.
Tu m'invites à prendre ma place à partager le miel des honneurs de ton coeur.
Volontiers j'accepte le meilleur traitement
Que l'on réserve tout exclusivement
Aux invités le festin nu, qui fait les langues au soir se délier, se délier yeah

Oh je brûle je brûle de goûter à présent à tous ces nectars affolants,
dont le poison noir et pourpre fait battre indécent le sang des amants.

Ton baiser confiant m'appelle à tout autre destin adoré,
me donne l'aimable sensation d'être à la vie de nouveau convié, convié.
Convié yeah

A qu'y puis à qu'y puis je, la liqueur volatile je veux toute la partager,
à la table des poètes, des assassins, tout comme moi ici conviés.

Volontiers j'accepte le meilleur traitement
Que l'on réserve tout exclusivement
Aux invités le festin nu, qui fait les langues au soir se délier, se délier yeah
yeah yeah yeah...

High School Halloween, Music & Memory

"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know, she's half crazy
It's why you want to be there..."

Leonard Cohen, from "Suzanne"

This year, Halloween triggered my memory of this yearbook photo from 11th grade which many of you viewed on Facebook (thanks to all for your insights, witticisms & ruminations)

I've always believed that we all hold inside of us, from an early age, the seeds of our eventual 'grown up' selves. Although I didn't intentionally set out to become a singer or songwriter, when I reflect on my past, there's the impression of a clear trajectory that led me to that career decision.

Many would argue that being an artist is something that is somehow programmed inside, that true artists do not choose their paths, that it is their fate or kismet that chooses them. But it can also be argued that, for some, there comes a time to decide, a crossroads. Andy Warhol began his career in magazine illustration and advertising. Robert Motherwell studied Philosophy before he changed direction and rigorously pursued Painting.

While I was at Vassar, I was declaring a major in Aesthetics until I transferred to Barnard/Columbia and declared a double major in Art History/Studio Art. It wasn't until my senior year when I studied Poetry with Kenneth Koch that I realized I had reached that crossroads.

I've always perceived of this monumental moment as metaphorically akin to the moment when Alice picks up the bottle and reads 'DRINK ME', and after confirming that it is not marked 'poison', swallows the otherwise unmarked liquid. Her decision, while not well-informed, is not precipitous. That decision to follow the untrammeled road and become an Artist is fundamentally based on that need to do as Alice did, follow her inner need to open the door into the enchanting and mysterious adventure and explore the sometimes treacherous new terrain, come what may.

It was during this time in High School that I began discovering & devouring music that was tapping into me on all levels of Poetry, intellect & emotion: Leonard Cohen, The Ramones, Blondie, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Joan Armatrading, The Go Gos, The B-52s, Pink Floyd, The Police. Soon after, I would discover Francoise Hardy, Julie London, Juliette Greco, Nico & The Velvet Underground.

My good friend, pictured above in the photo, was as much of a music hound as I was. I haven't asked her yet if she remembers that particular night of Rock 'n Roll debauchery... Halloween & Rock 'n Roll share a similar ethos: to find trouble where you can & head into that place which is at once thrilling & frightening. Everyone at some point in their lives plants the seed of who they are to become. For me, that moment is captured here, in this photo.

The Artist is all things: creator, witness, inventor, storyteller, gift giver, shaman, seducer, rule-breaker, Philosopher, thief, magician, myth-maker, bellwether With instinct as much your guide as intelligence, the Artist chooses to follow that unruly path of most resistance, hypnotized by that the ever-present temptation to metaphorically drink that mysterious, unknown & tantalizing essence.

Collin Kelley, Storybook Burlesque, The Concretes

"Well, Ive been haunted in my sleep
Youve been starring in my dreams"

The Rolling Stones, from "Miss You"

I love this cover of 'Miss You' by The Concretes - played by the 'Storybook Burlesque' during one of their lovely & voracious performances on Sunday night at The Tank, NYC -



Novelist, poet and playwright Collin Kelley read portions from his much lauded new book 'Conquering Venus', which he lovingly signed - i'm eager to begin reading it...

iPhotos from event coming soon -

Music that moves me: Little Dragon - 'Twice'

Black Room Session: Little Dragon - Twice