November 22, 2008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Dominic Duval’s String Ensemble - Live in Concert

It’s a spider web of extruded aluminum.  Minnows and geese are caught up, bubbling and squawking while the Mrs. winds them up, and the goose tries to eat the fish.

Listen to this stuff loud, if possible.  The amount of attention you give to good free jazz is directly proportional to the enjoyment you can reap from it.  It sounds like shit if you don’t pay attention.  This is only true up to a point - the good associations developed from listening to it eventually overwhelm the disorienting squall and you can do the dishes or cook while it plays.

The texture changes clearly from track to track in this music, which signals that they are not just hacking away at “free jazz” but actually doing something specific in each piece.

There’s some odd dated liner notes in this CD (from 1998) about cyberspace.  Check it out in the next post.

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Tags: 90's Liner Notes Noises attention dishwashing dominic duval experimentalism fish jazz listening music live texture ugly free jazz
September 3, 2008

Helicopters - How to Fake Fall Asleep

On this album, Helicopters shows just how perilously close Death Cab For Cutie is to Savage Garden.

They differentiate themselves with rather scornful lyrics.  In one song (it might be the one called “Mrs Ordinary”) they are singing to a girl who just doesn’t get it, according to them.  There’s a kind of mastery of the technique of turning songs into recordings on display here, and a lot of neat weird noises and synthetic spaghetti, but little song to begin with.

DCFC’s “I will follow you into the dark” (or whatever) is quite humane, and has a great structure/melody combination.  Even Savage Garden’s “I want to stand with you on a mountain” must be admitted to be a decent song.

What kind of music do these bands play, exactly?

PS. here is a song from Helicopter’s 2008 album, which is something of an improvement over “… Fall Asleep”, which can be heard over at lala.com.

I would have “reblogged” this flash player from the Helicopters, but something’s up with the code over there I guess…

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Tags: Death Cab For Cutie Lyrics Savage Garden noises songwriting