The winter doldrums are starting to get to me - I haven't been to a live music show in almost three weeks, not since Of Monsters and Men back in late November. And there's not much relief on the horizon until Portland's Helio Sequence graces us with their presence in mid-January (thanks and a tip of the hat to my friend Brian for pointing that gig out to me).
Well, here's something completely different - a mixtape prepared by Taraka Larson of the band Prince Rama featuring waaaay slowed down songs by Black Sabbath, The Bee Gees, Haddaway, and Oasis, among others. It sounds like the kind of things traveling musician/sisters would come up with in the back of a van while on tour, which for all I know may be exactly what it is.
We saw Prince Rama, the duo of Ms. Larson and her sister Niami, perform at Farm 255 in Athens last year on a seasonably cool December evening. Pics from that memorable show, below, for your contemplation and viewing pleasure as you listen to their mixtape.
Well, damn. This one snuck up on me. I just learned today that German electronic composer and producer Pete Namlook passed away last November 8 of unspecified causes.
An incredibly prolific composer who built an entire industry around his Frankfurt-based FAX label, Namlook's name (the reverse of the phonetical spelling of his real name, Kuhlmann) was inextricably linked with the post-rave resurgence of ambient music, and many of his solo and collaborative recordings are among the most lauded and influential in new ambient music. FAX helped give shape to ambient's new school by allowing artists to freely experiment, and countless FAX releases, particularly those dating from 1993 and 1994, are considered classics of contemporary electronic ambient.
I began collecting Namlook recordings sometime around 2006, and posted reviews of several of the albums over at the main Water Dissolves blog before we bifurcated into Water and Music. There are so many recordings, series of recordings, and collaborations, and they're all so different from one another, that one can easily develop a mania for collecting them all, much like Deadheads and their Grateful Dead concert tapes. Here's what I've managed to accumulate to date, and mind you, this is only a small fraction of Namlook's output:
4 Voice I 4 Voice III Air 1 Air 2 Air 3 Air 5 Astrogator Atom Blow The Fuse Gate To The Milky Way
Le Mar Live Ft. Lauderdale Global Warming Subharmonic Interference The Ambient Cookbook II (4 CDs) New Organic Life I New Organic Life II Syn (2 CDs) A View to a Chill License to Chill Reality Free Your Mind Music for Urban Meditation
Pearl II Pearl III
And then there's the numerous collaborations:
Jet Chamber I (with Atom Heart) Jet Chamber II (with Atom Heart) Jet Chamber III (with Atom Heart) Jet Chamber IV (with Atom Heart) Jet Chamber V (with Atom Heart) Outland I (with Bill Laswell) Outland II (with Bill Laswell) Outland III (with Bill Laswell) Outland IV (with Bill Laswell) Outland V (with Bill Laswell) Psychonavigation (with Bill Laswell) Sultan (with Burhan Öçal) SultanOrhan (with Burhan Öçal) Sultan Osman (with Burhan Öçal) A New Consciousness (with Charles Uzzell-Edwards) Sequential (with DJ Criss) Adlernebel (with DJ Dao) Limelight (with DJ Brainwave) Silence I (with Dr. Atmo) Silence II (with Dr. Atmo) Silence IV (with Dr. Atmo) Silence V (with Dr. Atmo) S.H.A.D.O. I (with Higher Intelligence Agency) S.H.A.D.O. II (with Higher Intelligence Agency) The Fires of Ork 1 (with Geir Jenssen) The Fires of Ork 2 (with Geir Jenssen) pp nmlk (with Jochem Paap) Alien Community I (with Jonah Sharp) Alien Community II (with Jonah Sharp)
Wechselspannung 1 (with Jonah Sharp)
Wechselspannung 2 (with Jonah Sharp)
Polytime (with Karl Berger)
The Dark Side of the Moog 1 (with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 2(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 3(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 4(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 5(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 6(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 7(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 8(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog 9(with Klaus Schulze) The Dark Side of the Moog X(with Klaus Schulze) The Evolution of Dark Side of the Moog 1 (with Klaus Schulze)
The Putney 2(with Ludwig Rehberg)
Gig In The Sky (with David Moufang) Be Aware (with David Moufang) Raumland-Sphäre (with David Moufang) Raumland Exploration (with Move D) Raumland Montage (with Move D)
The Art of Love (with Move D) Dreamfish I (with Mixmaster Morris) Dreamfish II (with Move D) Imagining the Psychedelic Landscape (with Move D) Exploring the Psychedelic Landscape (with David Moufang) Home Shopping (with Move D) The Retro Rocket (with Move D) Sons of Kraut (with Move D) Wired (with Move D) Russian Spring (with The New Composers) Planetarium (with The New Composers) Hearts of Space (with Pascall F.E.O.S.) Miles Apart (with Peter Prochir) From Within 1 (with Richie Hawtin) From Within 2 (with Richie Hawtin) From Within 3 (with Richie Hawtin)
Elektro II (with Robert Gorl) Shades of Orion 1 (with Tetsu Inoue) Shades of Orion 2 (with Tetsu Inoue) Shades of Orion 3 (with Tetsu Inoue) 2350 Broadway I (with Tetsu Inoue) (2 CDs) 2350 Broadway II (with Tetsu Inoue) (2 CDs) 2350 Broadway III (with Tetsu Inoue) Time Square (with Tetsu Inoue) Virtual Vices I (with Wolfram Spyra) Virtual Vices II (with Wolfram Spyra) Virtual Vices III (with Wolfram Spyra) Virtual Vices V (with Wolfram Spyra) Virtual Vices VI (with Wolfram Spyra)
There's nothing quite like collecting Virtual Vices 1 through III and V and VI to make you long for Virtual Vices IV, a secret that Namlook knew well and was a key component of his marketing strategy.
In the age of the downloadable MP3, when musicians and producers alike are often at a loss on how to make money from their music, Namlook and FAX devised a strategy that allowed the artists to make a living. Not only did FAX's financial structure confer the majority of its profits to the artists, but Namlook succeeded in attracting a devoted, ravenous following that allowed him and his label to continue releasing new music.
FAX would initially print only a limited number of albums of any one series, perhaps only 500 or 1,000 or 1,500 copies, and when that initial run sold out, instead of printing more, he'd go back to the studio and produce a new album of music in a similar vein, although by no means identical to its predecessor. Hence, Air 1 would morph into Air 2, and would then evolve into Air 3, and so on, and the earlier versions of the album would wind up accruing in value as completists scrambled to fill the gaps in their collections. If a particular album never sold out, it simply wouldn't become a series, and Namlook let market demand decide what would or wouldn't be recorded in the studio. It was not for nothing that he used to have a link on his web site to a tutorial on supply-and-demand economics.
In the composition In Heaven, from his collaboration with Geir Jenssen, The Fires of Ork II, Rutger Hauer's voice states, "In heaven, that's all they talk about: the ocean and the sunset - how fucking wonderful it is to watch that big ball of fire melt into the ocean." Here's to Namlook appreciating the transcendental sunset on the ocean of eternity.
Meanwhile, does anyone know where I can get my hands on a copy of Silence III? Seriously.
Since everyone else seems to be doing their end-of-year, best-of posts for 2012, I'll just mention that my favorite video of the year may very well be Grimes' intentionally over-the-top Genesis, possibly for the song itself, or for the extended ambient introduction, her avant subversion of the pop genre, or the video's lampooning of every video cliche of 2012, from Fiona Apple's octopus wig to MIA's crazy car rides.
Grimes came through Atlanta this year, on a Monday, naturally, when I couldn't see her, but I was able to catch her set at The Earl during Rocktober 2011, where she performed solo but for a single dancer, Duffy, who worked the crowd.
For completeness' sake, here are Fiona Apple's octopus wig and MIA's crazy car rides:
And so it comes to pass: that waveform in the sea of life that we knew as "Ravi Shankar" has finally crashed onto the other shore. On Tuesday, December 11, 2012, PAndit Ravi Shankar died at the age of 92 near his home in Encinitas, California.
I never got to hear him in concert, but his music affected my life in many ways. From his tutelage of George Harrison and its effect on The Beatles' music, and the consequent effect of that on me, to his de facto ambassadorship of so-called world beat music to the West, his artistry and creativity was an inspiration and a revelation. There's been many a Sunday morning that started well for me with a morning raga, a tradition I never would have learned of if not for Pandit.
Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine) breaks up a fight in Scotland during a concert. I started watching this expecting to be cynical and to say something derogatory about the Scots (I'm half Scottish myself), but I actually got a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye at the kindness and tenderness Florence exhibited.
According to eye-witness reports, the woman in the fight had to take one of her daughter's friends outside to be picked up by her mom because she felt really ill, and as she was trying to get back to her own kids some guy got pissed with her because he thought she was cutting in or something. They argued and he threw a drink all over her, and Florence interrupted her set to sort it all out. The girl that got hugged was apparently the daughter of the woman in the fight.
