Electro-Industrial Dreaming

Winter procrastinating. The short days and long, cold nights are very conducive to this. Sydney is known as a warm place, but this winter has a kick that I am constantly cocooning myself against. Layers of clothing and even sleet-like rain at times, but it would never snow here, of course.
Procrastination has me wandering in my mind back to late 1970s/early '80s New Zealand days - a time when everything seemed possible and open. It had become ok to be "not normal" (and no one would've then anticipated how ultra-conservative life would be 30 years later!). Punk was pretty much the pop-cultural reference point, but - to me, at least - the really interesting stuff, most particularly in music, was happening (as per usual) somewhere else - in a less commercial (underground) realm. You had to look for it. Interestingly, much of the music that grabbed my attention around this time still sends tingles up and down my spine today. I'm thinking of electronic acts such as Thomas Leer and Robert Rental, The Normal (I've previously posted 'YouTubes' of at least one of these bands' tracks), early Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, that all had a sparsely melancholic, so-called 'industrial' quality to them. The music conjured (and still does!) stark images of bleakness - industrial wastelands, urban decay and social isolation and the sound was dark and gritty, clattery and rhythmic, repetitive and hypnotic, sometimes atonal, sometimes kind of ambient and always beautiful to me. Vocals were most often bored-sounding and tended to be more spoken than sung.
Moving ahead to the late '80s, when house music and techno had established themselves as the Zeitgeist, an interesting fusion was taking place, which I think of as the start of electro as we now know it. Rap music (following in the footsteps of groups such as The Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five) - in what seemed like a most natural progression - started to incorporate this 'industrial' sound. Producers such as Dr Dre, Egyptian Lover etc were sampling rhythms from Kraftwerk and rapping about street violence, urban crime and/or boasting about sexual prowess. What I loved about the sound of these guys was the rawness - the fact that it was a cut-up music made of samples skilfully manipulated on record turntables, which in itself reflected an earlier aesthetic of the post-punk late '70s/early '80s industrial sound - the cut-up techniques developed by artist Brion Gysin and writer William S. Burroughs. The music was made by black artists, but it wasn't your typically smooth R&B. It was edgy and minimal and it rocked!
I still love electro - certainly not all, but I love the minimal stuff that continues to display these basic aesthetics. Here's a full track from my most recent record purchase - on sexy all-blue vinyl - by Ekman.

"Help me kill my time ..."

I could spend all day raving about how much I love the music of Elliott Smith - this track being one of three tracks on his 'Needle In The Hay' 7" - and one of the most treasured items in my music collection (btw, there's another from the same record on my previous post - just click the pic!).
Elliott's music just gets to me and I like it best served this way - without backing band, so it's just him and his guitar. He's so raw and intense, he makes you feel what he feels. His music has helped me to emerge out of some very bleak moods, but it's so terribly sad to think that it wasn't enough to keep him here. I miss him.

The most difficult thing in life is in believing what is happening in the moment

**!!...

... pic reblogged from proangelwings

Iori Asano - Music From Okinawa

Love his work, but I keep forgetting I have his 'Light Echo' EP - released in 2010 as an mp3 download on Prologue Music. Here's my favourite track from the EP. Thanks for reminding me proangelwings!

Unicorn Hard-On

I only recently discovered the work of Val Martino, aka Unicorn Hard-On. She lives in the USA's 'home of country music', Nashville, operating within the so-called 'Noise' scene. I love the way she treats her voice and appreciate her use of techno and house motifs. Her overall sound isn't chaotic like much of the music categorised as 'Noise', but relatively straightforward, yet gutsy. Click this link to hear her track 'Persian Cats'. It begins quite abstractly, but picks up the pace after a while.

Some Random Thoughts

I wonder:

Why do most people assume the weather is only pleasant when it is bright, sunny and hot?

Why is one's hair only acceptable when it looks anything other than it's natural state and colour?

Why are successful, economically-empowered women still spending their hard-earned cash on painful cosmetic surgery, or so-called 'enhancements' that freeze their expression lines and fill their facial contours with plastic in order to stay pretty for longer (or erase their individual uniqueness, depending on how you look at it)? I've heard the reasoning that remaining youthful-looking gives you a competitive edge over others, but that seems to fly in the face of what the Women's Movement stands for. Contrarily, many feminists have adopted the idea that such procedures are part of their empowerment and self-realisation, but as I see it, this is just the same old marketing ploy the beauty industry has always used. Here is a pretty interesting analysis I found on the subject. 'Consumer Feminism' indeed! Why can't we be acceptable - to ourselves as much as to others - simply as we are, naturally?

And finally, why is being considerate to others and being co-operative within communities so difficult for what seems like the vast majority of people?

I guess I'll never know.

Finding Your Own Way

Happy Birthday to Stephen B.

View From My Window A Few Nights Ago

Just sitting, looking and listening. Click on my pic to hear.

Just Letting The Dust Settle

A week of processing the events outlined in my last post hasn't been easy. I am determined to avoid self-pity but, for some reason, I can't not care about these people. Only thing is that from now on I'll be caring about them from a good distance.
Dad's hateful rant really has changed my thinking. The penny has finally dropped. For way too long, I've been focused on the 'injustice' of how he treats me, somehow thinking that 'if he could only get to know me and the person I am, he will accept me and love me ('get' me) - like all fathers unconditionally love their daughters, right?' Wrong! I now realise with crystal clarity that many people are simply not capable of liking their children - particularly those children who share a different world view, or don't capitulate to the demands (or massage the ego) of a parent. Apparently, it's not that uncommon, but there's nothing I can do about it. Actually, I can only feel sorry for Dad, because he has shown himself up to be (yet another) pathetic narcissist and it is obviously beyond his control. Therefore, I am beginning to forgive him, but will never forget (and need no more reminders!) the extent of his animosity towards me. I'm moving on and every day becomes easier, as I train my mind bit by bit to stop the internal conversation with him.

Currently, I'm taking time out to do things I've been putting off - cataloguing my music collection on the 'Discogs' data base, for example. I finally had Gertie's nails trimmed yesterday. We went on a walking excursion - with her in a box - to the local vet and she's looking very spick and span now.
Music is helping, as always. Currently, I'm enjoying Byetone's new album, 'Symeta' on 'Raster Noton', but I still love 'Plastic Star' - from his earlier (2008) album, 'Death of a Typographer'. Here's a YouTube of the album version (no video here though - just a still image of the album cover.

Deep Breaths ...

Now into another new year, this post is obviously an exhumation - bringing something back to light that has not exactly been buried, but definitely abandoned of late. If I actually do have any readers here, my apologies are in order for this gap in communication. Despite my gaps however, I will always come back.

Certainly the unexpected arrival of my new little cavy housemate, Gertie (see second-to-last post), has thrown a metaphorical spanner in the works. I wouldn't have thought a guinea pig would be so high-maintenance, but the fact that she resides in my own apartment means constantly cleaning/picking up after her, not to mention having to launder her bedding towels and blankets every other day. There is also the endless shopping for her vegies and making sure she has an ever-present supply of hay and dry food. Since guinea pigs are social animals and I am unable to court the option of a guinea pig friend for her, I must also make the time to spend with her - making sure she is comfortable, continuously entertained and happy. It is a handful, to be sure, but when I get frustrated or impatient with her (or simply low in my own spirits), I just look at her and am immediately reminded of how adorable she is - just so completely real and joyously 'in the moment'. When she responds to my affection and gives the love back, I feel instantly rewarded and know it's all worth it. As I write this, she is reclining upstairs in her big cage, trying to stay cool in Sydney's January humidity. Her claws are so long, they resemble Nosferatu's, but I lack the confidence to attempt cutting them.

Talking about confidence, my own has once again been hammered and very much tested by my father, who (yet again) managed to ambush me with an onslaught of grievances and resentments about myself and the way in which I live my life - finding fault after fault in a bitter and hateful rant about virtually everything ever to do with me. I was in a stressed and defensive position right from the start in this hostile environment, yet anything I said in my defence, or to 'put the record straight', was rubbished and talked over. I wasn't my normal self. For three and a half hours, my life was being trashed and I was expected to just sit there and be judged.

From the outset, I knew I was walking into an environment of resentment about my lack of visiting them (even though they make it clear that they dislike my company and I don't own any personal mode of transport), so broached the topic early on, saying that I simply wanted to find a way (or a compromise) to make things work, so everyone could be happy, trying to explain to them that I'm not inclined to go away much - in fact, I've left town 3 times in over 6 years and one of those times was to their place! - but I had given Mum an open invitation to come and stay at my place, which was apparently not an option. In fact, at this early stage of our meeting, Dad leapt off his seat and spat pure bile at me about my "disgusting" home, saying ".... and you expect your mother to stay there!" Here's where I began being defensive, explaining that my home of 16 years - although perhaps not to their taste - is clean, comfortable, organised and, importantly, that it was MY HOME and that since they were inclined to come to Sydney several times a year, it might be an option, but no, not good enough. Dad would rather just sit there, abusing and sneering at me, all the while drinking beer, then wine, then beer again. Of course, the accusations were completely untrue and unfair - just his negative slant on my motivations and actions and all the while, I'm sitting there, being pushed into a desperate, ranting mode of defensiveness - desperate to clarify things, inform them of what I do creatively, how I live my life, what I love and value - while all the while being talked over and scoffed at. At times, he just walked out of the room while I was in mid-sentence. As he insulted me, I kept saying "You have no right to talk to me like that!". At one point, I felt so hurt and angry, I followed him out of the room and beat his chest weak-fistedly, devastated by his coldness towards me. Overwhelmed with emotion, I pushed my face into his shoulder and demanded that he put his arms around me and show me love. He gripped me tightly for a while, but couldn't look at me. I was so relieved, I sobbed and said "thank you" over and over, but as soon as the hug was released, the curtain came back down again and the hostility and bullying escalated. I could never satisfy them anyway, because they only value work that is paid and money and/or status in general and I've been unemployed for over a year now. It's hard to find a new job, especially with no contacts. A little bit of encouragement or support would certainly have been more useful than these bullying accusations of "Job Snob!" Also, I do not criticise their values or their homes, even though they are alienating to me (their own home and my sister and her partner's, where we sat that day, are minimal and airily comfortable in the way that corporate office or art gallery foyers are - ie sterile, bland and with none of the clutter of life [or love] in them), but the life I have lived/am living must be summed up as a series of mistakes, irresponsibilities, pretensions and excuses, apparently.

His final insult to me was "Your problem is that you think you're bigger than you are" and I immediately realised that he saw it as his job to cut me down to size. Great. Father of the year, eh? Taking it as his duty to knock his daughter's self-confidence. That was it for me. I said "I'm leaving" and Dad cackled at me as I gathered my belongings. "Typical", he snarled arrogantly, to which I answered - in all fairness - "You're an asshole!"

NO MORE.

Quote Of The Day

"[T]his readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game's outcome."
— Slavoj Žižek -

Gertie

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are
so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long."
- Walt Whitman -

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

I continue to hold an enormous respect for the work of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who tirelessly persists in pushing at the boundaries of what it is to be human in this world. I particularly respect his ongoing commitment to the cut-up techniques of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs - 'cutting through the association lines of control' - including, more recently, his exploration of the possibilities of evolving beyond the constraints of gender dichotomies.
Anyway, I found the link to this interview with Genesis in Resident Advisor today.

Music, Music...

Yes, I have only just discovered Julianna Barwick. Her basic approach is something I like to do myself - layering vocals by harmonising against the previous one(s) (or over what an instrument track suggests to me) - but Barwick has clearly perfected something here. It's a little Enya-like - to make a very obvious comparison, though without the 'ick' factor. There are only suggestions of words in the cathedral-like spaces she creates with masses of reverb, her angelic voice and perhaps a hint of bass or piano. I'll let this - the title track of her most recent album, 'The Magic Place' - speak for itself. If the embedded version gets removed, I promise I'll put the link in here instead.

An Oldie But A Goodie

I highly recommend linking to this YouTube video (linking rather than embedding this time, because too many just get removed). From 1978 - the absolutely classic electro of Thomas Leer's 'Private Plane'.

New Housemate

Where does time go? Now that I've started with a well-worn cliche, I feel I should apologise for the lack of posting lately. Basically, I've been run off my feet - mostly the usual projects and distractions, but the last three weeks by a little new housemate who is proving to be very high maintenance. But then, she is so utterly sweet and gorgeous that I don't really mind at all and we're steadily getting used to each other.
Little Gertie was given to me three weeks ago today, as a birthday gift from friends. OK, so it's inappropriate to give people pets as presents, but somehow I think these friends of mine understood from the start that I wouldn't be able to resist her and it's true. The only rub really is that there have been a few associated expenses - a checkup at the vet, an expensive 'hay bungalow', plus a brand new cage - something sizeable enough for her to be happy in as a solo pig, whilst also fitting in with my apartment lifestyle - ie my living room, so that she can feel a part of things. All completely worth it, I should add.
Apart from spending much of the day holding handfuls of her poo and the constant cleaning up after her generally, she is just so funny - and quite smart. A bonus is definitely the variety of noises she makes - from high-pitched, long squeals, to little purrs and 'tuk tuks' as she forages around in her hay or jumps around excitedly. Still getting used to her twice-a-day cuddle time (thanks for the advice, Julianna!), she prefers to sit across my chest and nuzzles my chin - and even my mouth at times - and nibbles my hand when she wants to be put down again. She eats A LOT. My fridge is like a vegan paradise and she's already getting used to the sound of the supermarket vegetable bags being taken out.
To put it simply: she is utterly delightful.

I'll Let the Music Speak For Itself

Music - Tommy Four Seven 'G'

Really enjoying his new album - Primate - right now. I respect the way that he has created this music without using synthesisers or indeed any conventional instruments - instead favouring field recordings and 'found sounds' to create every sound. Does anyone else remember sampling and the effort we used to put into making them?

What To Think, What To Say, What To Do?

A week now after the earthquake struck off the coast of Japan - a week of almost unimaginable devastation and misery for the country. Horrific tsunamis, an escalating nuclear crisis and all I have been able to do is stay tuned to 'the news' here in the hope of hearing some positive turn of events. Feeling so useless, all I can do is hope. All there is is hope.
The Japanese are the most wonderful people I have ever had the fortune to encounter and be amongst. I love the country and a fairly recent visit had me wishing it was possible for me to live there. In the face of this dreadful disaster, there are extraordinary stories circulating that highlight the 'kokoro' (heart and soul) of these considerate people - stories of caring and sharing that put most other Western cultures to shame.
I wait with baited breath and (though I'm not religious) am praying that things will take a turn for the better.