/daily/ in Review: Part 4

Back to action: long shot of the haze emitted by computer screen refracted through window. Give it three ticks, a slow zoom in the direction of the light. Jump cut to a little girl, dressed in a frilly frock, sidled up to a tree during daytime. Straight shot, 1 tick. Back to the window, let it stutter open without prompt as the slow zoom continues. A confused, but muffled, slipshod mix of music starts, starting soft. The volume will slowly ramp up from here on out. Thick, red paint starts flowing out the window sill; Still the zoom here and let it flow for 2 ticks. Back to the little girl, an apple in her hand, arrows stuck against the tree somewhat but not quite following the outline of her body. Close-up on her face as she asks, “Would you like to play?” Quick glance back to the window, the paint now erupting out the window in abbreviated hacks. Emphasize the screen haze as it glances off the droplets coughed out – but make it quick, its only gonna be half a tick. And now we’re back to girl. She’s taken up a pitcher’s position, mean mugging as she hides the apple behind her back. Next, a medium shot as she assumes the position, the arrows now arranged to fit the profile. The mishmash of music is at cacophonous levels now. In one seamless motion, she kicks up her leg and throws a screamer right at the camera. Batter up!

Fishmans - 98.12.28 男達の別れ (98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare)

1999, Polydor

by notacop

On the 28th of December, 1998, the Japanese dub-rock band Fishmans played their last show at Akasaka Blitz, Tokyo. The tour was intended as a farewell for bassist Yuzuru Kashiwabara - the tour was titled “Farewell of Man”, it was never intended as final for the band itself, vocalist Shinji Sato and drummer Kin-Ichi Motegi intended on continuing the project with new members. Within months of the show, which was filmed, Sato would be dead, (officially of “heart failure”, although speculation is rife that he took his own life) he was thirty-three. Motegi later said that it was raining on the day that Sato died. Given the circumstances surrounding the release of this recording, there’s a ghostly quality to this particular album: this is a band at the height of their artistry, in their prime, touring two of their best albums (1997’s Uchu Nippon Setagaya, and the single-track 1996 Long Season, a personal favourite), forced into early retirement.

There was this one user back on the old forums by the handle I’M FISH (all caps) that had the Fishmans Rock Festival boxed set, which is basically the entire Fishmans discography. Daily (and probably a lot of other music listeners today, including the userbase of rateyourmusic.com) owes their knowledge and appreciation of this record to this particular person. That particular boxed set is the only place where this live album is in LP form, (I have no idea why, if the surviving members of Fishmans reprinted this album (and the studio version of Long Season) they would make so much fucking money.)

Undeniably, the main attraction here is the expanded version of Long Season that closes the album. Long Season was an album built in the studio, it saw Fishmans taking their Dub and Rocksteady influences seriously by experimenting with production alongside co-producer ZAK (mononymously named), who reportedly “shed blood from the eyes” after staring at CRT monitors too much. It would seem antithetical to the concept of a live setting to play such a song, and yet, on this night in late December 1998, Fishmans performed a miracle. Not only do they kill it, not only is there a theremin and an accordion on stage with them, this version of Long Season, I would argue, is the definitive version of the song. In the footage of the live show, late into Long Season, there’s a moment where Sato kind of takes it all in: it’s eerily poignant given the circumstances that would befall him months later, but in that moment he feels the energy of the crowd, leans back and just dwells in the moment. It’s a beautiful moment immortalized on film. Long Season is a song I’ve always associated with the end of things. This is not because it was the last thing the band performed as a complete unit; the song itself is suffused with this bittersweet sadness. All things must come to an end, and what a sendoff.

“Blue” Gene Tyranny - Out of the Blue

1978, Lovely

by r

I don’t know where to begin. I could talk about that one fateful night (was it the first night? we know the answer to that) when, while sauced up on some peanuts – we won’t say their name, we won’t give them that honor, but though I’ve been clean for a moment (‘tis still more a flash than moment: “thunder, my teacher”!), God! give me another peanut! (wrong Bob, but he’s just as important to his story – and mine too) – ahem, while sauced up, I heard the fiddle transfigure into the explosive sounding of train horn and voice from the outside cozy up in the inside. Or I could talk about a mythic video of a dancer – maybe not a professional one, but a dancer nonetheless – who bounds and leaps with liberated grace and gall in her living room to the world’s greatest pop song; a mythic video because it can no longer be found (I tried, I’ll have you know, and I’ve failed). Or maybe my own burning anger at reading a similarly “mythic” review from some critic in New York written back in ’77, or ’78, or ’80 (if only I remembered the year or publication!) calling the work in about so many words overwrought and filled with a saccharine sentimentality that may fit with the shallow ideations of new-age California hippies, but not with the folks living in the ever prestigious and serious Big A’. I was steaming then and I’m steaming now – you’d have to have tin ears and a wooden heart to come to that conclusion!

Or maybe, to come back to the other Bob, let’s “begin at the beginning”. “Blue” Gene Tyranny, also known as Robert Sheff, and no longer known as Joseph Gantic – that was from before he was adopted. Born in ’45, adopted in ’46 (pops went missing in the war), raised in San Antonio, and already performing Cage and Ives as well as organizing concerts with Phillip Krumm (a legend in his own right) in his early teens – a bonafide prodigy. And then, still a teen, in ’61 he gets off to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Critical Moment. (Are there non-critical moments?). Bob and Bob meet, and lay the groundwork for a friendship that bleeds past the 21st century. But that’s a story for another day. The story here is that BGT is performer and session musician par excellence. He’s worked with Bob, he’s worked with Carla Bley, Bill Dixon, Peter Gordon, pre-Stooges Iggy Pop, and others – a collaborative spirit that didn’t extinguish after that first, monumental solo album.

Stop here: ’77, BGT is out there in Oakland, working at Mills College with ol’ Bob. There were tremors a year before: a joint concert with Peter Gordon – “Trust in Rock” – where the early manifestations of what was to come blared out into the bay. But it’s ’77 when it coalesces, hardens (and yet, still fluid, a scab that begs for touch to allow for a new bleed), and is jettisoned out from the mind and into the world. Now I come ear to sound with that impossible task – to talk about the music, to translate that tenderness that had sprouted in me, which goes beyond notes and language. What to say except it starts with the world’s greatest pop song, then summons a whirling dervish in homage to the first footballer to come out of the closet, and from there lilts into a wistful ballad that lays the foundation for the doubleness to be inspected. And then – And then! A letter from home, that is a letter to himself, which might as well be a letter to myself or a letter to yourself - what’s there to say except “it’s always the first time”? What’s there to say except listen – listen, listen, listen!

25,000 Kittens – 25,000 Kittens

2014, Ginjoha

by Mei Baas

It’s only two tracks for two cats, but they may as well have been 25,000 kittens given the amount of love in the homages. Of course, there’s grief and acceptance alongside that love. For Boo: the music box waltzes for a bit before ringing in drones that wash along in waves. The sound of flowing water courses in the background as wanting mews echo near its end. For Hanakichi: the drones coalesce into a ringing before wandering out and into one another like passing clouds. The tape fuzz in the background has the warmth of clogged up ears when high up in the sky, and remains a constant low hum as the synths spread their wings and oscillate into something ethereal. The music box appears at the end, like a hand waving goodbye. One with a life well lived, the other with a life cut way too short. Here’s to you, Boo and Hanakichi. I’m sure your friend loved you very much. And to you, too, Franz, my goofy (but kingly!) bundle of joy. I love you very, very much.

Lou Reed and Metallica - Lulu

2011, Warner Bros.

by Booshnaw

The diverse array of opinions on Lulu would easily inflate past my artificial wordcount - it's context and reputation precedes itself. Though one of the biggest insights that has stuck with me since coming to appreciate this collaboration is the commonality between Lou Reed and Metallica. It's as if they are both old souls from their respective generations. They really loved how things were done in their youth - as if the culture of their way of doing things never died. Lou wanted to Rock for eternity the same way Metallica want to Metal. A real connection to the ethos. They weren't perfect in sticking to it but they ardently and aggressively stuck to their creative visions. Even to the point of mockery, they kept living that generation out because that's just who they were. So of course, Lulu is going to get derided by many as the worst of both worlds. It's about as sincere of a record for both of these icons have ever made, and surface level result was a Lou Reed spoken word adaptation of a play with Metallica as the orchestra. Lulu's unique place in popular music history sits as one of it's strangest artifacts.

Grouper - Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill

2008, Type

by notacop

The fifth full-length album by Grouper (aka Liz Harris), Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill represents a significantly stripped back iteration of the sound present on previously released material. This is telling, as Dragging a Dead Deer is still drowned in reverb, it sounds as if a (benevolent) mermaid is being sucked into a black hole. The reverb is cranked so high on this thing that it feeds back in really pleasant, “warm” ways. There’s not many other bands or artists that sound the same way that Grouper sounds, she takes obvious influence from Cocteau Twins, shoegaze acts like Slowdive or Roy Montgomery (whom she has collaborated with in the past), and probably from Enya (the terminally online snark in me says that Grouper is just Enya for Pitchfork Millennials, the wiser portion of me tells that shitheel to shut his trap), however none of these influences totally “explain” Grouper’s sonic ancestry, as Harris has managed to carve out a niche all her own.

There’s not much to it really. Harris uses a piano, an acoustic guitar (there’s probably also an electric in there somewhere), her own voice, and probably several reverb and delay effects to create this really lovely, comforting, ethereal atmosphere in her music. Harris multitracks her vocals to create a choral effect, this can be best observed on tracks like “We’ve All Gone To Sleep”, “Wind and Snow” or “Invisible” as the overdubbing of multiple vocal takes creates subtle discordances and harmonies that create an otherworldly effect. Her use of acoustic guitar is similarly ghostly and haunted, so washed out as to be hard to detect at times, it sounds old and distant, as if it is the memory of a person playing.

This album is profoundly relaxing. For a time, struggling with insomnia, I used to put this album on to fall asleep to. I would put this on and get into bed and stare out my window as the sun rose. Oftentimes I would fail to fall asleep, that’s the tricky thing about insomnia and deeply disturbed circadian rhythms, the album would end, the sun would be up, spotify would start playing some other suitably washed out ambiance, and I would roll over and lay in my warmth and try again. On rare occasions, however, Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill would carry me off on waves of reverb to oceanic dreams.