1988: Beat Happening - Jamboree







1. Bewitched
2. In Between
3. Indian Summer
4. Hangman
5. Jamboree
6. Ask Me
7. Crashing Through
8. Cat Walk
9. Drive Car Girl
10. Midnight a Go-Go
11. The This Many Boyfriends Club

2003: Earl Scruggs - The Three Pickers (with Ricky Skaggs and Doc Watson)

Ricky Skaggs once told the joke:

"How many Bluegrass musicians does it take to change a light bulb? Four. One to change the light bulb and three to complain that light bulbs are electric."

In many ways, such a joke defines bluegrass music. It's a genre that mingles spectacular banjo rushes with voices and rhythms that seem as old as Appalachia. Though Bluegrass extracts elements of Irish and Scottish folk music, the finger picking styles and lyrical tales of America's mountains and rivers reflect a craft that's uniquely American.

On The Three Pickers, three of American music's greats appear together for one legendary performance in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, and Ricky Skaggs sound both stoic and gentle, playing a combination of original works and traditional American folk songs. While introducing the poignant "Who Will Sing for Me?", Ricky Skaggs, the youngest member of the trio (by several decades), recounts the boyhood years he spent listening to his stage-mates on the radio. This notion of mutual admiration and friendship is a recurrent theme throughout the recording; and while the "Divas" concerts of recent years showcased the vocal duels of pop stars, the Three Pickers seamlessly meld their melodies, with the picking talents of each man equally well dispersed and showcased with Skaggs' flexibly switching from mandolin to guitar and banjoon, Earl's trademark banjo, and Doc's flat-pick guitar.

In addition to performing as a trio, a number of distinguished guests are invited to the stage. Doc Watson and grandson Richard flat pick two traditional folk numbers, "Walk On Boy" and "Daybreak Blues." Later, Earl Scruggs is joined by his son Gary to perform the exhilarating banjo technique he invented as a member of Bill Monroe's band in the 1940s. The contrast between Doc and Earl's approaches to Bluegrass is clear, yet they serve to illustrate the profound and diverse contributions each has made to American music. In spectacular fashion, Kentucky Thunder emerges to the stage to accompany Ricky Skaggs in a roaring rendition of "Ridin' That Midnight Train." Alison Krauss also joins the pickers for three numbers, including the noir standard "The Banks of the Ohio."

Despite their distinguished accompanists, the Three Pickers are at their best when they alone occupy the stage. Their shared presence evokes an air of genuine American heritage. While their voices are flatter now than in the past, their fingers are still able to lead the way. The album's strongest effort, "Who Will Sing For Me?", is a confluence of an old man's lamenting wonders and merry picking rhythms. It's difficult not to shake the feeling that these men are challenging us to maintain the tradition they all but created.

Although it's clear that a healthy and supportive crowd is on hand, the trio evokes the feel of a small mountain promenade. Skaggs, who handles the majority of the on-stage banter, creates an intimate setting that lures both the crowd and remote listener to his side. Contrary to the wild banjo picking that awes even the most passive bluegrass listener, this collection contains mostly slower, soulful tunes. The Three Pickers should not be regarded as a capstone event for Bluegrass Music because these three men do nothing to demand a spotlight. This is a recording of three masters, or better yet, three friends who love to share the subtlety of their craft with an audience and each other.

2005: Boris - Akuma No Uta

I miss sitcoms about rock bands like The Partridge Family or The Monkees.
In fact, I miss them so much I had to resort to making up premises for
them myself. Take this example:

A rock band (Boris) made up of three Japanese exchange students (Wata,
Takeshi, and Atsuo) are scheduled to stay with a wholesome musical family
in America, but thanks to a wacky clerical mishap, our trio instead find
themselves living in a dilapidated tour bus with a host family made up of
members from Blue Cheer and Motörhead. Hilarity ensues!

Hmm... well, maybe it won't, but while this may potentially be the most
ill-conceived premise for comedy ever devised, it aptly captures the tone
of Boris' Akuma No Uta.

In an attempt to move forward from the turbulent, glacial churn of 2001's
Amplifier Worship, the members of Boris re-forged themselves by
injecting piss and nitroglycerin directly into their veins, developing a
volatile mixture of cacophonous drums, mesmerizing guitars, and lead singer
Atsuo's primal wail.

This combustible new compound is evident on "Ibitsu" and "Furi."
Each of these songs features
thunderous, drumming hoofbeats and the
metallic braying of guitars galloping at a
mercilessly breakneck speed, almost like a pair
of overdriven horses of the apocalypse. "Ano Onno No Onryou" exchanges
some of that frenetic pace for a heavier, spacey proto-punk freakout as
guitarist Wata's shrapnel-sharp riffs soar and scatter wildly above the
viscous ooze of Takeshi's "No Fun"-esque basslines.

However, despite this new direction, Boris hasn't completely retired the
low and slow formula previously perfected on Absolutego and
Amplifier Worship
. The songs "Introduction" and "Akuma No Uta," which
bookend the record, echo the punishing black-hole-heavy riffs and
lethargic crawl that had been the band's previous
calling card.

The highlight of Akuma No Uta, however, falls into neither of the
above categories. "Naki Kyoku" begins with a hypnotically sedate guitar
phrase being strummed repeatedly against a gentle heartbeat of hi-hats,
until a barrage of emotive guitars begin crying toward the heavens, gently
caressing and cradling Atsuo's pleading screams as they abruptly and
intermittently punch in and out of a languid stretch of psychedelic blues,
finally crashing in a hauntingly beautiful crescendo of

Boris' eschewal of expectations firmly announced to the world that they
were meant for greater things than being just
another SunnO))) or Earth, and Akuma No Uta demonstrates the trio
orbiting a section of rarefied space all their own.

1. Introduction
2. Ibitsu
3. Furi
4. Naki Kyoku
5. Ano Onno No Onryou
6. Akuma No Uta

1984: Ambitious Lovers - Envy

When trying to explain the musical importance of Arto Lindsay, people
often give a single reason: DNA. Fair enough, there's no arguing that his
first musical endeavor left quite a footprint on the surprisingly soft
soil of that musical era - but as with peers Lydia Lunch and James Chance,
the man is spoken of as though he dropped out of music and off the face of
the planet after the early '80s. Not only does he carry on a respectable
career as a solo musician today, but he was a key player in three other
major acts - the Golden Palominos, the Lounge Lizards, and most notably,
Ambitious Lovers.

Lindsay, along with keyboardist Peter Scherer released Envy in
1984, arguably after the end of the 'classic' No Wave era. Several years
had passed since the final Mars show or TV Party broadcast; but if the
movement was supposed to be over, nobody told Ambitious Lovers. This album
shows far more of No Wave's confrontational overtones than any other
record of its age, albeit in a fashion that would sound more at home on a Luaka Bop compilation than No New York.

Stylistically, the group took cues from everyone - previous projects in
their New York scene and contemporary 1980's pop in particular - yet the
element that stands out most distinctly from other albums recorded in this
time and place is the incorporation of sounds from Lindsay's native
Brazil. Tracks such as "Pagode Americano" are downright funky, sounding
like they were taken straight out of a South American drum circle;
jarring, groovy, and sung entirely in Portuguese. The contrast is stark
when compared to the freak-out of the following track "Nothing's Monstered,"
which creates an effect similar to being woken up by sirens out of a
pleasant dream, only to find yourself shrunk to the size of a thumbnail
and in the middle of a burning beehive everyone else is scrambling to
escape from. "Let's Be Adult" is the closest thing Envy has to a
single, and at four and a half minutes it seems epic compared to what
Lindsay fans had grown accustomed to via DNA. The waddling beat is
complimented, rather interestingly, by a series of sampled shrieks and
yelps from Lindsay, and keyboards that a decade later would be found on
the soundtracks to many a Sega Genesis game.

For the most part, Envy doesn't sound like what most of us play in
our heads when someone mentions No Wave. The abrasive skronk sounds are
substituted for pop keyboard work, and, in some cases, the crash symbol
for a bongo. These differences shouldn't be viewed as detrimental to the
sound – in fact, they're an essential development. No Wave would have
turned from a fire-breathing Godzilla into a sterile, lifeless fossil if
it hadn't evolved and explored new aural terrain. It was never about a
certain sound after all, but change; making old things new and the new

1. Cross Your Legs
2. Trouble Maker
3. Pagode Americano
4. Nothing's Monstered
5. Crowning Roar
6. Too Many Mansions
7. Let's Be Adult
8. Venus Lost Her Shirt
9. My Competition
10. Badu
11. Dora
12. Beberibe
13. Locus Coruleus

2005: The Magik Markers - Feel The Crayon






1. White Bikini
2. My Sweet
3. Hero For Our Times Pt. 1
4. Hero For Our Times Pt. 2
5. Creaking Jesus
6. Just A Child
7. Fuck You

1998: Edgard Varèse - Edgard Varèse: The Complete Works

Edgard Varèse once said, "I refuse to submit to sounds that have already been heard." Asserted early in his musical career, this bold statement anticipates the narrative of Varèse's musical life, eleven words that would come to haunt and drive his musical ambitions. The musical world, however, was not ready for such iconoclastic ambition. In 1923, Varèse wrote "Hyperprism," a daring composition making use of new musical instruments with an emphasis on percussion -- it caused a riot. Years later, Varèse wrote "Ionisation," another percussion-heavy composition declaring to the world the siren is just as viable a musical instrument as the piano.

Varèse eventually began yearning for more and announced this desire in written-form with his manifesto, "The Liberation of Sound." In the manifesto, Varèse dreamt of "liberation from the arbitrary paralyzing tempered system." Demanding an unlimited palette of sounds, infinite numbers of scales, high and low registers virtually impossible to attain, he believed composers were still "obsessed" by traditions only serving to limit the composer. In short, Varèse wanted something technology at the time could not provide him.

Throughout the rest of his life, Varèse would pursue sounds he felt were indicative of liberation. It was not until the age of 71 (after a period of stagnation in composing and failed attempts at setting up an electronic music research lab with Bell Telephone) that Varèse really began to get the ball rolling, mainly due to technological advancements occurring in France and Germany around WWII, specifically, the magnetic tape. After composing a collage of taped sounds called "Déserts" (which, like past work, produced an angry reaction at its premiere), Varèse finally had technology that could generate the sounds he sought and allowed him to write his masterpiece: "Poème électronique."

Unlike earlier compositions mentioned, "Poème électronique" is entirely electronic. Starting with a sonic explosion, the track continues arrhythmically and atonally, using various sound textures and sound sources. Varèse masterfully blends electronically-generated sounds and pre-recorded noise from real life (singing, trains, snare drum, etc), superimposing disparate elements that confound rather than comfort, creating a dizzying, ambiguous array of noises exploring stark dynamic shifts and defying expectations. The listener is unable to predict any element of the music and fails to reach an emotional connection with its emphasis on atonality and unpredictability.

The music alone isn't enough to fully appreciate its significance in the history of music. Written for a 1958 exhibition at the Brussels World Fair, "Poème électronique" not only eschews tonality, harmony, and melody (a battle fought by early modernists, such as Schoenberg and Webern), but also deconstructs rhythm and sonority, elements that the second phase of modernists fought against. The result is a complete annihilation of the traditional forms he attacked early on with his precocious manifesto. Like the Abstract Expressionists in visual art, Varèse abstracted music in a manner resulting in a whole new level of communication, mounting a battle against all previous musical forms and musical archetypes with the nearly limitless possibilities of electronically-generated music.

Sadly, Varèse's "Poème électronique" turned out to be his swan song. Although he intended to "make up for lost time" with the recent technological advancements, Varèse died on November 6th, 1965. Luckily Varèse's work was given much needed reappraisal in 1998, when London released Edgard Varèse: The Complete Works. Performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Asko Ensemble, and director Riccardo Chailly, and assembled with the assistance of Chou Wen-Chung (who worked with Varèse), Varèse's complete discography fits wonderfully on two quality discs. Anyone interested in modern electronic music would be hard pressed not to seek out this release. Edgard Varèse is the undisputed father of electronic music, and it's about time everyone found out why.
