Die Antwoord + Aphex Twin = Next Next Level Shit

I tried ’splaining to you back in February why Die Antwoord were onto some next level shit.

In that blog post, my proposed RIYL (recommended if you like) list of comparative artists included Vanilla Ice, Kool Keith, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Zomby, Aphex Twin. At the time, even I found that list of comparisons a bit much. But here we are, a few months later, and “Weird Al” has been added to an ATP Festival curated by the dramatic post-rock sad sacks in Godspeed! You Black Emperor. And now Aphex Twin has officially collaborated with Die Antwoord.

The evidence (via Pitchfork):

No there’s nothing groundbreaking about Die Antwoord’s contribution to the track — but still, one begins to wonder, what is the artistic world coming to. Or rather, one begins to take great joy in the open-mindedness with which visionaries of different emotional tenors are joining hands. Just goes to proove it takes some next level shit to recognize next level shit.

Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis  

Tags: Aphex Twin, Die Antwoord, Great New Music, Next Level Shit, South African, The Problem With the Avant Garde

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Tilt

Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis  

Tags: Balloon Investigations, Black Mountain College, Nature Worship, Photos, Shopping Carts

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Sufjan Stevens’ All Delighted People

I had some ambivalence about the small venue tour Sufjan went on last fall — the music’s Liberace-like indulgence, the way his band consciously abandoned structure but then, perhaps, overshot that effort and abandoned good taste. Philosophically it was intriguing; the music that resulted felt a bit forced. It meandered where, before, it was compulsively engaging.

I’m only a few listens into his new release, an EP titled All Delighted People, but it excites me on a number of levels. I like way he released it: an intentionally desultory approach wherein it just kind of popped up on a wonky, semi-established internet site with a rough hewn but charming cover, the kind of image an ambitious teenage kid might cut & paste on the cover of a mix tape or CD. (Sidenote: Do people still make mixtapes?)

I like the weird heft of it — a 60 minute EP! — and the through-line it maintains from Sufjan’s recent public statements to the musical execution of the recording. In a long interview with Paste Magazine, he had expressed a lack of faith in established musical formats (via Pitchfork). i.e.

“I’m wondering, why do people make albums anymore when we just download? Why are songs like three or four minutes, and why are records 40 minutes long? They’re based on the record, vinyl, the CD, and these forms are antiquated now. So can’t an album be eternity, or can’t it be five minutes? … I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.”

Most importantly I like the music in and of itself. He’s tamped down the “too much jazz” of last year’s tour, but maintains the loose intensity of the music he played and an emotional register which is even more idiosyncratic than the songs he’s released in the past. On the website for his label Asthmatic Kitty he calls it “a dramatic homage to the Apocalypse, existential ennui, and Paul Simon’s ‘Sounds of Silence,’” though it feels as much like a jazz/classical/noise version of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks.

It’s loose, it’s messy, it’s redolent of the 1970s and it has soul. It sounds like a good way to spend a Sunday morning.

PS – The morning after writing this post, while actually listening to it on a Sunday morning, the influence of church music also came to the fore: the ecstasies and intimacies and oh-so-human breakdowns; the gender-neutral chorus wherein the vocal registers of the singers remains ambiguously castrati-like; the final resolution of the songs which sets a certain tone: one of hard-earned uplift and hard-won peace.

Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis  

Tags: All Delightful People, Astral Weeks, Free Jazz, Jazz Hands, Liberace, Paul Simon, Smooth Jazz, Sounds of Silence, Sufjan Stevens, Van Morrison

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Some Weekend “Relief” by R. Kelly, Sam Amidon & Cee Lo Green

Question: What do you do when you love a cover so much that you search out the original — BUT YOU CANNOT FIND IT? That, my friends, is why YouTube was invented.

See above for the original of the song “Relief” by R. Kelly — YouTube being the only place it is easily found on the world wide web. (We searched Amazon, eMusic & iTunes to no avail.) Below is the quite excellent cover by Brassfriend Sam Amidon:

On the internets, at least, Sam Amidon’s version seems to have gained commercial dominion. What an odd world we live in where the seemingly (but not really) ironic cover becomes more popular than the sincere (but not really, it couldn’t be, could it?) original?

And lest this post sound like last week’s news, here is the latest, internets-only hit burning up the webs & wires:

PS – Next week I’m taking a short holiday in Montreal. That means I’ll either (A) be blogging a lot, or (B) completely not.

Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis  

Tags: Cee-Lo, Fuck You, Internet Poem, R. Kelly, Relief, Sam Amidon, The Problem With Nostalgia

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Crass & Mary Margaret O’Hara de-recluse themselves

In the overmediated age we find ourselves in, I have a kind of kneejerk negative reaction to the entire notion of the recluse. Especially when the semi-famous are accused of such behavior, it strikes me less as a desire for obscurity, than an assertion of self-respect, a meek demand for privacy, and/or a slide into a more decent sort of existence. Viz Salinger, admittedly a tad more famous than some of the “obscure” musicians whose work I admire.

In any case, there’s no denying two of my favorite icons of ’80s music have been accused of reclusive behavior. But today I woke up, fired up the internets, and bumped into two fine examples of them speaking loud and clear. So, without further adieu:

- CRASS in VICE MAGAZINE
- MARY MARGARET O’HARA on Q TV

One of the great archival photographs that appears alongside the great Crass interview appears above. Another right below.

And here is the Mary Margaret O’Hara interview in its entirety.

If you click on the tags to this post you can find a fair bit more of my internet ramblings about these two folks. And, because I’ll always appeal to prurient interests when given the chance, there’s one last image of Crass — a nudie shot! — after the jump.
Read more »

Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis  

Tags: 1980s, Anarchism, Crass, Ethics, Gutter Punk, Jeff Mangum, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Neutral Milk Hotel, Penny Rimbaud, Recluse, Sufjan Stevens, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia, Vice Magazine, Vintage Photographs

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