Music From Another Surface

Across The Park (To Meet The Delivery Man)

2010-10-31T23:20:00.000-07:00

When I first lived in NYC, I lived at the very edge of Manhattan; one subway stop from going into The Bronx: 200th street. My roommate who's father was a actor on Broadway in an era gone by, was not quite in the/our world. She would sit at her desk all day, smoke cigarettes and drink diet coke, and write down what the voices told her in her head, in massive volumes, that she kept as some sort of record of things.

Her sister kind of kept things in order for her, she was an office worker and lived on the upper east side. I was a big into mary jane in those days, and it turned out she had a nice connection to a delivery service. I would every now and then take the subway down to the middle of central park, and cut across (at night) to get to her place and meet up to pay the delivery man my share. Sometimes we didn't quite make the grade, but he was nice and waited for me. I used to sit with her and enjoy the greenery and she would pick out things to listen to from her CD collection. One of the albums she played for me was "Modes of Transportation Vol. 1" by Spookey Ruben. I can't stress how much I was dumbfounded by this album. One of the amazing rare things that happens when listening to a new work, is to not be able to get a grip on it. This was the case. The opening sounds like a fake weird T.V. intro, which quickly dives into the strangest yodeling and vocal territories that bend and break in your ear, and with a power that leaves one in awe. The beats are modern and fancy, and with bumping bass lines, the tracks are infectious. Spookey (Alan Deil) Ruben's music is upfront and all over the map, skillful, bizarre, and comical, see "Wendy Mcdonald" a plea to the world about the negative effects of tearing down forests to feed cows and stuff burgers into our gullets. The line "Feed my soul, instead" says it all. The thing that really got me with these songs is the outright weirdness and intangible aspect. I am sure if the works of Deil were commonplace and everyday; they wouldn't be so odd. I also feel that because there is such an element of honesty and intelligence in the sounds and lyrics, mixed with the fact that before my trips to the upper east side, I had not heard of Spookey Ruben; it just hits a strong chord, like a lost treasure or being given a map to someone's house, who you may never meet.

Released and poorly promoted by TVT records in 1995, the recordings were self-produced by Ruben and co-engineered by Mark Plati, who went on to work closely with David Bowie in the late 90's.

MFAS Channel

2010-10-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

After my review of an album by coL, he contacted me while living in Berlin.

He gave me a few videos that he did some years back; and told me I could do

with them what I liked. This has prompted me to create a MFAS channel.

Burn The Stables

2010-10-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up my parents linked me to good music whether I wanted it or not. It woke me up - playing on the living room speakers on the weekends, and I could go thru their record collection whenever I wished and sit down with some great records. "Stop Making Sense" on VHS was a staple, they used to give it as a gift to friends. I understood as I could; Talking Heads. So, when I was a teen and able to go to the record store on my own, and buy my own picks, I jumped at the release of David Byrne's solo debut "Rei Momo" (Carnival Character). I saw it as a natural extension, progression, and direction for him from where he was at the tail end of Talking Heads. The rest of the world (minus a few) did not see it this way. I don't know whether it's people wanting to not be surprised, or expecting a certain thing, then when they don't get it, shuffle off in discomfort? Whatever the case - the people are off. This album is phenomenal. It captures the vibe and essence of Latin America, along with Byrne's whimsical ideas, lyrics, and melodies. He is a Master on this record, and the performances he curates are spot on.

Produced by Steve Lillywhite with David Byrne, this album is a classic that deserves daily play on radio stations the world over.

A Feeling of

2010-10-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

When Tower Records was going out of business some years back in the states, I went to one of their locations with the promise of 75% off of their CD stock. Because the prices were so cheap, I could afford to explore the isles with an abandon that had never been present in my record store shopping experiences; ever since I first started buying discs in the early 1990's. Picking up albums solely based on their cover art, I found a few gems. One of which was Associates' Sulk. I went with it, because I trusted the label that reissued it. Well, that got it home... When I put the CD into my player, I was absolutely shocked! The fact that it took me such a long time to get a sense of knowing what the hell was going on! The music blasts all over the map, without asking your permission. The vocals of Billy MacKenzie are frightening, bold and strange. The songs dance to their own beat and really make me wonder about the state of culture in the world; the fact that I had to wait until the 2000's to hear about a band as remarkable as the Associates. And I had to find them like lost treasure. I recently read that they covered David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging" just six weeks after Bowie's version hit the charts in 1979, which resulted in Bowie becoming a fan.

Under Their Spell

2010-09-29T22:34:00.000-07:00

1973

1987

2010

We live in stone age times. We in the western (modern) world think that whatever we see thru our rose tinted specks, that the rest of the world; everything and everyone experiences the world the same. We get new technologies and spill our hearts, cash, and ideals (if one has any) to be a part of the wave. Don't get me wrong, a device such as an iPod is as cool as it gets. We are in the year 2010, and our fantastic new technology seems to be giving us a memory of the past, and not upkeep; for something as wonderful, inspiring, and beautiful as album art.

At least with a CD, one could hold the booklet or case in hand and read about what he or she was listening to. Today one has to search the net for any album notes (good luck!). iTunes has introduced LP: "The visual experience of the record album returns with iTunes LP. Get an immersive digital version of select albums - right in your iTunes library. So while you listen to your favorite songs by your favorite artists, you can also dive into bonus features such as beautifully animated lyrics and liner notes, performance videos, artist and band photos, and more." Give me a fuckin' break. What if I don't want to stare into a computer screen to read liner notes, or look at photos. Is this not a huge move towards an even faster paced society, that is already at the edge of it's own seat, with car drivers racing towards the red lights?

I was unable to present the vinyl art - at the size that i saved it at, where you can actually read the Camel cigarette pack, and see the bare ass of the woman on the playing card. Yet another area where we as the people are limited to what the fat cats decide for us. And what else can we do? I have to go by blogger's rules, if I wish to post on their site. We are bound by these new technologies in order to be relevant on some level, or to feel like we are on the cutting edge. A lot of independent record labels are going back to pressing records, and on the big labels, the current wave of young artists seem to demand it.

What about the rest of the masses that don't give a shit about art or expression? Who understands what's missing? The need and benefit of allowing a creator's work to be released exactly as it was intended.

Know Your Language (I Don't)

2010-09-12T01:01:00.000-07:00

Like a distant songstress from a far away land (Norway), the opening of "I came To Leave Love" by Iram Haq drifts in and sucker punches you into believing that whatever is going on in your life ~ that things will and can be alright. Blending classic and new wave nordic sounds with the help of Even Vaa on computers and Instruments. Iram's debut album is an upbeat, mellow, and sometimes Epic journey. Perfectly crafted and awe-inducing is the song; "Paint The House"...

Where Are We?

2010-08-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

I have been a quiet observer of coL's work since I first read that he performed drums on one of Ariel Pink's Paw Tracks releases. I must admit though, that due to no one (including coL) making a big fuss or push - to get his stuff into the mind of his generation, I have been hesitant to dive into his immense and overwhelming catalog of 47 albums. Where do I begin? I mean, if someone has 3, 4 or 5 albums,

one can pick an album that is newest or start from the first. You don't feel like you've missed too much of their output, up to this point. But, with coL, there is already, due to his enormous library, this sense that you have missed out on something, and that is kind of a mind-fuck, seeing as how most people have never even heard of him! I have put this past me, and gone into the depths. Well, I bought an album - finally. I picked his 42nd (and I know that sounds strange) album: The Temple is Burning from 2007. With an opening line like:"You're so afraid to kill who you are, and begin again."

This is like nothing else is out there.

What is weird is the sense that coL would rather have the story or meaning behind the songs accepted or taken in, then his persona. There is also something else going on. These are no pop songs. I am not even sure if they can be called "songs". They are intense, and the use of music for coL seems to be a way of expression, the way video was during the 80's with such work as 14 video paintings; " I see TV as a picture medium rather than a narrative medium. Video for me is a way of configuring light, just as painting is a way of configuring paint." - Brian Eno

I believe coL uses music just the same way. He is an artist, and this happens to be a medium in which he expresses himself.

Restless Without A One

2010-07-29T04:41:00.000-07:00

The fact that most "Independent" music press, is itself, non-

independent; sheds some light on why not many folks seem to 'get' or understand the work of the Doleful Lions. Made up of Jonathan Scott and sometimes brother Robert Scott, the sounds of the Doleful Lions seem to immediately and almost self-consciously play to an empty universe.

The music on 2005's Shaded Lodge And Mausoleum is like a collection of songs that one can envision playing in a future world on repeat, until a race, human or other finds it. J.Scott's Vital and searching voice showers the acoustic, electric, and semi-psychedelic and beautiful landscapes and patterns that make up this album. What is he searching for? Maybe it's that far-off audience that awaits.

Left To Our Own Devices

2010-07-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

The first time I listened to The EPK's VOL.2, I was hit with a ton of soft bricks, this is music made without pretension or the aid of hip culture. It is flat out old-new-wave from the UK! Like all good sounds that are fresh and exciting, it immediately sounds familiar. This is the kind of music one wishes was on pop radio stations across the globe, yet along with the promo disc I received from JesusWarhol Records, the enclosed press release states that the band's first album; VOL.1 (2008), was all but shunned by popular culture.

Made up of brothers Paul and Jon Mlynarski, The Exploding Plastic Kaleidoscope is a band that needs to be recognized. Their talent as excellent songwriters and post-shoegaze and post 90's UK Pop, lends one to believe that their music is not really from 2010, but lost tapes from another day.

A Brief History of Un

2009-08-09T14:56:00.000-07:00

The Beginning of Trust or Self-less Behavior in A Listener is not An

Easy Thing To Accomplish. Lilys 1995 Understated, and Much Too

Much Under-appreciated Release: "Eccsame The Photon Band" is

Cause For Such Behavior. Soft-Psychedelic Streams Left To Flower

and Flow For Those Without The Embedded Stem of Corporate

Saturation Within. This is not an Album For Anyone Who Thinks He

or She Has Everything That They Need, or Need To Know in Life.

What Makes The Viewing Public Lay Waste or Forgetful Promises

To Werk Like This? The Auditory Equivalent To An Over-Looked Gem

of an Independent Film or An Un-Classic Book That Ought To Be.

Looking Back on The Year of Release, The Only Albums of Truly

Original Output were "1.Outside": Bowie, "The Bends": Radiohead,

"Post": Björk, and Modes of Transportation Vol. 1": Spookey Ruben.

Everything Else Was Business As Usual. We All Know And Love

These Artists, and Any Others That You May Feel Were Crackin'

The Dome in '95. Why Did The Lilys Release of The Same Year

Go Unnoticed?

The Previous Year (1994) and The Year After (1996), Two of Kurt

Heasley's Compositions Made Minor Waves Due To International

Exposure in Advertisements. What Does This Do For An Artist,

If Their Name is Not Presented along with The Product in The T.V.

Spot? Commercialism on The Ground Level, Gave Something,

But Not Nearly Enough Exposure. Fast Forward To 1999, Lilys

Make A Deal in The States with One of The Giants; Sire Records.

Well, The Sun Doesn't Set For All, or is it Rise? The Move To Sire

Came at a Time When The Tree of That Label Was Losing Too Many

of it's Leaves. In The Middle of This, The Lilys Album (The 3-Way)

Not only Came and Went, it Got Lost! How Can This Happen in An

Industry Where it's Sole Purpose is To Share and Spread Music?

At least that's What They Have Led Us To Believe. But We Know

Better, They (Without Their Hearts) Have To Continue To Flood The

Market with Acts We Have All Heard Too Much of Already.

Because These Have Proved To Be Money Makers. You Can't Take

Any Chances - Remember This is A Business, Not an Art Gallery.

And This is Exactly Where Lilys Music Lays. It is Difficult To

Represent, Review, or Appreciate: Art / The Artist = If One Does

Not Understand The Artist or The Art.

Relatives Unknown

2009-07-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

The Second Album From The Welsh Band Gene Loves Jezebel "Immigrant" (1985), is A Gem of Unprecedented Forays into Dark and Wondrous Soundscapes. Taking A New Direction From Where Contemporaries Bauhaus Left Off With 1983's "Burning from the Inside", Made Up of Twin brothers Michael Aston (Vocals) and Jay Aston (Bass, Guitar, Piano, Vocals) with Ian Hudson (Guitar) Pete Rizzo (Bass) Chris Bell (Drums) Marcus Gilvear (Drums) and Richard Hawkins (Drums), Gene Loves Jezebel Makes The Mind Think That It Has For Sure Found A Lost Artifact From A Future Race, As it Mixes Playing and Vocal Styles of Earth with Those Not Entirely Human.

Karoline Hausted "Double Silence"

2009-07-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

The release and subsequent auditory dismissal of under and above-ground albums over the years makes us wonder; what the hell were the people around at the time thinking? How could they let artists that create what is later to be revealed to the masses as significant pieces of artwerk, go un-noticed or even worse; to be heard and said to be unworthy of praise, by the so-called music press?

Enter 2009 and Danish songstress Karoline Hausted's debut "Double Silence". A piano player from the age of 6, her playing is under-played in the fashion of Ryuichi Sakamoto's BTTB. mixing elements of rock, folk, and unheard worlds in which a Chinese Gu Zheng is used on the song: "Cat Sprang Up The Garden". Along with these treasures comes a voice that can melt the darkest of hearts.

Mastered in London by Jon Astley (Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, Tears for Fears, Tori Amos ) the CD or download is worth your money and time, if you have zero expectations and are interested in the sound waves of someone with only the desire to share her beautiful spirit. Let us all allow her blossom as we have allowed others before.

The Establishment of The Un-

2009-07-21T15:45:00.000-07:00

Pitchfork Media Has Reviewed Ariel Pink's "Greatest Hits"... Upon Reading, Friend and Fellow Recording Artist coL, Responded in Style.

In a Pitchfork review four-and-a-half years old but still applicable, Nick Sylvester wrote that The Doldrums, Ariel Pink's first widely available album, "can't contain Ariel Pink, and wasn't supposed to, and his next 500 CD-Rs will have the same problem. The songs are secondary to Pink's bourgeoning cult of personality-- the album turns its imperfections into selling points." What Nick and I disagreed over (and probably still would) is my pretty firm belief that Ariel Pink's music-- which sounds like 1960s jangle-pop, car commercials, and gauzy 80s ballads echoing inside a tin can-- is music whose imperfections actually are its selling point: Without them, it would sound like the sweatless work of studio hacks; with them, it sounds like a horrorshow.

So why commend him? Because Ariel Pink has recorded the saddest music I've heard in the past several years. But wait, you're thinking, I already have all these records by the loneliest loners murmuring about the wintriest winters. To which I'll say that, in singing about the wintriest winters, the loneliest loners are fully aware of their sadness and are probably trying to resolve it, either through the act of making art, or through the community that their art might create. When you put a bunch of lonely loners standing in a room together, they might just get a glimpse at companionship.

Conversely, Ariel Pink takes "perfect," professional music and scours its perfect professionalism so ruthlessly that the product sounds solitary, disgraced, and pathetic. This isn't the sadness of the heartbroken teenager, but of Dirk Diggler inBoogie Nights: Failure that doesn't recognize itself, or a goal debauched. If I sound high on my own poetry, take solace in the fact that I'm writing at the tip of the iceberg for my feelings on this music.

Most of the music he's released since The Doldrums was recorded before 2004 (a fact that felt a little opportunistic in 2006 and a little disturbing now that it's 2009). In a way, Nick S. turned out to be right: Ariel Pink capitalized on his myth as a lunatic hermit by flooding the market with whatever he had in his closet without ever having to develop that persona with an audience watching.

In light of all this, I find it riddling and weird that the two-disc Grandes Exitos-- "Greatest Hits," for our gringo readers-- is a tour-only release, when it could arguably serve as one of his only official releases. It's a solid and decently assembled set that highlights some of his most enchanting pop (the nocturnal, yearning "For Kate I Wait", the shuffling "Life in L.A.", ["The weather is your boyfriend/ On a Saturday, stay in bed"], "Every Night I Die at Miyagis") and some of his most inane ("Immune To Emotion" was funnier and more heartbreaking when he didn't spell it out, "Credit" which sounds a lot like Weird Al but probably wouldn't tickle even the most 12-year-old 12 year old).

None of his CD-Rs have reached the same highs-- lows?-- as The Doldrums, but they've had enough decent material on them to make Grandes Exitos fully listenable from start to finish (which I can't say about all his albums). Whether or not you'll likeit is something I can't predict-- Ariel Pink, to his credit and damnation, is still a guy who most would probably rate as an interstellar genius or bullshit artist (or try really, really hard to see him as a little bit of both).

I'm making an effort to be fair when I say I think there's enough merit and magic on this collection or The Doldrums to suggest that you listen without wondering whether he's a spoonfed art-school brat or a sniffling pothead or a mentally fragile Californian or, very possibly, all of those things. I'm making an effort to suggest you listen without wondering whether he "really means it or not," or, if you do wonder, to consider what "it" refers to. If you want to know if Ariel Pink is direct, well, he's not. A half-erased, yowling song called "Good Kids Make Bad Grownups" just doesn't parse as cleanly as a rockin' song called "Rock and Roll All Nite". With Ariel Pink, the feeling is conveyed in the sound that frays around him. Call him a phony if you want, but he's a phony all his own.

— Mike Powell, May 1, 2009

___________________________________________________

Att: Mike Powell

I am writing you after reading your review of Ariel Pink's Greatest Hits. (Pitchfork)

I have been scouring the net in recent days to find an alternative to the alternative music press. In my searching i have found 1 thing evident, the highs of Ariel's rise have hit the ceiling, and the backlash of the hip or the un, has made it's way forth. When he first broke thru, people were excited by the fact that there was this treasure of music to behold. There was an obvious distaste for the quality of the recordings, but the majority of the flock seemed to be happy with the great vibrations, rather than sulk under the weather of the current state of pop music.

This seems to have fallen away, as the public/mass has little time or patience for actual Art. After being a friend and collaborator for 14 years, i can say: That an Artist is What Ariel Rosenberg is. Whether you enjoy his art or not - is up to you. But to classify or push into a box, the concept that Mr. Pink does what he does for money / shock-value / or to "develop that persona with an audience watching"( i am quoting you here) is off the wall. He as most, has simply created what he has created, not for his own star, or for screaming girls or for whatever it is you and people like you, at magazines and websites think.

The fact that Ariel has been and is still - calling out numbers from his past, is due to the fact that he has a large amount of product, that has yet to see the light or gain a voice. This is a necessary move - for a creator to get all that has been created up to the surface. It is difficult to move on without doing so.

If that is trouble for people or they call him a hack for not being able to bring forth what they expect / desire / or think is his next best move, that is their problem.

Ariel Pink's only job is to do what Ariel Pink does.

No exceptions. If he does things that people agree with, fall in Love with, despise, rate, sell, steal, it matters not.

coL

JesusWarhol.com