Sounds on Rotation - April / May - Books in Circulation

So here's whats been playing at my place/on my pod this past month or so. Have been particularly pleased again with the past couple months of new albums I've acquired, these being mostly textural, melodic and atmospheric type sounds, few random new electronic titles, couple 'song' albums. Has really complimented both the (partial) change of season and the return of those things called 'sunlight' and 'being outside'.

Fennesz/Sakamoto "Cendre" (Touch)
Colleen "Les Ondes Silencieuses" (Leaf)
Arve Henriksen "Strjon" (Rune Grammofon)
Alog "Amateur" (Rune Grammofon)
Shining "Grindstone" (Rune Grammofon)
Opsvik & Jennings "Commuter Anthems" (Rune Grammofon)
Christian Wallumrod Ensemble "Year from Easter" (ECM)
North Sea "Exquisite Idols" (Type)
Mokira "...Will Bring Us All Together" (Type)
Adrian Klumpes "Be Still" (Leaf)
Seaworthy "Map in Hand" (12k)
Pjusk "Sart" (12k)
Moskitoo "Drape" (12k)
Islaja "Ulual YYY" (Fonal)
Boris "Dronevil - Final" (Inoxia)
Burning Star Core/Hototogisu "Heavy Blossom" / "Live 1" (Heavy Blossom/Drone Disco)
Marcus Schmickler "Demos for Choir, Chamber Quintet, Electronics" (A-Musik)
Marcus Schmickler & Hayden Chisholm "Amazing Daze" (Hapna)
Bernard Parmegiani "Chants Magnetiques" (Fractal)
Machinefabriek "Weleer" (Lampse)
Porn Sword Tobacco "Olympic Heights" (City Centre)
Kammerflimmer Kollektief "Jinx" (Staubgold)
Stillupsteypa/BJ nilsen "Second Childhood" (Quecksilber)
Rafael Toral "Space Solo" (Quecksilber)
Alva Noto "Xerrox" (Raster-Noton)
KTL "2" (Mego)
Pan(a)sonic "Katodivaihe" (Blast First)
Pole "Steingarten" (Scape)
Thomas Fehlmann "Honigpumpe" (Kompakt)
Vladislav Delay "Whistleblower" (Huume)
Burial "Burial" LP (Hyperdub)
Takashi Nishimoto "Monologue" (Buro)
Fonoda "Eventually" (Buro)
Andrew Pekler "Cue" (Kranky)
Stars of the Lid "Their Refinement of the Decline" (Kranky)
Toru Takemitsu "Complete Takemitsu Edition Vol.1 - 3rd Box Set" (Shogakukan)
Jim O'Rourke/Toru Takemitsu "Corona" (Columbia)
Luigi Nono "20 Jahre Inventionen" (Edition RZ)
Jim Fassett "Symphony of the Birds" (EM Records)


Books in question being split between a couple authors, few of these are re-reads from years ago:

Haruki Murakami "After Dark"
(new Murakami - finally translated and published stateside!)
George Saunders "In Persuasion Nation"
(rereading cuz its just such a great downer!)
Grant Morrison "Batman"
(I'm making a return to the world of superhero comics due to the fact that Mr. "Invisibles" himself is writing the most popular comic book franchise in the world)
Julio Cortazar "62: A Model Kit"
(surrealist, maze-like fiction from '68)
Hayou Miyazaki "Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind"
(pretty profound eco-philosophical-war-epic manga, my personal favorite of Miyazaki-san's many masterpieces)

...and finished the new Issue 21 of McSweeney's and the March/April Film Comment. Its all been foods for the mind/ears/eyes.

"Resolution" Tivon Rice : Lawrimore Project / "Neon Circle" Carsten Höller / "Elusive Signs" Bruce Nauman : Henry Art Museum

TIVON RICE "RESOLUTION":

Link to Lawrimore Project Site


CARSTEN HOLLER "NEON CIRCLE":

Link to Henry Art Museum Site


BRUCE NAUMAN "ELUSIVE SIGNS":

Link to Henry Art Museum Site


Three new exhibitions in town/forthcoming involving light as the basis of the work. All distinctly different, the Holler being neon and somewhat of a hallucinatory/environment experience while the Rice is more object-oriented. The object in question being the most mundane/synthetic of everyday materials; the Cathode Ray Tube and Plastics, but he transforms them into things of beauty, texture and warmth. The Holler runs til the 13th of May and the Rice is at the Lawrimore through April 28th. Nauman's work in this exhibit being more focused to his neons and less installation oriented, though there's a brilliant spacial piece included. This piece brought to mind some of the work in James Turrell's "Knowing Light" exhibit at the Henry in 2003, which will likely prove to be one of the great art experiences of my life. Check the links for more alluring images, warning: bit of a spoiler tho' - I recommend going into all of these shows 'blindly' - a few of them only running for a few more weeks, so don't miss it.

UrMetal Tours : Noxagt / Earth / Jesu / Isis : March - April

April already looks to be the month of METAL. After many delays from the Federal Government - Jesu finally have their visa permits to gain access to our lovely country of Amerika and barrage us with their particular variety of spacemetal jams. Noxagt from Norway, in the event that you haven't heard some of the heaviest sounds ever played by three people, are another not to miss. Especially considering that the lineup is electric viola, bass and drums, led by the bass doomaster Kjetil D Brandsdal. Keep an eye out in your town, both shows should prove to be HEAVY.

Jesu / Isis Tour:


Link to the Official JESU Blog Site




Noxagt / Earth Tour:


Link to the Southern Lord - Earth / Noxagt Site

Tenori-On / ElectroPlankton - Is the Future of Musical Composition Handheld VidToys? ...Or What?

Looks like these devices are gaining ground as potentially legit tech
format/more-than-toys/music making machines...
and yaknow what?, seriously, I'm all for new audio-interfaces that
bring more spontaneity and improvisational play to composition.
Handheld vidgames or not. They're pretty cool. And fun. Not to mention
the territory a skilled musicmaker/ improviser might come to explore
with these things in combination with some of the current
compositional software. Something like Ableton Live/ Tenori-On? Now,
if only ElectroPlankton on the Nintendoo DS would allow you to load your
own soundesign into em' we'd really have somethin! ...And yes, admittedly
the Tenori-On, as cool as it is, does rather look like "Attack of the LightBright".

TENORI-ON:

http://www.global.yamaha.com/design/tenori-on/

Link to Tenori-On - live vid-presentation

ELECTROPLANKTON:

http://electroplankton.nintendods.com/flash.html

Link to ElectroPlankton - various examples in action

And simultaneously, significantly more 'legitimate' new hardware
interfaces like Jazzmutant's 'LEMUR' and the 'Reactable' interface
developed by Pompeu Fabra University's Music Technology Group are
being championed by the likes of Bjork and Mark Bell in their live
shows. Now these, I'm genuinely, unreservedly, crazy-enthused about!
If only there wasn't the prohibitive cost of both to contend with. But
it is usually the way of technology and its development to see these
refined, well engineered (and darn expensive) devices to eventually
have a release of a less costly 'consumer model'. Hopefully that will
be the case here. Because these, to use a grand word, could be
genuinely 'Revolutionary'. And here they are for your own
wonderment/art-making lust/perusal:

JAZZMUTANT LEMUR:

http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php

REACTABLE:

http://mtg.upf.es/reactable/

Link to Reactable - demo vid-presentation

Jia Zhang-Ke's new film "Still Life" / Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Climates" at NWFF : Mar 16 - 22

Link to the Official "Still Life" Site


Link to Official "Climates" Site

Two examples of new cinema that differ much from each other in stylistic approach and how each translate their fundamental concerns to visual narrative, but deal in similar existential questions, interpersonal relationships and cultural/political environment motivating/effecting change in individual lives.

Ceylan's film belonging more to the shool of Antonioni and Bergman in its exploration of the inner life of the characters, their thoroughly disintegrated romantic relationship (yes, its uberuplifting) and the changing landscape that surrounds them through shifting location and seasons. This was a fave of mine from last year (made the nerdish 'films of the year' list) and its a treat (and a bit of a reaffirmation) to see it on the current schedule for the Northwest Film Forum this month.

Director Jia Zhang-Ke has had a number of critically lauded films in the past half-decade, and is often spoken of as the highest-profile of the 6th generation of Chinese filmmakers. His previous feature "The World" made many critical polls in 2005 (including my own) and his newest "Still Life" has already managed to eclipse it by winning the highest award offered, the Golden Lion, at this years Venice Film Fest on its European premier. This is an example of cinema that both defies comparison and a easy history of association that proceeds it. Set in the 'Three Gorges' dam project in central China the film frames lives, landscape and rural history slowly sinking into the massive waters of the Yangzhe reservoir project, an event economically and politically motivated/executed with (seemingly) little or no regard for the losses involved. History, lives, families, friendships, tradition are all swallowed up by the rising waters. That its a film dealing in fundamental intimate concerns - two romantic relationships (one having parted for over a decade and the other convening to address the 'whys' of it all after a year of silence) set literally 'within' the massive, monolithic scale of the of the river valleys and demolition projects tearing down cities of brick and cement (by hand!) in advance of the rising waters - lends the whole experience the most otherworldly effect I've seen in cinema where no notions of the 'metaphysical' or 'dreamlike' are directly addressed by the film itself. Zhang-ke benefits from what is probably one of the most profound settings ever seen in cinema (the grandeur of the destruction/change pictured is beyond comparison) but its his depiction of the intimacy (and physicality) of his characters within this landscape, paced to the strength of his quiet storytelling that make the film more than just a document of monumental geographical and societal change. Events larger than life, viewed from the perspective of those who's daily lives are being displaced by the course of large-scale economic and historic 'progress' (aka: modernization) - its in this intersection of perspectives that the film generates its particular beauty and incomparable(?) character. (I can think of no other film/director in my experience to reference in speaking of "Still Life" - possibly a strange mix of the scale of Herzog's "Aguirre" and Tsai-Ming Liang's bodily intimacy? Set in modern communist China? ... I dunno. ) The result is easily the best piece of 'new' cinema I've seen in a good year or more. Looking forward to an eventual theatrical run stateside. Believe I've read that the NY Lincoln Film Center will feature the US premiere in the coming month(s):



Link to the Lincoln Film Center Site

50 Years of Janus Films at SIFF Cinema : Mar 1 - Apr 22

Link to SIFF "Essential Art House - 50 Years of Janus Films" Site




Hard to imagine spending much time in the theatre the way the weathers been these past days, but no doubt it'll be craptastic and raining like a mofo all over again by next week. Seattle Intl. Film Fest with Janus Films has curated this 32 Film series of classic and fantastic cinema from the past century. Janus has done a exceptional job of making their catalog much of the canon of the 20th century and this series is a rare opportunity to see many of these in the cinema. This series coincides with the new Janus/Criterion Box set of the same name - which is a work of art itself. They got it at Scarecrow, go check it out, at least just to heft the thing. All films at SIFF's new McCaw Hall theatre facility there at the Seattle Centre, 321 Mercer Street.


Link to Janus Films Site - Infos on Janus/Criterion Box Set

"Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings" Exhibition at Frye Art Museum : Feb 17 - Jun 3

Link to Frye Art Museum Site


Show currently at The Frye of post socialist-realism based figurative painters from the Leipzig school including the work of Rauch, Schnell and others titled "Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings". The *one* westside gallery stop for this touring exhibition of works. Really well put-together exhibition with many excellent works in the collection. Easily my favorite show I've seen in a long while. I'll likely be going to view it again at some point. Here til' June. Don't miss it.

From the Frye Museum:

"Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection presents, for the first time in the Northwest, paintings and drawings by prominent artists associated with the venerable Leipzig Art Academy: Neo Rauch, Tilo Baumg..rtel, Tim Eitel, Martin Kobe, Christoph Ruckh..berle, David Schnell, and Matthias Weischer.

In the 1980s and '90s, young artists eager to draw from nude models, master the rules of perspective, and analyze formal composition were attracted to the Leipzig Art Academy in Germany. Although the rise of abstraction had eroded the tradition of figurative art in post-war America and Western Europe, in parts of Europe cut off from the West by the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, figurative art as it had been taught for centuries flourished.

Founded in 1764 and one of the oldest art schools in Germany, the Leipzig Academy is highly regarded for its tradition of figure painting, which, before the reunification of Germany in 1989 and 1990, was bound to state-mandated Socialist realism. The school's required focus on figure painting foreclosed experimentation with subject matter or form, but left technique free to develop. Its rigorous two-year foundation course, focused primarily on portrait and nude studies, produced some of East Germany's most highly regarded figure painters.

Six of the artists included in Life After Death were students at the Academy in the decade after the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall; the seventh, Neo Rauch, studied at the school in the 1980s and taught there in the 1990s, working closely with these students. Following graduation from the school, the younger artists formed Galerie LIGA (the League Gallery) in Leipzig.

The New Leipzig School painters share stylistic and thematic concerns, shaped by both the school's traditions and by East German Socialist realism. The Academy prioritized classical techniques of painting, resulting in the artists' use of graphite scaling grids, forced perspective, careful attention to color, and an emphasis on the figure. Their artwork—characterized by enigmatic narratives, surrealist overtones, and a general feeling of world-weariness—breathes new life into realist figure painting. The works are incredibly diverse, from Rauch's dreamscapes to Kobe's elaborate architecture to Weischer's empty rooms. Yet they all contribute to a contemporary reflection on the East German political situation, depicting places and people not necessarily prepared to integrate into the brand-new optimistic West."

Seattle Improvised Music Fest & Matt Valentine - Gallery 1412 : Feb 17 / 21

Link to Gallery 1412 Site




Alright! Good music shows in this town again! It seems the dry-spell that always surrounds Dec/Jan has finally begun to abate.

Neumann on piano and Nakatani during the Improv Fest should make for a pretty amazing dou.
Expecting that particular night (just one of the two-weekend long fest) to run the gammut
from superquiet IMJ-style meanderings to blasting freejazz.

And MV / EE on the 21st is gonna be a sweet, sweet immersive droning-psyche-ragga sonic lullabye.


Saturday February 17th
SEATTLE IMPROVISED MUSIC FESTIVAL

8:00
andrea neumann solo (berlin, inside piano)
9:00
andrea neumann (berlin, inside piano)
nate wooley (nyc, trumpet)
tatsuya nakatani (japan-nyc, percussion)
10:00
wally shoup (seattle, alto saxophone)
tatsuya nakatani (japan-nyc, percussion)
bill horist (seattle, electric guitar)


Wednesday February 21st
MV / EE & CHARALAMBIDES

8:00 Matt Valentine & Erika Elder, Charlambides

David Lynch's new film "INLAND EMPIRE" : Currently at Landmark Theatres

Link to the Official "INLAND EMPIRE" Site

Link to Landmark Theatres release schedule

Having waited awhile to say anything on the subject and instead given the film time (as ones impression of his films always develops with perspective) - I could easily write like a good long 600-900 word article-length response to Lynch's newest, but I'll spare you. Firstly, a bit of a narrative overview here, well... as much as one can do in a literal sense with Lynch. Like much of his recent work "INLAND EMPIRE" involves several stories folding in on themselves: Laura Dern's character Nikki's own life as a hollywood actress / Nikki's filming in 'On High in Blue Tomorrows' a remake of the film '4/7' (based on a Polish folk-tale by the title of 'Smithy's House') which itself saw the demise in a 'Brutal Fucking Murder' of the original male and female leads / Scenes involving the Polish actress, her lover; the lead actor in the film and the jealous pathological husband / All of these elements intertwining to blur the original/folk tale/film remake/Nikki's own life and the making of 'On High...' with a current modern-day American Polish cabalistic culture (?) and the potentiality of breaking the spell of the 'curse' of the original film '4/7'. Got that? ... Oh and then there are the Rabbits. Anyone who has seen the ongoing sitcom(?) featured on Lynch's site knows this little bit of unnerving TV-Americana commentary, which he has neatly fit into the dreamlike maze of darkened hallways, staircases and doorways leading from one world/film/reality to the next within 'INLAND EMPIRE'.

In response, I'll say that I liked it. Having followed his film for some 20 years of my life, I've come to develop a generalized relationship/understanding of his conceptual ideas and a (predominantly) Lynch-based criteria of sorts to gauge the impression of each of his new films by contrast to those that came before it, as well as considering the cinema environment/culture his new films come into during their time. My conservative response here some days after the second viewing of "INLAND EMPIRE" is to say that I found it 2/3 successful. What worked was amazing! What didn't work, I felt really detracted in a significant way from the whole of the film. The stylistic changes/advances were pretty profound - the sickening looking drained-color-palette of the DV he chose to shoot it on to begin with... Aesthetically, just from a visual standpoint, what I thought was going to be my least fave aspect of the film, ended up being what I found most distinct about it; the fact that it was shot on a form of outmoded DV (the PD-150 to be specific) that nobody uses because it makes colors look muted and sickly and behaves even more strangely (wonderfully!?) in low-light or near-dark shooting conditions (and doesn't run at 24p - which is the standard for video that most resembles 35mm film). So, I thoroughly appreciated the look of the thing and thought it brought much to the content in way of the 'not quite of our world' atmosphere. Story-wise the insane-cyclical narrative cycles... and the obliqueness through beginning and ending the same-said cycles something like 6 times - lent it the most powerful of the Lynch-dream-logic of all of his films. A cinema experience (of the nature that should be seen in the cinema) and quite unlike anything else he's done - I'd say worth ones time for the effectiveness of those factors alone.

On the critical side, the more concrete, greek chorus of sorts scenes of the 'Suicide Girls' were definitely a low, as were the excessively (seemingly) endless full-screen shots of Laura Dern's wide-eyed open-mouthed confoundination. And the unnecessary Beck music-video there near the end (mixed with the music of Penderecki) - a distracting and unfortunate choice. As much as I was killed by how amazing some of the advances in his art he's made with this film (Tangent here: holy jeeeze! the first 1/4 of the film made me totally giddy in the theatre, Grace Zabriskie as Visitor 1 spelling the whole thematic arc out, the blurred faces in super-low-lit shots, the first scenes of the duality of the films and the 'haunted set' scene, etc) at the same time I felt the middle section was overlong and the closing scenes after the delirious catapulting of the audience through a spectrum of emotions that late in the narrative arc of the thing, was exhausting (which may very well have been his intent). The 'soul-revival' ending rather than being liberating after such exhausting extended closing scene(s) did little for me. It instead took away from cyclical-return/culmination effect of the Nikki-witnessing-Nikki back in the domestic environs of her home (this scene in question being the one again with Zabriskies 'Visitor 1' as a guide). This particular shot seemed a perfect summarization of the mood of the close of the last narrative cycle, as well as a potent and effective reference to the beginnings of the film. That INLAND EMPIRE didn't end there left me rather confounded about the immediately following scenes which were a segue of sorts into the closing credit sequence. Was he going for some kind of Jack Smith "Flaming Creatures" Be Bop A' Lula closing here? I'm uncertain - and that uncertainty caused a moment of reflection and a 'stepping out' of the deeper saturation levels of Lynch's otherworldly (and often cited) dream-like state reached by the scenes just proceeding it. I felt it knocked the audience from the 'extradimensional' space of his cinema back into the concrete 3rd-dimension of the theatre with a mind-jostling clunk.

So in summarizing: As I said, I liked it. There were some profound cinema-as-magic moments throughout. Nonetheless it was overlong and had issues with its pacing, (this from a viewer who loves Tarkovsky, Bergmann, Tsai Ming-Liang, etc.) and to compare it with his own work, which I feel is the best way to measure any new film by Lynch "Mulholland Drive" in many ways was more perfectly balanced in pacing, duration and content. All these criticisms aside, I was substantially wowed enough by the film overall to spend the next day thinking about it - after both viewings. That's a significant sign of value for me in any work of art I witness. So yes. Was distinct, emotionally moving and thought provoking, but also a bit frustrating in ways that I felt it could have potentially been more powerful. To summarize all these thoughts in a bit more coherent/concise form: I felt it was a EXCEPTIONAL 2 hour Lynch film trapped inside of a GOOD 3+ hour Lynch film. Alright. Done. There's my thoughts on that. Maybe a 3rd? 4th? viewing will once again change my perspective on the film as his work is always 'open' to new understanding and reinterpretation through experience of it over time. Looks like I wrote that article length response here anyway... no real surprise considering the subject matter/filmmaker in question. As always he deserves whatever you have to give/bring to the experience and as such its often those very things that allow you to take something of his cinematic vision (a bit of that extradimension?) away with you.

"Kit Bashing" Exhibition at Western Bridge - Christian Marclay and Others : Jan 16 - May 5

Link to Western Bridge Gallery site




Post holidays-season and the arts are happening again in this city. Group show at the Western Bridge Gallery of visual arts, video, installation and soundwork titled "Kit Bashing" - involving these notable names:

Christian Marclay
Gretchen Bennett
Steve Brekelmans
Carsten Holler
Ryan Gander
Steve Roden
Paul Morrison
Ben Rubin

The Marclay is the same audio/video installation piece that showed at SF MOMA a couple years back and was briefly at SAM last year. Certainly worth witnessing again, even if you've already had the privilege. Holler's work tends to be synthetic installation/sculptures and Steve Roden has amassed a large body of excellent sound-art and installation/visual art works in the past decade. Looks to be a diverse group of artists who's work is all of a consistently engaging depth and quality.

From the Western Bridge Gallery:

"Christian Marcay, Video Quartet, 2002. Four channel video installation with sound, 14 minutes. Image courtesy of the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery.
Western Bridge begins 2007 with Kit Bashing, a group show on appropriation and archives, and Christian Marclay's Video Quartet, 2002. These exhibitions conclude a series of three collection hangings built around Paul Morrison's commissioned wall painting mesophyte.

Marclay's synchronized four-channel video installation is one of the treasures of the William and Ruth True Collection. The southernmost gallery at Western Bridge, was designed to accomodate the spatial requirements of Video Quartet, whose forty linear feet present an inventive and rich audiovisual collage of quick cuts drawn from the broad history of sound cinema. Working with film clips as a DJ does with sound samples, Marclay finds music in cacophony.

Kit Bashing looks at Paul Morrison's mesophyte as the product of a specific kind of use artists make of archives. Kit Bashing casts the artist not as archivist, but as a disruptive force within the categorical order of the archive. The title is derived from Steven Brekelmans' Drums (Kit Bashing), 2006, named after the practice of repurposing existing scale model kit parts to create novel designs."