* Schoenberg: Suite, Op.29 etc. (Ens. InterContemporain/Boulez) (Sony Classical CD)
* Berg:
Chamber Concerto, etc. (BBC, London Symphony/Boulez) (Sony Classical CD)
* Glenn
Branca: Lesson No.1 (Superior Viaduct 2EP)
* Sun Ra: Strange Strings
(Saturn/Universal LP)
* Sun Ra: Other Strange Worlds
(Roaratorio LP)
* Derek Bailey/Jamaaladeen
Tacuma/Calvin Weston: Mirakle (Tzadik CD)
* Steve
Lacy: The Door (RCA/Novus LP)
* Art Lande
& Rubisa Patrol: Desert Marauders (ECM LP)
* M. Naudeef/Ikue Mori/Evan
Parker/Bill Laswell: Near Nadir (Tzadik CD)
* Otomo Yoshihide/Bill
Laswell/Yoshigaki Yasuhiro: Soup (P-Vine CD)
* David
Sancious & Tone: Transformation (The Speed Of Love) (Epic LP)
* The Spanish Donkey (Joe Morris/Jamie Saft/Mike Pride): XYX (Northern
Spy CD)
* Rodger Coleman & Sam Byrd:
Cosmologies (24-bit/48kHz WAV)
* Rodger Coleman & Andrew Dickson:
2014-02-21(24-bit/48kHz WAV)
* Dawn on Midi: First (Accretions CD)
* Dawn on Midi: First (Accretions CD)
* Dawn of Midi: Dysnomia (Thirsty Ear
CD)
* Grateful
Dead: Berkeley Community Theatre 1986-04-18 (selections) (SBD 2CDR)
* Grateful
Dead: Berkeley Community Theatre 1986-04-19 (selections) (SBD 2CDR)
* Chad &
Jeremy: The Ark (Columbia LP)
* Rainbow:
On Stage (Orchid/Polydor 2LP)
* Lee
Ranaldo: Between The Times And The Tides (Matador LP)
* Lee
Ranaldo & The Dust: Last Night On Earth (Matador 2-LP)
* Bob Mould: Workbook (Virgin LP)
* Yo La Tengo: Fade (Matador CD) †/‡
* Beck: I
Won’t Be Long (Fonograf EP)
* Beck:
Defriended (Fonograf EP)
* Beck:
Gimme (Fonograf 2EP)
* Beck:
Morning Phase (Fonograf/Capitol LP)(†)
* Radiohead: TKOL RMX 1234567 (TBD
2CD)
* Wilco: Summerteeth (Nonesuch 2LP)
* Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
(Nonesuch 2LP)
* Wilco: A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch
2LP)
* Animal Collective: Centipede Hz
(Domino 2LP)
* Sunn O))) & Ulver: Terrestrials
(Southern Lord LP/CD)
* Baroness: Yellow & Green
(Relapse 2CD)
* Locrian: Return To Annihilation
(Relapse CD)
* Windhand: Soma (Relapse 2LP)
†=iPod/iTunes
‡=car
Commentary:
As you all
know, I thought Dysnomia by Dawn of Midi was one of the best records of 2013—and
one of the most amazing albums I’ve ever heard. I wrote about it, I talked
about it several times on my YouTube channel and I gave copies away to friends
who I knew would appreciate it—including Vanderbilt Associate Professor of the
Philosophy and Analysis of Music, Stan Link. He recently sent me this thoughtful and
thought-provoking email response, which he has kindly allowed me to share on
the blog. There’s a lot to ponder here as he eloquently articulates why this record
seems significant—not just for its musical qualities but also for its deeper
meanings and potentialities. Thank you Stan!
+++
Hi, Rodger--
Well, I finally was able to listen to Dysnomia, just now,
as a matter of fact. I'm really glad I waited until I had the time, since I
didn't know beforehand about the continuous aspect of the whole thing. Worth
waiting for the chance to get to hear it all the way through in one sitting
with, oddly enough, no interruptions. Thanks so much for sending it to me. I
was in just the right place for it, mentally. It was a kind of sounding
silence, a nothingness or mindlessness to listen to mindfully. Nobody screaming
their emotions or opinions at me--and of course I don't just mean the lack of
text. You know me well enough to know my usual rants and suspicions about
hearing people broadcast their emotions in ways that seem like all they want to
do is use you as a host for their own interiority. But this was virtuoso
nothingness, obviously--an odd kind of warmth to it that sounds like it clearly
happens within the space created by minimalism, but somehow inverted. Where
stuff like Glass seems like the wake of the machine in a still human moment,
this seems like the wake of the human in a machine moment. Kind of like all the
fingerprints on all the mice, trackpads, keyboards, buttons, and touch screens
needed to make the computer go. Nice sense of ephemerality there, as though the
sum total of life might just be the trace it leaves behind. Humbling, but
also beautiful in that way that not fighting against transience can be when you
don't get brought down by it, or get overwhelmed by it, or just plain scared by
the fact that the thing you think of as "you" won't exist.
The length combined with the continuity of it are pretty
strange now. Is it asking something of me? Or is it telling me something? I'm
"old" in many ways because I have the attention span for it--but
that's clearly an outmoded way of being. So is it calling me back to my own
humanity by asking me to do something like pay attention for that long? Or is
it just telling me that the computer, even as a metaphor, makes the whole
concept of focus and attention not very important...not because of the capacity
to generate distractions, but because of the capacity for technology itself to
actually stay focused for far longer than we can anyway, and for its capacity
to pay attention in scales both large and small that both dwarf and inflate or
senses of scale? In any case, it felt oddly good to just sit there for that
long and listen--which, on the other hand, could be just an effect of the fact
that it was you who gave me the music in the first place and me wanting to give
it a real hearing.
The one thing I wonder about in this as a kind of
potential is whether they can work in that sound world and create a sense of
movement like that without the sense of loops going on. Like, could they do a
piece that lives in that place, even has the constant motoric quality, but that
doesn't rely on repetition as its main structuring device. A relevant question
for that recording would be, was there a single thing that only got used a
single time? How about a constant flow, rather than a constant return?
Wholly apart from the bigger flow of it--the
vertical dimension was pretty appealing. The timbral world was really
compelling both in terms of the sounds and the recording. Something I've come
to appreciate is music that can immediately establish its premise in sensual
terms, which this does--as though one second of it is enough to find pleasure
in. Doing that in combination with a workable formal thing at the same time is
just wonderful when you encounter it--that mixture of transparency and richness
that sounds like what I think of as wisdom now.
But yeah--long story short--that had my number. Thanks,
Rodger!
What's up with you these days?
--Stan
+++
Whoa.
