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UPDATE: The imagined film narratives of Danny Wolfers is revealed on page 2. Lord Krangdar provides an overview of Oneohtrix Point Never  Hi!!! Probably due to a combination of non-existent recording budgets and an interest in the Punk DIY aesthetic, early black metal recordings were extremely lo-fidelity, and remained intentionally so to capture a rawness that the music may not have been able to provide otherwise. The use of low fidelity recording techniques as a way of transfixing music onto a new plateau is something not restricted to metal, and since the late 00’s there has been an explosion of artists who have re-appropriated other canonical genres such as rock, funk and jazz to achieve the same ends - as a way of either undermining or celebrating these musical edifices; sometimes simply capturing or chronicling a specific moment in time which has been largely forgotten by the generations since. I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss the music of James Ferraro and similar trends in modern experimental music thru a cascade of disorganised hypertext and YouTube embeds. Reader's note: click all the links for the full experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilXHFgNO8XQ Someone on last.fm posted:Underground musician/composer/virtual atmospherist James Ferraro produces small runs of releases on, but not limited to: cassette, CD-R, and VHS with a wide variety of styles all representing different dreams of a demonic mind tower spanning from freak flesh bodybuilder atmospheres to ambient modern world/psych. It appears Ferraro draws influence from many different places but best summed up by the quote, “I am Flintstones.” Someone else on last.fm posted:dark energy temples of 80s consumerism filtered through the prism of hypnagogic post-noise and vhs distortion Pitchfork posted:Just don't wait around for him to tone it down. More often, in the massive discography he's built, he turns the queasiness up to 11. In the resulting swamps of noise, ghosts of pop songs, movie soundtracks, TV ads, and other fleeting ephemera stew and rumble, but never quite break through the stubborn surface of his dense mix. Palm Trees, WiFi and Dream Sushi (from Far Side Virtual) posted:Would you like to see our virtual menu? Excellent, sir. [...] Your dish is being prepared by top chef, Gordon Ramsay. When people ask me “yo oiseaux who is this James Ferraro guy, what kind of stuff does he make” (nobody EVER asks me that) I’m like, “well um there’s no genre per se, more like a quixotic melange of cultural motifs and reference points presented thru song-form” and they switch off immediately. Like me they probably don’t really know what quixotic means and have to look it up in the dictionary. I have created my own meaning that it implies a kind of psychedelic quality in conjunction with its actual definition which is usually interpreted as being “exceedingly idealistic”. But Ferraro’s music is in a sense this; optimistic, idealistic, contradictory. It’s fundamentally psychedelic music, remarkably effortless at being flawed, ugly, and frustrating yet intensely beautiful at the same time. Most psychedelic music you would get recommended if you went on say, /r/trees or TCC is really bad at communicating the continuum of the psychedelic experience in this regard. You’ll get trance music, or downtempo with its Buddah-Cafe beats and pleasantly sampled ethnic instrumentation. This kind of music is often mistaken for representing the psychedelic experience, when actually I would claim it’s highly non-representational, and used more as a tool to enhance a psychedelic experience in the same functional sense that a wrench is used to turn a bolt (Sphongle fans please don’t get mad). On the other end of the spectrum, we have something like Jefre-Cantu Ledesma’s “Where You End & I Begin” communicating a kind of transcendent physical non-corporeality that I believe transmits or rather describes the psych experience in a manner that is truthful, particularly to an an outside observer. And that’s where we find a large portion of James Ferraro’s work. Two Different Places On The Spectrum Of Psychedelic Music Enhancement - Descriptive and organised, using traditional musical structures to comfort the listener into a space where specific techniques (build ups, break downs, repetition, processing, effects) are then allowed to enhance the experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qt2WbfotkU Transmission - Non-heirarchical, challenging, unfamiliar, visceral - a window into the reality of the psychedelic experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zthv_-DDlvU Usually Ferraro’s work is placed unblinkingly in the ambient, noise and drone genres but not always for obvious reasons. In fact, the three genres have become overwhelmingly intertwined in the past decade (we turn to the music of Tim Hecker or Christian Fennesz for an popular example of this). Ferraro’s record “Far Side Virtual” (2011) was noise music in the sense that, if noise is meant to be a difficult, challenging and repulsive listening experience where the listener must face uglier aspects of the human condition, then the deluge of FSV’s gaudy corporate ident music with its naive optimism forces the listener to confront the logic of the Westerner’s modern reality - vaccuum sealed, ageless, sanitized and culturally indistinct. The same record was also ambient in the sense that it channeled low-temperature vibes through its use of space and clarity. Ferraro’s earliest work was a hybrid of incredibly low-fidelity drone music on limited cassette releases. A lot of the music was written with art installations in mind. The secret recipe (a function of all his work) was that, if you listened carefully, looking past the fog of tape delay and surface noise, you would find an expansive and meticulously constructed sound-world. All instruments performed and recreated with no samples from other artists. This dichotomy of sparkly, quasi-new age ambient music masked with noise and hiss created enough room for Ferraro to make music that, if it had been made with the intention of making a traditional production with each object placed carefully and without conflict in the sonic palette, would not be understood as anything but new-age trash. Much in the same way that black metal would be seen in a different light (particularly, one that doesn’t evoke some terror-drenched Arctic nightmarescape). Instead, the lo-fi veneer acts as lens, taking the mundane and fragmenting it in much the same way an ordinary scene becomes psychedelic and distorted when viewed through the facets of a glass jewel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR7eADGQYg8 Most of his music explores concepts. Not a concept album like how Genesis’ “The Lamb Lies Down In Broadway” is the literal story of a street punk, but by presenting the listener with a non-heirarchical mass of motifs, references and signifiers; a kind of “concept-bomb”. The record-object is a starting point with which to explore whatever topic Ferraro has decided upon, usually presented in a cryptic fashion. This is the crucial distinction between this approach and other conceptual music - the path is shown, but there is no tour guide after that. It stands in direct opposition to the traditional idea of a “concept album”. We begin with 2008’s “Clear”, which Ferraro is on record as saying that there was an intention to explore themes of new-age spiritualism - specifically Scientology. Although there is little to go by (the term “Clear” being a Scientologist’s vernacular, the image of a pyramid perhaps suggesting the use of that particular symbol on the covers of pop-folklore books on ancient aliens and occult knowledge). The ideas and themes behind the music are in abundance, and the listener is free to take things where they want. The music itself is typical of his early work, large slabs of instrumental rock excursions, synthesizer improvisation, and rhythmic elements that fold in and out of the haze and murk that swirls around them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z76cyKcWYkE Ferraros critique (or “celebration”, in his words) of modern cultural detritus comes to the fore in the essential “Last American Hero / Adrenaline’s End” (2008). The album art is a photograph of a Best Buy store with a tiny JUDGE JUDY ident haphazardly photoshopped in the corner, and adequately sets the tone. Again the music is lo-fi, but this time with clearer, minimal instrumentation and a composition that sounds like the theme tune to an 80’s TV drama set in the wild west. In combination with the album art we are given this image of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where a lone figure walks under the lights of an abandoned shopping mall, a single television playing a daytime TV show on endless loop ("There's nobody here" - Chris DeBurgh). Perhaps a comment on how meaningless these corporate edifices seem in the face of our inevitable self-assured destruction, or the wider stage of history? Or perhaps not prophetic at all. there’s nothing here to suggest any particular intent on behalf of the author. It’s more an idea that Ferraro has captured, like a painter might, a specific moment in time, a cultural artifact. “Archiving is the new folk art.” - The guy from Ubuweb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Y7wKfpOqY “Edward Flex Presents: Do You Believe In Hawaii?” (2009) is pure psychedelic body-builder schizophrenia. There is simply no precedent to this kind of record. Warped, hyper-masculine voices urge the listener to worship at the throne of self image/body. Confusing Xeroxed artwork portrays some kind chimera of indeterminate gender who regards the observer with a psychotic grin. It’s absurd stuff. There is an anxiety here, with its dark homoerotic undertones, insane beach holiday resort jams co-mingling with spiralling blasts of noise and tape flutter. But really the only question here is - do YOU beleive in Hawaii? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W6xESV0C78 2009 was a mind-bogglingly productive year for Ferraro. He released a ton of records around this time all in the same style - limited run CD-R releases with black and white Xeroxed artwork that revelled in the totally bizarre, typically exploring some obscene meditation on trashy science fiction and cyberpunk narratives, in the same vein as the imaginary soundtracks of Legowelt's side projects. There’s a series of releases called “Jarvid” which come with tracks written in alien heiroglyphs and utterly cryptic sleeve notes that promise to tell the secrets of a subterranean Lizard race: quote:Jarva Jarva Headplug In; Finger prints plug into headstream of déjà vu through the desert sands of Jarvid 9 into time tracks of red earth download memory of fossils underneath the desert sands of Jarvid 9. Or perhaps you’d be interested in “KFC City 3099: Toxic Spill” a kind of total urban psychosis which seems to be heavily influenced from B-Movies and that scene in Robocop where the dude gets covered in toxic waste and explodes when the car hits him? Tracklist: 1. Toxic Spill 2. Sounds From The Cam 1: Metal Cop In Acid Rain/Body Of The Underground A.Warheads Metal Yard: Acid Bath B. AD Warp Of Hidden Portal Into Demonic Realities C. Road Rage Glitch: Highway Crucifixion 3. Surveillance/Sounds From The Cam 2: Inside the Mutant Church A.Human Headspace Hell 4. Sounds From The Cam 3: Inside The Mutant Church 2 A. Rage Room: Microwave Head B. Mysterious Egg Escapes C. Egg Killers D. Pipe Leading To Oceania Clear Scan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUhF4Znm5Ak On a lighter note, there are some relatively conventional drone and ambient compositions such as “Heavens Gate” (now playing in the lobbies of Scientology centers worldwide) and “Marble Surf” (2008) that simply revel in their own blissed-out sonic landscapes. “Night Dolls With Hairspray” (2010) is bizzaro Saved By The Bell. It’s every 70’s / 80’s college frathouse movie. You’ve already got an idea when you read the track titles: “Buffy Honkerberg’s Answering Machine”, “Killer Nerd”. but something’s not right. amongst the valley-girl vocal inserts, burp noises and perfunctory Glam-rock soundtrack are thinly veiled references to pornography, TV addiction and cheap substance abuse. The ugliness and confusion a teenager’s sexual conundrum is told with alarming veracity. This is explored even further on the body-horror mashup “Feed Me” (2010) with tracks like “My Parents Think I’m Turning Into A Cockroach.” Every generation has their Kafka I guess, or perhaps in our case, Pinhead - an individual who is dedicated to the erasing of the flesh in the same way that our relationship with technology inexorably threatens to. More on that later! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xacj2zBp458 Probably the crown jewel of his discography is “On Air” (2010). It is worth noting that the album comes in two flavours - the original release and a re-release with extra tracks released on Underwater Peoples. Either is good but I’d go with the Underwater Peoples re-release. The album: a kind of cosmic, channel-hopping collage of sounds heard (circa 1985) from your next door neighbour's radio/hifi or cable TV station, with the added condition that your neighbour is an alien messenger from the Sirius star system. A swirling vortex of space-rock, wigged out synth kosmiche (similar to the style of Oneohtrix Point Never) and ambient wrapped in a glittering, amorphous lo-fi sheen. There’s a traditional 50's rockabilly thing going on too, which seemed to be a subject of revival in the 1980s. Anyhow, this is the dimension you fall into when you drop off to sleep at 11 o’clock with the TV left on. Track titles: “Pleiadian Channel Surfer #1”, “”Zapped By Something Strange in the Night”, “Moonshocked Dudettes” gives the listener some kind of idea of what they’re in for. There’s a kind of cosmic spirituality to the music that connects the mundane of the living room TV set with a higher plane. That feeling perhaps, as a kid with access to cable for the first time, that the landscape was wholly infinite and the possibilities unchecked? A lot of his earlier work in a band called The Skaters had this same kind of “transcendent” motif so I see “On Air” as a perfect introduction, summary and final resting place of his pre-2010 music. And as ever, repeated listens reveal a depth that is masked at first by questionable fidelity. I worry about how much TV theme music Ferraro must have studied to create these distorted, beautiful cultural facsimiles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTCUsX7AwNg quote:And then I started considering that Ferraro was neither disgusted nor enthralled by what he was reflecting, and instead was serving to document a strange microcosm of American existence. He’d taken a step back and pretty masterfully concocted a collage of “found” programming as such, equally favoring television and radio, and let it do its thing – you either resonate with it or you don’t (and if you don’t, you’re probably annoyed by it). And instead of creating a record that sounds like a single composer imposing his will on his medium, On Air plays more like a curatorial endeavor, an attempt to preserve cultural idiosyncrasies at a specific time. So when I say that, for example, “‘S.O.S.’ sounds like the lead-in music to a hard-hitting news program,” the prepositional phrase “in the 1980s” is implied at the end of it. Pixarni (2010) is perhaps a precursor to 2011’s Far Side Virtual in the sense that in evokes the aesthetic of a similar time-frame: when early CGI (think the T1000 in Terminator 2) was starting to enter into the public consciousness. We are invited to step into the world of The Lawnmower Man, or perhaps the melancholy Bryce 3D landscape left in his wake. There is a clear nostalgic angle for those who grew up in the 90’s here, but not in the same way that say, a retro garage-rock band would explore nostalgia; this doesn’t directly reference anything that actually existed in the past, rather it celebrates nostalgia by virtue of it being a mass of clues and signifiers that hint toward a certain moment in time. It’s a puzzle of sorts - and I think that when Ferraro’s music is viewed as a puzzle or game then it can be most enjoyed, simply because it champions the concept of fun and play in music - a free-form exploration without any structural centerpoint; this is refreshing for an arena which is more often than not painfully serious or overly melodramatic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZfltT_ZVx4 Far Side Virtual (and Condo Pets EP) came out in 2011 to critical praise, although the response to FSV was divisive - Wire magazine gave Far Side Virtual “Album of the Year” causing quite a stink, and is probably more of a comment on their readership than anything else. On the face, two things are evident; the production is now crisp and “hi-fi”, and the tracks appear to sound like the kind of thing you’d hear in an hotel elevator or Korean MMO lobby (“Dubai Dream Tone”). You begin to ask yourself, on reading track titles like “Eco-tot” and “Find Out What’s Playing On Carrie Bradshaw’s iPod” that we going to be greeted by an ironic critique of modern capitalism. Fortunately, this is more a celebration of said culture - as this Quietus interview revealed: James Ferraro posted:I was drinking a V-SMOOTHIE, in West Hollywood, at this place called Earth Bar. The ambience was like cold, moist air-conditioned Eco-space, digital ringtones tweeting off, smoothie blenders, laptops. And then a blue-haired man walked up to the counter in his five-finger shoes, texting on his Blackberry. The space felt so online. I was in a diverse online rain forest of $60 eco-smoothies and flat screen TV menus. I just wanted to make music that sounded like this, something these people could blast on their iPods. The ideas got deeper than this later, but this was the initial starting point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXHCv77IOAE An interesting idea. He originally hoped the tracks could be marketed as individual ringtones that would be downloaded and played on people’s phones. The album uses almost exclusively preset synthesizer banks, cheap Casio instrumentation and samplings of sounds from Skype and Windows ‘95. Make no mistake, this is CANYON.MID: The Album, and within it contains our past, our future and all our hopes and dreams about technology. 16 minature sonic jewels made with the utmost care. This music is by no means attempting to be ironic or cynical, it genuinely is a celebration of modern culture, for all its difficulties and shortcomings. When you hear the fake trumpet solo in “Global Lunch” erupting after the Skype startup sound announces its arrival, you mustn't keep a straight face because I fear you’d be missing the point. In this regard it is an album dedicated for goons and youth connected to technology worldwide - tounge-in-cheek lauding of pretty much everything you’ll see in the “Stuff You Just Bought” thread in PYF. James Ferraro posted:I'm at a coffee shop, co-oping in the shared pleasantness of other MacBook users via our united wi-fi provider. This safety zone is a glimpse into the future. a look into a small group of espresso drinkers who believe in a digital Utopia. We have crocs on, Alpha Generational babies in slick ethno slings. Human-like domesticated pets. Eco-friendly plastic cups. These people represent a determinism that is informed by commodities. But there is room to dream somehow. I definitely don't fear them. I'm applauding them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWIuJUozPnY Since Far Side Virtual, the James Ferraro of yesteryear has fundamentally changed. Gone are the lo-fi dronescapes, and in its lieu is something quite different. BODYGUARD - Silica Gel (2012) side project welcomes this change with unblinking ferocity - completely iced out, smoke-wreathed instrumental music that takes cues from hip-hop, dubstep, witch-house and a milieu of contemporary electronic music genres. Track titles like “Dry Ice ¥2K12”, “Liquid Metal #TCIZ4”. At first we’re offended by the gratuitous abuse of Auto-tune in the R&B pastiche “Raiden - Blue Lights # NZT - 48”, but repeat listens reveal a composition of delicate musicality and originality - vocal harmonies interplay between the sound of pressure release valves and other obscure industrial phenomena, and this seems to work. It’s like the world’s first industrial R&B record. The metallic prison of “BLACK AND RED” is frightening and dangerous at first, but there’s a calm, comforting hope to be found in the delightful gamelan/bell melodies. And then there’s that choral section. This mixup of serene R&B motifs and haunting industrial atmospheres is probably something best heard than described. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb9Lj3MqiUE Adam Harper posted:BLACK AND RED juxtaposes a crystal clear gamelan riff with horrifying noises like cyberpunk battle axes being thrust down and enormous centrifuges whirring overhead. The whole mixtape hisses with high frequencies like the nanodrills mounted on the 10ft tall robotic arms of an automated car factory in H.U.M2.E.R, the future tambourines, hammered cables and screwed emperor synth-strings in BLOOD TYPE: 5 HOUR ENERGY and the gaseous emissions clouding the steelpans of DRY ICE ¥2K12. Underneath all this is a profound bass – again, a frequency that lo-fi could never reach – and slow, sexual trap beats. Accompanying the dulcet laser light of the single RAIDEN – BLUE LIGHT is the imposing SEX WITH AXE™ ON, referencing the deodorant that smells like nothing Nature has ever produced. All suggestive of some kind of extreme multimedia advertising campaign for cosmetics, stimulants and vehicles aimed at young men and giving off a considerable fascist vibe, ‘Silica Gel’ the gruesome logical endpoint of a culture that pushes body supplementation and modification products and their ideologies well beyond the point of inhumanity. The hyper-lush R&B/hip-hop trend continues to the current day with Sushi (2012). Perhaps Ferraro’s most conventional record yet, is most easily interpreted as a love-letter to the aforementioned genres - but with all the Ferraro idiosyncrasies found on Far Side Virtual - cute instant messaging-style beeps (E7), unexpected genre motifs from house & urban music (Jet Skis and Sushi), warped vocal idents. But some tracks are so effortlessly sublime they offer a glimpse of a world beyond the next. Ferraro seems to be, at this point, fostering this kind of Prince-like entity solely dedicated to producing avant-garde baby-making music. There doesn’t seem to be any conceptual guff attached to this release - even the artwork is starkly minimal. But there is a sense that “Sushi” is a metaphor for our compartmentalized society, a world of aspirations, frustrated luxuries, and consumerist traps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7pNVsiPFU His mixtape COLD comes out in early March and will probably be amazing. In summary, then: Vaporwave Selected discography Last American Hero (2008) - lonely tape paeans to a forgotten age Marble surf (2008) - sublime, heavenly ambient On Air (2010) - transcendent synth / glam-rock mashup Pixarni (2010) - Alternative soundtrack to The Lawnmower Man Far Side Virtual (2011) - Relentlessly Optimistic music of the NOW Bodyguard - Silica Gel (2012) - Industrial R&B dreamscape FURTHER READING: http://jonathanwallmusic.com/papers/ferraro.pdf - YO MAMA HEAD performs an analysis of Far Side Virtual http://dummymag.com/features/2012/07/12/adam-harper-vaporwave/ http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/music/james-ferraro-and-ryan-trecartin-21st-century-creatures http://www.bpmonline.org.uk/bpm4-mille.html o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Mar 11, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 16:11
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Lord Krangdar posted:
The best part is IIRC Hippos In Tanks were like "LIMITED EDITION T-SHIRT DESIGNED EXCLUSIVELY BY JAMES FERRARO" and there were people who bought it Mike_V posted:This has sort of been a revelation for me so thank you for the great OP. Thankyou, I really wanted to share this because I just think it's so interesting and if I can get someone else to see the same it really makes it worth it Mikhail Gorbachev posted:Thanks for the excellent and detailed OP. I've just started diving into JF's work after seeing him open (as BODYGUARD) for Gatekeeper & Hype Williams. From the outside looking in, the extent of his work seems a huge Dionysian morass of really challenging music and non-music - his work is very conceptual, and I'd argue that his work is as close to pure concept as is possible in art; each of his releases sort of becomes the sonic avatar of whatever anxious dreamscape he chooses to tackle at the time (corporatism, body worship, strip-mall americana, etc). There's really no pretense; his music is incredibly sincere. Really interested to see where he goes from Sushi. Considering the gamut of themes and styles he's run through since 2008 I really hope he keeps evolving as an artist but I think he really likes whatever weird persona (see his Twitter) where he perpetually portrays the role of some kind of super-rich rap mogul/modern day Prince, aggressively marketing his releases and vomiting out a stream of unrelated urban neologisms psychicsecession posted:i ordered a skaters record in like 2008 and he never sent it and stopped responding to my emails gently caress you james ferraro There's a noise/electroacoustic forum with a 10 page post on exactly the same thing, people got really mad, but that's why you don't buy records from perennially stoned drifters. Guy seems like an rear end in a top hat sometimes, I won't deny it!
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Feb 25, 2013 09:06
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Hell yeah. Fatima Al-Qadiri's music genuinely scares me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm7B1_Q6tfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRnn5JV0T-o
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Feb 25, 2013 11:10
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you rock posted:I ordered a cassette years ago and still haven't received it either. OP are you actually the guy in the OP (JF) because that's a lot of info on somebody. Not really, it only requires a bunch of sitting around listening to records and thinking about them. Like how people read books and think about those? You can do that with music now.
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Feb 25, 2013 19:17
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you rock posted:I didn't know that I was 'reeling' for noting I didn't get mine either, or that people other than me didn't get the music from him that they paid for and that it was apparently a big Thing "hashed out everywhere". Some of us just listen to music. It sucks and I'm sorry it happened. In the tape/cd-r scene, people will rip other people off, especially because collectors are so eager to get their hands on limited edition releases that will be worth dollar in 10-20 years. Like has been said, there are other ways to get your value for money. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T05W6zn_xNw
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Feb 26, 2013 13:09
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acephalousuniverse posted:I def prefer the Bebetune$ and Bodyguard stuff to far Far Side Virtual, if there's anything else on that tip people can recommend from him/related people that would be cool There is some stylistic crossover perhaps with Raider Klan (see above), probably most evident with LIL UGLY MANE who has a similar aesthetic, aligned more closely with traditional hip-hop& beats. Anyway check out the Bandcamp for an idea: "STUDY OF THE HYPOTHESIZED REMOVABLE AND/OR EXPANDABLE NATURE OF HUMAN CAPABILITY AND LIMITATIONS PRIMARILY REGARDING INTRODUCTORY EXPERIENCES WITH NEW AND EXCITING TECHNOLOGIES BY WAY OF MOTIVATIONAL INCENTIVE VOLUME TWO: VARIOUS ARTISTS" says it all I think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnNLfc0OX0
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Feb 27, 2013 09:56
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Yeah, seriously, the BEBETUNES album cover is a straight homage to those hideously cheap mixtape covers. He posts them on his Twitter all the time. See also: Denzel Curry's artwork, again on that reappropriation of the 90s aesthetic (this time lampooning 2Pac)
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Feb 27, 2013 23:10
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alansmithee posted:Never heard of bebetune$, might have to check for that. And I explicitly said that Ugly Mane was pretty much based entirely in old Memphis poo poo. I'd heard some Ferraro before and thought it was pretty interesting, but quite different from the rap stuff posted here, at least from a sound standpoint. Actually it would be fitting that this thread be totally non-hierarchical and split off into discussions with conceptual or thematic similarities, so go for it. I think as far as the connection between JF and the aforementioned artists beyond aesthetics, the BEBETUNES project, BODYGUARD project and Sushi have an intimate connection with hip-hop and the wider palette of "urban music" (for lack of a better term right now)
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Feb 28, 2013 10:51
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the black husserl posted:I don't think there could be a better time for us to take a trip to the HIP HOP SPA The Hip-Hop Prison Industrial Spa Complex Pizza Dude posted:Really cool thread. How do you guys feel about vaporwave? Seems like there were a hundred releases that could fit in that genre last year, and all the ones I listened to just felt musically and conceptually less interesting than the stuff Ferraro was releasing 3 years ago. There was an interesting discussion in the comments to the vaporwave article between the guy behind INTERNET CLUB and Adam Harper, from a conceptual and musical perspective I think it's a bit of a one-trick pony, like it's not really a genre per se but more of an aesthetic platform for the music; and if the music is bad or lazy then there's not much point. I don't think anyone could keep a straight face and call themselves a 'vaporwave act'. quote:That said I do like the throwaway internet mediafire link etc method of releasing and the cyberpunky use of Japanese a lot of them do (or maybe it was just one guy idk). I guess the use of Japanese characters is trying to emphasise the 'globality' of the vaporwave aesthetic. But yeah, a load of projects do the same thing (can't find a slew of examples as I am going home now) o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Mar 1, 2013 |
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Mar 1, 2013 17:52
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That Fatima Al-Qadiri quote is amazing and so are the contributions to this thread so thank you all for sharing. You can't quite pigeonhole Legowelt it but it sure as hell slams the pit So you're maybe familiar with Wolfers main project as Legowelt who has quite a way with words when discussing his aesthetic: "Raw as gently caress autistic Star Trek 1987- Misty Forests- X-FILES,- DETROIT unicorn futurism made on cheap rear end digital & analog crap synthesizers recorded in a ragtag bedroom studio on a TEAC VHX cassettedeck in DOLBY C with an unintelligible yet soulfull vivacity." His website is a treasure trove of forgotten memories, techno jams and explorations into the paranormal/occult and is well worth a visit. But he has a glut of ambient/drone side projects that are usually although not explicitly styled as soundtracks to imaginary films. Certainly not a new concept, but his execution is so flawless and original that it elevates the listening experience to a new plateau, exploring themes of Cold War paranoia, UFOs/cryptozoology and weird/obscure Americana. There is also a comforting warmth to a lot of the music, which serves as an excellent background music to whatever endeavour you're getting up to in the heat and safety of your own home in the dead of winter. Since the mid-2000 he's put out these releases under various monikers so it's hard to get an idea of how many are out there, but they seem to be released exclusively on his self-run STRANGE LIFE records which is an apt nomenclature if ever there was one. Franz Falckenhaus - Secret Microcassettes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V27lxIf_S4Q This is basically the best thing ever. A limited edition (one copy only which sold on a radio show for 225 Euros), "Secret Microcassettes" came in a black dossier containing a CD-R album of haunted Cold War-era ambient excursions. Most notably, it also came with a microcassette containing field recordings from secret locations around the world, and an interactive-fiction Commodore 64 game called "Trident Crisis", totally playable and specially made for the release, replete with instruction manual. Look at the box art. Look at it. The word "inspired" is a severe understatement   Phalangius - The Cambridge Library Murders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoVB8OJplGw Taken from dusty cassette tapes this is an album about Infocom text adventures, mathematical theorems, ZX Spectrums and murder mysteries. Melancholic Juno-6 jams from the heart of winter that are as beautiful as they are haunting, this could be the soundtrack to an early 80's detective show set in England. Track titles: "Theme From Andrew Wiles", "Scotland Yard Tea Break" and references to antiquated fighter jets, interactive fiction and the Falklands War have a distinctly British vibe; in a similar way to Ferraro, Danny Wolfers has captured a particular cultural space and time with alarming veracity. Anyone who had a BBC Micro will totally vibe the album art too. Smackos - UFO Onderzoek 1983 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW35V0fyjlg Another totally absorbing cinematic reality, this time revolving around an imagined Euro-horror film about UFOs that gives off a particularly Lovecraftian vibe to boot. The narrative is revealed through the amazing tracklist, that tells the story of a group of paranormal detectives who begin to investigate strange UFO-related phenomena, leading them on a dark quest into the frozen snows of Scandinavia. Finally they must confront some supernatural force that is presumably the cause of all the happenings, uncovering terrible secrets and alternate vistas of reality in the process. Take the journey. quote:1. UFO Onderzoek main theme Smackos - Pacific Northwest Sasquatch Research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u7RAic7sNM Another timeless alt-soundtrack, this time focused around cryptozooid-hunting field scientists in the dark and mysterious pine forests of the Pacific Northwest of America, circa 1978. Track titles like "Leading Experts In The Field Of Cryptozoology" and "Something Moved In The Treeline" again give you a pretty good idea of the thematic content of this album, which combines mysterious synth pulses and creepy leads with field recordings and other captured phenomena. The transportative power of this music is something to be in awe of. Satomi Taniyama - Portopia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmp-PyIa4Z8 Another stunner on the album art front. This time Danny Wolfers takes us to the streets of urban Japan, where a string of brutal murders has occurred down-town and it's up to our protagonist, far from home, to follow the clues and make the connections in this tale of love, hate, betrayal and lust. There's a free form, improvisatory vibe tinged with a distinctly Asiatic pentatonic flavour. The Psychic Stewardess - Spiritual Foundation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iNX1rpTkz4 Essential paperback 80s pulp reading from the forgotten airports of the world. An air hostess from Palm Springs begins to develop profound psychic abilities at 30,000 feet. This is her story. o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 19:34
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If you want to get an idea of how effective a lot of this music is in transmitting the creepy, otherworldly Euro-horror vibe, see it applied to "The Best Horror Movies" by YouTube user csnc82, who has an amazing collection of "best ofs" like "BEST FILMS ABOUT ANCIENT EVIL/FORCES" and so on.
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Mar 3, 2013 19:37
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"Homogeneous pleasure-field of postmodern capitalism" is an excellent way of putting it. I think that this is aligned with noise in the sense the music is difficult and confrontational, it's just being difficult and confrontational in a different way. There's still the worship of junk in the traditional Merzbow way; but the objects of attention are the mundane and banal byproducts of a late capitalist ideology - daytime TV, shopping malls, tribal tattoos, cheap deodorant, whatever - not traditional "junk" worship but conceptual "junk" worship, perhaps. The music of Fatima Al-Qadiri has a clear political agenda, but it's got that noise element of confronting the listener with uncomfortable aspects of their reality, particularly the white Westerners ambivalence to the struggles of Gulf Arabs and the Arab / Muslim world. The music is inherently paradoxical because it's like a bizarro mirror land where the Middle East never fell into disarray and initiated the Industrial / Capitalist age. Another widespread trend is experimental/avant-garde musicians having a sincere reverence for Pop music (see the black husserl's reference to Rhihanna in the d'Eon post, these artists genuinely love that poo poo). Grimes is probably the most high-profile artist who in equal parts loves Beyonce as she does, say, a noise outfit. Music is driven by developments in technology (think harpischord->piano->synthesizer and what it's meant for music for instance) and we're currently in a kind of "saturation point" where we've kind of explored the limits of our current technology so until the next revolution / evolution occurs we are making up for lack of sonic ideas by increasing our palette of influences and conceptualizing the music in new ways. Right now there isn't much interest in creating new and interesting timbres, but reappropriating existing timbres within the context of a track, or album, or concept (a good example being JF's love of the synthesizer gamelan/pitched drum for instance) Maybe. Bedtime That d'Eon track is amazing, it's like a pre-apocalyptic rave before the sirens go off for real and the networks die one by one o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Mar 4, 2013 |
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Mar 4, 2013 00:06
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the black husserl posted:
Early, "non-official" Boards is a lot more raw, experimental (with techno roots exposed more clearly) with a kind of mischevious playfulness you also see in Ferraro. In my original post somewhere I link to "Clear, Light, Hair" off one of the Old Tunes comps which is a perfect example of this. acephalousuniverse posted:One thing that's interesting is the shift in the "junk landscape." The dada or industrial junk focus was on irl grime, noise, and dirt, whereas the "vaporwave" thing is ultra-clean plastic, muzak, and technology that's only RECENTLY out of date, like past 10 or 20 years. I guess that leaves harsh noise as a kind of noise of the Real whereas vaporwave is the noise of the Virtual? (idk any Lacan so I don't know how it'd be figured that way haha.) Yeah, "noise of the Virtual" is what I was thinking whereas Merzbow et. al is totally about real, tangible phenomena of a pre-digital age. Even Merzbow's political ideology is old-world and "new-agey" (omg dont hurt the animals please~)
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Mar 4, 2013 10:11
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On another note forums user slowdave pointed out to me yet another Legowelt side project: Sammy Osmo - De Originele Filmmuziek Van Schaduw Horizon ("The Original Soundtrack To: Shadow Horizon") quote:1987 - In an abandoned zoo, a NATO military para-physicist is researching the I was so convinced this was actually an 80's dutch B-Movie. The release includes a free abandoned Zoo map, Shadow Horizon sticker, secret code document (for you to decipher and unlock the secret) and booklet with track information.
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Mar 4, 2013 14:04
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Unfortunately he's delayed it, although I'm not even remotely surprised. He did put up a preview track on Soundcloud and it sounds exactly like I expected - Sushi: Midnight Purple Edition. I also found this video interview with him, which is probably the only one where he's talking on camera for any period of time, and despite finding it hard to articulate himself, I enjoy his inclusive and historic views on music.
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Mar 5, 2013 09:48
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Best OPN interview I've seen.
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Mar 8, 2013 22:13
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No worries dude, I'm glad you enjoyed it. There's a hidden world of cool experimental and avant-garde music out there and it's even easier these days to find it, and get it. Reading albums like you would films, or literature is the best thing. Lord Krangdar I linked to your OPN overview in the OP, so thanks for that too.
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Mar 11, 2013 13:24
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Steallar Om Source has a very similar vibe, check out Ocean Woman. It's got a relaxed, improvisatory feel but the subject matter is full of light and shade, perhaps the fantasies of a woman drowning at sea, living a new imagined life within her last gulps. You may also be drawn to Steve Hauschildt's "Tragedy and Geometry", which is a more precise, considered affair that indicates towards a deep appreciation of Kraftwerk. Furthermore can I reccomend my Legowelt post on the second page for more synth excursions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE1SJkkCTcI o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Mar 20, 2013 |
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Mar 20, 2013 23:12
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On poo poo don't forget Event Cloak! https://vimeo.com/26242631
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Mar 20, 2013 23:15
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Lord Krangdar posted:Wow Stellar Om Source owns. Yeah Christelle Gualdi is a bit of a legend. I think Ocean Woman is her best record, but she's done a range of stuff different tweaks on her aesthetic which I'm still absorbing. I think most notably, is her incredibly evocative artwork:     That last one is my favorite, for the Oneohtrix joint "Zones Without People"
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Mar 21, 2013 19:27
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I do find the ARPANET project a bit clumsy and heavy handed, and some of the music on the Wireless Internet is a bit poo poo. But considering we're talking 2002, its vision is way ahead of its time.
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Mar 22, 2013 10:27
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HauntedRobot posted:This thread is so loving wierd to me. I've skirted the edges of this stuff before without discovering it; I only caught onto Games last year and Gatekeeper and dug the reimagining of sounds that went dead 20-30 years ago going on there. I dunno if its ironic, or nostalgic, or both. Old-Tunes-era-BoC which someone mentioned obviously, though that's different too. poo poo, I've even made stuff that someone commented "hey thats like that whole vaporwave aesthetic" and not got it. It's none of these things, it's just ppl expressing themselves musically. Check this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqsCXle839Y
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Mar 23, 2013 03:53
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Took a lot of effort to find this rare JF jam, it's the FSV thing. The mutilated Steve Jobs alien head is something he'd been working on for a while. Only released for the Primvera Sound festival. Genuis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoQb7MNWPRc
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Mar 23, 2013 03:55
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yep. eco-techno. the man is on a new level
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Mar 23, 2013 04:46
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I read on Altered Zones that he used a Mac Book Pro and Garage Band for FSV, although he probably used a bunch of different stuff to achieve whatever goal he had in mind. Cold's a mixed bag. There's some absolutely great stuff on there (E178 TH, Rata, Gargoyles) and then some utter wank. Sometimes the off-key autotune works, sometimes it doesn't. His mastery of electronic music idioms from trap to piano hardcore is ever-evident though. Of course you kind of learn to accept that JF just makes stuff in one sitting and puts it out pretty quickly, so I can kind of deal with it... although here's hoping he moves on to a new concept soon (he's been on the same tip since BEBETUNES) - that's what makes him so great.
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Mar 25, 2013 09:51
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The TMT post about Cold seems to be a peice of fan-fiction between Ferraro and Triad God. Suffice to say I do not read this website.
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Mar 26, 2013 08:29
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Yes, I agree. But generally I would prefer my criticism to not come in prose form but more as an experimental, unstructured academic essay
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Mar 26, 2013 18:14
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Masonic Youth posted:To be fair, that album is a must-listen to anyone with an interest in truly bizarre music. I would actually compare her, favorably, to Jandek. I must confess I didn't click that link until you made that comparison (sorry Krangdar), but yeah, that's definitely quite a piece of outsider art.
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Mar 26, 2013 19:26
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sadfly posted:aw man, did I kill the thread? Haha, this record is insane, the use of compression is so intense I feel like the air pressure is perpetually fluctuating. Artwork is basically Merzbow's Pulse Demon, though.
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Apr 3, 2013 09:19
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So I just came across article and I'm still reeling and unable to make a comment on it. I guess this is what happens when you put labels on music, they become a thing, and nascent teenagers hop on to it and it turns into something completely different before your eyes. Awful.
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Apr 15, 2013 09:36
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Zaburino posted:Yeah I saw that a couple weeks after it came out, but I wasn't so shocked by it. I mean, Metallic Ghosts is pretty lovely, but there has been a decent amount of new stuff that is just as good as the things Vektroid has been putting out in all her various guises. Music journalists (and many fans) always like to put down a marker to say when a scene is dead, but I don't think reality is supporting them this time. It's a futile battle to try and stop people from labeling music, even when it's still evolving right in front of them. Since the "vaporwave" aesthetic is fairly unique and distinctive, anyone working within the confines of the established tropes for years to come will most likely still be classified as such; worst case scenario the sound will be commodified and subsumed into standard pop production, which I'm somewhat ok with (cause I'll probably still like it). I really don't have the mental fortitude to explain everything that's wrong with the above article, but the fact that Chaz Allen calls a track "casinowave" because it samples slot machines is indicative of his naive precociousness - "yeah that's right just created a genre in seconds - it's dead now. heh. i create scenes!" Except Pink Floyd did the same thing in 1972, but they didn't call it "casinowave", on account of them not being shitlords
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Apr 15, 2013 13:05
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TMT have a reputation for some awful journalism, but I love this article about the virtual plaza having comparisons with de Chiricoan dreamscapes.quote:Rather, he is producing a series of radical ruptures in the pop landscape. In pop music, it’s not enough to simply confuse the boundaries between high and low culture, because pop music is always already low culture, by definition. In 2011, it is no longer possible to effect a transvaluation of outmoded musical genres like disco or folk; this has been done to death. Any contemporary pop connoisseur has a few essential disco records in their collection, and it’s no longer subversive to exalt the virtues of a Pentangle album. In order to innovate in the post-music blog world, one must radically challenge fundamental assumptions shared by virtually all pop cognoscenti. This is why Ferraro and many of his contemporaries have chosen to focus on genres that have been generally deemed unfit to even wear the mantle of music: elevator jazz, commercial jingles, New Age relaxation tapes, library records, Windows startup sounds, royalty free MIDI baubles, and cheesy ringtones. The more generic the sounds, the better to disrupt the experience of listening and call into question the medium itself. o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Apr 19, 2013 |
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Apr 19, 2013 20:30
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Thankyou, Lord Krangdar. Dean Blunt's album is something very special. I think Ferraro was hinting at it with his orchestral interludes on COLD, but he missed the mark. This is real poo poo. It's a beautiful album
o.m. 94 fucked around with this message at 02:04 on May 3, 2013 |
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May 3, 2013 01:58
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This thread may die, but we've learned so much
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May 3, 2013 02:00
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Cryptic rumours abound that OPN has signed to Warp and will release an album this year. 2013 year of supremacy
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Jun 18, 2013 17:05
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Europe-only, 50 copy release. Good luck! Boomkat has a good selection of JF, unfortunately not this one. mp3s are pretty much the only option here.
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Jun 19, 2013 09:44
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New OPN record, out on Warp - R PLUS SEVEN https://bleep.com/release/44656-oneohtrix-point-never-r-plus-seven
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Jun 19, 2013 15:39
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the second sneak peek is hilarious. this is going to be a ridiculously abrupt sample-fest. "Sample Gamelan"
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Jun 19, 2013 19:41
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James Ferraro has more amazing moments than you can shake a stick at, that's the beauty of his work. The highs are dizzyingly next level, the lows are really drat low. A price I gladly pay rather than the alternative
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Jun 20, 2013 21:30
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Amazing! What are the three in the last image? I think the second one is a Spencer Clark jam?
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Jun 21, 2013 13:10
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