DIARY OF A MUSIC-OBSESSED ANTHROPOLOGIST
By Piers Locke
In the urban nightmare that is the BBC’s animated sketch show MONKEY DUST there’s the tragic case of a young man who spends so much time alphabetically-ordering his music collection that he barely even notices his neglected girlfriend leaving him in despair. This is comedy that succeeds through recognition, and represents a condition I vow never to descend to – such skewed priorities! However, I must admit to smirking with pride when my wife affectionately castigates me for being a "music nerd." I typically retort with the dubious claim that this is a very cool kind of nerd-dom, nothing like the pitiful geeks who would be mercilessly persecuted back in the days of the schoolyard.
Piers on his elephant, Sitasma Kali
Indeed, music collecting is an obsession I have been happily cultivating for many years now. In the pre-cyberspace era when music was retailed as packaged artifacts that had to be hunted down with due diligence, I remember with pride the day when my years of devoted patronage at my local independent record store, Scorpion Records, was rewarded with being photographed and displayed on the back wall as a valued customer. My image was there amongst the local cognoscenti, a veritable small-town alumni of the musically-enlightened! The old bearded hippies who ran the place knew how grateful we were that their shop existed to brighten up what was otherwise the cultural wasteland of a non-entity town.
The snobbishness of my comrades and I was such that “pop” music was typically considered a label of denigration, a foul cultural pollution foisted upon us by greedy corporations catering to the lowest common denominator – a world in which shapely, gyrating curves mattered more than musical talent (titillating perhaps as visual stimulus, but hardly worth lending one’s ears to, “video killed the radio star” and all that). Well, I guess I have grown up since then and can only laugh at my juvenile posturing, but the ethos persists. It’s not that I’m trying to be elitist, or that I worry if too many other people also discover “my” music, it’s just that I know most people don’t share the same demented zeal for music as I do. Occasionally it can verge on the unhealthy, but still, it’s far less harmful than many other fixations.
And, of course, now that we have begun to truly exploit the latent possibilities of cyberspace and its attendant digital technologies, there are new, greater opportunities to indulge one’s passion for music. Technological succession has always posed a dilemma for us music nerds. I remember resisting the shift to CDs for years – after all, the accumulation of my vinyl collection had been a labor of love and hard-earned cash that I was not about to sacrifice in a hurry. I had even splashed out on a poncey Rega Planar 2, complete with a thick glass turntable and a minimalist design that meant I had to remove the cumbersome glass disc every time I wanted to change from 33rpm to 45rpm. A switch would have been simpler, but I suppose there was some daft cachet to the unnecessary exertions this design demanded of the listener. In hindsight, I guess I was just the dupe of the snobby Hi-Fi salesman who justified it in his elitist techno-babble. What did he know anyway –all that great sound reproduction equipment being wasted on bland music by DIRE STRAITS!?!
But that was then, and I have moved on considerably since. However, I do fall prey to nostalgic yearnings for music from my vinyl collection which resides in boxes at my parents’ house – m y peripatetic student lifestyle made it far too cumbersome to take with me due to my constant shifts of residence (not to mention prolonged absences abroad conducting anthropological research). The Internet, of course, provides solutions. No, I don’t waste my money on the over-priced facilities of the iTunes store with its frustrating prohibition on music sharing. Instead I re-acquire old favourites like DUB SYNDICATE, AFRICAN HEADCHARGE, FUGAZI, THE POLICE, and EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN either by making cheap purchases from MP3search.ru at which most tunes cost 10 US cents each, or by using P2P file-sharing services like Limewire. And before anyone tuts me for stealing music, breaching copyright and thereby threatening the financial feasibility of working as a recording artist, let me just say – hey I bought this music before, in a previous era, and I’m far too impoverished to buy it again (I’m jobless whilest I complete my PhD thesis, my scholarship has expired, and I’m dependent on my wife to keep a roof over my head and food on the table)! Should I be denied my pleasures on the basis of such a technicality? After all, besides the old vinyl, there’s newly released music I also feel compelled to purchase…
And when it comes to supporting favored artists, what could be more enticing for the music nerd than the innovative use of the net pioneered by the German industrial avant-garde band EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN? If you like this band renowned for using urban detritus to construct novel instruments, then Supporter.Neubauten.org could be for you. After failing to receive even a penny from Some Bizarre, their British record label who distributed many of their 1980s albums, EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN (or simply EN to the cognoscenti) decided to fund album production through a novel approach of supporter subscriptions. By making a financial contribution, I enable EN to operate without the exploitative and interfering fetters of a record label. In exchange for my modest contribution, I get to watch Webcasts of the band at work (archived for me to view at my convenience), participate in their online community and give the band my feedback, receive free additional audio downloads and a copy of the finished album.
I am aware that EN are an acquired taste, for which many of my friends deride me, describing them as ‘cacophonous noise merchants who bash things,’ so for those of alternate persuasions, I must tell you of my two favorite music resources on the net, ideal if used in conjunction. Firstly, there is AllMusic.com, perhaps the most exhaustive encyclopaedic resource available on the net. Type in an artist, an album, a song, and you will find full listings and reviews of work to date, as well as the opportunity to listen to clips. You can even use other search parameters to track down music the precise details of which you may only have the vaguest notion.
More recently, a fellow music fanatic and anthropologist with a penchant for ethnomusicology introduced me to the Music Genome Project. A grand title you might think, and one it pretty much lives up to. This source of wonder resides at Pandora.com, and like Dr Who’s TARDIS, it contains more than even a mythological box could ever conceivably contain, and without any of the negativity Pandora unleashed by her curiosity in opening it. Simply enter a favored song title or artist name, and Pandora will compile a tailor-made list of related music for you to listen to. These personalized “radio stations” can be edited according to your own preferences, so that you can tell Pandora whether she is making good or bad choices. Once registered (and it’s free), you can maintain up to 100 of your own Internet radio stations. Pandora has already introduced me to SHALABI EFFECT ), a group from the Montreal free-improv scene that mixes tabla, oud and electronics to create a kind of experimental space-rock, and also ESMERINE , a kind of post-rock, string chamber quartet, one of many offshoots from the much-celebrated Canadian music anarcho-commune that is GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR.
Next time, in between inflicting my passion for my latest musical discoveries, I will share with you the joys of singing bawdy songs to elephants whilst training them in the jungles of Nepal (they enjoy a good tune)…
PIERS' PASSIONS
UATW!’s Resident Global-Trotting Musicologist Recommends...
LOKAFire Shepherds
Ninja Tunes, 2006Established by turntablist pioneers COLDUCT, the Ninja label has always been at the cutting edge of dance music styles and technology, whether it be the retro, cop-show infused funky hip hop of THE HERBALISER, the quirky and amusing grooves of MR SCRUFF, the scary orchestrations of Amon Tobin, or the cool-jazz soundtrack stylings of THE CINEMATIC ORCHESTRA (who recently re-scored Vertov’s groundbreaking 1927 documentary MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA).
However, in the last couple of years, Ninja has branched out ever further, defying simple categorization by promoting more progressive, cerebral, and less danceable fare. LOKA's long awaited album, following on from the initial taster of My Life's In These Bottles from 2003's FUNGKUNGFUSION compilation, presents us with something like a 21st century version of electric period Miles Davis- somewhere between jazz and rock. If you're bored by the typical and generic, then this could be for you.
$13.99 @ Amazon.com
ESMERINEAurora
Madronna Records, 2006I suppose one might gloss ESMERINE as the ‘chamber quartet’ spin-off from the much celebrated GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR collective, for which the clumsy term of reference 'post-rock' was applied- After all, some kind of short hand to describe their symphonic combination of guitar rock, found sound, and classical strings was needed. Seminal albums like LIFT YR SKINNY FISTS incorporated every one of these components to full effect, but it would seem band members realized each and every component deserved further separate exploration, and there now seems to be a band available for each- FLY PAN AM provide dirty guitar stylings reminiscent of the SONIC YOUTH ethos, SET FIRE TO FLAMES delve deeper into those found sound tape recordings with wonderful collections of resonant clangings set to bizarre vocal ramblings, and finally there is ESMERINE.
AURORA is their second album and like its predecessor, it focuses on the fragile and dramatic beauty that so many listeners found so compelling about the new sounds of GODSPEED (so appropriate to the apocalyptic tenor of the times). True, in tone this music is melancholic at best and potentially depressing at worst, but the minimalist instrumentation of cello, marimba and piano, occasionally given a percussive boost, is absolutely breathtaking, and not without pace where warranted.
Music like this has the power to make fans of purely popular musical genres reconsider their prior self-imposed musical limits- maybe classical can be contemporary and exciting! Maybe music appreciated by your mum need not be condemned as uncool! Cliché that it is, the Canadian scene really is transgressing musical boundaries, collapsing, merging and disregarding orthodoxy to exhilarating effect. Whoever said Canadians were boring is clearly mistaken!
Artist Page
CD $15.98 @ Amazon.com
Shalabi EffectSHALABI EFFECT
Alien8 Recordings, 2000Based around the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Sam Shalabi, this trio are at the heart of Montreal's vibrant free-improv scene, and here debut with a wonderful fusion of Middle-Eastern, Indian, Electronic and Psychedelic Rock sounds, all melded together in a set of explorations spanning two discs, over 130 minutes, and a range of mood, pace and instrumentation.
From fuzz-guitar with histrionic distortionary effects, to tabla, oud and ambient electronica, this is a veritable feast for the aural senses. Subsequent albums pursue differing paths, but are all also worth a thorough listen. SHALABI EFFECT have been a wonderful discovery for me and deserve to find a wider audience.
CD $15.98 @ Amazon.com
Super NumeriThe Welcome Table
Ninja Tunes, 2005Here we have another outfit that exemplify the more progressive side of the Ninja Tunes roster. Like LOKA, they are also part of the resurgent Liverpudlian scene, but unlikely to capture the commercial market of such retro song-smiths as THE ZUTONS. Despite the devoted audience Ninja has developed over the years, the play-it-all collective that is SUPER NUMERI are yet to achieve the recognition they deserve (at least if Limewire searches are any indication, where hits are few and far between).
Handy reference points are hard to come by. If I invoked AMON DUUL I might put prospective listeners off- there is no cloying psychedelic hippie ethic discernible here, but there most certainly is an experimental ethos. Invoking prog-rock might be equally ill-advised, but as with SHALABI EFFECT, if you think of what the term ideally signifies, rather than the hackneyed connotations of a self-indulgent rock that deserved to be destroyed by punk, then it might be of some use.
If LOKA represent the jazzier side of electronic Miles from BITCHES BREW, then perhaps the later electronic Miles of AGHARTA and PANGAEA may give some clue. It may now be obvious that this reviewer is struggling to convey a sense of what SUPER NUMERI sound like, so just check them out for your self!
$13.99 @ Amazon.com
The DaktarisSoul Explosion
Daptone Records, 1998This album was deceitfully marketed as both a forgotten classic and a rediscovered slice of genuine Nigerian afro-beat. Despite actually being the product of a New York collective that would later emerge as the ANTIBALAS AFRO-BEAT ORCHESTRA, it passes muster on both counts. It certainly recalls the deep funky jazz grooves of the legendary FELA KUTI and fellow Afro-Beat pioneer TONY ALLEN, and has surely helped bring about a renewed interest in a genre which distinctively blended JAMES BROWN with the extended improvisational jams of BITCHES BREW era MILES DAVIS. Since then, there has been a plethora of well-deserved re-releases, compilations and tributes to a man of such tremendous energy and such consistent and prolific output.
THE DAKTARIS and their subsequent incarnation as the ANTIBALAS are to be respected not only for enabling a new audience to discover Afro-Beat, but also for their own superb take on a musical movement that deserves to live on. Here we are treated to digestible chunks of funk, but it is no lesser an achievement for that. Subsequent ANTIBALAS releases explore the extended jams which came to define classic Fela. Afro-beat is perhaps the epitome of funk, making music such as this as indispensable as SHAFT-era ISAAC HAYES, SUPERFLY-era CURTIS MAYFIELD, and SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE.
Artist Page
CD $11.98 @ Amazon.com
