ENO

[maarts]

Dudes, I am inj fucking heaven- Brian Eno's coming to Sydney!

Curating a festival at the Sydney Opera House titled Luminous, God has brought his 77 Million Paintings-installation and intends to give lectures. There will be also gigs from Eno-collaborators like Jon Hassell and Laraaji for this occasion!
Details are here:
luminous.sydneyoperahouse.com/home.htm




Wow, haven't been so excited for a long time!

[Kensterberg]

Congrats Maarts! I know this is going to be a huge event for you. :-)

I saw David Byrne's appearance on the Colbert Report a while back and that's made me really want to pick up their (his and Eno's) latest collaboration.

[maarts]

It's really a nice album but the emphasis is on 'nice'.
It's no My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts Part 2- this is really Byrne's songs wrapped in Eno's production without it getting ambient anywhere. It's fairly lighthearted but qute accomplished too- I wouldn't call it the best thing either musician has done but I've played it many times and got a good feeling hearing it.


Picked up tickets for Jon Hassell, Laraaji and Jon Hopkins! Damn, I'm happy!

[Kensterberg]

Mar 20, 2009 6:58:08 GMT -5 maarts said:

It's really a nice album but the emphasis is on 'nice'.
It's no My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts Part 2- this is really Byrne's songs wrapped in Eno's production without it getting ambient anywhere. It's fairly lighthearted but qute accomplished too- I wouldn't call it the best thing either musician has done but I've played it many times and got a good feeling hearing it.


Picked up tickets for Jon Hassell, Laraaji and Jon Hopkins! Damn, I'm happy!

Byrne's songs wrapped in Eno's production is exactly what I want. I'm going to have to get this.

[Thorngrub]

Maarts! I can't believe you're getting to experience the 77 million paintings exhibit - and you mean to tell us that Eno will be there, and give lectures on it? (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Man I am very envious. Can't wait to hear all about it.

[maarts]

Checked out a bunch of gigs at the Luminous Festival last weekend and had a blast....

I saw Laraaji on Friday...now his connection is through an album on Eno's Ambient-series (number 3) titled Day Of Radiance where he makes his electric zither sing...it's like walking in a warm rainstorm with the clear strings acting as the drops, delightful.
Laraaji himself is playing the mystic onstage and he seems to be interested in the effects of echo- whatever he does is influenced by several effect pedals on a table next to him- the zither is being stroked, hammered and treated with a bow to create some lovely sounds- sometimes he overindulgenced in his effects and loses my concentration on the way...a little more effective planning would help. But when he strikes the zither with two little hammers he entrances like nothing else. The difference with the rest of his performance is, er, striking.



Next day I went to a short play with live-music injected by Eno and Peter Chilvers...Tales Of The Afterlives consists of a reading of twelve short chapters of a book about life after death...it is more a reading by twelve actors with the author amongst them...it is fascinating stuff as the tales themselves veer from the fantastic to the gruesome, the hopeful and the comical...Eno's music is merely wallpaper. Good stukk. The fact that both author and Eno stay behind to sign stuff is even better so I could finally meet the master...

That nights' main performance was by Jon Hassell who played the majority of his latest album Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes In The Street...it's a fairly ambient affair where Hassell's trusty trumpet slowly meanders through the hazy, smoke-filled electronic ambiance created by his three collaborators. It's really a listening-gig as there's hardly any action happening onstage but the offered music is delicious, multilayered like rich cake and still challenges enough of the tastebuds to experience little bouts of discomfort and discharge. It's a brilliant gig. Hassell himself is visibly moved after his first performance down under...a return visit is hopefully planned soon and who knows, the more densely structured and rhythmical material may find a spot in this gig then as well.

Sunday Eno hosted a debate on global warming, a subject close to his heart...the debate which he hosted with the founder/creator of an organisation called Client Earth (James Thornton, a well respected American lawyer who moved to the UK) was held with collaboration of 7 other guests who had a short period to tell something about their involvement in the subject but ultimately formed the backdrop of Eno's theories about the environmental crisis our planet faces...all interesting and provided with an edge when Eno professed to be pro-nuclear energy, something that had sections of the crowd objecting loudly...well, at least I took out some understanding of the dangers facing us and the enormity of the job ahead of everyone to counteracting the worst of the disaster.

Reggie Watts is a comedian/artist who in his short performance uses recording equipment and his irrelevant humour is the antidote for all the seriousness in all previous performances. Check it out:





Then Jon Hopkins- touted as a new electronic wunderkind makes his appearance, together with a mate who adds visual on a big screen...Hopkins' strength is the mix of ambient music and breakbeat/drum 'n bass-rhytms to an intriguing mix...his album Insides is like hearing Harold Budd put into a blender and remixed by Squarepusher. Hopkins onstage is busy adding the electronic dissonants to the ambience pouring out of his Macbook...he's constantly busy that way. The opening half hour in which a lot of the most beautiful tracks off Insides pass by is mesmerizing- notwithstanding that some of the animated visuals are naff and repetitive, the whole leaves a great impression on me. But then he starts to incorporate more big beats and keeps on bopping along with his mate onstage, as the only invitees to a dance party while the audience sits captured in their chairs...all the nuance in the tracks are pummeled away by the big beats and the spectactors are lying battered in their chairs...a little bit of a pity that there wasn't standing room as well.



In amongst that there's the Opera House changing hues and shapes avery 15 minutes or so as mighty big projectors across Circular Quay change its colour and hues...worthwile to sit for hours and see it all happening. It's like the other attraction within the Opera's confines, the video art of 77 Million Paintings where a constant image divvied up in several rectangles changes colours and images on a regular basis- a quite hypnotic affair which is enhanced by Eno's music from Shutov Assembly....the people shuffling to and fro are quite distracting though.

Seeing Pure Scenius next week, should be a beauty.

[maarts]

bump

[RocDoc]

'ambient' has til now been a form of music that has held next to no interest for me.

there have been bits that have broken through but it's been interludes of ambient combined with something that's bit more straightforwardly composed. specifically i'm thinking of the arvo paart thing that jac pointed me toward, with it's shimmering 'tintinnabulation' effect in between the magnificient choral bits.

there was a guy who we saw at the vilnius jazz festival in 2003, billed as the 'juozas milasius power trio' with this guy milasius , being a guitar virtuoso, but choosing to create a 'musical collage' embracing noise, aimless repetitive figures which he or a compatriot at a pc would 'modify' shall we say...in supposedly interesting ways.

and this was right after we had just seen an incredible japanese tenor sax/piano duo, with a legendary russian-lith drummer sitting in.
THEY blew the fucking doors off the russian drama theater playing some truly powerhouse bop...and this milasius comes on.

i was like 'i gotta find a brick, i need to smash this guy's head in!'...i got SO fucking irritated at their approach, probably because i was expecting something completely different out of this 'power trio'...i mean the others we were with thought the guy was wasting everyone's time and were 'ok, let's go have some beers'.

for me, i felt insulted enough to get royally pissed off.

we saw these guys first:
www.vilniusjazz.lt/2003/umezu_satoh_lt.htm

...with that drummer who was not on the bill.

then this joker came on:
www.vilniusjazz.lt/2003/milasius_trio_lt.htm

there must be a 'translate' feature there, but i'm not seeing it, sorry.

_{oh!
english language explanations:
www.zona.lt/zona2/zsite1-11.htm
JUOZAS MILAŠIUS (g, pc)
jazz | experimental
description:
Juozas Milašius combines jazz guitar techniques with electronic sounds & noises. He composes & plays music for movies & theatre, produces & stages audiovisual installations. Milašius performs solo or with Darius Èiuta (pc).
website:
www.milasius.com
music:
fragments from solo album j.m.eile (2002 Milasius/Zona):
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 01 - Prisilietimas.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 02 - Ginklas.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 03 - Pajuskime ritma.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 04 - Salti katinai.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 05 - Svelnumas.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 06 - Meile.mp3
www.milasius.com/sounds/Juozas Milasius - j.m.eile - 07 - Vyno ir roziu laikas.mp3}

'combines jazz guitar technique with...'...no.
he did not 'play'.
hated 'im.
hated.
grrr.

~

aside from my little rant here, i am glad you such a good time, maarts.

[maarts]

Very happy to report the new ENO (together with Jon Hopkins and Leo Abrahams) is really, really good!



Released on the mighty WARP-records, this collaboration came forth of these three performing together last year in Sydney and take some of the industrial roads they traveled to a pleasant, almost soundtrack-like way.

[Thorngrub]

Indeed it is, maarts -- glad you're diggin it. I pre-ordered the hotdamn Limited edition Box set, it arrived last weekend, in all its beautiful, wordless glory. [That's right: no liner notes; no song credits; not even a TRACK LISTING ! *gasp*] Just 2LP 180 gram beauty, and a nice, sturdy 12" gatefold double CD casing - (and an original Eno art print) - - this was SO worth the 65 British Sterling I paid for it.



Eno's new album - all instrumental / electronic / trance / tripwave - - via a collaboration with guest musicians Leo Abrahams and Jon Hopkins. These gentlemen tweak knobs, play guitar, and stroke keyboards in a super-stylin' avante garde mashup of accomplished ambient trance jamming. It's really one piece of music, as far as I'm concerned - an epic singularity that is best taken whole in one piece, swallowed like a pill whose effervescent effects affect you for it's nearly one hour running time.

It begins quietly, with familiar Eno ambience reminescent of his mid-career stuff, ranging from Music For Films III up to about his later 90s album, The Drop. A few tracks in, and things really begin to get interesting. Halfway through this album - -and one of many revelations begin to set in: it's Eno's heaviest album, for one. There are a couple tracks in which the jamming reaches some really intense sequences on the guitar; these guys aren't messin' around, here. Eventually, the melodic narrative settles back down to an easygoing epilogue, merging back into the calm shorelines of a new dawn.

My edition of this album comes without liner notes or song track titles, and maybe this is one reason I haven't really wanted to break the album down into its proper songs. It's just too cohesive an entity for me to even want to bother, with that. I'll have to go online to study the various song titles, but I doubt I'll ever bother. As far as I'm concerned -- this album will forever remain one long jamathon track of post-ambient brilliance. Bravo to Eno, Hopkins, and Abrahams.

[Thorngrub]

These tracks aren't so much stand-alone songs, as they are merely segments of a single piece of music. Cherry picking any of these tracks would be like, I don't know - - listening to only select portions of RUSH's epic suite 2112 - - it would be pointless.

And there is some mad tribal drumming on this - - it's more than just an exciting return to form, for Mr. Eno and company - - this is new ground he is breaking, here.

[maarts]

Image

I'd classify this one under 'interesting' rather than brilliant.
Eno's soundscapes dwell on the ambient but have also flashes of the industrial (Glitch) or squonky jazz (the opening track Bless This Space featuring Leo Abrahams on guitar). It's like hearing an album of variations on Bone Bomb (off Another Day On Earth) with lots of impersonal (mostly female) narrators telling snippets of stories
The only problem I have is that the pieces are so short at times, it's hard to get into the full mood of it proper. For instance the track Multimedia builds up gradually with an almost R&B-handclap rhythm but fades out after 1.50...frustrating as I would have loved to hear more. The best track for me is the longest (over 6 minutes)- The Real that is reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, mostly because of the vocoder used.
Last track Breath Of Crows probably the most strange- it's Eno crooning, trying to sound like Scott Walker before he Tilt-ed on us.....pretty but harmless.
So yeah, one for the headphones for sure.

[Thorngrub]

^ Leanin' more towards "brilliant", myself, on DRUMS BETWEEN THE BELLS.

Dyin' to acquire the Deluxe Set (already out of print!) which has the instrumental-only version of the album, sans the layered vox. They say it sounds very different, without the vox - so much so, that the songs have different titles, on the instrumental version.

Eno really outdid himself when you consider both of these recent albums . . . .

[Thorngrub]

** maarts : Didja notice -? You know when U dl songs to yr Media Player or iTunes, how it designates the GENRE of music (either "metal" or "rock" or "hip-hop", etc) - ?

Check out the GENRE designation for DRUMS BETWEEN THE BELLS. . . . on my Media Player, after ripping it - - I looked and it says OTHER, there. . . .

[Thorngrub]

Hey looky here maarts... I done made me a couple of ENO videos





And this one I made for you maarts ~