- Two albums I’m excited to try out in the next few days:
Guided By Voices – Let’s Go Eat The Factory
I’m a big fan of GBV and this album’s been a long time coming. It hasn’t gotten the best reviews by critics — 74 on Metacritic – but non-critics (“users”) seem to really enjoy it. I tend to listen to both, but formulate my own opinion upon listening to the whole thing. I’m not going to dismiss what someone says just because they’re not a “critic” (which isn’t true, everyone’s a critic), but I’m also not going to treat the critics’ opinions as the Bible of what I should be dabbling in sonically. I’m liking the fact that most of the original members are on this, as oppose to Robert Pollard and a band of random musicians. And the fact that the tone of the album is a step backwards from the more “professional” sounding GBV albums is intriguing. I’m sure it won’t be my favorite Rock record of the past couple years or anything (or of this year), but I’m excited to give it a spin because it’s just getting harder and harder to find GBV’s brand of lo-fi, winding noise we’ve come to know.
DJ Spooky – The Secret Song
I stumbled onto this guy in a very strange way. I was reading Sun Ra‘s bio on AllMusic (which is bizarre and fascinating) and I looked at his “followers” (essentially, who he influenced) on his overview page and there sat DJ Spooky. Now, if you were to go Spooky’s AllMusic overview, you will see that he’s been influenced by a whole slew of artists as random as Sun Ra: Sonic Youth, Public Enemy, David Byrne, King Tubby, Grandmaster Flash, Aphex Twin, Afrika Bambaataa. Anytime any artist has such a wide-ranging net of influences my interest is always piqued. Plus, now that I’ve added turntables to the list of instruments I play I’m always on the lookout for talent in that sense, because it helps me learn and grow. The Secret Song is Spooky’s most recent effort, from 2009, but I am interested in a bunch of his other stuff. Notably, the album Optometry which features his production work and turntablism along side a grab bag of experimental/modern jazz players like Willy Parker.
I’ll be back with opinions next week sometime.
- (Via Warren Ellis‘ site) Legacy of Nuclear Drilling Site In Colorado Still Lingers.
“In 1969, the government detonated a subterranean nuclear bomb to break loose natural gas deposits from tight sandstone formations more than 8,000 feet below ground on a Colorado mountain. The bomb was twice as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945.The scheme worked — to an extent. The gas was unlocked by the blast but was deemed too radioactive for commercial use.Four decades later, energy companies are drilling near the nuclear site as they look to tap Colorado’s lucrative oil and gas reserves. Some local residents say they don’t trust the industry after what happened here and in the Gulf of Mexico during the oil spill. They’re fearful that accidents could pollute the air with radioactive gas if drilling gets much closer.”
“… But not everyone was convinced about the accuracy of Conrad’s recollections. For many of his biographers Conrad’s attempt at an “accurate” autobiography proved a regrettable failure. What began as a “personal record” of his life turned out to be a document that misled those who were eager to penetrate its secrets. He misremembered the names of ships he sailed with and dates of significant events. Like Oscar Wilde, Conrad enjoyed bending facts and creating myths about himself. He even fabricated whole scenes in order to create a dramatic, vivid style which resembled that of his novels. “
