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Other Music & DigForFire.tv's SXSW Lawn Party
It looks like everything is finally falling into place for our Texas migration, with two big daytime parties Thursday and Friday afternoons on the rolling lawns of the French Legation Museum, hosted by yours truly, Other Music, and our friends and allies at www.digforfire.tv. The events are free, the venue is stunning (and a lovely respite from the madness of downtown Austin), and the lineup is looking pretty fine. Dig For Fire will be filming the performances and the event to be featured on Other Music Digital, and we are hooking up with several of the bands on the road to Austin, for some great behind the scenes looks at what it means to be an indie star circa 2008. Stay tuned for details, but the films will start premiering next weekend, even before the festival, on our website, and great music, interviews and more from Texas will appear quicker than you can say "tongue taco". If you'll be at SXSW 2008, please join us, and if you can't be there (but wish you could), tune in to othermusic.com. There may be some small shifts, but here is the schedule as it stands: THURSDAY, MARCH 13
This Week's Featured Downloads
New single from Taken by Trees, the nom de plume of former Concretes' singer Victoria Bergsman, who also shared the spotlight with Peter Bjorn & John as the guest vocalist on their whistle-fueled smash "Young Folks." No whistling here, however, but her cover of GNR's "Sweet Child o' Mine" turns what may be a guilty pleasure for some, into a lovely, irony-free, folky ballad, Bergman's lovelorn voice backed by the light accompaniment of piano, acoustic guitar and brushed drums. If only Axl and Slash could be so twee! It was one of the highlights at her recent in-store performance -- look for her episode of Live at Other Music which will be premiering on the website in the coming weeks. Also included is the non-album b-side "Above You," which is reminiscent of Mazzy Star, only exchange the paisley guitars with more of a breezy, island vibe. -Gerald Hammill
My friend Rob was telling me about how he'd spent three days bedridden with the flu and that the only music he could stand listening to during that time was this Mountains LP. He said he'd been playing it over and over again, and for various reasons I immediately began to think about Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain, and its main character Hans Castrop, who visits a Swiss sanatorium planning to rest for three weeks but who ultimately prolongs his stay for seven years, during which time he goes for a spell where he plays the phonograph obsessively. Castrop begins to philosophize about the relative nature of time as he succumbs to the slow rhythms of sanatorium life, and I do believe that the debut long player by Mountains would have suited his musings in that remote alpine retreat perfectly. Mountains is a collaboration between Brendon Anderegg and Koen Holtkamp, the label heads behind Apestaartje records and whom you may know from their previous work as Anderegg and Aero respectively. (Koen you may also recognize from time spent on our sales floor.) This work eclipses all of their previous efforts, as it is always gratifying to a listener when artists, as they say, take it to the next level. Through their combined efforts they've succeeded in creating the greatest electronic album I've heard since Fennesz's Endless Summer. Like that particular album, this one reaches beyond the boundaries of its genre. Too many so-called experimental records are simply content to wallow in a self-inflicted ghetto-isation, never bothering to attempt to bridge the gap between what can be listenable and still artistically forward-thinking and compelling. So what we have here is a rare feat indeed, four slowly unfolding tracks that are artfully and meticulously constructed and which use computers and layers of field recordings as well as various and sundry live instruments to provide a palpable humanness. The pace of these recordings allows for an immeasurable grandeur that places it at the forefront of a new new age music, one with impeccable taste and sensitivity devoid of corny Aquarian sentiments and perfectly suited for our time. New age like John Fahey was new age in his time perhaps. Mentioning Fahey is apropos here as his influence can be felt noticeably on the second track which, after some initial celestial ringing tones, moves onto a much more earthy realm with lovely fingerpicked guitar playing that becomes near virtuosic by the end of the song. In this instance, and like in most great art, Mountains makes a nod at the past as it confronts the future. -Michael Klausman
Wechsel Garland also recorded under the Wunder alias several years back (releasing a very lovely, now classic electronic album on Karaoke Kalk), but his real name is Jorg Follert. Unlike the Wunder-work or any other music on Morr for that matter, with his excellent 2000-released debut as Wechsel Garland, Follert forswears ticky beats and samples to concentrate on an expanse of rhythmic melodies. With flute, somewhat kitschy synth, electric piano, and other breathy, bell-like sounds, his patterns work in and out of grooves, mellow and slanted. Like tiny medleys all on their own, his "songs" rest close to the watercolor washes of new-ager Kitaro (only slower, no sweep) or the music for babies by Raymond Scott (but remarkably, edgeless) and even closer to some work from Nobukazu Takemura and Susumu Yokota. Precious and perfect for your local daycare facility. -Robin Edgerton
Though Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum has more or less been in hiding since 1997's monumental In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, he is still considered to be one of the most distinctive songwriters of our generation. This live document gives us a glimpse at the persona making such a resounding work. Recorded in 1997 just before Aeroplane's release, Mangum's voice sticks notes, bleeds empathy and captivates. Live, Mangum's rapt delivery holds the audience in a delicate trance, captured fine and fuzzy by NMH producer (and Apples member) Robert Schneider. The casual atmosphere of Athens' Jittery Joe's coffeeshop leads to banter and requests, girls giggling and babies squealing in time, but nothing that gets too distracting. The set list culls songs from On Avery Island ("Naomi," "Gardenhead") and Aeroplane ("2 Headed Boy pts. 1 and 2" and a resplendent finish in "Oh, Comely"). Twelve tracks in all, including a cover of the Mann/Kolber/Spector-penned "I Love How You Love Me," and two songs I don't think I've heard before. All in all, a well-documented moment in Athens' lengthy musical history. -David Day
Her staggering 1965 debut (recorded by ESP on the recommendation of Albert Ayler) is a deliciously schizophrenic affair. Side 1 features Waters' dusky alto on seven original torch songs, accompanying herself on piano. Rather quirky, yet decidedly Billie Holiday-esque, these would have become standards in an alternate universe. Teenage Fanclub would agree with me, having covered the album's opener "Moon, Don't Come Up Tonight" for a B-side and I'd also like to imagine that Nick Drake had Sings in his collection at one time or another. But nothing could possibly prepare us for Side 2, where Waters is joined by the Burton Greene Trio for one gloriously lengthy improvisation based on the traditional ballad "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair." Patty might as well just start calling herself Tania; something has seriously snapped and the 14 minutes that follow were essentially unprecedented. Waters starts in a smoldering duet with Greene's dissonant piano harp figures, then builds gradually. At six minutes, all hell breaks loose as she starts to shriek and holler with considerable range and technical precision, slashing against the free-jazz eruption from the trio behind her for a further eight minutes of orgiastic bliss. Yoko Ono and Linda Sharrock would soon follow suit, but nobody's ever gone further OUT! -Jeff Gibson
Electronics pioneer and musical adventuress Ms. Oliveros -- over the course of five decades -- has been exploring not the outer reaches of music, but rather the inner ones. She continues to delve into the sounds of meditation, and anyone who's participated in any of her workshops knows she works a certain seriousness and physicality into a practice that could be considered new age flakiness; to her, sound itself is a clarifying catalyst for the mind and the body. Joined here by Tony Conrad, David Grubbs, Anne Bourne, Scott Olson, and Alexandria Gelencser, together they merge stratified stretches of drones wisping off into brain-freeze squeakiness, developing rhythms like breath (especially the bellows and pulses of Oliveros' accordion and Grubbs' harmonium), and never getting dull. This may be her best recording ever (!), the strings, reeds, and electronics scorching a path through the space of a room for 45 minutes. -Robin Edgerton
Stefen Kassel and Frank Jastfelder are the masterminds behind the Get Easy! and Mad, Mad World compilations, the two Lalo Schifrin anthologies, as well as retrospectives of Gary McFarland, Lee Hazlewood and Dusty Springfield. These two music connoisseurs have also compiled this fantastic collection of hard-to-find German beat, soul and soundtrack grooves, complete with a full-color 16-page booklet. Spanning 1966 through 1974, most of these long-forgotten songs have never been released before on CD. Among the 20 nuggets are the highly-sought-after rare groove cut "Why Don't You Play the Organ, Man" by Memphis Black, Marianne Mendt's Kraut-mod classic "Wie a Glock'n...," a swaggering, Farfisa-driven cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" from German film music legend Peter Thomas, and "Marihuana Mantra," a funky Teutonic anthem to the wacky-tobacky by Kuno and the Marihuana Brass. Other highlights include Eugen Thomass' jew's harp-driven "Undergroovin'" (taken from the soundtrack for Hans-Jurgen Syberberg's art-house flick Scarabea), Bill Lawrence's eyebrow-raising sexploitation romp "Pussy Baby," and the German sung hit "Hippie Hippie" from original Ye-Ye girl France Gall. Speaking of the French, Vivi Bach and Dietmar Schonherr's "Molotow Cocktail Party" sounds like a Gainsbourg/Bardot duet; placing words like "anarchists," "fascists" and "capitalists" over a rollicking, orchestrated arrangement, the track is reminiscent of Serge's knack for political satire. If you've been missing those legendary Vampyros Lesbos parties from back in the day, here's your chance to get some go-go dancing started in your own living room. German softcore not included. (The equally groovy Volume 2 of The In-Kraut is also available.) -Gerald Hammill
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