I'd suspected my IF work in progress was too ambitious, but this morning I quantified that. If I pull this off it might actually be okay. If I don't pull it off...
~*~*~
My book tastes have almost no discernible pattern. I'm working on it, sure, but I discover books the way I discover music: by spinning outward from more and more starting points that often don't have much to do with each other. Sure, a lot of my book tastes have to do with my two major formative periods (childhood and age fourteen), but that's not usually how it works. Generally, it's spinning outward. And sometimes it's directly related to music, as it was with Not Wanted On The Voyage.
This, of course, is the name of a Christine Fellows song from Nevertheless, my favorite album of 2007. It was also a Timothy Findley book, a fact which it evidently took me a whole year to discover. This is a problem! Fortunately, we have a great library here which I took advantage of.
Findley's a Canadian author, of a tradition in which I'm embarrassingly underversed - well, un-versed, really. I've read quite a few books by Margaret Atwood but that comes from some other place entirely. I guess it just makes sense, in a way. My favorite albums of 2007 and 2008 were, by coincidence, both Canadian. (2009 will most likely break that trend, though, unless Kristin Hersh decides to move to Canada - which wouldn't be all that surprising actually. She's moved most other places.)
Not Wanted On The Voyage is based on the story of Noah's ark. I know the story, of course; it's one of the most well known Biblical stories and it was included in the copy of Genesis my father kept in his office which I used to read all the time as a kid. (Just Genesis. As a kid I thought that was the whole Bible. I don't remember what translation it was. I think there may have been pictures, though.)
Furthermore, I'd already read a book about Noah's ark: Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle. I read that book a lot, most recently this summer. It held up quite well. (Tangent: I actually read it first, not A Wrinkle in Time or any of the others in the series. Apparently this is unusual.)
So I pictured Japheth as this short, endearing guy who dodders around talking about the Sand and the Den. Shem is married to Elisheba and Japheth to Oholibamah and Ham to Anah and I don't know why a bunch of Victorian-named (or 2008 neo-Victorian-named) people like Hannah and Emma and Lucy have been transported in.
It only took me a couple of pages to lose all of those thoughts.
At first I thought it was going to be a comedy (yes, start cringing now.) The prologue did it, as well as the introductions. There's a great scene near the beginning where Japheth is wandering about, having been ignored by a bunch of folks, and he's naked, bitter and blue. (Literally blue. There's a reason which I won't spoil.) There's a peacock hanging around and in this wonderful theatrical gesture, he pumps a fist in front of him, in anger or a misplaced sense of "See, I really am a Tough Dude!" And the peacock just turns around and walks away, as if to say "Denied." There's so much characterization in so few details.
And then everything goes downhill. The pacing is pretty interesting. You'd expect the coming of God to be a big climactic event, but it's not. It happens pretty close to the beginning. There are about four events, successively more tragic, which are all pretty convincingly played as the Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen, but there's always worse. One of them - I'd say "you'll know which one" but see the previous sentence - literally made me sick to my stomach, which rarely happens for me in books.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the themes. I'm being purposefully vague because I don't want to spoil this - I made the mistake of reading a spoiler and it was rather irritating - but there's a lot being said here about women, and families, and nature, and those who are different.
Oh, hell, SPOILERS after this point.
What struck me in particular was that scene, once everyone's on the ark, where the "factions," if you will, have already split up, and they go down to Mrs. Noyes and family for food. But they call it "going shopping". There's no "And that's terrible." commentary there that I remember. It speaks for itself.
And you'll never listen to the Christine Fellows song the same away again once you know where the lyrics come from, I promise.
~*~*~
I didn't mean for this section to exist until I realized "ambitions" started with A and "books" with B. In order to salvage the untended pun, this filler was brought to you by the letter C. Ta-da.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Monday Music #8 (Helene Horlyck, Nan Vernon, Amelia Brightman)
Genre shift!
I've mentioned Sarah Brightman quite a bit, if not in Monday Music, because she was the single most influential artist on my musical tastes. I discovered her back in 2003 or so and would listen to nobody else for years, slipping back into some primordial formative stage where she was the atmospheric music.
Her producer Frank Peterson was as responsible for this music as she was, but he's hardly the only one doing it. There's a whole genre out there, without a clearly defined name. It's music for epics - well, before Internet memes and Frank Miller movies hijacked the word. Every landscape is a wide meadow before the singer; every love story is a covenant built to last. It acts like it's never heard of irony or anything crude. Sure, the music can be a bit overblown and unrealistic, but the best songs convince you that this is reality and everything else is just getting it wrong. Sometimes it sticks past the song too.
~*~*~
Helene Horlyck is a protege of Jens Gad, whose other projects include Enigma, his own project Achillea (for which Horlyck sang vocals), and The Veronicas (can we play One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others now?)
I'll get this out of the way first: "Service Star" is a terrible title. It sounds like you're talking about a convenience store from a space opera. When you sing "where are you now?" my immediate thought is "Just off the next exit."
That said, musically, it exemplifies the genre. You have the strings at the beginning, the vaguely choral sopranos, and the vocal line, delivered like a missive to a far-off army. Title aside, it never once feels overblown or false. Sure, there are bulkier songs like this, and lighter ones, but sometimes you don't really need extremes.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Nan Vernon, in all likelihood, never worked with Frank Peterson. She worked with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. But this isn't Platinum Weird stuff at all. (tangent: Kara, be awesome again, please!). Her music completely belongs to the genre. Well, almost. It's a bit more towards ecto.
Nan is old enough relative to the Internet that information about her is relatively difficult to find. The MySpace link I'll provide is an unofficial fansite. I would have killed to know about her a few years ago, but I didn't discover her until a couple days ago, in a War Against Silence review.
Manta Ray's US release was on EastWest Records, as was Sarah Brightman's Fly. I'm not going to extrapolate this next observation to every artist there - that would be stupid and likely wrong - but visually, at least, she fits their type. Observe:
http://home.global.co.za/~jvd/princessa/calling_f.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/SarahBrightman_FlyAlbum.jpg
http://i43.tower.com/images/mm106699059/manta-ray-nan-vernon-cassette-cover-art.jpg
Short dark hair, pale-ish skin, posed to appear tough, or cool, or cool-and-tough. The musical style's similar, too. Hers is more singer-songwriter-artist than trobairitz-maiden-in-white-dress-bathed-in-light, if that makes any sense to anyone but me.
To add another artist into the mix - for that extra dose of scattershot - "Elvis Waits" sounds to me like what would happen if Frank Peterson started working with Schiller a decade earlier. The piano part is a few rhythmic skips away from what would eventually appear on "The Smile," but the percussion is all Dive, with a little bit of Fly thrown in (more so on her other songs than here.)
Sarah Brightman wouldn't generally allude to Elvis, though ("I Loved You" aside), nor would she sing like this. Nan Vernon's voice is classical-ish at some points, but owes more to Tori Amos. Pasting a Tori performance over the Sisters of Oz wouldn't be far off. And maybe if I found her then that would be my path to Ecto, rather than through Stina and Kate. I have her music now, though.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Of course, this style has its limitations. On the spectrum, it falls less towards "sung, played, written, produced all by herself" and more towards "Ethereal Female Vocalist brought in to float above this dude's lyrics and maybe she'll get a solo album if she's lucky." I won't rant about the latter any more than I already have. Right now I don't need to.
As I've written before, I've been waiting for Violet's solo album since at least 2003. Apparently she's been waiting even longer. But now, six years later, we've got snippets of her (other) solo album. This has happened before with Nemo, of course, but somehow this seems a lot more promising.
What's remarkable about these tracks is how fully she's purged this style from her music. It's most apparent in "Wasted Life," but you can hear it everywhere else. It's modern. It's got some expeirments happening. She's got a style emerging. And that's wonderful.
Listen here.
I've mentioned Sarah Brightman quite a bit, if not in Monday Music, because she was the single most influential artist on my musical tastes. I discovered her back in 2003 or so and would listen to nobody else for years, slipping back into some primordial formative stage where she was the atmospheric music.
Her producer Frank Peterson was as responsible for this music as she was, but he's hardly the only one doing it. There's a whole genre out there, without a clearly defined name. It's music for epics - well, before Internet memes and Frank Miller movies hijacked the word. Every landscape is a wide meadow before the singer; every love story is a covenant built to last. It acts like it's never heard of irony or anything crude. Sure, the music can be a bit overblown and unrealistic, but the best songs convince you that this is reality and everything else is just getting it wrong. Sometimes it sticks past the song too.
~*~*~
Helene Horlyck is a protege of Jens Gad, whose other projects include Enigma, his own project Achillea (for which Horlyck sang vocals), and The Veronicas (can we play One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others now?)
I'll get this out of the way first: "Service Star" is a terrible title. It sounds like you're talking about a convenience store from a space opera. When you sing "where are you now?" my immediate thought is "Just off the next exit."
That said, musically, it exemplifies the genre. You have the strings at the beginning, the vaguely choral sopranos, and the vocal line, delivered like a missive to a far-off army. Title aside, it never once feels overblown or false. Sure, there are bulkier songs like this, and lighter ones, but sometimes you don't really need extremes.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Nan Vernon, in all likelihood, never worked with Frank Peterson. She worked with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. But this isn't Platinum Weird stuff at all. (tangent: Kara, be awesome again, please!). Her music completely belongs to the genre. Well, almost. It's a bit more towards ecto.
Nan is old enough relative to the Internet that information about her is relatively difficult to find. The MySpace link I'll provide is an unofficial fansite. I would have killed to know about her a few years ago, but I didn't discover her until a couple days ago, in a War Against Silence review.
Manta Ray's US release was on EastWest Records, as was Sarah Brightman's Fly. I'm not going to extrapolate this next observation to every artist there - that would be stupid and likely wrong - but visually, at least, she fits their type. Observe:
http://home.global.co.za/~jvd/princessa/calling_f.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/af/SarahBrightman_FlyAlbum.jpg
http://i43.tower.com/images/mm106699059/manta-ray-nan-vernon-cassette-cover-art.jpg
Short dark hair, pale-ish skin, posed to appear tough, or cool, or cool-and-tough. The musical style's similar, too. Hers is more singer-songwriter-artist than trobairitz-maiden-in-white-dress-bathed-in-light, if that makes any sense to anyone but me.
To add another artist into the mix - for that extra dose of scattershot - "Elvis Waits" sounds to me like what would happen if Frank Peterson started working with Schiller a decade earlier. The piano part is a few rhythmic skips away from what would eventually appear on "The Smile," but the percussion is all Dive, with a little bit of Fly thrown in (more so on her other songs than here.)
Sarah Brightman wouldn't generally allude to Elvis, though ("I Loved You" aside), nor would she sing like this. Nan Vernon's voice is classical-ish at some points, but owes more to Tori Amos. Pasting a Tori performance over the Sisters of Oz wouldn't be far off. And maybe if I found her then that would be my path to Ecto, rather than through Stina and Kate. I have her music now, though.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Of course, this style has its limitations. On the spectrum, it falls less towards "sung, played, written, produced all by herself" and more towards "Ethereal Female Vocalist brought in to float above this dude's lyrics and maybe she'll get a solo album if she's lucky." I won't rant about the latter any more than I already have. Right now I don't need to.
As I've written before, I've been waiting for Violet's solo album since at least 2003. Apparently she's been waiting even longer. But now, six years later, we've got snippets of her (other) solo album. This has happened before with Nemo, of course, but somehow this seems a lot more promising.
What's remarkable about these tracks is how fully she's purged this style from her music. It's most apparent in "Wasted Life," but you can hear it everywhere else. It's modern. It's got some expeirments happening. She's got a style emerging. And that's wonderful.
Listen here.
Read more...
Monday, February 16, 2009
Monday Music #7 (Margaret Healy, Cortney Tidwell, Kristin Hersh)
It's been months and I have yet to finish reconstructing my music wiki. I convince myself that an artist page a day (with many days skipped) is a good rate, but it really isn't, considering how much I have to go. If Referata decides to meet the same fate as the late, lamented ScribbleWiki, I have no idea what I'll do.
The real downside here is that I lost my To Buy List. I thought it was such a great idea to take it off the WordPad file on my computer and put it online. Whoops. I'm reconstructing that too. And a lot of it, lately, involves revisiting old friends who have, it turns out, been up to a lot. These are nice discoveries.
~*~*~
Margaret Healy released an album, ...and you are, a few years ago, which I can only assume is excellent. I've been looking for it for years, however, and have yet to run across any copies. The Internet has failed me. Maybe in Ireland things are different.
What's a bit easier to find is "Something Real," which was up on her Myspace for a short time. It's one of the most gorgeous songs I have. Musically it's more acoustic/electronic blend beauty (I need a better word for that, because it makes up most of what I love these days.) The lyrics are fairly blunt - anything with "smoking shit" would have to be - but the music's as wistful as anything Sarah Brightman or Loreena McKennitt has ever recorded. There's even a request for a grand declaration of love, right there at the end, but it's only flowery for a second. The declaration turns out to be "Are you okay?" That's perfect in every possible way.
I hadn't paid attention except for trying to find that old album, but maybe I'm in luck; she's got a new one coming out in April called Girls, Boys and Clockwork Toys.
"Tick Tock" could be the same speaker, but the sound is... different. There's nothing wistful about the music; it's all been replaced with deranged-carnival ebullience. The speaker's whole world has been quite thoroughly upended, but instead of anything remotely mournful, you've got topsy-turvy strings, a bouncy xylophone, and cymbals, all in major. It's practically vaudeville, and it's well worth a listen.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Cortney Tidwell also has a new album coming out. She's American, so it was considerably easier for me to find her debut. I haven't listened to it nearly as much lately, which is a shame, because it's beautiful. It's music for walking down the sidewalk or looking out the window and watching the lawns become secret gardens for a minute or two.
The only thing about her album was that towards the end, the songs tended to flow together. Some of this might be due to my neglect. I'm not sure. Fortunately, "Palace," from her upcoming album Son and Moon, doesn't seem to be one of those. The opening is nice enough - almost a cappella, background vocals circling each other - but towards the middle, everything expands. (If you've heard "Eyes are at the Billions" from her debut, it's the same idea.) There's plenty of turbulence going on, but it's all at a distance. The foreground's lovely, fuzzy haze. It fills rooms. I'm interested to see how the full album extrapolates from it.
Listen here.
~*~*~
I've only done two artists for Monday Music for the past few weeks. This isn't a hard and fast rule by any means. For instance, if Kristin Hersh releases a new song, I'm likely to break it.
"Gin" is up on her CASH Music page. It's not part of Speedbath, technically, and I can understand why - on the one hand, it sounds enough like the natural progression from "Rubidoux"; on the other hand, it's not nearly as harrowing. but Kristin mentioned she wants Throwing Muses to record it. It's certainly got enough twists for it.
CASH Music, incidentally, officially launched the other day. I'm excited. You should be too.
Listen here.
The real downside here is that I lost my To Buy List. I thought it was such a great idea to take it off the WordPad file on my computer and put it online. Whoops. I'm reconstructing that too. And a lot of it, lately, involves revisiting old friends who have, it turns out, been up to a lot. These are nice discoveries.
~*~*~
Margaret Healy released an album, ...and you are, a few years ago, which I can only assume is excellent. I've been looking for it for years, however, and have yet to run across any copies. The Internet has failed me. Maybe in Ireland things are different.
What's a bit easier to find is "Something Real," which was up on her Myspace for a short time. It's one of the most gorgeous songs I have. Musically it's more acoustic/electronic blend beauty (I need a better word for that, because it makes up most of what I love these days.) The lyrics are fairly blunt - anything with "smoking shit" would have to be - but the music's as wistful as anything Sarah Brightman or Loreena McKennitt has ever recorded. There's even a request for a grand declaration of love, right there at the end, but it's only flowery for a second. The declaration turns out to be "Are you okay?" That's perfect in every possible way.
I hadn't paid attention except for trying to find that old album, but maybe I'm in luck; she's got a new one coming out in April called Girls, Boys and Clockwork Toys.
"Tick Tock" could be the same speaker, but the sound is... different. There's nothing wistful about the music; it's all been replaced with deranged-carnival ebullience. The speaker's whole world has been quite thoroughly upended, but instead of anything remotely mournful, you've got topsy-turvy strings, a bouncy xylophone, and cymbals, all in major. It's practically vaudeville, and it's well worth a listen.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Cortney Tidwell also has a new album coming out. She's American, so it was considerably easier for me to find her debut. I haven't listened to it nearly as much lately, which is a shame, because it's beautiful. It's music for walking down the sidewalk or looking out the window and watching the lawns become secret gardens for a minute or two.
The only thing about her album was that towards the end, the songs tended to flow together. Some of this might be due to my neglect. I'm not sure. Fortunately, "Palace," from her upcoming album Son and Moon, doesn't seem to be one of those. The opening is nice enough - almost a cappella, background vocals circling each other - but towards the middle, everything expands. (If you've heard "Eyes are at the Billions" from her debut, it's the same idea.) There's plenty of turbulence going on, but it's all at a distance. The foreground's lovely, fuzzy haze. It fills rooms. I'm interested to see how the full album extrapolates from it.
Listen here.
~*~*~
I've only done two artists for Monday Music for the past few weeks. This isn't a hard and fast rule by any means. For instance, if Kristin Hersh releases a new song, I'm likely to break it.
"Gin" is up on her CASH Music page. It's not part of Speedbath, technically, and I can understand why - on the one hand, it sounds enough like the natural progression from "Rubidoux"; on the other hand, it's not nearly as harrowing. but Kristin mentioned she wants Throwing Muses to record it. It's certainly got enough twists for it.
CASH Music, incidentally, officially launched the other day. I'm excited. You should be too.
Listen here.
Read more...
Sunday, February 15, 2009
February 15, 2009: Assorted thoughts
Following up on Monday Music now!
Cilhili's album is out, apparently, and she's got a few new songs up. First is "Happy Without the Boy." The lyrics here are the main focus. Frankly, they terrify me. Part of me thinks they're implausible - would someone who throws parties by herself really accumulate this many rumors? - but part of me suspects they're all too true.
The other is "Looking for Attention," an anthem of sorts. Everything's bare-bones; really, it's vocals (and then a chorus of them) and handclaps. Thematically it's similar to the last song, but it's a theme I can get behind. People could do a whole lot worse than to be one of Cecilia Nordlund's characters.
~*~*~
On Friday night I watched Dollhouse, figuring that if I liked Firefly I might as well watch this. Not to mention the whole time-slot-of-death aspect.
How disappointing. I was iffy on the premise and this didn't do much to improve my opinion. It's a pilot, but still. A few notes:
- Cool it with the damn fanservice. Just...cool it. If you want to give Echo the personality of a generic party girl, fine, but that doesn't mean you have to thrust the camera up her legs every five seconds. Not even going to touch the ads. I'm not sure how much is Fox and how much is truly intended, but it's seriously clouding the message.
- I eagerly await Adelle's acquisition of a personality that is neither "ice queen" or "ice queen - but wait, she secretly has a heart!"
- Being aware that you're using stereotypes doesn't fully excuse you from using them. Every personality that goes into Echo's brain is a stereotype, but even so, it still comes off as a MTV show wedged up against an episode of CSI (complete with the little girl who gets kidnapped!). Not everyone is an Active, after all. They don't get excuses.
~*~*~
Read two more books. It's going slower than I thought. Some initial scattershot thoughts:
The Changeling - Joy Williams: Beautiful language. Dense. I need to go back and reread the last chapter instead of letting it wash over me and whiz by me. It's pure un-narrated sense, that's what it is; dipping into the pool of images for one glorious stretch.
Ibid - Mark Dunn: Not as good as Ella Minnow Pea but enjoyable in its own way. Plenty of historical jokes and such. I suspect it'll be good for spot reading in the future.
Next up are Little, Big by John Crowley and Not Wanted On The Voyage by Timothy Findley. I can't remember how the first made it onto my Amazon wish list - it's about fairies, which is good enough for me - but the second gave a title to a track off Christine Fellow's Nevertheless, which is enough recommendation. The first page was excellent, for what it's worth. (I cheated and read it out of order.)
Cilhili's album is out, apparently, and she's got a few new songs up. First is "Happy Without the Boy." The lyrics here are the main focus. Frankly, they terrify me. Part of me thinks they're implausible - would someone who throws parties by herself really accumulate this many rumors? - but part of me suspects they're all too true.
The other is "Looking for Attention," an anthem of sorts. Everything's bare-bones; really, it's vocals (and then a chorus of them) and handclaps. Thematically it's similar to the last song, but it's a theme I can get behind. People could do a whole lot worse than to be one of Cecilia Nordlund's characters.
~*~*~
On Friday night I watched Dollhouse, figuring that if I liked Firefly I might as well watch this. Not to mention the whole time-slot-of-death aspect.
How disappointing. I was iffy on the premise and this didn't do much to improve my opinion. It's a pilot, but still. A few notes:
- Cool it with the damn fanservice. Just...cool it. If you want to give Echo the personality of a generic party girl, fine, but that doesn't mean you have to thrust the camera up her legs every five seconds. Not even going to touch the ads. I'm not sure how much is Fox and how much is truly intended, but it's seriously clouding the message.
- I eagerly await Adelle's acquisition of a personality that is neither "ice queen" or "ice queen - but wait, she secretly has a heart!"
- Being aware that you're using stereotypes doesn't fully excuse you from using them. Every personality that goes into Echo's brain is a stereotype, but even so, it still comes off as a MTV show wedged up against an episode of CSI (complete with the little girl who gets kidnapped!). Not everyone is an Active, after all. They don't get excuses.
~*~*~
Read two more books. It's going slower than I thought. Some initial scattershot thoughts:
The Changeling - Joy Williams: Beautiful language. Dense. I need to go back and reread the last chapter instead of letting it wash over me and whiz by me. It's pure un-narrated sense, that's what it is; dipping into the pool of images for one glorious stretch.
Ibid - Mark Dunn: Not as good as Ella Minnow Pea but enjoyable in its own way. Plenty of historical jokes and such. I suspect it'll be good for spot reading in the future.
Next up are Little, Big by John Crowley and Not Wanted On The Voyage by Timothy Findley. I can't remember how the first made it onto my Amazon wish list - it's about fairies, which is good enough for me - but the second gave a title to a track off Christine Fellow's Nevertheless, which is enough recommendation. The first page was excellent, for what it's worth. (I cheated and read it out of order.)
Read more...
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
February 11, 2009: Help me track down a dastardly association
I'm tossing this plea out into the Internet ether...
I associate certain melodies with certain meters. I can't help it. I'll be reading some blank verse and all of a sudden the Blank Verse Melody will lodge itself into my brain and throw me off for a few seconds. I don't know where it started or came from. Undoubtedly I heard something in my childhood and it just stuck. It'd have to be something from childhood because they're simple melodies which always come back to the home tone and such. Nevertheless, I have no idea *what* they are.
It's bugged me for years. So here they are, solfege included:
IAMBIC PENTAMETER:
Do so so so do re do re mi do
Do so so so do re do re mi do
(repeat until end of sonnet or verse or speech)
LIMERICK (this one even has optional elaboration! eeeagh why do I do this to myself)
So do do do do re me do (so la do)
so do do do do ti do re (ti la so)
so ti ti ti ti
so ti ti ti ti
la so so so so la ti do (mi re re do ti do)
Anyone got anything?
I associate certain melodies with certain meters. I can't help it. I'll be reading some blank verse and all of a sudden the Blank Verse Melody will lodge itself into my brain and throw me off for a few seconds. I don't know where it started or came from. Undoubtedly I heard something in my childhood and it just stuck. It'd have to be something from childhood because they're simple melodies which always come back to the home tone and such. Nevertheless, I have no idea *what* they are.
It's bugged me for years. So here they are, solfege included:
IAMBIC PENTAMETER:
Do so so so do re do re mi do
Do so so so do re do re mi do
(repeat until end of sonnet or verse or speech)
LIMERICK (this one even has optional elaboration! eeeagh why do I do this to myself)
So do do do do re me do (so la do)
so do do do do ti do re (ti la so)
so ti ti ti ti
so ti ti ti ti
la so so so so la ti do (mi re re do ti do)
Anyone got anything?
Read more...
Monday, February 9, 2009
Monday Music #6 (Chloe March, Kristeen Young)
If you ever want to piss me off -- let's say I'm going to take a fabulous acting role, and I must be ANGRY! -- say or imply that female singer-songwriters all sound the same. I don't even know where to begin with this one. Nobody should be saying this. It's lack of research at best and bigotry at worst.
So here I have some counterexamples, from opposite sides of a spectrum -- quiet and loud, peaceful and energetic, adjectives and adjectives. They're imprecise adjectives, and they oversimplify things, but they're sketches.
(Note, too, that these aren't opposite ends. I wouldn't even know
~*~*~
Chloe March's album Divining has been mentioned a number of times on ecto. It's as lovely as they say. It's almost a score without a film. There's a sense of place, earnest and immersive. And what's truly remarkable is that it's not at all the samey new-age-compilation that the song titles might suggest. Listening to it is interesting. There are things to discover. There are ways to become lost.
Take "Soft Rain." There's more tumult here than you might expect from the title: a pitter-patter of a drum part, a backdrop more propulsive than droning. And there are quiet moments, too, when it dies down so the piano can plink out the raindrops. The song demands a window and a spring shower, but even the latter's not necessary. It'll provide one.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Maybe you don't like listening to songs about soft spring rain, though. Maybe you like your rain in torrents and accompanied by lightning. Or maybe you don't generally speak in nature metaphors.
The two artists are good in entirely different ways. The same instruments are involved, but if Chloe March's piano is a rain shower, Kristeen Young's is like a mallet. Her drums are more inclined to thunder than to drizzle. Chloe's voice is part of the soundscape: sometimes muted, sometimes harmonized, sometimes in polyphony. Kristeen has two voices: a standard rock voice, and then something that sounds like what would happen if the Ethereal Female Vocalist from insert-your-electronic-project-here grabbed a flamethrower and started a riot.
Or take the lyrics. Chloe's titles are about rain, spring, and Anne Boleyn. They're spun from fairy tales and fantasy. Kristeen Young's titles are more along the lines of Music for Strippers, Hookers and the Odd On-Looker. The big single from her last album called for the grisly deaths of about a dozen classic rock legends ("Push Prince off his heels.... Strangle Bowie with his neckerchief.... Punch holes in the Beatles' yellow boat....")
And then there's "The Depression Contest." Musically, it's more raucous than anything off The Orphans, which until now I didn't really think possible. If you play this at a volume below, oh, 25, you're missing the point entirely. This is loud music and should be played loud.
Listen here.
So here I have some counterexamples, from opposite sides of a spectrum -- quiet and loud, peaceful and energetic, adjectives and adjectives. They're imprecise adjectives, and they oversimplify things, but they're sketches.
(Note, too, that these aren't opposite ends. I wouldn't even know
~*~*~
Chloe March's album Divining has been mentioned a number of times on ecto. It's as lovely as they say. It's almost a score without a film. There's a sense of place, earnest and immersive. And what's truly remarkable is that it's not at all the samey new-age-compilation that the song titles might suggest. Listening to it is interesting. There are things to discover. There are ways to become lost.
Take "Soft Rain." There's more tumult here than you might expect from the title: a pitter-patter of a drum part, a backdrop more propulsive than droning. And there are quiet moments, too, when it dies down so the piano can plink out the raindrops. The song demands a window and a spring shower, but even the latter's not necessary. It'll provide one.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Maybe you don't like listening to songs about soft spring rain, though. Maybe you like your rain in torrents and accompanied by lightning. Or maybe you don't generally speak in nature metaphors.
The two artists are good in entirely different ways. The same instruments are involved, but if Chloe March's piano is a rain shower, Kristeen Young's is like a mallet. Her drums are more inclined to thunder than to drizzle. Chloe's voice is part of the soundscape: sometimes muted, sometimes harmonized, sometimes in polyphony. Kristeen has two voices: a standard rock voice, and then something that sounds like what would happen if the Ethereal Female Vocalist from insert-your-electronic-project-here grabbed a flamethrower and started a riot.
Or take the lyrics. Chloe's titles are about rain, spring, and Anne Boleyn. They're spun from fairy tales and fantasy. Kristeen Young's titles are more along the lines of Music for Strippers, Hookers and the Odd On-Looker. The big single from her last album called for the grisly deaths of about a dozen classic rock legends ("Push Prince off his heels.... Strangle Bowie with his neckerchief.... Punch holes in the Beatles' yellow boat....")
And then there's "The Depression Contest." Musically, it's more raucous than anything off The Orphans, which until now I didn't really think possible. If you play this at a volume below, oh, 25, you're missing the point entirely. This is loud music and should be played loud.
Listen here.
Read more...
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Coraline, the IF Heroine?
'Yes,' she said. 'I think I like this game. But what kind of game shall it be? A riddle game? A test of knowledge or of skill?'
'An exploring game,' suggested Coraline. 'A finding-things game.'
Tomorrow the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novella Coraline will be released. If reviews are any indication, it should be quite good. But the adaptation I really want to see is an IF work.
(Major book spoilers below.)
Adapting books to IF is tricky. It's been done before, of course - Douglas Adams' adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is particularly well-known - but presents some problems. Most obviously, books have static narratives. Things happen in an order. Flashbacks, parallel plots, and other devices can mess with this order, but the reader generally doesn't.
In IF, however, the reader or player can do all sorts of things to derail the narrative. He or she can wait around for 100 turns, or ask the same questions of characters over and over, or do other things that don't advance the plot. This leaves an implementor with a lot to fill in. If the author's involved (as Adams was) this task is significantly easier, but that isn't always the case.
The point of Coraline's beginning is to get her beyond the door into the mirror world. Everything she does and everything she sees is tilted toward this goal. It's all flat, all boring - not boring to read, mind you. There's always a hint of something more. Everything returns to that door Coraline isn't to open.
Of course, she does, and nothing is boring anymore. There are so many wonderful toys to play with, sights to see, and grounds to explore. Indeed, the middle of the book is an "exploring game" - as Coraline states in the quote above. This exploration takes the form of a treasure hunt. Some people pooh-pooh treasure hunts as cliches, but there's a reason why they're used so much. A treasure hunt forces the player to examine everything, think about his or her surroundings - in short, to engage with the story. It's also convenient for authors identifying with the PC, since both have the same basic goal: finding what needs to be found.
Of course, it's boring to treasure hunt in a world that doesn't reward it. Looking for a needle in a haystack is boring not only because of the enormity of the task but because of the unrelenting sameness of it. Who wants to dig through endless straw? Similarly, who wants to look for anything in a world full of underimplemented objects, lackadaisical descriptions, and default parser messages everywhere you turn? Part of the reason people hate dorm and office games is because, for all the specificity authors often claim about their experiences, too many of them seem to implement the same guy in the chair at the same desk in the same cubicle, drinking the same cheap coffee and avoiding the same pointy-haired boss.
Thankfully, Coraline's world rewards exploration in spades. Everything is weird and fantastic and richly detailed and something you just want to gape at and touch and pick up and play with forever. That's why it's so alluring. That's why it's so disappointing when things are not as perfect as they seem.
Who created all this rich and wonderful detail? Gaiman, yes, but in the story? Pretty much everything is the handiwork of Coraline's "other mother." She designed every object, every room, every trap. Sound familiar? It probably does! She's an implementor. An evil implementor, yes, but that's beside the point. Now, anyone who's ever implemented IF knows how much effort it takes. And even if you do put the effort in, your implementation is always going to be incomplete. Your little world has abrupt boundaries, like some ancient idea of the world's edges. Descriptions get fuzzy. Extraneous details are shadowy. Someone living in this implemented world would notice things going awry fairly quickly.
A particularly apt illustration of her implementation is in one scene where Coraline attempts to run away into the forest. Her other mother hasn't implemented this part of the world; it isn't important. As she gets further and further away, therefore, the trees become more stylized, less earthy, less detailed, and more like sketches of trees, then the vague ideas of trees, until she finally learns what's going on. When reading this section, I was reminded of Paul O'Brian's "Wearing the Claw." In his work, you can flee the village for the forest at the very beginning, but it's pointless; you discover nothing new and a lot of repetition. (Oh, and there's the tiny detail that it will make you lose.)
There are plenty of other analogies. Early on, Coraline encounters the counterparts of Miss Forcible and Miss Spink. In the real world, they were former actresses, reminiscing about their days on the stage; in the mirror world, they are on stage forever, locked into a never-ending performance. A magic trick here, a quotation there. For me, this was one of the most disturbing scenes. Their greatest dream becomes their endless task.
But isn't this the plight of the NPC? The underimplemented NPC, that is. They stand in the same room, doing the same things every minute - and that's only if they're lucky enough to get an every-turn rule. They can't move or leave. They have no agency. This is how Coraline's other mother designed them. They're not important to her. They're set pieces. They have no real identity as people. And that is terrifying.
By the end of the book, it is well established that Coraline's other mother is evil, but the potency of her arguments is undeniable:
"Stay here with us...Your other mother will build whole worlds for you to explore, and tear them down every night when you are done.... Remember the toy box? How much better would a world be built just like that, and all for you?"
A lot better, if you ask me. There's a bit of a problem here - namely, how can you create an IF adaptation that implies the form is bad? It's telling, though, that the very last words of the novel describe Coraline's conjuring up a dream she had: a tea party with the children she rescued from the mirror world. Dream recall generally isn't like this, and besides, she's still awake. What she's doing is recreating her own world, and a wonderful one. It isn't a substitute, a "bad copy" of the real world, or an elaborate trap. It makes her smile. And she'll have that world of hers, I imagine, for quite some time.
I think an adaptation could be done, and it could be great. There's no way Neil Gaiman's ever going to read this. But, just in case - it can be done, and it can be beautiful.
Read more...
Monday, February 2, 2009
February 2, 2009: Assorted miscellany
Here's an addendum to today's Monday Music. I mention it here because it's a complete 180 from noir or soundscapes. Still great, though.
I found out today that Google had deceived me (horrors! and after the every-site-is-harmful debacle, too!) and the songless* Bullet & Snowfox site isn't the real one. Or maybe it is. I don't know. But there's another one, with the full versions of the songs on their webisode.
If I didn't officially crown them the spiritual successors to Shut Up Stella, I'm doing it now. I cannot listen to "Little Liar" without getting out of my chair, dancing, jumping around, and looking pretty ridiculous. (Good thing I'm writing this from home and not in the coffee shop!) Considering I've been in the funk of all funks lately, this is quite the accomplishment.
* It's not technically songless anymore. It's got "Get Into Heaven" on it now. I am confused.
---
- I apparently used the tag "lieature" somewhere on this blog. This irritates me just enough to mention, but not enough to go fix.
- I'm in the middle of watching The 10th Kingdom (I finished the first disc of the 3-disc set the other day). I really like it so far, even if certain characters, given a choice, always do the dumbest possible thing. I'm looking at you, Tony.
- A bit disappointed that Wikipedia came down on its blueful node. I mean, I saw it coming as soon as I got to it in the first place, but still. At least it didn't get vandalized.
I still need to resist the urge to keep poking around chapter 1 of Blue Lacuna. It didn't help that the game called me a newcomer for poking too little. As a story/puzzle sorter, it's spot-on, but as a newcomer/expert sorter, it doesn't work. It called Emily Short a newcomer, enough said.
Newcomer or not, I'm amazed at the sheer depth of implementation I'm uncovering. The writing's not bad either. I'll have more coherent thoughts when I see more of it.
I found out today that Google had deceived me (horrors! and after the every-site-is-harmful debacle, too!) and the songless* Bullet & Snowfox site isn't the real one. Or maybe it is. I don't know. But there's another one, with the full versions of the songs on their webisode.
If I didn't officially crown them the spiritual successors to Shut Up Stella, I'm doing it now. I cannot listen to "Little Liar" without getting out of my chair, dancing, jumping around, and looking pretty ridiculous. (Good thing I'm writing this from home and not in the coffee shop!) Considering I've been in the funk of all funks lately, this is quite the accomplishment.
* It's not technically songless anymore. It's got "Get Into Heaven" on it now. I am confused.
---
- I apparently used the tag "lieature" somewhere on this blog. This irritates me just enough to mention, but not enough to go fix.
- I'm in the middle of watching The 10th Kingdom (I finished the first disc of the 3-disc set the other day). I really like it so far, even if certain characters, given a choice, always do the dumbest possible thing. I'm looking at you, Tony.
- A bit disappointed that Wikipedia came down on its blueful node. I mean, I saw it coming as soon as I got to it in the first place, but still. At least it didn't get vandalized.
I still need to resist the urge to keep poking around chapter 1 of Blue Lacuna. It didn't help that the game called me a newcomer for poking too little. As a story/puzzle sorter, it's spot-on, but as a newcomer/expert sorter, it doesn't work. It called Emily Short a newcomer, enough said.
Newcomer or not, I'm amazed at the sheer depth of implementation I'm uncovering. The writing's not bad either. I'll have more coherent thoughts when I see more of it.
Read more...
Monday Music #5 (Rebecca Collins, Miriam Ingram)
I don't have nearly a large enough sample size to make this statistically meaningful, but my music collection contains a disproportionate amount of Irish artists. A lot of this is probably due to how I look for new music. Mailing lists are great, as are Amazon recommendations and Pandora and such, but more and more, I'm using Myspace friends lists. There's a great deal of self-promotion with friending, but it's self-correcting; if an artist you love lists someone near the top, that's a good indicator that you'll love him or her too.
Last week, I ordered Julie Feeney's debut, which had been sitting in my CD Baby wishlist for quite some time. (It's very much recommended too, but not new to me.) Only recently, however, did I think that perhaps a browse through her Myspace friends would be a good idea. It was. The following two artists had well-deserved spots near the beginning.
~*~*~
Rebecca Collins' music can loosely be described as "dark cabaret." It's a bit of a nebulous genre (sure, they all are sometimes); according to Wikipedia, it's large enough to encompass Tom Waits, Regina Spektor, and the White Stripes somehow. This isn't really useful for description purposes.
There's a subspecies of it, however, the rough musical equivalent of noir: moody, slightly jazzy, often unresolved. Portishead belongs to this strain, as does Jill Tracy. It's not for everyone, of course, but the target audience is larger than you might think. As Collins states in her bio, it's made up of "anyone who has ever woken up in the middle of the night with their heart racing."
She's got several songs up from her album Chameleon Blues, but "Involved" is by far my favorite. She incorporates everything I like about the genre and in the process, turns the dehydrated euphemism "involved with [someone]" into a portent.
The song's beginning is already great: coy, reflective, restrained, but then it gets to the 2:30 mark and becomes insistent, adding a frantic saxophone solo and crashing drums to complement the lyrics: "If you make another move, I won't be responsible for what I do." That's a dubious sentiment in the real world, but one that matches the music perfectly. It takes the straightforward love song from afar and extracts every dangerous, tumultous, wonderfully possessive undertone.
All this dissolves into a chorus of ghostly backup vocals, and the song returns to the start, almost apologetically. There's no resolution, no closure. It's a statement before its answer, and for that it is haunting.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Miriam Ingram's music is just as evocative, but in a different way: lush, rich soundscapes that expand the more you listen to them until you're sure they contain entire worlds to get lost in.
"Slide," from her album Trampoline, is the most gorgeous song I've heard in a long time. I haven't been this mesmerized by chord changes since the absolutely perfect one in the second verse of Kate Bush's "Never Be Mine." (I realize that I'm being highly hypocritical here in using her as a comparison, which I complain about regularly.) It's the same thing: an already-wistful progression that takes a sudden yet perfectly conflicted turn for a second. It's only one chord, but it's as evocative as twenty.
Now imagine this happening over and over again. Just when you think you've pinned down the song, it shifts beneath you. Near the start is an almost a cappella section - just Miriam's vocals and the drum beat. Later on in the song, you hear different arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano chimes, electric guitars, lots of synths, electronic and organic at the same time. There's a lot going on here, but still plenty of space; not once does it feel crowded. It all flows perfectly into each other, held together by that drum part. It's a song that fills the room. It's something to get lost in.
Trampoline is a year or so old; since then, she's released Trampolonica, a remix album. She acknowledges on her site that the remixers could "seduce, ravage, violate, disfigure, abuse, annihilate, or eat the files if they so desired."
I might be biased by having heard the original song first, but the Amoebazoid remix just sounds wrong. It doesn't do anything egregious like turn it into a disco song, mind you. The basic structure's the same, more or less, but it's cluttered. Among other changes, it drenches Miriam's a cappella part in reverb and throws every instrumental part at each other until there's no space left.
This isn't to say that it's bad, but I much prefer the expanse of the original. The remix just seems like over-tampering.
Your mileage may vary, though. Both are available at her site.
Listen here.
Last week, I ordered Julie Feeney's debut, which had been sitting in my CD Baby wishlist for quite some time. (It's very much recommended too, but not new to me.) Only recently, however, did I think that perhaps a browse through her Myspace friends would be a good idea. It was. The following two artists had well-deserved spots near the beginning.
~*~*~
Rebecca Collins' music can loosely be described as "dark cabaret." It's a bit of a nebulous genre (sure, they all are sometimes); according to Wikipedia, it's large enough to encompass Tom Waits, Regina Spektor, and the White Stripes somehow. This isn't really useful for description purposes.
There's a subspecies of it, however, the rough musical equivalent of noir: moody, slightly jazzy, often unresolved. Portishead belongs to this strain, as does Jill Tracy. It's not for everyone, of course, but the target audience is larger than you might think. As Collins states in her bio, it's made up of "anyone who has ever woken up in the middle of the night with their heart racing."
She's got several songs up from her album Chameleon Blues, but "Involved" is by far my favorite. She incorporates everything I like about the genre and in the process, turns the dehydrated euphemism "involved with [someone]" into a portent.
The song's beginning is already great: coy, reflective, restrained, but then it gets to the 2:30 mark and becomes insistent, adding a frantic saxophone solo and crashing drums to complement the lyrics: "If you make another move, I won't be responsible for what I do." That's a dubious sentiment in the real world, but one that matches the music perfectly. It takes the straightforward love song from afar and extracts every dangerous, tumultous, wonderfully possessive undertone.
All this dissolves into a chorus of ghostly backup vocals, and the song returns to the start, almost apologetically. There's no resolution, no closure. It's a statement before its answer, and for that it is haunting.
Listen here.
~*~*~
Miriam Ingram's music is just as evocative, but in a different way: lush, rich soundscapes that expand the more you listen to them until you're sure they contain entire worlds to get lost in.
"Slide," from her album Trampoline, is the most gorgeous song I've heard in a long time. I haven't been this mesmerized by chord changes since the absolutely perfect one in the second verse of Kate Bush's "Never Be Mine." (I realize that I'm being highly hypocritical here in using her as a comparison, which I complain about regularly.) It's the same thing: an already-wistful progression that takes a sudden yet perfectly conflicted turn for a second. It's only one chord, but it's as evocative as twenty.
Now imagine this happening over and over again. Just when you think you've pinned down the song, it shifts beneath you. Near the start is an almost a cappella section - just Miriam's vocals and the drum beat. Later on in the song, you hear different arrangements of acoustic guitar, piano chimes, electric guitars, lots of synths, electronic and organic at the same time. There's a lot going on here, but still plenty of space; not once does it feel crowded. It all flows perfectly into each other, held together by that drum part. It's a song that fills the room. It's something to get lost in.
Trampoline is a year or so old; since then, she's released Trampolonica, a remix album. She acknowledges on her site that the remixers could "seduce, ravage, violate, disfigure, abuse, annihilate, or eat the files if they so desired."
I might be biased by having heard the original song first, but the Amoebazoid remix just sounds wrong. It doesn't do anything egregious like turn it into a disco song, mind you. The basic structure's the same, more or less, but it's cluttered. Among other changes, it drenches Miriam's a cappella part in reverb and throws every instrumental part at each other until there's no space left.
This isn't to say that it's bad, but I much prefer the expanse of the original. The remix just seems like over-tampering.
Your mileage may vary, though. Both are available at her site.
Listen here.
Read more...
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