Help I'm Alive-Metric

For some reason, she looks a little like Keira Knightley in this pic. Does anybody else see that too? Am I crazy?

Many thanks to Taylor for the subject of today's post. I hadn't heard of Metric before last night.

This is just the sort of music I wish were more popular. Why do we instead have fourteen year old Disney Mouseketeers and American Idol rejects running the music industry?

They sort of reminded me of The Sounds in their rock vs. pop sensibilities, the inclusion of electronic elements with fun guitar riffs. It's pure fun to listen to. If you aren't into the sounds, but would like to be, here's some great examples:

Channeling Blondie a little...

...don't you think?

Mine for Life
This has always been my favorite, for one silly detail; the modulation between 3:38 to 3:45, that modulates again at 4:00 and at 4:16. It just makes me happy. I also love the layering during the chorus.
Queen of Apology
Pure catchy. Catchy in its undiluted, purest form.

They are more unapologetically electronic in their aesthetic. They remind me of Blondie in their 80s tinged fashions, the lone woman fronting a band of dudes, the tinges of new wave pop modernized. I saw them at the Grog Shop and it was a great concert. Maja Ivarsson is a hottie with great vocal stylings.

I want her boots...

Annnnnnyways, back to Metric. They are Canadian (score). Perhaps it's just having a hockey-fan-fiance, but Canadian things seem infinitely cooler to me. They have a better national anthem, for one. I can forgive them Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne because they speak French, have the better view of Niagara Falls, and are excellent at winter sports.

Also, I think I'm discovering a trend in my popular music tastes: bands or performers who know how to make a good acoustic version of their song. Metric fits the bill, rewriting Help I'm Alive for a benefit for Haiti.

What do you think?

Pomplamoose Music

My only complaint with this group is that I never remember how they spell their frikkin' name, so I end up typing it in and seeing results about grapefruit.

My only complaint is that she rarely smiles while singing, no doubt due to intense concentration on being synchronized with previous versions being piped in through her headphones, but still. She has a pretty smile; she should use it more.

Pomplamoose has quite a few things going for it: a gorgeous girl (only the excessively gorgeous can pull off hair that short) with hypnotizing eyes and a songbird voice, a dude that seems to be able to play every instrument known to man who makes hilarious facial expressions, and simple, acoustic-y sound.

They make "video-songs". The idea is, if you hear it, they'll film themselves playing it and put it somewhere in the video. At some point, you'll see them personally making all the parts of the song. I like it. I like how it sheds light on the technique and the amount of layering involved. It's truly a labor of love.

I went to myspace and happily downloaded all their covers (which are free for download) and am now contemplating spending money on their original material. I like what I hear.

For now at least, I can give my full endorsement of their covers. Mrs. Robinson is a lesson in simplicity and elegant style. Mister Sandman is so perfectly idiomatic for her voice it's insane.

Annnnnnd, my personal favorite (and actually the first video of theirs I saw): September by Earth Wind & Fire. You wouldn't think it would work as well as it does without the brass, but it has such lovable quirk. Plus, the video is hilarious. Jack's grandma makes a sassy appearance as a guest dancer, and this puppet stole the show:

Puppet head-banging. He is going to have a headache by the end of this.

This is the kind of music you want to listen to when you're having a bad day. It's like an auditory hug from an adorable indie kid (as opposed to the incredibly frustrating kind).

Slovenian music...that isn't polka?

I perked up when in my Ethnomusicology class, one of the case studies focused on the professor's mother playing Slovene polkas at home. Though I am only part Slovenian, I take it to heart as my ethnicity. In that American sort of way. My grandmother was 100%, but my cultural heritage wasn't exactly passed down in stories of the old country, standing on a chair by my grandmother while she made traditional foods in huge batches without recipes. I often wish it was.

Have you ever wondered where my images come from? Often, I take the first image I find on Google.

Case in point: type "polka" in to your image search. Voila! There this is.

So, I realized that, as a true Clevelander, I should have at least a little affinity for polka. I even know a few words. Beyond that, I am actually pretty ignorant about the motherland.

So when Leo played an example of Slovenian jazz, I was intrigued. Primoz Simoncic, the album, Pieces of Cake.

And, just as I do not claim to be any sort of expert on my own culture, I claim no real knowledge of jazz beyond Paul Ferguson's jazz and popular music course as an undergrad. Which I struggled with. Particularly differentiating bebop. Oy.

Parts of this cd were fascinating, but the overall feel was a little foreign to me. I liked the attempts to incorporate electronic elements with more traditional jazz, but the fusion fell flat at times. Synthesizers, in my humble opinion, are at their best when they're being used for nerdy, stuff-white-people-like sorts of irony a la Drew of Married to the Sea/Toothpaste for Dinner/Superpoop comics.

-Tangent-

Drew is hilarious and I've really been enjoying his videos of late. The first example has an infectious little jam that will have you humming "pitter pitter patter pit" to yourself in the shower. However, if you are creeped out by the idea of Neti pots, you should skip that video. The second example paints the synthesizer enthusiast as a mad scientist. I can see only a certain type of white person finding this video as hilarious as I do. Again, I'm referencing Stuff White People Like. The same type of people enjoy Wes Anderson movies, Stella, and Arrested Development.

Thank you for learning. With Dr. Synthesizer.

-End of Tangent- 

Back to Slovenia.

The electric jazz-fusion had some high points. Night in Tunisia was a standout track. The electric haze gave the slow sax the feeling of 3am in a dark bar, with cigarette smoke clouding the air. It was transporting and it didn't get in the way of the line. Latino? was another favorite. The question mark was apt. It started off with such a cool little piano/sax duet intro before jumping into the latin rhythms that give the track its title. Yet, even at the more upbeat, the piece still maintained its cool aura. I liked that; the tempo increased without making the piece sound frantic. John mentioned that it seemed to have Jobim-esque melody fragments, and I totally agree. Then it just fades into this bizarre cloud of electric guitar. I loved the harmonic opening for LCD, which may have been my favorite track on the album. It starts with this wonderful, bell like harmonic in the guitar, then devolves into this wonderful funk slap-bass riff. Again, without losing the slow, cool feel of the album. The lack of excessive percussion helps this quite a bit. It keeps the overall effect more intimate, more melodic, and incredibly saxophone-centric.  

In general, I liked the slower tracks the most. The ones that gave me such a vivid sense of place. I think I'm going to have to give it all a few more chances before I make any real decisions...

Have you ever had to take your time with an album? Should music be challenging and take time to take apart with multiple listenings? Or should it have immediacy? Or is it good to have some pieces hit you over the head and some worm their way into your heart?

The Taboo of Modern Music

I find it so exciting, and often wonder why it is that symphony orchestras find it so difficult to champion new music, to draw some sort of hipster crowd to the new and avant-garde. I feel like it could be done with the right marketing. Turning away from the suffocating elitism of Western art music. Host a cocktail hour with a talk introducing the piece, so people don't walk in blindly wondering what they're supposed to be listening for. All any music takes to be understood and appreciated is a little bit of exposure, a little explanation and background.

People fear what they do not understand. If the public doesn't understand a modern composition, it is the fault of the performers and conductors for keeping the pieces shrouded in mystery and confusion. If the performer does not find the piece approachable, their audience certainly will not. Be a charming Bernstein of a conductor; get up and say a few words about the piece. Have a pre-concert lecture. Stop locking these composers up in academia. It is the fault of the conservative institutions for not embracing new music as accompaniment to the old, as a part of the continuum, as something that should be an integral part of learning. Learning old music may be technical, but there are so many resources; listening to recordings. With new music, you have to rely on yourself, your internal rhythm, your understanding of pitch relationships regardless of the tonal or atonal framework. This is something our young talent should champion, should be excited to be a part of.

But the rich and moneyed want to hear Beethoven and Mozart. They want tonal. They want pretty. They want white-bread, white-guy, dead German from the 18th century. I can't change this, but part of me hopes against hope that when the next group of music patrons and season-ticket holders comes of age to replace the aging ones, that they show an interest in more daring fare. But how can they do this when the symphony hall is treated as some sort of Cathedral, where the Germanic pantheon of composers is held up like the saints and martyrs? Where modern music is close to sacrilege? For goodness sake, the reason all those Bachs and Brahms' attained fame is because the public actually WANTED new music in their day. It wasn't until Mendelssohn dug up Bach and had it performed that anybody went "hmmm, perhaps we should perform both old and new music, and venerate these old masters"

Veneration is fine by me. There will never be a symphony like the Eroica. But does that mean classical music should cut off its own head?

Tan Dun: Water Passion After St. Matthew

Have you heard of Tan Dun? The guy that wrote all the music for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? He wrote such a compelling soundtrack. It melded Chinese music with the symphony orchestra, particularly Yo-Yo Ma's many cello solos.

Don't mess with me. Not only do I write awesome music, I have an awesome coat.

It's like a double-dose of awesome!

I had never heard another piece by Tan Dun. Until last week.

The Water Passion After St. Matthew is so striking. This is one of the most incredible pieces of music I've heard. It's so haunting and atmospheric...wow. It's spine-tingling, goosebump-inducing music at its finest.

I wonder if it has the same effect on non-musicians, or if the more bizarre effects and aspects get in the way. To me, I heard links to George Crumb in the use of the string instruments.

Classically trained in the Beijing conservatory (studying composition with the likes of Toru Takemitsu, no less), Dun traveled to the U.S. to pursue a doctorate at Columbia, where he encountered the music of Edgar Varese, John Cage, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. These experimental composers seem to have really inspired him; in 2003 he wrote a concerto for paper, where the medium is manipulated as percussion in various ways to get different effects and sounds. He expanded this concept of experimental percussion with his Water Concerto, which utilizes amplified bowls of water as an instrument.

The Water Passion After St. Matthew explores the theme of water as musical device. It also ties in to the symbolic meanings from the New Testament; water as baptism. The combinations of vocal timbres and unusual string instrument technique is thrilling. The choir takes on a timeless, tonal feel, almost like a chorus in Greek mythology. The solo bass sings quotes of Jesus, and in the Temptation movement the soprano takes on an incredibly eerie incarnation of the devil, shrieking "If thou art the son of god, turn these stones into bread"

The piece does not wear the mantle of European classicism; instead, the biblical text is set with Eastern flair and 20th century abandon. It's refreshing to see a sacred setting be so bold! I am spellbound every time I hear the piece.

What do you think? Musicians? Non-musicians? Is it more rewarding to listen to with a background in things like George Crumb and Cage and Reich, or is it as powerful without the burden of scholarship? I often wonder this, but I cannot exist in both states. I have all my music history classes behind me and my so-called classical training, so I often wonder how new music like this is perceived in our society.