PondaBlog

He seduced, infuriated, confounded and entertained, wrote with a rare possession and debated as a righteous demon. it feels emptier without him.

image source: guardian.co.uk

Ikonika. (image source: www.last.fm)

interesting think piece from the fab quietus about misogyny and dance music (thanks for sharing Marcus!). it’s a lengthy, sprawling affair that touches on an array of gender-fuelled topics – all sparked by author Angus Finlayson’s discovery of a few tweets from a music journo and Scuba, the hotflush label honcho and a London basshead now based in berlin, i believe.

i’m a bit hesitant about reading too much into tweets. after all, let’s face it – twitter doesn’t exactly set the standard for intellectual rigour. still, the ensuing discussion delves into all sorts of directions, and asks some tough questions of a genre that has given me immense amounts of aural/physical/mental pleasure over the years. as Finlayson notes, “I’ve got a lot invested in this culture…”

and i do. but what comes next is more problematic. “…and i like to think that it lends to its participants a shared, if loose, ideological framework.” i get what finlayson is saying – i’d also like to think that electronic/dance music represents one of the more enlightened genres (even though “enlightened” makes me cringe a bit. but still). that said, the halcyon days of rave euphoria are long gone (and personally, i’ve always much preferred rave’s subsequent descent into the darkness, but that’s a whole ‘nother debate). dance music, aided by technology in the form of ever-advancing gear and the sprawling online world, has splintered into a million different genres, sub genres, sub-sub genres and further kin. and in the process, notions of a shared spirit have also splintered.

it’s always difficult to posit that scenes – musical or otherwise – share an ideological framework. mebbe at first, yeah – but inevitably the spirit morphs, and even more so in this everything age. now, more than ever, just because folks like the same beats doesn’t mean they’ll like the same beliefs. music, as Simon Reynolds has noted (check out an earlier post), has become spatialized, loosened from its contextual moorings. or put another way, it’s become horizontal – in place of depth there is endless surface. an immanent plane.

this has effects. Finalyson quotes ben ufo, who comments that today, music is “so much less tied down to place, which fits comfortably with the prevailing attitude that music is ‘just music’ and that that’s its sole value – that the way it’s presented is of no importance if the musical content is the same.”

that said, Finlayson brings up a lot of cogent points – perhaps the most depressing one being that the recent DJ Mag top 100 list didn’t feature…A. SINGLE. FEMALE. it’s ridiculous. no, actually, it’s absurd, considering the crazy talent on offer: ikonika, steffi, cassy, chloe, cio d’or, margaret dygas, maya jane coles, etc. and who cracked the dj mag top five? tiesto. and deadmau5. ’nuff said.

there’s also the observation that Finlayson makes about it being “fairly common these days to see images of conventionally attractive women being used to promote music from a scene which is supposedly mistrustful of ‘image’…” and yeah, it’s pretty hard to argue with that – yet i’d add that this has been a ploy for, well, ages. not that that makes the situation any less problematic – it’s just that it’s hardly a recent phenomenon. what about those shedloads of ministry of sound and ibiza comps in the ’90s that featured an array of overly tanned nympho-ravers? and speaking of ibiza - my pal Marc made the point that the “whole clubbing world turning into a tourism industry in Europe, with discount airlines and the Ibiza ‘season’ and clubcations to Berlin, encouraged the addition of sex into marketing. Sex sells.” couldn’t have put it better. which is why i quoted it.

sexuality, though, is a crucial part of dance music – and not just in ways that ape cardboard cliches. in this regard, Finlayson raises other points that deserve debate. Fr’example, he poses the question – “…is it fair to say that the ‘dress to impress’ ethos of UK garage circa 2000 is inherently sexist?’” to which i’d answer: absolutely not, at least musically speaking. to me, the onset of UK garage/2 step ushered in a desperately needed injection of glamour, femininity, fun and, yes, sexiness into a drum ‘n’ bass scene that had largely disappeared up its rigid techstep arse. it’s odd…there’s often a hesitance to embrace sexuality on the dancefloor among the intelligensia, despite the fact that the dancefloor is so much about sexuality in its various guises – not just in terms of the body, but in terms of the beats and the bass. and when the vibe is on, it’ seductive in a way that precious few other musics can match.

one final thought (for now). in so many ways, dance music depends on advancements in equipment, technology - gear. and for whatever reason (again, a whole ‘nother debate), boys are stereotypical gearheads. they tend to immerse themselves in the hardware/software that’s on offer, and salivate over what’s to come, whether it’s a mixer or a mobile. is this a generalization? of course. but it still plays a role in dance music dialectics – and one that could potentially alienate women trying to contribute to a culture that often has a ‘boys club’ feel.

in my “best of” list for 2010 (and don’t get me started about why list-making seems to be another peculiar male trait), ikonika’s contact, love, want, have was my fave album of the year. in my comments, i noted that “what makes this all the more intriguing is that Ikonika is 20-something Sara Abdel-Hamid, a Londoner and a female in a field that’s almost entirely dominated by men. I’m not going to riff on gender dialectics here, but just let me say – well done.” well done, too, to all the other women who have blown up minds and dancefloors, past and present. keep it coming. and let’s keep asking tough questions.

if you’ve gotten to this point, well, i’d just like to note that this is pondablog’s 100th post! thanks to everyone who’s read my musings up to this point. and a special thanks to mr. foxbridge, whose technical talent has wrenched me from the depths of wordpress despair on many occasions. here’s to the next 100!

Masset, by Raymond Boisjoly (image source: www.colormagazine.ca)

I recently caught Raymond Boisjoly’s installation at Vancouver’s Republic Gallery. Actually, I just caught it, as I wandered into the Richards Street space on the final afternoon of the exhibition’s final day. Cutting it close? Yep – but better late than a no-show.

Boisjoly, a Vancouver-based Aboriginal artist, didn’t disappoint. His exhibition, entitled The Writing Lesson, featured prints of Indigenous names of B.C. towns – Nanaimo, Spuzzum, Masset, Yakima and more – drenched in the ornate, clasutrophobic stylings of Black Metal lettering.

this wasn’t a coincidence. an artist statement notes that much black metal “seeks to recuperate pre-Christian spritual elements in the face of the forceful encroachment of monotheistic faiths.” meld that riffage with issues of naming and colonialism, and you’ve got recuperation re-doubled. not too surprising then that the writing lesson takes its name from a memoir by claude levi-strauss, everyone’s fave cultural anthropologist.

none of this would have meant much had the show fizzled – which it emphatically did not. boisjoly’s prints, bathed in grey and near-black, exuded a quiet, menacing power. without knowing the background info, one likely would never have guessed what the near-indecipherable symbols actually spelled. but in a way, it didn’t matter – while the theory behind the exhibit enhances its understanding, the elemental nature of the prints resonated with an eerie aesthetic all their own.

It’s an aesthetic that’s been adopted by a variety of today’s auteurs. Steven Shearer, another Vancouver-based artist, has long tapped the typically teen themes of alienation, isolation – and metal. his painterly oeuvre has attracted an ever-increasing amount of attention, and he’s shown in spaces ranging from the local Contemporary Art Gallery to London’s Tate Modern. He was also Canada’s rep at this year’s Venice Biennale, where his Poem for Venice – a massive façade at the entrance to the Canada Pavilion – mixed and mashed crude neologisms inspired by the verbal effluvia that characterizes much of extreme metal’s wordplay.

poem for venice, steven shearer (image source: www.tate.org.uk)

artwork by Steven Shearer (image source: http://2bp.blogspot.com)

And then there’s Peter Beste, an American photographer who has often used his considerable skills to document extreme underground music scenes – including rap in Houston, grime in London and, yes, black metal in Norway. In 2008, Vice Books released True Norwegian Black Metal, a tome that features Beste’s phantastic photos of, er, true norwegian black metal.   

photo by Peter Beste, from true norwegian black metal (image source: www.stevenkasher.com)

photo by Peter Beste, from true norwegian black metal (image source: www.creativereview.co.uk)

lastly, show no mercy, the fab metal column written by brandon stosuy, recently returned to pitchfork after a hiatus. and it’s got a spanky new logo to boot, yet another example of blackened art. just in time for all hallow’s eve!

(image source: www.pitchfork.com)

“I think that [metal’s] always been the domain of the very intelligent and the extremely stupid”

     – Aaron Weaver, wolves in the throne room, quietus interview

for the three people in the world who haven’t heard about this yet, RIP REM.

yes, it’s true. after three centuries – oops, decades – the indie godfathers from athens, georgia have called it quits. hats off to REM for their longevity and influence. and for a handful of great albums that helped define a sound and a time that now seem so far away. but i do find stipe’s comment about “knowing when to leave a party” rather odd, given that they probably should have left said party about 15 years earlier. it’s not that REM made bad albums after that point - more so that they made inconsequential ones that blurred together in a vaguely folk-rock artsy AOR kinda way. perhaps that’s inevitable when an outfit gets so big that it morphs into more of a brand than a band. this situation is hardly unique to REM – the same sense of ennui has slowly but surely wrapped its tendrils around radiohead following the one-two punch of ok computer and kid A.

but it’s not just a one-way street. the music i listen to now, and how i listen to it, has definitely changed since REM’s murmur came out in 1983. i’ve changed, in all sorts of ways – and really, i’d find it a bit concerning if that wasn’t the case. so maybe it’s too much to ask a band to remain at the top of its game according to my experiences, biases, likes and not-likes, memories. it’s impossible, actually. so fair play to REM, and to radiohead. and let’s keep listening.

Steve Albini has a food blog. this is somewhat surprising to me for a number of reasons. for one, albini first established his considerable indie/undie rep by fronting chicago’s big black, which spewed metallic shards of nastiness from the grooves of a handful of EPs and albums in the ’80s.

since then, albini has gone on to become a producer of note in the alt-scene (although he’d probably filet me alive for putting it that way), working on albums ranging from nirvana’s in utero to slint’s spiderland to pj harvey’s dry to surfer rosa from the pixies.

all the while, he’s had a rep as, shall we say, a darkly amusing misanthrope. i always had a vision of him as glowering and hunched over, in a corner, firing off insults at the world and generally hating life. whilst producing some awesome albums.

so i’m experiencing some cognitive dissonance with the food blog scenario. it’s not that misanthropes can’t have food blogs, it’s just that, well, it doesn’t really seem like their calling. but life can surprise one.

anyways, said blog also features recipes for meals that he serves to his wife, Heather. the fact that albini has a wife surprises me as well, given the fact that following big black, he fronted a band called rapeman. which put out an album called two nuns and a pack mule. i just don’t get a nuptial vibe out of that, y’know? but hey – congrats!

but i digress. let me just say that the muso-food blogger trend seems to be growing. fr’exmaple, check out what blur’s bassist – aka “the dairy world’s answer to the stooges” – has recently turned his talents to. and while we’re on the tasting tip, you can also sample some spaghetti pomodoro and other vegan treats, courtesy of the post punk kitchen.

i’d like to end this, however, on the dark side. things usually taste better there anyways. bon appetit. and hail seitan!

very interested in hearing the latest offering from ricardo villalobos and max loderbauer. Re: ECM remixes tracks from the revered ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) label, founded by Manfred Eicher and renowned for pursuing “the most beautiful sound next to silence” for more than four decades. The label hovers on the outskirts of jazz, classical and otherworldly musics, with a roster that ranges from estonia’s holy minimalist arvo pärt to fourth-world windblower don cherry to alien chanteuse meredith monk. and the record sleeves are revered for an abstract and austere aesthetic that, in its consistency, is matched by precious few other labels – 4AD or factory records might compare. 

the two candidates taking on this rather daunting project are also fab choices. the chilean-born, berlin-based villalobos is a minimal techno titan. loderbauer, another electronic figurehead, is currently part of the sublime moritz von oswald trio.

it’s a seductive set-up…the electronic versus the acoustic, yawning space of ECM. yet i’m a bit hesitant. oftentimes these sorts of concepts sound tantalizing in theory, but somehow fall flat in the immediacy of now. and to add to my suspicions, here’s a somewhat middling review that recently appeared in the grauniad.

but whatever. i still wanna hear it.

in the meantime, check out this chat:

you can also read this great villalobos interview, courtesy of fact - complete with amusing druggy cover art comments.

and while we’re on the berlin tip (home to villalobos and loderbauer), here’s an article in the wall street journal (!!!) about the raging nightlife in said city. are hedge fund managers about to invade berghain?