Stop what you are doing right now, go to http://pyecorneraudio.bandcamp.com/, and buy a copy of Black Mill Tapes Vol. 1. It just came out today, and it’s fantastic. It’s warbly, stuttering synth music of the highest order. Think Tangerine Dream rerecorded by William Basinski’s decaying tape-loop machine. Think Delia Derbyshire if she were in a late 70s synth band. More than anything else, think awesome because it’s awesome. Get it now. It’s only ₤4.99, which is about $8 US. Download it and play it for yourself or your friends as a Halloween present. Heck, if you’re in Mexico, play it on Monday for Dia De Los Muertos. The dead will love it–because the dead probably created it!
Derrida coined the term hauntology during a lecture at my alma mater, the University of California Riverside. He used the term to suggest that the present only understands itself in and through the past (and that the future haunts the present in the same way). It’s a term used here and there in philosophy and critical theory circles, but its main use is in the realm of music. Initially, it was used in the 90s to describe trip hop and ambient music; then it was used to describe the Ghost Box label and the weird, unsettling British Information Films sound of The Advisory Circle and The Focus Group; more recently, it has been applied to any music that combines nostalgia and weirdness (like Boards of Canada, The Caretaker, Mordant Music, Moon Wiring Club, among others). The concept has always had a decidedly English feel to it–to the point that The Wire magazine coined a different term, hypnagogic, to describe American music that shares some hauntological themes (like Emeralds, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Pocahaunted, and so on). A lot of people absolutely hate these two terms for the same reason they hate all labels applied to music–because they deprive unique artists of their very uniqueness. And I think that is true. But I have a soft spot for hauntology for a few reasons. First, I really like English weirdness (or really British weirdness–I’m part Scottish and part Welsh, so the Celtic is important to me), especially when it is coated with pagan sensibilities (which comes easily in the UK since it’s hard to throw a dead cat without hitting a henge or standing stone). Second, labels have a way of giving attention to music that might otherwise be under-appreciated, and anything that gets more people to listen to Belbury Poly or William Basinski is a good thing in my book. Finally and most importantly, hauntology (and my listening to and reading of anything connected to the concept) helped me rediscover something from my childhood that had been buried in the nether reaches of my unconscious for 20 years: Children of the Stones.
I have a vague, almost unreal sense of watching Children of the Stones in the early 80s. Apparently, it was on Nickelodeon in the United States, but I don’t remember watching it on that channel. In fact, I only have fleeting, fragmented memories of my original viewing. I remember being disappointed that I only caught one or two episodes (the empty, unfulfilled sense of “what will happen next?” pervading my mind). I remember being scared and a little creeped out, but I don’t know why. I also remember my parents not liking the series because it seemed vaguely satanic (in their minds; they were quite religious). The most significant memory, however, is of the standing stones (the show was filmed at Avebury). I probably had no idea what a standing stone was back then, and I probably didn’t really care much. But they left an impression of ancient mysteries that percolated in the back of my mind for many, many years, only to resurface when I actually went to England and Ireland and I suddenly realized how amazing and fascinating these stones really are.
So these memories were buried in my mind like a time capsule waiting to be opened at the right moment. That moment came when I stumbled across a reference to the series in a hauntology-based article somewhere, which led to a quick YouTube search (followed by a trip to Amazon to buy the DVD). The moment I heard the strange music of the opening, the memories came flooding back–the weirdness, the paganness, the surreality:
I’ve heard this music sampled in several different works by Mordant Music, Moon Wiring Club, and others (hell, I’ve used it too). Honestly, I’m amazed that Trunk Records hasn’t released the OST for this series (they did The Tomorrow People, so why not this?). The reverb-rich moaning voices, matched with the images of standing stones, bring a chill to my ears and eyes–and drive my wife crazy (she can’t stand the series). It’s truly spooky music that is designed to frighten children, and while I was probably too old to be truly frightened by these sounds when I first heard them (I must have been 13-14), the true otherness of the music must have struck a chord. Added to this odd music was the very odd behavior of the people in the fictional village of Milbury (where the story is set). The villagers are always happy and over-polite in a way that immediately raises red flags in the minds of the protagonist and his son (visitors to the town–the father played by none other than Roj Blake himself, Gareth Thomas). These people were odd precisely because they were too normal, an impression that anyone who grew up in a suburb (like I did) can instantly identify with. Add to this the fact that all the happy children in the town are (somehow) super geniuses at math, even smarter than the protagonist’s astrophysicists son who is otherwise quite bright, and it doesn’t take long for our heroes to sense trouble. As the plot unfurls, we learn the source of the town’s happy normality, and I don’t want to give it away to anyone who hasn’t gone to YouTube to watch it, but suffice to say that the stones are involved (along with druids [for some reason--druids came long after the stones were erected, but whatever], psychic energy, ley lines, and black holes). Watching today, I am impressed by the acting in the series (especially Thomas, though the kids could use a few more lessons) and the intelligence of the show (they don’t dumb down kids programs in the UK the way they do in the US). Really, though, what stands out is the nice way that the show manages to link the everyday strangeness of the people with the very extraordinary world of ancient Britain and the Avebury standing stones. As a student (and teacher) of mythology, I really appreciate the emphasis that is placed on linking the past with the present. As a music fan, I enjoy how the series uses sound to convey so many deep, dark, unsettling feelings–and I like the fact that the majority of the music is created using only human voices (reminiscent of Ligeti). But I love the series mostly because it gives me a window into my own past, a past of a teenager who lived in a strange world of happy people and wondered why they were happy, what made them happy, and why wasn’t I happy too? And I think that’s what hauntology is all about–not so much celebrating all things weird and (mostly) British but exploring epiphanies of weirdness from the past in order to better understand what makes the world so damn weird to begin with. And perhaps the very Britishness of Children of the Stones helps me better understand my own fascination (or is it obsession?) with the UK: why my favorite TV shows are from the BBC, why my favorite musical artists are British, why my plans for vacations always begin in London, and why–especially why–I spent 12 years getting a PhD in English with a focus on 20th century British and Irish authors. To think: despite all that British stuff, I still ended up in a small desert town on the Mexican border. Now that’s weird.
Angels win 2002 World Series–At my father’s funeral in 2005, I talked about our shared love of sports, and the point I made to illustrate this love was him calling me after the Angels won the Series for the first time. That’s how much this meant to me (and to him).
The Wire: When a postmortem is written about the American experiment, this show will be singled out as a perfect illustration of how the country fell. The detailed way in which the show demonstrated corruption, complacency, and stagnation at all levels of bureaucracy and business, mixed with the systematic defeat of anyone and everyone trying to make things better, says more about the last decade than a million hours of campaign commercials and governmental panels ever could. It’s the most essential work of art of this century, and it will be one of the lasting gifts of our generation to generations to come.
William Basinski‘s The Disintegration Loops and The River–I helped to generate interest in William Basinski’s work when I worked at the now-defunct Stylus Magazine. All of his work is wonderful, but these two works shine above all other music from the last decade (even though they both are really over 30 years old now).
Children of Men: The best film of the decade is also the most amazing science fiction films ever conceived. Clive Owen’s acting, Alfonso Cuarón’s directing, and Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography are the three pillars in this film, which takes us on a journey through a world without children and all the chaos and confusion that this fact produces. It’s a spellbinding, amazing work of art.
Barak Obama–2nd best night of the decade (behind the night the Angels won the series) was the night that Obama won the Presidency. And while he’s been attacked left and right for the past year, he’s still standing and he’s moving slowly but surely toward change. I still believe.
Apple’s iPod and iPhone–When I used to carry around a portable CD player and 50 CDs, I would dream of a device that could store my music in my pocket. And then I got an iPod. And then I got another iPod. And then I got an iPhone. And then I gave my first iPhone to my friend and got a new one and we both started using ours together. And it was good.
Tivo–Oh hell yes.
Idiocracy–Funniest movie of the decade, and the most accurate. We don’t have to wait 500 years for this world to come into existence; I see this kind of stupid every single day.
Sigur Rós‘s Agaetis Byrjun, ( ), Takk…, and Hvarf – Heim–Band of the decade? I think so. Their music has defined much of the genre that is usually known as “post rock,” even as their emerging popularity has alienated the band from the critics, most of whom see the band as sell-outs because they are successful. And yes their last album wasn’t as good as their previous work; but it’s still way better than 99.99% of all music ever, so I’ll give them some slack. Oh, and Amiina is awesome too!
Joanna Newsom’s Ys–I put this CD in my car shortly after I bought it in 2007 and it’s still in there. It’s one of the only examples of high-quality poetry brought to life through music.
The Venture Brothers–Poetry of an entirely different stripe, this series is the vanguard of Adult Swim, itself the vanguard of popular entertainment for quite some time. It’s part Hardy Boys, part Superfriends, part Six Million Dollar Man, part dada, part I Saved Hitler’s Brain, and part…well, part everything else I can come up with. Oh my flipping zombie Jesus is this show good.
Tod Dockstander’s Aerial–Decades in the making, this is a magnum-opus from an electronic music pioneer who never really had much of a chance to practice his art back in the 60s because he lacked the credentials to use the very rare and very expensive technologies found in some high-level universities and few other places. This is an exceptional trilogy of albums that puts Dockstander front and center in the modern world of experimental music.
Netflix–It took me a while to get into this (their initial catalogue was rather minimal), but now it’s practically a religion, even for people like my mom who know next to nothing about computers. She checks her email and her Netflix queue. Oh, and they forced Americans to use the word “queue,” too. That’s awesome.
The Caretaker: The Complete Digital Collection–Unbelievably important music from the guy who was originally known as V/VM. The entire catalogue is worth owning; more than that, it’s affordable. This guy pioneered the online distribution of music. Most of his catalogue was originally available for free download. But I felt that I owed it to him to buy the collection and support this wonderful artist’s work into another decade (which has begun in earnest with Leyland Kirby’s latest release).
World of Warcraft–This is #1 on my wife’s “Bottom 10″ list for the decade. I play it too much–and have for several years. I got hooked when I saw that I could create a druid alchemist. How cool is that? Not that alchemy or druidism in WoW have anything to do with actual druids or alchemy, but it’s still fun to imagine living within a mythological world.
Boards of Canada‘s Geogaddi and The Campfire Headphase–Boards of Canada’s contribution to the music world in the last decade consists of two fascinating albums and some EPs. These are exceptional works, and they extend the ideas from Music Has the Right to Children in interesting ways. I still check BoC’s website every day to see if there’s news of their latest release. I bet I’m not the only one.
Amazon Prime–I grew up in Riverside, about 60 miles from Los Angeles at a time when I had to go into LA to find any decent music or bookstores. I dreamed of a day when I would live in a decent town where I could buy any of the weird stuff that I read about in magazines. And then the Internet showed up and with it came Amazon, the first and still best stop for online shopping. I now live in a town that is over 100 miles from the nearest pocket of civilization, and the only reason a place like this is even partially tolerable is Amazon Prime, which allows me to buy whatever I want and not pay for shipping (well, I pay $75 a year, but you have no idea how much stuff my wife and I get on Amazon).
Neal Stephenson’s Anathem–Read it recently and loved it. I’ve loved all of his novels (though the Baroque Cycle is a tough haul). I love the fact that the kernel of this novel’s story is taken from the Long Now project.
Tim Hecker‘s Radio Amor, Harmony in Ultraviolet, and An Imaginary Country–I first got into Hecker because Amour was based around shortwave radio signals he recorded in Central America (shortwave being one of my fascinations). But everything this artist has created in the past few years is truly beautiful and challenging (a difficult combination, indeed). Highly recommended.
Stow, Scotland–My wife and I took our parents to the UK in 2006. We spent a week at a small farmhouse in this town. It was wonderful.
Ableton Live–This is the past, present, and future of electronic music composition. This German company will dominate the next decade because of their wise decision to merge their software with Cycling ’74′s epochal Max/MSP. Max for Live debuted in November 2009 and will be the basis for more music in the coming decade than the vocoder was in the Noughts.
Top Gear–I care very little about cars, but I love this show. It proves that adult men can make fun of each other intelligently and with style. Plus it’s one of the few things my wife and I enjoy watching together.
Lord of the Rings–The movies were fantastic, but what I love even more is the fact that these films spearheaded the interest in fantasy and mythology. It’s partly because of this film that I’m able to teach a class on mythology at my college.
Patton Oswalt–I’ve been a fan since his 1996 HBO special (which I taped and watched over and over). He’s more popular than ever now, and his comedy just keeps getting stronger.
Longplayer–A wonderful idea. Here’s hoping it lasts!
Bottom 10
George W. Bush
Dick Cheney
Donald Rumsfeld (really, it’s a three-way tie for first)
Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Fox News
People who don’t understand the difference between “were” and “where”
Terrorists of all stripes (from the 9/11 attackers to the Wall Street thugs to Republican fearmongers)
I came to a curious realization late last night, as I paused my reading of Neil Stephenson’s Anathem to look for accompanying music on my iTunes. I tried a little of Montreal, for starters, but that was distracting. Then I tried Sweet Billy Pilgrims’s Twice Born Men, but that, too, didn’t work. So I started browsing, and it suddenly dawned on me that I have a hell of a lot of ambient/drone music. I have over 10 GB of ambient/drone/phonographic works by people like Jacob Kirkegaard and Bill Fontana and William Basinski and Stars of the Lid and Brian Eno and Godspeed You Black Emperor! and on and on. Continue Reading »
Last night on the annoying show Real Time with Bill Maher, Billy Bob Thornton said something that bugged me immediately and then forced me to think about for a whole day before responding. He was relaying a discussion about music that he had with a PA on one of his movies. He challenged her to come up with a list of musicians from 1980 to the present who would be remembered 100 years from now. He gave her two names: REM and U2. And, he said, that was about it–compared to the hundred plus names he could come up with for the music from 1955 to 1979. Now, Thornton is right that there are tons of great artists from that earlier period who have already stood the test of time. He’s an idiot, however, because he assumes that any music created after his time sucks. Here’s just a sprinkling of artists who emerged after 1980 who could compete with the people on his list (and I’m even going to leave out the punk and post-punk artists like The Clash and Joy Division who created their music on the cusp of this era):
Radiohead
Nirvana
The Minutemen
Meat Puppets
My Bloody Valentine
Neutral Milk Hotel
Robyn Hitchcock
Sigur Ros
The White Stripes
Massive Attack
Tricky
Portishead
Tim Hecker
Chris Watson
Public Enemy
Beastie Boys
Run DMC
De La Soul
NWA
Dr. Dre
Eminem
Pan Sonic
Fennesz
Random Inc.
Taylor Deupree
Autechre
Boards of Canada
Depeche Mode
Aphex Twin
Nine Inch Nails
Kode9
William Basinski
The Caretaker
Stars of the Lid
Primal Scream
And that’s based solely on my iTunes collection right now. If I spent more time thinking about this, I can easily come up with 200 or 300 names whose music rivals anything created in 1965. The problem with people like Thornton is that they assume that, because everyone listened to the same music when they were growing up, that music today is inferior because there’s more of it and (hence) people’s listening tastes are way more eclectic than they used to be. He’s assuming that uniformity equals quality, in other words. Or perhaps he just thinks that his taste in music is the be all and end all of music, period. Either way, he’s way off. But at least he got me thinking.
So, please, tell me: what names have I forgotten here?
I bought Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea years ago and have enjoyed it for most of those years (took a few listens to get it, but I got it fairly quickly). Still, I never really LISTENED to it until about two months ago.
By LISTEN, I mean actually sitting down, not doing anything else, just LISTENING to it listening, the kind of listening I reserve only for the absolutely greatest music I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Now, I love music and have for a very long time, but albums I will drop everything to LISTEN to are rare. There was Bob Dylan’s Biograph, a few Stones albums (definitely Exile, possibly Beggar’s Banquet), the first Tricky album, Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights, Arvo Part’s Tabula Rasa, most everything by Boards of Canada and Sigur Ros and William Basinski, The Conet Project, and Joanna Newsom’s Ys. And now Aeroplane. Continue Reading »
