well, i went by the Creative Time event in Brooklyn last week, to see
Pole and Scion.
It seemed to be someone's art idea to present the musicians in an
oblong plexiglass box, isolated from the audience, with videos and
slides projected on the plexi surfaces. the projections were culled
from a reel of silly 60's american tv commercials and clips from the
origial King Kong film. there was something relentlessly american and
trivial about the imagery, for better or worse quite at odds with the
chilled-out european futurism of the music.
Pole's set sounded very nice. The glitching sounds of his broken pole
filter seem well behind him these days, and it was a sleek sort of
downtempo loungey music he made, more along the general lines of
what's coming out of Scape than Pole's older music. He twiddled
dials, played melodica, generally looked affable and relaxed, and
even bounced up and down a few times. Nonetheless, the plexiglass box
won out, the audience basically acted as though a record was on in
the background somewhere and blabbed their way loudly through the
set, barely applauding at the end. Not because they hadn't liked the
music, but because it hadn't seemed like a performance.
Scion playing their Basic Channel remix set fared better, functioning
more like dj's. People danced rabidly. Scion looked very
well-scrubbed and cute there in the plexiglass box, a couple of
pilots making a few adjustments as their jumbo jet rumbled across the
ocean. It was kinda fun to hear, and I danced for awhile. I gotta
say, I haven't been able to get into this project the way I thought I
would. The Basic Channel tracks are these great deadpan things, that
hover between something and nothing. Chopped up and remixed, they
tend to get a lot busier and lose their enigma.
-----------------
a new Thomas Brinkman CD appeared at the store today, "Row". It
proves to be a collection of previously released tracks from various
sources (Ernst and Suppose singles, comp tracks). A few of them are
tracks I really love, like "Rhibosomes" and his remix of Brel's "Ne
Me Quit Pas" sung by (I think) Nina Simone. One exclusive track, a
cute one about brushing teeth. Couple of the Ernst single tracks are
alternate versions from the vinyl releases.
------------------
schneider TM 'zoomer'
whoa, this ain't like his last album, is it? it's, like, all songs
and stuff, kinda more like sarcastic/silly indie rock meets
electronica. Lots of vocal harmonies, kinda Holland-period Beach
Boys. includes a rap track. has a track about cutting a frog in half
but sounds like Air Supply or something, only with glitch-hop
rhythms. Hello Frank Zappa. huh. well, it's elaborately crafted and
kinda funny.
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