AKMA’s Random Thoughts

Margaret is determined — and I mean that in the nicest possible way — to listen to the King’s College Chapel service of Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast on Radio Three. The problem would be matching up that event with our family (who will be in church from about 9 to 12 Central Time). I can buy the Pro version of Wiretap, if necessary, though I’d be a shade uneasy about trying it for the first time on a one-time digital broadcast. Any other clever ideas?
Continue reading “Query”

Margaret wandered down to Peets to study, Nate went for a haircut, and Pippa and Si and I have been having a YouTube morning — checking out music videos (Si: “Oh my Lord, he has 80’s hair!”), bits from Saturday Night Live, the Dead Parrot sketch, and Rutland Weekend Television (“Gibberish” FTW!). We conclude this Family Update with a seasonally-appropriate excerpt from George Harrison’s appearance on Rutland Weekend Televsion as “Pirate Bob”:

Strike from checklist: grade papers for Gospel Mission course; sermon

Add to checklist: Order a copy of Brevity & Echo, the new Steve Himmer anthology (with a lot of filler by a bunch of people I don’t know)

Nate came home from his studies at U Mich yesterday, and brought with him a list of last year’s best releases in response to my own. Since he actually knows what he’s talking about when it comes to music — his area of specialization is a kind of music criticism that I hadn’t even heard of before he tried patiently to explain it before my glassy eyes — with his permission, I append his analysis of the last year’s best music releases.

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I didn’t listen to nearly enough new records this year to fairly say what the “best” releases were, but I can say what I enjoyed listening to the most of the records that were released in the past 12 months. I couldn’t make myself rank them specifically, but here they, roughly in the order of “most impressed with” to “not quite as impressed with:”

Matthew Herbert – Scale
Herbert is more than a DJ, more than an electronic musician, more than an arranger; he’s a songwriter, a really really good songwriter. All of the pieces on this album are not only notable for the creative use of sounds, but for their perfect structure. They’re great songs. They sound amazing. The opening track, “Something Isn’t Right,” is probably my favorite song of the whole year. It’s catchy, the vocals are gorgeous, the texture is full and rich and complex, and even though the key is in constant flux, the melody seamlessly holds everything together. Track 3, “Moving Like A Train,” is Luciano Berio on ecstasy.

The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
I knew that at the least I’d be able to say that 2006’s Decemberists release would be my favorite album of the year by a band that uses big words and sings sea chanties, but I was certainly not expecting it would be one of the best albums of the year, and I really think it is. If you were previously unimpressed by the Decemberists, then listen to this anyway, because it’s so much more mature than their older work that it almost sounds like a different band; but only different in that it’s grown, not changed its core. While older songs tended to be on the rougher side, each track on this album is tightly constructed and polished, but still just as original and sincere. “The Island” is my other favorite song of the year, it sounds like everything prog-rock should sound like: epic and exciting and interesting without being too esoteric or conceited or proud of its own sophistication. And even though it gets all E.L.P. in the middle, it concludes with one of the most beautiful lullabies Meloy has yet written. Also notable on the album are “Yankee Bayonet,” “O Valencia,” and “The Perfect Crime 2,” all of which characteristically manage to be both poppy and far too unique to be mainstream.

TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain
I was really excited to hear this after getting really into 2004’s Desperate Youth Bloodthirsty Babes, but unfortunately I couldn’t get my hands on it until relatively recently. I’m not even sure yet if I like it as much as DYBB, partly just cause I haven’t gotten to listen to it much yet, but even so it is easily one of my favorite albums of the year. They just sound terrific. But more importantly, behind their novel sound is real, evident, engaging musicianship. Which brings me to a different topic: what is the DEAL with the hype around Joanna Newsom? I mean.. yeah, it’s different, it’s even kind of cool, but I am straight up baffled by all the people who think Ys is one of the best records of the year. Granted I haven’t listened to it much, but I didn’t think there was really anything that stimulating about it, nothing that made me WANT to listen to it again, or that made me think it was at all more significant than any other release. In other words, it’s special because it’s different, but besides that, it’s nothing that special. Unlike (to get back on track) TV On The Radio, which is different AND special.

Electric President – Electric President
I really like this album. There is something so charming and comforting about it. The affect is all so subdued that I’d expect it to get tedious, but creative use of electronic sounds and acoustic instruments, supporting the almost whispered vocals, really draws me in. The songs are folky, but post-modern. I bet it would sound amazing if they covered some Pink Floyd songs. They really remind me of Pink Floyd, actually; just a little bit more cheerful. Favorite track: “Farewell.” They lull you into a false sense of security, then…

Islands – Return To The Sea
How could you not be crazy about this?? The Unicorns died, but this is what rose from the ashes. Jamie might have already left, but Nick -promises- that Islands are forever. If you’re a fraction as into Canadian indie rock as I am you need this record, and even if you’re not, you should listen to it.

John Legend – Once Again
John Legend is an amazing musician. He has a great voice and more talent than he’s figured out what to do with yet. I truly believe he should become the next great soul music superstar, and although he is not yet, his 2006 album is certainly progress. 2004’s Get Lifted was good, but Once Again is better, and shows off a pretty wide spectrum of styles, from the somewhat generic R&B of his debut album to alternative rock to Cole Porter-style jazz, and back to Motown. He practically channels Marvin Gaye on a couple songs. And all of it manages to stay solid and original.

The Roots – Game Theory
Best hip-hop record of the year, I think. I just love The Roots, and their “arty” aesthetics. And Game Theory is a good Roots record, not just a good hip-hop record.

Sidenote: other 2006 hip-hop (etc.) albums
Ghostface’s Fishscale got all the hype… I like it a lot, definitely, I just didn’t find it as engaging as Game Theory, and not quite top-ten material. Certainly honorable mention, though. Rhymefest’s Blue Collar was another one of my favorites, but after a few listens I thought it was a little formulaic or something. That said, I loved the sound (“Dynomite” is another favorite song of the year), and I’m pretty confident his future work will only get stronger. I haven’t heard Lupe Fiasco’s record yet, but apparently it’s really good. k-os’s Atlantis probably deserves its own paragraph, but I just got it and don’t have enough to say about it yet. I love k-os though, and so far this sounds even better than Joyful Rebellion. Of course, I don’t know if he’s strictly “hip-hop,” if he’s a genre it’s more like “whatever-genre-Lauryn-Hill-is.” This record is beautiful and catchy and fun and original and strong.

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldier
Definitely didn’t expect to love this. But I do. The songs are all just good, accessible but smart. The opener is ridiculously catchy. “Hands” could be a b-side from Revolver, with its close harmonies and adept navigation of poppy powerchord progressions. A couple later tracks sound like Zeppelin. Basically, this is more than just a side-project supergroup, they really figured out how to be a band, and a really good band, in the legacy of classic rock and roll bands. Hopefully they can keep it up, but if not, this is still a great record on its own.

Two records that might or might not be good enough to be included here if not for the fact that they were by two of my favorite artists:

The Flaming Lips – At War With The Mystics
It’s kind of hard to judge any Lips album that isn’t Soft Bulletin; this isn’t Soft Bulletin, but it’s different, not bad. More guitar-oriented rock songs than their recent work, but still characteristically balloons-and-confetti-dreamy. And it’s just fun to listen to, whether or not it’s as great as Soft Bulletin.

Beck – The Information
I’m still not sure what to think about it. It doesn’t seem nearly as cohesive as any of his previous albums, or as accessible, but there are some terrific songs on it too. I recommend it automatically because it’s Beck, and he has yet to do anything to dissapoint me artistically.

Finally,
Sufjan Stevens – Songs for Christmas
I think he’s one of the greatest songwriters of the decade, if not generation. His creativity is limitless, and like every brilliant composer he just makes things work, and sound good. This collection isn’t a real “album,” it’s a box set of the EP’s of christmas carols he’s put together for his friends over the past few years. But each EP still has more ingenuity and musicianship than the average regular release by an established artist, even though the content is christmas music. I hate christmas music—that is, I hate the commercial christmas music you hear on the radio, not traditional carols—but between Stevens’ ingenuity and sincerity and the fact that most of the material he uses is more on the hymnal side of christmas carols than the easy listening side, and the inclusion of several original compositions, this set is a truly great song-cycle, in spite of its narrow holiday theme. And the original “It’s Christmas Time!” with its rocking Hey Jude chorus is my new favorite anthemic christmas song.

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I’m going to offer Nate webspace for music reviews any time he wants to send them to me — maybe it’ll save effort at the end of the year (it took me ages to paste in links for all those albums).

Micah (Micah Jackson, the homiletician, not Micah Wright Kaufmann, the chorister whom I mentioned the other day) calls my attention to this article in The Economist, which argues that recent tactics in marketing correspond to the philosophies of postmodern theorists such as Lyotard, Foucault, and Derrida.

Hmmmmm.

To the extent that the article implies that late capitalism has adapted to the characteristics of culture that these theorists were describing, it should be no news. Indeed, the quotation from Lyotard with which the article tries to drive its first rhetorical stake comes from a passage in which Lyotard was describing the effects of global capitalism. So if the article wants to suggest that there’s something ironic or self-defeating about Lyotard’s position, I’d riposte is that the only irony lies in the journalist’s misconstruing Lyotard’s essay.

The article glibly asserts that its subjects “wanted to destroy capitalism and bourgeois society” (what did they do in their spare time?). Yes, in varying degrees at varying times, they devoted their energies to exposing the brutal effects of global capitalism. At the same time, I doubt they’d have signed on to the destruction of capitalism as the goal of their work; they were a good deal more subtle than that.

In the hands of a careful reader, the essay might have explored the ways that marketers used postmodern diagnoses (which, to be true, did usually involve a principled resistance to the hegemony of liberal capitalism) as an occasion for furthering the goals of market capitalism. The author might then have considered the role that diversity and polymorphous pleasure played in specific intellectuals’ thought, concluding with estimates of what those thinkers might have made of the ways that these styles of sales and advertising tactics made use of their ideas. That would have been a different essay, more provocative and illuminating.

This essay, however, falls into the “oh, these pomos (‘as they are affectionately known to adherents’ — really? which adherents are those?), look at their silliness!” bin of oversimplification and obfuscation. C- or D, I’d say.

I just caught Church and Postmodern Culture’s notice of Derrida’s last words. Rather than simply reproducing here the translation that Jamie Smith offers, I’ll note that the translation obscures at least one pun; oraison does indeed mean “oration,” and Derrida knew well the difficult obligation of composing a eulogy (in his last years he wrote funerary tributes to numerous luminaries from his generation of French intellectuals). The word “oraison” also, though, means “prayer” (especially, I’d say, in parallel with “rituel”).

I doubt I will ever come to the end of my own thinking and talking about Derrida, but these last words bespeak a heart of grace and an attentive respect for the truths to which “religions” attend harmonious with his remarks on prayer at the SBL/AAR meeting a few years back (1, 2, 3).

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Since it can be difficult to find the specific ‘last words’ in question, here’s a transcription of them:

‘Jacques n’a voulu ni rituel ni oraison. Il sait par expérience quelle épreuve c’est pour l’ami qui s’en charge. Il me demande de vous remercier d’être venus, de vous bénir, il vous supplie de ne pas être tristes, de ne penser qu’aux nombreux moments heureux que vous lui avez donné la chance de partager avec lui.
Souriez-moi, dit-il, comme je vous aurai souri jusqu’à la fin.
Préférez toujours la vie et affirmez sans cesse la survie…
Je vous aime et vous souris d’où que je sois.’

I am not a music blogger, but since music surrounds and suffuses my daily activities, and inasmuch as all the cool kids are posting their “Top Albums of the Year” (woe to the December release that doesn’t garner enough attention to be “top,” and then doesn’t qualify in the next year), I too decided, after having examined some of the top ten lists carefully, to write an orderly account of the year’s releases, just as they have been handed down to us by those who were on top of the music scene from the beginning.

My list below includes some material I haven’t heard, and some I know pretty well. It doesn’t add up to a round number, and it mingles single cuts with albums, and it includes music I don’t like that much along with music I greatly admire. Since I am not a music blogger, I can do whatever I want (even the whole “of the year” premise seems arbitrary to me, so I’m likely to deviate from that criterion as well).

I don’t get to listen to as much new music as real music bloggers, since I treasure long-term favorites and am not extensively patient with listening to haphazard novelties when I could be listening to consistently marvelous past performances.

I was not as impressed with this year’s Bob Dylan album, Modern Times, as I was with Love and Theft. When I heard Love and Theft, I heard a new chapter in Dylan’s work, and I delighted what I took to be his perfect accomplishment. He laid claim to the folk tradition’s continual re-employment of its own history toward new performances that still bespeak the old; on Modern Times, I hear him say, “Oh, yeah, and another thing. . . .” I’ll keep it around and I’m prepared for it to surprise me (what would be more typical of Dylan?) on relistening, but it doesn’t make a “top” anything list for me.

The Hold Steady’s Boys and Girls in America does make my list. I still prefer Separation Sunday — it’s tough to beat an album whose centerpiece tells “How a Resurrection Really Feels” — and Almost Killed Me, but Boys and Girls sustains the band’s repertoire without falling into repetition. Many critics invoked Bruce Springsteen comparisons when the album came out, but I hear echoes of the Boomtown Rats’ better work, transplanted to U.S. turf. Job well done. (Speaking of Springsteen, I admired the Seeger tribute, but it didn’t win over my listening time.)

I did not take to twee pop quickly; I liked some odds and sorts of Belle and Sebastian (“If You’re Feeling Sinister,” “She’s Losing It”), but didn’t listen long enough, carefully enough, to take them up enthusiastically. Over the past year I gathered more of their work and they’ve won me over. During the summer, Margaret heard a fair amount of The Life Pursuit at our church-day coffee haunt, the Brothers K and intrigued her. I respect the band’s willingness to extend themselves, and their success in sustaining a distinct style as they move out from the secure base they built over their earlier albums. Another top recording.

While I’m talking twee, I can’t say much about Camera Obscura except that their single, “Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken” (from Let’s Get Out of This Country) captivated me. If you don’t already know Lloyd Cole’s “Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?” (with the Commotions, from Rattlesnakes, itself an estimable track), you can size up the blithely appealing lead vocal and the smooth arrangement — but if you can make the connection back to the Commotions, the wit of Camera Obscura’s response is irresistible.

The Indigo Girls’ new album Despite Our Differences didn’t knock me out; good, not outstanding. On the other hand, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins’ Rabbit Fur Coat knocked me out (pre-album live performance available for download here). Lewis’s voice and her musical sensibilities already sttod out from Rilo Kiley albums, but the this album distills many of the qualities I admired before into a more intense, tighter focus.

Margaret pointed me to the Wood Brothers’ Ways Not To Fail, a sort of bluegrass-meets-blues endeavor that works. That reminds me (not sure why) of the Raconteurs Broken Boy Soldiers, which I enjoyed (though not as much as last year’s White Stripes album, Get Behind Me Satan). I like M Ward, haven’t soaked up Post War yet.

My patterns of taste suggest that I might like the critical favorite TV On The Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain, but I haven’t heard enough to form a judgment. The Beatles’ Love album sounds all right, but I haven’t quite passed the “acceptable novelty” feeling about it. I just haven’t heard Gnarls Barkley much, though I’d anticipate liking at least “Crazy” (I’ve got it, will listen right away as soon as Camera Obscura is finished). I deliberately neglected the Arctic Monkeys — I may be small-minded, but I got a flash-in-the-pan vibe from their internet buzz. I’ll repent if they show staying power.

I’m getting acquainted with Ghostface’s Fishscale album. I’m still not cool enough (or whatever) to take to hiphop as certified tasteful critical listeners, but Fishscale is this year’s tentative step into hiphop.

Speaking of not cool enough, I also fail the Joanna Newsom test. I can admire Ys in a distant, unconvinced way, but right now it will never be on a playlist I make for myself. I’m not quite sure where all the enthusiasm is coming from; I have a hunch that if this were still the material-artefact era, there’d be a lot of used Joanna Newsom CDs and LPs on the market in a year or two.

Oh, I discovered Laura Cantrell this year — if you haven’t yet, you might want to try the material she’s offered on her downloads page.

As always, I’m sure I’ve forgotten good stuff, and I’d love to be convinced that I misjudged something. The more enjoyment of music, the better; I’m not doctrinaire about any of this. Use the “email” button to send me comments, and we can continue the conversation in the “extended” version of the post. I’ll finish adding links as I can; right now I have papers to mark.

Oh, don’t forget Jonathan Coulton’s Thing a Week project, especially “Code Monkey,” though I preferred his performance of it on NPR the other week.

Three other music notes: Geoffrey Pullum posts an appreciative commemorative reminiscence of Ahmet Ertegun, and Tim Bray nails it with his 5-star review of “Better Git Hit In Your Soul.” And Michael Iafrate has released a Christmas EP, The Rebel Jesus, freely downloadable here.

I vote for Eye of a Cat (linked from Liz) over Concurring Opinions (linked from Mark).

The sermon went off this morning, with a generously positive reception. I have a fair number of reservations about the way I finally realized the composition; another day of gestation might have served the sermon well — but I did meet the challenge of (a) incorporating the metaphors from the “O Antiphons” in to the sermon, (b) accommodating my inuitive assoication of the present moment with Candide, and (c) infiltrating an online gaming phrase that my buddies demanded to hear/see in the online text. I did not mention Micah, Kaethe, and Pippa by name, as Micah had suggested, but Pippa and the Wright Kaufmann young’uns appear as a non-specific next generation, which they would probably be more comfortable with.

I will note that I had assumed (without checking, shame on me) that we would be singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” on this Third Sunday of Advent. I shoulda checked, but the week was pretty stressful, and I put it off.

(Audio downloadable courtesy of St Luke’s website.)
Continue reading “Mission. . . Oh, Never Mind”

For some reason, the existence of a tag for small caps (〈small〉) had escaped my attention.
Continue reading “Useful Things I Didn’t Know”

Our friend John Utz had long felt uneasy about having a mantelpiece without a fireplace — so he set about taking direct action against an underornamented room:

Don’t tell Amy Laura, Rachel, or Emily, though; it’s a surprise. (You can probably tell Emily, since if she relayed it to Amy Laura and Rachel they wouldn’t believe her.)

OK, so I forgot to mention this in time for Hanukkah, but I think you can still order David Weinberger’s My Hundred Million Dollar Secret in time for Christmas (and there’s always the tradition of gift-giving on the Twelfth Night of Christmas, and Purim is right around the corner). (The website that accompanies the book seems to be down this morning, so you can’t preview the book just now, but how many books that you buy for children have thought-provoking websites designed by philosopher-Web pundit-humorists?)