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Category Archives: music

December 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm — by rufus.k

2008 - My Top 5 Albums

The year’s almost over so I figured why not be on time with the years Album Top 5 for a change. Let me start by saying it’s a personal Top 5, so please try and keep the ‘Where’s Kanye?’s, and the ‘You mussed be kidding not to include MGMT!’s and such to a minimum. I can tell you however that I haven’t really heard Lil’ Wayne’s ‘Tha Carter III’ but it’s supposed to be great, I guess the ‘A Millie’ single therefore should have made my list, but since it’s an album listing well… it can’t. Albums I have heard but didn’t make the Top 5 however are (among others) Beck’s ‘Modern Guilt’, Santogold ‘Santogold’, Hot Chip’s ‘In The Dark’, Hercules and Love Affair’s self titled album, Erykah Badu’s ‘New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)’ and MGMT’s ‘Oracular Spectacular’ (which would have made No. 6 if this were an Album Top 6). I guess the picture above pretty much gave it away, but here’s my Top 5, 5 to 1 style:

5. Marnie Stern ‘This Is it and I Am it and You Are…’
on 5 because I haven’t heard it more than three times, but those three times must have all been within the last week. It’s, excusez le mot, ‘original’, it kicks ass, it annoys the hell out of people who know jackshit about music and it features Hella’s Zach Hill (earlier mentioned on this blog here). Download it!

4. Fleet Foxes ‘Fleet Foxes’
I guess everyone with ears will agree to this one. Fleet Foxes is the new Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. If their next album is going to sound like this one tho they’ll be forgotten before the fall of 2009.

3. Benjamin Herman ‘Hypochristmastreefuzz’
The Herm did it again! Hypochristmastreefuzz is Herman’s second homage to the Dutch Godfather of improv, Mischa Mengelberg. Herman’s genius on this recording makes ‘De sprong O Romantiek Der Hazen’, a Chicago Art Ensemblish weird Mengelberg track sound more like a Phil Woods ballad and Broezimann an introspective Monkish Mengelberg track like it was performed by The Revels, but still manages to keep the album from going all over the place. Insightful, occasionally sweet and action packed, once again.

2. Fuck Buttons ‘Street Horrrsing’
Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power are often being called the new Neu!, but that’s a compliment that merely does justice to the quality of both Street Horrrsing and the concert I saw may something this year. Sure, they’re as ‘droney’ as their thirty year older colleages, but their drones seem to fit better in the now than the drones that must have fitted the seventees earlier. Couple of weeks ago I was on a trainride thru the The Green Heart (a region in Holland where there’s a lot of meadows, farmland, occasional birds of prey and such) which was covered in early snow and blurred with fog while hearing ‘Sweet Love for Planet Earth’, the albums opening track. I felt like crying, I felt like smiling, I felt like calling loved ones, I felt like shutting up forever. If Street Horrrsing had come out eleven years earlier I guess it would have been the soundtrack to Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm. Great record!

1. Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds ‘DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!’
Here’s the record I’ve been listening to all year. I must have made at least fifty dinners this year singin’ along stuff like ‘everybody’s coming round to my place! everybody wanna be a midnight man…’, ‘we’re gonna have a real cool time… TOOOOOOO-NITE!’ and ‘…and what an enormous and encyclopaedic brain… and we called upon the author to explain!!’. Like all Nick Cave albums, it reeks of crime, rocky landscapes, literature, opium dens in the wild west, self knowledge and an ever present God laughing in our faces. Only this time Cave laughs along. And therefore it’s easier for me to relate to Nick Cave than on any of his earlier recordings. I’m not an all-time Nick Cave fan and I certainly don’t think The Birthday Party was all that great (although the actual Harold Pinter play was quite spectacular). I only stepped in when first seeing the ‘Stagger Lee’ (from the Murder Ballads album) video on MTV and I believe Cave and the Seeds have gotten better with every record since. For example, a year ago I thought Grinderman was the bees knees and of course the soundtrack for ‘The killing of Jesse James…’ was awesome. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

That’s it! Next Top: same time, next year.
photo above (detail) taken by one Polly Borland

Posted in Hate to say I told you so, een vriend attendeerde mij hierop, music, plugging  

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November 26, 2008 at 6:31 pm — by rufus.k

In dead sleep (I snore zZz)

Niels Post, a friend I might have mentioned earlier, had told me about this new zZz video. I don’t want to start a moral argument here, but stuff like this tickles my senses. Now I’m not particularly fond of animals fighting just because humans think that’s cool. But just looking at the way the video tells the story of two men (zZz) in their studio or rather Art Laboratory, experimenting a lot with the forms two fighting cocks make on white paper when covered in paint, seems to justify the whole thing. Please notice that once again the Helvetica typeface seems to do its job and kind of smoothens out the horror taking place right on top of it. (One can organize a gang rape and get away with it only by seeing to it that the gang wears matching uniforms with the right words –preferably ebroidered– on carefully selected areas of the uniforms set in Helvetica (Bold). Apart from the fight being not really exciting (sometimes it looks like a somewhat friendly fight), it’s a pretty ok video and it ‘inspired’ me to writing this post on aesthetics vs. morality.

Weird how the senses work. When Niels had told me about the video I responded that I’m not too much into cock fights or any animal fights whatsoever, but immediately thought about the time me and the family (I was probably around twelve or so) went to see a bull fight somewhere near the french Pyrenees. Members of my family who shall remain nameless got into an argument about it as the whole thing was presented by a family member as ‘a bunch of guys goofin’ around and jumpin’ up and down the arena’, but in real life was as close to an actual spanish rite as could be. I was just plain struck by the danger and excitement downstairs in the arena. I don’t think we saw the whole thing (the actual killing), ’cause by that time the most emotional member of my family seemed to have ‘won’ an argument and we were safe and sound in the good old Citroën (french car) we drove back then. My guess is that if there hadn’t been a debate about it, I would have just sat there in awe until the very ending. I thought it was just awesome. The killing of that gruesome bull just felt fundamentally right. And who’s to say it isn’t, except for the opinionated masses?

So while understanding the attraction of witnessing animals getting killed by humans, my theory is this: If you don’t dig dog fights, why enjoy cock fights? or any set fights between two animals? I recently saw a guy feeding a praying mantis to his pet tarantula on Youtube. It was actually very lame, the mantis wasn’t much of a match for the spider (duh!). Still such a fight reminds me more of dog fights and cock fights than the bull fight I just described. I don’t know, a bull fight (as unfair as it is) feels less nerdy than one between two animals without actual human participation. I guess the next zZz video should be: the guys of zZz fighting bears covered with paint on top of a white blanket. I’d like to see ’em get it on. Or how about them fight each other? On meth maybe?!? I’ll come and drive them apart right before they kill each other myself. Hey, I wouldn’t want that to happen, their music kicks fucking ass!

Posted in de rare massa-cultuur, een vriend attendeerde mij hierop, music, se a vida é  

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November 17, 2008 at 2:07 pm — by rufus.k

Blow by Blow

When it came out I already wanted to say something about this beautiful album, but then I forgot and there wasn’t a real reason in quite some time. As if I need a reason?! Well, I guess I somehow do. Anyway, what better reason than letting you all know about the Edison, a prestigious musical award, Benjamin Herman recently won for his album ‘Campert’. An album based upon the original score Herman made earlier for a documentary my friend Jeroen S. Rozendaal had been working on named ‘tijd duurt een mens lang’ about dutch poet and writer Remco Campert.

Many people know Herman as being the band leader of his legendary New Cool Collective and NCC Big Band, but the alto saxophone player Herman is above all a jazz cat. He’s the only young musician I ever heard who’s able to combine modern jazz with a sort of nostalgic or pure feel one has when listening to jazz dinosaurs Ben Webster, Charlie Parker or especially Sonny Rollins (who I admit is least of a dinosaur of the three but who still is born, unlike Herman, in the year 1930). His influences notably vary from Jaki Byard and Mischa Mengelberg to Defunkt’s Joseph Bowie or James Chance, but I somewhere overheard he recently is into Fleetfoxes as well. So I guess why he‘s such a great musician is pretty obvious: he simply loves all music, a quality seldom seen by at least the jazz musicians I know.

The moody ‘Campert’ reeks of fallen autumn leaves, stifled heart ache and the joy of einzelgangin’ and is already being compared to legendary jazz soundtracks like Miles’ ‘Ascenseur pour l’Echafaud’ and such, but it reminds me most of all of Gato Barbieri’s Soundtrack for ‘Last Tango in Paris’ (orchestrated by Oliver Nelson). Anyway, it’s just a really, really awesome record which can be played at least four or five times a week when the wheather’s right. Much respect for all musicians, but extra special credits go out to piano player Gideon van Gelder who genuinely plays with the subtlety of someone who does little, but is probably capable of lots.

Posted in Hate to say I told you so, dit moet wel een heel bijzonder iemand zijn, music  

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October 7, 2008 at 1:21 pm — by rufus.k

Eva Brown

Upcoming shows to go see are:
1. Tomorrow The Night Marchers play the waterfront
2. The day after, Fata ‘El Moustache’ Morgana (with basically all Mees’ men as members) & Eva Braun play the OT301 (cd release party for both bands)

Suus and me were asked to do the Eva Braun artwork and it turned out the thing you can see right above this here picture of Eva Braun herself. Pretty nifty huh? We took Eva Braun’s picture and turned her into someone quite new (and quite old). Just as the band has. Also please observe the typeface Suus designed! If that ain’t fresh, I don’t know what is. Too bad the band didn’t go for it. I won’t go into ‘why’, but let’s leave it at ‘every client has the right to refuse a design and that’s that.’ Hope I make it to their gig though, as musicians they kick lots of ass!

Posted in GA HIER HEEN!, music, se a vida é, work I did  

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September 24, 2008 at 5:56 pm — by Gyz

M.T.C.

Pretty crappy (therefore cooler) recording of a TV broadcast item about one of the legendary M.T.C. party(s). Funny, Hitmeister D and me went (to this particular one from the YouTube item above) there in a fake fur coat, geeeezzz…
Those parties were awesome!

Posted in POP, de rare massa-cultuur, music, weemoed en verlangen  

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September 24, 2008 at 12:46 pm — by Gyz

Out goes the old - In comes the new

I went to the CBS party the other day in the (new and improved) UNIE. Artists that made the party were I-f, Legowelt, mr. Pauli, Alden Tyrell, Roberto Auser, Intergalactic Gary and others.. Great atmosphere!

After five years it was done with the internet (radio)community Cybernetic Broadcasting System. But something new appears: Intergalactic FM.

Photo: iPhone grabbed Sierk

Posted in de rare massa-cultuur, dit moet wel een heel bijzonder iemand zijn, music  

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September 8, 2008 at 6:32 pm — by rufus.k

Drum’s Not Dead

Hidde van Schie recently asked me to participate in a somehow religious project about the hugeness of it all reflected in the adventures of improv. Me and two actual drummers played a drum solo each and (in my case: Vinniefoewakka) recorded these in order to appear on an all-drums-and-nothing-but-drums-because-drum’s-all-that-counts album ‘curated’ by Hidde van Schie himself. The actual drummers are Arend Niks and Robin Schaeverbeke and I’m me. Turned out to be (apart from being good ‘conceptual’ work) quite a nice forty somewhat minutes of a listen. The excellent drawings in the booklet and on the cd itself are done by Koen Taselaar.

It came out last saturday and is available only at Swetika Religion Arts store (South Side, Rotterdam) for a lousy five euros.

Posted in GA HIER HEEN!, music, work I did  

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August 12, 2008 at 10:39 am — by rufus.k

back on top

Four new streaming vids in my YouTube video stash (thanks again Tombrecht!). Consisting of two supporting graphics I made which were used in videos, the registration of a performance I once did at homeboy Kraft’s (H)ot Scenes fest AND this portrait of Marcel Alexander Wiebenga (the first) that I once made as an actual video for Benny Sings but alas it wasn’t found good enough. A couple of days ago I lost my urban prince and his girl Jasmijn to the warm, seductive arms of commodity fetishism as they, like so many before them, have moved to Amsterdam. Herefore, finally, an ode to all my friends going for gold in the form of Peter, Bjorn an John’s ‘Amsterdam’. I wish you all a lot of luck and nothing but good fortune, health, happiness and Prosecco.

Peter, Bjorn and John
Amsterdam

Baby went to Amsterdam
She put a little money into travelling
Now it’s so slow, so slow
Baby went to Amsterdam
Four, five days for the big canal
Now it’s so slow, so slow

And I was heading up north
To a place that I know
Eating well, sleeping well
But still I was way, way out of line
Amsterdam was stuck in my mind

Oh, it’s a kind of stupid groove
That you can’t ignore
Oh, it’s a kind of natural fact
Sometimes you’re just left to be alone

Baby went to Amsterdam
She put a little money into travelling
Now it’s so slow, so slow
Baby went to Amsterdam
Four, five days for the big canal
Now it’s so slow, so slow

And I got to go away
To a place of my own
Working hard, fill my time
From that day on, till I hit the bed
Amsterdam was stuck in my head

Oh, it’s a kind of stupid groove
That you can’t ignore
Oh, it’s a kind of natural fact
Sometimes you’re just left to be alone

Posted in POP, lyricism, music, tourism, weemoed en verlangen, work I did  

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July 10, 2008 at 12:46 pm — by rufus.k

I’d go there, but I don’t care

Band reunions kick ass!

Posted in music  

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July 10, 2008 at 12:44 pm — by Gyz

Fairlight (electronic african blood)

Herbie Hancock will play at this years North Sea Jazz.
If you miss it -like me-, you can see him (above) play with 
Fairlight back in the days, with his friend Quincy, haha…

we have to plug it in…

Posted in GA HIER HEEN!, de rare massa-cultuur, music, weemoed en verlangen  

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