\October 1 Listen-and-Run Music Reviews by Cosmic Piper/

[The forecast for Saturday has already been posted, beneath this.]

Today I spent time perusing a musical event in Seattle called Decibel involving electronica musical groups. I listened to some of them on the Internet, and earlier groups who originated their tradition, and penned the following comments:

Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express”: a fascinating number, “song” if you will, piece of early electronica though with human voices, which I was told is an example of the best of the genre, at least a very popular one. It is okay.

“Cars” by Gary Numan is okay also. “Okay” from me in regard to current music means “not bad” or “pretty good” which is really high praise. But the constant slapping or cracking sound in this is overbearing after a while and too repetitive and not music. Ugh. Goodbye Gary.

“Love is the Drug” by Roxy (1975) is better. Also repetitive, too much, but bearable. Is “bearable” all we can ask from this kind of music? This might be called early electronica, with singing. The track ends with a kind of Beatles uplift. A confusion of genres?

“Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order (1986) is more to my liking. It has a disco feel to it, danceable. Kind of sweet. I applaud.

More “early electronica” from 1975: Brian Eno and “Spirits Drifting.” Not only bearable but interesting. A little spooky. Contemplative music, not intended for dancing unless you are a “spirit” in a particular sense of the word.

Pet Shop Boys say “It’s a Sin” (in 2003) to be evocative, bouncy, danceable but brooding. Self-guilt as delicious display. But of course it is really a satire on religious education which makes everything seem a sin. I sympathize. Very artfully done. No hatred in it, just endless irony. As if all aspiration beyond one’s “sinful” self were irony, as well as all indulgence of said self. Yet it remains oddly religious in tone, mocking religion perhaps but equally mocking any escape from it.

Kraftwerk have lost me with their 1978 “The Robots.” Again irony: “We are the Robots.” But of no musical interest to me.

Prototype 1 by Derrick May (2002) is like sounds in a train yard. Enough is enough.

Oh No by D. O. P. (1992) is like listening to one fairly good bar of music, say Bach, over and over again for 6 minutes. Why?

“The Orange Theme” by Cygnus X almost goes into classical harmonies, in fact does at certain moments, only to pull itself back as if embarrassed. “No classical harmonies here, we are Electronica!” I would call it quasi-musical. Still going after 6 minutes, almost done. Too repetitive. Though it repeats a couple of good ideas, it does not develop them.

Zomby’s “Daft Punk Rave” is not worthy of Daft Punk, who can be very good at their best (not often enough). “B with Me” by the same group is meaningless to me, D or E to me. What would one expect from a band calling itself Zomby with a purple demon on the album cover?

“Take a Drink from my Hands” by Hammock (2003) is deep-mood contemplative, approaching religious. But it faded out for me before the end of two minutes. However, I held on and by 3 minutes it again had some interest; before 4 minutes it seemed there was nothing more it could do to revive a semblance of life; by 4:19 it seemed dead, but struggled on; repetitions of the theme had no poignance or thrill; by 5 it ended and nobody cared.

Ulrich Schnauss is mildly interesting, but really, “A Strangely Isolated Place” (album) is what it feels like and I don’t need to go back there.

Now to random music which might be playing in Seattle in the month of October 2011:

Black Star, comprising Mos Def and Talib Kweli: It’s their particular street-rap stuff, okay if you like it. “Consider me the entity within the industry without a history” maybe sums it up; or “an instinct leaving suckers extinct.” Clever rap, meaningless music.

“Swoon” by The Chemical Brothers is very good (2010). Interesting music which keeps alive despite its repetitive frills. Oh well, at 4:22 I am getting tired of it and there’s another whole minute: “There’s nothing else” we are told repeatedly. “Just remember to fall in love,” and when you do, don’t play more than three minutes and a half of this track or the love might even become boring, perish the thought. Swoon between three and four minutes, and turn off the music.

“Animal Rights” by Deadmau5 is novel, it keeps me interested up to 2:56 anyway. Now the endless repetition is getting dull. It just doesn’t stop, or change enough to be interesting. No. At 3:38 I want to turn it off. Now it is worse and worse, sounding like someone with gastro-intestinal problems, at 4:15. Two minutes to go? Not for me.

“Lex” by Ratatat starts out well, swaying, swerving, enlivening.

Crystal Castles I can recommend, listening to one of their tracks, though I am proofreading a lesson by Marc Edmund Jones at the same time so won’t comment in detail. This is interesting music one might want to enjoy in the background, uplifting even.

Chromeo are very good. I don’t know how to describe them. Musical, melodic, harmonic and bouncy. But distinctively 20-ten music rather than 00 or 90 music. They stay interesting. And the track I’m listening to now knows when to quit, at 2:49, when it ran out of ideas. A gracious ending.

I know when to quit too.

/October 1 Listen-and-Run Music reviews by Cosmic Piper\