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jmdbjk · 2 years ago

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Hi, I noticed that Jimin hasn't been caring about his idol image/fashion lately. He's wearing clothes that he wore many times before and even repeat those outfits in the same week. He used to be a fashionista. His airport fashion was always the talk of town. What do you think happened ?

Hey, Anon!

I suppose if you are accustomed to seeing wealthy music artists and celebs flaunt their money by never wearing the same very expensive thing twice, Jimin WILL disappoint you. And I have to mostly disagree with your assessment of his fashion choices lately.

[Chanel 31 rue cambon sweater, available for resell $6,000, August 2020, Posted by Jimin on Twitter]

I am going to address your ask in several parts.

"Jimin hasn't been caring about his idol image/fashion lately."

I would not say that Jimin doesn't care about his idol image. I think he very much does care about it only because there are aspects of it that are just part of his personality. He is naturally polite. He is well-mannered and courteous to those he meets. He acknowledges Army whenever he sees them in public. He also is very private which is an aspect of his idol image. He knows that everything he does and says and every time he farts it is scrutinized. But I know you were speaking about his appearance and not what he had for lunch.

[Hobi’s JITB listening party, July 2022, W Magazine Korea]

"He's wearing clothes that he wore many times before and even repeat those outfits in the same week."

In my opinion, Jimin has never been very extravagant in his day-to-day clothing choices and is something he just isn't interested in dwelling on. He's never given me that impression. He always keeps it simple, typically t-shirt/jeans or black pants. He has his favorite pieces/brands and he sticks with them. I have heard it mentioned that he is somewhat "frugal" so in the context of multimillionaire frugal, Jimin wears his $300-$600 (or more) t-shirts multiple times. Nothing wrong with that. We have seen him repeat several of his very nice and very expensive pieces such as that Chanel sweater above. There is another blue and white Chanel sweater he’s worn repeatedly as well. I heard he went shopping at Chanel while in Los Angeles this past week so we'll see if we get a new Chanel sweater reveal in the near future.

[Jimin’s Raf Simons Smiley face t-shirt, $350, Las Vegas in April 2022, V Live]

[Los Angeles in August 2022, @j.m on Instagram]

[YSL To the Moon and Back t-shirt, $450, Incheon Airport, May 2018]

[Same t-shirt but looks like it has had a distressed effect applied, Los Angeles, August 2022, @tbhits on Instagram]

"He used to be a fashionista. His airport fashion was always the talk of town."

His airport fashion is still on point. He has just settled into a very understated, sublime monochromatic fashion aesthetic when it comes to his airport fashion. Have you ever been on a plane for 12-17 hours (or more) straight? It's not the most fun thing. Comfortable clothing is a must. He’s choosing comfort and practicality over flashy. He did used to wear some bold colors and some very avant garde looks just to get on a plane and sleep for 8 hours.

I am pretty sure airport fashion is something the groups' stylists assist with. There are brands that they have contracts with and so they wear those brands in public as part of their contractual obligations. We only saw mostly Louis Vuitton on the members for the length of time that contract was in effect. Jimin obviously chooses soft, comfortable pieces to wear on the plane.

[Louis Vuitton, beanie, $560; sweater, $1,265; bag, $5,500; shoes, $990, Incheon Airport, April 2022]

[Chanel Gabrielle bag, $5,000; Fendi sunglasses, $350; MAISON MARGIELA pendant necklace, $415; Patek Phillippe watch, $68,000 (not a typo), Incheon Airport, July 2022]

Again, in my opinion, day-to-day fashion is not something Jimin is obsessed with. However, when it comes to the image/vibe/look he wants to present for a certain performance, photoshoot or music video, I think he is all over that and controls that as much as he can. We've heard him tell the stylist "he wants bold makeup today" and we've seen him choose to have temporary tattoos, one for a photoshoot and even written across the palms of his hands for a recorded performance.

More recently we've seen the very provocative images in his Weverse magazine article where he shows a lot more skin and wearing some very sensual garments. He chose that. He definitely has a fashion vibe and knows what he wants to present as his idol image.

[Saint Laurent Kimono sleeve jacket, $3,500; long wrap necklace, $21,000 (not a typo); link earrings, $3,600; Tiffany ring, $2,800, Jimin interview, June 17, 2022, Weverse Magazine]

So that brings us back to your first statement about Jimin not caring about his idol image/fashion lately. Yes. He does care and always has cared about that.

If it's any consolation, Jimin does seem to own some extremely expensive wristwatches that he routinely wears while traveling and he rotates amongst his collection. So there’s that.

“What do you think happened?”

I think as he’s gotten older his tastes in fashion has changed. I think his priorities have changed, interests have changed and it’s no longer “look at me” but more of a “feel my vibe” which is becoming more laid back as time goes on. I think in the early years, the glamour and fashion was probably really fun and he embraced it. But now I think he is letting his idol persona be the flamboyant fashionista so his “at home I’m Park Jimin” self can be less so and more comfortable.

To the other Anon who asked if Jimin cut his hair again: I am not posting that photo because I don’t know where it came from. Also, Jimin’s head is blocked by a railing and it’s not clear what kind of hat (if any) that he’s wearing. But the length of his hair down the back of his neck, which is basically all I can really see, is not that much shorter at all than what it has been recently.

#park jimin #jimin #jimins airport fashion #bts chapter 2 #one of those watches could buy a really nice car

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elysicndrcvm · 4 years ago

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━♡ guess the 23 YEAR OLD FEBRUARY baby just arrived to dallyeog! it makes sense, because CHU EUNHA is just as BEDAZZLING as the month of FEBRUARY. wait, why do they remind me of JACOB BAE? beyond that, they seemed JOYOUS and SAVVY upon first glance. i heard someone say they’re sort of DELICATE and QUIXOTIC though. i hope they get acquainted here in COMPLEX 1 / APARTMENT 0215 / FLOOR 3 ; HE seem(s) to have a lot going on with HIS job as a PATISSERIE OWNER/NUTRITIONAL SCIENCE STUDENT. ( ez, 21, she/they, gmt. )

well hey there !! im ez but you fellow dallyeogers can call me ezzy, i have been in dallyeog before so some may remember me as having someone v different to my new bb i bring u now, i joined before with miss tam carmen !! anygays i return with this lil angel who i am all ‘ i say that’s my baby and i’m proud ’ over already even tho i literally came up with him like two days ago. you can find his pinboard here ( which btw i fuckeN love like he’s so aesthetic to me u go king ) and i made him a lil playlist which u can vibe to here. you can learn more about him under the cut but he’s a super soft-hearted gentle dove of a muse and quite...simple for me ?? sdhdh that’s not the right wording but U GET IT djjflg he isn’t super full of angst or trauma he’s just kinda viBIN livin his best life so that’s fun !! but ye without further ado:

so as u kno from his app he owns a patisserie, it’s his lil babey and he is very dedicated to his craft and makin sure all his ideas for the place and the baked goods he sells are like rlly quirky and avant-garde. like he is so passionate about it u dont even KNOW, he tries to make sure most of the stuff on his menu is something like fun and new u wouldn’t get at just any old patisserie or cafe and that it’s super varied and also kinda aesthetic af? the place is very like trendy. it’s called patisserie d’elysian cause ya know he’s an extra biTCHH and proud.

he has three pupperino’s. all as adorable as each other, snickerdoodle is his golden lab and often ppl shorten it down to snickers, butterscotch is his dapple daschund pup, shortens the name to scotchie often. toulouse is his fancy toy poodle boi, shortens the name down as toto. if u are on the shortened name basis with his pups then u can consider urself one of his close pals.

he’s actually adopted by his aunt but she raised him like she was his mother so that is what he considers her, she’s on his mother’s side but they are half-siblings. in terms of first name reasoning as well she just liked eunha as a name and didn’t even think about how it is traditionally for a female, she liked that it meant gift from heaven so it stuck. his father is still around, he’s just quite elderly so it felt like a better living situation for him to be raised primarily by his auntie. unfortunately his mother has passed on but no tragic story, she just went peacefully in old age.

he dyes his hair quite often, it’s currently like a really pastel blue with black streaks consistently throughout like lil ones so it looks super cool. but he’s also had it be a more electric blue, lilac, and a duck egg kinda faded silvery blue. it’s naturally dark brunette. has brown eyes kind of a hazel hue.

his style is kinda androgynous ig?? he just lives for soft retro fashion, lots of color in his wardrobe but also lots of tapered short and t-shirt fits frequented, sweater vests, rolled up jeans, high skater boi socks, soft jumpers with shirts, shirts in bright colours or satiny texture worn over plain white t-shirts, cardigans, pastel denim jackets, jeans with printed patterns on like clouds, flowers etc, favors yellow and blues. sometimes does eye makeup, occasionally wears heels bc he’s a baddie or super heeled boots/chunky shoes.

obsessed with music, can play violin and guitar. he’s a big mitski and rina sawayama fanatic, likes anything that sounds peaceful or calming or has like a good fun vibe to it. also likes the trademark gay icons like carly rae jepsen, lorde, etc. he’s not ashamed. obsessed with mamma mia movies. but also likes rap which is rlly funny cause its like the bad bitch female rappers only and like he’ll listen to it while arranging his sock drawer or making his bed or something ajdjdj it’s like hype anthems for being a baddie and a hoe and he’s just doing his night sleepy routine adkfkf.

showers, blankets, music, baked goods especially bagels are his happy places.

very much a sensitive lil romanticist, falls in ‘love’ like five times a day, he just likes to giggle and smile around pretty people and admire the artwork hnghdh, he’s like yeARNS though ya know?? like he’s all i will flirt by making prolonged eye contact, i made you a playlist, this song makes me think of you etc. it’s either memes as flirting with him or elaborate love letters u never know what ur gonna get akdkd.

awful sense of humour, loves his friends more than anything on earth except his pups, would fully live in a huge house of just like his pups and all his closest buds for all eternity. likes fruits way too much, enjoys puns about fruits way too much. milkshakes, sushi, orange hues and bus rides are some of his absolute favorite simple pleasures of life. clouds, flowers, salt lamps, the sunrise over the sea, skateboarding, fresh soda, teddy bears, busy street markets, parasols, fish tanks with exotic fish, sorbet, bike riding, polaroids, record players, rain at night against floor to ceiling windows with a fresh steaming pot of tea on the desk beside it and warm fresh sheets from the laundry on his bed, ponds, skateboarding. all little joys in life that give him like the biggest pleasure dopamine hit in the world.

his cousin actually owns a florists so he has flowers just littering his apartment like a lot and it just looks like he has ten million suitors from the late eighteenth century attempting to court him but no all these flowers are from him to him or worse from his aunt djfjg she sends him some for valentines every valentines, pls help him, pls send him flowers.

studies nutritional science and he fucken hates it. do not ask him shit cause he doesn’t KNOW OKAY? he doesn’t understand it either. he took it because he needed something to go alongside the passion for baking that was a real ‘qualification’/job so that is the only reason he’s doing it. no point doing a baking degree after all when he’s already a baker with a business, he’s super young still he gotta keep his prospects open. so YAH. he’d rather be doing culinary arts but eh. nutritional science sounded better and more logic based. the real miracle is he still gets top grades all the time even tho he spends his life like wtf am i even doing is this even legit akdkdk. school is the worst thing in the world for him watch his mood instantly deflate the second its brought up.

despite being a quixotic, he’s a lil afraid of intimacy. like oh god does he love it, those small touches and acts of affection u kno? the subtle things that normally go unnoticed, eye contact, brushing of hands, linking of little fingers, rubbing a thumb, kissing eyelids or foreheads or palms or shoulders in little gentle pecks, back massages and rubs or finger tracing patterns absent-minded, shoulder massages, laying your head on someone’s shoulder or on their lap, knocking knees together, exchanging a small glance only the two of you get before bursting into laughter, smiling into kisses, napping together, having blankets placed over you warm and fresh, or towels put ready like it, someone making you something they know you like a lot. that’s his sHIT. but like he’s terrified still, someone skimming their fingers on his skin makes his breath hitch like he’s a scandalized and alarmingly aroused victorian woman sjdjd. he’s literally still a virgin, he hasn’t even had his first kiss okay my baby is delicate be gentle with him akdkd but he still LIKES PASSION AIGHT kfkf.

real soft spoken, honey tinted voice like i shit u not this boy talks like he’s an angel sent from heavens above to guide you to the paradisaical garden of eden or some shit akdkd. ur gonna fall in love with eunha’s voice before u even fall in love with any other part of him like his adorable beaming smile or stunning eyes akdkf.

has dance parties around his room when getting ready in the morning, listens to bella’s lullaby unironically yes from twilight yes u heard right, bit of a himbo streak sometimes in his obliviousness djfjf. quite silently subtly funny actually much like jacob himself.

he is gay, afraid of driving, cannot do math, blanks out often and he is valid for all of those things. has a collection of cartoon and disney animal movie dvds. has a dream notebook. always has blue painted nails in some kinda shade.

does not enjoy turning in assignments bc he is scared he’ll fail, avoids looking at his grades for weeks after they’re released and hates knowing that they’re out.

cannot dance, dances often. collects vintage stuff esp clothes and mostly sweaters. likes midnight trips to corner stores and fields where he can just lay and look at the stars. makes friends rlly easily but has super bad performance anxiety. cannot ever have a messy room like even the tiniest bit messy. even like clothes being stacked on a chair instead of away.

bakes peanut butter, banana and choc chip muffins (they r called monkey bites normally) whenever he’s super stressed. if u want to cheer him up when he’s anxious or stressed then u should give him french lavender honey, chia seeds and caramelized pear on toast/bagel. it is his comfort food. he fancii when he needs a pick me up. treat urself and all that.

#dallyeog:intro #i'm literally in love with him he's the softest most goodest boi muse i have ever made and i just #im that meme of the samari sword guy with the cat in his arms akfkfk #IVE ONLY HAD EUNHA FOR TWO DAYS BUT IF ANYONE HURTS HIM I WILL KILL THEM AND THEN MYSELF AKKDK

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supere1113 · 6 years ago

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The Artist In Me - Track 11: Advancement

If you’ve been reading since track 1, Out of the Cobalt Blue and you’ve made it this far, let be take second to say I can’t hope to thank you enough for your interest in the details of these songs and the inner workings of this album. If your eyes are tired, just know this is the last one. But seriously, thank you for reading this! It literally means the world to me.

Success. It means different things to different people. Some people think it’s based in monetary value. Others think of it as a more occupation-based... thing. Other people still think of it as a metric of spiritual wealth or simply their own happiness. To some it means something different altogether.

The concept of success has kind of evolved over time for me. It means something different now than it did when I was 11. But the closest answer I can give about my definition of success is that it is measured by multiple metrics, some on the spiritual side, others on the more concrete side of things. What we’ll be talking about here is what success meant for me at age 13.

Ever since its conception, Advancement has been poised to be an epic piece of art. The simple, dramatic title, the nature of the subject matter and consequently, the instrumental. I created it sometime in 2016, and I knew quite early on that I wanted this song to be the ending of The Artist In Me. (I even did an instagram post where I allude to this song. I archived it, but I may put it back up just for this) I wanted a good benchmark to conclude the album, but one that could also be built upon in the future if desired.

Advancement is about success (you probably knew that by now). Particularly, the success of advancing in academia in my case (I say “in my case” because I want to keep these and all of my songs open to interpretation, open to you guys putting your own meanings into the art that I put out. I made it for me, I shared it mostly for you. This album is yours now. Do what you want with it. That’s what it’s for). I was 13. Leaving my first school and going to another, completely different one for jr. high. Getting the academic accommodations I needed in order to have my grades reflect my level of intellect. And a year later, I would be making my biggest advancement yet: going to high school. And not just any high school, a career high school (Shoutout to anybody from Dubiski reading this! I love y’all to death!) with different options on what you could study, and lo and behold, Architecture was one of them (Architecture is a huge focus on this song as it pertains to my future. In the single artwork above, I am standing in a crowd in downtown Dallas, Texas in 2010 or 2011 pointing to Dallas City Hall behind me. It is the COOLEST city hall in the world (you can’t @ me, so there’s no use in trying) and it was designed by famous architect I. M. Pei. From the west side, the building actually looks like a postmodern abstraction of the state of Texas. I love that building). After putting my head down, doing the best I could to deal with my own inner doubts and concerns, I was finally emerging fully as the academic powerhouse I always had the potential to be. In addition to that, I was getting to where I was doing a pretty good job at being a young adult. Sidenote: in jr high, I also picked up bass and took a trumpet class (I kinda hated it, though. I thought it was just confined to jazz music back, so I wasn’t as enthused about playing it. Plus, thanks to YouTube, the rest of the internet and a new desktop computer my parents bought for my sister and I, I had access to virtually all the music in the world, and was exploring other genres like Rock and Metal, and Alternative, and Christian Rock by this point. Gene Simmons of KISS had a bass guitar as did John Cooper of Skillet, so I got a bass guitar). Then, at a science fair in 8th grade after making a 3rd rate science project in 7th, I bought a bunch of lamp pieces and created a Whimshurst machine, a type of static electricity generator for my science fair project (that’s where the lines in the song “You built a generator from a lamp/You showed the world with your guitar amp” came from). I named him Zeus. He’s still alive to this DAY! (I can hear how you read that if you’re reading this in 2018 or 2019 and have seen recent memes) I got second place to my friend, William, who built a solar-powered phone charger. 8th grade was wild.

The issue here was that not being able to effectively address my doubts, issues and concerns led to another issue...

I was experiencing a young adult renaissance, going to the high school of my dreams (I was 14 at this point) and held some of the best grades in my class. But all the while, I found that I... couldn’t really enjoy it as much as I knew I would’ve had the following dynamic not been at play: I still was dealing all the things I mentioned over the past 5 tracks, and I still had pretty much no solution. Like the space shuttle ejecting its parachute after reentry to slow down, all this unresolved.. stuff, kept me from being able to enjoy all these good things in my life as much as I wanted to and could have otherwise. You ever find yourself at a ceremony or party celebrating something cool that you did, but all the while, you can’t help but feel that something’s off? Maybe even a feeling like you don’t deserve all the good stuff that’s come or is coming to you? That’s exactly how I felt.

This song is about being celebratory, but it feels empty because something you can’t seem to fix is bothering you. Don’t know if I explained that well enough.

Like I said before, this song is a good benchmark in my life to end the album on (”graduating” middle school and going to high school), but it also leaves enough of a cliffhanger to build upon where it leaves off in the future. I like that about Advancement.

The musical composition of Advancement is interesting, and different from that of all the other tracks. Because I was listening to more alternative music, I drew from that genre and atmospheric music all from 2010 as well as music from Linkin Park and Marina and the Diamonds. The song is longer than any other on TAIM at 5 minutes, 22 seconds to signify a glorious, epic ending to a very polished and hopefully timeless project (also, it’s not uncommon for songs by alternative artists to far exceed radio-length, This signified that as well). The relative grittiness of the instrumental signifies a shift from mainstream music and “old school” stuff I grew up on, to modern, more avant-garde than mainstream, underground music that I was discovering on YouTube and from the MTV sister channels that still play music like Hits, Jams and MTVU, that college music. There’s a certain musical element, a wispy wind blowing sound that plays near the end of the song (and consequently, the album) and it falls out of sync with the snare drums as time goes on. This signifies a growing imbalance and that the “engine” for the album if you will, is breaking down, leaving room for the next chapter. Finally, this cataclysmic epoch of a song concludes with a very unsettling, yet exhilarating crescendo composed of a bunch of weird, trippy, atmospheric sounds I found on my computer. The song suddenly cuts off as they all come to a head, and it like I said, it leaves room for whatever I’m going to do for the next album. clean-cut, but still quite abrupt, very much like in the Sopranos where every time an episode ends, they go to black in mid-sent-

Advancement is somewhat somber of an ending. While I was writing it, I realized all the things I was feeling back then, but could never explain in those moments. I wrote about a third of the lyrics for TAIM during a really depressing time in my life, so there is a little bit of cynicism found in some of these songs.

Thank you again for reading this and sticking with it. I bear my soul in my art, and I appreciate your engaging with this piece of my autistic, artistic world. If you just got here and are starting from the top, scroll down if you want more information on all the other songs on the album. ♥

What does success mean to you?

You can listen to Advancement here if you want. This link will take you to wherever you listen to music. YouTube included. ❤

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

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Rob Mazurek Interview: Galaxial & Celestial

Photo by Britt Mazurek

BY JORDAN MAINZER

At a time when we can’t physically feed off of each other’s energy, Rob Mazurek has provided an album that allows even the most metaphysically skeptical feel a connection. Dimensional Stardust is his latest with the Exploding Star Orchestra, the avant-garde collective he’s fronted since a 2005 co-commission from the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jazz Institute of Chicago, and its levels of long-distance expression are seemingly infinite. The record’s creation story itself, pre-pandemic, is evidence enough of the power of art even when collaborators are technically alone. Mazurek wrote the material after JazzFest Berlin curator Nadin Deventer invited him to present a Berlin-meets-Chicago iteration of ESO in Germany; when Mazurek returned to Chicago, venerable jazz label International Anthem in turn invited their roster and friends to record his new music. Each player tracked their performances separately over MIDI scores of Mazurek’s compositions, and his editorial and curatorial stamp took the record to the finish line.

Mazurek doesn’t play much on the record, offering his trademark cornet but mostly arranging the music for the twelve other musicians, who play in tandem referencing a swath of genres and aesthetics. Ohmme’s Macie Stewart’s violin and Tomeka Reid’s cello intertwine with Damon Locks’ spoken word (which appears throughout the album), minimal techno beats, and Coltrane-inspired piano on highlight “Galaxy 1000″. With its opening fluttering flutes and string plucks, “Parable of Inclusion” sways along like a sea shanty. Closer “Autumn Pleiades” juxtaposes solemn orchestral swells with percussive, electroacoustic blips. And only a couple songs feature prominent solos, but they’re mammoths: opener “Sun Core Tet”, buoyed by Nicole Mitchell’s flute among clattering percussion and muted horns, and “The Careening Prism Within (Parable 43)”, featuring Tortoise’s Jeff Parker ripping a guitar solo over Reed’s cello. Combine the music with videos from featured percussionist Mikel Patrick Avery and a cover sporting a flowy Mazurek painting, Dimensional Stardust is a multi-disciplinary achievement that rises above ours--and perhaps even Mazurek’s--preconceived notions of concert and harmony.

I was able to ask a few questions to Mazurek over email about his creative approach on Dimensional Stardust, some individual songs and moments, and what’s next for the prolific creator. Read his responses below.

Since I Left You: In your description of "A Wrinkle in Time Sets Concentric Circles Reeling," you talk about, "break through the galaxial ceiling of what we think we know and treat each other...with respect and dignity." Is this idea of abandoning preconceived notions implicit in your approach to collaboration, in general and on this album? Did it have anything to do with your tendency to step back and let others lead the instrumentation on this album?

Rob Mazurek: The music on this record is almost completely composed, so there was no stepping back to let others lead in respect to the written music, but of course there is natural human expression that happens, and these subtleties certainly make the music more exciting and beautiful. The music is about transformation, and letting the overall arc of the sound take you to places less travelled. When I speak of this “galaxial ceiling,” I am putting forth the idea that anything is possible, and all is acceptable within the realm of ESO.

SILY: Though I wouldn't call Dimensional Stardust "dance music," there are certainly very groovy moments, like when the beat first drops on "Sun Core Tet" and the almost minimal techno of "Galaxy 1000". When composing and playing this music, did you at all think about the prospect of people dancing to it? In general, how do you (or do you) imagine people listening to it?

RM: I make music to give myself and listeners energy and light. I make music with the notion that anything is possible and acceptable. I make music with melody, rhythm, intervals, harmonic shapes, noise, repetition, chromatics, modal, etc.…anything is danceable. I certainly danced quite a bit while making this music.

SILY: At what point in time and why did you ultimately decide to have Mikel Patrick Avery do the videos? How involved were you in the process of making them?

RM: I love Mikel’s aesthetic…I wanted someone to make the films that had an intimate relationship to the music. Since Mikel plays on the record, I thought it would be excellent for him to do it. We spoke a bit about the tendency for Exploding Star Orchestra music to be quite celestial in nature. From that idea, Mikel came up with the idea of “the First Kid in Space” and ran with it.

SILY: "The Careening Prism Within" certainly recalls Jeff Parker's work with Tortoise but also sounds like it could have come from his Suite For Max Brown from earlier this year, the other first of two collaborative releases between Nonesuch and International Anthem, which you also played on. This may be coincidental, but I thought I'd ask: How aware are you of the other music your collaborators are working on and releasing, and does it ever make its way into your compositions and playing?

RM: I am influenced by many things, and one of them is my friends' music. Jeff’s record Suite for Max Brown is probably my favorite record of the decade! I love what Tortoise has done. This music was composed almost 3 years ago. Upon recording it, there were some slight changes, but [it] stayed pretty much intact. I write music very intuitively mostly based on my own developing vocabulary these last 30 or so years. Sometimes, against my own will, something will happen…a crazy example is a composition for ESO I made some years ago which just by chance borrowed a whole section from a composition of Jeff’s! I didn't even know that until Jeff brought it up at a rehearsal! Hahaha, that was pretty stunning. Yes, influences are certainly there, but a lot of influence is insular to my own path to making sound.

SILY: The fleeting nature of time is a big theme on this record, yet you take the approach of finding beauty in the minutiae of moments and endless possibilities rather than playing "what if" games and obsessing over the butterfly effect. Have you always held this mindset, and how do you continue to hold it these days?

RM: There are a million suns in one melody, there are galaxies hidden in feedback and noise, one note = one breath = new universes. Spirals create energy, energy creates light, light moves quickly, and all is possible in the realm of love.

SILY: What's the story behind the cover art of this record?

RM: It is a painting I made titled ''Some Other Time.” The painting was basically started at the beginning of the Dimensional Stardust composition process and finished about the same time we recorded the record. It seemed a perfect complement to the sound, so we used it for the recording. My painting/art practice has been happening for 20 years or so. I have been developing the idea of sound and vision being ultimately the same thing. When a painting emits energy and light and sound to me, then it is finished, and when I can see the colors and forms and shapes from listening to a composition, then it is done. I am desperately trying to find a way where these 2 mediums coexist in the most intimate and powerful way possible.

SILY: What's next for you?

RM: I have hours and hours of modular synth constructions I am working on. I just finished some interesting work with the architects from Paris at AWP, where we worked on transforming image through sound into video into architecture. There is a new release coming at the beginning of the year with David Grubbs and Mats Gustafsson under the name “The Underflow” on Blue Chopsticks records. A new suite of material I am working on for Ballroom Marfa with Damon Locks, Lisa Harris, and Mauricio Takara. Finishing a suite of large scale paintings and conceiving the next sculpture exhibition that will happen in Italy at some point when the pandemic gets under control.

SILY: What have you been listening to, watching, and reading lately?

RM: Mauricio Takara dropped some really interesting music on Bandcamp that is quite nice, the new Autechre records are pretty great, Sam Prekop’s Comma is very nice. I have been watching the King Hu film A Touch of Zen over and over again, and I am re-reading Samuel R. Delany’s masterpiece Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand.

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onett199x · 7 years ago

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Top 10 Jazz Albums of 2017

I followed new jazz music more closely than ever this year, which is good, because this was a great year for jazz music. We got great music on just about every front of the genre this year, from elder statesmen with well-established careers to the young and hungry, and from the fringes of the genre’s biting avant-garde to its most classic and approachable sound. Here are 10 albums from this year I really enjoyed.

10. Fred Hersch | Open Book

Fred Hersch continues to put out a new album each year like clockwork, and the consistently high quality of each of these new releases makes that consistent schedule all the more impressive. His newest, Open Book, is a solo piano outing combining some excellent originals with covers of Monk, Jobim, and Billy Joel, all centered around a nearly 20-minute meditation called Into The Forest, improvised on the spot a la Keith Jarrett. Hersch’s reserve and emotiveness in his playing have driven his albums for years, but Open Book shows that there’s still plenty of new territory to explore, even if this is his eleventh (!!!) solo album.

9. Ben Markley Big Band | Clockwise: The Music Of Cedar Walton

If I tend to repeat artists from year to year on these lists, it’s due more than anything else to the fact that I’m still a very imperfect, biased listener. This isn’t to say that perennial favorites of mine (like, for example, Fred Hersch) aren’t good, just instead to note that there are hundreds of talented artists with albums out each year, and I tend to gravitate towards the ones I already know. All that being said, I had never heard of Ben Markley before this year, or anybody in this whole band for that matter (with the exception of guest artist Terrell Stafford, with whom I only have passing familiarity). I knew who Cedar Walton was, and I knew I liked big bands, so when one of my friends told me to check this out, I had decently high expectations, and I was not disappointed. Ben Markley deftly adapts Walton’s hard-bop workouts into driving big band performances. Tracks like Fiesta Espanol and Bolivia sound like they were made to be big band tunes. Clockwise shows you don’t have to be a New York cat (Markley and his band are from that bustling jazz mecca of Wyoming) to know what’s good.

8. Ambrose Akinmusire | A Rift In Decorum: Live At The Village Vanguard

Ambrose Akinmusire’s entry into the storied jazz canon of albums called ‘Live At The Village Vanguard’ pares back the electronics, studio wizardry, and guest artists from his recent albums to get to the very essence of his music, and that intimate glimpse into the jagged and sometimes wounded sound of his music shows why just about everything he does succeeds - at its very core, Akinmusire’s music has a modern and unique identity, brought to life by musicians who understand how to do so. His music on this album ranges from fairly accessible post-bop to some of the more grating and intense sounds made by a trumpet, but it’s all done towards a greater emotional purpose.

7. Blue Note All-Stars | Our Point Of View

Blue Note Records is a fan of these ‘state of the label’ albums - seems like every decade or two, they get all of their biggest names together for an album and see what happens. For this recent iteration, the band includes Ambrose Akinmusire, Lionel Loueke, Kendrick Scott, Robert Glasper, Derrick Hodge, and Marcus Strickland, and the setlist consists of contributions from most of them as well as a couple of Wayne Shorter tunes (Wayne Shorter himself and Herbie Hancock join them for Shorter’s Masquelero). This is a diverse group of musicians - if you put on each of their albums back-to-back, they might not sound like the best fit to work together, but their album finds common ground and allows each musician to stretch out on it. I really dig their version of Wayne Shorter’s Witch Hunt, and Freedom Dance is a great closer.

6. Bill Charlap | Uptown, Downtown

Like Fred Hersch, Bill Charlap is a storied modern pianist with a strong catalogue of solo, trio, and other performances. Like Hersch, his sound seems to exemplify the idea of ‘less is more’, and his setlists eschew modern covers in favor of classic hard bop tunes and Great American Songbook standards. For his newest album, Charlap works with his long-running rhythm section of Peter Washington and Kenny Washington to plunder some long-forgotten Tin Pan Alley obscurities, classic standards, and covers of the likes of Gerry Mulligan and Jim Hall. The title track, a lesser-known Sondheim tune, capture’s Charlap’s wry sense of humor, while his take on Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most is one of the most aching and melancholy versions of that tune I’ve ever heard. I think this is my favorite album I’ve heard from him since his own Live At The Village Vanguard.

5. Ned Goold | 2016

The comparison of Ned Goold to Thelonious Monk is inevitable and immediate in just about anything written about him. His is an idiosyncratic sound that pointedly, purposefully and joyfully explores different varieties and degrees of dissonance, bending normal-sounding melodies backwards with a clear, mathematical logic behind it. This album takes that sound and injects real energy and humor into it with the addition of Goold’s son, Charles, whose funky, driving beats give songs like Car Alarm a playful, cathartic feeling. It’s a sound that exists at the intersection of meticulous composition and a strong groove.

4. Steve Haines | Secret Stash

Bassist Steve Haines’ latest brings together a powerful quartet of pianist Thomas Linger, drummer Larry Q. Draughn, Jr., and one of the best jazz guitarists playing today, Peter Bernstein, for a set of Haines originals and standards. It can be hard to remain unbiased when you know the musicians personally, but even knowing Thomas and Q, this album is one that stayed in my car for weeks - Haines’ upbeat original Ketch Me If You Can, named for UNC jazz professor Jim Ketch; his excellent take on Dizzy GIllespie’s Con Alma; the soft and contemplative The Masquerade Is Over; and of course, the time-changing title track - all of these combine for one of the best straight-ahead albums I’ve heard in a few years.

3. Charles Lloyd | Passin’ Thru

I don’t dislike Charles Lloyd by any means, but this album really surprised me. I got it right around the time I did my ‘halfway through 2017′ list and made that list while this one was still fresh on my mind, so I didn’t include it then just because I might still be riding the wave of finding something new and fun, but even now, six months later, this is still one of my favorite recordings of the year. Charles Lloyd deftly demonstrates the full breadth of his style over the course of this album, from long-winded post bop with an ostinato piano part a la Keith Jarrett on his Forest Flower, to searching spiritual jazz and groovy soul jazz. It’s all cohesive, it’s all very well done, and Lloyd’s bandmates Eric Harland, Reuben Rogers, and Jason Moran have all been playing with Lloyd long enough that they lock in perfectly with his sound while still being able to explore their own identity as musicians. The title track and Dream Weaver are two of my favorite jazz recordings this year, period.

2. Cecile McLorin Salvant | Dreams And Daggers

While it isn’t called Live At The Village Vanguard, this could be Salvant’s own album by that name. Over the course of two discs, Cecile McLorin Salvant (accompanied by her rhythm section and a string quartet) digs into some of the oldest and, in some cases, raunchiest jazz and blues tunes from decades gone by. Cecile McLorin Salvant is, in my mind, probably the freshest and most important jazz vocalist in years, presenting her tunes with a theatricality and a confidence that reminds you that so many of these tunes are not just reportoire to learn, but stories that tell us about time periods, cultures, and the personal interactions people have with each other. Listening to a Cecile McLorin Salvant album is like watching a one-person show - she inhabits each song as though she is currently living it, and Aaron Diehl, Lawrence Leathers, and Paul Sikivie provide perfectly-constructed templates for the versatility of her voice and emotion to shine through. Like plenty of other singers, Cecile McLorin Salvant is very technically proficient and surrounds herself with talented instrumentalists. She is special because, on top of all of that, she seems to have the incredibly rare ability to tap directly into the very center of each song she sings and invites us into that place, so that we enjoy not just the wit of the lyrics and the beauty of the melodies, but also the human emotion that inspires anyone and everyone to express themselves.

1. Vijay Iyer | Far From Over

Vijay Iyer is in a unique position for any jazz musician. In addition to studying music theory and piano performance, Iyer has also studied the physics of tone and sound for a cross-disciplinary PhD in music cognition. His discography so far has mostly been situated in the avant-garde to some degree, from more accessible works like his trio’s Historicity to the intense outskirts of free jazz on his duo album with Wadada Leo Smith, A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke. On Far From Over, Iyer enlists a sextet of musicians, including cornetist/flugelhornist Graham Haynes, saxophonists Steve Lehman and Mark Shim, bassist Stephan Crump, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey, for a set of wildly original and creative tunes. Each tune inhabits a different idea, from the spacey, almost 90s hip-hop-esque Nope to the quiet, moody, Noir-like For Amiri Baraka and the intense, climactic Into Action. I think this is the best album yet from one of the most consistently creative voices in modern jazz music.

#top 10 #jazz #vijay iyer #cecile mclorin salvant #steve haines #bill charlap #ned goold #fred hersch #ambrose akinmusire #ben markley #blue note all stars

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quarantinemusiccalendar · 5 years ago

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Day 01: Tim Buckley - Goodbye And Hello

I first heard the uniquely beautiful voice of Tim Buckley several years ago in a film. I don’t remember the name of the film anymore. It was one of those evenings when I felt tired and didn’t feel like doing anything productive so l wasn’t picky about what I was going to watch. Just something I could watch and switch off. But the soundtrack was definitely better then the film itself.

The song Song to the Siren caught my attention and I simply had to find out, who it was. I found the name ‘Buckley‘ and was slightly confused. I knew Jeff Buckley. The voice was similar. But Jeff Buckley died in the 90s and being 30 at that point the sound of this newly discovered song didn’t match that. And knowing a bit of his work, apart from the exquisite vocals, his sound was different. Not like this song that sounded like it was recorded in the 70s. Did I mix up two names? Was it the same person? I googled a picture of Tim Buckley. Well that one looked a lot like the Buckley I knew. But it was taken in late 60s or in the 70s. And then I looked him up on Wikipedia and read something along the lines of ‘father of Jeff Buckley .... died in 1975 from an overdose.‘ Oh, ok. That made sense ... So there were really 2 Buckleys. Father and son. And both were brilliant musicians. But the similarities went unfortunately further behind just music. That’s enough for the discovery story. Go read up on them on Wiki. It’s quite tragic, but worth knowing.

I think most people have heard at least one song by Tim Buckley at some point. Even if you’re not into oldies and you are not a music nerd, chances are you have probably heard either the Song to the Siren or the Buzzin Fly. Both are wonderful and fairly often used in soundtracks. If you haven’t and you really have no idea who is he and how does he sound, he is labelled under the genres of folk rock, experimental rock and with some jazz and psychedelic rock occasionally thrown in. Tim Buckley was a brilliant singer-songwriter with a distinctly beautiful voice and an amazing vocal register. As a songwriter, he started writing folk rock and avant-garde songs, then stretched and developed his style into more psychedelic and electronic, occasionally leaning into funk. All of that while staying very distinctively ‘Buckleyesque’. You can truly recognize a Tim Buckley song within seconds. The only artist you can probably mistake him for is his son Jeff. I prefer his earlier albums from about 1967 - 1969. Maybe it’s because they are more acoustic and less electronic, less psychedelic. Very melodic, simpler then his later work. Having said that, the psychedelic Get On Top from his 1972 album Greetings from L.A. is totally a masterpiece worth listening to. But his earlier work is somehow more beautiful, calming, purer. Not cluttered, mostly acoustic. I also feel it’s more balanced then his later work. From about 1970 he was struglling. While his music never sold that well, starting with the album Blue Afternoon (1969) his releases were criticized. His 4th album was described as boring and then his new style he developed on Lorca had alienated his folk base. He was essentially making music for himself at that point. The problem was finding enough people to listen to it. And so Buckley turned to alcohol and drugs.

Interesting fact to point out... He tended to write songs about love and suffering a lot, which is not uncommon at all. It’s probably the most common topic in music. He also wrote a great deal about loneliness, wandering and some kind of a wandering character (traveller, hobo, vagabond) makes several appearances in his lyrics.

My personal favourite is his album Goodbye And Hello (1967). Six of my top 9 “Buckley songs“ are from this album. The 1969 album Happy Sad with Buzzin’ Fly and the above mentioned Song to Siren would be my #2.

Happy Wednesday, relax and enjoy.

Album highlights: - Morning Glory - Pleasant Street - Phantasmagoria in Two - Once I Was

Playlist: https://spoti.fi/3bB5lH7

Links and References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Buckley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Buckley http://www.timbuckley.com/tim-buckley-the-high-flyer

#TimBuckley lockdown quarantine

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jackthephotograph · 7 years ago

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john rankin vs terry richardson

For this essay, I will be researching and comparing two photographers and their style of studio photography, the first one of these are:

John Rankin Waddell is a British portrait and fashion photographer based in London, UK. He has been doing photography for over 20 years and has released numerous book and shot various music videos for artists such as Iggy Azalea, Rita Ora and Miley Cyrus.

During that time, he met Jefferson Hack, with whom he developed a working relationship and after graduating in 1992 they started a seminal monthly fashion magazine together called ‘Dazed and Confused’, which is now known as just ‘Dazed’.

Rankin has created landmark editorial and advertising campaigns. And his work features some of the most celebrated publications and biggest brands, including Nike, Pantene and Dove. He has also worked for several high-end magazines such as Elle, Vogue, Rolling Stone and Harpers Baazar. In late 2000, he founded an experimental anti-fashion magazine ‘Rank’ which celebrates the unconventional. He has intimate approach and playful sense of humor, which led him to being well known for his portraits of celebrities, politicians and supermodels. Having photographed people like the Queen and David Bowie, he is often seen as a celebrity photographer. However, he has worked on large-scale charity projects as well as innovative advertising campaigns.

The second artist I will be talking about:

Terry Richardson is an American fashion and portrait photographer from New York City. As a teen Richardson had wanted to be a punk rock musician, having been part of a band for years, and when he got his first camera in 1982 which was given to his by his mother he used it to shoot his life and the punk rock scene. In 1992 Richardson quit music and moved to part of New York City that is known for its nightclubs and he began going out and taking photos of the night life and the people entering and leaving the clubs. It was here where he had his first break into the fashion world when some of his images were featured in the magazine ‘Vibe’ in 1994. He then moved to London where he worked with i-D, The Face and Arena magazine. Throughout his career he has worked with various brands and magazines such as Marc Jacobs, Vogue, Aldo, Rolling Stone, GQ, Vanity Fair.

Just like Rankin he has also shot music videos for artists such as Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Anitta. Since 2001 there was been complaints and allegations made against Richardson, being accused of using his influence to sexually exploit the models during fashion shoots. In 2017, due to the many sexual misconduct allegations by several models, brands and magazines have decided to stop using him for photoshoots, including Vogue, Valentino, and Vanity Fair.

Comparisons:

When putting the two artists’ work next to each other I notice that for a start the colors are different, a lot of Rankin’s work is in a high contrast black and white color, and when his image in color is very high key and overdosed to the point were the only colors that stand out are the paint or the makeup that are on the model’s face. Terry Richardson’s photographs are also high key but they are mostly in color, and his color theme seems to focus more on bright reds, blues, and blacks. Apart from the colors, another thing that stands out are the different types of photography, although both of them are portrait and fashion photographers Rankin seems to prefer the serious high-fashion editorial pictures, that have an avant-garde feel and a few images are highly edited too in post-production. A lot of his work is very creative and fun but also serious, and a lot of thought goes into the image before the actual shoot. Whereas Terry Richardson’s image seem to be more relaxed and have a more casual feel, and they are a lot more sexualized and playful than Rankin’s images. To get this feel he tends to photograph on an instant camera, and also poses in his own photographs a lot, and mainly just uses a white background although he has expanded recently to colored ones.

When looking at both of these artists side to side I personally prefer Rankin’s work, as I think it is more creative and technically correct than Richardson. For me Rankin’s images are more visually appealing and I like the way he incorporates different lighting techniques and the digital world into his photography, as opposed to Terry who mostly uses the same white background, the same lighting and the same equipment. I think it would be good to see Richardson step away from what he usually does and go for a more creative way to take the type of images he wants. As far as lighting goes Richardson shoots with a fairly simple flash that is mounted on the camera and gives it an intense flash that is close to the lens, so when he takes the photo the look is associated with a low fi camera. Whereas Rankin shoots a more slow process with lots of lights and equipment which makes the image look more “professional”.

Conclusions:

After researching both of these fashion photographers, I have learnt quite a bit about their pretty similar careers, they both have become well known for their portrait and fashion photography and began working with various magazines and well-known brands and becoming very successful photographers. Both of them also worked on numerous music videos both shooting and directing. When looking at their shooting style, Rankin proved to have a more high-fashion, serious and creative shooting style than Richardson who is known for his same lighting, same white background and same sexualized nature of his fashion photos. Because of this I much prefer Rankin’s work as it is more the type of photography I like and enjoy.

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intergalacticwifi · 7 years ago

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Tumblrvision Staging Concepts

I’m not very active on tumblr europal contests (or tumblr at all actually, at least lately), but I do take part in a roleplay in the format of a song contest, in which you come up with staging for the song you’re sending, among others. Someone suggested I do that with Tumblrvision entries, so I guess I’ll do them all in this post. Whatever I come up with will not necessarily reflect my personal opinion of these songs.

01 Germany: Regular band setup. I feel like it’d help better if I knew what the song talked about… typically other people I roleplay with who send these kinds of songs put pictures on the background screen relating to whatever the lyrics are about, I feel like something like that (maybe with graphics/animations instead) would work.

02 Egypt: Traditional dancers. Elaborate costumes, maybe a dress change or two. Camera angles would have to be dynamic and shot up close.

03 Moldova: Okay so she’s wearing a minidress, maybe in silver, and alone on stage at first. When the song starts the camera is on her face a la Bulgaria 2016 but it slowly zooms out eventually turning into a wide shot of the whole stage. The stage lights and graphics are predominantly blue. When the chorus breaks out dancers come on stage, probably male, dressed in white, but the singer stands still. Rain falls from above (on the background screen). When the bridge comes on, the stage lights dim and lighting is focused on the singer, but then everything returns to normal as it ends.

04 Belarus: I really don’t know what to do with this uhh… I’d say a band setup, with the singer mostly standing still but the lights flashing and camera giving dynamic angles that the performance still seems full of action. As the end nears… the graphics become more colourful, I guess.

05 Finland: Singer would be wearing something white, rather avant-garde. Background graphics, if any, would be in white and black (maybe occasional silver and the like), basically a very modern, “Apple” vibe. I’m thinking backing dancers but I’m not sure if it would suit the song… oh there’s a rap. He’d be wearing a white veil too, probably.

06 Albania: This one starts off with her alone on stage, also wearing a massive veiled cloak which covers her entire body and even the stage floor. Dancers come as the song begins to intensify, dress reveal. The choreography here is very… sudden, not necessarily intense, but fits the intense, vigorous atmosphere of the song.

07 Jordan: Dancers, and everyone on stage is wearing colourful summer outfits straight out of H&M. Choreography fits the fun, summer-y vibe of the song. Wide shots, maybe except during the more quieter parts of the song, where it’d be a close of up the singer and the singer alone.

08 Czechia: I can imagine there be furniture on stage, maybe a fancy couch. Band setup surrounding that couch. Just like the music video, people on stage are wearing a mix of leather and fur with streetwear. Singer starts out singing from the couch (either sitting or laying down) but ends the performance standing on the front of the stage.

09 Russia: Dancers on stage, of course. Maybe mixed, maybe all-male. They’re either all looking dapper in suits or wearing streetwear. Colorful but dimmed lights, emulating a nightclub. I guess the choreography would be fast-paced like in the music video.

10 Israel: The stage could look barren, or it could have a folk/country band playing. Either way, the lead singer is there in hipster-looking clothing, as well as the guy playing the tambourine, probably sitting away from the center of attention, and most of the time just appearing in the background. Speaking of background, the LED screen displays a field. Clouds or stars? Either work, or perhaps it alternates. The UFO from the music video would also make a nice touch to that sky. Also possible is 2 ballroom dancers tucked away on a satellite stage if any, or in an empty corner of the stage.

11 Montenegro: Tbh I’m not even sure if this is physically possible but on stage there is a long platform made of flammable material shaped like a bridge. You know what’s going to happen. The singer does start out standing on this bridge, but she struts down the path very stylishly as the first verse progresses, and towards the end lights that match and tosses it just as she steps off the platform. It doesn’t really get any more exciting from here, unless perhaps parts of the ‘bridge’ could be engineered to collapse at certain moments to sync with the song. By the end of the song it’s supposed to have collapsed entirely. Well then, cue a quick interval segment before the next postcard as the crew clear the stage…

12 Andorra: The music video is simple enough that the performance could just be an enactment of it. If not, simply the singer with whatever musical instrument he plays could work. Either way, there’s a band behind him. Maybe put on something a bit traditional/classy or whatever fashion style that works with the song.

13 Lithuania: Okay I didn’t really catch much of the lyrics but from what I heard perhaps a pilot theme could work? Again another band set up (of course a quite different band from the previous), perhaps there could be 2 dancers putting on a visual story but if the band and singer have themed costumes then we could go without dancers.

14 Portugal: If the singer were to just bring his guitar on stage and sing in front of the mic alone on stage that could work. If a similar staging concept could beat the fan favourite at the second chance round of a certain ESC national final, then it can definitely work here.

15 Tunisia: I suppose there would have to be some sort of contrast between the two. One could be dressed in more traditional garb while the other puts on something a bit more modern? Also maybe have some traditional dancers on stage, with slightly different sets of choreography when one or the other sings.

16 Bulgaria: A sunset color scheme with dancers could work. Of course Poli would have to join in with them on the choreography. They’re all wearing something summer-y. Streetwear again, I guess.

17 Iceland: Mostly black is used in this performance, maybe with a splash of another dark colour like purple. Greta would be wearing a dress with really big sleeves, it might look a bit medieval. Hood optional. She takes it off and reveals another skinnier, but still black outfit beneath just in time for what appears to be the bridge, and then takes off the mic from the mic stand and takes a few steps toward the front of the stage. This whole time, however, the backing singers are at the back of the stage, not really moving much.

18 Monaco: The song’s beginning already sets the tone here and it is intimate. The singer could be wearing a colorful spring dress (maybe one with flowers), and pretty much keeps to herself during the whole performance, just standing there in front of the mic. But the real star here is the titular “Woman in the blue skin”, which means there will be one dancer whose skin was painted blue for this performance. The choreography will be something a bit more artistic, then.

19 Armenia: An extravagant intro a la Wild Dances. Full of dancing, perhaps Sirusho does a number along with men dressed as traditional warriors. Potential choreographies: the dancers lifting Sirusho into the air, spinning/other circular movements, wrapping arms around each other’s shoulders and forming a line. Also expect pyrotechnics - this entire performance is just going to scream high energy.

20 Denmark: The performance begins with the singer standing alone on stage, which might be covered in smoke/fog. Everything would be dark, the LED screens off or at least showing only the color black. The singer is wearing a glittery white pantsuit similar to Norway 2013 except with pants of the same design. The song may be slow, but eventually there could be backing dancers with fast-paced choreography. Wide shots are used, creating the feel that they are dancing at the edge of an endless void, or something like that. It just… feels empty.

21 Algeria: 2 potential stagings: the first, the singer stands there in front of the stage in front of a band setup. the second, her being alone on stage though potentially there are holographs or similar graphic effects. Either way, the background shows a magnificent night sky, with a moon.

22 Slovakia: The choreography in the music video could be easily adapted for the live performance. The singer and dancers are wearing the kind of fashion you’d typically see in high-end nightclubs.

Thus ends the first instalment, tune in for the next batch!

#tmblrvision #tmblrvision2017 #tmblrvision 2017 #tmblrvision song contest #tmblrvisionsongcontest #u can tell i wanted them all in one post but couldn't get it done in time for results lol sorry #staging #op #europalcontests

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oscopelabs · 7 years ago

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Lie To Me: The Multiple Personalities of Tom Waits’ Acting Career by Chris Evangelista

“I ain’t no extra baby, I'm a leading man.”

— Tom Waits, Goin’ Out West

Tom Waits lights up the screen. The minute the singer appears in a film, he brings with him a sort of atmospheric baggage—we may not know what character he’s playing, but we know him. We know that no matter what the film is, Waits will lend his own distinct, off-kilter brand of weirdness to it. Waits has been playing characters all through his musical career, the boozy troubadours and raspy-voiced noir loners who populate his songs are all engaging Waits creations.

Using his distinct, gravel-caked voice, Tom Waits conjures up boozy ballads designed to be played low at 3 a.m. and melodies that might echo off the broken-down rides of an abandoned, haunted carnival. His is an eclectic style, combining blues, jazz, cabaret, Spooky Sounds of Halloween sound effects tapes, and more. This distinct, unmistakable style goes beyond Waits’ musical accomplishments, finding its way into his acting in the two dozen or so film appearances the singer has made.

Waits doesn’t consider himself foremost an actor. “I do some acting,” Waits tells Pitchfork. “And there’s a difference between ‘I do some acting’ and ‘I'm an actor.’ People don’t really trust people to do two things well. If they’re going to spend money, they want to get the guy who’s the best at what he does. Otherwise, it’s like getting one of those business cards that says about eight things on it. I do aromatherapy, yard work, hauling, acupressure. With acting, I usually get people who want to put me in for a short time. Or they have a really odd part that only has two pages of dialogue, if that.”

Waits’ first film appearance was in Sylvester Stallone’s 1978 directorial debut Paradise Alley. It’s a small part, with Waits essentially playing a version of himself, or at least the self he presents in many of his songs. The character, Mumbles, shows up at a piano, twitching and crooning. “When was the last time you was with a woman?” Stallone’s character asks him. “Probably before the depression,” Mumbles says. “What are you saving it for?” Stallone shoots back in that garbled manner of speaking Stallone has perfected. “I dunno,” Waits replies. “Probably a big finish.”

In the grand scheme of things, this is a nothing part; it was intended to be a bigger role, but Stallone cut it down to little more than a cameo. Yet what made it to the screen is distinct because Waits makes it so. Stallone is very still in the scene, leaning on Waits’ piano like dead weight. Waits is a study in contrast, never sitting still, his eyes half open. It might even be considered too much acting. When asked if acting came naturally to him, Waits replied, “It’s a lot of work to try and be natural, like trying to catch a bullet in your teeth.”

Waits’ career was at an all-time-low following 1978. He had grown tired of the music industry in general, having released six albums with very little commercial success. Battling depression and alcoholism, Waits left Los Angeles for New York and began a period of reinvention. “I just got totally disenchanted with the music business,” he would say. “I moved to New York and was seriously considering other possible career alternatives...the whole Modus Operandi of sitting down and writing, and making an album, going out on the road with a band. Away for three months, come back with high blood pressure, a drinking problem, tuberculosis, a warped sense of humor. It just became predictable.”

Waits’ music became more avant-garde, more eclectic. And his film career and personal life took a distinct turn in the 1980s. In 1982, Francis Ford Coppola hired Waits to write the music for One From the Heart, a romantic fable that Coppola wanted to make as a sort of palate cleanser following the troubled production of Apocalypse Now.

“I looked forward to the challenge,” Waits said. “I needed something to stimulate my growth and development. The sole process of making music that would adhere to film was still something new to me. So it was a little terrifying. But working with Francis seemed like a good opportunity.”

It was on the set of One From the Heart that Waits would begin his relationship with future wife and musical collaborator Kathleen Brennan, who worked as a script analyst for the film. The two had previously met at a New Year’s Eve Party, but it was during One From the Heart that the relationship blossomed. “She was a story analyst. Somebody told her to go down and knock on my door and she did and I opened the door and there she was and that was it,” Waits said. “That was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at second sight."

One From the Heart would be a financial disaster for Coppola, but Waits and the filmmaker continued to collaborate. Coppola would cast Waits in small parts in his back-to-back S.E. Hinton adaptations The Outsiders (“I had one line: ‘What is it you boys want?’” Waits told Rolling Stone in 1988. “I still have it down if they need me to go back and re-create the scene for any reason.”) and Rumble Fish (“got a chance to pick out my own costume and write my own dialogue. Gotta nice scene with a clock.”)

Little by little, Waits was building a bit-part filmography, showing up in the background of films and stealing the show with little to no dialogue, catching the eye with his lanky frame and coiffed hair. Coppola would cast Waits again in 1984’s The Cotton Club. Waits plays the club’s MC, but most of his scenes were cut from a film that became more and more bloated during production.

Waits’ first big role would come courtesy of Jim Jarmusch’s 1986 Down by Law. Set in Louisiana, the film follows three convicts—John Lurie, Roberto Benigni and Waits—who escape into the bayou. Once again, Waits seems to be playing a variation of himself, or the self that he built through his musical career, although he insisted the character not be a musician. Instead, he’s a DJ. Waits’ inaugural scene kicks off with him creeping into his bedroom, trying hard not to wake up his sleeping girlfriend, played by Ellen Barkin. But Barkin’s character isn’t really asleep, and when we next see these two characters, she’s tossing Wait’s belongings out of their New Orleans apartment, disgusted with his philandering.

Waits spends the scene sitting on the bed, mostly silent as Barkin rages, tossing one vinyl record after another and hurling curses at Waits. Waits doesn’t fully spring into action until Barkin is about to toss his clunky, pointed, steel-tipped shoes. “Not the shoes!” he protests, sounding generally horrified. Later, he sits at the curb, his possessions scattered around him, slipping those shoes on. It is an overall commanding performance, illustrating that simple cameo appearances from the singer, while memorable, waste his natural hipster charisma. To put it simply, Waits is cool—the type of old-school cool that would likely come off as posturing if you caught someone trying it in public. Yet Waits makes it sing. His characters are perhaps never as cool as they think they are, yet the coolness is undeniable. These are the types of performances people want to emulate when young. You look at Waits’ ridiculous Frankenstein shoes in Down by Law and briefly think, “Where can I get a pair of those?”

In the somber, autumnal Ironweed, Waits plays Rudy, the physical embodiment of every boozy balladeer Waits has ever sung about, particularly in “The Piano Has Been Drinking.” (“And you can't find your waitress with a Geiger counter/ And she hates you and your friends and you just can't get served without her.”)

“I have a red nose, and I had a toothbrush in one pocket, a sandwich in the other. I don’t know why I got it, but I’m glad I did,” Waits said. The part found him playing alongside acting giants Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. “Nicholson is really a diamond cutter,” Waits said. “He's a bank president and a bronc rider. He has a million stories; all of them are true. He’s a very generous actor, and he’s responsive, like a good musician.” The pair play off each other beautifully, with Waits not just holding his own alongside Nicholson but occasionally outshining him.

“At rehearsals, Tom Waits looked like any moment he might break at the waist or his head might fall off his shoulders onto the floor,” Nicholson said. “I once saw a small-town idiot walking across the park, totally drunk, but he was holding an ice cream, staggering, but also concentrating on not allowing the ice cream to fall. I felt there was something similar in Tom.”

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Waits, who eventually would go to AA and get sober, likely was able to draw on his own alcoholism for the role. “[O]ne is never completely certain when you drink and do drugs whether the spirits that are moving through you are the spirits from the bottle or your own,” he told The Guardian. “And, at a certain point, you become afraid of the answer. That’s one of the biggest things that keeps people from getting sober, they’re afraid to find out that it was the liquor talking all along...I was trying to prove something to myself, too. It was like, ‘Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat?’”

At this point, Waits began to become highly sought after for film work. He would continue to take on eclectic, eccentric parts, like as a rough-and-tumble bush pilot in the 1991 drama At Play In the Fields of The Lord and an uncredited role as a disabled veteran in Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King. “He was a friend of Jeff Bridges, basically,” Gilliam said. “[Bridges] said, ‘You ought to meet Tom.’ It’s funny because when I met him and even in the course of making the film, I’d never heard a Tom Waits record. I’d never listened to them at all. I just met him and liked him immediately. So into the film he went, and he was great. The studio was trying to cut him out. They felt it wasn’t advancing the narrative in any significant way so they thought that was things that could go. They were totally wrong.”

In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola made a play to save his struggling American Zoetrope studio with a lush adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The gothic costume drama gave Coppola and Waits an excuse to work together again, with Waits taking on the role of bug-eating madman Renfield. It was a distinctly un-cool part for Waits, yet he manages to steal almost every scene he’s in. He rants, he raves, he wears bizarre metal devices on his hands. Yet there’s a distinct humanity underneath the over-the-top madness, such as a scene where Waits’ Renfield disobeys his master Dracula to warn Winona Ryder’s Mina that she’s in danger. “Got to have a really meaningful scene with Winona Ryder. Not how I imagined it would be, though. Bug juice dripping from the corners of my mouth. Unshaven. Totally gray. Screaming behind bars. Not how I saw our scene together. But I tried to rise above it,” he told Image magazine.

At this point in his career, Waits was aging gracefully beyond his hipster youth into his 40s, in a sense turning into the older-seeming, more lived-in man his songs portrayed. In Robert Altman’s 1993 Short Cuts, adapted from the works of Raymond Carver, Waits plays a washed-up version of the younger, cooler individuals he had excelled at. He’s aging, alcoholic limo driver Earl, married to waitress Doreen (Lily Tomlin). “He seemed like someone I knew very well on a soul level,” Tomlin told The A.V. Club. “We did one thing I recall that would never read on camera: We ‘tattooed’ on our hands, at the base of the right thumb, the image of half a heart and when I’d pass him at the counter, we’d touch that part of each hand to the other and he’d say under his breath, ‘’Til the wheels come off.’” Waits also went method for the role, according to Tomlin: “Tom called me the first night after shooting, in his character of ‘Earl’ and spent maybe half an hour talking to me as ‘Doreen,’ as he supposedly drove around in the limo, which was Earl’s job. Tom did that for two or three more nights after work. Thinking he’d never do it again, I never was prepared to tape him and, each time he called, he was nothing if not filled with poetry as Earl.”

From there, Waits’ roles only grew more and more bizarre. He had wondered, “Am I genuinely eccentric? Or am I just wearing a funny hat?” around the time he quit drinking, but now he seemed to be firmly entering the “funny hat” zone of his acting career. In Mystery Men, he plays an inventor of non-lethal weapons who spends his free time trying to pick up women at nursing homes; in Domino, he appears as an exposition-dumping character known only as the Wanderer; Wristcutters: A Love Story finds him as commune leader in the afterlife; The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus reunited him with Terry Gilliam again to play the devil himself; and Seven Psychopaths had him playing a serial killer who loves rabbits.

The older Waits gets, the more he seems comfortable playing such wild weirdos. Perhaps he’s always been comfortable growing into that weirdness. Waits’ musical career was filled with sea change. He went from the lonely-heart, tears-in-my-beer crooning of his earlier albums to the banging-on-a-trashcan hullabaloo of 1983’s Swordfishtrombones. In 1999, Waits released Mule Variations, an album that, according to Rolling Stone, “rounded up his multiple personalities—barfly poet, avant-garde storyteller, family guy” into one place. Those multiple personalities spilled over into his acting career as well.

Waits is known for intriguing and eccentric choices as a musician —and that’s a recognition that should bleed over into his acting career. “I think most singers, when they start out, are doing really bad impersonations of other singers that they admire,” Waits once told NPR. “You kind of evolve into your voice. Or maybe your voice is out there, waiting for you to grow up.” For Waits, changing and evolving was like second nature. “The person that I saw changed every year,” said music producer and Waits friend Dayton “Bones” Howe. “His philosophy was, if I keep being a moving target, I can't get hit. He never wanted to be the same again in any way.”

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hxmmerhexd · 8 years ago

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the sorting hat || wdpa challenge 001

Personal Questions

What is your real, birth name? When and where were you born? Andrew Timothy Anchorage. April 8th, 1995. I was born in London.

What is your Myers-Briggs Personality Type? (If you don’t know go here, this question is optional.)

Do you have a nickname? What is it, and where did you get it? I’m mostly called Drew. I’ve heard Hammerhead as well. I think Hammerhead is a reference to how much I’m in the water.

What do you look like? (Include height, weight, hair, eyes, skin, apparent age, and distinguishing features) I’m 5′8″, about 150 pounds. I’ve got black hair and brown eyes, a very lanky, slender body and a few tattoos. I think my most distinguishing feature has got to be my hair. It’s quite curly.

How do you dress most of the time? Do you wear any jewelry? Honestly a lot of my clothes are women’s clothes. They fit better. I wear a lot of black and blue, chambray shirts, torn jeans, the occasional suit. I don’t really wear jewelry. I think I’d like to get my ears pieced, up in the cartilage.

What don’t you like about yourself? What kind of things embarrass you? Why? I’m pretty good with my appearance. I’m only embarrassed when I mess up while performing.

In your opinion, what is your best feature? Hm... perhaps my tattoos? they’re all really cool.

Where do you live? Describe it: Is it messy, neat, avant-garde, sparse, etc.? I live with Emily in a flat near campus. It’s minimalist, but efficient. We each have our own workplace, although hers is much neater than mine. I love the hardwood floors and the huge, low rising bed in our room. Allen likes it too, but only when Em isn’t home.

What is your most prized mundane possession? Why do you value it so much? My electric guitar is my third arm. I couldn’t go a day without playing it.

What one word best describes you? Overcomer.

Familial Questions

What is/was your family structure like? (i.e. are you adopted, how many siblings, pets, etc.) When I was little it was me, mum, and dad. The three musketeers. As I got older they started drifting apart, especially after my brother Louis came along. Now we don’t talk to mum much, it’s just us boys now. I like it that way.

Who was your father, and what was he like? Who was your mother, and what was she like? What was your parents marriage like? Were they married? Did they remain married? Tim is my best friend. He’s a welder turned sitcom star who taught me everything I know, from drugs, to surfing, to music. My mum, Denise, isn’t really in my life anymore. She struggled a lot, with drugs and alcohol and depression. I think she’s better off not really having to worry about us, but I’m sure she still does anyways. I still love her, despite all the shit we went through. My parents were divorced when I was 17 and Lou was 10. That’s the best thing that could have happened to us, although I didn’t see it at the time. Lou took it even harder than I did. I think he’s still sad about it.

What are/were your siblings names? What are/were they like? (If you have siblings) I have a little brother named Louis, he’s 16. He’s just like me, even though we grew up in very different situations. He’s also a sick bassist. I might recruit him to play for me one of these days. I love him a lot.

What’s the worst thing one of your siblings ever did to you? What’s the worst thing you’ve done to one of your siblings? (If you have siblings) One time when Lou was probably, eh, five or six, he found some scissors and cut my hair while I was asleep. Twelve year old Drew did not find that very funny. I guess the worst thing would be allowing him to see me and his parents fight. When we used to fight it could get physical. I’m sure that scared him.

When’s the last time you saw any member of your family? Where are they now? I saw my brother over Spring Break, he cam and hung out with me and Em while my dad was shooting in LA. We had dinner with my dad, too.

Who is your closest friend(s)? Describe them and how you relate to them. Caleb Stirling is my best friend, and Bruce is a close second. Caleb really gets me. We have a lot in common, especially shit that has happened to us. We both love to surf, too. I would also count Emily as my best friend, even though she’s my girlfriend. She’s great to talk to and knows me really well.

Childhood Questions

What is your first memory? Christmas, my third Christmas. My aunts got me a little toy keyboard and I played it all day until the batteries died. Well, I thought the batteries died. My dad told me later that he took them out because I was shit at keyboard as a three year old. Can’t blame him, I guess.

What was your favorite toy? That keyboard.

What was your favorite game? Sharks and minnows.

Who was your best friend when you were growing up? George is my best friend from back home. He plays drums. He’s kind of like my other brother, we’ve known each other so long. When I’m home I’ll stay at his house sometimes.

What is your fondest childhood memory? Getting my guitar. I was eleven.

What is your worst childhood memory? The night my parents told me they were seperating.

Adolescent Questions

It is common for one’s view of authority to develop in their adolescent years. What is your view of authority, and what event most affected it? I’m kind of indifferent to authority. When I was younger, I was definitely a rebel. Now I don’t really care.

What “clique” did/do you best fit in with? (Royals, Dark Royals, Wallflowers, Bookworms, Punks, Hipsters, Rejects, etc.) I would guess I’m a Wildcard? Maybe a Wallflower.

What were/are your high school goals? What were/are your uni goals? In high school my goal was to stay alive. That’s how crazy my life was. Now, I’d like to graduate early and get going with my life. Maybe I’ll marry Em. We’ll see.

What is/was your favorite memory from adolescence? What is/was your worst memory from adolescence? My favorite memory is when m brother learned to play bass and we used to play together. The look on my parents’ faces was so cool. They loved it. My worst memory was the night I saw my gang beat the shit out of some guy, and then I proceeded to beat the shit out of them. That’s when I knew I had to get out.

Do you own a car? Describe it. If not, describe your dream car. I guess my car is a classic? It was my dad’s friend’s. It’s a white 1973 MGB GT.

Occupational Questions

Do you have a job? What is it? Do you like it? If no job, where does your money come from? Yeah, I have gigs at the Teacup every Tuesday. I work as a server there when I’m not playing. My dad kind of bankroll me, though. He pays the rent for my flat.

What is your boss or employer like? (Or publisher, or agent, or whatever.) You know, bosses are bosses. I’ve had worse. At least I get to perform.

What are your co-workers like? Do you get along with them? Any in particular? Which ones don’t you get along with? I get along with all my coworkers. I don’t see a reason not to.

What is something you had to learn that you hated? Spilled coffee on you is literally the worst thing ever.

Do you tend to save or spend your money? Why? I’m very frugal. The only real impulse buys I have are that dog and gifts for Emily.

Likes & Dislikes Questions

What hobbies do you have? Mostly I’m a musician. I play, I write, I help others out when I can. I guess I’m a big reader, too. My favorite hobby is napping.

What bands/artists do you like? What song is “your song?” Why? I’m into indie/alt rock. I don’t really have a song. I can’t pick just one! Here are a few of my favorites.

When it comes to politics, do you care? If so, which way do you tend to vote? If not, why don’t you care? I'm not actually a U.S. citizen, so I’m not registered to vote here. My dad sends me stuff from the U.K. for me to look at. Honestly, I just want everyone to love each other, and I don’t like leaders who base policy on their religious beliefs.

What time of day is your favorite? What kind of weather is your favorite? I’m a morning person. I function the best on a good night’s sleep and a big cup of coffee.

What is your favorite food? What is your least favorite food? Ooh, probably pineapple. I don’t like steak, or any meat for that matter.

What is your favorite drink? (Coffee, Coke, Juice, Beer, Wine, etc.) Coffee. Usually black.

What’s your favorite animal? Why? Sharks! They’re so big and they rule the ocean.

Do you have any pets? Do you want any pets? What kind? My dog is called Allen. He’s brown. Emily says he’s “my dog” and not “her dog”, especially when he chews stuff in the flat.

What do you find most relaxing? (Not as in stress relief, but as something that actually calms you down.) Surfing, mostly.

What’s a pet peeve of yours? People hurting the ones I love.

Sex & Intimacy Questions

Would you consider yourself straight, gay, bi, pan, or something else? Why? I don’t really have a preference. I just love everyone.

Who was the first person you had sex with? When did it happen? What was it like? How well did it go? (If your character is sexually active, if not, skip this question) Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. I was probably high as hell. I seriously can’t remember, but I know it had to be around age 16.

Do you currently have a lover/crush? What is their name, and what is your relationship like? What are they like? Why are you attracted to them? I LOVE EMILY CADAVRE. She’s so intelligent, and funny, and beautiful. We’er the two cheesiest cheeses to ever cheese. Although we argue a lot, we see eye to eye on much more. She’s hardworking, she’s an artist, she’s amazing. I couldn’t ask for more.

Describe the perfect romantic partner for you and describe your perfect date with them. My perfect date with Em would be a concert.

Do you ever want to get married and have children? When do you see this happening? I don’t know if I’ll be a parent, honestly. I think Emily is the one, but I’m not sure how dead girls have children, if they do. Besides, I’ll be very busy touring and writing, I don’t know if me having a kid is a good idea.

What is more important – sex or intimacy? Why? I used to think it was sex, no ties, you know? Now I’m sure it’s intimacy.

What was your most recent relationship like? Who was it with? (Does not need to be sexual, merely romantic.) Before Emily I had a lot of flings. I’d never really had a proper girlfriend until her.

What’s the worst thing you’ve done to someone you loved? I almost cheated on Em.

Drug & Alcohol Questions (if your character’s a drinker/does drugs, if not, skip to numbers 5 & 6)

How old were you when you first got drunk? What was the experience like? I was thirteen. It was at an awards show after party my dad held at our house. Me and George stole a bottle of vodka and snuck onto the roof. We split the whole thing between us.

Did anything good come out of it? Did anything bad come out of it? I wouldn’t say anything good came out of it. It was the start of my downfall, I think. Man was I sick the next day.

Do you drink on any kind of regular basis? Not anymore, I’ve been sober for a year or so.

What kind of alcohol do you prefer? None.

Have you ever tried any other kind of “mood altering” substance? Which one(s)? What did you think of each? Yeah, I did lots of drugs before I came here. I wouldn’t be able to name all of them. Everything from weed to LSD to coke.

What do you think of drugs and alcohol? Are there any people should not do? Why or why not? I’m clean now, and I’m thankful for it. I don’t think anyone should do either, but it’s not really my place to tell them that. Doesn’t mean I don’t try.

Post-Powers Awareness Questions (For those who have powers)

When did you go through when you gained your powers? What was it like (in your opinion)?

What do you think now of being magical? Is it cool, or have you been screwed?

Do you have a mentor? Who are they? How did you become their student?

Do you have any magical items? Where did you get them?

Think of a major event that happened during your training/initiation. What was it?

What is something you had to learn during your training that you hated? Why did you hate it?

Thoughtful Questions

What about you is heroic? I’d say my ability to turn my life around.

What about you is social? What do you like about people? I’m not really a people person. I like to admire from afar. People are so interesting.

If a magical being, describe the color of what magic you use, is it of a light color, bold and bright, pastel and sparkly, etc.

Are you a better leader or follower? Why do you think that? If you think the whole leader-follower archetype is a crock of shit, say so, and explain why? I like to think I’m a leader, but I couldn’t tell you.

#wdpa challenge #wdpa challenge 1 #hc #sorting hat challenge #tw alchoholism #tw drugs #tw violence #tw divorce

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usstatesofsong · 8 years ago

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Countdown to #Eurovision - Yearly Reviews - 1987

We’re a little under two months away from the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and while we’re counting down the days toward ESC 2017, we’re going to revisit Eurovision song contests from the past and rank our favorites in each contest. (At least, through 1989... all the songs are out now!)

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Breaking the barrier, for a moment, between the Eurovision bubble and non-virtual reality. During the 1980s, and more recently, Belgium has been one of my favorite Eurovision countries, mostly because they don’t follow the middle path of typical pop music entries. They follow trends, or they go a bit avant-garde; they send flops, or they send gold. Their sole win in ESC history came in 1986, and thus, the European world tuned into Brussels in 1987 to watch the second-most 80’s-tastic contest the decade had to offer. The challenge was knowing who would “host” since Belgium alternates between the Walloon (French) and Flemish broadcasters for song entries. RTBF (the broadcaster of the winning artist, Sandra Kim), hosted the grand event, while BRT got to choose the singer.

First off, take a look at that logo. After viewing it a few times I finally realized it spells “87.” I’d love to meet the person who designed that logo… they chose the most 80’s-tastic colors. Even the hostess was in special 80’s form, and Brussels has my douze points for the most 80’s-tastic stage of the decade. It just kind of disappears into a dark abyss, which makes for some interesting antics during the performances. Speaking of the hostess, she was a statuesque woman by name of Viktor Lazlo. Sounds like a man’s name? That’s because her real name is Sonia. She’s my second-most favorite host of the decade, for many reasons! But I digress… the contest itself is memorable for bringing forth the real look of the decade, and not shying away from some 80’s-tastic tunes, as well. Some of my favorite entries of all time come from this contest - for better, or for worse. And all 22 (usual) countries participated! No excuses, no holiday boycotting, no mistakenly reentered songs - we have a full contest to swim through.

Another Eurovision blogger that I admire really detests the ‘87 contest, for reasons that I don’t completely agree with, but am willing to accept. There are some doozies, after all, that will make you question your true sexuality. Also, “Deeeeeee melodie!”

Alright, I’ve buffered this blog with all that I can muster. Let’s get to it, shall we?

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1. NORWAY - Kate Gulbrandsen - Mitt liv (9th, 65 pts)

Well, she’s definitely on a mission! And not with just the hair… or the clothes… or the boots. You know what I’d really like to see? Someone taking on that combination in 2017. They’d earn a gold medal for braveness, because I think that style was dead by 1988. The song has a power to it, a developing force, trudging through tough times and overcoming the challenges of the world. It wouldn’t be out of place as the theme song of a movie. Although the song is titled “my life,” I imagine the way she describes her life in Norwegian is supposed to be relative. There’s just a bit of an empty feeling to this song, and the stage. All in all, not a bad start to the contest.

2. ISRAEL - Datner & Kushnir - Shir Habatlanim (8th, 73 pts.)

Lulz. So many lulz. What else do I need to say here? Lulz!!!! Israel, you loving bunch. Europe loves you right back. The fame of this song, and the legacy it holds because the Israeli Prime Minister of Culture or something like that wanted to resign if this song was sent… really?? Get the stick out of your butt. If anything, people love Israel more for songs like this. So, if you compare the ESC version of the song to the national final, this really comes alive and can be… somewhat understood as a legitimate entry. The orchestration sounds great in that big stage, and the little dances are so damn entertaining. There’s a 1950s vibe to the composition, but the singing is so unlike anything. It’s pure theatrics. Props to RTBF for cutting to the next shot as Avi’s in mid-air jump! WE NEVER KNOW IF HE COMES BACK DOWN!!! :D :D Such happy! Also, featuring the first song/performance to feature a handstand. And sunglasses (maybe). And hand-shimmies. And an abandoning of the microphone only to turn right back around on the last bar and jump and shout “Hah!” The Dutch broadcaster described it as “Blue Brothers”... and that sounds about right.

3. AUSTRIA - Gary Lux - Nur noch Gefühl (20th, 8 pts.)

I don’t remember this song making much of an impression on me during my first listen of the program. Years later, there’s more of an understanding of the sentiment and the feeling associated with the composition. Gary was a seasoned veteran of Eurovision by this point, so the performance was flawless… until the almost-end, when his voice cracked. Sigh… I wonder if that moment haunted him for many years after, because we wouldn’t see him again for nearly five years. Or maybe someone finally told him he needed to give it up, as it were. Who knows. All I know is that the song itself is lovely. It fits the mold of the decade of music I love nicely (as does his jacket - I hope it stayed there.) And while it probably was never going to win the contest, I have to wonder if it could have got more points.

4. ICELAND - Halla Margret - Hægt og hljótt (16th, 28 pts.)

It’s the end of a long night in downtown and it’s time to head on home… the bar is closing, the last drink has been drunk, and once again you’re alone. Nobody except the piano man, slowly and lightly playing away. That’s what this song makes me think about, and songs that make me think rank highly in my final points chart. This is one of my annual favorites, as it again could not have happened in any other decade than the 80’s, and because Halla is one hella good lookin’ nordic woman. Actually, it’s more that “anus in the, anus in the air” lyric that the English language cannot put to death. This is such an odd composition, as it never was going to go places with the juries. But it’s sweetness, kindness, lightness and brightness shine through. The most you could say about it is “boring,” but eff you. :P

5. BELGIUM - Liliane Saint-Pierre - Soldiers of Love (11th, 56 pts)

Wait a second, did you see the way Liliane looked in that postcard?? And also, how about the host country’s conductor not being Jo Carlier, but rather the other broadcaster’s conductor… conducting for the other broadcaster’s host entry... Okay, whatever. I’m fully aware of the confusion Belgium causes (I made a map about it in college). We desperately needed some kind of upbeat pop or rock number in this contest, and the host country delivered nicely. There’s a bit of an older vibe that I get from Liliane, but her dress is beyond epic, and so are the militaristic dance moves. I have to wonder if those gun-shaped guitars would be allowed on an airplane flight in today’s world. Definitely in the upper half of entries from 1987.

6. SWEDEN - Lotta Engberg - Boogaloo (12th, 50 pts.)

And now for something completely different! I have to give credit to Sweden for ditching the schlager route, as was common practice for the Scandinavian countries, and risking … tropical calypso? The bright colors of the outfits and the happy, upbeat, sunshiney atmosphere the song creates really helps you forget, if just momentarily, how dark and expansive that stage is. I’m not sure this is something I would want to listen to outside of the contest itself, but I appreciate the song for what it is, and Sweden has certainly sent worse. At the end, the “guitarist” throws his guitar in the air, and I’d have to wonder what kind of world we would be living in now if he failed to catch it and the guitar broke.

7. ITALY - Raf & Umberto Tozzi - Genti di mare (3rd, 103 pts.)

Welcome back (again), Italy, the perennial skippers of Eurovision, as it suits them. They would remain for quite a few years, possibly because this was one of their more successful streaks in the contest itself. To celebrate their return, the Italians sent arguably their two biggest male stars, which would never happen these days! This one had a big impact on me the first time I listened to the contest, having ranked it at my top until I had heard “Mr. Eurovision” sing later on - we will get to that. There’s a uniqueness to this composition, the beginning lyrics almost sounding like waves washing on the shores, for the “genti di mare,” and as it builds into a proper song (I wouldn’t quite call it a ballad), the anthemic quality of it all is awesome. Umberto is definitively one of the strongest singers of the contest, and carries this song into ‘contender’ territory for the title.

8. PORTUGAL - Nevada - Neste barco à vela (18th, 15 pts.)

I really like the beginning of this one, with the way the violins and guitars (?) play, but I’m sorry, it’s ruined the moment he starts singing. It’s just… I’ve never felt as though a baritone voice can carry a song to victory in Eurovision. Also, nice librarians that you hired as backup singers there. I suppose this is okay, but I’ve been spoilt with such thematic songs up to this point that fit the mold of the decade, and this song does not. But hey, they beat Spain in ‘87! Small victories.

9. SPAIN - Patricia Kraus - No estás solo (19th, 10 pts)

Oh. Goodness. Certainly, she’s had a bit of coffee before walking out to that stage! One wonders what it’s like to be squeezed to death at the waist while literally shouting some of the lyrics. Or that she smeared some lipstick on her cheeks and decided to leave it there. Terry Wogan calls her “challenging,” and that’s an adequate summation. Admittedly, this is another one where I’d say it starts out good, but Patricia ruins it with the way she sings. I get the feeling like this is supposed to be a song of declaration, a pronouncement, and she tries to oversell it, thus ruining herself in the process. Also, “Oh yay!” appears about twenty times too many during the song. Finally, she destroys any opportunity of redemption on that last note. It’s too bad; I think this really could have been a good song!

10. TURKEY - Seyyal Taner & Lokomotif - Şarkım Sevgi Üstüne (22nd, 0 pts.)

This one, on the other hand, makes Spain look like a masterpiece. I could go on for hours about this. When I watched a recap of worst performances during the most recent Norwegian hosting of ESC, this was the first highlight, as it were, and I became infatuated with the songs featured in that recap. It’s baaaaad, folks. But it ventures into the “so bad it’s good” territory, thankfully. What particularly is bad is hard to say, since everything about it is so over-the-top - from the constant movement, to the white clothes, to the male singer’s solo fail, to the “Deeeeeeeeee melodi” theme, or perhaps even those clunky cowbell keyboard sounds. This has not aged well, and I think this song’s existence was 20 years too early. The fandom has certainly come around to this one, but this must have been looked down on back in the day, since it received nul points. Turkey always gets treated like poop, but thankfully everyone enjoys their poop these days. Mercy me.

11. GREECE - Bang - Stop (10th, 64 pts)

And now, the Greek George Michael. They certainly knew what they were doing, those Greeks… anyways, this has an old-fashioned charm to it that most sounds like Wham!’s single, “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” but perhaps without the soaring vocals. However, Thanos’ vocals didn’t really need to be soaring for this number, and I like the bopping energy of this one. Greece wasn’t usually known for sending dance numbers, so this was a breath of fresh air. What I really want to know, though - which of those backup singers is Mariana! I can’t tell!

12. NETHERLANDS - Marcha - Rechtop in de wind (t-5th, 83 pts)

It kinda sounds like two songs combined into one! Marcha couldn’t decide whether she wanted to sing a ballad or a pop hit at Eurovision, so she took both. It’s not all that bad; she looks knock-dead gorgeous (I mean, not just by 80’s standards), and this has a very contemporary feel to it. The only problem, I would say, is that I have very little else to say about it. For being such a contemporary song with a strong beat and jamming melody, there’s nothing to latch onto. She comes on the stage and she does her thing; she owns it. The juries love that stuff, yo, thus why the Dutch scored a rare Top 5 with it.

13. LUXEMBOURG - Plastic Bertrand - Amour, amour (21st, 4 pts)

It’s all good and well in these types of reviews until you’re introduced to something from the left-most edge of the left field. What do you think audiences back then thought about this song? Because I can tell you plenty about what people think about it thirty years later. M. Bertrand is an… unique, engaging fellow. And if there was any one person who worked the stage that night in Brussels, it was him. He’s wearing a godddamn pink suitjacket, for heaven’s sakes! But guys, sexuality aside, unless you absolutely love new wave music, you’re probably not going to like this one. My fondness of this song stems from the style of music combined with the over-the-top appeal, but even then, I can’t award it too highly. And they destroyed some of the original quality when it transferred over to the orchestra. All that aside, though, this is a Eurovision classic; a must-watch.

14. UNITED KINGDOM - Rikki - Only the Light (13th, 47 pts.)

This was the poop-bird of Britain’s hot streak; perhaps a strong representation that you can’t always win just because you sing in English. And it started from (almost) the first note, with Rikki’s vocals as he shouts “Woahhhh!!!” above everything else going on. I’d almost think that the composition itself backfired upon the band, because there’s so much energy in the performance and in the dance moves, and when Rikki isn’t trying to smooth-move sooth you there’s an element of strength to the song.

15. FRANCE - Christine Minier - Les mots d'amour n'ont pas de dimanche (14th, 44 pts.)

The words of love are not some Sunday? Well, okay. Sure. Okay, past that point. This just comes off as a really average-sounding pageant song. Like the kind of thing you’d sing in Miss Universe. I give credit to actually using the orchestra for the song, which most of the other acts didn’t do that night. But that’s as far as I can go with this - she’s not even that vocally strong of a singer. Next.

16. GERMANY - Wind - Lass die Sonne in dein Herz (2nd, 141 pts.)

A couple things here - how sad for this group to have come 2nd place twice!?! Just so that Johnny Logan could win twice… Also, freakin’ half of Milli Vanilli! Why is he there?? Like, this must be pre-MV fame, and he was a “fake” singer, so … what is he doing there? Was he just like, the poster-boy for German pop music? What would have Wind done if they had won? Would we still have had Milli Vanilli, or would he have become an honorary member of Wind and gone on to great Eurovision success? Was it about the image? A Caribbean look, which admittedly is what this song tries to provide? I do have to say I like this more than their 1985 attempt, because the vocals are spot-on! But it also has a somewhat empty feeling to it, just like the UK did. I can award some points to Germany for this breath of fresh air, but it’s not the true winner of the evening.

17. CYPRUS - Alexia - Aspro mavro (7th, 80 pts)

Say it isn’t so! Cyprus went the schlager route in 1987, as if it wasn’t bad enough that some Scandinavian countries couldn’t get their heads out of the sand to send something outside the genre around this time. Appropriately she’s wearing black and white, and she’s go the sweet little side-step dances to go with it. Delaying for time and for critique, because this is not really my cup of tea and I find Alexia’s voice a bit grating at times; a bit nasal. Like, the song does get stuck in my head ever so slightly, but my reimagining of her voice in my head is less than complimentary. We’ll see where this lands at the end.

18. FINLAND - Vicky Rosti & Boulevard - Sata salamaa (15th, 32 pts.)

I think the only real crime to this is that it finished with less points than France. But if you’re going to do anything with schlager, this is one route you can go where you don’t immediately lose all credibility with me. It also helps if you’re a redhead (I have a thing for redheads…) Vicky combines the glam rock from that decade with a pop-infused schlager tune, and while it’s not my favorite thing of the night, I don’t forget the song so quickly, either. And that’s a good thing for this contest, all things considered! I also like the way she rolls her ‘r’s. I wish I could do that...

19. DENMARK - Anne-Cathrine Herdorf & Bandjo - En lille melodi (t-5th, 83 pts.)

This is basically the ‘87 version of Spain ‘84, or Germany-87-lite. It’s called “A little melody” because there’s only a little bit of melody to this, otherwise it again sounds so empty and lost during the chorus parts. It picks up a little bit on the start of the second chorus, but that’s literally just me trying to latch onto something. But, of course, this is something that the juries would fall for back in those days. Sigh...

20. IRELAND - Johnny Logan - Hold Me Now (1st, 172 pts)

Really the only deserved winner of the evening. Everything just comes together really well, from the orchestrated composition (I swear Ireland is the only nation that uses the french horn appropriately), to the lyrics, to the vocals, and to the contemporary feeling of the single. This comes alive so much more than the demo version, which tries too desperately to fit in the era of 80’s ballads. And Johnny always knows how to finish on a fantastic note. I can’t really criticize this if I tried. So, three cheers for the orange, green, and white. With St. Patrick’s Day upcoming, I award you with the only true score deserved for this piece of Eurovision history - nobody else has ever won twice.

21. YUGOSLAVIA - Novi Fosili - Ja sam za ples (4th, 92 pts)

It’s weird how most of the schlager of ‘87 got all sandwiched towards the end of the presentation! But this is another one I can tolerate, as it is more of a throwback to the 50’s and 60’s era of pop dance, rather than just big-band poppity trash waste. And the lead singer really sells it, too, with her constant moving and … umm, hiccups? I don’t know how else to describe those sounds. This group is so Slavic, and yet, it all comes together. It’s a precursor to 1989, that’s for sure, and the country earned another Top 5 finish for the boys and girls back home.

22. SWITZERLAND - Carol Rich - Moitié, moitié (17th, 26 pts)

Gosh, she’s a little fireball of energy, isn’t she? Apparently the Swiss didn’t even need a conductor, as hostess Lazlo awkwardly cuts to Rich running from off-stage right to demand a tap of the foot or two. I’d love to know what the thought-process was for the outfitting of her (American stars on top, Australian stars on bottom?) and the group, with headbands and guitar accessories, who are alarmingly reminding me of Sweden’s profession to mediocrity from the year before. In all honesty this is too streamline for my tastes, and apparently I wasn’t alone in that deduction as the juries didn’t buy into it either.

As I said previously, Logan won for the second time. And it was against a field of random hullabaloo, just like in 1980. I’m reminded how this song elevates in comparison to “What’s Another Year,” and in comparison to everything else sent that year. Yeah, I suppose this wasn’t the grandest of editions musically, but there’s still a lot here that I adore, and I think when there’s a grander variety of music, the joyful feelings illuminate the memory and make the contest so much more interesting. I award the actual winner the 12 points, and I drop a big fat zero on the senorita who got lost in her own world. Greece was the only country to award her points, after all - otherwise she would have finished with nul points, just like the musical travesty that was Turkey! Anywho, there was a serious upgrade in sophistication, technology, and harmony in 1987; what would we get out of the Irish in ‘88?

My votes:

12 – Ireland 10 – Iceland 8 – Italy 7 – Austria 6 – Israel 5 – Yugoslavia (Croatia) 4 – Germany 3 – Belgium 2 – Finland 1 – Luxembourg

The “Big Fat 0” award: Spain Honorable Mention: Sweden, Greece Worst Dressed: Switzerland

And here is the overall count of points since beginning these reviews with the ‘80 contest. It’s a best-of-best race, as Germany is now within one point. Israel and Ireland gain some ground, and it will be pretty interesting who we finish out with on top by the end of the decade. How would your rankings look?

1st - 45 – Belgium (1986) 2nd - 44 – Germany (1982, 1983) 3rd - 36 – Israel 4th - 35 – Ireland (1980, 1987) 5th - 31 – Austria 27 – Turkey 24 – Norway (1985) 21 – Portugal 20 – Italy (1984) 20 – Luxembourg 20 – Sweden 18 – Finland 18 – Greece (1981) 17 – France 16 – Spain 14 – United Kingdom 12 – Netherlands 11 – Denmark 11 - Iceland 9 – Croatia 9 – Cyprus 6 – Switzerland

-50SS

#eurovision #esc 1987 #eurovision 1987 #eurovision song contest #hold me now #ireland eurovision #1987

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offelixfilicis · 7 years ago

Text

GET TO KNOW THE CHARACTER:

LAYER ONE: THE OUTSIDE

Name: Felix Finnigan

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Style/Color: Black, short .. ah.. it doesn't have a style?

Height: 5'11

Clothing Style: I don't think I really have a style? I just... wear whatever is around or whatever they give me really...

Best Physical Feature: I don't think I have a best feature, or a good feature... I kind of like my hair.....

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE

Fears: My father, losing my seal skin forever, needles, hunters, brutal masters

Bad Habits: Fidgeting, rambling, biting my nails

Ambition for the Future: I'd rather like to be free someday, to go back to Ireland with my seal skin and find my herd, or atleast //a// herd... I want to live as a selkie again and not just a human, I'd also like to have a family

Biggest regret: Convincing my mum to let me see the human world, it's what got her killed and me captured...

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS

First Thoughts Waking Up: "Another day, one down ... God knows how many to go..."

What I Think About the Most: Daydreaming about being free, back in the water

What I Think About Before Bed: I try to visualize that dream, hoping I'll dream about it when I sleep too

What I Think My Best Quality Is: I don't know if I really have any good qualities, I mean, I'm a good swimmer but... most aquatic folk are....

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER?

Single or Group Dates: Single

To be Loved or Respected: To be loved, obviously

Beauty or Brains: Brains

Dogs or Cats: Dogs, nothing against cats but... yeah dogs

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU?

Lie: I try not to, sometimes I have to

Have scars/birthmarks: No birthmarks, I have a few scars from my father that my healing just wasn't good enough for... gotta love those human genes....

Believe in Yourself: Not really, no

Believe in Love: Absolutely

Want Someone: Specifically? No, in general... yeah, I do

LAYER SIX: EVER?

Been on Stage: No, never done anything to warrant it mate

Done Drugs: Never

Changed Who You Were to Fit In: No, I've done everything I can to hold onto myself, no matter what

LAYER SEVEN: FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Blue

Favorite Music: I rather like folk and traditional Irish music

Favorite Animal: Seals, unsurprisingly

Favorite Drink: I rather like hot drinks, like hot chocolate

Favorite Food: Fish and chips

Favorite Place: The sea

Favorite Sport: Does swimming count?

Favorite Season: Winter, I love the cold weather

Favorite Holiday: Christmas

LAYER EIGHT: AGE

Day Your Next Birthday Will Be: Febuarary 20th, it's on a Tuesday this time

Age You Lost Your Virginity: 17

Does Age Matter?: I suppose that depends on the context, but if you're a consenting adult I'd say you can do whatever you please

LAYER NINE: IN A PARTNER

Best Personality: Ah.... I'll just go with one quality: Kindness

Best Eye Color: I really don't care to be honesty

Best Hair Color: Again, I like any color really

Best thing to do With a Partner: Talk, I've always wanted someone to talk to

LAYER TEN: FINISH THE SENTENCE

I love: The sea

I hate: Being without my skin

I feel: Somber

I hide: My fears

I miss: My mum, the ocean, my skin...

I wish: I was free

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE MUSE:

What do you look like? (Include body type, frame, hair, eyes, skin, age, and distinguishing features): I'm a normal height, I suppose, thin I guess, black hair, blue eyes, caucasion, I have some facial hair, no distinguishing features honestly

How do you dress most of the time?: In whatever they give me, usually loose clothes

How do you “dress up”?: You mean for something fancy? I've never done that before, I'd like to try a suit someday

How do you “dress down”?: Sweat pants and an old t-shirt

What do you wear when you go to sleep?: They don't really give us different clothes to sleep in so... whatever I'm wearing at the time, I used to really like pajamas

Do you wear any jewelry?: We aren't allowed to have jewlry, but I'd really, really like to, rings, earrings, bracelets, cuffs, necklaces, even anklets

In your opinion, what is your best feature?: I really don't think I have one mate

How many siblings do you have?: None

What is your father like?: Cruel, cold, abusive, neglectfull, controlling, a generally terrible human being, a murderer...

What is your mother like?: Kind, gentle, sweet, loving, warm, adventurous, talented, funny, freindly

Where do you live? Describe it: Is it messy, neat, avant-garde, sparse, etc.?: In a cage, not too much to describe

Are you emotional, depressed, ect?: I can be, I can be quite emotional and get depressed easily

Would you consider yourself straight, gay, bi, or something else? Why?: Bisexual, I like both women and men

How ticklish are you? Where are you ticklish?: I'm a bit ticklish yes, mostly around my torso or .. really anywhere when in my seal skin

What do you do when you are bored?: Swim, sleep, or find someone to talk to, if I can

What do you envy most?: Freedom

#about #krovscastletask

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bluetapes · 8 years ago

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pre-order here: https://bluetapes.bandcamp.com/album/x-ray-five-the-sparrow-12

Deluxe ultra-clear 12" vinyl screenprinted with ‘moth’ artwork

The post-genre sounds Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records has mined and curated over the past couple of years might not immediately code as metal, but as early as our home-dubbed tape days we were exploring death metal’s potential as vocal-only music with blue ten: EyeSea.

Jute Gyte is unambiguously metal music and I genuinely believe that Adam Kalmbach, the sole musician and producer behind the project, is the most important musician in metal since Death’s Chuck Schuldiner, himself the most important metal musician since Tony Iommi, the man whose fingers created metal.

As a teenager into the Mortal Kombat soundtrack and Nine Inch Nails, Adam learnt metal guitar. Later, he studied composition at university, and had his brain nuked by early and baroque music, serialism and Sibelius, and the universes of potentials opening like wormholes in his head created Jute Gyte.

Jute Gyte applies microtonality and modernist compositional approaches to black metal. This isn’t in itself what makes Jute Gyte’s music great, though it does explode one thing that has slowly narrowed into a conservative musical tradition out into something new, that no one has heard before. New sounds and new feelings.

This is not dry, academic music. It is scientific, exploratory, but as physical as the most brutal splatters of 1991-era death metal, which - despite using gore as a convenient if slightly-knuckleheaded shorthand for the abstract, lurching new riff forms of the genre - had a transdimensional element even then.

Jute Gyte’s orchestra of microtonal guitars sounds as though it is vomiting blackholes. But maybe what initially scans as occult horror in Jute Gyte’s music is just seasickness caused by the unfamiliarity of this new terrain.

“I understand how stuff I've done sounds ugly to people,” Adam concedes, “but it doesn't sound ugly to me. Or, it doesn't sound exclusively ugly. It's just a different kind of language. If you haven't internalised that language, then you're going to hear a lot of things that sound like 'wrong' notes. I hear little musical jokes, I hear happy parts and sad parts, and I hear a lot of parts that don't seem to have any emotive content at all. It's not just uniformly ugly, just as Schoenberg's work is not intended to be uniformly ugly.”

For x-ray five, Adam has crafted two side-long pieces. The first of these, The Sparrow, is a kind of modernist black metal symphony that might share some signifiers with the despair-loaded blizzard hymns familiar to fans of Norwegian BM. But those beautiful flocks of guitars - sometimes they sound like they’re hovering, or scrolling back and forth, rather than ‘riffing’. A dazzling murmuration. And it wasn’t some grimoire that provided the lyrical inspiration for the piece, but Stoner author John Edward Williams’ 1965 poetry collection, The Necessary Lie.

The second piece, Monadanom, is from a suite of ambient microtonal guitar pieces that Adam began developing for us in early 2014. It is oceanic, not in the usual new age-y sense most often applied to ambient music, but in that it is raging with life and detail; unfathomable.

Self-released Jute Gyte albums like Perdurance, Ship of Theseus and Ressentiment are acknowledged as modern classics not only of metal or experimental music, but of any genre.

Adam doesn’t self-promote or use social media, play live or collaborate with other artists, but a fiercely loyal fanbase has already swarmed around him. This is his first full release with a label and I consider it to be one of the most important releases for Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records.

This is a metal record, but for me, it makes total sense that Jute Gyte would be on the same label as Katie Gately and Tashi Dorji, rather than Roadrunner or even Relapse. These humans are his peers - artists who are changing people’s perceptions of the possibilities of modern music at a cellular level.

Adam Kalmbach is influenced by Harry Partch, Xenakis, Penderecki, Gloria Coates, Mahler and Brahms; he regards Jute Gyte as belonging to a continuum of ‘late Romantic’ music.

Jute Gyte will appeal to any fans of Stockhausen, Morbid Angel, Sonic Youth, Gojira, Autechre, Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Slayer, Tim Hecker, Daniel Lopatin, Khanate, Ulver, Anaal Nathrakh, Liturgy, Mahavishnu Orchestra, King Crimson or Godflesh.

A FEW WORDS FROM JOHN DORAN, EDITOR OF THE QUIETUS:

"A house sparrow beats its elliptical wings up to fifteen times per second. This may seem paltry compared to the ruby-throated hummingbird which can flap 200 times per second but it simply isn’t. The beats are just slow enough for us to be able to discern the highly focussed power of passer domesticus - the most widespread wild bird in the world. No floating gracefully by on an invisible blur of feathers for the common sparrow just the powerful little upstroke, the powerful little downstroke and all of the other (half and quarter) positions that join them. One sparrow takes wing; then another; then another. Common, ungainly birds? Spiteful little pests? Not a bit of it. If you spent your life watching them perhaps you could frame the astonishing lattice of a meinie of these tiny creatures. Perhaps you could figure the calculus of a tribe of sparrows taking flight. A host that breaks apart on the ground and reassembles on the wing.

"The music of Jute Gyte, made by the visionary musician Adam Kalmbach, makes me feel sick. I hope there has been a distant civilisation somewhere along the way who have paid emetic tribute to their most revered cultural producers, as I do mean this as the highest of compliments to the chef. Because while the harsh, fiercely avant garde, black metal of microtonal progressions and complex time signatures he produces does genuinely make me feel quite queasy, I’d like to think any genuine regurgitation suffered by me would be the kind that precedes the ayahuasca vision or the state of satori triggered by a pure dose of MDMA. The churning thunder of albums such as Ship Of Theseus and Perdurance - and now this genuinely awesome 12”, The Sparrow, on X-Ray Records - is equally matched by a nagging aesthetic of pessimism. While this may well by umami to a depressive realist’s palate, as with The Silence Of Animals by John Gray, this music contains the very real possibility of transcendence. (This being the rare transformative state often promised by modern black metal, yet the most conspicuous by its absence.)

"There is a bird sanctuary on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, near Burscough, called Martin Mere. In the foyer of the visitor centre there is a charity coin spinner, a large money collection device, sometimes also known as a coin vortex donation box. The device is essentially a large, smooth, downward-curving funnel, protected by a semi-spherical clear plastic dome. There is a slot into which you press a coin. Now sometimes, but not often, the coins don’t take and they slide, flat side down straight into the funnel and immediately out of sight into the collection box. Mostly however they circle. This happens slowly at first; a large graceful loop of the shallower edge of the funnel but because of gravity they never make a complete circumference, instead they always travel in a concentric circle, down the funnel, picking up speed as the spiral shrinks inwards. Each pass round the funnel becomes shorter and shorter until it essentially becomes a tube, round which the coin travels horizontally at great speed. It moves so quickly it is hard to tell what is happening.

"Whump, whump, whump, whump. The coin becomes more absence than presence. And then, just for a fraction of a second before disappearing into the dark for good, the coin is no longer touching the funnel wall.

"And at that moment, there is take-off. "

PRAISE FOR JUTE GYTE:

"Lurching, ascending, descending – ever moving in a time that doesn’t seem to resemble time at all. Sometimes the music of Jute Gyte sounds as though it is crawling around inside you, threatening to escape. Whether it is slowing up or speeding down sometimes seems not only subjective, but actually kind of irrelevant. This is genuinely transdimensional music. It obeys the rules of little other sound in our universe. In an era where the ‘psychedelic’ is much fetishized, but oft-misunderstood, Jute Gyte is making music that is beyond cosmic. It looks where space rock has taken us and laughs. Why waste time on sailing a backdraft of flanger up to the moon when you can wrench open reality itself and slide a rotten tentacle through the cracks? This isn’t for people who find black metal cute. And it isn’t for people who find black metal extreme. Microtonal metal might never inspire memeworthy fandom, but right now it sounds like the future. And the past. And the whole ugly present – all knotted together in a vipers nest of ouroboros." - 20 Jazz Funk Greats

"Jute Gyte's Perdurance is a modern classical black metal masterwork" - Noisey

"It's tempting to focus on this album's otherworldly guitar sound and various other unusual technical components, but its emotional charge is its most compelling feature. Many black metal acts address the idea that we're on our own in a blind, hostile cosmos, but rarely does the horror feel so real." - Stereogum

"If you can sit through it, you will be rewarded by relentlessly entertaining cacophony shot through with a warped sense of humour. If you don’t believe me, take my roommate’s word for it: “Could you never play that skronk album again? I really hate it.” So fire up the coals, put some brews on ice, then lock yourself in the basement and twitch to the summer sounds of Jute Gyte." - The Quietus

"Few recent artists have made such inimitable music as Missourian Adam Kalmbach, architect behind the protean madness of Jute Gyte" - Metal Sucks

"Adam Kalmbach has produced vast quantities of what is hands down the most forward-thinking and complex music metal has to offer" - Angry Metal Guy

"Jute Gyte is music for people who don’t necessarily want what they take in to make them feel better, or even good." - Heavy Blog Is Heavy

"Though not a “pretty” or “pleasant” album by any means, Kalmbach’s genuinely alien approach to harmony and composition coupled with a greater emotional weight than much of his previous work makes Ressentiment one of his best albums yet, and one of the best this year." - Toilet ov Hell

"We are hearing a truly original artist completely at ease with his medium" - Heathen Harvest

"Swirling, chaotic, virulent, black and maddening" - Cvlt Nation

"The guitar sounds like it’s being played by an alien" - Nine Circles

"Robin Thicke is a human. Jute Gyte could eat him." - Decoder Magazine

"The music Kalmbach writes is now top notch covering all the bases of brittle, spiteful black metal, creepy atmospherics and a contrasting, unique style that makes his music stand out above much of the like minded one man black metal out there today." - Teeth of the Divine

"Jute Gyte remains one of our most creative and challenging American black metal extracts." - From the Dust Returned

"Jute Gyte’s now signature hyperdissonance meets the ever-shifting polyrhythms of IDM, Gamelan’s chiming bells, and the shifting dread of early electronic music. Perdurance is a strange album whose penchant for the impenetrable verges on Dadaism" - Invisible Oranges

"Ears accustomed to Western 12-tone polyphony can barely process these sounds—they sink into your skull like red-hot stones into ice. It's like you're listening to a tape at the wrong speed, or to music warped by a black hole's gravitational lens on its way here from several galaxies away." - Chicago Reader

"cracked decrepit guitar tones creak against the maelstrom of drone swelling and spilling in harmonious fury, with buried drum machine marching through the void and anguished vocals recounting an ancient war of mass slaughter. electronics and treatments figure more prominently than on other BM projects, sure to piss off purists and blurring the divide between metal and noise: overwhelming buzzing distortion and delay" - KFJC

#jute gyte #adam kalmbach #blue tapes #x-ray records #john doran #the quietus #death #chuck schuldiner #black metal #tony iommi #godflesh #king crimson #mahavishnu orchestra #stockhausen #autechre #blut aus nord

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