Personal Music as Public Wedge

Sunday’s “Profile” column in my local paper features an outgoing Senior here at the University, one who for the past year has served as the student representative on the Board of Trustees (the governing body of our University). On page two, where we typically see an action shot of a local schoolteacher, community organizer, or research scientist, we see a young, closely-cropped white man, seated in front of a window overlooking the campus Quad. On a table to his left, we see a large campaign button for a Presidential race that happened in my lifetime, but not in his. Above the student’s folded arms, across a crisp navy blue tshirt, appears the now retired and contraband image of the “Chief” logo.

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Scaleable Image for Sound

From the good design department: Animal Collective’s new record makes the best use of cover imagery I’ve seen in the post-object music market. We’re all familiar with the complaint about the loss of art in the move from LP to CD, from CD to MP3. Our experience of imagery in relation to music is now often confined to the little postage stamp on display in the MP3 player. Animal Collective is one of those acts who still issues each new album on LP as well as through the newer formats. In the case of their new album Merriweather Post Pavilion, the same cover image provides a different experience for each format.

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SVIIB (bones, bread)

Soundtrack for this post here

I’m happy to have found a new album to obsess over, full of songs that trade places in my attention with each repeated listen. I admit to relishing particular musics for the space and feel they lend, their affect - I get crushes on music, want to hang around them all the time. This does give me pause about exactly how these sounds function for me; emotion-management seems to be more important than actual listening in contemporary music consumption. Much could be said about this phenomenon and my participation in it; for now I’ll start by simply trying to articulate the grip a particular music has on me.

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The Most Beautiful Sermon I’ve Heard

In An Alternative World is at Hand, Walter Brueggemann sermonizes on a passage from a letter by the Apostle Paul, where Paul is quoting from the Hebrew Prophet Isaiah. For the beginning of the Christian season of Advent (which is something like our “Christmas”), the guest preacher paints a picture of a beautiful world. He’s talking at Duke Chapel, the cadence resonating through a space of tired academic workers and students at semester’s end. I should listen to this at the end of each day.

Listen here.

Growing (Live Set)

image from www.bigtakeover.com

The All Tomorrow’s Parties festival held up in the Catskills sounds to have been incredible. My Bloody Valentine “curated” the event. (I’m still getting used to this word in reference to music fests) So there’s hardly anyone in the line up I wouldn’t have loved to see. Additionally, the site itself just seems perfect, an old run-down resort where music-listeners can retreat and commisserate. The best weddings I’ve been too have been held away like this, where the setting creates a new communitas and a chance to be intimate with strangers.  So many shows I’ve attended are so sad for how little interaction there is between people, when we’ve just shared such profound sonic and bodily experiences.

So I was so happy to learn that in their new and growing identity as a location broadcast host, WFMU would be sharing live sets from the fest. The broadcasts I caught sounded GREAT. And now that more are being released, I’m even more grateful. Well-recorded live music, especially that which is attached to specific and meaningful sites and events, only grows in significance with the disappearance of time from music in the MP3-ipod era.

The live set from Growing - an act previously unknown to me - is incredible. I just keep listening to it, and get lost in the loops and repetition, forgetting the site and event again, only to get snapped back into the document of the thing. The nature of the recording nicely echoes the music itself; the documentary nature of the recording comes in and out just as the music’s loops take one in and out of the perception of human intervention. Only once in the 36 minute set (which is over so fast) does the fabulous Liz Berg step in to station ID the thing, and as always I’m happy to hear her voice, reminding me that I’m tied to other listeners. And at the end, when the liveness kicks back in one more time, an ecstatic concertgoer near the mic lets out a blessed “THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!! HOLY SH%T!” The ecstasy is contagious.

Commencement (please hold your applause)

You’ll have to turn it up loud to hear this one I recorded and edited “in-camera” with my mp3 recorder.