Nico Muhly’s Mothertongue
You may have already heard composer Nico Muhly this year on All Is Well, Samamidon’s lovely reimaginings of immigrant folk songs. (If you haven’t, you should). Mothertongue, Muhly’s second album and first for Brassland (run by members of the National), is divided into three acts. First, Glassy Mothertongue features mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer delivering a litany of barely intelligible voices—the aural equivalent of that green Matrix coding. The Wonders suite sets passages from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville to melody, dismantling the tune as it proceeds. Amidon shows up on the Only Tune suite, relating a murderous tale against Muhly’s refractive backdrop. Sure, it’s highly conceptual, but there are enough odd sounds and strange textures to make it accessible even to those who don’t usually venture into composer territory.
Tagged: folk music
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I have worked alongside Allie Moss for nearly a year and heard her new album, Late Bloomer, around the end of last year. The album opens with a familiar song, Corner, which was featured on the BT Infinity advert in the UK last year. Her beautiful voice, combined with her gentle acoustic songs, makes it an amazing album that any folk enthusiast can enjoy.
Love and Theft by Andreas Hykade
Traditional folk music was distributed by word of mouth, with musicians trading songs and making other people’s melodies their own. There was no such thing as copyright law. These days, all sorts of media follow the same model, and this video by Andreas Hykade illustrates how the contemporary culture maker can make beautiful new things out of old, recognizable images.
I heard the Hungarian jazz and folk saxophonist — Mihaly Dresch — in Budapest one Christmas and I fell in love completely. I put the CD on and straight away his tone, control and dexterity was enough to make me get up out of my seat and turn the volume way up. I wanted to just be immersed in this music. But aside from his playing, his compositions are breathtaking. Read more
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Patti Smith’s The Color of Coral
2008 is shaping up to be a banner year for Patti Smith. Not that she needs banners, parades, or the like, of course. But just in the first six months she’s already been the subject of three books, one about her first album (33 1/3’s Horses, by Philip Shaw), one a career overview/analysis (Praeger’s The Words and Music of Patti Smith, by Joe Tarr), and one a paperback edition of her Auguries of Innocence poetry book (Ecco Press). There are two more volumes due this year as well: Land 250, a collection of her photography being published to commemorate a Smith exhibition which ran March 28 – June 22 at the Fondation Cartier Pour L’Art Contemporain in Paris; and Patti Smith: Dream of Life, a photography book by filmmaker Steven Sebring intended to serve as a companion piece to his documentary of the same name. Read more
The title of Wire’s eleventh album — due for release on July 16 and their first since 2003’s Send — suggests some angular, nonrepresentational piece of AbEx sculpture, the kind that rejects all attempts to name it anything other than what it is. Which is more or less the case. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (1)
HAVE YOUR SAY
San Francisco artist Matthew Palladino’s work is on my obsessive website viewing rotation. His colourful, clean, folksy images have got me, though I must say that I’m not as drawn to some of his more overt examples of political subject matter as I am to his more personal, introverted images. Regardless, Palladino implements the most beautiful patterns and shapes with his watercolors. And I just can’t get enough. Read more
My parents are huge Beatles fans, much like many other people of their generation, and I wish I had enough money to get them this Beatles magnetic hair game. Of course, knowing my mom, who is a cake decorator, she would get icing and chocolate all over it.
Sydney indie heroes (in the nicest possible way), The Paper Scissors (TPS to those that know the secret handshake) have made a video for their new single, The Bandit. And it’s good. Damn good.
Yes it may be cliched to acknowledge it, but having lived for some time now down the barrel of the loaded gun that is New York, it really is difficult to be cynical — as the folk laureate Rufus Wainwright is — about this city. Read more
The future, and how people imagined it back in the day, is the subject of the Paleo-Future blog by Matt Novak. Since Janury 2007, he has become what he calls ‘an accidental expert on visions of the future’, gathering a gigantic collection of retro-futuristic documents, art and media. Read more
The latest band to make LA proud is tropical-nu wave act Abe Vigoda. These guys are so new and so exciting that even your grandparents don’t know who they are. Yet! They describe themselves as tropical punk, but I like to think of them as nihilistic rockers — no form, no shape, just chaos. If LA’s new breed of punk popstars such as Health, Meiko Meiko and Pocohauntas make you tremble, then this band are sure to get you very worked up.
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This t-shirt, featuring 79 fictional weapons from movies, TV, video games, and comic books, is a really great way to get nerds to stare at your chest.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Here are a couple awesome pieces by Matt Leines that were recently on display in the Doubting Thomases exhibit at Nudashank gallery in Baltimore. Gives me ideas for Halloween. Read more
Francoise Nielly’s Yellow series
Parisian visual artist Francoise Nielly brings technicolour to the forefront in her latest series, Yellow. Featuring thick impasto palette knife strokes and trippy neon hues, Nielly captures the vulnerable expressions of her muses to a tee. Read more
Get lost in a daydream or a craving for something sweet while gazing at these cool sculptures by Brooklyn-based WiNK WiNK PONY. Made using clay, tree bark, wood, and mossy moss.
Pencils made from recycled newspaper
The problem with awesome things like these pencils made out of recycled newspaper is that you almost don’t want to use them.
It’s refreshing to see artists like Joe Kievitt who are contented to explore the beauty in simple forms and asymmetrical patterns. Read more
Set up in 2011, Rebel Unlit is a printing collaboration between London based Artists Neil Butler and Shanney Mulcahy. They make short run screen-printed t-shirts and limited edition prints from their studio in East London. All the t shirts are fair traded and printed by hand and, as a result, each one is unique. Read more
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A little bird said | 7 January, 2012
Like your site. What timing. I found you in the Elle D. last night at the bookstore, Compelled by your museums of choice I llooked you up. What eye candy. I’m enjoying my ride inside. Poking around I pulled up the band the Split Enz song I walked away. And now I have a “Back in the day” for you. I met the band on a crazy night at a club in Illinois sometime back in the 1980s. (1982.83.84or 85) a little fuzzy now. We danced the night away to their magical songs. I met the groups promoter. He was working on a movie project,Poltergeist 2. We ended up at the Breckenridge in St Louis at the party and 2am throwing the frisbee on the parking lot, What a blast…thanks for the memory…indirectly or was it directly would you say?