October 2002 – LonelyMachines

Music

Keith Fullerton Whitman & Tim Hecker

Frank Zappa once said that a musically-minded person could walk into a factory and hear rhythm everywhere. What some people consider noise, others consider music (and the opposite is often true as well!). One man’s air conditioner drone is another’s trance-inducing harmony. I can attest to this, as I spent some time in high school recording train whistles and various automobile horns with the intent of analyzing their intervals.

Incidentally, the horn of a 1982 Subaru is a minor third-D and F.

Both of these composers strike me as like-minded folks, the kind of people who are as fascinated by mundane sound as I am.

Playthroughs is a startling record. It consists of drones and sustained tone clusters, and that’s about it. What makes the record so incredible is just how much Whitman can do with so little. The record opens with “Track3a,” which comprises two sine waves spaced a major second apart.

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Music

Life is Full of Possibilities by Dntel

In many ways, this record seems inevitable. It’s as if all the right influences were gathered at once and coalesced into one fifty-minute stretch. You could compare this to alot of things, but what really makes it so incredible is the fact that it takes its influences and molds them into something very new and very memorable.

“Umbrella” starts the album off very similar to the way Radiohead started Kid A off with “Everything in Its Right Place,” slow majestic and building, but never quite peaking out. Chris Gunst tentatively sings evocatave lyrics, which are at first heavily distorted, but with each verse, the strings swell ala Bjork and his vocals become clearer in the mix.

“Anywhere Anyone” features Mia Doi Todd. The lyrics sound like snippets of other songs spliced together into a cohesive whole. The song itself is beautiful, swirling almost-trip-hop that sounds a bit like Massive Attack in a major key.

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Visual Media

Thoughts on Firefly

When I first heard about Firefly, all I could think was, “Hmmm…live-action Cowboy Bebop.” The set-ups are remarkably similar-so much so that most feedback from geek cognoscenti has cried rip-off at every turn. Add to that the fact that this show is written by the same guy who gave us Buffy, and you’ve got a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

Well, I’m relieved to say that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Fox has been willing to take quite a few risks over the years, especially with their prime-time lineup. Sometimes they’ve stumbled and quickly moved past such mistakes, and sometimes they give the right push to something that turns out to be not only brilliant but highly influential. Witness the success of The Simpsons or the X-Files.

They’re certainly taking a big risk here. Prime-time science fiction hasn’t done well since the original Star Trek run in the ’70’s.

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Music

Rounds by Four Tet

Okay, I’ll admit it: there’s supposed to be a review of Draft 7.30 in this space. I know it and you know it. Thing is, I just can’t get my thoughts together on it, so I’m taking some time away from it. It’s not that I plan to say bad things about it, it’s just that I don’t know what to write yet.

Basically, I’m procrastinating. I’m very good at that sort of thing. In fact, I could say I’ve made an art form out of it. At least then I could feel good about it, but I’d be lying.

Thing is, there’s a part of me that’s just not always up for the challenge, and at the moment that’s the part that’s dictating my actions.

I’ll have a review up soon. I promise. Honest.

In the meantime, I give you the new Four Tet. I really enjoyed Pause when it came out, and for a few weeks it was in heavy rotation around the house.

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