The ever-popular "Currently Listening" thread

Merzbow - "Pulse Demon"

I spoke of Merzbow last post of mine, and with my apparent latent masochist tendencies, I decided to go to Amazon and just sample a little bit again. I made the mistake of picking up a Merzbow cd many moons ago used. Ive scored some good music on a whim before. 5 bucks or so, why not?

So Ive went and retrieved the link to what is supposedly Merzbow's masterpiece. I love the editorial snippet on this one "Pulse Demon is a more psychedelically-flavored follow up to some of Merzbow's more brain-pummeling releases".

Can you imagine living next to someone in an apartment who is into this??? You very well may be able to get away with murder, a slight slap on the wrist once you present Exhibit A to the jury.

So check it out, this is Merzbow meets Frank Zappa. I would say that my favorite one is probably "UltraMarine blues". This must be what it sounds like getting those gnarly aural implants imbedded in your skull.

http://www.amazon.com/Pulse-Demon-Merzbow/dp/B00000112O/sr=8-2/qid=1169443793/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6155951-0466538?ie=UTF8&s=music

Listening to Merzbow now for about 10 minutes, I have come to the realization that he is indeed a genius. I'm not kidding!

Anyone who can take a radio, a television, and a walkie talkie, and jam them into white noize frequency, while fluctuating a white noize wav with reverb in windows sound recorder, and have people hail him and trip over themselves to run out and buy his material is a freakin genius. This guy is probably sitting back in his mansion laughing his ass off at these clowns.

Over 200 hundred cds this guy has. See, just listening to Pulse Demon samples cranked up has me talking like Yoda. Genius!

dteowner said:

And here I thought we were leading into an intelligent conversation about music genres... Crud.

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Well ... why don't you start one - but in a different thread ... this is supposed to be about sharing cool listenings.

I'm listening to Gary Burton's Passengers, which is nice as it features two bassists - fretless Eberhard Weber and standard Steve Swallow, both very lyrical and imaginative ... as well as young Pat Metheny, and of course Burton's incomparable vibe work. Great stuff!

I finally made it over to this thread to see what was up about dte's shoes and I must say I am amazed at the great diversity of sounds I've managed to listen to in ten minutes! Most of them I've never even heard of before. Very cool--though Samhain you scared me off the merzbow thing-probably just as well. And i am right there with you on the new(to me) dance music--it makes me feel I am being held in a cell, deprived of sleep and tortured with monotonic rhythyms til i freak.
I enjoyed the shoegaze clips--ether aura especially. Does the group Swans fit in anywhere there--one of my sons faves. I also like Ween but can't find any of their cds here in Oklahoma, so mostly I listen to Pink Floyd, whose influence I see in a great deal of this stuff. You guys rock.

Re Merzbow- I guess I'm just too pedestrian cuz I don't "get it" at all.

Re Swans- We claim Doves, Cranes, and Wild Swans (somewhat), but I'm afraid Swans would fit far closer to Sammy's territory than mine.

Re Pink Floyd- They were ruined for me by the "in crowd" back in high school, but I can enjoy David-Gilmour-smooth PF in small doses (as opposed to Roger-Waters-grating PF)

*sensing a convert, checking the cd list for some good lures*
How about a little Orchards and Vines? "In the Darkness" is pretty solid, and might give some of you classic stoners a "White Rabbit" flashback.

Battlelore - Journey to Undying lands

Yeah, Swans are pretty cool, but I dont own any of their stuff yet. Theyre one of those weird bands that I'm saving for later, so to speak. Merzbow (here I go again) is something that I see a serial killer listening to. You know, Cannibal Corpse and other repugnant death metal doesnt strike me that way. Maladjusted people, social misfits, what have you, sure, but not the true sickos. The true sickos I think do the Merzbow thing. I see someone cutting up their latest victim, or dancing around wearing someone's skin to that stuff. Ok, thats all Im gonna say about that ='.'=

Okay, here's some Weena Morloch clip for you... there are more, but I don't want to hurt anybody . Yet. They are the Industrial Death side project of one of hubby's favorite bands. While I find the 'regular' band's stuff fascinating, I prefer Morloch. Great when the lights are out.

Here are two videos of one of my favorite bands ever, Laibach; both are from their current album: video links.

Here's a whole page of sound clips by another (more recent) favorite of mine: German-language musical theater act Goethes Erben. Their performances are very intensive.

Weena link doesnt work, got a 404 here.

I love Laibach too, but I cant say that I'm particularly thrilled with those kinda boring, flat tunes from them. I dont know, maybe Im judging too harshly something Ive heard literally once. He's usually croaking in his dreadful monotone, spitting out passages with awesome venom, or proclaiming something like a booming amplifier to the entire earth. Here he's just... too normal for me. Usually such an interesting vocalist.

The Goethes Erben was interesting, not like I have a freakin clue what theyre saying ='.'=

I like nearly everything by Laibach, but I really came to love this new album... it's not my favorite (this honor goes to OpusDei, Krst Pod Triglavom and JCS - yes, all three), but I like it because they finally borrowed a decent singer, and because I like the soothing, flowing quality of the stuff.

Yup, the Morloch link seems to be broken. Here's another one: another one, hope this'll work (have no way to check it out from here).

Got problems? - lost control? - can't face the world anymore? - don't know who to turn to?

There's no need to be sad anymore for Wulf has another golden oldie to cheer you up and let you realise there's a lighter side of life.

"Think About Your Troubles" - - Harry Nilson
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qrLzX_L9Qko

A little news for the one or two of you that might care. I post it to demonstrate one of the reasons I love a "niche" genre like shoegaze--these folks are so darn nice and very passionate about their music (lord knows they aren't gazers for the money). I've never quite got it set in my head that these "rock stars" are real people, so I guess I get more excited about this sort of thing than I should.
--------------------------------
Thanks so much for being a friend of our band - TEARWAVE.

We are so honored that you have listened to our music.

Our record company - Projekt Records is releasing our full length 10 song CD which will be available on iTunes, Tonevendors, FYE, etc... in March or April of 2007.

Keep us in mind we play from our hearts and souls in order to touch other's hearts and souls.

Please come on over and visit us again when you get the chance.

Thanks so much !

John
TEARWAVES drummer

Being that I listen to avant garde jazz, I'm used to the fact that I make more in a year than the entire band I'm seeing combined ... and that they are just plain nice people who are passionate about making art that they care about.

I know that someone was looking for a genre war, but the pursuit of passionate artists should be a non-genre deal. Which is the great thing about this thread. Listen, and learn.

Hey, I like a good genre war. If handled with a little respect, it forces you to really explore what it is about "your" music that makes it perfect for you. Which often leads to the realization that unrelated genres usually have more in common than you'd expect at first blush. I've spent some time picking out the connections between the 80's new wave of my childhood, thru the early 90's Britpop, on into shoegaze/dream-pop. Starting at the Thompson Twins and ending at Slowdive is quite a journey, and yet the kingdoms share a lot of borders if you really look.

heard of bloodruby? they're a pretty good dream pop band that i noticed oneday had added me as a friend in my extremely rarely used livejournal.

http://www.bloodruby.com/

the thing i like shoegaze/ethereal/dream pop is the 'soothing'ness of it all. its not the most creative music and only a small percentage of what i listen to but its beauty and sound gives me the feeling of being inside a 'womb'--protected, nourished, and loved.

Good stuff. I remember somehow stumbling on them a long time ago, but had forgotten about 'em. I think the closest cd in my "library" would be "Dark Moon Night" from The Shroud. For similar vocals, I'd probably offer up Mira.

Yep, relaxing and comforting would be good adjectives for the genre, keeping in mind that that doesn't automatically mean sleepy, although it sometimes can.

dteowner said:

Hey, I like a good genre war. If handled with a little respect, it forces you to really explore what it is about "your" music that makes it perfect for you. Which often leads to the realization that unrelated genres usually have more in common than you'd expect at first blush.

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I guess I would start by saying that there is a tendency to make up new names for music 'genres' based on a desire of fans for their favorite stuff to seem 'new' and 'creative' based on a label as opposed to the music itself. For example, Speed Metal isn't a genre, but rather a sub-genre of Heavy Metal which is itself a sub-genre of Hard Rock which is a sub-genre of Rock.

But sub-genrefication seems to happen to the extent now that each one is analogous to 'all whole numbers greater than 12 and less than 14'.

Listening to your bloodruby clips as I post, curious, and I agree that the womb sensation is strongly present. Lovely voice also.
With this and your shoegaze clips dte (have progressed to the Orchards and Vines clip now-nice)--I like most the fact that I can distinguish certain elements of music that appeal to me--melody and lyrics. A lot of contemporary music in the alternative genres seems to avoid these concepts as somehow being less expressive for their angst, relying on rhythym and what to my aging ears seems like merely noise and mumbling. That doesn't say much to me.

I regret that time's passage has made it impossible for young sprouts like you guys to hear older rock with any freshness. Along with the rest of the general crappiness you guys have inhierited is the fact that all this music is tainted with the commercialism and overexposure of mass media.

Dte, when you talk about the Floyd being spoiled by the context where you met it, I can't agree with you more. Music is more contextual, because more intangible, than other art forms, and a lot of what makes it effective is what it evokes in the psyche of each differing listener. they say smell is the most evocative of all the senses, but I have to think music trumps it every time. When I hear the first few piano notes of After the Gold Rush(neil young) I am once again young, new and lost in the world.

Thanks for the turn on

txa1265 said:

I guess I would start by saying that there is a tendency to make up new names for music 'genres' based on a desire of fans for their favorite stuff to seem 'new' and 'creative' based on a label as opposed to the music itself. For example, Speed Metal isn't a genre, but rather a sub-genre of Heavy Metal which is itself a sub-genre of Hard Rock which is a sub-genre of Rock.

But sub-genrefication seems to happen to the extent now that each one is analogous to 'all whole numbers greater than 12 and less than 14'.

Click to expand...

A lots of excellent points here. I think there's a tremendous burden on musicians to exceed the past, and to as you say ' seem "new" and "creative".' Along with things like body piercing and tatooing , it's a "where can you go from here?" type of thing --it's difficult to be an original, a misfit, an outsider or a rebel( that is, creative) in any real way when we've seen it all before in one form or another.

There are people Ive spoken with on and offline who turn their nose up and pretty much abhor "labels" in music. I personally like them. I would say that labeling music by it's own little genres is pretty important in a utilitarian way, especially for the consumer. I like various types of music, and am willing to try new stuff, but I want to know exactly what I'm getting when Im looking for something in particular. For instance, I dont like "stoner doom", but I love "death doom". Theyre both doom metal technically, but one is generally more about rolling joints and getting wasted, being generally low rent, and women that done you wrong etc, and tends to be more rock-like and has clean vocals. The other is about well, death, gloom, the futility of life, mythology, and eternity, and uses lots of double-bass drumming and tends to have gruff or distorted vocals. Theyre pretty different in many ways, yet they both technically fall under the doom moniker.

They arent seperated because people want to sound hip, theyre seperated because lots of people dont care for "lets get stoned" music, and many bands in this genre either go one way or another. I personally hate most stoner doom that I hear, that's just me.

Hello all - I was just reading back through this thread and taking notes so I can check out some of the stuff I haven't heard.
xSamhainx - I just got unreasonably excited at your mention many posts back of Blind Guardian. I saw them play in the Boston area a month or two ago, they are a lot of fun. Blind Guardian's "Nightfall In Middle Earth" album is one of my all time favorites (and I'm listening to it at work right now), which is a wee bit ironic for me because I was a strictly punk rock and hardcore guy for most of my life and bombastic, operatic metal anthems were about as far from what fell under "acceptable" listening as could be.
I played a lot of Dark Ages of Camelot over the past few years while listening to "Nightfall..." and it certainly made running around on my enchanter blowing people up more enjoyable. Really gets the blood racing.
Another band I enjoy in the "Music To Listen To While (Action) Gaming" category is Finntroll, who blend growling (troll-like, natch) vocals with fast bludgeony metal... and polka. Their lyrics seem to be largely about trolls eating people.