Tony Conrad Droning On

Listening to Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume I and Outside the Dream Syndicate, I was struck again by the freeing feeling I had upon first hearing Tony Conrad's Early Minimalism boxed set. Although the recordings are primarily focused on Conrad's violin work, the drones remind me of many afternoons and evenings spent practicing long tones on my saxophone. I had always enjoyed playing them, but the jump between these tones and focusing on the sound of the individual notes and preparing a more varied piece for performance was always a hard one for me to make. The process of practicing was always profoundly meditative.

I think I had intended this as the start of a longer entry, but I think it will do on its own.

Urban Noise and Thoughts on John Cage

I read this article from Dusted Magazine this morning:

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/630

It reminded me of John Cage's desire to listen to the sounds of the city around him rather than the set sounds of records. I've often thought of following Cage's lead and selling or giving away my CD collection en masse. (I don't think I could do it piece by piece. It would be too heart-wrenching, and in the process, I'd probably realize the extent of my attachment to them and sit down and cry for a while.)

To the Mediocre

There's a truly fantastic album that I should be reviewing. Hisato Higuchi's Dialogue is a 38-minute capsule of guitar and breath that's held my attention for a few months now, but for the past few days, two other albums have pushed it out of my mind. The Arcade Fire's latest album Neon Bible may be the best-selling, hopefully intentional, tribute to Bruce Springsteen ever performed. Almost any song off the record would fit perfectly onto Born to Run. The combination of earnestness and bombast sucks me in despite myself.

Like a good muso, I used to recommend Springsteen's Nebraska to people, claiming that it was Bruce's stripped-down masterwork, and yet I don't listen to it very often. However, each time "Born to Run" or "Thunder Road" or even "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" comes on I find myself happy and engrossed. Likewise, I want to clap and sing along with the Arcade Fire's "Antichrist Television Blues" even with it's heavy-handed Christian imagery. I do still laugh a bit when their transplanted Texan vocalist pines in "Windowsill" that he doesn't "want to live in America no more." Funny coming from the frontman of the biggest Canadian band of the moment.


Crooked Fingers Dignity and Shame doesn't pull off the tribute to a classic rock icon trick quite so well. Eric Bachmann sounds like he desperately wants to be a folkier Niel Diamond, and yet a couple of the songs hit me just right. "Sleep All Summer" demands repeated listens for its yearning and a couple of its lines. It certainly doesn't go in for subtlety. Our male narrator is hit with feelings "like a tidal wave", and I ask myself why I keep listening to this song. Earlier in the album, the equally strident power ballad "Destroyer" is a guilty pleasure, especially when the narrator states blankly, "destroyer..." before a ridiculous guitar solo emerges on top of the repetitive piano chords that ground the song until the fade out.

To Begin

Seeing as I could never figure out how to add a comments feature to repetitionandvariation, I decided to start a new blog dedicated exclusively to music.