Some fuckin' derd niffer

Steve Albini est sans doute le premier producteur ingénieur du son dont j'ai entendu parler lorsque j'ai commencé à écouter du rock. Son nom m'aura accompagné jusqu'à aujourd'hui dans les notes et crédits de nombreux albums appréciés. Il est décédé Mercredi 8 mai à 61 ans d'une crise cardiaque survenue alors qu'il était dans son studio d'enregistrement Electrical Audio (Chicago, Illinois). J'ai eu la chance de le voir sur scène en 2016 avec son groupe Shellac.

Sélection personnelle parmi tous albums sur lesquels il a travaillé :

Slint – Tweez [credited as "some fuckin' derd niffer"] (1987)

Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)

the Breeders – Pod (1990)

Boss Hog – Cold Hands (1990)

the Wedding Present – Seamonsters (1991)

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – s/t (1992)

Fugazi – In on the Kill Taker [unofficial recording only, band chose to go with different producers for official release] (1992)

PJ Harvey – Rid of Me (1993)

Nirvana – In Utero (1993)

Slint – untitled (1994)

Gastr del Sol – Mirror Repair EP (1995)

Palace Music – Viva Last Blues (1995)

The Auteurs – After Murder Park (1996)

Palace Music – Arise Therefore (1996)

Smog – Kicking a Couple Around EP (1996)

Les Thugs – Strike (1996)

Low – Transmission EP (1996)

Guided by Voices – Under the Bushes Under the Stars [two songs only, credited to "Fluss"] (1996)

Veruca Salt – Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt (1996)

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Acme (1998)

Will Oldham – Little Joya (1998)

Dirty Three – Ocean Songs (1998)

The Ex – Starters Alternators (1998)

Dirty Three – Ufkuko (1998)

Bedhead – Transaction de Novo (1998)

Nina Nastasia – Dogs (1999)

Low – Secret Name (1999)

Shannon Wright – Maps of Tacit (2000)

The Ex – Dizzy Spells (2001)

Shannon Wright – Dyed in the Wool (2001)

Danielson Famile – Fetch the Compass Kids (2001)

Labradford – Fixed::Context (2001)

Mogwai – "My Father My King" (2001)

The New Year – Newness Ends (2001)

Low – Things We Lost in the Fire (2001)

Nina Nastasia – The Blackened Air (2002)

Bellini – Snowing Sun (2002)

The Breeders – Title TK (2002)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O. (2002)

Dionysos – Western sous la neige (2002)

Dead Man Ray – Cago (2002)

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Plastic Fang (2002)

Scout Niblett – I Am (2003)

Songs: Ohia – The Magnolia Electric Co. (2003)

Nina Nastasia – Run to Ruin (2003)

Shannon Wright – Over the Sun (2004)

Electrelane – The Power Out (2004)

The Ex – Turn (2004)

Scout Niblett – Uptown Top Ranking (2004)

Mono – Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined (2004)

Electrelane – Axes (2005)

Scout Niblett – Kidnapped by Neptune (2005)

Magnolia Electric Co. – What Comes After the Blues (2005)

Mono – You Are There (2006)

Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006)

Nina Nastasia – On Leaving (2006)

Chevreuil – (((Capoëira))) (2006)

Nina Nastasia + Jim White – You Follow Me (2007)

Scout Niblett – This Fool Can Die Now (2007)

The Breeders – Mountain Battles (2008)

Mono – Hymn to the Immortal Wind (2009)

Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications (2009)

Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine (2009)

Motorpsycho – Child of the Future (2009)

Sparklehorse – Bird Machine (2009)

Scout Niblett – The Calcination of Scout Niblett (2010)

The Ex – Catch My Shoe (2010)

Nina Nastasia – Outlaster (2010)

Joan of Arc – Life Like (2011)

Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory (2012)

The Cribs – In The Belly of the Brazen Bull (2012)

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy – Now Here's My Plan (2012)

Esben and the Witch – A New Nature (2014)

Screaming Females – Live at the Hideout (2014)

Mono – Requiem For Hell (2016)

Ty Segall – s/t (2017)

The Cribs  – 24/7 Rock Star Shit (2017)

METZ – Strange Peace (2017)

Ben Frost — The Centre Cannot Hold (2017)

The Breeders – All Nerve (2018)

Mono – Nowhere Now Here (2019)

Sunn O))) – Life Metal (2019)

Sunn O))) – Pyroclasts (2019)

Ty Segall & Freedom Band – Deforming Lobes (2019)

Mono – Pilgrimage of the soul (2021)

Nina Nastasia – Just Stay in Bed (2022)

There's nothing left here

Apprenant par hasard que l'excellent EP "More Revery" signé Bonny Billy (sic) existe désormais en version LP (avec en face B les versions live des morceaux de la face A), je ré-écoute avec plaisir cette reprise de PJ Harvey.

 

In photographs

I've seen him laugh

Man overboard

Sun on his back

Summer was here

I remember it well

How he stood in the shade

How we both kissed and fell

How can this be?

There's nothing left here

How can this be?

There's nothing left here

So sad our, so sad our

So sad our, so sad our

So sad our, so sad our

Our memory, hey

Now he talks in his sleep

Says I've never known peace

And I don't know him now

He's a stranger to me

How can this be?

There's nothing left here

How can this be?

There's nothing left here

We were never more than a dream

Brief as summer or spring

Sweeter than anything

PJ Harvey, Sweeter than anything

(A perfect day Elise Single, 1998)

Bonny Billy, Sweeter than anything

(More Revery EP, 2000)

I've Made Up My Mind

 Vous en avez rêvé (ou pas), ils l'ont fait, Bill Callahan (Smog) et Will Oldham (Palace brothers, Bonnie 'prince' Billy) chantent ensemble, dans une série de reprises publiées sur ce bandcamp.

C'est moins lo-fi et plus écoutable que leur collaboration présumée au sein de the Sundowners (Goatsong, 1994)

Grande est la maison

Si petite soit ma cabane

que grande demeure ma maison

Cabane (aka le musicien Thomas Jean Henri) sait y faire, pour créer de l'affectif et de l'attente autour de ses très belles compositions à paraître. Il y a cette jolie vidéo dans laquelle il filme des proches, répondre à trois questions insolites puis écouter pour la toute première fois, après cinq années de travail, un extrait de son disque.

(François Atlas est beaucoup trop beau, on est d'accord?)

La vidéo est ici :

et le morceau (feat. Bonnie prince Billy) là :

We do what we can to endure

Tell me what happens if Beethoven's writing his Ninth Symphony, and suddenly he wakes up one day and realizes that God doesn't exist. [...] So Beethoven says : "Shoot, God doesn't exist, so I guess I'm writing this for other people. [...] This is something that they'll remember me for."

And they did. And we do. And sure enough, we do what we can to endure.

We build our legacy piece by piece, and maybe the whole world will remember you, or maybe just a couple of people, but you do what you can to make sure you're still around after you're gone. And so we're still reading this book, we're still singing the song, and kids remember their parents and their grandparents and everyone's got their family tree, and Beethoven's got his symphony, And we've got it too. And everyone will keep listening to it for the foreseeable future. But... that's where things start breaking down, because your kids... Your kids are gonna die. And their kids will die, and so on, and so on.

And then there's gonna be one big-one big tectonic shift. Yosemite will blow and the western plates will shift, and the oceans will rise, the mountains will fall, and 90 percent of humanity will be gone. One fell swoop. This is just science.

Whoever's left will... go to higher ground and social order will fall away, and we will revert to scavengers and hunters and gatherers, but maybe there's someone... someone who one day hums a melody they used to know. And it gives everyone a little bit of hope.

Mankind's on the verge of being wiped out, but it keeps going a little bit longer because someone hears someone else hum a melody in a cave and the physics of it in their ear make them feel something other than fear or hunger or hate, and mankind carries on and civilization gets back on track. [...]

A ghost story, David Lowery (2017)

-

Ce passage bavard (ici tronqué) constitue paradoxalement une pause dans ce film plutôt silencieux et lent... Je le reproduis ici d'avantage pour louer le film d'une part, et l'apparition de ce visage connu d'autre part (Will Oldham, Bonnie "prince" Billy, Palace Brothers, etc...), que pour son contenu intrinsèque.

Have you owls in Scotland?

Je vous parlais encore il y a peu de Jason Molina (Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.), par le biais d'un morceau enregistré le 11 septembre 2001, et du récit de cette session par le musicien écossais Alasdair Roberts.

Cela fait aujourd'hui 4 ans que Jason Molina est décédé. Je trouve un peu par hasard cet autre texte d'Alasdair Roberts. Je le reproduis ici. 

Il intéressera celles et ceux d'entre vous familiers de ces musiciens (ou de Will Oldham). Les autres, sans doute moins.

I first met Jason Molina in September 1995; I was 18 and he was 21 or 22. This was before the first Songs:Ohia record. I'd just moved to Glasgow and I was getting heavily involved in the music scene. Jason and I both had singles coming out on Will Oldham’s Palace Records. Will had mentioned Jason to me during a telephone conversation, saying that his music sounded 'very old.' One day I received an unexpected and intriguing letter from Jason, on blue airmail paper in an elegant and old-fashioned script. It might have been sent from the 19th century (that is, from a North American of the 1800s as imagined by a teenage Scot who hadn’t been there).

We began to exchange letters. Jason was living in London on exchange from Oberlin College. I remember the general tone of his letters rather than what they contained, but I do recall a couple of sentences: 'Have you owls in Scotland? One does hoot outside my window as I write.' This was before the internet, email and 

the 'digital music revolution.' Then, all my recording was done at home to four-track cassette, and I suppose it was similar with Jason – but I hadn't yet heard a note of his music.

We spoke on the telephone and I found he was a down-to-earth fellow, contrary to the impression that his letters might have given me – and very friendly. I had expected to be intimidated by him – but I was easily intimidated back then. We agreed to meet, and I rode to London on a free coach taking students to a protest 

(not that I was apolitical, but I don’t remember what the protest was about, and I am sure my presence was not missed). So that was the first time we met. At that point he had long hair in a ponytail and seemed inseparable from his leather jacket. We spent three or four days exploring London, stopping here and there for coffee or food, visiting galleries and some of Jason's favourite spots, and talking.

I am sure Jason, bright and boundlessly energetic, did most of the talking, because I was a shy lad back then. I remember him spontaneously bursting into wordless song as we walked – clearly a born musician. Jason talked about Ohio and I about Scotland. We discussed music, inevitably (Kraftwerk, Trans Am, Gene Autry and Merle Haggard), art (Joseph Cornell, Cy Twombly) and literature (Edna St Vincent Millay, Seamus Heaney), all subjects about which he was very knowledgeable and passionate. We spent time with other American students; sitting in a cafe on the banks of the Thames, I remember that the subject of 'Meat 

Henge' came up. This was an idea that Jason and his friends (although I suspect it was mostly Jason) had had for a conceptual rock opera featuring a megalith hewn not of stone but of animal flesh. This was an inkling of Jason’s sense of humour, or at least one aspect of it.

I remember sitting one evening in Jason’s flat, candles lit, him singing and playing his four-string tenor guitar for about an hour. This was the first time I had heard that music, that sounded so unfathomably old and wise, belying his relative youth, its sombreness in contrast to his apparently up-beat personality. The first thing I 

heard him sing was an old song about the Erie Canal, then Freedom, Part 2 from that first Palace Records single. Jason had heard that there was a ‘traditional music’ session going on so a group of us went along. He introduced himself to the assembled musicians who were seated in a closed group around a table, their 

backs to the pub. Jason sang Freedom and they responded favourably before closing the circle again.

Eventually I caught a train back to Glasgow, carrying a cassette of Jason’s songs – demos for the first Songs:Ohia LP on Secretly Canadian. I spent the long Perthshire winter of 1995 listening to it. It still moves me most of all Jason’s music, despite everything great he made and all that he achieved later.

In 2000 I went to Lincoln, Nebraska to record with Jason. The Ghost Tropic LP emerged from these sessions. Apart from The Lioness LP session at Chem 19 near Glasgow (with Arab Strap and drummer Geof Comings) earlier that year, on which I played on one song, this was my first real experience of working with him in the studio, and it was fascinating and deeply rewarding. In some senses he had a really clear idea of what he wanted – the songs were within him and simply had to come out – but in terms of the arrangements and what drummer Shane Aspegren and I came up with, and how engineer Mike Mogis recorded it, he liked to be surprised and was prepared to take our ideas on board. 

Jason played each song once for us to learn it – songs more defined by mood than by structure, so it was more a case of tapping into that than learning lots of chord changes. We’d play each song a few times, then record two or three takes. Jason liked doing things as live – and as quickly – as possible. I'm not sure whether that remained true throughout his career, but I suspect that his fondness for capturing that spontaneous and unrepeatable moment of creation, live and in the studio, was with him until the end. I believe that Jason possessed that quality which in an Andalucian flamenco singer might be called duende – the music’s spirit coursing through him.

Later, I was fortunate to tour with Jason. A trip through Florida and the South with Magnolia Electric Co. sticks in my mind keenly. I will always be very grateful to Jason for inviting me along – it's difficult to imagine that I would ever have been able to travel in and experience those places otherwise, and there can't be many Scottish musicians who have had that opportunity. Thanks, Jason.

By then, his ever-evolving music had developed in tandem with his fellow musicians – it rocked more than Ghost Tropic – and he had a well-deserved cult following, playing to packed rooms every night. The tour ended at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia and I vividly remember driving, with tour manager Dirk Knibbe, back to Jason’s Chicago home the following day. A gifted raconteur, Jason enthusiastically regaled us all the way with many stories, including the tale of H.H. Holmes, who was the subject of a then-recent book entitled The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson. Holmes was one of America's earliest serial killers, luring his victims to their deaths in a specially constructed 'Murder Castle' during the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Jason told this macabre story well, although he was equally gifted as a teller of less gruesome tales, not to mention jokes. 

I enjoyed staying with Jason and his wife Darcie in Chicago on a couple of occasions. Once we visited a yard sale; a piece of wood with a message written on it caught Jason's attention. I read it: 'Some hae meat and cannae eat…' – Burns' Selkirk Grace, of course! This appealed to Jason greatly, who bought the plaque and took it home. It was magical to find that message, so Scottish and yet so universal, there in Chicago. Of course, Jason’s music touched people very deeply on this side of the Atlantic. I just toured in Ireland and the name of Jason Molina was respectfully mentioned wherever I went – in Rathfriland, Dublin, Derry, Belfast and Limerick.

I've tried to give a summary of the man, Jason Molina, as I knew him. I am aware that there are others who knew him better, who knew different sides of him. I sense that he was a very complex individual, and I don't think that anyone who knew him would dispute that. He created a singular body of work in a relatively short span of time and it's regrettable that we cannot know where his restless creativity might have led next. I feel honoured to have known him and considered him a friend, although an ocean separated us. The memory of the times I spent with Jason and the sound of his voice will stay with me forever. Rest in peace.

Alasdair Roberts, Glasgow (November 2013)

the Loneliest Night of the Year

It's the 31st of December
‘Round midnight, I suppose.
I’ve been drinking since September
And the time just kind of goes.
No party mood, just room for two;
Me all alone with my last beer.
New year’s eve’s the loneliest night of the year

Your leaving left a bitter taste-
Like lithium in a stream-
But I wouldn’t change you
For all the stolen Roman marble
In the British Museum.
All gone, it's lost. I'll count the cost:
One lonely night for every tear.
New year's eve's the loneliest night of the year

It had to be in winter
When the night lasts most of the day
I haven't smiled since summer
When I mistook the world for OK
Guess I'll spend another year that way

Now my only resolution
Is to stagger through this day
Somewhere Sinatra growls low
And a dog whistles ‘My Way’
The death knell strikes; it’s now midnight
And all so painfully clear;
New year's eve's the loneliest night of the year

Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Trembling Bells - New Year's Eve's the Loneliest Night of the Year

(Honest Jon's, 2010)

We are in the pre-world dark again

Jason Molina (Songs Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.) est décédé le 16 mars 2013. J'ai un peu peur qu'il soit oublié. Est-ce que la postérité en parlera comme d'un grand songwriter, ou bien son oeuvre disparaîtra-t-elle avec ceux qui l'ont écouté?

Qui se souvient d'Amalgamated Sons of Rest? Album regroupant Jason Molina, Will Oldham et Alasdair Roberts, soit le casting de rêve pour l'amateur de folk que j'étais (et que je reste). Les chansons ont été enregistrées dans le Kentucky, dans la ferme de Paul Oldham (frère de Will, l'un des "Palace Brothers", donc). En 2001. Septembre 2001. 

J'ai déjà évoqué le 11 septembre dans ces colonnes (cf. L'amour par tous les temps), je laisse donc la parole à Alasdair Roberts. Il se souvient...

Suivent le magnifique morceau écrit par Jason Molina au lendemain du "9/11", ainsi que ses paroles.

The late Jason Molina and I had met a few times in England (when Jason was studying for a period in London) and in Scotland (Glasgow, where I lived then as now), after being introduced to one another by Will Oldham in late 1995. The recording session by Jason, Will, Will’s brother Paul and me was Jason’s idea originally. The prospect of working together with these musicians whose work I admired, and who were also cool people, was very exciting; so that’s how I found myself in Paul’s Kentucky farmhouse that historic weekend in 2001.

Of course, what made that weekend historic was certainly not this humble meeting of musical minds; rather, it was the fact that it coincided with the unanticipated and awful events of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks and the collapse of the World Trade Center. I am convinced that my memory of that period has been heightened by this coincidence; I have a strong recollection of Jason, Will, Paul and me recording on the evening of 10th September. I remember the warm southern evening sunshine (a particular delight for one accustomed to Scottish autumn weather), streaming through the window and infusing everything in the room with a kind of preternatural glow, as we recorded a version of Owen Hand’s wonderful song ‘My Donal.’ Will was playing a Nord synth and singing, Paul was on drums, Jason played bass guitar and I was playing Paul’s bright blue Telecaster. I remember walking by the barns that evening and seeing row upon row of tobacco drying, shining golden and lovely in the twilight. But none of us was to know that that would be, in some sense, the last twilight of an old world.

Jason woke me at about 10am the following morning with the words: ‘Ali, you should come downstairs. Something really bad is happening.’ My initial thought was that perhaps someone in the household had been injured or had fallen seriously ill. And so I went downstairs to confront the new global reality. Most of the rest of the day was spent watching the television news in numbed disbelief; in the evening we dined and talked together with some other members of the Oldham family. And then it seemed that the only thing to do was to carry on as normal – to pour ourselves a large Highland Park each and to make rock and roll, like we were born to do. So that’s how this piece of music came about – it was a spontaneous response from Jason’s soul to the unimaginably terrible events of that day, and it was one in which he invited Will (on piano), Paul (on Nord synth), me (on bowed mountain dulcimer) and every listener to cast their own offering.

That's all

That's all

Look what it got us

That's all

Look what it got us

We're in the pre-world dark again

We're in the pre-world dark again

We can hear them ringing the rescue bells

It's like a tempest

Hear the bells

Then nothing

Take ten paces out across the stark black earth

Ocean's face, city's face

Are the deserts' faces

Looks like shipwrecks on the moon

The moon earth-bound in flames

Then the pre-world darkness again

Then the pre-world darkness again

Someone tell me how

How to bring it down

Constellation

Of the blue gospel flame

Let it burn above us

Burn right through

The shadows on the red, white, and blue

And red, and red, red

Someone cast an offering

To the weeping wind

Someone cast an offering

To the weeping wind

[Ali, cast your offering]

[Paul, cast your offering]

[Will, cast your offering]

To the weeping wind

Call in the flames

Blue gospel flame

Where are the blue gospel flames?

Jason Molina ft. Will Oldham, Alasdair Roberts - September 11, 2001

Is it worth being an artist?

Will Bonnie Prince, Palace or whatever, what do you think about it? Is it worth being an artist or an indie-rock star, or are you better off without it? Cause I mean maybe the world would be better if we were all just uncreative drones, no dead child, hood dreams to haunt us, a decent job, a decent home, and if we have some extra time we could do real things to promote peace, become scientists or history teachers or un-corrupt police at least. Come on Will, you gotta tell me!! [...]

Steamboat Willie Bonnie Prince of all this shit, you're like the king of a certain genre, but even you must want to quit like if you hear a record by Bob Dylan or Neil Young or whatever, you must start thinking 'People like me, but i won't be that good ever' and I'm sure the thing is probably Dylan himself too stayed up some nights wishing he was as good as Ginsberg or Camus, and he was like 'Dude, I'm such a faker, I'm just a clown who entertains and these fools who pay for my crap, they just have pathetic punny brains' and Camus probably wished he was Milton too or whatever, you know what i'm saying?!

Je réaffirme ici les talents de parolier de Jeffrey Lewis (la dernière fois, c'était avec sa chanson The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane)... Cette fois, c'est par un morceau que j'avais découvert à l'époque en live, et qui avait immédiatement retenu mon attention, puisque mentionnant explicitement Will Oldham (à qui ce blog doit beaucoup...). Une rencontre fortuite, dans le L Train (ligne reliant Manhattan à Brooklyn), alors que Jeffrey Lewis est en route pour faire remasteriser "some dumb old album".

L'évolution parallèle de la situation et des pensées du narrateur est drôle, le récit est vif et rempli d'autodérision, bref, je vous encourage à prendre le temps de lire le texte intégral (puis d'écouter et regarder le clip).

Today I went to Major Matt's to remaster my old album
And on the L train in the morning, I was pretty sure I saw Will Oldham,
He was wearing the same sunglasses he had on stage at the Bowery Ballroom
Had he come to walk among the Williamsburgers of his kingdom
And like the burghers of Calais will a sacrifice be demanded?
To offer up our dreams and beg for mercy empty-handed?
And hapless in our hipness crowded five to an appartment
Relegate our dreams to hobbies and deny our disappointment
Cause The Stones in '65 want total satisfaction, kid
But The Stones in '69 see grace in just getting what you need
But if that's a victory then I'd hate to see what I'd look like defeated
Cause I know there are those among us who seem to get their dreams unimpeded 
Today I went to Major Matt's to remaster my old album
And on the L train in the morning, i was really sure i saw Will Oldham,
He was wearin' the same sunglasses he had on stage at the Bowery Ballroom
Had he come to walk among the Williamsburgers of his kingdom
And you might say now there's a guy who seems to have their world laid out before him 
Or you might say, he's just a rich kid or a fascist or a charlatan
But either way you say it if you look at indie-rock culture you really can't ignore him
And even if at first dismissive, after some listens you'll enjoy him
I was thinking this on the L train, intend on bursting my own bubble
How long should an artist struggle before it isn't worth the hassle?
And admit we aren't fit to be the one inside the castle
This quest for greatness or, at least hipness, just a scam
And too much trouble but then what makes on human being worthy of an easy ride
Born to be a natural artist you love or hate but can't deny
While us minions in our millions tumble into history's chasm
We might have a couple of laughs but we're still wastes of protoplasm
Today I was gonna waste some time and money to remaster some dumb old album 
And on the L train in the morning, i was really sure I saw Will Oldham,
He was wearin' the same big sunglasses he had on stage at the Bowery Ballroom
Had he come to see the strife here in the gutters of his kingdom?
Where us noble starving artists are striving to feed our ego
Our mothers like our music our our friends come to our shows
And if our friends become successful, we'll consider them our foes
Go home to our 4 roomates after payin' big bucks for rockstars shows
What a nightmare! what a horror! i don't want no part of this
Get me off this crazy ride,
I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna piss! I'd rather kill myself,
I'd rather just relax or not exist
But you say you wanna do an e-mail interview? Oh what the heck, I can't resist! 
"Hey, 'ma, guess what today, I did another magazine interview!
Honey, that's great, you're really famous!!" Yeah and I'm 27 too!
I kinda thought I was gonna grow up to do stuff that would benefit humanity
But it's getting harder to tell if this artist's life is even benefitting me
Cause I was gonna waste some time and money today to remaster some dumb old album
And on the L train in the morning, I was totally sure I saw Will Oldham,
He was wearin' the same big sunglasses he had on stage at the bowery ballroom
And since I was feeling in need of answers I just went right up and asked him, I said 
"Will Bonnie Prince, Palace or whatever, what do you think about it?
Is it worth being an artist or an indie-rock star, or are you better off without it?"
Cause I mean maybe the world would be better if we were all just uncreative drones,
No dead child, hood dreams to haunt us, a decent job, a decent home,
And if we have some extra time we could do real things to promote peace,
Become scientists or history teachers or un-corrupt police at least,
"Come on Will, you gotta tell me!!" I grabbed and shook him by the arm,
The L train was leaning Bedford with 10,000 white 20 somethings crowed on
He opened his mouth to speak but it was lost in the rumbling of the wheels
We were thrown together in a corner and I yelled "Tell me, man, for real!"
You're living comfortably, I assume, even if you're not quite a household name
You've reached a pretty high level of success & critical acclaim
The L train got to first avenue and a bunch of people piled out
I was starring into his sunglasses and I was really freakin' out i was like,
"Steamboat Willie Bonnie Prince of all this shit, you're like the king of a certain genre
But even you must want to quit like if you hear a record by Bob Dylan or Neil Young or whatever
You must start thinking 'People like me, but i won't be that good ever'
And I'm sure the thing is probably Dylan himself too stayed up some nights
Wishing he was as good as Ginsberg or Camus
And he was like 'Dude, I'm such a faker, I'm just a clown who entertains
and these fools who pay for my crap, they just have pathetic punny brains '
and Camus probably wished he was Milton too or whatever, you know what i'm saying?!"
So Will, will you be straight with me now that it's just us two on this train?
Cause I was gonna spend some time and money today to remaster some dumb old album 
And I saw you here on the L train
And I was like "Hey, is that Will Oldham?" he must at least , have some perspective 
Cause it's like, living in this town I get so confused and wound up and up tight
And I just don't know up from down
And then we'd reached the last stop and the subway was deserted
There was a long moment of silence and I let go of his shirt
I started to think that maybe I'd made some kind of big mistake
I tried to walk out onto the platform but by then it was too late
His sunglasses seemed to grow darker and still he hadn't even spoke
He just came right up behind me and put his hand around my throat
And threw me down onto the concrete and kicked my face in with his boot
And dragged me down onto the train tracks and tied my hands back with his coat
And I was slipping out of conciousness as he was slipping down my jeans
And he was punching me and humping me and I slipped off into a dream
So it might have just been a delusion
But I thought I heard him say something like "Artists are pussies"
Then he climbed back up and ran away
So I lay there in the darkness on the train tracks cold and broken
The hours passed and I thought,
Well... maybe I won't remaster that old album
And then I started thinking maybe it really hadn't been Will Oldham
Even though he did hold my arms and fucked me just like Will sings in "A sucker's evening" 
But whether it was him or not I couldn't forget the words he'd spoken
"Artists are pussies", like we're wusses or we end up getting fucked
And other kinds of folks are dicks, tall, smart and strong
And born to fuck us up I know,
It sounds really sexist and stupid,
It's a terrible analogy but at that moment on the train tracks,
It made a lot of sense to me maybe it's just some kind of natural balance,
Like 2 types of mental gender that's gone on in all societies,
In one form or another like some dicks were born to conquer,
I probably would if I could but if i'm just a pussy, that's okay
Cause in a few months maybe, I'll put out something good.

Jeffrey and Jack Lewis - Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror

City and Eastern Songs (Rough Trade, 2005)

www.thejeffreylewissite.com

Une autre chanson publiée sur ce blog parlait déjà de l'ami Will (décidément incontournable) :

http://arise-therefore.blogspot.fr/2008/12/downy-bearded-isolation.html

Dressed for Space

Il y a 8 jours à l'antenne de Radio Campus Paris (93.9FM) vous avez donc pu entendre le dernier volume de cette quatrième saison de Top Tape.

Playlist rythmée et plutôt électro, qui outre les nouveautés du moment (hot chip, grizzly bear...)  convie notamment en featuring tout un tas d'artistes parmi mes préférés.

Au programme, donc: Masha Qrella, Grizzly Bear, Manyfingers ft. Chris Adams de Hood, the Notwist, Console, Modeselektor with Thom Yorke, Hot Chip, Trust, Franz Ferdinand, Who Made Who, Hot Chip (feat. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy).


Playlist et mixtape disponibles ici.
[ Accès Rapide .]

Movie Poster of the Week

Pour la fête du cinéma, j'aurai vraiment passé une très belle semaine, avec "Animal Kingdom", "Une séparation", et enfin "La dernière piste" (par la réalisatrice de Old Joy et Wendy & Lucy). Un western contemplatif au format "carré", une longue marche éprouvante comme dans Aguirre, en plus aride évidemment. Et la place des femmes dans tout ça?

Ca n'est qu'en voyant Michelle Williams se saisir d'un fusil que j'ai rapproché ce film de son affiche américaine, aperçue quelques mois plus tôt sur un blog américain.

Kelly Reichardt, Meek's Cutoff (2010)

Tuck what is called Meek's Cutoff...a bad cutoff for all that tuck it. ...I will just say, pen and tong will both fall short when they gow to tell of the suffering the company went through

Samuel Parker, 1845

Ceux d'entre vous qui seraient intéressés par l'histoire véritable de cette piste traversant le Nord-Est de l'Oregon, et qui voudraient visualiser son (double) tracé peuvent se reporter à ce site:

http://www.oregonhistorictrailsfund.org/trails/index.php

(avec peut-être avant un bref passage par wikipedia)

Musique, Frissons et Dopamine

Voilà, le concert de Godspeed You Black Emperor est désormais derrière moi.

Un grand moment, qui aura duré près de 2h30.

Ne m'aura manqué que la proximité avec la scène, comme lorsque je les avais vus en 2002 et 2003.

Un concert qui aura suscité quelques frissons...

Or, c'est là désormais un phénomène bien compris:

Une étude scientifique canadienne a récemment établi la corrélation entre le plaisir que peut provoquer l'écoute de musique chez certains sujets, les frissons et la sécrétion de dopamine.

[La dopamine est une substance (plus exactement un neurotransmetteur) produite par le cerveau en situation de plaisir, comme par exemple lors d'un repas, ou de prise de drogue.]

L'étude montre que deux zones différentes du cerveau sont activées, selon que le pic émotionnel d'un morceau survient, ou est anticipé.

Voici l'abstract de l'article, paru dans Nature.

Music, an abstract stimulus, can arouse feelings of euphoria and craving, similar to tangible rewards that involve the striatal dopaminergic system. Using the neurochemical specificity of [11C]raclopride positron emission tomography scanning, combined with psychophysiological measures of autonomic nervous system activity, we found endogenous dopamine release in the striatum at peak emotional arousal during music listening. To examine the time course of dopamine release, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging with the same stimuli and listeners, and found a functional dissociation: the caudate was more involved during the anticipation and the nucleus accumbens was more involved during the experience of peak emotional responses to music. These results indicate that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system. Notably, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself. Our results help to explain why music is of such high value across all human societies.

L'article se termine par cet élargissement :

Dopamine is pivotal for establishing and maintaining behavior. If music-induced emotional states can lead to dopamine release, as our findings indicate, it may begin to explain why musical experiences are so valued. These results further speak to why music can be effectively used in rituals, marketing or film to manipulate hedonic states. Our findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry and serve as a starting point for more detailed investigations of the biological substrates that underlie abstract forms of pleasure.

Pour les curieux, les nostalgiques de la rigueur scientifique, ou ceux qui veulent tout simplement se confronter à de la littérature scientifique en bonne et due forme, l'étude complète est disponible au format pdf, et téléchargeable ici.

Cas pratiques :

Le concert de Godspeed You Black Emperor, hier, à la Villette

(et l'album "lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven")

un concert de RIEN

- "the war criminal raises and speaks" ou "Westfall" d'Okkervil River

et encore :

Cat Power, Moonshiner

Subtle, She

Sole, Stupid things implode on themselves

Will Oldham, Same love that makes me laugh,

ou there's no-one what will take care of you

James, Ring the Bells

Diabologum, La Maman et la Putain

D'autres exemples à partager?

10 ans, 50 albums (Part.4)

Le nom de ce blog et l'image choisie pour illustrer mon profil étant ce qu'ils sont, il était certain que Will Oldham occuperait une place de choix dans ce classement des meilleurs albums des années 1990. Trois occurences, ici, le premier album de Palace (Brothers), le troisième (Palace Music), et enfin l'immense I see a Darkness, sous l'appelation Bonnie 'prince' Billy. Tout ce qu'a enregistré Will Oldham durant cette décennie est de toute façon remarquable (les autres Palace, la compilation Lost Blues 1, ou encore l'album Joya). Dans une veine similaire vient Songs: Ohia. Si les voix de Will Oldham et Jason Molina me semblaient à l'époque assez proches, il me paraît aujourd'hui rigoureusement impossible de les confondre. C'est donc qu'elles sont devenues familières. Pour l'anecdote, elles ont d'ailleurs collaboré (avec en plus Alasdair Roberts) sur un mini-album (amalgamated sons of rest) au final un poil décevant. Tout se recoupe, puisque Alasdair Robert sera crédité dans l'album suivant de Songs: Ohia, ainsi que - plus étonnant - les écossais d'Arab Strap. Ca, j'ai jamais su le pourquoi du comment. Tout comme d'ailleurs au sujet du lien éventuel entre Will Oldham et l'écosse (via le nom "bonnie prince charlie", prince de la lignée des Stuart). Bref... Concernant Arab Strap, il me faut cette fois saluer Bernard Lenoir, grâce à qui j'ai pu entendre à la radio une de leurs chansons... en 15 secondes, j'ai su que c'était taillé pour moi, et que j'adorerais. Cet album et ceux qui suivirent ne m'ont pas démenti.

Bonnie 'prince' Billy - I see a Darkness (Drag City, 1999)
Palace Music - There's no one what will take care of you
(Drag City, 1993)
Palace Brothers - Viva Last Blues (Drag City, 1995)
Arab Strap - Philophobia (Chemikal Underground, 1998)
Songs: Ohia - Axxess & Ace (Secretly Canadian, 1999)

(à suivre demain, avec encore quelques autres sorties Drag City...
Meilleur label des 90s?)

10 ans, 30 albums (Part.2)

On est "demain".
10 ans, 30 albums, la suite.

Il y a un moment, dans les années 1990, où je me suis mis à écouter beaucoup de folk (tiret rock). En voici quelques vestiges. Silver Jews, bien sûr, puisqu’un des mes 3 groupes préférés de tous les temps. Et puis, c’est par the Bright Flight que j'ai connu David Berman. Bonnie ‘prince’ Billy, tiens, mon deuxième groupe/artiste préféré. Par contre, c’est après que j’ai commencé à décrocher. Aujourd’hui, je me suis fait à cette idée, et je n’écoute plus le moindre de ses featurings, ni forcément ses nouveaux albums. Don’t Fall in Love with everyone you see, premiers frissons sur Westfall. Un album qu'Okkervil River n'a jamais égalé par la suite. (selon moi, hein). Mendelson, c’était ça ou Personne ne le fera pour nous, sauf que Quelque Part, je peux l’écouter en boucle. Et puis Chan, quand même. Je vous ai déjà dit qu’elle m’avait touché le genou ? (ceci est une private joke) Tiens, j’ai interviewé tout le monde, ici.

Silver Jews - bright Flight (Drag City, 2001)
Mendelson - Quelque part (Lithium, 2000)
Bonnie Prince Billy - Ease Down the Road (Labels, 2001)
Cat Power - You are Free (Matador, 2003)
Okkervil River - Don't Fall in Love with Everyone you see (Jagjaguwar, 2002)

(la suite, demain)

Hard as Love

Il y a une chanson(nette) de Tante Hortense qui commence comme ça :

J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire aujourd'hui
et ca m'a semblé pas mal, ca m'a même semblé beaucoup
quoiqu'à la rigueur faisable

J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire ce week end et ça m'a effectivement semblé pas mal. Côté radio, deux sessions à enregistrer, et une à monter.

La première bonne surprise musicale aura cependant eu lieu chez moi : L'album de Bill Callahan (ex-Smog) recèle quelques très très bons morceaux. Notamment "All Thoughts are Prey to some Beast" (avec un titre pareil, il est probable que les paroles se retrouvent dans ces colonnes sous peu). Des cordes certes, un son assez propre, mais la voix et l'écriture demeurent. Ouf.

Je dis "Ouf", car le symptôme du "c'était mieux avant" me dérange (affectivement, et intellectuellement), au moins pour les groupes que j'apprécie tout particulièrement.

Heureusement, je ne pense pas que la Musique, c'était mieux avant. Je poursuis donc le fil de ce post, pour en arriver à ces artistes de passage à la radio ce weekend, Joseph Leon, puis Monster, tous deux auteur d'un remarquable premier album.

Joseph Leon est un folkeu, barbu, français, qui a écouté beaucoup de musique américaine (à tel point qu'il peut chanter la baie de San Francisco depuis Villejuif), et sonne parfois comme du Palace.
C'est tant mieux.
Je recommandais déjà l'album auparavant, et je le fais d'autant plus aujourd'hui que j'ai pu longuement discuter 'off' avec lui.

Il est prof de droit, lorsqu'il décide d'arrêter, et d'employer ses économies pour enregistrer ce premier album. Environ 30 000€. Il lui faudra ensuite un peu plus de deux ans pour trouver un label qui accepte de sortir le disque.

Vu sous cet angle, on comprend mieux l'importance que revêt un premier disque. Qu'il se plante, marchote ou rencontre le succès n'est pas indifférent. Si Joseph Leon porte un intérêt marqué au fait que des amis ou moi ayons apprécié l'album, c'est que chaque signal positif, même insignifiant, appuie le choix qu'il a pris quelques années auparavant.

On l'aura compris, quelqu'un qui, à 35 ans, se fout d'habiter un 25m², de gagner beaucoup d'argent, et pour qui l'expression "carrière professionnelle" sonne aussi vide qu'à mes oreilles, m'est forcément sympathique.
Je lui souhaite de faire Taratata, tiens.

Interlude Encouragements, pause Smile : pause Marathon.
C'était Dimanche matin, rue du faubourg St Antoine : le staff encourage au hasard certains participants, à la lecture du prénom figurant sur leur dossard.
L'effet stimulant est immédiat.

Un peu plus tard, dans l'après-midi, rendez-vous au Motel, avec Monster: le projet d'une jeune femme de 26 ans et de son groupe, originaires de Los Angeles. Du folk électrique, avec aussi clavier, banjo ou trompette. C'est très chouette. Certaines intonations de la chanteuse rappellent Cat Power.
C'est tant mieux (à nouveau).

Monster n'a pas de label aux Etats-Unis, et, si ce premier album sort en France, c'est grâce un activiste de la scène grenobloise, qui a l'a signé sur une structure à l'origine dédiée à son propre groupe ([melk] pour les connaisseurs).
Si Monster est actuellement en tournée, c'est parce que ce même type prend une semaine de congés sur son dayjob pour s'en occuper.
Je souhaite à Alexandra Johnstone (en photo ci-dessus) et à son label de vendre des CDs par caisse.

Je vous laisse écouter tout ça.
Ces deux exemples illustrent ce qu'il peut y avoir derrière l'objet qu'est un premier album (autoproduit). M'est avis qu'il faut faire preuve de bienveillance à son endroit, et, pour peu qu'on soit convaincu, ne surtout pas hésiter à promouvoir le groupe.

Joseph Leon, Hard as Love (Dièse, 2009)
en concert le 15 avril au Café de la Danse (avec James Yuill)
www.myspace.com/josephleon

Monster, s/t (le jardin collectif, 2009)
en concert ce soir au Pop In, le 11 avril au Divan du Monde, le 15 avril à Grenoble (feat. Troy von Balthazar)
www.myspace.com/monstertheband

Bill Callahan, sometimes i wish we were an eagle
(Drag City, 2009)

J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire aujourd'hui
et ca m'a semblé pas mal, ca m'a même semblé beaucoup
quoiqu'à la rigueur faisable

J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire cette semaine
et la vie m'a semblé plus humaine
J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire cette année,
et finalement ça se résumait à deux ou trois choses assez précises

J'ai fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire dans ma vie
mais en fait il n'y avait plus de quoi faire une liste
J'ai commencé la liste de ce que j'ai fait depuis cinq minutes
mais ça faisait des milliers
et j'ai dû renoncer
à compter les nuances variées
de ma façon de respirer

J'ai plutôt fait la liste de ce que j'avais à faire dans ma vie pour me calmer
mais en fait il n'y avait plus de quoi faire une liste
mais en fait il n'y avait plus de quoi faire une liste
...

Tante Hortense, la liste (les disques bien, 2009)
www.myspace.com/tantehortense

Zone de Montagne (2)

Ce retour de vacances à la neige me donne l'occasion de poursuivre ma rubrique (participative) "Crossed Covers", consacrée aujourd'hui à la Montagne, pas forcément en hiver, et donc pas forcément dans les teintes blanche et bleue...

...comme j'ai pu voir :

On commence par les groupes jumeaux Black Mountain et Pink Mountaintops :

Allons vers des sommets verdoyants...

...jusqu'à des tons nettement plus colorés et estivaux :

En plus graphique, maintenant :

La pochette d'Unknow Pleasure de Joy division, choisie par Bernard Sumner, représente en réalité "100 consecutive pulses from the pulsar CP 1919". C'est une oeuvre de l'artiste Peter Saville.

Black Mountain, s/t (jagjaguwar, 2005)
Pink Mountaintops (jagjaguwar, 2004)
Mount Eerie, Live in Copenhagen (Burnt Toast Vinyl, 2004)
Woods, Songs of Shame (autoproduit, 2009)
Annuals, such fun (Canvasback, 2008)
Maserati / Zombi, Split EP (Temporary Residence, 2009)
Little Wings, Light Green Leave (K, 2002)
Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain (Mute, 2000)
NLF3, Ride on a brand new time (Prohibited, 2009)
Swan Lake, Beast Moans (Jagjaguwar, 2006)
Bonnie "prince" Billy sings Greatest Palace Music
(Drag City, 2004)
Cézanne, la montagne Sainte Victoire (189?)
Cézanne, la montagne Sainte Victoire (1900)
Pink Mountaintops, the ones I love (Jagjaguwar, 2005)
Andrew Clark, Mountain
Music go Music, Warn in the Shadows
(Secretly Canadian, 2009)
zero degre, des étoiles plein les yeux (UR21 , 2009)
Mum, Please smile my nose bleed (Morr, 2001)
Jens Lekman, Oh you're so silent, Jens (Secretly Canadian, 2005)
Radiohead, Kid A (Parlophone, 2000)
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures (Factory, 1979)

Félins pour l'autre

Il ne faut pas confondre :

l'Homme est un loup pour l'Homme
et
Nous sommes faits l'un pour l'Autre

Cette considération me permet d'introduire cette nouvelle salve croisée de pochettes d'albums, consacrée ici aux félins. Sujet périlleux, non pas qu'il s'agisse d'animaux sauvages, mais par le simple fait qu'il est finalement assez difficile de représenter un tigre, un lion, une panthère sans être dans le cliché, le mauvais goût ou le reportage animalier.
Je me contenterai donc ici d'illustrations et représentations graphiques intéressantes et plutôt jolies.

Je commence naturellement par un artiste qui a apporté beaucoup à ce blog (ainsi qu'à moi-même), à savoir Will Oldham.
Voici donc l'album There's no what will take care of you, et ses variantes :

Suivit deux ans après Viva Last Blues, avec une pochette créée, comme beaucoup d'autres, par Diane Bellino.

Restons dans la musique folk et la pochette léopard, avec les albums de Langhorne Slim et James Yorkston, et des dessins cette fois-ci plus fins, qu'ont pourrait imaginer lointains dérivés d'Hokusai.

En plus enfantin, maintenant :

Je terminerai par le deuxième album de Ratatat (feat. le single Wild Cat), et une illustration dont je ne sais rien (simplement que je l'ai trouvée sur flickr), mais qui aurait fait une chouette pochette pour un album de remixes.

Palace Brothers, there's no one what will take care of you (Drag City, 1993)
Palace Music, Viva Last Blues (Drag City, 1995)
Langhorne Slim, s/t (Kemado, 2008)
James Yorkston, the year of the leopard (Domino, 2007)
Hokusai, Old Tiger in the Snow (1849)
Pedro the Lion, Achilles Heel (Jade Tree, 2004)
Gruff Rhys, Candylion (Rough Trade, 2006)
Ratatat, Classics (XL, 2006)