watch yourself, get on patrol

a propósito do novo disco de SUN ARAW ( Cameron Stallones ), para ser editado em breve, aqui fica um excerto de conversa online e a subsequente entrevista. O disco será duplo, e diz ele que será lançado com pompa e circunstância, por isso, nada de cheirinhos em mp3, infelizmente.



bora lá:

Cameron: its really sparse
to me its very free-jazz influenced...not the music, but the tones
lot of acoustic drums, congas, etc
HEAVY DEEDS was a celestial record, ON PATROL is the application
on the streets
so its dipped in darkness and necessary compromise...the energies seething underneath get colored by the dirt

Cameron: serious man, its an application, dirt and bones record...HEAVY DEEDS was a "perfect world" vibe
this is where those energies meet reality
so its a struggle

me: i'm curious..
you played every instrument?
Cameron: yeah
but there's a two part jam THE STAKEOUT and THE STAKOUT: REPRISE that feat. William
on organ
its a statement
he makes
a statement
drops some knowledge

me: an athletic record, i see...
does it build on the Deeds's explanation of the phenomenon?
Cameron: yeah
def

me: you plan on writing some liners like the ones on the deeds?
Cameron: i worked on it for a long time
and on this one
i decided instead of liner notes every song has a subtitle

e agora a entrevista como deve ser:

Filipe - Repetition summons rationality – your music makes me think that it works as a tight system of evolution, adaptation, organization of perception in clusters of ecstatic rhythm and melody. Is this crap or can you relate to it in any way?
Cameron - Re-organization of perception is a groove I can ride, brother. There is no fixed perspective, and participating in the breakdown of what is sometimes helpful but ultimately a distortion of the universe is definitely part of my game. Its moving a camera in deep focus through a fixed space. Essentially loop-based composition that strives for angle after angle on the melodic object.


F - Ever thought of gathering a big band to play your stuff? I know that live you use a tape player to spit out the rhythm – would you like to orchestrate that stuff?
C - Yeah man, I think about it. Maybe soon. My true dream is to have maybe near 10 people so that I could make the arrangements live, in a performative way. I've been dwelling on that for a while.


F - When did you start to listen to music?
C - I started caring in high school, but it was really college when I became a record geek. I wish it had happened earlier, I see high school kids listening to the most epic stuff, and I wonder where they'll be when they're my age. But then I didn't have mama matrix thrusting every obscure Japanese psych record or African synth-pop tape into my earholes, I had to hunt through some pretty meager record bins. But I have it now, and I guess I'm thankful? I don't think we really know if we're thankful yet, haha. That's why I try to get ON PATROL.


F - I remember you telling me that the new record is the application of the philosophies of Heavy Deeds - how come?
Because no one can live in the Heavy Deeds universe, on the Mind Planes, for serious amounts of time. Maybe some can but I can't, its thin air up there. I started to realize that I needed an application, a compromise in some ways, I guess. Though I don't see it as negative, because I don't give any ground to the opposing forces, I just try to navigate the conflicts. It's time for me to get ON PATROL, you gotta get ON PATROL. Perception and awareness, and the recognition of their ability to change the nature of the situation.

F - Nowadays we can sense that there is lot of visual imagery used to describe sounds - sign of the times, maybe, but, what kind of mental process gives birth to your music? are you responding to stimuli from other stuff, or does sun araw come from a nether region in your mind?
C - For me its about completely dropping out to look for the source. Once something has been located, I try to dress it up with whatever tones are influencing me at the moment, but I definitely don't set out to write anything that sounds like anything in particular. I'm always really surprised when an album begins to be coherent: a single zone. It usually doesn't happen until maybe the middle of the process and it's always kind of shocking, but joyful.

a fazer história

vício da semana: bill orcutt, a new way to pay old debts.
ex guitarrista de harry pussy, resolveu tocar acústica ao fim de 12 anos sem tocar.
é tão bom, tão inaudito, que se torna inevitável dar-lhe já um grande valor histórico sem prejuízo nenhum. de tempos a tempos, aparecem coisas destas e o mundo fica mais velho e mais sábio.
mais uma dose de pathos para decorar este blog romântico.

popol vuh a malhar

2000 e nove uma ova

sem paciência para fazer top dos discos 2009. é fácil: são os discos que consegui ter dinheiro para comprar! e com a morte do jack rose, não há cá topes para ninguém.
o que agora interessa é a wishlist para 2010.
ON PATROL, novo disco de Sun Araw, está prestes a sair. é duplo, é lindo, e diz ele é que a filosofia de Heavy Deeds posta em prática nas esquinas.
PLATOON, o novo de Magic Lantern. Lá para Março.
qualquer coisa de Peaking Lights, qualquer coisa - principalmente o concerto em Lisboa.
Conseguir ver um concerto de Terry Riley.
Comprar o resto dos discos que me faltam de Popol Vuh.

finalmente, a entrevista a Peaking Lights

pá, demorou, mas aqui está. Os Peaking Lights demoraram um tempito a responder, por questões pessoais... e eu não quero esperar mais tempo ao fazer uma 2a volta de perguntas. por isso, aí está. E sim, virão à Europa tocar.

esperrem um bocadinho, e depois aparece um mp3 ou algo do género.

So, how come did peaking lights form and become a Band?
Aaron: We moved to Wisconsin right at the onslaught of winter. We got asked to play south by southwest by craig stewart from emperor jones in one of our other projects called RAHDUNES but needed something to tour with, because indra and I were in Wisconsin and Nate (our Rahdunes band mate) was in sf… We wrote Clearvoiant right before we left and it was a complete disaster trying to play it live on the way down, but really fun to essentially fail miserably every night!

Indra: Like Aaron said, we were in Rahdunes together in San Francisco, and when we moved to Wisconsin we left our other band mate, so we needed a new project! It was the middle of the winter of ’08, with a record amount of snow on the ground outside, and nothing to do but create music inside! I had been playing drums mostly in other bands, and was excited to try playing melodies on the keyboard… And with Aaron’s homemade synths and guitar things came together!
 
The NNF site says you live out there in the bush, completely apart from street buzz and city fevers. Was it related to your musical search? 
Aaron: I grew up in the cuts/woods/country and then moved to big cities and lived in them for a long time… and always wanted to get back, when we moved to Wisconsin it was our first thought to get isolated. For music for sure, but also I think just for personal sanity, wind down, smell the air, hear the birds in the morning, see the stars at night and look for ufo’s in the pitch black starry skies or just see the moon huge and silver…I guess just to get back to it all for whatever reason was a huge inspiration, we essentially removed ourselves from social activities and maybe in a selfish, or spiritual way just got in touch with some of those inner voices that you can’t hear with traffic rumbling by.

Indra: We move to the woods in the spring, and wrote “Imaginary Falcons” during a summer of lush green beauty and swimming in the rivers for our inspiration! We didn’t even have internet that whole summer! Nature is the best environment for tuning in, and clearing your mind to focus. It’s great to get away from the distractions of the modern world.

In an age when even science has become redemptive, do you see music ( and / or your music ) as an opener of spiritual pathways?
Aaron: I can’t really attach one exact way as how it is I see music. Music has been been the one thing that’s kept me from going overboard, I know I can kind of be an intense person, so it really is a force that keeps me grounded. I believe in telepathic power and every human has it. I believe that human kind has been on earth much longer than the western world wants us to believe, I believe in ufo’s and unexplained things, and I also believe that I don’t know what I will believe tomorrow. It’s like we’re at this time in the world when it seems that everything has been done before, but it’s not the case there’s always gonna be infinite possibilities it’s kinda like being spiritual instead of religious…

Indra: I really do see music as opening pathways - spiritual, or mental, or emotional. For myself, I feel I get the best ideas when I try to open that psychic door. Sometimes things flow from a collective higher consciousness and other times my own higher consciousness, I think. But music is very intuitive, and the less you think about what you’re doing, the easier it becomes to tap into ideas.


Some of your stuff is long, smooth, and almost gives the sense of its self-developing. Do you approach this jam-wise or is it thoughtful composition?
Aaron: Both-wise. A little jammy jam here and a little composition there. I’d go fucking nuts if there wasn’t some freedom in what we play.

Indra: We like to jam on certain ideas, so songs aren’t always played exactly the same. But we do write songs and parts, and some of our songs have a beginning middle and end, while others get lost in the moment.
 

Other stuff lives strongly by its haiku mood and mode. Could you pinpoint some impacts in your musical education?
Aaron: For the most part I’m completely self taught. From a young age at some point; In my early 20’s I got some recording stuff. Smoking weed and recording blew my little mind to shreds! I started experimenting, with all the aspects of recording, panning shit, e.q.ing’ the fuck out of things! Running different delays and then building contraptions for mic’s - then about a year later I started trippin’ on tape loops and started pre recording stuff and cutting loops out of them, doing these crazy tape music thingys, which eventually led to circuit bending stuff… I had no reference point to this though, it’s not like I was tapped into all this amazing stuff that was going on at that time, at least not until later sometime in my mid 20’s... It took a bit for me to find a supportive community. Not that it wasn’t out there, but I just had no grasp of it. No interweb, it was still the days of zines and mailorder… I also grew up on the west coast surfing everyday, cutting school and going surfing, and surfing in my dreams. I got really lucky to have a laidback life as a kid, living by the ocean and in the country. I have no doubt that this has had the most effect in making me feel free enough to start doing whatever it is that has become what is now…

Indra: I’ve been in bands for years, but I started out with some formal music education – I learned classical piano growing up. Then as a teen I got into punk and I took up drums – I think I had one lesson from a friend and then just taught myself. Once I got down the basic coordination I realized I could play however I wanted! It was a freeing experience after the rigid classical piano training…So I was in a couple punk bands and then played in Numbers and Dynasty – and that’s when I became I lot more focused on playing and singing. When I met Aaron I was just wrapping stuff up with Numbers and starting jamming with him and Nate Archer in Rahdunes. That was a huge step in my education because everything was improvised and that can be totally challenging but also totally rewarding when it all clicks and you get lost in the moment of sonic bliss! It really opened me up to the idea of what songs can be. I was so used to writing very structured songs in Numbers, and learning to improvise songs was a huge step for me. PL is a balance between the two – our love of pop songs with our love of tone jamming.

Books, film, painting, high and low brow art. Does it get to you and affect your views towards your music?
Aaron: I love to paint and draw and make films so this all plays deep into that spider web of my mind and heart… they definitely play into each other and inspire each other as well in infinite area. I guess it could be like: looking at such and such a painting makes my eyeballs sing…and so forth.
 
Indra: Sure! I think all art forms bounce off each other.

I was told that your live sound emulates precisely the textures of your recordings. why do you feel this is important?
Aaorn: Half the challenge is trying to pull this stuff live. If we do pre recorded tracks, just because certain issues with the tape machines, we have to play them live before hand, live for 15 minutes. It’s hard as balls to keep your focus for that long on playing one repetitive thing, but we’re not down with using loop pedals as a personal choice, and because if we play live we can make more structured rhythms and more harmonies and melodies.
 
Indra: We play all the song parts ourselves but because there’s just the two of us we have to pre-record the drums and other sounds.. Then we can focus on the live parts and sing live but still have it sound full.

Any plans on future releases?
Aaron: A split 7” with Wet Hair on Not Not Fun should be out soon, also working on a split with Social Junk on Ecstatic Peace and we’ve almost got enough new material for a new full length…and are hoping to have new stuff out by the time we head across the Atlantic in March!

sun araw na wire

eu e o francisco petrucci, depois de uma tour agreste, fizemos dois vídeos de sun araw em Hi8 para o site da The Wire. estamos orgulhosos, e queremos que o vejam. disfrutem.

http://thewire.co.uk/articles/3074/

Sunn-day Madness!

Vamos estrear as madnesses com foto de artista, para desenfadar os meus posts e compensar a ausência de fotografias de concerto da Sara. ( Ela vai a Geneva Jacuzzi, por isso deve estar para breve um post mais colorido. )

Desta vez apanham com música que se ouve para lavar roupa à mão. Não esperem cantadeiras nem american primitivices. Hoje há:


Buffalo Springfield - Expecting to Fly
Primeira colaboração entre Neil Young e o grande Jack Nitszche. O último escreveu o invulgar arranjo de cordas para esta malha do segundo álbum de Buffalo Springfield.
Não é uma raridade das que se tenta pôr aqui às segundas feiras, mas é uma pérola domingueira, cheia de pathos young-iano.



Human Bell - A Change in FortunesProjecto de David Heumann , dos Arbouretum, e Nathan Bell, ex-Lungfish. Como qualquer projecto que respingue dos Lungfish, é épico e extático. Tenho especial carinho por isto, dado que são duas guitarras a revelarem toda a estrutura das músicas ( coisa que ando a tentar fazer na minha banda, Häsqvarna ). A coisa é simples: harmonia, harmonia, cânones, e uma escolha de riffs de pendor pomposo mas imaginativos, para saciar os que se chatearam com a preguiça criativa dos Earth no último album. O disquinho já tem mais que um ano, mas é jóia eterna.
( agora a fotografia, pá... )



Zomes - Clear Shapes
Por associação temática, tem que ficar aqui uma faixa do projecto a solo de Asa osborne, também ex Lungfish ( e Pupils ). Loop-a-rama de guitarra, órgão, e um léxico melódico que é obviamente quasi-religioso. Acho muito bonita a instrumentalização do lo-fi para esta rarefacção texturada, que contribui à brava para todo o feeling haiku do álbum. É inevitável encontrar aqui referências aos imaginários da retrospecção ( hauntologia, hypnagogia, saudosismo da imagem granulosa e da fita magnética gordurosa ), mas felizmente, a melodia húmida ainda precede isso.



Eric Copeland - Corn on the Cob
O senhor Black Dice faz música muito bonita, mas aparentemente complicada. Junto com os Tropa Macaca e outros que tais, isto está cá para nos ensinar a dançar e para chegarmos à conclusão que não há complicação: há sempre surpresa no corte e costura, mas uma obrigatória sensação de óbvio ( o sample a isso obriga ), uma fisicalidade imediata e transcendente de tão intuitiva. Os seus nacos rítmicos e melódicos são menos soundbite que os de Black Dice - parece que há uma paródia à Composição, ao Verso. Mas a sério a sério, é que é novo e nuclear numa hipótese de história da música desta década.