Good News For Droogie

In a short musical film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Thom Yorke of Radiohead scores and stars in a mind-bending visual piece.

Best played loud.

Album available for digital download ($11! Cheap!) June 27, film available on Netflix … June 27!

ANIMA:

01 Traffic
02 Last I Heard (…He Was Circling the Drain)
03 Twist
04 Dawn Chorus
05 I Am a Very Rude Person
06 Not the News
07 The Axe
08 Impossible Knots
09 Runwayaway

Ready Or Not?

This looks fun! Careful, this is the red band trailer.

READY OR NOT follows a young bride (Samara Weaving) as she joins her new husband’s (Mark O’Brien) rich, eccentric family (Adam Brody, Henry Czerny, Andie MacDowell) in a time-honored tradition that turns into a lethal game with everyone fighting for their survival.

New Hold Steady!

New Hold Steady album, featuring the guitar stylings of Memphis’ own Steve Selvidge, coming out August 16! Like Springsteen without the melody is still my favorite HS description.

What Say You, Kubrick Fans?

I read Doctor Sleep a few years ago and liked it okay. Maybe the movie won’t suck, I dunno. It’s somewhat reassuring that the director is Mike Flanagan, the same guy who helmed Gerald’s Game and The Haunting of Hill House for Netflix. There’s already a backlash on the Internet (because of course there is) for leaning heavily into Kubrick’s film – but I get it.

Me? I’m cautiously optimistic.

Lickamaforbus

Since one of you bastards broke iTunes and got it cancelled for the rest of humanity, I’ve been looking for new Apple products to consume.

Kim Jung Gi

South Korean artist whose superpowers include an apparent photographic memory (which he denies) and the ability to draw in ink with no reference lines. And super-speed, of course.

Sweet Jebus

8-year-old Japanese girl KILLS IT. Watch her footwork closely – those triplets are a motherfucker.

Favorite YouTube comment: No matter how good you are on your instrument of choice there’s always going to be an Asian child somewhere who’s better than you.

Speaking Of Classic Synthesizer Albums …

The soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange was released to accompany the 1971 film of the same name. The music is a thematic extension of Alex’s (and the viewer’s) psychological conditioning. The soundtrack of A Clockwork Orange comprises classical music and electronic synthetic music composed by Wendy Carlos. Some of the music is heard only as excerpts, e.g. Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (a.k.a. Land of Hope and Glory) heralding a politician’s appearance at the prison.

The main theme is an electronic transcription of Henry Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, composed in 1695, for the procession of Queen Mary’s cortège through London en route to Westminster Abbey. “March from ‘A Clockwork Orange'” (based on the choral movement of the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven) was the first recorded song featuring a vocoder for the singing; synthpop bands often cite it as their inspiration.

Switched-On Bach features ten pieces by Bach available under the public domain, performed by Carlos, with assistance from Folkman, on a modular Moog synthesizer. Carlos worked closely with Robert Moog, designer of the instrument, throughout the recording process, testing his components and suggesting improvements. The album was recorded in a studio in the basement of a brownstone building acquired by Carlos and Elkind in the West Side of Manhattan in New York City, using a custom-built 8-track recording machine constructed by Carlos from components built by Ampex.

Recording was a tedious and time-consuming process; as the synthesizers were monophonic, meaning only one note can be played at a time, each track was assembled one at a time. According to Carlos: “You had to release the note before you could make the next note start, which meant you had to play with a detached feeling on the keyboard, which was really very disturbing in making music.” The synthesizer was unreliable and often went out of tune; Carlos recalled hitting it with a hammer prior to recording to obtain correct levels. After several notes were played, it was checked again to make sure it had not “drifted”. According to Carlos, Switched-On Bach took approximately five months and a total of one thousand hours to produce.

Bach provided only two chords for the second movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, intending that the musician would improvise on these chords. Carlos carefully constructed this piece to showcase the capabilities of the Moog.