Hmm. I actually do like John Cage's work. A lot.

It begins when you stop viewing music as an object defined by notes and spaces but as what he calls a 'process' ... dunno, very difficult to explain but I intuitively got it when I heard one of his pieces. Can't remember what it was called, something with random electronic noise mixed with an opera singer.

adam

Merry Christmas

So comes it a few days late. Merry Christmas, everyone. And especially to those i might never see again.

adam

art ensemble of chicago

Just heard their stuff for the first time at the Esplanade Library when i picked up a copy of Fanfare for the Warriors. I am very intrigued by this band. Their approach to the avant-garde is very different from Coleman's and Coltrane's.

Take example: Their cover of Thelonious Monk's 'Round Midnight' - 5 minutes of blips and squeaks and bells interspersed with long periods of silence. I believe it's Lester Bowie who occasionally interjects with some wonderful trumpet lines. The music is peaceful and somehow troubling. What surprised me is how easily i reacted to it : this is not noise. This is unequivocably music. When finally they segue into the theme of 'Round Midnight' it is with infinite grace - it sounds like a simple continuation of the previous few minutes. They treat the theme with the expected looseness and collectivity, but it is rousing.

Worth checking out.

adam

Drinks mixing

My awesome uncle Chris taught me a little about drinks mixing. I've been experimenting. Today:

1. Gin (just gin).
Preparation : Poured some vermouth into a glass with ice and stirred, then strained out the vermouth to coat the glass. Put a shot of gin in, stirred and strained into a cocktail glass.

Tastes a little better than just neat gin. Maybe a little more vermouth next time.

2. Gimlet
Preparation: made some sugar syrup : 2 parts brown sugar, 1 part water, heat until dissolves.
1 part sugar syrup, 1 part lime juice, 4 parts gin.

Tastes pretty awesome!

adam

hmm. i'm a little tipsy now. Not very high alcohol tolerance. But I noticed that my typing is always the last to go. Makes for interesting statements like 'Oh my word i'm a little drunk now. Maybe I shouldn't have had that last drink...'

Need to talk

Exhaustion, exhilaration, burned nerves, the smell of smoke, morning, evening, a dusky scent at the top of your sinuses, hangovers, dry headache, wet bar, cold nights, warm mornings, jacket, pullover, sun, damp, cobblestones.

Motion sickness. Trains at night. Sleeping at 250 km/h. Blankets and jackets. Moist sunlight. Hotel. Toilet. Headache. Backache. Heartache. Tired. Lively. Frosty lungs. Feet on heater. Window.
Taken enough and too little. Excited and burned out. Drunk and hung over. Enough is enough. I want more. Give me your hand. Put it in your pocket. Combien ca coute. C'est bon. Lying on the floor. Hopeful.

One more year. One more month. Too little time. Too much history. Two days in Spain. Eternity. Feather of a sparrow. Train track. Timetable.

Waiting.

EDIT: I just found out about this. Joe Zawinul passed away on the 11th of September, 2007. RIP. I guess this review comes at an interesting time.

Weather Report -
Night Passage

A bit like sex, but without all the bad bits. Yep.

The entire album is almost uniformly strong, with highlights like Jaco's solo on 'Port of Entry' (and also the last bit where everyone comes in at about 300 bpm - cheering totally justified. I danced.)
Acrobatic, danceable, yet resolutely intelligent all the same. I might go as far as to say this may even top Heavy Weather.

Highlights.

1. 3 views of a secret - interesting when compared to Jaco's big band rendition - much more intimate, Wayne Shorter does wonderful things with the melody that just don't sound the same on the harmonica in the big band version. Zawinul has a trademark cascading solo near the end - reminiscent of 'A remark you made' and brilliant considering the difficulty of Jaco's chords.

2. Port of Entry - wonderfully off-kilter, immensely funky but all the band members put in that little bit of confusion to mix things up. Crazy solo by Jaco. All of their music has an emotional logic which triumphed over a lot of the rampant fusion-y nonsense that was prevalent at the time. No chords for the sake of chords.

3. Shorter solo on 'Fast City'. It's like the Miles Davis quintet all over again. Shorter displays that he's lost none of his mojo in playing fusion. Weather Report proves also that they can swing if they want to, critics be damned.

4. Rockin' in Rhythm - a Duke Ellington cover completely electrified. Utterly shocking, but also incredibly fun O.O. Zawinul's synth clarinet a la Benny Goodman is hilarious.

-Adam

Ok I was wrong about Radiohead. In Rainbows kind of grew on me... parts of it. What originally annoyed me was their apparent lack of any sort of harmonic direction. Unsatisfying chord progressions and all. Later I kind of realised that their genius is their mastery of texture rather than harmony. The harmony is still annoying - but the songs as a whole are impactful, atmospheric without becoming too ambient.

adam

EDIT: It's available for download on their website I believe, and you can pay as much as you want! Go check it out today. Every cent you pay goes to Radiohead, not some evil record company.