[a year in sound]

[ALBUMS OF THE YEAR,IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER OF PREFERENCE:]
*Joanna Newsom: The Milk-eyed Mender [Drag City]
Young miss Newsom is your friendly yoghurt-weaving,harp-plucking SanFran folkie woman with a unique sound- At times her singing sounds like a pregnant seacow in a seastorm,trapped inside the planks of a sunken ship,watching the marelight sweetly shine through the swaying/bubbling seaweed,lowing its voice of telltale songs to woo the passing narwhales and mermaids– Elsewhere,she displays a tint of that playful,quirky,childlike and wide-eyed Björkish innocence...enough to charm your socks off...But in Newsom’s case,there are no darker/more “adult” undertones,it’s all storybook/fairytale-land and green summer meadows with gingerbread houses scattered around the dixon village,an achingly blue sky with clusters of colourful balloons ascending through the skies...A true auteur with her celebration of childlike wonder and positivism,you will cast your misanthropic scowl off for days,ending up with a big grin on your face as you hear her swoop and yelp and rant and whisper all while the lumpy harp gets some serious plucking action...Wonderful. -Music Barbarella would have dreamt to,if she was a young kitty living in a hippy commune with the surrounding birds and forest animals as her only companions...Drifting off into a parallel world with the Barbapapa cuddling her,with his great blob arms...It would have been just beautiful. –And just that is this record,too...:) Beautiful.

*Yadahanai: One Atonement [Igrad Records]
-You’ll get no attempt on my behalf in actually trying to “describe” this record, as i won’t try to pass as one who knows anything much about reggae, but this one thing i do know,comrades:...It is a work of great beauty.(It is indeed...A beautiful,deep roots effort.)Totally lush. :)
Get it now,you won’t be sorry...Great new things will be expected from this little liliput label,with HQ on the Virgin Islands...Check out their website for some more tasty soundclips,streaming audio radio waves and suchlike...mmmmm....deep.:)

*V/A: Shockout! [Tigerbeat6]
...If you want to turn into a ragga machine,speak-and-spell style...Let’s go,you ragga robot. Mash it up.

*Adem: Homesongs [Domino]
British folkie pal,a.k.a.Adem Ilhan of Fridge. Decent guitar-strumming melancholia and an ear for pretty melodies. Check.

*V/A: Grime vol.2 [Rephlex]
-Grime is the new english sound.Fuck hiphop,this is where it’s at!

*the Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike! [Memphis Industries]
Retro playskool electro-guitar-poppy goodness. If the A-team had been releasing records with a Cornflakes price,this would be the coolest little prize to get. And in bright neon colours too!...Irresistable,sweet,and catchy.

*Tom Waits- Real Gone [Anti]
Our lovely old tramp returns with his whisky-gravelled voice to lull you into his world of secret circus heroes and men made out of tin cans. May he bang the drum of difference for ever and ever.

*V/A: Cambodian Cassette Archives: Khmer Folk & Pop Music vol.1 [Sublime Frequencies]
The joy of 1970’s thriftstore khmer-pop cassettes,now for a bigger audience. Spread the word!

[OTHERS: Dizze Rascal, Ghost, Wiley, Vetiver, Tara Jane O’Neil, Shitmat, the Necks, Yes My Pretender, Deerhoof, Butch Cassidy Sound System, Boris, Mission Of Burma, Arthur Russell++++]
[REISSUES OF THE YEAR:]
-of course the newly reissued Can records were close runner-uppers, but as most people already have them (what?you don’t? you gotta hear that tight Jaki Liebezeit groove,he’s the original whiteboy funky drummer- R.I.P.,man!)Tago Mago,Future Days and Ege Bamyasi are great starting points for the uninitiated...)
...And the sound on the Brian Eno reissues are SO much clearer,my speakers rumbled with the sub frequencies- the only minor drawback here was the evil EMI music empire’s decision to use CopyControl technology and thereby effectively eliminating your prolonged/future enjoyment of the music- who wants to keep buying new copies if the disc gets scratched?...who doesn’t want to make copies of their music for um,”personal use”,be it the car stereo or your girlfriend or granny or whatever....(and with the recent cd-r mixtape/switch network trend,it feels like a major ripoff not being able to burn your own records,which come from your hard-earned money in the first place...You want to share your music,and why is that a crime?-And why do the big greed labels feel the need to bite the hands who feed them?...All available facts show that the more music you download,the more music you buy...Filesharing and downloading are good for music,not killing it...but how long will it take for the industry to get that,i’m wondering...? Downloading can be a great promotional tool too,for the artists to get in direct contact with their audiences,sans the mediator...And the quick feedback/response-option you can get from online discussion forums/guestbooks/websites etc.,can be a litmus paper for seeking out new things....But of course,for the big ones it’s all about the money,not the music...which is a shame really...Let’s hope the new year will see even more D.I.Y. activity and new independent labels/distribution network appear, it is so important to support these people, what they do is as much a work of love and genuine dedication to good music, we can’t afford to lose them, what would the world look like if it was all streamlined plastic pops and Top40 paystations?..I’m dreading the thought,and hope we have better days waiting for us around the corner of bleakness...

*Brian Eno: Here Come The Warm Jets [EMI]
*Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) [EMI]
*V/A: The Conet Project [Irdial]= Recordings of shortwave number stations. From the Cold War era. Spooky/eerie lo-fi transmissions of incomprehensible mumblings/foreign voices,static,arcane blips and bleeps...Will freak out your cats. Or your headphones.
[MUCH ANTICIPATED RE-RELEASES,HOPEFULLY APPEARING IN 2005:]
*Comus- First Utterance
*A Guy Called Gerald- Black Secret Technology
...oh,there are so much more...but i've run out of time...enjoy the list and get listening!...so many great sounds are out there,i defy you to seek them out! enjoy...:)
------------- as always, yours truly,[[- the X ]]--

[!ya basta!]

Dec.8, 2004:
"The centerpiece of Norway's famed Vigeland sculpture park, the Monolith, may have suffered permanent damage after the lowest section was spray-painted black.

Police are investigating the incident but have few clues. Instead of the usual signature at the scene of a conventional tagging the Monolith figures appear to be simply painted black.

The base had the word 'integration' sprayed on it in Norwegian, and had been applied with the use of a stencil."
***
[ the X comments:..."all culture jammers, unite!:)" ]
[ WE ARE THE MUSIC MAKERS, AND WE ARE THE DREAMERS OF DREAMS ]

***

[babylon lullaby]

...and while the most powerful man in the world
goes to sleep in his big,big bed
in his big,big house...
with the distant flip-flopping wings
of police helicopters,safely guarding
his every snore and yawn...
there are bodies with no name and no voice,
blood washed away with the cries of the wind...

he murmurs to himself,
as he falls deeper into his dream:
“i worship the sound of cash registers,
of oil streams,of animals multiplying”...
little did he know,the man of many armies
that god’s power lies in the heart and not in bombs....
***

[today is a poem]

ARCHITECTURE

Each cloud wants to be a storm
My tap water wants to be a river
The match wants to be an explosive
Each reflection wants to be real

Each joker wants to be a comedian
Each breeze wants to be a hurricane
Each drizzled rain wants to be torrential
Each laugh wants to come from the belly instead of the throat
Each yawn wants to hug the sky

Each kiss wants to be penetrative
Each piss wants to be a water spurter
Each handshake wants to be a love hug

Dont’t you don’t you don’t you see
How close we are to torrents and explosions and all
things out of control

Each wave wants to be a smooth stroke on the forehead
Each cry wants to be a scream
Each carefully pressed suit wants to be creased
Each melting icicle wants to be a glacier

Each mad,midnight frost wants to be a snow-drift
Each mother wants to be a close friend
Each enemy wants to kill you and drink your blood
Each nighttime wants to strangle the day
Each scar wants to grow so you remember
Each broken piece of plate wants to lodge in the centre flesh of your knee

Don’t you don’t you don’t you see
Each wave wants to be tidal
Each subtext wants to be a title
Each winter wants to be the big freeze

Each summer wants to be a drought
Each autumn brown wants to be a burning cold
Each polite disagreement wants to be a vicious denial
Each diplomatic smile wants to be a one-fingered tribute to tactfulness

Don’t you don’t you don’t you see how close we are to
Torrents and explosions and all things out of control

- L. Sissay

[don't let bright shiny things fool you]

The student café/bar/pub thingy around the corner where I live has gone “trendy”...I don’t know what they were thinking, but when you walk in through the heavy glass doors and look around, you’d be forgiven to think you’d arrived at some dubious establishment down in LA or Vegas somewhere...Because I’m afraid to tell they haven’t really succeeded in adding an enjoyable “atmosphere” of any kind, but maybe that was the point?...Post-postmodern irony, or just incredibly camp? I still haven’t decided- but I’d like to know what drugs the decorators were on....Because: -They’ve glued a pair of life-sized,plastic flamingoes to the wall...Bright neon pink jolly things...And it looks like they’re forever walking up towards the roof, -to get away from the hell of drunken students and raving/screaming football fans maybe?...I’m rather starting to like them. -They’re actually the best bit of the whole new,oh-so-minimalist interior.
Well. Anyway. When I first noticed the flamingoes, I couldn’t stop giggling to myself, because the first thing that popped into my mind was: “...ah, John Waters!-Pink flamingoes!Ahahahaha!”...And a bizarre image started to form in my mind- of Divine and a bunch of drunken transvestites storming in and starting to dance around on the bar, while their friends convinced the staff to put on a karaoke contest- with the winner getting free drinks and a little-miss-barbie tiara...Wouldn’t that be nice?...Anything other than those bloody students would’ve been just fine,I tell you...I can’t believe I’m one myself...It feels like a world apart.
...My wild years are over now, and it feels rather good actually...As if a burden is gone...No more insecure posing, no more playing games...Just the real me, the woman you see is the woman you get...I’m done with faking. And that is just fine. -People can see me for who I am now, and I’m not ashamed anymore. I’m not seeing myself through the eyes of others anymore. And it has taken a long way just to get that far.
-And the student bar?..I just shrugged, looked around at the dressed-up, see-and-get-seen clientèle, ogled the handsome bartender’s arse, and left... Later that evening, at some shabby,smoke-ridden pub downtown, I had the most fun I’d ever had in a while...But that’s another story.
More strength to those who dare stand out from the crowd...Conformity and sheepwalking fashionistas are not my cup of tea. Real life and real people are much more interesting...But i bet you already knew that....Goodnight! :)
------------------------late-night hellos and lots of love,[[ the X ]]--
---------------

[strange days]

-right. after receiving (-frankly,a bit disturbing-) phonecalls from friends who, strangely, all wanted to make sure if i was "okay" after reading the previous post, it’s time to admit i have no recollection at all of writing that...none at all. (-and haven’t got a clue as to what it might reveal of twisted psychic encounters or general silliness...your guess is as good as mine.) so i heartily apologise,i’m just as surprised as you are.
-i suspect any of the following options could be true here :
(tick the box that most corresponds with your assumption)
1]-at least someone was really enchanced last night. [ ]
2]-is there anybody out there? [ ]
3]-smoking is bad for you. [ ]
4]-castaneda who? [ ]
5]-i wouldn’t call that humour,only stupidity. [ ]
6]-little green men. coming at you. [ ]
7]-i don’t know and i don’t care.[ ]
8]-sausages! [ ]
(won’t promise you any brightly coloured plastic figurines or nifty prices,but anyone who provides the correct answer will find him/herself signed up for eternal membership in the X’s special treehouse club,there are no meetings,only the annual pow-wow and campfire-dances around the sunburned hand of the man(-on a stick-),with the occasional bullfrog joining in on the chorus...on weekdays our drumcircle will also provide free services for lonely elderly people who might want to shake their booty a little in a safe environment...we are currently discussing extending the offers to kiddie birthdays and weddings aswell...we’ll see about that.)

[oh,and before you leave,make sure to visit the the book of the thousand nights and one night:]
http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Vol_6/vol6.htm
[-tell sindbad i sent you.]
--------------deepest regrets and most sincere apologies,[[ the X ]]--

[falling down]

[-OH,AND THIS IS IRONY/SATIRE BY THE WAY-]
if a long-haired, bearded & bespectacled 1970’s pothead student had been sitting for ages staring into the near-dead candle flame...and started seeing shapes and shadows on the wall,moving and changing in sudden shifts of spite...as some sort of strange psychic-visual phenomenon...(the run-out grooves on his scratchy prog record making weird,muffled noises like animals praying)...and say he drunkenly fell asleep and started to dream...and in that dream,he saw himself step out of his own head and out into the reality that was his own scruffy room...and say that he,weirdly,in that dream,believed himself to be an aspiring rock-critic...and that he turned towards the still burning candle sat on top of his dusty speakers...only to find himself shaking and forced down on his knees in front of the fire:slowly being impregnated by the cosmic forces that oozed out of the shadowplay on the wall...and when he opened his mouth to speak,he recognised in those shadow-patterns,a pale-looking goddess- Nico...and that this teutonic ice-queen spoke to him,gravely,from the other side of the looking-glass that is the walls between worlds...and that she told him,this: that now,very shortly,he would give birth to their dear lovechild,a creature breathed into life by the warmth from her nostrils and the coldness of her tears...(mixing with the flora of dustballs emerging from the darkness under his student bed,rolling into a living stew,like the amoebas,a giant ball of fire and bacteria,with small chunks of last-nights vomit and the turd still unemerged from the depths of his tightly pinched behind,mixed into a foetus),...yes,if all that came to happen,strange as it might be,and let’s say this eerie creation of Nico and our brave protagonist,by some marvellous short-circuiting of logic and probability theory actually came into life,and found himself mysteriously transported into the new millennium,only to end up in the care of an average oslo family,...and subsequently with a memory loss of all previous events,adjusting well to his life but suffering from a strange depression and a whiff of teenage ennui with a predilection for dystopic future-fantasies,philosophers with rage against the world,and the socialist youth brigade,...and say he started listening to underground hiphop,walking aimlessly round the streets of the tigercity...this is what the sweet boy would have written:
* * *
[what doesn’t crush you,only makes you stronger]
-soundtrack: Cannibal Ox- The Cold Vein-
To a London friend.
Best places in the Tigercity:
#1] Noiahaugen-
The central city churchyard. Here you will find Ibsen’s grave,on the top of a small hill. Lie down and watch the cars swoosh by,young mothers trodding along with their prams on the dirty pavement...The asphalt momentarily rising small clouds of dust that hover in the hot summer air for a second or two,as some eerie genie from the arabian nights or the sneeze of a tiny Casper ghost,before it sinks down again and grace the littered street. The streets of Oslo are always dusty,dirty,smelly,littered...Grime could be adapted as a less alien concept than you might think down there in the smog-ridden city,we have our grime,you have yours.
The essence is the same: We’re not called “Tiger city” for nothing,this city eats you alive,drains the joy out of you,slowly sucks the light out of your eyes and gives you a big fat kick in the ass,as Hamsun said in “Hunger”...It traps you inside a trick-cage and swallows the key. The streets are too narrow,the architechture too ugly,your aimless wander leads you nowhere,the streets are nothing yet everything,like the criss-crossing veins of the junkie beggar at Skippergata....You are in the apex of mediocrity,on the road to nowhere,yet everywhere you go the faces of people shine of poseurism and boredom,because it’s a cold city,like all big cities it has no heart.
But the city of contrasts has small sparks of decency and warmth,small tokens of honey to keep the work-tired bees from leaving. It holds you in its grip,like the still breathing calf in its dead mother’s womb,still caught in the umbilical mothercord,pumping poisoned blood into its veins. You are here now. Once you’re in,you’ll never leave...Why would you want to? We have everything at your disposal. [the mishmash of indifference,tired teachers,of welfare offers,kid pushers and dark shadows under bridges]
-Watch out for stray dogs,snotty children,the crackling of your shoesole as a contaminated needle punctures the soft plastic and the flesh of your skin. Like the city,It can sting you,it can hurt you,it can swallow you alive. And drain you.
-the Drain.(We’re born with the freedom to choose,yet still we don’t give a fuck.)The cornucopia of consumerism have created a monster. -The boys in the playground beheaded cats and threw stones at the birdnests,so that the little birdies fell down and broke their necks with a dump thud,greeted with laughs and cheers. We don’t know the cruelty of children. We close our eyes and lock our doors,walk hastily by that shabby figure hunched up on the shopcorner,clutching his plastic cup,arms outstretched,...it’s better that way. We don’t like to think too much. The sleeping-soma of booze and fun keeps us happy,the citizen content. We don’t like too precocious kids,too lofty dreams. Don’t think you can teach us anything. We’ll kick it out of you. My,we’re an eclectic lot,aren’t we.
Smile to the camera.[Television static].
-Back to Noiahaugen,In the summertime,it is the finest place in the city,you can lie in between the little birch trees and relax and look up at the sky,smell the grass and the earth,maybe smoke a little something(sshh!i won’t tell)...Just beware of the junkies and the odd creepy types that tend to sneak around in the periphery,and you’ll be all fine...(In the daytime,anyway...)-In the daytime,it’s all good...That’s a big fat lie,of course,but a good one. We’re lucky here up north,every killing echoed by a million others elsewhere. Actually,we can learn to like it here. We just have to grow thicker skins. * * *

[all copyrights and copywrongs, = the X]

[swedes and the kool]

our trusty,battered cable picks up swedish television from across the border...most significantly,their coverage of music and culture news are unrivalled...we could only dream of that sort of intelligent journalism and the ability to sniff out new ideas and trends...that said,i think the swedish have to be the most pop-bitch peoples in the world...painfully cool hipsters and retrochicks down to the tender age of 11...bizarre...and where do they get all those clothes?
-i’m sure their parents aren’t too happy either,all the time they spend their hard-earned money on planet of the apes-figures and US skating trends...the kids these days...
but just in the period of two-three months,thanks to national swedish broadcasting,i’ve seen programmes on every subject imaginable,hour-long documentaries and insider reports...about german photographers...teenagers with hand-held cameras and insecure poses documenting their lives...aboriginal rites-of-passage...obscure asian films...dave eggers and mc sweeneys...the anxiety of death...war...kids from palestine...the history of outdoor bath architecture through the ages...a sad clown from a doomed circus sharing the joy of performing...technology...city planning...journalists and racism...(-and even more perplexingly, err, grime(!),with in-depth interviews with dizzee,lady sovereign,pirate stations crew,wiley!...i’m shocked and surprised..!-)the list goes on and on,until tomorrow's end...thank god that we scandinavians all understand each others languages...i wouldn’t be without it. and maybe,just maybe we will follow suit someday. (in the meantime: switch over your tv sets boys and girls,put on the black turtleneck and get mum to pop you some popcorn...we’ll laugh with jealousy and feel the need to mock their shameless americanisation...hah! no fiddle players,have they? we shake our heads in collective pity and schadenfreude...)
-ho hum...now,kids,will you excuse me while i get my slippers and smoking coat...i think the cup of earl grey is getting cold,and there’s that new ballard novel i haven’t even started yet...praise britannia!...may odin curse the queen. -g’day sirs.

and oh,lest we forget:check out this sweet little disc: THE KNIFE- DEEP CUTS [rabid]
...very entertaining and amusing geeky electro-pop thing with recorders,depeche synths with steeldrum presets and wannabe-kate bush vocals!...you just know you want it!


...but:


?
-nah...



!

[paths and doorways]

a change of mind : there are already too many music blogs out there...and i suspect i don’t have much more to add...you know already who the great ones are,and please listen to them and what they have to say...i’m just a young’un with too many thoughts about too many things...
so i’ll stick to what i do best: talk rubbish about nothing and everything...perhaps about music,perhaps about photography,perhaps about writing, art,politics or whatever takes my fancy...
we’ll see how that goes.
i’m not pretending to be smarter or more knowledgeable than anyone else out there,i’m just describing how the world looks like from my point of view...with my eyes and my ears and my thoughts. and that’s it.
...and isn’t that what blogging is all about,really?...either as a journal or a small scrapbook, to collect your thoughts and musings and fancies and hates and loves...as the butterfly collector of old, carefully pinning the needle and catalogising the catch of the day...knowing that while the butterfly is securely filed away in its glassbox down in a victorian drawer somewhere, the true butterfly was the one that he saw outside in the summer light,- a vague,fleeting little thing,- but as soon as you have caught it,touched its wings,pinned it down,it dies and gets to be nothing more than just another artifact,another old museum piece...maybe that’s why you shouldn’t trust other peoples’ answers too much, it is all very fine reading fancy theory and philosophy books, but let no man’s system be your answer for everything...life’s too short for absolutisms, let others guide you on your way, but don’t expect any easy solutions...it’s all chaos,but therein lies the beauty. –life’s a bitch, and then you die...and collecting is just another attempt to freeze time,to regain what is already lost...sometimes the thought of what you couldn’t have is more beautiful than what you’ve got...
but you never stop trying to fill the void,scare away the dark,make sense of it all... (aaaarrrggghh,listen to me,i sound like a bloody hippy/new ageish self-help guru! i apologise for the pathos, but these are just random thoughts and i write faster than thinking,it can come out a bit stale...cliché overload,my friend. please bear with me. i’m just ranting....)
someone would’ve called it an exercise in narcicisstic navel-gazing, others would call it a writing exercise...i just call it a collection of thoughts,scrambled together at random. and that’s fine by me. whether you want to read or not,is entirely up to you. i make no promises,and you shouldn’t either. be free.
--------------------------------------- yours truly, [[ the X]]—

please lend an ear to the theme music of this lovely Science-fiction kiddie series that were part of every norwegian child’s imagination-universe in the early 1980’s:
[main theme:]
[instrumental- orchestra:]
[dans le désert de Barkar:]
[la danse des pirates:]
PICTURES:























[ALL IMAGES AND SOUNDS BY J.MESSAGER, COPYRIGHT FRANCE ANIMATION]

[copyright control]

-this space was supposed to be about music...
(and while i might not have anything super-groundbreaking or radical to say, no fancy analysis or theory-heavy angles to boast, i do feel passionate enough about music to want to spread the word about new artists and tracks i FEEL is great, regardless of the words. writing about music can never beat listening to the actual sounds anyway, and the reason i chose to write this blog in english instead of norwegian was exactly that, to shout it out to those who want to listen, whereever you are.)
the thought was to combine rants and thoughts about music, trying to spread the word to fellow music-geeks out there...and also to be an outlet for my own and other local projects/mixes...
-so,a kind of virtual fanzine/index page if you will...!
well. anyhum. it seems like i might’ve been a bit too optimistic...
it’s definately not the free world you think it is.
and while i get my luddite brain around how to find a friendly host for the actual ahem, “sounds”...please enjoy the Bruce Lee Remix Machine (TM)!

http://skop.com/brucelee/index.htm
-----love and polkadots, [[ the X ]]

... _ _ _ - - ..

getting high on coffee
midnight clackering of the rusty typewriter
faster, must keep up with words stuttering
slowing down the speed of non-thought
donning the cloak of a borrowed language
alien sounds emerging, whispering
immersing yourself in the sounds of idiomatic bliss_

[Electric_dreams]

NO MANIFESTOS, NO PHILOSOPHIES.