Recent purchases redux

[presquepartout]

i've always been a fan of the simplicity of montaigne's album art

a 'collage' of most of my summer purchases:

[Yii]

what do you think about this [taku sugimoto & moe kamura, saritote ii]? i like your blog, though.

[jon abbey]

what do you think about this? i like your blog, though.

Michael Pisaro coincidentally just wrote briefly about this one a few hours ago on Facebook:

"Who else (I ask you) would:
a) release a 10'38 CD with 9 songs;
b) draw his own (beautiful) cover;
c) sing on one of them;
d) make such apparently unassuming music that stays with you even after one listen?"

[presquepartout]

i'd say it was well worth the price, which admittedly i originally thought was a bit high given the duration of the album. it's an album, that if it gets further exposure, i could see eliciting very polar reactions. it's the hyperbole of the chamber aesthetic taku has been going for the past decade or so (obviously, as a matter of methods and creation, it is different than something like opposite). so as someone who has adored that sound, this, alongside saritote i, hits me in all the right ways; however, i can totally see why someone would hate it.

glad you like the blog, Yii; though i am not the proprieter, i only contribute.

[jon abbey]

I don't think 'hyperbole' was the word you were looking for there.

[presquepartout]

it might've been an inexact choice, but still, the thrust of my point is understood given that adjective.

to clarify: those two albums represent not only a reductionism in sound and song length, as exhibited by some of his prior works, but also a minimalism in total duration and packaging. it's an extension of prior aesthetic to almost every aspect of the publicizing of recorded music, taking his reductionism to its extremum; maximally minimal, if you will. so, if the intent is to almost overstate, if only partially, this aspect as a rhetorical device, then yes, i'd say hyperbole was a correct choice of word. however, obviously this relies on intent, which is something i cannot presuppose...

[jon abbey]

ok, then if that is really what you mean, I'd say you couldn't be more off. virtually all of his work in recent years has been more minimal, and these discs as a whole couldn't be more understated, as michael said above "apparently unassuming music". as for actual content, there are more notes and ideas and energy on those short discs than there often are on his discs that are three or four times the length.

[Jesse]

I was totally confused by Presque's post, assuming hyperbole was a misnomer. I hear Sugimoto's music very differently than his analysis. I think Sugimoto's process from 1999 to 2002 was, summarizing without nuance, one of gradual self-erasure. The duo with Moe sounds like a re-entry into some-notes-Sugimoto, viz-a-viz song form.

[jon abbey]

exactly.

[presquepartout]

hmm, now that you mention it, i can see how lead astray i was. i've spent so much of the summer listening to much more full-bodied music (lots of synth drone), so when i got around to taku, anything that was ppp, had extended silences, etc. sounded sparse to me.

[jon abbey]

FWIW, in addition to the project for Erst with Michael Pisaro (out late this year or early next) and whatever else he is working on, Taku has recently been working with a Japanese punk band called Core of Bells. they've done a few shows together and I believe have a CD en route.

[presquepartout]

hahaha, awesome

i'll be looking forward to both of those!

[splityourwig]

Matthew Barney - Drawing Restraint 2

[grisha]

books:

Timothée de Fombelle - Toby Alone / Toby and the Secrets of the Tree
Diana Wynne Jones - A Tale of Time City

cds:

Screaming Trees - Ocean of Confusion: Songs of Screaming Trees 1989–1996
Can - Future Days

[Jan Tomioka]

Filament - Dark Room filled with Light DVD
Kevin Drumm - The Obstacles of Romantic Exaggeration
David Sylvian - Manafon 2xLP
Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson LP
Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg LP+7"
Robin Hayward - States of Rushing LP
Joe Colley - Disasters of Self 3xLP

[grisha]

Image059.jpg (95.93 KiB) Viewed 3417 times

[bedouin]

Will Guthrie - Body and limbs still look to light
Rhodri Davies, David Lacey, Dennis McNulty - Poor Trade
Phil Durrant, Lee Patterson, Paul Vogel - Buoy
Ernst Karel, Annette Krebs - Falter 1-5

better late than never!
looking forward to getting these at my new address, after almost a year traveling.

[splityourwig]

Hype Williams - Do Roids And Kill E'rything 7"



Paul Leppin - Others' Paradise (illustrated hardcover edition) - scored this for a whopping $0.01 on Amazon. amazing.

[bedouin]

Pierre Gérard - Plateaux (for Gilles Deleuze), Koyuki Sound

Enigmatic minimal experimental music that focuses on the placing of short and unpredictable sonic events within silence. Addictive stuff.
There doesn't seem to be much recorded by this belgian artist, beyond an equally awesome split disc with Shinkei ("Static Forms", on Dragon's Eye) and a free download disc, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" on his website here.

[cheerios]

The Plastic People of the Universe - Magical Nights
2XCD comp