Charlie's Feburary Ambient Roundup

What is Ambient Music? (Ambient Music will henceforth be referred to as AS, for Ambient Sound) Is it music without a beat? Is it just a really long song without any words? I do not plan on answering any of these questions.

I had plans today. I was going to record my Helen Keller album—an aural interpretation of Helen Keller’s thoughts—but my producer bailed on me. I’m not mad or anything, usually these projects don’t get far off the ground unless someone’s throwing some money at someone else, and I haven’t thrown a penny.

So instead of contributing sound to the canon of AS I’ll contribute to it with a written blast of hot air.

(Speaking of which, while I was doing some rough prelims for this article I came across a pretty terrible Pitchfork review. http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/190-here-comes-the-indian/ Were I a responsible editor I’d rewrite the entire article thusly: Good album sober. Great album tripping. Excuse me; I am going to go buy some drugs with all the money I just saved from firing a writer.)

Usually I put on some AS when I try to be productive, when I decide to use my free time wisely. When I am hurried and chasing after a fast moving deadline the application of AS is usually an afterthought. I put this kind of music on like a bathrobe. I drink from the sacred chalice to get drunk.

In my studies of Chinese philosophy I’ve become infected with a pretty nasty case of chronic doublespeak. I say something is good, and then I say that something is bad. (I am willing to concede that the nuanced nature of 无，为，无为，and the less popular 无无为 probably went over my head, but for the sake of this article’s observation I’ll let my understanding stand.) So please consider the attached playlist when I say that AS is meant to be heard and not heard at all.

If one is engaged in writing or reading or sleeping or studying it is easy to forget the music is there. It fades away like a broken sentence in a short parag

Brian Eno is attached to the Ambient genre like someone’s hand onto someone else’s hand after a hand-graft. I think Eno is associated with AS in the same way Mozart is associated with classical music. In composing the playlist below it was really hard not to put in more than one Eno track. In composing this playlist I had a good time going over music that I consider AS that I had not considered AS before. I always regarded Zone and The Diamond Sea as pretty loud-volume tracks—something to be blasted out of a car or an empty house. I really tried to put some of Yo La Tengo’s longer hits into this list, but my YLT collection—or so I’ve just learned—is entirely M4A, which is cool, I like the boost in sound quality, but it is a bitch to get into playlist form. Instead of placing them into the list I’d like to suggest to the reader that The Story of Yo La Tango and The Glitter is Gone should be wedged in there somewhere if you have them already.

Sincerely,


Charles Harper

Newweatherorder.blogspot.com

Click here to download the playlist.

Tracklist

1) The Sinking of the Titanic --Gavin Bryars
2) Pastoral Symphony_ I. Dominoes II. Infinity Room --ARP
3) He Loved Him Madly --Miles Davis
4) The Colour of Three --Fennesz
5) Fullness of Wind (Variation on the 'Canon In D Major' By Johann Pachelbel) --Brian Eno
6) Wind Coda --Lou Reed
7) Bend Beyond --Woods
8) Two Sails on a Sound --Animal Collective
9) Zone --Lightning Bolt
10) The Diamond Sea --Sonic Youth

Sounding Out Loud: A resolution and winter tunes

Happy new year! Whoa that was slow, I thought that one was gonna take forever!! An oil spill, an annoying little internet gremlin airing our dirty laundry, North Korea actin' a fool, and the European financial system resting on the head of a pin this year was one for the books.  And as all this was going on I had the gall, no the nerve, I had the nerve to not update this blog regularly.  I know the only joy in your fickle hopeless days of endless labor, rests on the insight and aesthetic principles dependably dosed to you by yours truly.  Yes, the impact of SoundOutLoud on its vast readership in incalculable,  and being aware of the needs of my followers, I somehow did not think it kind to update you.  In addition to the infrequency of my posts I feel as though the quality has suffered as well. Single link Youtube videos and not a recipe in sight, the sincerity was seriously lacking. Is this what the dedicated followers of SoundOutLoud deserve?? I think not.

I have been cooking many interesting new dishes and picking up some great music from a few new spots. Between backyard barbecues (thought most certainly not in this weather) and a new cast iron skillet I have many adventures and tips to share with you. I no longer scour the blogs as much as I used to but I have been finding some vinyl gold in my new Chicago diggs. The Maxwell Street Market every Sunday has been quite prosperous. I've picked up some Teddy Pendergrass, Chic, James Brown, Kool and the Gang, Tyrone Davis, The Impressions, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, and others. Chicago is a funky funky town indeed...

So be sharp and stay light on your feet young readers!  I hope that this third year of blogging will be just as good as the first and better than the second, maybe even better than the first two entirely. Who knows?I certainly don't, but I do have a feeling about it... Exciting things. So to cap off this apology and I guess what is now a resolution, I will leave you with a mix of winter jazz.  Some cool music to fit the wintery scene and provide a relaxing backdrop for nights quietly reading at the homestead, for fear of some horrible blizzard outside. Jazz fits the scene so well. The dark windy nights, that tumbler of whisky sitting next to your computer, and that copy of War and Peace that has been taking you FOREVER to read.  So enjoy. If you are inside you might as well surround yourself with great music.


Cheers, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, Peace, and Goodwill Towards Men/Women, Etc..

SoundOutLoud

Click Here -->Winter 'o Jazz Mix 2010-2011

Tracklist:

01-Black Narcissus    4:52    Joe Henderson    Power to the People 
02-07.Black Beauty    3:25    Ahmad Jamal    The Legendary Okeh & Epic Sessions
03-Smoke Gets in Your Eyes    5:01    Bobby Broom    Bobby Broom Plays for Monk  
04-Negro    2:35    Geraldo Vespar    Samba Nova Geracao   
05-06 If I Should Lose You    5:13    Hank Mobley    Soul Station
06-C.T.A.    5:07    Lee Morgan    Candy
07-02 Love for Sale    7:05    Cannonball Adderly    Somthin' Else
08-Deception    2:48    Miles Davis    Birth Of The Cool
09-Dance Cadaverous    6:46    Wayne Shorter    Speak no Evil
10-Star Dust    10:16    Donald Byrd And Pepper Adams    Motor City Scene
11-Mack The Knife (German - Lotte Lenya)    3:07    Weill, Kurt    Three Penny Opera