8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Equal Parts Confusion and Admiration

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Tyler Mahan Coe has finally launched the long-awaited second season of his podcast Cocaine & Rhinestones. If you’re not aware, Tyler’s show digs into 20th-century country music through his sharp lens — as historic and important, but often sordid and contentious. As he says in each episode’s intro, “I’ve heard these stories my whole life. As far as I can tell, here’s the truth about this one.” Tyler’s the son of controversial country star David Allen Coe, as well as a (now former) member of his dad’s touring band since the age of 14, so he’s undoubtedly heard his fair share of stories.

I’m a fan of Cocaine & Rhinestones and have gone from tolerating to embracing Tyler’s snarky tone. And I wouldn’t say I’m a country music fan — though there’s plenty of country music I like — but I’m a sucker for detailed accounts of music history. Cocaine & Rhinestones is foremost about the history, and, man, does Tyler get deep into it. 

Cocaine & Rhinestones is dense. The first two episodes of Season 2, respectively focused on pioneering indie label Starday Records and the beginnings of Nashville’s music studio scene, contain so much information that I found myself repeatedly getting lost and tapping the ‘back 30 seconds’ button. The names and dates and places come fast and furious, and it’s challenging — but fun! — to keep up. 

That’s why I’m starting to think Tyler Mahan Coe might be podcasting’s Adam Curtis. Cocaine & Rhinestones can be as dizzying as Curtis’s recent Can’t Get You Out Of My Head. With Coe, it’s pinball and ice cream, and with Curtis, it’s Tupac Shakur and doomed cosmonauts. You can agonize over how the dots connect, or you can just roll with it in wonder.

But if it sounds like I’m downplaying Cocaine & Rhinestones, I’m not. Tyler’s put together a phenomenal podcast, heavily researched, and a mesmerizing listen.1And he generously provides full transcripts for each episode on his site if you prefer to read rather than listen. I’ve not only learned tons about 20th-century country music but also about the larger music business in the context of American history. The first season is a thrill, too (this is my favorite episode), but you’re welcome to start with the currently-in-progress second season. Supposedly this season is all about George Jones, but I feel like, so far, I’ve only heard about him a smattering of times. There’s been just as much talk about the history of refrigeration. 

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Rams wears its heart on its sleeve, encapsulated by the quote near the end: “Design only works when it really seeks to achieve something for humanity.” I’m a fan of documentaries about creative people doing creative things, making the world better and more interesting. No doubt, this film checks that box.

I wasn’t too familiar with Dieter Rams, but then, of course, I was, having seen his aesthetic throughout a world of products, including many in the home office where I’m writing this. It’s one of those “you can’t unsee it” situations — after watching, you’ll pick out his influence everywhere.

The vintage transistor radio — with its prominent touch dial — as the precursor of the iPod really is something to behold. I also enjoyed the scene in the design museum, where Dieter delivers equal parts confusion and admiration for the design choices of his contemporaries. The highlight, though, is the section in the middle explaining Rams’ 10 Principles of Good Design. It’s a beautiful sequence, both in how it’s directed as well as in the expression of the overall philosophy itself. Inspirational stuff, no matter your practice — you don’t have to be in commercial product design to draw from this well.

Oh, and yes — Brian Eno contributed the soundtrack. The music is lovely and fits perfectly with the visuals it accompanies. Eno pulled just the right selections from his 6790 options. 

Rams is streaming on Kanopy in the US. Check here to see where it’s available in your country.

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Today the wind outside is roaring (a common occurrence here at the lakeside office), and the sound is merging seamlessly with those found on David Newlyn’s new album, Tapes and Ghosts. The UK-based producer has released a healthy number of musical pieces over the past decade-plus and commandeers the cult-status CD and tape imprint Cathedral Transmissions. Newlyn’s sound on Tapes and Ghosts is an earthy flavor of ambient, at times resembling the Eno-y vintage of floaty music, as on “Surfacing“, where pianos meet string pads on the edge of discordance. “Sunset” follows suit, with a gentle guitar lightly overtaken by shimmering synths once daylight gives way to the spectral. There are hints of nature and memory through the titles of these pieces and others like “Radiance” and “Ceremony.” The music conveys these hints, too, often twinkling while pulling at something inner and emotional. The ghosts really come out on “Years“, featuring, as the liner notes reveal, an “unknown voice” from “a bought charity shop cassette.” This muffled spirit-speech accompanies Newlyn’s sheets of overlapping strings and melodic snatches. The effect is lonely and heartfelt and, coupled with the gusts outside my window, feels like wandering far from home. 

David Newlyn’s Tapes and Ghosts is available now on the prolific ambient/dream-pop label Somewherecold Records.

3+1: danielfuzztone

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Today we’re celebrating my long-time friend Daniel Fuller who took the lockdown era’s lemons and made ambient drone music. Daniel’s someone I’ve known and respected as a talented writer over the years. But, since the latter half of the 2010s, he’s come into his own as an electronic music producer. 

I was fortunate to witness Daniel’s sonic progression. Emails started arriving with links to new posts on his SoundCloud page, along with requests for opinions. Daniel’s taste, ear, and sense of music history are top-notch, so, unsurprisingly, the music’s always been good. Then the emails and the music starting landing with an astonishing frequency. The songs were flowing, and I could hear the remarkable evolution of Daniel’s music. His soundscapes went from good to very good to regularly excellent. (Having a consistent creative practice has its rewards, folks.)

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one pushing Daniel to release an album. With so many songs to choose from, I had no doubt he could assemble a fantastic set of music. Then, finally: Thoughts & Abandonment is that album, released under Daniel’s danielfuzztone nom de plume (he’s used that one on various projects for a while). 

As an album, Thoughts & Abandonment stands out for its old-school approach. Daniel eschews DAWs and soft-synths for hardware noise-makers (Roland, Korg, and Casio are represented) and a modest but strategic collection of guitar pedals. And if it’s not coming from an onboard arpeggiator, then it’s probably played by hand right into the recorder. The result is a gritty atmosphere with more in common with Cluster, Suicide, and Klaus Schulze than contemporary signposts. But Thoughts & Abandonment isn’t a throw-back — danielfuzztone’s layered drones and gentle ambient melodies slide easily into any modern “Music To Space Out To” playlist. 

I grabbed Daniel by the email and had him answer some questions for a bit of the old 3+1. His responses are thoughtful and drive home the benefits of creative consistency.

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1. How does your past as a music writer affect your mindset now that you’re actively creating music? Do you think it makes you more self-critical or better equipped to bat those feelings away?

It’s a double-edged sword. And something I have been very conscious of. But instead of being self-critical, I decided just to be myself. I’m certainly not the first writer who pursued making their own music — Philip Sherburne comes to mind. And in fact, I consider this my third “era” of producing (previously during high school and then college). 

I didn’t want to fall into the trap of recording tunes simply reflecting my music library; a curation of personal taste which is all too easy to succumb to. Yes, you can play “spot the influences” with the album — Brian Eno, My Bloody Valentine, and Boards of Canada would all be easy reference points. And you would certainly be correct. I love those artists, and they continue to inspire me.

But what I explore is my life’s journey. Not in a selfish, self-absorbed way, but rather fully committed to making music that reflects how I feel and think about the world around us — good, bad, and ugly. I can’t help to be influenced by the wonderful artists I listen to, but I also believe folks are too afraid just to be themselves. For better or worse — this is who I am. This is what I can contribute.

2. It’s not unnoticed that your prolific music output coincided with the pandemic and lockdown. Do you think you’d have an album out now if there were no pandemic? Or, if so, would it be different in style or tone?

The pandemic — and my two-year sobriety — worked in tandem to push my creative productivity. To be honest, I don’t think I would have produced the album in the time frame I did without those two variables. 

I have about 90 minutes after my morning AA meeting and when I need to report online to my healthcare writing job at 9:00 am — we’re fully remote — and I have been using that window every day to create music without fail. On weekends, I probably squeeze in about two hours each morning.

Pre-COVID, I could produce a track in just a couple of days, but it would take months to follow up with the next one. One of the many benefits of my sobriety has been a more focused creative drive, which I credit with helping me stay clean.

As far as content, I didn’t want the album to be a musical time capsule about the COVID-era, so I steered clear of any obvious or overt references. A couple of tracks recorded during this time but not on the album include political and/or election angles. But in that context, the music has nothing to do with the pandemic but was certainly enabled because of it.

3. What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen happen at a concert?

I do have my share of crazy rock-show stories like any long-time fan — for instance, go see Guided by Voices — but I’ll tell you about a non-musical act my friends are sick of hearing about. I was fortunate to see the late-comedian Bill Hicks perform in West Palm Beach during two nights in November 1993 — about three months before he passed. 

The first night, a really drunk woman started to heckle Bill just minutes into his set. He paused and then focused his attention (and considerable bile) on dismantling her lack of respect down to her bare bones. Never seen anything quite like it before or since. She was quickly escorted out. Probably the most punk-rock moment I’ve ever experienced.

On the second night, my then-girlfriend and I sat in the front row of tables traditionally reserved at comedy clubs of the era for non-smokers. However, my girlfriend smoked, and her pack of cigarettes was sitting on the table. Bill noticed the pack and politely asked if he could have one. He then mentioned he had quit smoking but recently started again. Bill Hicks would later die on February 26, 1994, due to pancreatic/liver cancer.

+1: Something you love that more people should know about.

Writer and model-misanthrope Ambrose Bierce. He was a Civil War soldier and journalist who went on to write fictional tales of the Reconstruction-era South, complete with roaming bands of renegade troops, violence, depravity, and plenty of ghosts. 

While I’ve in no way scratched the surface of his literary library — he mainly published compilations of short stories — his hallucinogenic prose fascinated me from an early age. Like many American students, I first discovered his short An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in middle school (also via the 1962 French film The Owl River). 

And course, The Devil’s Dictionary has become the bible on satirical humor. I keep it close so I can read random entries when a laugh or dose of cynicism is required.

Visit danielfuzztone on Bandcamp and SoundCloud.

Music Streaming in a Dream World

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“If a world is dreamable, maybe it can be dreamed into being.” This quote is from the author David Mitchell, spoken in the fantastic PBS documentary on Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s also how I’m opening this piece where I imagine how NFTs could create a better world for music commerce. Unfortunately, it’s probably only a dreamable world or, as you’ll see, an alternate universe. This vision presumes a different history. Whether we can dream it into being is up for grabs.

OK, confession time. Like you, I’m sick of hearing about NFTs. I wrote about them twice (here and here), and my feelings are well-known. You may believe NFTs are good for artists, that they introduce a technological layer that intensifies fandom, that they signal some sort of future direction in artistic distribution. Those things may all be accurate, but, honestly, most participating in NFTs right now are seen by the general public as get-rich-quick schemers at worst and privileged (or reckless) at best. The incentive doesn’t matter. It’s this perception that has writer Tim Maughan comparing buyers to Martin Shkreli and MusicREDEF’s Matty Karas calling for musicians to ‘pause’ any participation in the NFT marketplace.

Compared to a couple of months ago, the hype and interest in NFTs are dwindling. I know this because they’re no longer the topic of every other Clubhouse room (though I guess Clubhouse has receded as well). So, with the bandwagon ebbing, I figure this is finally a good time to talk about a thought experiment I ran in my head where I imagined a dreamable world. The spark was the question, “how could NFTs change music distribution for the good of everyone?”

(Before we go any further, know that I’m a dabbler, not an expert, on this topic. Please be gentle with me. I welcome thoughtful critiques and corrections in the comments.)

For this dream to work, we need an alternate timeline with two significant differences to ours. First of all, NFTs can’t be environmentally detrimental. I’m not playing along if they are. So, in our thought experiment, that problem’s solved. And secondly, the invention of NFTs and everything around them (blockchain, etc.) predates the current streaming model. That’s because I’m offering a substitute to the fraction-of-a-penny-per-stream framework firmly established in our present. 

Decentralization is the key here. Unlike DRM, which linked an MP3 to a specific device (like the iPod), in this thought experiment an audio file backed by an NFT plays on any device or software that can verify ownership. Thus the purchase of a song or an album is also the purchase of its NFT, granting access via various streaming apps. The recording artist or label sets the price and the scarcity. And the absence of scarcity is an option.

There are music marketplaces where these NFTs are purchased. These online stores can look something like Bandcamp, where the NFT buyer can download the accompanying audio or bundle it with merch. These purchases can also go through the website of the label or band — exclusively, if desired. In our dream world, there are handy WordPress plugins for this.

Here’s where we get into the cool stuff within the dream world. I mentioned scarcity. Most music releases will have unlimited NFTs pointing to the audio as the band will want as many listeners as possible. But this model also allows the possibility for limited editions. Let’s say your band wants to release a live album limited to 500 copies. You will only mint 500 NFTs, and you can price these at a collector’s price. Accompanying each with a limited vinyl version of the album, sent to the fan upon purchase, is possible, too. But the digital version has scarcity on its own.

Theoretically, band members can directly receive a piece of an NFT sale. Let’s say a band with four members makes $40 for the sale of each limited album (after any store cuts or processing fees). If the band splits everything evenly, the members will each get $10 every time an album and its NFT are sold, sent directly, and right at the time of sale. This action is embedded in the NFT’s smart contract. The band can set this split for their non-limited $5-a-pop album releases, too.

A fan (or ex-fan) can resell the limited-edition album using its NFT. This creates a digital version of the used CD bin. If the band gains popularity, then the price might go up, just like a rare album on Discogs. But unlike that Discogs sale, the band members can continue to get a cut of each resale as long as the NFT’s smart contract says so. (If there’s a physical album tied to the NFT, then the two could be resold separately. But the value is much higher if sold together.)

Let’s get back to decentralization and imagine what Spotify (as an example) looks like in this dream world. Labels and artists have the option to make their music listenable on Spotify but can set the number of listens until an NFT purchase is required.1This is similar to a feature currently available to artists and labels on Bandcamp. The band in our example sets the songs on its regular albums to play three times per listener account on Spotify — but the limited edition album songs would play only once or not at all. This way, playlists and discovery aren’t disrupted. Songs from the band’s regular albums will still play unimpeded when they show up in Discovery Weekly or Release Radar. But if a fan really likes a song, she’ll have to purchase the NFT to play it more than three times. Spotify could also act as a marketplace for these purchases (“Purchase this album to keep listening”). 

Signing up for a streaming account links your NFT wallet to the dream world version of Spotify. The platform verifies all of your NFT purchases. You can play those as much as you want. And the limited edition album is only available for listening to the 500 fans who purchased it. In this thought experiment, the same thing happens when you get an account with Apple Music or Qobuz or any streaming platform — your wallet is recognized, and you can play all your purchases in addition to whatever is available to you on the platform. Any account data, including your playlists, also seamlessly travel with you, platform-to-platform. 

That’s the idea. Decentralized streaming where labels and artists set the rules and get paid, all thanks to the often maligned NFT. It’s a hell of a dream, but even my imagination couldn’t work through a few problems with this thought experiment:

  • What’s the incentive for the decentralized streaming platforms? How would Spotify make money? They could act as a marketplace and take their cut, but they’d potentially compete with the band’s website. Perhaps there would be some type of subscription model where you’d want to use this platform because it has much better features than the others. In other words, the streaming platforms would be motivated to differentiate rather than remain interchangeable. Or the streamers could fall back on intrusive advertising, which turns this dream world into a nightmare.
  • Related to the incentive question, who hosts the audio files? The NFTs would point to audio files that listeners access through streaming platforms and apps. These could be hosted anywhere — it could even be the label or artist’s responsibility — but the bandwidth gets pricey if the songs are big hits. And, if the platforms aren’t hosting the songs, who secures the rights and pays publishing royalty? (Note that if the streaming companies aren’t hosting the audio or solely responsible for rights, their operating costs will decrease significantly.)
  • Would this create a piracy renaissance? Nothing stops a person who purchases the band’s limited edition album from ripping it off the streaming platform and making it available to all. The convenience of streaming (and the attraction of whatever unique features each platform offers) would need to be irresistible. 

On the plus side, this dream world model removes my main gripes with the NFT craze: the patronage (or get-rich-quick) aspect of NFTs and the financial inaccessibility of the technology to the ordinary fan. These NFTs can be cheap. Similar to Bandcamp’s option, there could easily be pay-what-you-want NFTs, putting the value in the purchaser’s hands. More than just the crypto-rich can participate. And the bands are only auctioning if they want to.2And I haven’t touched on the data transparency available to bands under this model — the play metrics would be incredibly detailed.

You’d think the current streaming paradigm of Spotify et al. is established — the genie left the bottle over a decade ago. But alternative experiments are happening in earnest, and interest among songwriters and musicians is high. Look at the success of Bandcamp. And there are compelling blockchain-led alternatives like Audius and BitSong. Many more prototypes and ideas are on the horizon.

It’s fun and instructive to play with alternatives to how streaming and streaming payments work today. Music streaming is a relative infant within the historical scope of the music business. There’s still time and room to innovate, to push for solutions that better serve both listeners and our music’s value. New ideas and thought experiments are necessary and I encourage you to play along. And just maybe, one of our dreamable worlds will be dreamed into being.

Roedelius’s Gentle Journey

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Hans-Joachim Roedelius is a gentle giant trotting through the timeline of kosmiche music (perhaps a better genre term than the maligned ‘Krautrock’ designation). As a giant, his influence is enormous, but Roedelius’s quiet insistence on working diligently in history’s background accords to his gentle demeanor. 

Roedelius’s role in the 1968 formation of Berlin’s Zodiak Free Arts Lab spawned Tangerine Dream, Ashra Temple, and his own Kluster trio with Dieter Moebius and Conrad Schnitzler. Kluster transformed to Cluster a couple of years later once Conrad Schnitzler departed, and the now-duo adopted the more organic and tranquil sound that remains Roedelius’s template. Famously, Cluster recorded two classic albums with Brian Eno — the second of which includes one of my favorite Eno vocal performances on “The Belldog“. 

To many, this ’70s period is peak Roedelius, but he keeps riding the spaceways with a solo discography that’s long and a collaborative discography that’s even longer. And there’s a newer incarnation of Kluster/Cluster called Qluster featuring Roedelius and audio engineer Onnen Bock.

Now in his late-80s, Roedelius is going strong, still composing and producing melodic, experimental music. He continued to play shows and tour internationally right up until the COVID blockade. In March of 2017, I was lucky to see Roedelius perform at Orlando’s Timucua White House. I wrote briefly about that show here where I called the music “experimental and quiet, not at all jarring, and serenely [transmitting] the artist’s feelings in a tumultuous world.” Afterward, I met Roedelius, who was cordial and talkative. He even told my friend who regularly visits Germany to “look him up” on his next overseas journey.

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As always, I’m fascinated with the creative habits of different artists. I ran across a couple of older interviews with Roedelius on the music magazine archive site Mu:zines and found a few notes about his process. In this 1984 interview, Roedelius describes an improvisational cut-and-paste method that is emblematic of the kosmiche pioneers:

I usually do most of the recording at home. Whenever the mood takes me, I sit at my piano – a lovely old Bosendorfer grand, over 100 years old – and play, and I put everything I play on tape. Then I play back that tape and select the best parts from it, and work on them until I’m happy with the way they sound.’

The piano features heavily in Roedelius’s music, and, indeed, it’s the starting point for most of his compositions. Treatments, synthesized sounds, and collaborating musicians get added once the edited tape is ready. Here’s another 1984 interview where Roedelius describes the recording of his album Gift of the Moment: 

I have a grand piano at home and the basic album tracks were recorded there using a Revox A77 in stereo at 7½ips, I made sure I got ‘space’ on the tape, then I went into the studio in Rotterdam and transferred the stereo recording onto one track of the 4-track — the album was done on 4-track with dbx — and then I started adding to the music using the different instruments…

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I bring up Roedelius because there are two new opportunities to discover and appreciate his music. First is the latest episode of the excellent SOUNDWAVE podcast featuring a retrospective mix compiled by Roedelius himself. This nearly 90-minute selection is the perfect primer for anyone seeking a historical sampling of Roedelius’s output. It’s also fascinating to hear the songs that Roedelius includes, whether these are his favorites or just pieces he thought were the best fit for a podcast mix. (“The Belldog” makes an early appearance.) Hearing Roedelius’s decade-spanning output in a curated context emphasizes the timelessness of his music. 

Next, here’s a rare (maybe the only?) Roedelius livestream performance from a little over a week ago. I received a text from my sometimes-Germany-visiting friend alerting me that Roedelius had just started a “surprise” livestream. I tuned in, and there he is, deep in concentration, beaming haunting sounds from a pair of laptops, an iPad, a controller, and a pair of keyboards. This performance is a mix of its own, featuring a few Roedelius classics, and it drifts pleasantly into your surroundings. Listening live, I lost myself in these sonics, writing several paragraphs and achieving that hallowed ‘flow state.’ But, if you attempt the same, be warned that Roedelius’s vibe is interrupted a couple of times by his laptop’s notification pings. And then there’s the endearing moment just past the halfway mark where Roedelius walks off for a moment after announcing, “I have to go for a pee.” Serious music doesn’t have to be so serious after all.

A Certain Smoothness

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Everybody’s Languishing → Adam Grant’s article in The New York Times on “languishing” seems to have connected with a lot of people. Grant defines languishing as “a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.” Jason Kottke spoke for all of us when he commented, “Yeeeeeep. Yep. Yep. 1000% how I’ve been feeling today and on and off for months now.” 

We expected unnerving feelings at the beginning of the pandemic. There were warnings to not give in to frustration and sadness, not to kick ourselves if lockdown’s supposed extra at-home time didn’t result in our replication of Newton’s Year of Wonders. Many of us, of course, were hit hard emotionally. But now that there’s light at the end of the tunnel — thanks in part to vaccines, actual leadership, the economy surviving — we should all be Snoopy-dancing, right? Instead, some of us are languishing.

I recently looked back on my journal from a year ago, a reminder of how I felt in the early days of COVID-times. Unsurprisingly, I was despondent in uncertainty, but I was getting things done. I sent an episode of my email newsletter out every week for like eight (or more) straight weeks. I was blogging all the time. And I was continuing to make small moves on the professional side with my music publishing and consulting gigs.

But, man, these last couple of months have been TOUGH. I’m appreciative and thankful to get through the past year — for one thing, I and all of my loved ones are fully vaccinated — but motivation is in the outhouse. I’m no longer consistent with my newsletter, and it feels like I haven’t blogged here in ages. I’m getting professional work done, but my pace is slower than Béla Tarr’s camera trolly. 

That’s why Grant’s article resonates. It’s reassurance — Grant’s nail-on-the-head description of ‘languishing’ confirms that it’s not just me. Whew. And, magically, naming this condition is a great help. Says Grant, “Psychologists find that one of the best strategies for managing emotions is to name them … it could help to defog our vision, giving us a clearer window into what had been a blurry experience.” See also: Steven Pressfield’s technique of naming “the Resistance.”

The article contains tactical advice for dealing with the anguish of languishing. Grant suggests adding small challenges in your day as completing these tasks is a mood enhancer. I assume scheduling challenges in the morning is a good move, to get on the good foot. I’m guilty of usually mulling about for the first few hours of the day, coffee in hand, stressing out about the day ahead more and more as the minutes pass. How about I take that coffee to my desk and write a little something for the blog? That’s a small challenge that always feels fantastic upon completion. This tactic also reinforces that elusive and necessary daily writing practice. And Grant is correct — the day adopts a certain smoothness when the morning begins with a decent word count. 

We’ll see how it goes. As usual, I’ve got plans (lots of ’em), and I want to do them. I’m ready to stomp this ‘languishing’ sensation into the dirt and enjoy the eventual fruits of our post-pandemic season.

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Unwitting Idol → In a story that someone is undoubtedly going to option for a movie, Vladislav Ivanov found himself contractually obligated to compete in a Chinese boy band competition show. Initially hired as a translator, the Russian’s good looks inspired the offer to “try a new life” and join the high-stakes contest. Ivanov quickly realized that ‘member of a boy band’ was not one of his aspirations. Unfortunately, he was held to song-and-dance servitude under threat of a fine if he broke his agreement. The only way out was if the audience voted him off the show:

Using the stage name Lelush, Ivanov told viewers “don’t love me, you’ll get no results”, and repeatedly pleaded with people not to vote for him. His first song was a half-hearted Russian rap, in stark contrast to the high-pop of his competitors. “Please don’t make me go to the finals, I’m tired,” he said in a later episode.

As you may have guessed, this behavior only endeared the beleaguered Ivanov to his ‘fans’ who repeatedly voted to keep him in the competition. Some suspect Ivanov’s resistance was a calculated maneuver, like the reality show contestant who assumes the villain role because people want to see what villains will do next. But a friend verifies Ivanov’s reluctance is real: “He sent me a SOS message saying he couldn’t stand it.” Luckily for Ivanov (but not the rest of us, tbh), his pleading was finally answered. The viewers relented and voted him off the show in the presumably tense final competition.

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Gaze Craze → I had a feeling that the kids are alright, but this clinches it. Following the curious sea-shanty trend, Gen Z’ers are now resurfacing the classics of shoegaze on TikTok. Videos of whippersnappers vibing to My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, and other favorites from before they were born fill my heart with warm fuzzies. Vice looks at this mini-phenomenon and concludes that this moment — the pandemic come-down moment! — is ripe for a shoegaze revival:

16-year-old Jude Atkins says they got into shoegaze “about a year ago”… “The atmosphere of shoegaze really fits with the bleak, post-COVID, world we’re in. Everyone’s trapped inside and shoegaze has a very dreamy quality to it,” says Atkins. 

The Vice piece also features an observation from music critic Mark Richardson that shoegaze’s sonic gender blurring, often (sonically) equal parts masculine and feminine, appeals to a generation that strongly values inclusion. He mentions the mixed-gender membership of bands like Slowdive and Lush, but I’m thinking more of the vocals on Loveless — it’s known that some of the songs’ ‘female’ voices are actually an electronically processed Kevin Shields.

The shoegaze sound has always nudged from the periphery — one can hear hints of its influence in music that’s surprisingly mainstream — but the true test of a revival is when new musicians take up the mantle. Well, apparently, this is happening. Spotify reported twice as many recordings classified as ‘shoegaze’ released in 2019 than in 1996. Granted, part of the increase is due to the ease of releasing music now vs. the required manufacturing expenses of the ’90s, but still.

Personally, I won’t believe we’re in the throes of a full-on shoegaze revival until everyone starts listening to Black Tambourine again, especially this song:

Michael Bratt’s Tour of the Darkroom

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Michael Bratt is a D.C.-based composer with an impressive CV, having studied music extensively, conducted orchestras, scored films, and co-founded ensembles like Cleveland’s FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. His is a life enveloped in modern music, both as an enthusiast and a practitioner. The approach is academic — a lot of thought goes into his music, as you’ll discover below — but doesn’t ignore the visceral pleasure of a beautiful, meaningful recording. 

Michael sent his new album The Darkroom, a set containing one solo song and four collaborations. It’s “a collection of ambient electroacoustic works,” he tells me. “Many of the tracks are extremely personal in nature, and some of these collaborations have been three or four years in development.” The solo track opening The Darkroom, “Visions,” planted the seed for the project six years ago. 

This patience is refreshing in an age when we’re told to release nonstop music. It also results in an attention to detail, as heard throughout The Darkroom. Take the title cut as an example, where strings and flutes play off each other elegantly while a more abrasive electronic section sneakily rises from silence to dominance. Or the plucked piano notes of “As the Earth Grew Still,” spaced together with implied distance before gradually coalescing in harmonic layers. In other words, nothing here sounds hashed out.

Each of the collaborative songs features a different artist or ensemble. There’s Azerbaijani-American flutist Jeiran Hasan, the harp-viola-flute ensemble The Lynx Trio, guitarist Bruce Middle, and the double-u duo. With explicit intention, Bratt considers these compositions true collaborations rather than ‘guest spots.’ “When I work with someone, there is a lot of back and forth,” Bratt explains. “I rarely write something, hand it off, and that’s the end of it.”

Based on the weight of talent and intellect on The Darkroom, you might expect an album that’s heavy and impenetrable. But it’s a soulful listen, very human and reflective, with many moments that are gently disarming. “You Belong Here” comes to mind, with processed guitars and subtly droning electronics conveying a comfortable loneliness.

When Michael Bratt sent me The Darkroom, I asked for a few more details in my reply. He responded with a track-by-track tour of the album, outlining the methods and inspirations for each song. These notes are terrific and illuminate the thought that went into this project. It would be a shame to excerpt these explanations, so I’ll let Michael take it from here as I publish his comments in full:

“Visions” → “The inspiration for this piece came from the Bach cello suites (G Major Minuet 1). In that piece, Bach utilizes registers to create three independent lines of music to give the impression of polyphony. I wondered how I could accomplish the same idea utilizing technology. Instead of working with register, I chose to use the pan position. The majority of the piece is a simple square wave that’s panned fast enough to create a Gestalt effect in the brain, which gives the impression, or vision of polyphony.”

“Fire From Within” → “The title comes from Pablo Neruda‘s poem, “As if you were on fire from within, the moon lives in the lining of your skin.” Both Jeiran Hasan and I have known each other for years. We were part of the Cleveland new music ensemble, FiveOne Experimental Orchestra. The poem references this inner fire or desire in people, to the point where our skin glows and everyone can see it. That’s the imagery that I was after.”

“The Darkroom” → “Growing up, my father (an amateur photographer) had a darkroom in our basement. This work evokes those feelings of freedom through organic form. The piece gradually works on an idea that continually develops over and over. The music is minimalist and is monochromatic, much like the black and white photographs my father took as a child. While it’s compartmentalized, focusing on one idea, it doesn’t contain a form or separate sections. It’s meant to be taken as a whole idea.”

“You Belong Here” → “One of the teenagers at my church committed suicide two days before service. I ran the mixing board at the church that Sunday, and the pastor had everyone disperse into small prayer sessions around the church as the band serenaded. Everyone was devastated, trying to hold it together. I captured that recording of the band from the mixer and slowed it down 2000%. That became the basis for the guitar solo with Bruce Middle. The sermon from that day was titled ‘You Belong Here.'”

“As the Earth Grew Still” → “My original concept for ‘As the Earth Grew Still’ was a piece about intimacy (human connection). I knew that I would be collaborating with Robert and Melissa Wells and was looking forward to working with a couple who knew each other intimately. Unfortunately, much changed in our world during 2020, and it irrevocably disrupted my writing process. The piece grew to be a reflection of my isolation locked in social distancing with my family. It employs a visual cueing system I developed that allows me to synchronize pianos together in non-related meters and tempi. This is done through a computer application I wrote which creates a website that the performers visit on their mobile devices — replicating my experience in isolation when we were doing things separately — together.”

Michael Bratt’s The Darkroom is available now on Bandcamp and various streaming platforms.

Undermining, Not Underlining

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Discovery vs. Intention → What a fun conversation between Brian Eno and Stewart Brand, promoting We Are As Gods, a new documentary on Brand’s fascinating life. The first half uses Eno’s soundtrack contribution as a topic launching pad. The conversation touches on the intersection of film scoring with ambient music, how multi-track recording brought music closer to painting, and how endless options are making us all permanent curators. My favorite part comes at 17:00 when Brand asks Eno to differentiate, in terms of the creative process, discovery from intention: 

I think the thing that decides that is whether you’ve got a deadline or not (laughs). The most important element in my working life, a lot of the time, is a deadline. The reason it’s important is it makes you realize you’ve got to stop pissing around. You have to finally decide on something. Whether I finish something or not completely depends on whether [a piece of music] has a destination and a deadline.

Eno goes on to describe his fabled archive of half-finished music — “6790 pieces … I noticed today” — most of which is created through discovery, i.e., “pissing around.” Then, when he gets an assignment (a destination with a deadline), he pulls something relevant to the project from the archive and finishes it. That’s an inspiring process and one I’d love to replicate. 

I wonder how much time Eno spends “pissing around” and building this archive. I imagine an ideal would be one or two hours a day. And I’m curious how he decides on and enforces self-imposed deadlines to move his own projects forward.

Oh, and this quote in the video from Eno is a keeper: “What I like better than underlining is undermining.”

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Etcetera → Seth Godin’s advice on how to make your Zoom calls better. Now I want a beam splitter. ❋ This 2015 compilation is a psychedelic overview of On-U Sound’s post-punk dub: Trevor Jackson Presents: Science Fiction Dancehall Classics. ❋ Writer Ernest Wilkins explains why he’s joining the parade of newsletter publishers leaving Substack. This part is especially eye-opening: “I’ve lost anywhere between $400 and $1100 in churned subscriber revenue due to paid subscribers not wanting to give money to this platform anymore. I need it to be clear that for the two years on Substack before this, I had a 0% subscriber churn rate.” ❋ I’m excited about this forthcoming documentary on ‘sound activist’ Matthew Herbert, A Symphony of Noise. ❋ Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine in The New York Times: “My nieces and nephews — they would complain to me, ‘Why are you so purposely obscure? You know, it seems stupid.'”

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Rachika Nayar – Our Hands Against The Dusk → I’ve been delightfully obsessed with Rachika Nayar‘s debut album over the past couple of weeks. The Brooklyn-based artist (in both visuals and sound) has accomplished some heavy-lifting with Our Hands Against The Dusk — the album is unabashedly experimental and uncompromising but somehow remains accessible and, yes, beautiful. Guitar is the main instrument throughout, but it’s looped, processed, and sometimes ‘glitched’ into unfamiliarity. The opening track, “The Trembling of Glass,” is an introductory window to Nayar’s technique, with layers of texture and manipulation swept away in the last half to reveal a bare acoustic motif. It hooked me in straight away.

Interviewed in Magnetic, Nayar explains her method: 

I see one aspect of my process on this album as tearing up an instrumental sample into a million pieces and then putting those fragments through cycles of recombination … these processes feel to me like exploring a single idea through multiple and multiplying perspectives — seeing one thing in all its different realities and selves. 

When one listens closely, there are many opportunities to identify what Nayar is up to, but her execution is nuanced and organic, despite the music’s inherent digitalness. One hears these ‘million pieces’ as a whole, as guitars ring with hopeful tones on “New Strands” and pianos and cellos combine and intertwine on “No Future.” The effect is mesmerizing — dancing somewhere between music that’s ambient, experimental, and influenced by modern classical — but, most of all, it’s affecting. The emotion that went into creating this album is anything but disguised. 

Our Hands Against The Dusk is the most impressive debut I’ve heard in a while. Don’t hesitate to open your ears and heart to it.

3+1: Airships on the Water

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Airships on the Water - The Bridge

There’s this geographical prejudice that the interesting music — especially of the post-rock variant — only comes out of places like Chicago, or Brooklyn, or Austin, etc. So it’s always a thrill to find music that shatters the bubble, reminding us that creative folk trying new things are all around us. Airships on the Water are evidence, based out of Fayetteville, Arkansas, which you may have flown over without consideration on your way to somewhere like Austin (to reference the often mocking ‘fly-over state’ tag). But listen closely, and you might hear exceptional, flowing, and perhaps hidden music like “An Arm Within Reach,” the latest song from Airships on the Water. This effort is joyous and expressive, sparkling with bells, piano, ringing guitars, and nuanced but dynamic drums. It’s a grand and refreshing sound.

Airships on the Water is the project of Russel Hensley, who is also the drummer for the band Take Shapes — responsible for other cool sounds from ‘the natural state.’ AotW (if I may be so bold to abbreviate) have two albums — 2017’s Beneath a Thousand Branches and 2020’s Folded into Bells — and the third on the way. “An Arm Within Reach” is a teaser from this forthcoming album and is pure appetite whetter. 

I pulled Russel aside — while floating in his Airships on the Water guise — and asked him to deliver some 3+1. Check out the tune and his thoughtful responses below.

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1. I love the graphic of the branch growing out of the guitar pedal. What does that image mean to you, and how does it relate to Airships on the Water? Is the cord plugged into an amplifier or a guitar? Or something else?

My brother Brandon Hensley is an excellent graphic artist, and he’s always done the artwork for my albums. I usually have a concept that I feed to him, and he does a great job of producing an image that looks cool and captures what was in my head. When I look at this image now, it makes me think of the creative process and the transformative power of music. The signal goes in and comes out as this living, growing thing. You put a lot of love and hard work into crafting songs, and you hope in the process they become more than the pieces put into them. You hope the signal travels to the listener and blossoms into something that resonates with and affects them.

It’s not been intentional, but I’ve noticed that a similar theme has popped up in my concepts for artwork in the past. For example, the cover art for my last album, Folded into Bells, was of a bird making a nest out of a cassette tape. So there’s another example of imagery where music is being elevated beyond the medium and becoming more than its original form. But that’s just one interpretation! I tend to gravitate toward imagery that’s a little open-ended, so I’m always interested to hear what other people see in it. 

2. What is your earliest *significant* musical memory or recollection? 

As soon as I read this question, a very clear memory sprang to my mind, so I feel like I have to go with it! The first song I ever remember loving, and I mean LOVING, was “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe. My mom would play oldies in the house all the time, and for some reason, this goofy bubblegum pop song from the late ’60s really stuck with me as a kid. I remember being about 5 or 6 and belting out that song at the top of my lungs in our kitchen. The song “Sweet Pea” was also on that same Tommy Roe CD, and it has a pretty famous drum break in it that’s been sampled a ton over the years. Is there a chance that song entered my subconscious and contributed to my desire to play the drums years later, thus making this Tommy Roe story actually relevant?? Well, probably not — but at least I still remember it!

3. How do you listen?

When it comes to music, I think I would describe myself as a curious listener. Even when I’m listening to music purely for enjoyment, I’m usually trying to identify little details that draw me to that song. Sometimes I’ll be listening for technical details that I just like the sound of, like specific instrumentation or certain rhythms, but I’ll be searching for the elements that make me feel a certain way more often. I’ll ask myself questions like, “How did they pull that off? Why do I like it? How could I create that same effect?” I get inspired to create music that makes me feel the way a song does, not necessarily sound the way a song does. This kind of curious listening is a nice way of gathering up more sonic colors to paint with later on.

+1: Something you love that more people should know about.

On a recent music deep dive on YouTube, I came across a song called “Light” by a group/project called FEM. As far as I can tell, FEM is the side project of the singer/multi-instrumentalist Cuushe, who makes catchy electronic dream-pop type songs. FEM has more of a full band sound, combining her vocals with guitars, bass, keys, and jazzy drums. So far, I’ve only found that one track by them, so I’m not sure if it was just a one-off thing or there are plans for more. It’s a beautiful song with a fascinating mix of sounds, so I’m hoping they keep it going. Maybe if more people check out “Light” by FEM, they’ll be motivated to release some more music!

Visit Airships on the Water on Bandcamp.

Transportation in One Direction

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No Scene Happening But They Made It Happen → Austin Kleon appeared on The Unmistakable Creative Podcast, dropping oodles of terrific insight and advice for creative people. I was delighted to hear Austin talk about punk rock as an aesthetic influence, basically (and unknowingly) boiling down the topic of my recent post on ‘the punk rock dream.’ Here’s what Austin said:

I always think punk rock helps with all this stuff. Being in touch with that DIY spirit of the ’80s and ’90s, even the late ’70s, that punk aesthetic. I think every artist should read Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life. I think you should read about artists who … there was no scene happening, and they just made it happen. I think that’s fundamentally an American thing, to be in the middle of nowhere and to hit the road. I’ve always been influenced by the do-it-yourself ethic of punk and not thinking of punk as a style but as a real way of being. I always think that helps and that every generation sort of needs to rediscover punk because its roots go deep.

The whole interview is fun and inspiring. Add it to the queue.

Also, Lee Schneider gave a shout-out to ‘the punk rock dream’ on his Universal Story Engine blog. Lee is moving his writing off Mailchimp and Substack and explores the reasons why and the alternatives he’s looking to use. There’s some detail on the privacy issues inherent in many newsletter platforms, a topic I didn’t get to in my post. 

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Pizza Toast & Coffee → Craig Mod has written endlessly about pizza toast — in his two wonderful email newsletters, this lengthy article for Eater, and an elaborate self-published book. All of that is fascinating, but I can’t say I quite got the appeal of this hodgepodge entrée. Why all the (mostly digital) ink devoted to tomato sauce on a slice of bread? And then Craig released this video:

I’m a sucker for quiet, transportive videos like this one. If you can focus for the video’s five-minutes — restrain the fidget, imagine there’s no phone in your pocket, drown out all other sounds — Craig’s slowly paced document will place you right inside the Būgen cafe as the rain lingers outside. Craig films Yamane-san’s elegant creation of the pizza-ish toast like a tea ceremony, some of the rituals (such as the slicing) not quite making sense at first. Then the big reveal, and yes, now I finally get it. 

I could attempt pizza toast — the video exposes the process and ingredients clearly — and I might. It sure looks tasty. But Craig’s video is all about mood, and that’s mostly the mood of Būgen and the care of Yamane-san. It’s apparent that mood’s as essential to Craig’s love of pizza toast as the toast itself. As I mentioned, I find this video transportive, but, unfortunately for any at-home pizza toast attempts, that transportation only goes in one direction. 

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Moderator – Midnight Madness → Electronic music producers from Greece have a fondness for jazzy beat constructions. A few prominent small labels are carrying the torch, such as the long-lasting Timewarp outfit. Then there’s Melting Records, an Athens-based imprint specializing in instrumental hip-hop and trip-hop reminiscence. But Melting’s discography has recently branched the label’s sound into uncanny territories. Melting Records releases are still sample-heavy, crate-dug assemblages accompanied by rhythms that err on the phat side. But the sources have gotten more global, drawn from a world of foreign locales, and snatched from genres and eras that extend beyond the usual jazz/funk spectrum.

Case in point: Midnight Madness, the latest album from Greek DJ and producer Moderator. As noted in the release’s promo text — which, full disclosure, the label hired me to write — Midnight Madness has a midnight movie feel, like we’re witnessing something sordid and exotic from the safe distance of a cinema’s chair. The consistent Morricone-meets-RZA vibe amplifies the grainy film quality of the album’s 14 tracks, helped along by crackly spoken snippets captured from who-knows-where. It’s hard to know what is sampled and what originates from Moderator himself — the vocals are obviously ripped from parts unknown, but there are also lovely instrument textures throughout, threading the tunes together.

“Walking Slow” summarizes the album’s modus operandi — spaghetti whistles, Agent Cooper on guitars and saxophone, forlorn vocals, and those beats those beats those beats. Some songs have speedier moments verging on big beat (remember that?), but Moderator is best when the pace is leisurely, and the layers are thick and dreamy. “Crystal Gaze” and “Once Upon a Time” are fine examples of this, two songs that lope like a sleepwalking b-boy unable to escape slumberland. 

The Punk Rock Dream

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I’m watching this Minutemen concert video from 1985 (“And when reality appears digital,” Mike Watt soothsays at 18:57) and thinking about the punk rock dream. American independent music was at its height, disadvantaged, compared to its British counterpart, by the sheer size of the country. For the first time, bands like these were finding nationwide renown without a major label attached. (A quick pause to recommend Michael Azerrad’s essential book Our Band Could Be Your Life if you’d like to learn more about these scenes.) But the dream — yes, the punk rock dream — was autonomy. Self-releasing, self-distributing, self-promoting, self-administrating, self-booking. Some, like Ian MacKaye’s still inspirational Dischord outfit, came closer than anyone had before.

Fast forward a few years after that Minutemen concert. I was nineteen years old and wanted more than anything to start a record label. But those were ancient times, and I had no idea how to manufacture vinyl or find a distributor and doubted it was possible from my lonely North Louisiana dorm room anyway. So I dreamed — came up with names, imagined the types of bands I’d sign, scribbled fake logos, studied the discographies (and personalities) of labels like SST, Alternative Tentacles, and Factory.

What a time. Here I am (guitar) at nineteen, playing something resembling punk rock with my friends (photo by David):

“Home Taping Is Killing Music” was a strange ’80s PR campaign by the British Phonographic Industry, a trade organization representing major labels and distributors. We read that slogan to mean “the music industry” as taping our friends’ records made more music, not less. The punks agreed. Alternative Tentacles released Dead Kennedys’ In God We Trust Inc. on a one-sided cassette — the b-side was blank. The cassette displayed the familiar tape-and-crossbones icon (now appropriated by The Pirate Bay) and the phrase, “Home taping is killing record industry profits!” Below that: “We left this side blank so you can help.”

The major labels were the target of our ire, but, in reality, our problem was with the corporate gatekeepers. Sure, we had our gatekeepers — the fanzines, the college radio DJs, the cool punk rock clubs. Not all gatekeepers are bad, but those corporate gatekeepers insisted on shoving their agenda-culture down our throats. 

Because of this attitude, some celebrated when Napster supposedly (but not really) brought down the music industry. That era offered a glimpse of the power of self-distribution, aided by the internet revolution. As bandwidth got faster and tools more sophisticated and egalitarian, predictions about ‘the end of the major label’ were common (guilty as charged). “No more gatekeepers!” was the rallying cry — that emerging teenage bands would soon have the same chances at an audience as an established superstar. 

The result: not only are the corporate labels flourishing, but new gatekeepers have covertly replaced the old ones. Sure, the power to self-everything is here, but most choose to sieve their independence through an algorithmic filter. We’re gaming the gatekeepers just like old times, but now it’s about massaging the algorithm to get us on the right playlists, to amplify strategically placed hashtags, and to get the targets just right in that boosted Facebook post. 

There’s so much frustration with this newfound reliance on social media and low-paying streaming services. But do things have to be this way? 

Back in my dorm room, I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to do what all the punk-inspired DIY’ers wanted: to navigate this music thing without any interference (or interaction) from ‘the man.’ That was the punk rock dream. And now we can have it but only if we really want it. The dream’s not easy, and algorithms, and the promise of shortcuts, are seductive.

If I’ve personally advised you on label or recording artist stuff, you’ve heard me mention ‘the punk rock dream.’ I talk about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about the concept since that dorm room. So, when I decided I needed a new tag-line for my blog, I decided on “A zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream.” Because, really, that’s what the blog and newsletter are all about. (The ‘zine’ part is a nod to how I got started with all of this.)

Revisiting my relationship with ‘the punk rock dream’ inspired me to start the process of moving my email newsletter off Substack. I’ve thought about this for several months and recent debates have strengthened a need for platform independence. The importance of self-publishing is probably best examined by talking through the changing definition of independent music.

The qualifications for ‘independent music’ once seemed cut-and-dry, apparent in Michael Azerrad’s book that I linked to above. Now things are fuzzier. How independent is the punkest of punk labels if they primarily promote through Zuckerberg’s platform, via a corporation so huge it would have given Jello Biafra an aneurysm back in the day? A band might self-release, but are they independent if Spotify and YouTube are the focus of their outreach? One could even go as far as to charge that a reliance on Apple products to make music is a dependence on the most giant of multi-national corporations. 

We can go all over the place with this until it’s just nitpicking and cutting hairs. But my definition of ‘independent,’ which I wrote about here, is summed up by a simple question: do you truly own the work you’re passionate about? 

That ownership includes all the decisions made about how an artist presents her work: how it’s distributed, how direct the access is to the audience, and the alignments that color the public perception of the work. The primary platform hosting this art — your preferred way for people to check out what you’ve made — plays a large part in determining ownership. The person who writes paragraphs of prose as a Facebook post doesn’t own that — Facebook can take it down at any time. It’s the same for a photographer using Instagram as her only portfolio. Or a video-maker hosting his achievements solely on YouTube. I don’t even think Bandcamp is immune, despite its reputation as a bastion of music independence. It’s all the same if you’re relying on it. How screwed would you be if it went away? Or if a corporation that doesn’t share your values acquired it?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t use these platforms. But position your art and the work you’re passionate about under the assumption that these platforms and — crucially — their policies are impermanent. These should be deployed as mere tools, not adopted as foundations. Let your work live somewhere you own, and make that place the primary destination for your audience. Everything else is a funnel. 

Sounds like the punk rock dream, right?

Self-publishing the newsletter is the way to go. I’ve done the research and am looking to apply something close to what Jared Newman is doing (without charging my readers, of course). There’s also some great advice from Ernie Smith of Tedium on self-publishing an email newsletter.

At the very beginning of Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, I mentioned that the newsletter is an experiment until it isn’t. Changes are just another visit to the lab, mixing chemicals and seeing what happens. I’m constantly testing what independence means in the digital age and how the internet can facilitate — rather than stifle — that punk rock dream. Consider my newsletter and 8sided.blog a continuing report on my findings.