8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

Calming

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I’m tip-toeing through the day aided by light, calming music. Quiet tones to drown out the world’s turmoil and the grim news-blasts.

I’m alternating between two albums today. The first is the recent RVNG Intl. edition of Flore Laurentienne’s Volume 1, originally released in 2019 by Costume Records. Described by the press release as “the vessel of Canadian composer Mathieu David Gagnon,” Flore Laurentienne is an artful project based upon subtly texturized string and piano compositions. The tunes on Volume 1 are bright and nourishing, evocative of an incoming dawn’s welcome reset. Ranging from the structured beauty of “Petit Piano” to the sparse organ etude in “1991” (with what sounds like bowed cymbals droning tensely at the midpoint) to the kosmiche synth surprise of “Route” — the album feels warm and breathing, like an organism going through different stages of its life.

Mathieu has stated that the interactions of humans and nature (and their effects on each other) inspired Volume 1, so the organic sheen is intentional. Cementing the association is the alias Flore Laurentienne, named after Canadian botanist (and clergyman) Marie-Victorin Kirouac‘s guide to all species indigenous to southern Quebec.

Though the original release of Volume 1 dates to 2019, this new edition contains a fresh piece, “La fin et le commencement.” The song is quite pretty, using a string section and minimal piano to leisurely mimic the effect of a Shepard tone — that is, a musical progression that gives the illusion of a constant rise in pitch.

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The other album I’m turning to today for ‘calmness’ is the soundtrack to After Yang. I saw the movie over the weekend, and though I should rewatch it, I was immediately taken by the score. The music is composed by Aska Matsumiya save for an appearance by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto on a piece called “Memory Bank.” 

I recommend playing this album in sequence. However, I’d start with the third track (the video game-inspired “Welcome to Family of 4” is terrific in the movie but devoid of context here), and you’ll find hymn-like melodies and sparkling but restrained instrumentation. Like Flore Laurentienne, the music here has warmth and luminance though Matsumiya’s compositions have a pronounced drifting quality. Even the piano-led songs seem to ‘float away,’ and the stirring “Mizuiro” (featuring múm’s Gyða Valtýsdóttir on cello) is likewise buoyant. As for Sakamoto’s contribution, it says a lot that “Memory Bank” fits snuggly alongside the rest of this score —the song’s strings and piano are a little more pronounced than Matsumiya’s but complement and round out the overall musical intentions with grace.

Thoughts Held Hostage

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As I do the mental strength training to reenter the world of blogging, a war rages on. Once more, my thoughts seem held hostage. Writing through this is an option, but I’m not sure if music recommendations and snarky asides will cut it.

‘Inspiration blogs’ are essential right now — these are the blogs that I look to for a glimpse at how others are managing in tough times, something I mentioned in my guide to blogging. Kottke is a good one to peruse as Jason continues to post about topics ranging from meaningful to frivolous, but not without acknowledging the weighted sadness of current events. Warren Ellis has started blogging again (and a reason for his recent absence should be noted) — his casual but steady approach to blogging reminds me not to overthink the process. And then there’s James A, Reeves’ Atlas Minor, which proves that there’s a lot that’s fascinating and rewarding in blogging about what’s going on in the internal spaces.

Today is Bandcamp Friday1And I’ll have plenty more to say about Epic Games’ acquisition of Bandcamp soon.. If you’re a fan of the type of music I regularly write about here, you should venture over to A Closer Listen’s list of Ukrainian artists to support. I’m breezing through it as I type this and discovering many brilliant new-to-me ambient/electronic/post-rock sounds.

Also, Peter Kirn highlighted an expansive spreadsheet devoted to Ukrainian bands and artists to explore. He’s picked a few excellent recommendations to peep in his post.

And, via The Quietus, here’s a list of benefit compilations “for those looking to buy some Ukraine-supporting music on the latest Bandcamp Friday.”

Morning reading: Smithsonian Magazine gives some 20th-century historical context to the war over Ukraine. This article also helped me better understand some of the themes in Come And See, which I wrote about previously. Adam Tooze’s Chartbook newsletter is invaluable in understanding what’s going on in this war and what it means for world affairs. I admit a lot of what ‘The Tooze’ writes about goes over my head, but I have just as many “oh, I see now” moments, too. I’m also working through Tooze’s conversation with Ezra Klein on Klein’s podcast — dense but illuminating stuff. (Not Ukraine related: Klein’s episode last week with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen talking about how games are always present in our lives is a humdinger.)

Come and See

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Come and See film still

Come and See is a Boschian vision of war falling out of a maddening nightmare. It’s a horror movie made all the more terrifying and tragic in that its lessons remain unlearned, its warnings unheeded, its trauma unresolved. Last night, as I watched the film unfold from the safety of my living room, the people of Kyiv experienced their third night of terror. No lessons learned. Devastating.

Here’s a good essay from author Steve Huggins on Come and See which contains this summation of the film’s plot and theme:

The central character of Come and See is Flor, the 14-year-old boy who represents the Russian people. He joins the partisans, loses his family to the Nazis, and then witnesses first-hand the annihilation of an entire peasant village. At the end-credits he disappears into the Russian forest with the partisans. Nothing in the film takes place outside Flor’s immediate experience. We see all the action through his eyes. But is he fully innocent of his own village’s destruction? A dying villager appears to blame him, saying “I told you not to get the gun.” Is Flor willingly complicit; can we read his survival as a form of collaboration? At one point Flor sleeps on the carcass of a dying cow whose eyes roll helplessly in their sockets. Like Flor himself, the bewildered cow takes in everything, but comprehends nothing but the terror.

In his essay, Huggins notes that the film marked a sea change in Soviet/Russian culture and attitudes, foreshadowing the approaching Glasnost era. The piece also shows parallels with present attempts by the Russian state to rewrite history in order to manipulate public sentiment. Again, from the essay:

Aleksandr Shpagin judged Come and See “…the apogee of war as religion.” He is most certainly wrong. To interpret war as religion, it must be imbued with mystical qualities and heroic – if not superhuman – characters. Indeed, Soviet war films of the 1940s through 1960s did just this. Self-sacrifice and fevered patriotism ennobled its participants and legitimized the Soviet experiment. Come and See is the antithesis of these goals.

This observation from Will Stone of 3:AM Magazine rings eerily familiar to the present conflict/invasion:

In terms of the viewer’s emotional upheaval after watching it, Come and See has little to do with what people consider a conventional war film. It is a film about internecine human atrocity, the sudden and brutal loss of innocence, the impotence of the guileless, the appalling rupture of benign rural communities by technologically enabled destructive forces spewing from a poisonous ideology. It is about how men are capable of committing the most heinous acts at the frayed end of a psychopath’s ideological whip and how the stain of unhinged reasoning spreads into a destructively motivated crowd, but also how the determined victim collective produces an equally powerful will to resist the occupier and bring justice or at least survival to the subjected.

YouTube essayist Josh Matthews also inadvertently relates Come and See to the invasion of Ukraine — inadvertently because he recorded these thoughts in August 2020:

This movie is called all over the internet an anti-war movie. I very strongly disagree with that label. Anti-war generally means pacifist or near-pacifist. That is, someone who won’t fight in a war or refuses to take part in a war because war is just too devastating … but I think this movie is actually an anti-invader movie instead of an anti-war movie.

Eli Friedberg of Film Stage describes Come and See in an accurate and lyrical description, noting that nature plays a major role as an innocent but unflinching bystander:

Klimov’s technique, and thus the film’s sense and layering of realities, is intentionally chameleonic, shifting back and forth between cold-eyed realist war memoir and surreal impressionist nightmare–a reverie in which dreams, myths and visions meld seamlessly into the dispassionate facts of history and the conscious artifice of the cinema. In these mesmerizing stretches ambient sound surges and plummets; characters gaze eerily into the camera with shimmering ghostly eyes, uttering anguished cries and otherworldly portents. While not invoked by name, the spirits and customs of East European folklore hang heavy over the film–in sets, in incidental dialogue, in the persistent presence of animals as symbols and messengers. Like Terrence Malick, Klimov presents the natural world and folk culture as a space of prime and savage spiritual order, a transcendental flow violently interrupted by the intrusion of the twentieth century’s industrial war machine with its industrial secular ideologies, a shapeless but terrible behemoth which permits no spirit, faith or love to exist in its wake.

Director Ari Aster notes in Film Comment how Elem Klimov never made another film:

He would never make another film after Come and See, which is just as well. It has a way of making most other films feel utterly superfluous. Has any work ever reflected the adage “war is madness” more powerfully? … As a travelogue of hell, a catalog of horrors, and a single-minded transference of never-to-be-resolved historical traumas, Come and See has not, to my knowledge, been topped. If it ever should be, the result would be unendurable.

Finally, the use of sound and perspective in Come and See are both amazing and you can understand why by watching this video essay from The Cinema Cartography:

Come and See is harrowing but you should absolutely watch it. It’s streaming now on The Criterion Channel, rentable from other digital outlets, and also floating around on YouTube if you do a search (though the video quality there won’t do it justice).

Ballad of the Blog

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Perhaps you’ve noticed that this blog is alive once more, after a long and mysterious absence. My newsletter came to a skidding halt about seven months ago, and the blog’s been eerily silent. The only place you could openly find me all this time was Twitter, which is simply embarrassing.

I wrote about this on Twitter last August with an optimistic tone that, in retrospect, was perhaps jumping the gun a little. Expanding on that thread, I’ll say that I was (and am) exhausted — just like many of you. As COVID-times dragged on and on and on and the vicious news cycle dragged on and on and on, the ennui gathered into mountains. There was nothing I wanted to write about. Nothing in my head, nothing inspiring, nothing exciting to document in the early morning hours. Even my journal, updated almost daily for years, went dark.

Luckily my professional life doesn’t rely on writing, so I had the luxury to stop and wait. Nevertheless, I knew that I was hardly alone in this stifled feeling. And, heeding the advice of those talented enough to write through this malaise, I knew the best strategy was to not stress out about my lack of motivation. The recommended move was actually to lean into it — do other things, find new hobbies, read lots of books, and occupy the brain with something other than the fact that the creative plumbing’s sprung a bad leak.

So, that’s what I did. I shifted focus to my spunky music label, 8D Industries. I learned to make tasty and fiery hot sauces (which became a gateway drug to vegan cooking). I got actively involved with marketing Caroline’s growing Kitten School channel. I spent a lot more time with family as I successfully and safely moved mom to a house next door during a pandemic. And I started getting involved in freelance podcast production.

Several months ago, I was hired to edit and co-produce Andrew Loog Oldham’s Sounds and Vision podcast, and the experience has been a delight. If you don’t know, Andrew is the original manager and producer for The Rolling Stones — as just one of his too-many-to-list-here historical music adventures — and he’s got stories for days. Check out the podcast if you’re even a little curious. It’s a lot of fun. I’d recommend the Elliot Easton (guitarist with The Cars) episode for a starter as it’s got lots of juicy behind-the-music-industry tales.

Meanwhile, the writing bug has finally returned over the last couple of months (along with the music bug, but that’s another story). As arbitrary as ‘the new year’ is as a signifier, it’s still a useful prompt to refresh. And that’s what I plan to do. On the immediate agenda: make some changes to the blog (currently in progress!), start blogging regularly again, and then, once firmly in the saddle, relaunch the newsletter. Voilà. Easier said than done, right? But I’m excited nonetheless, and that’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

I’ll finish this deep gaze into my navel with a few notes about the newsletter. 

First off, I’m retiring Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. I consider Ringo its own series (in the television sense) and a moment-in-time capsule. I’ll call the relaunched newsletter something else (tbd). It’ll have a different format, but I’ll cover the same genre of topics. 

Also, the newsletter won’t be on Substack. I’m exploring a combination of Sendy and Newsletter Glue to host the newsletter on this site. This change potentially sets up a roadblock of discouragement as it’s complicated (oh jeez I’ve got to figure out what a VPS server is). But I want to learn newsletter self-hosting partly as a self-challenge and also to be able to teach others how it’s done. 

If you’re a Ringo subscriber your subscription will automatically transfer to the new entity once I’m ready to roll. You don’t have to do anything, unless you’d like to unsubscribe, which you can do at any time (including now if you’d like). If you’re not subscribed, go ahead and use the Substack sign-up form found in the sidebar of this site. I’ll add your address for the new incarnation of the newsletter upon launch.

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Another personal update: I released a song at midnight on January 1.

Grottoes is a long-imagined project, revealed as I finally step away from Q-Burns Abstract Message. Yes, the AUDIOTOTEMPOLE EP was always meant as a closing of the door. And Grottoes predates “Touchtones (1997),” the earliest reference on that EP. I tried and failed to start a band called Grotto in the early ’90s after the dissolution of my much-beloved (by us and some others) band Tick Tick Tock. There are too many other bands called Grotto nowadays, so Grottoes it is. It looks mightier written as text that way, so win-win.

The quiet first appearance of Grottoes was a remix for Brighton’s The Self-Help Group and the song “Temple OS” (a fine song in its own right, btw). That one was recorded in mid-2021, during my supposed creative lag, and is the last time I worked on something musical. I hoped this would spark other Grottoes tunes to serve as accompanying tracks for something called “Straw Belle.”

“Straw Belle” isn’t new. I started recording it maybe three or four years ago, and it’s a song that I revisited and tweaked periodically. I settled on a final version at some point in late 2019. I feel it’s one of the best things I’ve recorded. And I held it tight — only about four people have heard “Straw Belle” before today — under the assumption that I’d record a few more songs like it and release an EP. As you probably guessed, that never happened.

After encouragement during a catch-up phone chat with my friend Jeff (the bass player in even earlier attempts at bands), I realized that “Straw Belle” would never see the light of day if I attached it to the loose promise of ‘other songs like it.’ So I decided it should finally come out on its own, and, as this revelation came at the end of 2021, New Year’s Day seemed like a novel release date.

For your consideration, here’s “Straw Belle” by Grottoes. Artwork by Matthew Naquin. Secret assistance from The Imprisoned Wizard. Sounds like group homes, wavering spaces, pangs of crunch, tones from belief, e-bow symphonies. I hope you like it. Please tell the others if you do.

Addendum: The Orlando Weekly‘s Bao Le-Huu wrote about my musical shift to Grottoes and scared a few headline skimmers by declaring me dead.

A Drumtastic Interlude

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The Shining: a Visual and Cultural Haunting is an ‘immersive publication’ exploring Stanley Kubrick’s obsessively examined masterpiece. It includes over one hundred loose-leaf ‘typewritten pages’ that mimic Jack’s fateful manuscript in the film1related: this tweet made me giggle today. It’s presently on Kickstarter, and boy is it tempting, even though I feel like this film has already been pulled apart from every angle (sometimes with ridiculous results). If you pledge at the highest level, you’ll get a replica of Danny’s Apollo 11 sweater, knitted to fit your size. Oh, and there’s an unexpected essay by Cosey Fanni Tutti on “sound and the unfolding domestic violence within the film,” which I’d love to read someday.

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“Story of the Century” by Ty Segall is a drum-tastic interlude from the soundtrack to the documentary Whirlybird (I’ve seen it, and it’s good). The massive drum break in the middle sounds a lot like the one in the middle of my own “141 Revenge Street,” though mine is lifted + sampled from something I honestly can’t think of right now. Segall’s break is probably lifted from the same source as well — if you consider having a living-and-breathing drummer replicate a drum break as ‘lifting’ in the borrowing/thieving sense. The full album is out tomorrow and it’ll be a lot of fun if this advance track is any indication.

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I’m also enamored with Al Chem‘s second release for the long-respected Compost label. The Upanishads EP stands out in a sea of dance music promos from the usual suspects as Al Chem’s inspiration arises from electro-acoustic experimentation. The tempos are house music-friendly but, barring some predictable DJ mixing a kick drum underneath, there’s no prominent rhythmic backbone. Instead, the tunes are percussive and often of the tuned, metallic breed of banging, resembling a highly restrained Einstürzende Neubauten. And that’s meant as a compliment! As on “Moksha,” the ting’ed notes are kalimba or kora-like, creating buzzing arpeggiations — possibly synthesized, possibly organic, it doesn’t matter. My pick is the subtly ominous “Advaita,” a cut that abandons melody for syncopated layers that resonate to create a perceived drone underneath. And “Vedanta” closes things out on a sunny note, full of delightful, ringing complexity that resembles Laraaji more than a tad. I bet there’s the temptation to release a club-primed remix pack soon, but I hope that move is resisted — I dig these four cuts just the way they are.

Desolate Lot, Hidden Lake

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It’s a rare and strange thing when the guy responsible for your house comes over for a visit. Specifically, he’s the son of the man who built this house in 1968 on a desolate lot next to a hidden lake on the outskirts of downtown Orlando. The man lived in the house in his final teenage years, enjoying skiing and snorkeling in the relatively pristine lake. Then the skyline was all trees, swamps, and woods where now you see houses of various sizes and eras and downtown’s multi-story bank buildings in the distance. There weren’t many neighbors — the huge house to the right of us was a swamp lot, but a locally known radio announcer was in the house at the left, built a year later.

This man was in the area and just popped by. We had never met him before. It’s interesting the thing that makes some people do that. On a whim, he decided to quench his curiosity along with the curiosity of a pair of strangers (there’s a lot we don’t know about the early days of our street). The man was friendly and outgoing, eager to see the house’s different rooms, to tell us what was the same and what was different, and then to reminisce as he walked by himself in the backyard.

He told me that his sister had the room that’s currently the site of my home office (where I’m writing this). She had cats, and they never left the room. That’s funny as my office, in the present day, is the room where cats are not allowed.

The man promised to return someday. He has original floor plans, sketches, and photographs of the house under construction. Those would be amazing to see.

Ten minutes after his departure, I joked to Caroline that he may have never lived here, that it was an elaborate ploy to ‘case’ our house for a forthcoming heist. She laughed, and then I silently recalled the encounter in my head, guessing what conversation points he possibly learned through publicly available records. It’s a shame we instinctually place caveats on the generosity of strangers.

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Here are a bunch of scans of engineering charts customarily found on the walls of nuclear reactors. They’re from all over the world and date back to the 1950s. I’d love to have one of these posters to put next to my water heater to frighten the plumber. Anyway, here’s one you might like:

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Friend of the blog Elijah Knutsen (previously) has been keeping himself busy in the soundscape trade, releasing ambient-prone productions but increasingly acquiring past influences. 2021’s Broken Guitars Vol. 1 gave a fractured and fuzzed-out (as in fuzz on the turntable needle) treatment of instrumental noise-pop. Now, Elijah responds with the justlikeheaven EP, a further adventure in noise-pop where the noise is enforced, and the pop is implied. These are steel-toned washes, given three titles to contemplate — “strawberry,” “cream,” and “heaven” — all elongated and feedbacky and tingly like being dropped in a vat of cotton balls. I don’t think I’m crazy for hearing melodies trying to escape. But I’m sure these melodies are solely in my head, squeezed from the shifting harmonics of the sonic textures. Shoegaze? More like shoegauze.

Punching the Disinfo Machine

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This Spotify dust-up is fascinating, isn’t it? I spent much of the last 48 hours talking with people about it, explaining what’s going on, and mildly debating it (though please remember that I don’t argue on the internet). People have questions and there’s still a lot to understand about a situation that’s starting to feel like a runaway train. I thought it would be fun and helpful to do a self-Q&A to clear up some things and offer an opinion on why I believe this is a meaningful moment.


• Why pick on Spotify? There are awful content and disinformation podcasts distributed by Apple, Amazon, and more. Is it hypocritical to leave Spotify but remain with the others?

It’s hard not to argue that under late capitalism any large corporation will end up going down a dark path (just ask the folks who eventually removed “Don’t be evil” as their unofficial motto). Thus sole reliance on any corporation, especially for one’s artistic output, is something to avoid whenever possible. There’s also the messy perception of shared endorsement when the platform one relies on does nasty things.

While disinformation is undesirable on any platform (and the climate change denial stuff concerns me just as much as the pandemic stuff) there is a difference in how Spotify participates in its distribution. Spotify’s relationship with Joe Rogan’s podcast involves a layer that’s more complex than other negligent platforms that host disinformation podcasts.

Spotify paid Joe Rogan over 100 million dollars for exclusive rights to the podcast. That’s a lot. And artists and subscribers aren’t entirely wrong in feeling like they help pay for that by utilizing the platform. And, by paying this much for a single property, it’s in Spotify’s interest to relentlessly promote that property. In my experience, Rogan’s podcast is the top podcast recommendation on the Spotify dashboard a lot more often than it isn’t. I’ve never listened to a podcast through Spotify in my life but, almost without fail, there it is. Recommended for me and, I’m sure, recommended for you as well.

Those are the things that Neil Young et al. find most disturbing, which differ from, say, how Apple hosts toxic podcasts on its platform. This doesn’t excuse Apple or anyone else — pretty much every platform is guilty to some degree. Which I think is another reason why we’re picking on Spotify: there’s a sense of helplessness in the sea of disinformation and targeting Spotify feels slightly hopeful. It’s a message delivered to a company financially invested in the disinformation and a tangible loss (in invested money or share price) might make other platforms think twice.

Admittedly, this sounds quixotic. But I don’t think that’s a reason not to strive for a world we’d like to live in.

• Why are Neil Young and Joni Mitchell the ones pulling music off Spotify and not any current top artists?

The particulars of major label artist deals are varied and tricky and often put the artist at a disadvantage in distribution decisions with their catalog. (I released three albums through a major in the late ’90s and there is no way that I’m able to pull those off Spotify.) No matter how big newer artists are (and I’m talking ones who came up in the last 20 years) they are most likely still locked into contracts that last multiple releases and decades. So, it’s not surprising that ‘legacy’ artists are ones able to do this as they’ve gone through at least a few renegotiations, theoretically able to get better terms and more control each time.

But — many legacy artists also have their hands tied, thanks to those huge payout publishing acquisition deals that have been happening. Neil Young may have negotiated the final say over where his songs can appear in his recent deal (and Warner Bros is an accomodating partner) but it’s possible Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen didn’t. We don’t know. Related: this tweet from David Crosby.

• What about Taylor Swift? She kept her music off Spotify before. Wasn’t the whole point of leaving Big Machine Records to gain control of her music rights?

As for Taylor Swift, we can only guess at why she won’t (or will she) do anything. She did sign a new deal with Universal Music Group after her fights with Spotify and Apple, so her amount of control may have changed (and I assume she was aided in those fights by a label that was apparently sympathetic with her wishes, which would be ironic). Yes, her owning her masters was publicly a big part of the Universal deal, but I bet that ownership comes over time (10 years after the release date on a recording, for example) rather than right away — but different than the perpetuity of her Big Machine terms so better for her in the long run.

Plus, the fact that Swift has an antagonistic relationship with her former label which controls most of her recordings probably means she couldn’t remove everything even if Universal agreed.

• OK, if the artists can’t remove music from Spotify shouldn’t they at least all speak out?

Yes, a lot of these artists that don’t have control over their recordings could and probably should speak out — and some are! But there’s the danger everyone doing the “thoughts and prayers” thing could become performative overkill and fade with no real bite like tweeting a black box did. In my opinion, if an artist really wants to make an impact, don’t mention Spotify at all in posts, on the artist’s website, and in public (unless to occasionally remind listeners not to go there) — send fans to other platforms. Bandcamp’s a great choice.

• I can’t help but think that Neil Young and Joni Mitchell won’t have enough impact. Only older music fans care about them, not the demographic that Spotify wants to reach.

Hey, I’m a Gen X’er who likes Neil Young — I was converted after seeing him out-feedback Sonic Youth in the early ’90s. But, okay, Neil and Joni may mainly appeal to the ‘olds.’ You know what, though? Large and important parts of the music industry are still being run by the olds (including the journalistic side). The impact may be subtler and greater than you might think.

• Where do you think this is going?

My hope is that we’re another step closer to a split in the music industry and how music is consumed. That wouldn’t be anything new — until streaming came along, the independent label and artist ecosystem existed separately from the corporate one with some overlap. The introduction of streaming brought the promise that those sides could live peacefully under one roof (or platform). We’re starting to see the problems and ethical conflicts brought about by that notion. Here’s something from 2019 I wrote on this topic and, surprise, Neil Young plays a role in that post, too.

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.

harold budd + laraaji meet in a cave

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Harold Budd

Here’s a video of Harold Budd and Laraaji making luxurious music within Jameos Del Agua, a series of lava caves on the Canary Islands. This happened in 1989 at something called the Lanzarote Music Festival. Unfortunately, they aren’t seen making music together, which would have been something. The two take turns at their own songs. At the time, this type of gentle music, often ruthlessly categorized as “new age,” required an overlay of ocean waves and other nature scenes when presented on video. I’m glad that we’ve gotten over that visual temptation, for the most part, when it comes to ambient music.