blue, blue, electric blue

visual music
Originally uploaded by third uncle.

asa chang and jun ray
from the album
jun ray song chang
LISTEN/tabla bol
LISTEN/radio-no-youni (comme a la radio)

boy, it's been kinda hard keeping up with these blogposts. it may not seem like much content but with all the image and audio uploading and coming up with something sorta interesting to talk about, and all the links that sprout from that, it can actually be quite time consuming. but i love doing it, especially when people leave nice comments (hint, hint). i think i'll try to put up one post a week. that seems reasonable.
well, my weekend getaway lifestyle continued with a brief 24 hour stay in washington dc to visit my terribly missed pj who's been working at the library of congress for the last week and a half. we saw a lot in the short visit, walking late at nite visiting most of the major memorials and monuments and taking in the free museums during the day. the greatest treat was the hirshhorn museum where they're currently showing an amazing exhibit titled 'visual music'. very awesome. although there are some works that are purely visual, like abstract paintings that express movement and music, the majority of the exhibit is dedicated to experimental film/video/animation that exists symbiotically with sound/music. i was most struck by the work of john whitney and his son john whitney jr. whitney was a pioneer of early camera animation as well as visual/sound sync invention (early 1940's). he continued well into the latter part of the century, working in computer animation very early in the 1960's (!) spurred on by grant money given by ibm. a true innovator, whitney's own work is a heady mix of day-glo psychedelia and multidimensioned formality mixed in a kind of swirling cosmic animated field. all three pieces shown were driven by traditional sitar music accompanied by tabla, further deepening the spiritual space he sought to expose. rather than pull out my ravi shankar records (who whitney used in one of the pieces), i decided to go with this idea of the traditional and contemporary and post these two tracks by asa chang and jun ray. a trio from japan, they incorporate tabla and electronics in ways that are completely their own. modern music made by modern means but anchored (more or less) by the modes of traditional tabla music.

weekend b!+@#*$

weekend dock
Originally uploaded by third uncle.

the electric prunes
from the album
i had too much to dream (last night)
LISTEN/train for tomorrow
from the album
release of an oath
LISTEN/holy are you

the last few weeks have been kinda busy. the weekdays filled up by school and the weekends taken up with a lot travel as of late. after montreal was a trip to los angeles and just last weekend was spent on the jersey shore. off to dc this coming saturday and camping in eastern virginia the following labor day break. suppose i'm fitting in as much vacation time as i can before summer surely fades away.
picked up these two electric prunes lp's while in los angeles, fitting since they were from sunny la. there's a lot of strange history in this group, things like constant lineup changes and a start that was similar to a band like the monkees, in that they were basically fronts for working la songwriters/producers who held most of the artistic control. though they did play on their records and never went the tv show/kiddie pop route. after their first album they were given a little more say in the songs and were able to stretch out and work with other producers. the first of the tracks is one of the few off their first album that was actually written by the group. the second was composed and arranged by david axelrod and you can definitely hear the influence as their former psychedelic garage sound gives way to axelrod's heavy funk beats and evangelic baroque stylings.

can you spare some bubblegum?

fight the power
Originally uploaded by third uncle.

the plastic cloud
from the album
the plastic cloud
LISTEN/civilization machine

just got back from a long weekend in montreal, visiting our fine neighbors in the great white north and celebrating k-luv's 30th birthday. a lovely city with a very european feel, especially in the old historic district and, of course, its french speaking people. did a lot of walking around the city, their subway system not as extensive as new york, but with much cuter trains. had good times watching the penguins at the biodome, dancing to dj birthdayboy at main hall, hooking up $3 (canadian $'s!) weed on saint laurent at four in the morning, vegan thai at chu chai, and french canadian cowboy karaoke at the 'ouestern bar'. good times. after i got back i was looking for some good canadian music to post. i was happy to find out that this album by the plastic cloud qualified, although not quebecois but from eastern ontario. this record was recorded in '67 and, in my opinion, should be regarded as a classic of the psychfolkrock era. unfortunately, these guys were from canada (i bet things would have been different if they came up in, let's say, the bay area scene), and didn't ever get their due props, only released this one album, and have fallen into relative obscurity. dig it.