Visceral, violent, nihilistic, organic, animalistic, industrial are just are few of the adjectives used to describe the music of Peter Swanson, formerly one half of the mighty noise duo Yellow Swans. All these words should be taken as compliments.
He now works solo and a new EP entitled Punk Authority is out in March. He talks this and other stuff in a neat interview for Fact magazine Continue reading
My teenage daughter’s musical education has its ups and downs.
While I have been able to turn her on to noise bands like Yellow Swans and the Warped techno/electro of Aphex Twin she’ll still wind me up by putting on a CD of Coldplay for the school run and yesterday she was smitten by the song ‘Sing’ by Travis.
My work is not complete!
I had to confess that I too, in a moment of weakness (and swayed by rave reviews) I bought a CD of The Man Who (which precedes Sing) soon after it was released in 1999.
I have always maintained that Coldplay are the poor man’s Radiohead (which probably makes Travis the poor man’s Coldplay). Still, out of curiosity I was moved to listen to the album again to see if I had mellowed with age and was able to appreciate the serene grace and haunting melodies other humans seem able to detect.
Needless to say, it still struck me as a vapid set of tunes with the same brain numbing effect that hits me whenever I enter a large DIY store. But there is one exception.
But a few minutes after the final chords of the closing track (Slide Show) have faded into oblivion comes a hidden track with a fierce energy and fire conspicuous by its absence in the rest of their material. After the lame tracks that precede it, this track (Blue Flashing Light) is a breath of fresh air.
See what you think:
Do you know any great tracks (hidden or otherwise) by bands you generally hate?
Quotes from contributors to People Who Do Noise an excellent documentary film by Adam Cornelius (2008): Smegma - "Portland is like San Francisco in the 1960s" Pulse Emitter - "It sounds like the apocalypse - but joyful" Yellow Swans - "It's about deterioration" Honed Bastion - Anyone can do it - that's partly the point" Oscillating Innards - "Noise is more punk than punk" GOD (bryan eubanks and leif sundstrom) - "This music cannot be commodified" Kitty Midwife -"You hear everything differently" Josh Hydeman -"Why would anyone play noise unless they had some social or emotional problem?" Soup Purse - "You take out the music elements - this is Bladerunner music" Sisprum Vish -"To be human means to be wrong" Argumentix - "Pop music doesn't work any more" Redglaer - "It's about textures and energetic states" With Caro - "It looks fucked up and sounds fucked up" Daniel Menche -"Music is like one's own blood - so amplify it! As loud as possible -make the speakers bleed"
Last.fm is a great place to discover new music and even to make contact with artists. Marco Mahler contacted me via my group New Weird America to alert me to the release of his excellent self released debut album entitled Design in Quick Rotation.
My review of this can be found at Whisperin & Hollerin’.
Marco currently lives in Portland, Oregon although it was in the contrasting locations of the Appalachian foothills and Brooklyn that this record was conceived, a fact which explains how it the music seems to explore both the old and the new aspects of the folk traditionMarco Mahler’s music has a depth and intimacy that draws you into his world and I wanted to find out more about how this sound came about. Via e-mail I put a few questions to him :
On your website, you talk about a contrast of location between Appalachia and Brooklyn – how do you think the album would have sounded if you had made it in just one of these two places?
In the Appalachian mountains: less vibrant. In Brooklyn: less relaxing.
Could you describe the recording process for the album? Continue reading
Of all the recent noise-ambient artists that have surfaced over the past decade, Yellow Swans based in Portland, Oregon stand out as something special, taking the experimental into transcendental realms. An example of their genius comes on their recent limited edition release (’Drowner Yellow Swans’) – at a magical point near the end of the track ‘First Drowner’ , the wave of distorted sound and feedback subsides so you hear what sounds like muffled cries from a distant school playground. None of the cries are distinct, they seem human but it is impossible to identify any specific words or place the age or gender of those making the sounds. I found listening to these familiar yet ‘abstract’ sounds moved me in a way that is hard to put into words.
I first came across Gabriel Mindel Saloman (GMS) and Pete Swanson, the duo that make up the ‘band’, through the release of the superb ‘Psychic Secession’ in 2005.
This album made me rethink noise not just as a post-rock offshoot of punk or industrial music but as having a lot in common with modern classical works like Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No.3 , Avro Pärt’s ‘Tabula Rasa‘ or Morton Feldman’s ‘Rothko Chapel‘ .These are meditative works that transport the engaged listener away from intellectualised responses and onto a spiritual plain.
I also think there is a parallel between this type of experimental music and the works of iconoclastic visual artists like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. Both post impressionist artists and noise manipulators are essentially trying to bypass rational thought processes and communicate directly to the unconscious mind. Crucially, both are founded on the principle that creativity cannot, and should not, be confined within pre-established boundaries or neat structures. Many creative insights come from spontaneous thought, capturing transient ideas and fleeting moments of inspiration when control is lost .
British sculptress Barbara Hepworth helped in appreciating the key emotional differences between working on realistic and abstract compositions when she said: :“Working realistically replenishes one’s love of life, humanity and the earth. Working abstractly seems to release one’s personality and sharpen the perceptions, so that in the observation of life it is the wholeness or inner intention which moves one so profoundly: the components fall into place, the detail is significant to unity” .
Modern art critic Herbert Read called this a “psychic shuttle” abstraction , which he defined as meaning that which is “disengaged from nature” and realism.
The impulse towards improvisation that drove artists like Jackson Pollock is mirrored in the raw energy of Noise Rock and the restless spirit of Free Folk. Inevitably, and quite deliberately, these sounds challenge the notion of music as a source of solace or reassurance. Instead, the often disorienting musical language attempts to replicate the experience of modern living as an alienating mix of chaos, confusion and dread.
In a Wire interview, GMS of Yellow Swans said: “[People] have to literally change their mind, and in so doing begin conceiving of relationships with themselves and others that have no pre-existing structure”.
I urge you to give ‘Drowner Yellow Swans’ a hearing as it sums up all that is great in the Yellow Swans sound – electric, primitive and mysterious but also inspirational.
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