Showing posts with label distant melodies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label distant melodies. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

(sounds like dirt xxiii) you seem close to the edge

 
if i could just make it stop
i could tell the whole world
to get out of the way
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop
breaking my heart
get out of the way
if i could just make it stop

(drone)

you seem close to the edge
i'm at the end of my rope
the rope is starting to thread
i'm trying to keep my hold

you say i'm something i'm not
but i'm not what i seem
get my back off the wall
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop
i could tell the hole world
to get out of the way
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop
breaking my heart
get out of the way
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop

(drone)

now i'm looking up from a ten foot hole
see nothing but blue sky, shining on my soul
as i enter the court and untwist the knot
we could get where we're going,
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop
i could tell the whole world
to get out of the way
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop
from breaking my heart
get out of the way
if i could just make it stop
if i could just make it stop

(drone)

(melancholia by low and m swiezynski)

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

suspended far up in the sky (distant melodies)


eeaoa033 *


eeaoa031 *

we stood there, listening attentively together. at first i heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. the willows, for once, were motionless and silent. then a sound like the humming of a distant gong. it seemed to come across to us in the darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. it was repeated at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. i can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. my heart quickened as i listened.

text from the willows, images from 2 new elevator bath recordings, one by keith berry and the other by matt shoemaker, both containing ancient sounds that "seem to increase with the darkness".

Thursday, August 7, 2008

edrnia plmnei
























los angeles, time, castration, infidelity, darkness, humour, violence, poland, rabbits, prostitution, mercenaries, glistening eyes, alleys, distant melodies, death, penderecki, nonsense, trainsounds, scratching, surface sounds, evil, 47, hollywood & vine, blurring, afterimages, liminality

Monday, October 22, 2007

i reduction to sleep (a broken consort)

work by louise skelton & richard skelton
(sustain-release)























music by richard skelton:
( )= moniker name

-(a broken consort) box of birch, 2007
barbed wire blues, berkmanan and j f glidden.
bowed metallic figures suspended from ivied trees.
dense thickets of slack, rusted snares and splitting bark.
accordion mists gathering in the early morning light.

-(riftmusic) riftmusic, 2007
iridescent blues. a slow burning late summer fire - its motes carried on the breeze and dancing in the twilight. restless, tumbling chord arpeggios the colour of fading heather and bracken. shimmering filaments of acoustic guitar blown over fields of charred violin

-(a broken consort) the shape leaves, 2006
deep forest drones and lunar blues. fragments torn from live recordings ~ serrated, bowed dulcimer, scraped guitar and wounded violin, all bound with muted, tangled percussion

-(harlassen) a way now, 2006
hypnotic, tidal blues. memories of spiralling currents, driftwood and undertow. fragments of acoustic guitar and piano swept along in choking streams of violin. lost in shimmering waves of distortion and turbulent percussion

-(carousell) a dead bridges into dust, 2005
the rattle of barbed wire fences and the distant drone of machinery. a muffled, plaintive piano and the piercing whine of a violin. fragments of acoustic guitar, interleaved, and looping endlessly in the twilight

-(heidika) there is no cure & other songs, 2005


things not unrelated:

-the music of colleen
-henryk gorecki: symphony 3 "sorrowful songs"
-the viol playing of jordi savall & early music
-the music of j.s. bach, esp. cello suites & the sonatas and partitas for solo violin
-choral/sacred music/gregorian chant
-alchemy
-the music of six organs of admittance
-rural united kingdom
-bowed metallic figures
-"tread softly because you tread on my dreams..." william butler yeats
-krzysztof kieslowski's la double vie de veronique
-the music of william basinski
-the music of steve roden
-the music of frédéric chopin & franz schubert
-accordion mists gathering in the early morning light (full of haunting melodies played on a little bowed mandela, wrapped in a fog of harmonium and accordion swells, with briers of tangled percussion creeping in at the edges…)
-the famed inventor of barbed wire joseph glidden
-the music of nick drake
-unintentional, unrepeatable sounds
-improvisation
-fallen leaves


my observations of the work (using à la recherche du temps perdu - du côté de chez swann):

for a long time i would go to bed early. sometimes, the candle barely out, my eyes closed so quickly that i did not have time to tell myself "i am falling asleep". and half an hour later the thought that it was time to look for sleep would awaken me.

pour à longue temps je suis aller pour chambre premièr. tantôt, la bougie à peine extinction, mon oeils passage si vite ce je jaire n'avoir pas temps pour dire moi-même "je diminution dormir." et demi-heure postiérieur la pensée ce être temps chercher sommeil suis réveille moi.

to a long weather i swiss i'm leaving to room first. sometimes, there; (here) candle a sorrow, grief lost my eyes driving through and buts quickly the i to make n'credit not weather to according to me - same (even) "i reduction to sleep." and half an hour later (behind) there: here thought the being weather to look for sleep swiss waking i.

(1999 translation)


i have found myself lately listening excessively to the music of richard skelton, and thinking about the beautiful work of louise skelton. this post has taken me near 2 months, because i have been so overwhelmed by the work and the cd packages (that feature the work of louise skelton), that i found it impossible to say anything about it, except that the work is wonderful, sublime and beautiful.
instead, i offer an interpretation using the words of proust, hoping that he would find a more suitable description.
looking through proust's books, it seems every 5th work offers a beautiful compliment to this work, so maybe that is a more interesting method than to read the words of this old catscratcher (meaning myself).


some links:
(*), (**), (***), (****),
(*****), (******), (*******), (********)

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

elephant, some things just stick in your mind










young man gunned down out of focus







gus van sant editing elephant

images from gus van sant's elephant, 2003

cinematography by harris savides (with work like this, who needs contemporary popular photography?)
editing by gus van sant
sound design by leslie shatz with beethoven’s "für elise" & additional sound by hildegard westerkamp
the most beautiful film so far of the 21st century?
beauty and chaos.......

(fans of this should also see alan clark's film elephant, from which the title comes)



other things that have kept me busy lately:
(films)


-the bourne ultimatum, 2007 (d. paul greengrass) great photography by oliver wood
-vanishing point, 1971 (d. richard c. sarafian) dp. john a. alonzo, and that means darn good
-melvin and howard, 1980 (d. jonathan demme) essential
-the wind blows where it will, 2006 (d. kunal mehra) bressonian dvd sent to the offices of arthur o. memory
-sam fuller criterion set (i shot jesse james 1949, the baron of arizona 1950, steel helmut 1951) steel helmut was my favourite of the lot
-the face of another, 1966 (d. hirsoshi teshigahara) can't seem to get into any of his films besides women in the dunes
-the lives of others, 2006 (d. florian henckel von donnersmarck) not without interest, good photography by hagen bogdanski
-forgotten silver, 1995 (d. peter jackson & costa botes) on the startling achievements of director colin mckenzie
-guilty by suspicion, 1991 (d. irwin winkler) dp michael ballhaus, and that means darn good. martin scorsese as joseph losey (referred to as joe, shows robert de niro a second from his film the boy with green hair 1948, with dean stockwell)


music:

-skoltz_kolgen: silent room faktory box
(enormous thanks to herr in be tween noise)
with 2 audio CDs created with the participation of artists : steve roden, akira rabelais, taylor deupree, sawako, fm3, kenneth kirschner, steinbrüchel and many others.
sound artists asked to produce pieces using only field recordings of the ambient sounds of their apartments as source material, inspired by erik satie's concept of musique d'ameublement
-vashti bunyan: some things just stick in your mind - early singles and demos 1964-1967 (earlier work before diamond day)
some very melancholic tunes as usual
-jefre cantu-ledesma: black is the color of my true loves hair & shining skull breath
2 really great albums (esp. shining skull breath), in addition to his borges related the garden of forking paths
-ben frost: theory of machines
tracks 2 and 4 are truly breathtaking
-richard garet: intrinsic motion
-jim haynes: telegraph by the sea
-valgeir sigurðsson: ekvílibríum
some good tracks, some with insipid beats. includes will oldham
-renaldo rinaldi: hoarse frenzy
-henryk górecki: symphony no. 3, string quartets 1,2
-morton feldman: violin orchestra (1979) with paul zukofsky
-the hafler trio: an answer from allure (fovea hex bonus disc)
stunning like most of his releases
-stephano pilia: the 1 season
-john hudak: pond
good music to listen to while walking around my local lake, minute uncoverings of lost or unnoticeable sounds
-herbert stanley littlejohn: 17th and 18th century works of funerary violin
a great cd just for the name!
-tellemake: elegie aux murmures
beautiful basinski-like loops
-sad hills: sleepwalkers (both thanks to niemand)