Nathan's taste

[imomus]

Last weekend I was invited out to Red Hook, Brooklyn to visit Nathan Michel. Red Hook is beautiful, hip yet tranquil, like bits of Berlin, and like Williamsburg used to be. You see foxgloves sprouting on street corners, you see incredible decaying industrial buildings, red brick docklands warehouses occupied by artists, views out over the Statue of Liberty and the Verazzano Bridge, huge satellite base stations owned by Time Warner, quaint old seadog bars, trendy coffeehouses with pomo alpine themes...

Nathan himself is a recent transplant from Princeton University, still working on his PhD (something to do with the link between Stravinsky and Paul McCartney). He selected a few cultural treasures to show me as I sat in his living room, watching ferries plow up and down the East River in a gap between buildings. Since Click Opera is all about sharing cultural capital with everyone, everywhere, I thought I'd share Nathan's excellent taste with you all.

His favourite film at the moment is Lars Von Trier's documentary The Five Obstructions, in which Trier challenges the veteran filmmaker Jorgen Leth to remake his 1967 film "The Perfect Human" five times, each time with a different handicap or obstruction.

Nathan recommends the Uske Orchestra, a Belgian group on Sonig who apparently share some of the spirit of early Scratch Pet Land. Their new album "Nico et la Berlue" will be released on Sonig in November 2005.

Speaking of Sonig, I'm sure Nathan would endorse this too: a recent archive of Donna Summer's WFMU show "Advanced D&D with Donna Summer" features a current favourite artist of mine, DJ Elephant Power. You can download his one hour DJ set The Impact of the Elephant on Its Environment. It's a flipped budget fidget!

Nathan, who's a classical music major, also recommends The Complete Tape Music of Dick Raaijmakers, a Dutch composer born in 1930. Check out the video for "Intona (Long)".

Thanks, Nathan, for a lovely Saturday, by the way! Great to meet you after all this time. Oh, Nathan's new album is called "The Beast" and is fantastically interesting and inventive.

Since Click Opera is all about exchange, here are some things exciting me at the moment. Yukinori Maeda of experimental Osaka fashion collective Cosmic Wonder looks like a young Howard Devoto. He doesn't just design (mostly snow white) clothes; he also makes installations and dance pieces, sings and photographs... I'm currently trying to get an interview with him. Someone who did is Here and There magazine. I like their jolie-laid design aesthetic.

I've decided that I intend to be influenced by Robert Ashley. (Yes, it really does happen like that. One day you decide to be influenced by someone. All resistance crumbles and you say "Welcome!") Is there a DVD, I wonder, of his TV opera Perfect Lives, filmed by the UK's Channel 4 in 1984 and broadcast over a period of weeks? Did I catch any of it at the time? I don't know, but I've been furtively downloading the opera from [source that I cannot name]. Here's an interview with Ashley.

Finally, the all-important question. What are you wearing? I'm wearing a lovely grey Nein No Non T shirt by Alex Rich, a Tokyo-based designer I recently interviewed for ID magazine. It matches my skirt... I mean, kilt! And I've found a wonderful cool, cream Moroccan robe. I've always wanted to ditch tight Western clothes and wear loose flowing robes. Now, in my old age, I seem to have got eccentric enough to do it. When it stops raining in Berlin I may even be able to walk around wearing the damn thing in public.

Comments

Stuff on London Attacks 21st July

[(Anonymous)]

Not sure if this is really offensive or really funny: comment on the events of 21st by Radio Free London:

http://www.geocities.com/radio_free_london/20050721-16.mp3

[trrill.livejournal.com]

Isn't it ridiculous that in this country you have to be "eccentric" in order to wear flowing robes, but in Morocco the only requisite is sweaty balls?

[trickybrkn.livejournal.com]

I live in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Red Hook is where they place the things no one else wants in the City, like trash, ikea and artists.

[ensenchiridion.livejournal.com]

the five obstructions IS good. i recommend it also.

[(Anonymous)]

nathan's album is quite good actually. i agree. worth checking out for something thats different. but not to different. different in a different way?

trevor.
www.musicrelated.net

have you read...

[(Anonymous)]

Donald Richie's 'Japan Journals'?

Just finished it tonight on the Q train to Brooklyn.

Maybe you should read it.

Det perfekte menneske

[epymetheus.livejournal.com]

I can't throw enough support behind 'The 5 Obstructions.' It's such a good film on so many levels, the way a good book of short stories is satisfying in the way a novel never can be. It's revealing, entertaining, intelligent, and touching, without ever being trite, superficial or artificial the way that documentaries sometimes can be. It's a film that wrestles with ego, humility, adulation, respect, and fear in such a unique and intimate way that never fails to intrigue. The 4 short films alone make it worthwhile to rent it, but the story of the process of the films is what makes it satisfying to own.

A.

[frontporchmafia.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, the logic centers in my brain just won't work. Why am I so attracted to this man, who's eyes are framed by ridiculously large frames and a nose that looks like it's always in a constant sniffle?

I'm glad I added you. Every entry you post, arises a new question for me.

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

wow! robert ashley! i just recently finally acquired a cd of his, entitled "private parts (the record)". it is indeed fantastic stuff, and i was pleased to hear that the interest in ashley i got from an article in the wire a few years back was merited.
funny thing is, when i played this record to a friend, he said "totally momus!", he actually thought it was you - then he thought that you must be deeply inspired by him. he is a huge momus fan and actually hooked me onto your music. with which he succeeded entirely, after a while. "the philosophy of momus" became a favourite (i am a big fan of arto lindsay, btw), also "voyager", in a perverse way (i do not own any pet shop boys recordings). it took me a long time to enter "oscar tennis champion". first, i was quite disappointed with it. some songs i liked, but others just got "on my nerves" so much, they somehow spoiled the whole album ("my sperm is not your enemy" is an example). i played the cd maybe ten times, then stopped listening to it for some months.
but then, some weeks ago, when i had to spend a long night working on some "cute" drawings, i gave it another try. and it clicked. and i bought "otto spooky" the next day. and since, i spend a lot of time with this fantastic record (i'll just call it a masterpiece). another album i listened a lot to recently is "black antlers", the last studio album coil released before the death of john balance. i think, these to make a great pair, sonically, and also in the "storyteller" approach.
and i got me "folktronic" (great, esp. "pygmalism" - i'd like to do a "mangaistic" graphic novel inspired by this song!) and timelord (another masterpiece - i just use this lazy word for lack of time for a real description of my appreciation)
thank you

[palux-negro.livejournal.com]

I love the Nathan album. And now i love his linux-geek look! If you read this nathan.. HI!

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

maybe it wasn't clear that the "masterpiece" as meaqnt for "otto spooky". "oscar" just clicked and became an album i like, but "otto" is my boat to float while drawing.
did i just write "album"? that makes me feel so old (i'm 30), since i read a remark by a media promoter a few days ago that kids just don't by albums any more, they just download their favourite songs. and here i sit, uneasy in my easy chair, waiting for momus' next ALBUM ...

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Those remarks are much appreciated. I hear that "Otto" just got a good review in Magnet magazine. (If anyone has it, a scan or transcript would be much appreciated.) That makes me happy, because I think "Otto" was somewhat under-appreciated.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Shit, I can't believe I wrote "appreciated" three times!

[intergalactim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i just got Otto Spooky this week too.
I didn't know how excited I would be, being Six months too-late...

But it is bloody fantastic! better than the mp3's and that is the highest compliment, it was so wonderful to listen to the tracks and find them better than those early mixes, even klaxon which was my favourite (& you said wouldn't be on the album). Thanks Momus, good music will always be good.

(the disc arrived in the midst of a "Sachiko M craze" i'm having, but that hasn't diminished it at all either...)

[(Anonymous)]

and to appreciate some more: when will we see a momus gig in under-appreciating berlin?
(and now we also know the title of your next album: "otomo appreciated"

[kaipfeiffer.livejournal.com]

thatwasmeagain, forgottologin

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hmm, no Berlin shows planned just now, a possible concert in Denmark between 15th and 17th September (Pop Revo 05 festival in Århus) then some in Italy, possibly in Russia in August, possibly Japan.

[langerdan.livejournal.com]

Where's the best place to buy "Otto Spooky", as in where do YOU make the most money from? I've enjoyed your Radioshows and journal entries and now i'd like to show my appreciation by buying your work.

zoning in on the small bits

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

What are you wearing?

a puffy, shimmery, light olive robe with pearl-white and orange daisies and a gold sash. it looks like one of the couches in my filipino grandparents' house; they haven't redecorated since the early '60s.
you'd be quite embarrassed to wear such a thing in nyc, i think. it's very colorful.
.
nice white robe (& nice pose). but yeah, wait for the weather, you don't want to end up with a see-through shower curtain cling.
.
& dj elephant power=quite nice. picked up no si no se from my store a while back.

fyi

[niemandsrose.livejournal.com]

The Robert Ashley doc by Peter Greenaway (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/6303504094/002-3908596-2189667?v=glance)

[lumeilin.livejournal.com]

mr. imomus click opera,
nevermind about that comment, i figured it out!
good entry, dude!

sincerely,
miranda

[(Anonymous)]

Gettin' sloppy, I tell ye.

Thom's Taste

[jimmyandfriend.livejournal.com]

http://pulk-pull.org/images/Thom1sm.jpg
http://pulk-pull.org/images/Thom2sm.jpg

Michael Jackson

[intergalactim.livejournal.com]

Someone else might be playing in Berlin sometime though:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/jackson/story/0,15819,1534050,00.html