In the loop

[imomus]

At the end of next week I fly to Osaka, where I'll spend two months in Hisae's family home at Tennoji. I must say this is tremendously morale-boosting, as I haven't been to Japan in almost a year. I'll continue recording my new album in Osaka before heading off to New York for my three month stint at the Whitney Biennial.



I need morale-boosting because it's been quite a stressful month. Hisae got thrown out of Germany last month after accidentally overstaying her visa by two days. She's been making a film with friends in London, but is now back in Japan. Rusty Santos has returned to New York, and I'm continuing with recording my album on my own. And, to be honest, it's sending me up and down like a yoyo or a bride's nightie.

Records have a will of their own, whatever plans you make for them. Far from the avant Tropicalia I planned, defying the Dogme-like rules I'd made, my album has veered in the direction of "experimental torch". Some days I think what I've done so far is utterly wonderful, other days I think it's rubbish. The usual pattern is for me to be completely in love with a track when I've just finished it, then, next day, to hang it beside something off David Sylvian's "Blemish" or Sufjan Stevens' "Illinois", and think how utterly crappy, trite, small and weak my work sounds. So I work on it some more, taking it somewhere more interesting, more strange, more otherworldly. Then I start a new song, determined to make the most wonderful piece of music ever, and the cycle starts all over again. Joy and despair in an endless loop.

Comments

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

He's done a lot of different stuff. His vocal delivery and lyrical sentiments are definitely on the torchy side...

"Secrets" is okay. I've never heard an album he did where he didn't do something I liked and then right after it something I felt embarrassed for. Which, blame that on whatever. But I haven't heard much of his new stuff, either.

Microgenres! Pshaw! Haven't we evolved past that yet*?

*rhetorical question

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Hmm, of course we need those "microgenres", there is even 'macrogenres', and those are the genres small unknown bands make up to describe their music most of the time. Like "Mambohambosambatjoflöjtrock" for example.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm just being silly, of course. It's sort of like saying "why can't you just accept the apple for what it is without putting a name to it?!" Yet I've heard this argument countless times from artists who should know better. We need labels in order to communicate. Much like irony or earnestness, they have their place, and the hatred of these things is probably more a matter of refinement/balance in their use than anything.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Something quite irritating lately was the labeling of the Neo-electro movement that plopped up earlier during the 00's and now on that was "blip-blop" because it sounds so close to video game music and occasionally had a sort of blip-blop sound. But still though, I refuse to call it blip-blop and prefer the term "Neo-electro" and everytime I say that I get a "What?" and have to explain why I said that.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Yes, sometimes language evolves faster than we can keep up. Which is perhaps why so many simply give up at a certain point saying "I'm too old!" or start making the accusations outlined above. Personally, I enjoy the challenge. Although I suppose I should admit I've never had the opportunity to reference blip-blop in a conversation. Uh, until now, I suppose.