Marshmallowscopy

[imomus]

After the Berlin sessions with Rusty Santos, I've continued recording my 2006 album -- now entitled Ocky Milk -- here in Osaka. I've just finished a number called "Count Ossie In China" which details the adventures of the reggae pioneer in the orient. And since this is the third installment in the "Stories of O" trilogy (Oskar-Otto-Ocky), and because he's a sound genius, I've got faithful collaborator John Talaga working on the tracks. I couldn't be more delighted with the results. This time I've asked him to "take the solos" and do some kind of King Tubby dubby thing in them, cos the album is somewhat Jamaican (if Jamaica were in Tibet). Well, Fashion Flesh has just finished the first song, cutting a subterranean cave system into "Permagasm". I love it!



With collaborators of the calibre of Santos and Talaga I don't really need to go shopping for sounds. But I'm heading to Kyoto today to visit this amazing place that I read about on Roddy Schrock's blog. What you see above is Oto Kinoko (literally "Sound Mushroom"). It's a shop where you can buy individual sounds. Oto Kinoko is the dreamchild of Kazumichi Fujiwara, who used to run the Sound Museum on cult Japanese kids' show Ugo Ugo Lhuga. I appeared on the show back in 1993 as "Sampler-San the sampler man", demonstrating how to collect sounds with a video camera and turn them into music in an Akai sampler. The brilliant Toshio Iwai was involved in Ugo Ugo Lhuga, and I believe he's involved in Oto Kinoko too.

Fujiwara says his sounds have been collected all over the world: you can download from his friendly sound machines (a mixture of box-robots and marshmallowscopes, he calls them) the sound of "wind, animal farts, the blinking of frogs, insects fucking, etc". You can enjoy them, buy them, and take them home. I have no idea how much they cost, or quite how you take them home (I'm assuming you leave the store with a CD). I'll report more in the comments section later when I've actually visited Oto Kinoko. But I just want to say "Isn't this completely great?" Only in Japan...

Comments

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to check that out for years, but someone never get around to it.

And that someone was you!

Does today's post imply that Tibet is part of China, or have I mis-read something?

No, there's no connection between Ossie being in China in the song and Jamaica being in Tibet in that passing remark. The Jamaica Tibet thing is really just because I noticed certain similarities in the way the two countries use colour.

Colour

[(Anonymous)]

The Jamaica Tibet thing is really just because I noticed certain similarities in the way the two countries use color.

Care to elaborate?-Jed

Re: Colour

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Okay. I was impressed by the thesis of David Batchelor's book Chromophobia (http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/fyfe/fyfe2-13-01.asp), which says that many post-Protestant cultures have a fear and suspicion of colour.

Last year when I was stuck in Hokkaido I watched, over and over again, a video of the movie Rockers (http://www.reggaemovement.com/Reviews/dvd/rockers.htm). During his adventures riding around Jamaica selling dub plates to indie record stores, Horsemouth wears bright colours and passes through a landscape of bright colours. In the depths of the Hokkaido winter this was a kind of vitamin C for me.

Later in the year I saw a documentary on Arte about life in a Tibetan hospital. Something about the Buddhist use of colours in Tibet reminded me of the Rastafarian use of colours in Jamaica. Some lack of chromophobia they shared. That's all. No science involved, just one of my cranky hunches.

Re: Colour

[imomus.livejournal.com]

If you followed that link to the Artnet review of "Chromophobia", by a painter called Joe Fyfe, and got to the bottom and read the date, I wonder if some of these thoughts passed through your mind, as they did mine?

* Fyfe talks about the fuchsia jeans he almost bought at Helmut Lang. He's gay, isn't it? (Hmm, not ascertainable from this (http://www.bombmagazine.com/contribsp02.html).)
* "Chromophobia" sounds very close to "homophobia".
* The same people who hate colour hate gays.
* This book, and this review was written before 9/11. The colour cause was doing better before 9/11 than after.
* Aesthetic appreciation of colour is associated with women, gays, cosmopolitans and liberals. The battle for colour is a battle with both cultural and political dimensions.
* Yuki's blog (http://kissui.net/) talks a lot about colour, as does Jean Snow's (http://jeansnow.net/). Marxy's (http://pliink.com/mt/marxy/) doesn't, although he's studying marketing, and you'd think colour would be very relevant to that. But Marxy is more interested in power, and specifically cartels.

Re: Colour

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think what this comes down to in the end is that there are two tribes, one which sees the world in terms of numbers and text and power and one which sees the world in terms of colour, texture, aesthetics. And it seems to me that the first philosophy, taken to its extreme, finds its fulfillment in Thanatos, in death. The second finds its fulfillment in Eros, in life.

Rap is text music, reggae is texture music. 00s America is a Thanatos culture (war), 90s America an Eros culture (consumerism, peace). Capitalism can accommodate to either culture.

My work at the moment is more about texture than text. Often people want me to go back to stories, but I see stories (a certain kind of story, anyway, even if it's satire, a text critical of the dominant text culture) as part of the problem (http://imomus.livejournal.com/169292.html). And, of course, finally there's the idea that texture is a form of text, just a much richer and more tactile text. (This is sort of what lies behind the idea of field recordings as ambient music. Notate those crickets!) And text can be a form of texture: ask graphic designers.

Re: Colour

[nomorepolitics.livejournal.com]

Well said.

This is a very important issue that is too little mentioned; I agree that Puritanism is to blame, but Christianity and Islam are guilty of the same to a lesser extent.

What most bothers me is that so many walls are white; and what makes me even angrier is that landlords don't let me paint them. I fell like I'm going through life living on a blank page that I can never quite fill. I'm worse than teenagers, trying to cover up my walls.

That's another thing I liked about Japan; there was less white wall space to hide.









No matter what, there's always too much white. And the frames here are only available in one color: black. Maybe I'll take the time to paint them one day.

Re: Colour

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ha, I like how the pink border of Click Opera adds a subtle colour tone to your room!

Re: Colour

[nomorepolitics.livejournal.com]

It's funny that you mention Tibet. I've been obsessed with Nepalese and Tibetan nomad housing. They live in colorful large tents made of layers of colorful fabrics. While in Japan, to immitate this, I could afford to cover my whole room with fabrics and even put red, green, and blue paper in my shoji. It became the most comfortable place I ever lived. My roomates started spending more time in my room, too.

Re: Colour

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

the nomad tents i saw in tibet were all brown and grey, because they were made from untreated yak wool.

You didn't travel high enough.

[nomorepolitics.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a Mongolian yurt or ger (what you saw were probably the Tibetan tents, which are quite plain, yes). These nomadic people live higher up in the mountains, they often travel through Tibet and Nepal. Being a nomad descendant -- gypsy -- I feel a hint of relation to these people.











The last one is a perfect contrast revealing the Puritanism of western culture.

If there's a need or desire, you can learn how to build your own. (http://www.woodlandyurts.co.uk/Yurt_Facts/Build_Your_Own.html)

And this Tibetan nomad is more stylish than any of us!!!

Re: Colour

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Perhaps not the best example of a culture that 'celebrates' life anyway, eh? The problem I have with some of this (not what you wrote) is the way it expects other people to not only be acquainted with the conceits but also expects their behavior to conform to them -- even if the behaviors identified were not intended as expressions of what Momus is talking down on. Other than that, colors yes!!

colors yes!!

[nina-blomquist.livejournal.com]

i agree.

Re: Colour

[nomorepolitics.livejournal.com]

Not quite the best example of a life affirming culture, right; but the idea that these people surround themselves with color, is all I was getting at -- as a contrast to the problem of white walls and black clothes.

All traditional cultures are conformist; but conformity is often just fine with me, except when it's unethical, tasteless, or boring, and it often isn't.

Re: Colour

[kubia.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether I would agree to a dichotomy between text and texture, even if only lexemes form the subject matter. After all, Roland Barthes describes text as a form of texture and thereby hints at the way a text creates its own subject. I can see why you are sceptical of narrative, but I find it rather regretful should you succumb to the view that narrations cannot be answered by narrations, i.e. your texts are witty and funny and certainly oppose a thanatos culture.

Re: Colour

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Worst of all, it's written in text.