imomus | Bantam Boys

A new Momus mp3 for your consideration (and suggested Paypal dollar donation if you like and keep it): Bantam Boys

Sorry, this track is no longer available. Please buy the CD when it comes out!

I wonder if it's too late for me to become a eunuch... or at least sing like one? Bantam Boys is perhaps the strangest new song so far, splicing the spirits of Henry Purcell, Klaus Nomi and Matthew Barney. It has eunuchs and synths and shit harlequins and polluted ballet shoes. It even has a background drone specially made by Bernhard Gal, with whom I've been talking about collaborating for months. Although Anne Laplantine's not on it, I do seem to have taken a page from her cut-up guitar book. Oh, and there's a guy in New York who would totally understand this song. He's called Michael Portnoy. (You can hear him singing about husks and buckwheat on the art gallery version of Handheld, incidentally.)

Have a listen and tell me what you think. Actually, when I wrote the song I had no idea what it was about. But in retrospect I'm pretty sure it's about an experience I had at the Warhol party on Saturday night, when a certain green-robed queen with a train of bantam boys holding up her dress was too proud to deign to acknowledge my existence. O Venus thou art cruel!

Bantam Boys

O Africa and orient bring gifts
Spigot weed and egg of the teal
Master baker bring me eel
O your legs were lovely
The synth, bring the synth
Bring the rickety raggedy synth

You harlequins you play such shit
The colour is clean
But you pollute the ballet shoes
You are trying to keep them new
I'm sorry for you

Here comes the queen
Fat and obscene
See her a-staggering
Bringing her bantam boys along
In a line behind her

Walk, walk with a bassoon in the rain
Ringing the filters, ringing the filters
Ringing the summer in

Walk, walk with a bassoon in the rain
Ringing the eunuch, ringing the eunuch
Ringing the eunuch in

Dr Walford Bodie dragging along on a string
A spaniel made of tin
Arise, arise
O Venus shall arise

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

After watching Kirsty Wark on Mary Queen of Scots on BBC4 this has made it a rather reformist evening. The sense of more meed and debauched behaviour in the second round is perfect. Don't go the whole hogg, It's convincing before any chops have been made.

That Momus should become a countertenor at his advanced age (!) surprises me, but not the fact that here's another gem for my overflowing jewel box.

Now I've got it! Momus is working on an "entertainment" much like Walton and Sitwell's "Facade." The baroque poetry and kaleidoscopic genre-shifting of his recent songs is not unlike that immortal suite.

More castratos! More ephebes mincing in Poiret gowns! More cock and cockerel!

Forgive the obvious, but wouldn't this be a quite beautiful live performance accompanied by the full AmPatch group? I am truly enjoying the experiments you are making. I would like to see a track using non instruments. Maybe a little old fashioned pitched percussion from a source other than computer or piano.What would music become without the instruments?

Not long ago I complained about lj replies to artists' posts which consisted soley of the word "brilliant," and contained absolutely no other content (or syllables, for that matter!).

Well, shame on me. This track was completely unexpected and fantastic.

I've walked with a bassoon in the rain, and I can tell you, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

But have you tried dragging along on a string a spaniel made of tin? It's wonderful!

Pencilled in for next Thu. x

This is the strangest song you have posted yet. Your voice is incredible on this, surely some pitch-shifting going on ?
RichardG

No pitch shifting at all, but there is some tempo compacting. I use some really old software that does it really clumsily, but has the unexpected side effect of perking up the stereo image in crazy ways, making everything burble, and changing the pitch on quieter notes. I use it quite a lot if I want 'instant ostranenie'. 'Lady Fancy Knickers' was the first track that used it heavily, there's some on 'Klaxon' and there's some on this. I'm going to keep the name of the software secret, though. There's also some sound granulation on the vocals at the very end, where they slow down. That's done with a thing called MacPod.

Was the unreleased "Lady Fancy Knickers" early in the Oskar sessions, as this sound seems very much a part of its ostranenie? I like this sound very much so say no more on the alchemy !
RichardG

talking about eunuchs reminds me that you traveled to thailand before (the "ladyboys of bangkok" was the trigger in connecting the subjects) and i was just wondering if you have any suggestions on what i should look for while i'm there. on pretty much a whim i've decided to travel there in a few months, probably make my way up to cambodia too.why i would assume you would be an authority figure on travels to southeast asia...just play along with me here.

My impressions of Thailand were very mixed:

http://www.imomus.com/thought240601.html

dear momus,
are you happy with your life? i must know...

Love the song (but I also love Nomi and the Tiger Lillies)...second the request for a song without instruments! Use carrots, a series of bottles, and a cheese grating device instead. Have you heard Robyn Hitchcock's "Wafflehead"? Yeah, give your instruments the day off and have fun!

What would music become without the instruments?

One of the ideas I had for this album was to do the whole thing a cappella. Then I had a listen to Todd Rudgren's A Cappella (http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=ygx1CcOgB8&ean=81227576127) album and that put me off. I was glad I hadn't done the idea when I heard that Bjork's next album, 'The Lake Experience', is entirely a cappella.

If you want to hear an incredible a cappella album, listen to Louis Philippe's album Jean Renoir. After hearing that, you'll agree there's no point trying to head in that direction as nothing can better Louis' effort.
In terms of the new song, it's the weakest of the lot, the runt of the litter. Your voice sounds too affected, and you're obviously out of your range. I'm a fan but not a fanatic and must say that I hope this remains off the new album. Save it as another vodka jelly.

Of course I know Louis Philippe (http://www.louisphilippe.co.uk/)'s 'Jean Renoir' album! Yes, it's good, one of my favourite of his records, in fact. He's someone else who would have made a great eunuch. By the way, did you know that eunuchs were very much in demand with women because, if they'd had their tubes snipped after puberty, they could maintain erection much longer than ordinary men, giving pleasure but no children?

Hmm, considering that eunuchs were much in demand with women, one might consider giving it a try(given that he's brave and fearless), maybe neo-eunuchs(or whatever we might end up naming them) aren't that far away...
Without elaborating too much about it, I could say that some guys I know might somewhat correspond to what I would call a neo-eunuch, although not physically speaking.

actually, neo-eunuchs should be nice.

i like it that all the latest momus songs are so different from each other.
that never ceases to surprise me. predictably, you're hard to predict, and that's great.

rosa (http://www.fotolog.net/qinghuayuan)

Was browsing through the entries I'd missed whilst in Africa, when I found this wee beastie. Peels of laughter and delight rang through my halls. I have made payment for this track and Robin Hood.

Please allocate these monies to your wicker trousers fund.

W

Bantam Boys

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Look at the harlequins

Ensemble

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Ostranenie

Re: Ostranenie

Re: Ostranenie

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hard to predict

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