The album reaches Ethiopia

[imomus]

And you may ask yourself, well... how did I get here?

Let's see, I was in Tripoli with a taxi driver, then in Elizabethan England with the bantam boys -- they were some sort of black electrobethan eunuch dandies, I guess -- and then, wondering where to go next, I remembered an African singer my friend, the composer Roddy Schrock, mentioned on his blog a couple of months back, Alemu Aga. I listened to Alemu Aga at the time, some sound samples of his album in Buda Musique's Ethiopiques series, and was struck by the grave sensuality of his poet's voice and the resonant, buzzy, yet soothing sound of his beguena. So the next thing became a trip to Ethiopia to channel the Aga.

I started by sampling my fuzzy-stringed acoustic guitar, which sounds quite like a beguena, and improvising a complex yet intuitive sequence into EZVision. I also wanted to create a rhythmic backing a bit like the one you can hear in this sample of some Addis Ababa azmari street musicians. Well, my electronics didn't really capture the intimacy of Alemu Aga or the dry snappy zest of the azmaris; what emerged was something not a million miles from Talking Heads circa 1980.

The lyrics took a while. A structureless song like this needs a chantlike vocal. At first (influenced by Alemu Aga's title 'Death of the Lefthanded Man', the Epic of Gilgamesh, and, musically, 'Tomorrow Never Knows') it was a song about death with psychedelic-ethnic vocal inflections. But that felt too sombre and portentous. So then it became a first-person retelling of the plot of a great film I saw recently, Hyenas, a transplantation to Senegal of Durrenmatt's play 'The Visit'. But I didn't like the silly African accent I was adopting as I tried to play the character. Finally, it became a song about divining for water, sung in Orominya, one of the languages of Ethiopia. I added a lot of sounds and made a lot of 'tape' manipulations. That's where it is now. Here's the mp3... in fact, this time there are two:

The Water Song (Nick mix)

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



The mix I ended up with incorporates a piece by Roddy Schrock (we met in Tokyo last year, spent new year together in Berlin, and Roddy's now based in Holland, making music for contemporary dance amongst other things), inspired by Alemu Aga. I liked the much more radical nature of Roddy's composition. It added an avant garde edge to my piece. The 'Nick' mix just uses Roddy's piece as a background texture, the 'Provisional Roddy' mix foregrounds it. But Roddy is working on his own mix: 'At some point,' he writes, 'I would find it interesting if I re-remixed them again, sort of moved them back towards the experimental side of the spectrum.' When Roddy makes that mix, I'll link to it and take down the Provisional Roddy mix I'm posting here. Anyway, all comments and donations (one dollar suggested) are welcome, as usual!

I have to say I'm not sure if this track is just a curiosity or if it will end up on the album. That depends where things go, thematically and musically, from here. By the way, the mp3 posting will have to end when I sign a contract with Cherry Red for the CD release of this album, which is likely to happen soon. I want there to be something still undiscovered, some remaining mystery, when the record comes out.

The Water Song

Orominya
Woha chigralla
Woha yellem
Woha koom

Mook gasgazza
Na amboha
Aneed gatata gra na ky

Dehnaderu
Ayasfeligegnim
Koom sigarra
Ayasfeligegnim koom

Leslassa ishi
Katata aneed
Woha yellem
Aydellem

Tenastalign
Denaderu
Chigr alla
Chigr yellem

Comments

[psychicmongoose.livejournal.com]

How many languages do you know?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The Orominya is just assembled from phrases I found on websites. I'm sure an Ethiopian would find it hilarious. The song probably says 'Excuse me, can you tell me where I might find a European-style loo?'

[(Anonymous)]

goodbye nick...
i have all of your album, i loved (and i still love) all of them... except oskar.
i can't follow you in this new music way, i cant'"understand".

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, sad though that decision is, it's kind of nice that this new system allowed you to make it without investing $15 in a CD then feeling ripped off when you discovered it wasn't your tasse de thé.

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, I have to agree with my anonymous namesakes. This simply doesn't work on any level. I think you're trying too hard, and you've ended up with something lifeless and silly. I want to see you do better than this - all artists have the right to make mistakes, otherwise there would never be any risk-taking. Please reflect on your direction, Nick.

- Charlotte

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of inclined to agree that it is a bit lifeless, actually. It probably won't make the record, unless Roddy makes something great with his remix.

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

Ok, my assessment in reverse order of competence (just out of my love of lists):

Robin Hood: Mediocre
Corkscrew King: OKish
Bantam Boys: OK
The Water Song: OK
Klaxon: Good
Serpreverde: Excellent
Life of the fields: Excellent

By the way, the new one reminds me not so much of Talking Heads as of Peter Gabriel (circa 1990).

All in all, the mood swings will make for an interesting album.

[baronessvontito.livejournal.com]

MOMUS! <3

[imomus.livejournal.com]

<3

Radio Ethiopia

[(Anonymous)]

My intuition told me that Momus might soon be making a musical trip to Ethiopia, if only because I've just been listening to "Music of the Ethiopian Coptic Church" from a beloved collection of old Unesco lps. (Now, that would be something to sample!)

I once had two Ethiopian students, brother and sister, who were the sweetest, most beautifully innocent students I've ever had; they lent me their high school yearbook, which was actually just a well-foxed, perfect-bound collection of mimeographs. They were so proud of this sad little "book," which they'd carried with them from country to country, that I had to cry; sadder still, it was filled with Ethiopian attempts to mimic "American" fads and phrases, but getting it all wrong, of course. These mistranslations were both pathetic and heartbreaking; the best I can recall is that a typical "cool" saying documented in the pages was something like, "look, now I am becoming a hotdog." Sadder still was the fact that they'd survived the Eritrean war and had probably lost most of their family and now were faced with the harsh realities of this America they'd once idolized from afar.

I'm just mentioning this because I know how love Momus loves mistranslations, and I can easily imagine that native speakers of Orominya might find these lyrics as amusing or mystifying as I found some of the phrases in that yearbook. Certainly, for "Westerners" Ethiopia has always seemed the most mysterious country on the continent, from the days of Prestor John all the way up to Haile Selassie.

Momus can certainly do a better job of handling his detractors than I ever could, so I won't defend the song, except to say that I've found it to be quite satisfying, with more of that mystery all too rare even on the fringes of "popular" music. (The Roddy version is indeed the more adventurous.) But I do wonder, more than rhetorically, why these detractors keep coming back to these pages and the music, only to condemn or regret. Not that I don't think a little dissent isn't good for Momus--but I'd have to be pretty bored to want to keep listening to the words and music of someone I couldn't abide or who constantly frustrated me. I mean, you turn to the Fox network for a couple minutes now and then just to remind yourself how bad it really is, but then you move on...

Re: Radio Ethiopia

[(Anonymous)]

Addendum

I have a friend who remembers Moondog well from his days of busking in Manhattan in the early 1960s. People then seemed to view this crazy bearded giant on the sidewalk with a mixture of reverence and mockery, and judging from his titles and the music itself, Moondog never took himself too seriously, either--and I suspect he never worried too much about how seriously he'd be taken forty years later. My point being that you just do what you're compelled to do now, and let the future--whatever's left of it--take care of itself. To live is to experiment and to experiment is to live.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

I usually see these new entries from my PC at my job, where I can't really listen to audio files. Through a remote SSH session to my shell server/file server at home, I'll download the latest song, then click back to my local web browser, make my $1 donation and proceed to imagine what the song will sound like, based on Nick's explanation and the comments which follow.

I was not familiar with Momus before stumbling across this livejournal, and truth be told it's the wide berth of his interest that has held my attention. It would seem that the recent audio work is struggling to attain the same variety of texture that is on evidence in his writing and photography. There is a violation of traditional Western songwriting "values" in that the songs seem intended to convey ideas themselves rather than strict linear narratives (even though some of the lyrics feature linear narratives) or overwhelming emotions (even though perceived emotional affectation is a seemingly inescapble consequence of aural stimulation). Thus the Bowie influence peeks through. This experimentation is a selling point for me, as the overlap of Momus' experiences (and education) with mine isn't precisely symmetrical.

I didn't know Momus the hip 4AD recording artist; I didn't know Momus the provisional Japanese pop star; I didn't know Momus the whatever he was before. But I like whatever it is Momus is becomming now. I purchased Oskar Tennis Champion through Amazon and adored it. I've been following the evolution of these new songs on the web and they just keep getting better. To me, Klaxon was fantastic; a taste of the same texture that made Bowie's Yassassin a standout track (and yet, Momus is not a Bowie imitator -- perhaps that's one of his major sins, to critics). It's certainly been worth a dollar every week or two to encourage him to continue exploring.

Is it empty orientalism? Is Momus floundering from conceit to conceit, swizzling his dick in every "exotic" culture that grabs his eye -- and through that process belittling the styles and artforms he adapts to his own purposes? (Oh, those noble savages -- if only they knew what he's done.) Is there no substance under the surface here? Is it all merely the desparate attempt of a middle-aged man to reclaim (claim?) some measure of Otherness for himself against the event horizon of terminal information overload?

Personally, I don't give a shit.

Can't wait to hear the new song, Nick.

[(Anonymous)]

Very well put--I didn't discover Momus until his post-"Stars Forever" period, so I was surprised (and quite pleased) by all that came before--and I'm still pleased by all that's come after. "Klaxon" might very well be my favorite song of the year--and this is the one he considers a throwaway!

Listen, everyone--how often are we invited into an artist's studio to see how a work of art grows from sweaty inspiration to marble-cool completion? Don't you understand what a great privilege that is, the very opposite of pretentious secrecy? I've been buying music for decades, always far on the other side of the divide, accepting any offal thrown to me from behind all those obfuscating curtains of celebrity and prestige. If there's any problem with Momus, it's that he has too many muses peering over his shoulders and too many of us here crowded into his atelier while he's simply trying to get some work done.

I can't begin to describe the joy I feel in the midst of my beige-colored days to find that new song just posted or that unpredictable observation--or even the nasty bilge from a hater. If that's sad or even pathetic of me and my narrow life, so be it, but at least Momus is a platinum glow in the beige clouds and he's made at least one person (and I'd guess many others) just a little happier.

Oh--and if I may be so bold, maybe a sort of African shofar solo might liven the mix a bit (such as the way the violin or erhu or whatever was used in "Klaxon").

(Roddy, I've glanced at your journal and want to read more--I've only recently discovered Alvin Curran and want to read and hear more!)

[(Anonymous)]

Momus,
Please. We, your fans, need another "classic" momus album. Think Circus Maximus, think Hippopotomomus, think Ping Pong. Enough striving for the Wire. (They'll never review you. It's something personal.)
You used to write so eloquently about the human condition, about love, and sex. What are you writing about now? (The Bantam Boys!) Can you honestly say that your current output matches the honesty of your earlier work? Years from now will people still be listening to Robin Hood? No, I am certain that they'd rather here The Homosexual. I remember when your songs used to send a shiver up my spine. Now they leave me flat, and disinterested.
Please Momus I want to hear that spark again. Has the muse left you?
Veena

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Veena, I'd be interested to know what other artists you like.

[(Anonymous)]

Veena,
Enough of your longing for the past. Momus is a middle aged man now. He's not the sexy young thing he once was. With a decrease in libido, you will see an increase in the cerebral. And I for one am all for it. Paul McCartney used to write some amazing music with the Beatles, and Paul continues to write some great stuff that reflects more where he is in the age spectrum. Everyone gets old, Veena.
Keep on truckin Momus!

[(Anonymous)]

What did you say about Pet Shop Boys?
Today, somebody is telling you the same. Don't get angry, Nick. The "Anonymous" are more than one. It's not obsession, but delusion.

Musical Anomie

[(Anonymous)]

These tracks have brought out a lot of hostility. Surprising to me. Does this experiment ( of airing new material ) bring with it negative reactions that might inhibit future work? I think not as Nick's skin and agenda are thicker than this. If Momus was to keep recycling his past then it would inhibit his development as an artist. I guess as Momus moves away from the memes of his own music and the rules of pop then he could alienate some people. Is this musical anomie or more explicitly commercial suicide ? How many copies of "Tender Pervert" were sold against "Oskar" ? I think Momus has never really been seeking major sales so what is different this time around ?

I am all for the experimentation. I hear shades of "This Heat" in the second mix and a kind of David Cunningham production sound which is great. I slightly miss the English language on this track. How about translating some of the lines into English as a babelfish counterpoint ?

As long as Momus keeps away from Peter Gabrielisms and avoids any kind of "honesty" ie by keeping it fake, then I think this experiment with world musics a natural development given the last few albums. Thanks for allowing us in on the experiment.
RichardG

Re: Musical Anomie

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and I was just going to write that I love it when Momus sings in languages other than English, even ones he doesn't know in the least. Since Momus is so "wordy," sometimes my focus is not enough on the music itself--but here and elsewhere the language is one with the music. (Not that Momus isn't the witttiest lyricist around!)

David Cunningham! I've been waiting for a Flying Lizards revival for years. What he did for pop music in 1980 is yet to be assimilated into popular culture. Smart observations, Richard and a bunch of you others.

[(Anonymous)]

Experimentation is necessary. I think we can all agree on that. However, I think I agree a little with what Veena is saying.
George Bataille was an exceptional writer of prose and cultural analysis. However, his poetry was piss poor.
Momus, stick to what you do best. I have this feeling your'e hearing a lot of interesting trends in music (e.g. Ehlers, Mego, Touch, etc.), but it's not your strength in the compositional realm. Why not build off of past strengths and create something experimental and new? I feel you are trying. But the songs, to be honest, are quite week in the text department.
And I agree, Summerisle is the best thing you've done since Little Red Songbook. But I'd still like to hear a proper follow up to some of your older material. You can work in many arenas, you realize.

[(Anonymous)]

And is Summerisle really a Momus album? Wasn't most of the work done by Anne?

[(Anonymous)]

it's written: send a comment.. i've sent one.. i didn't ask for an old momus or a return to the things i liked most.. i only said "i can't understand".. and i also said that i'll try to walk the way momus is walking..

i'm not a censor or something and if anne laplantine likes the new track i'm happy for you.. if you are appreciated by people you appreciate, it's the best for an artist.. my opinion is the opinion of a simple ""fan"".. not of an anonymous detractor..

[(Anonymous)]

i think the pretentious wally thing just about nails it. i mean, there's really no defence is there? i mean, his reply to the person who compared his shit to the laughable wanna be experimental stuff from the sixties - he automatically puts himself on a par with the greats. and he's just done an avant-garde (so that's what those tired old cliched noises are!) track in ethiopian replete with a wobbly guitar that's meant to sound like a goat hair fiddle. begorrah! tell me i'm not the only one who tunes in to laugh at this prat.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

'Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.' Sufi poet Rumi

[(Anonymous)]

Ah! Now I understand! Your work transcends mundane notions of good and bad, pretension and genuine value!

'By some chance, Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends...' Renaissance playwright Shakespeare

Regression here we come

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

It's appalling how many of these fans want to cling on to a past that is simply not there anymore. The choice is easy. Leave. Or write a book about how great it used to be. Regression might be your path to the future? Dream of the "perfect" album...
I hate to be this unromantic. But this criticism to a man who participated, no doubt, with an essential half, of what might turn out to be one of the century's first truly great and different albums. The voice as an instrument.
It just seems that people still have not heard "Summerisle". To me it's interesting to be part of a testing ground like this and I do like some of the new songs and the context that is given about them through this colorful journal.

Re: Regression here we come

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

Listen to Kahimi Karie's "Pygmalism", a truly excellent pop track. Voice by Karie. Song by Momus. Produced by Momus. The reverse of the "Summerisle" scenario.
I love "I'll find my way home" by Jon & Vangelis. "Pygmalism" has similar grandiose synthesizer accents. "Momus and Vangelis".

There was also the Hörspiel and the "Wicker Meets Man" essay. They are part of Summerisle as well, I guess...

Thinking about it: the start of "Pygmalism" sounds a little bit like "Porno" by the Clinic.

what to say?

[(Anonymous)]

i can only describe the process of watching some of these strangely vindictive comments pile up on this page today as surreal. who are these people?? soooo strange... sometimes i just totally forget that most people have no sense of exploration and play in their musical tastes. that being said, these tracks aren't even that far "out there." i guess it's some kind of perverse compliment that a track can get somebody so hot and bothered that they just HAVE to go out of their way to tell you how much they hate it. but it's also sort of disturbing. i just appreciate the optimism of Momus, it might be a naive optimism, in his fans such that he'd place something like this music out here where everybody can listen to it, and *maybe* even intelligently discuss it and make something better in the process.
-roddy

Re: what to say?

[(Anonymous)]

So many of the posts have been deleted, presumably by Momus, that it's hard to make any sense of this thread. I think what Momus is doing is great, I'm more interested in it than his early stuff. As someone said upstream, Momus is no longer young, he's a middle aged man with as much life behind him as ahead of him and I think you have to see his current experimentation in that light. With Momus's work there has always been this emphasis on being someone else at several removes - for example, wanting to be not just Brel, but Scott Walker being Brel. Or David Bowie being Scott Walker being Brel. Or Marc Almond being David Bowie being Scott Walker being Brel. Momus always put a more complex, post-modern gloss on the Bowie-style mask wearing, he was less the trickster Pierrot, more the Great Masturbator. The music was always a quixotic gesture, and one that eventually must lead to the Cartesian doubt of Beckett's Unnameable. But the self is a black hole that cannot be seen, even less entered into. We are entering into silence, a chaotic silence, and Momus understands that. There is no point in looking for the 'real' or the 'authentic', these are false quests. Through the prism of glamour and a "mise en abime" as Momus observes his own fantasies of the 'Other', he can stretch fragments into song, create new sorts of languages and nudge towards the things we cannot say.

Sancho

[(Anonymous)]

yesterday, i had given the start to this argument.. now let me explain my point of view.. i don't deny how important is experimentation, trying new ways of expression.. but i don't lke the last works of momus.. tha's all..

the question is: does everything that sounds new, original, strange, experimental, must be simply accepted? or can you estimate its value? for the song ethiopian (but also for bantam boys, or, if I can, for the entire oskar) can be advanced an opinion? i think (hope) yes..

or the matter become:
"do you like it"
"oh yeah.. very very beautiful.. congratulations"
"and listen to this"
"ahh.... amazing"
...
...
...
"ok.. see you"

so if i express an opinion, it is, in the first place, only an expression of a thought, without sentences or stuff like that, and then, a way in order to begin a discussion, without being accused of being a mere detractor or, worse, someone who can't appreciate the attempt of a true author..

i repeat: i like momus.. he is one of my favourite artist.. this is the only reason i decided to post that comment..

p.s.=sorry for my english..

p.p.s.=i don't wanna be a pain.. this will be my last comment.. so, nick, don't worry, i'm not obsessed.. i'm not going to abduct you, forcing you to write another "closer to you"..

[imomus.livejournal.com]

After 50 comments, LiveJournal automatically nests comments, collapsing them into threads, which makes it a bit harder to read replies to other comments. You have to click on the comment title to see it. New thread comments (in other words, comments made from the original page, rather than the Comments page) can still be seen in the normal way. It's worth making every comment from the main page after the 50th comment, even if you're replying to something.

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

Speaking of Alemu Aga, Momus, have you ever heard Forward Kwenda and his mbira music?

You can find him here:
http://www.mbira.org/forwardkwenda.html

His Tadzungaira and Gonamombe Rerume pieces on "Trance 3" (nothing to do with the genre Trance, and nothing to do with New Age music) CD from Ellipsis Arts is the most beatiful thing I ever heard.

(Even though I'm into electronic music, and can tell a Moog from a Juno, I initially thought that I was hearing a synthesizer, not an ancient instrument on a 500-year old ritual tune!)

Anonymous but civil

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Momus, you probably don't need me saying this, but I've got to say that some of the things people are saying here are not even worthy of response. Could it be that the more vindictive/aggressive posts are the product of a smidgen of inadequacy, of intimidation? I can't see why anyone would otherwise write with such nastiness. Anyway, I trust you're not affected by such crap.
I came to your live journal having never heard of you (sorry, but on the bright side I've since been lambasted by many for my woeful ignorance!) on the recommendation of a friend who's a big fan of yours, in February or something. At first I just read and greatly enjoyed your writing - always intelligent, always fresh and interesting - and that was that. That your music turned out to be so good too was a happy thing indeed! I'm doing a masters at the moment - quite stressful - and it's pretty nice for me to be able to look in of a morning on what you're up to - a little secret entree into the mind of an artist as it were. I'm really going on here, and no doubt embarrassing you, so I'll stop. But your music is a damn sight more intriguing, skillful and perhaps most importantly, pleasurable (though one has to be possessed of a certain intellectual and aesthetic finesse to derive such joys from it of course!) than most of the homogeneous rubbish around. And the lyrics are absolutely fucking brilliant! Brilliant in the old fashioned sense! So bollocks to 'em!

Ben x

PS, Just to prove that these aren't the ravings of a man devoid of taste, the music I've been pleasuring myself to today includes Gastr Del Sol, Lennie Tristano and Thomas Tallis' Spem in Alium. And the last book of poetry I read and enjoyed was by Charles Tomlinson. I don't bestow my liking lightly.

Re: Anonymous but civil

[(Anonymous)]

Oh God! I've just read that back, and it seems that the post script has distinctly onanistic overtones. Which I'd just like to make clear were not intended. Sorry for any distress caused.

Happy!

[(Anonymous)]

This song made me happy!