Songs from Scotland's knee

[imomus]

I don't usually do gig plugs here on Click Opera, but if you're in Glasgow tonight, go and see Wounded Knee at 8pm at Nice ’N’ Sleazy (421 Sauchiehall Street).



Wounded Knee is Drew Wright, who's from Edinburgh. On his MySpace page he describes himself as a "future primitive" and "happy amateur" using "lapsed electronics". If fact, all he uses is vocals and a delay pedal. The results sound like early Animal Collective, Bjork's acapella album Medulla, Gaelic hymn singing, and -- just a teensy bit, though he'll probably hate me for saying it -- The Proclaimers.

A friend sent me the latest Wounded Knee CD, Shimmering Vistas (Benbecula Records), and I was impressed, especially by twenty minute epic The Sublime Frequencies. Have a listen to opening track My Wooden Cupboard, with its odd, infectious rhythms. You can download early Wounded Knee recordings or read his (neglected but spiritual) blog, in which you'll learn that he supports Hibs and reads John Pilger. The older recordings feature more instrumentation, though -- abstract and distorted Black Dice-style electronics -- and sound, to me, less seductive and fresh than the new stuff.

Apart from contributing a track to one of The Wire's Tapper CDs, Drew has put out at least seven Wounded Knee CDs on his own label Shazzblat, with brilliant titles like Mycology is Better Than Yours, Star Wars Minus the Shite, and The Epistemic Murk. I'm intrigued by the sound of a song called Green Tea Ceremony, "34 minutes of improvised chanting that develops into a multi-layered heap of sound that retains a droning core".

Some critics have suggested that Drew should introduce other instruments or develop his song structures more, but I think the drone-chant element, shamanic and hippyish and completely non-pop, is the greatest strength of Wounded Knee recordings. A bit like Tomomi Adachi's Royal Chorus (a Japanese Fluxus choir I love), Drew knows just how much or how little to add to keep a track interesting. On the new album there are interesting lyrics and wild cries, and the compositions shift gradually from motif to motif, riff to riff, pumped ever forward by the delay pedal. Some will say this is too close to Here Comes The Indian for comfort, but I like it better than anything Animal Collective have done. If it's a Scottish copy of the Baltimore Beatniks, it's one that somehow manages to sound more pure and more original than the original.

There you go, Drew, that'll be £5, please.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I wanted to buy a copy of Shimmering New Vistas, but it seems it's not out yet. I'll stick with curiosity until official release (My Wooden Cupboard sounds pretty interesting, actually).

Filippo

[(Anonymous)]

Bob Hoskins.

[(Anonymous)]

This album sounds interesting to write about and bad to listen to. Thanks for the recommendation.

[sandroha.livejournal.com]

design cool

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

'Canary' is beautiful, but I've always liked chant. 'Cold Enough To Snow' and 'Neurons' are both excellent.

Momus, would you do me a quick favour please and answer these two questions? I'm trying to collect quotes on musical tradition and dissent to use as a starting point for an essay. So far I've got:

"Tradition, then, is the continuity of ideas expressed through the repetition of procedures." -- Ernst Krenek 1962

"I am merely very prudent with the word, for it now seems to imply 'that which resembles the past' - the reason, incidentally, why no good artist is very happy when his work is described as 'traditional'. In fact, the true tradition making work may not resemble the past at all, and especially not the immediate past, which is the only one most people are able to hear. Tradition is generic; it is not simply "handed down", father to son, but undergoes a life process: it is born, grows, matures, declines and is reborn, perhaps." -- Stravinsky 1960

"I venture to credit myself with having written truely new music which, being based on tradition, is destined to become tradition." - Schoenberg 1984



1)In your own words, what is musical tradition and dissent?


2)Why would a musician want to follow or break with musical tradition?

fuck tradition

[(Anonymous)]

break everything
foloo nuffing
NUFFING
the most boring comments come from above
what a smug guy
brains are retarded

Re: fuck tradition

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Ah, the internet, where terribly boring people call less boring people boring!

Anyway, to attempt an answer:

1)In your own words, what is musical tradition and dissent?

Tradition and dissent in music are basically repetition and variation (the most basic musical principle) taken from the formal dimension to the historical one. I think, though, I'd prefer the word "innovation" to "dissent". The relationship between tradition and innovation is a symbiotic one; all tradition began as innovation, and all innovation depends on tradition. So it might be nice to hyphenate it: tradition-and-dissent, or "tradition 'n' dissent", as in "rock 'n' roll".

2)Why would a musician want to follow or break with musical tradition?

Why, in order -- in both cases -- to confirm musical tradition! Schoenberg famously said when he invented serialism (one of the most radical breaks with tradition the music world has ever seen): "I have made a discovery which will ensure the supremacy of German music for the next hundred years".

[(Anonymous)]

Momus.

Are you going to sell your Steinberger at one point?

Why don't sell it to me; anon; trust me Momus...

lemme know Momus, straight hood.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

[(Anonymous)]

I'm never keen on your recommendations, this didn't disappoint. I was getting wafts of Bobby Mcferrin, 'nuff said. What are your impressions of Jay Jay Johanson, has he been handed the baton from Charles Aznavor?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Jay Jay Johanson was being treated like royalty in France -- and only in France -- when I lived there in the 90s. I remember liking one of his sleeves, where he looked a bit Ziggy-like, but somehow the music never really connected.

[(Anonymous)]

You should like this manorexic look then

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I was going to say "Wow, he totally invented Fischerspooner, like, 3 years before they did!" But then I looked at the date: 2003. He totally invented Fischerspooner, like, 3 years after they did.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it bows more to Ziggy than Fischerspooner they all snatch a color from that palette, something you try to do yourself on occasion. He carries it better though.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, the visual goes: Ziggy, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Marilyn Manson, Fischerspooner, Jay Jay Johansen. But if you include the music, there's no other conclusion than that JJ is doing a paler, blander version of Fischerspooner with that "Radio" single. I hope it netted him lots of money, because it's certainly not the way to win any kind of cultural cred.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are many more conclusions. It sidesteps Fischerspooner completely in my opinion who to their credit were far more experimental with their arrangements. The music goes: Kraftwerk, Soft Cell, Human League, the entire 80s output actually, a slither of 90's here and there with a daub of 8bit, Jay Jay Johanson. it's by no means a great track nor I doubt was it ever meant to be anything other than a throwaway pop song. The visual could easily be taken on another tangent too, depending on your cultural reference points:
Twiggy, Ziggy,Trojan, Annie Lennox etc etc. As far as cultural cred goes, I didn't know you cared. It's not like you shower in it or anything.

[endoftheseason.livejournal.com]

"Eurotrash" is often used as one of those silly words to dismiss something out of hand, without giving it a chance or even bothering to pay attention first. But in this case it's apt--Apt!! This is a stereotypically tedious, insipid, adolescent song slapped together by a stereotypically tedious, insipid, adolescent European electro-boy who's been told once too often how special he is. Maybe it's all the fault of someone else, a producer, manager, whoever. But whatever the case is, please stop Jay Jay. It'll do you a world of good.

[(Anonymous)]

i think you might find your words are a little on the tough side to chew. This is the least representative of his total output. But feel free to chomp on regardless.

[pixelmist.livejournal.com]

"Baltimore Beatniks" is the best nickname for Animal Collective I've heard; many of my friends just call them "those hippie drum bastards." Kudos!