A grand finale of a VOXstravaganza!
Theme: tribal(ish)
(did you forget, like me, just how good Animal Collective could be? how out...? Classic case of later parts of the discography erasing the early parts in the memory!)
An earlier version of the same song, titled "Chant"
Not sure there's even any "mouth" on this one but guessing there must be a trace
And finally - not really tribal, definitely primal - and most likely the very first 'extremism of the human voice' record I heard - Diamanda Galas, The Litanies of Satan - bought off the strength of a review by Barney Hoskyns or Chris Bohn, one or t'other, can't recall - Tried, once, listening to this in the dark - never made that mistake again.
Starting with the flipside which is even more deranged and un-defanged than the title track side
and the title track, but a live version, ripped from an old VHS it says
Actually, correction: it was a few years before buying Litanies of Satan that I had my initiation in extremism of the human voice - which, unless we're counting "Death Disco" - came courtesy Steve Micalef. Whose sprawling, indiscriminately acquired collection contained many surprises, but none more surprising than two ethnographic records: the Jeux Vocaux Des Inuits, which I think I included earlier, or at least some proximate examples of the genre, and then this one:
Which - I am afraid to say - we used to nickname "Venuzuelan Vomit" on account of the sleevenotes description of the retchings and snot dangling in long mucoid strings from the shaman's noses and chins, on account of the violent emetic effects of the ayahuasca potion they'd ingested. Used to play it at our student parties, we did.
Did not realise at the time that this album was actually recorded and released by David Toop, fearless ethnomusicological explorer of the Amazonian jungle.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Anyways, the Galas and Yanomamo between them make for rather a good soundtrack with which to memorialize a year that prompted almost uninterrupted gnashing 'n' wailing...
Here's hoping for a better 2015 for all of us.
Happy new year!
"a Simon Reynolds level culture blog" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^"my brain thinks bloglike"
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
mouth music # 49
Lumberob - who I had the great surprise and delight of witnessing live, with Jad Fair, some years ago in NYC. quite unprepared
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
mouth music # 48
Some ace suggestions offered by Bob Cluness via Facebook a while ago that I forgot to post...
First up, Bjork
modes she continued with the Dirty Projectors....
"as part of Anna Homler's "Pharmacia Poetica" series of installations that "demonstrates how the literal becomes the lyrical and in so doing, cures"
Blurb for Phurpa's The Sound of Dakini Laughter
"This voyage began in the middle of the 1990's in Moscow, when a group of artists and musicians led by Alexei Tegin and based at the legendary Fabrique of Cardinal Art commenced their studies of traditional ritual music, drifting away from the field of contemporary electroacoustic and industrial music with the intent to delve deeper into the ancient musical cultures of the ancient Egypt, Iran and Tibet.
The original 2003 lineup of the project that emerged as a result was dubbed Phurpa (one of the five tutelary deities of the Father Tantra in Bon tradition), and all the members have carried on with their research in the field of Bon and Buddhist liturgies up to the present day.
Before Buddhism reached Tibet, local people had practiced involved shamanic rites derived from various ancestral cults. Later on, circa the VI-IX century AD, a conflict between the local tradition, namely, the pre-Buddhist religion of Bon (which originates from Central Asia) and Tantric Buddhism (hailing from the North of India) gave birth to a unique cultural phenomenon known as Tibetan Buddhism, which combines an extensive metaphysical corpus and an advanced philosophical system with pristine ceremonial practices that reach down through many centuries. In the X-XI century AD the monastic ensemble came into being. It has got a lot in common with the Chinese court ensembles of the Tang dynasty; nevertheless, the Tibetan ceremonial ensemble has preserved its authenticity and kept a large number of primordial elements stemming from the ancient Tibeto-Burmanese music intact to this day. A typical ensemble usually includes a pair of nga drums, several rolmo cymbals and a pair of gyaling oboes, as well as telescopic dunchen horns, dunkar shells and short wandun horns. One of the unique features of the Tibetan monastic choir is a specific kind of overtone chanting, called "rgyud-skad", or the Tantric voice, which is based on the principle of the singer's transmogrification during the so-called "chanting meditation".
And a couple more guest suggestions from Andrew Parker, which he concedes might be "too conventional" but nonetheless in the case of the Sill, he associates with "'Starsailor' due to the dense vocal overdubs" and with the Mitchell while "pretty straight... the vocal is very exposed"
First up, Bjork
modes she continued with the Dirty Projectors....
"as part of Anna Homler's "Pharmacia Poetica" series of installations that "demonstrates how the literal becomes the lyrical and in so doing, cures"
Blurb for Phurpa's The Sound of Dakini Laughter
"This voyage began in the middle of the 1990's in Moscow, when a group of artists and musicians led by Alexei Tegin and based at the legendary Fabrique of Cardinal Art commenced their studies of traditional ritual music, drifting away from the field of contemporary electroacoustic and industrial music with the intent to delve deeper into the ancient musical cultures of the ancient Egypt, Iran and Tibet.
The original 2003 lineup of the project that emerged as a result was dubbed Phurpa (one of the five tutelary deities of the Father Tantra in Bon tradition), and all the members have carried on with their research in the field of Bon and Buddhist liturgies up to the present day.
Before Buddhism reached Tibet, local people had practiced involved shamanic rites derived from various ancestral cults. Later on, circa the VI-IX century AD, a conflict between the local tradition, namely, the pre-Buddhist religion of Bon (which originates from Central Asia) and Tantric Buddhism (hailing from the North of India) gave birth to a unique cultural phenomenon known as Tibetan Buddhism, which combines an extensive metaphysical corpus and an advanced philosophical system with pristine ceremonial practices that reach down through many centuries. In the X-XI century AD the monastic ensemble came into being. It has got a lot in common with the Chinese court ensembles of the Tang dynasty; nevertheless, the Tibetan ceremonial ensemble has preserved its authenticity and kept a large number of primordial elements stemming from the ancient Tibeto-Burmanese music intact to this day. A typical ensemble usually includes a pair of nga drums, several rolmo cymbals and a pair of gyaling oboes, as well as telescopic dunchen horns, dunkar shells and short wandun horns. One of the unique features of the Tibetan monastic choir is a specific kind of overtone chanting, called "rgyud-skad", or the Tantric voice, which is based on the principle of the singer's transmogrification during the so-called "chanting meditation".
And a couple more guest suggestions from Andrew Parker, which he concedes might be "too conventional" but nonetheless in the case of the Sill, he associates with "'Starsailor' due to the dense vocal overdubs" and with the Mitchell while "pretty straight... the vocal is very exposed"
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