Thom's Link Emporium - 0011 - 3 April 2022
Links
* Music producer Steve Albini writes to Nirvana to lay down the ground rules for recording In Utero. Contains such gems as:
I do not consider recording and mixing to be unrelated tasks which can be performed by specialists with no continuous involvement. 99 percent of the sound of a record should be established while the basic take is recorded. Your experiences are specific to your records; but in my experience, remixing has never solved any problems that actually existed, only imaginary ones. I do not like remixing other engineer's recordings, and I do not like recording things for somebody else to remix. I have never been satisfied with either version of that methodology. Remixing is for talentless pussies who don't know how to tune a drum or point a microphone.
Previously, Albini wrote an essay ripping apart the music industry of the time.
To understand why everyone was bemoaning the imminent Oscars takes last night, first, we have to define what Twitter is in 2022. It’s a fandom app for current events. The users on there don’t have anything in common other than an increasingly pathological need to consume either news as content or content as news. Which can get kind of dark, like when a pandemic starts or an actual war breaks out. But an awards show is the perfect kind thing to bring every pocket of Twitter user out of the woodwork. It’s essentially the school assembly that all the app’s different insane cliques have to attend. And then they use it to project whatever weird fixation they have on the rest of the platform’s users.
Ted Gioia writes about the musicality of wailing and keening (the sounds of grief made often by women in some cultures) and its links to the blues:
Highly stylized musical laments were acceptable—for example, songs representing the weeping of Mary at the cross of Jesus, or a planctus for the funeral of monarch or noble, especially if it were sung in Latin. But the actual melodic keening at the death of a peasant or artisan was repeatedly criticized, sometimes even prohibited, during the entire medieval era. In text after text from leading authorities—John Chrysostom, Jerome, Augustine—these intense expressions of grief were singled out for attack.
Listening
Not all of the albums in this list were released in March, but they were all released this year. It’s been a good month:
Crash by Charli XCX (Spotify, Music). I loved Charli’s 2020 lockdown album, How I’m Feeling Now, but this feels like a great progression into more bombastic, extroverted pop. Pretty much every track’s a potential single, this is just great.
Black Country, New Road by Ants From Up There (Spotify, Music) Really fascinating album that brings together elements of indie, jazz and classical whilst still making melodic, catchy tracks. An excellent album that would have won in any other month.
Life on Earth by Hurray for the Riff Raff (Spotify, Music) Another strong HFTRR album. I’m more of a fan of Small Town Heroes from 2014, but there’s a lot to like here.
Glitch Princess by Yule (Spotify, Music). I’ll admit I didn’t listen through the 4:44:00 long final track, and this isn’t actually as glitchy as a lot of other music around, but there are some good pop tracks here.
Plonk by Huerco S. (Spotify, Music) Fun, experimental album that deserves a couple of listens.
PAINLESS by Nilüfer Yanya (Spotify, Music). I didn’t find too much all that exciting in this indie album, but it’s certainly a solid piece of work and I suspect it might grow on me.
Reading
I finished Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman this week. It’s another productivity book, but one that goes considerably deeper than most and is soon pointing out that your need to get tasks done relates to your fear of death. It’s up to you how much that appeals, but it’s one of the best books in this field I’ve read.
Watching
Patrick Willems explains why Batman: The Movie from 1966 is great, not least because Adam West (and the other actors) play every ridiculous scene like it’s Shakespeare
Paul Rudd has been pranking Conan O'Brien with a clip from Mac and Me since 2004. This week he did it on a Conan's podcast.
Quote
Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters.
D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, 1926