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Kolokol's avatar

Put me into a trance.

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ebear's avatar

Cool! Wait til you get to Blankenberge!

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Kolokol's avatar

Hey, you are a student of the 60s so you might find this interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_iK4mtUI4I&list=PL91rgWs_8qvEVzzywkvcjDjBnDZvOsY9r&index=3

I'll look for Blankenberge

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ebear's avatar

Yeah, that was great stuff. Early Discordians! Bookmark that.

Was it you that sent me the KPFA link? I tend to lose track. Listening right now.

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Kolokol's avatar

Yes, I sent KPFA link.

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ebear's avatar

Thanks. He's talking about the East block scene right now. I had a friend in Vancouver who got out of Czechoslovakia in 1968 in the trunk of his parent's car. Had a lot of eastern neighbours growing up. Hungarians, Poles, Ukrainians, Russians. Our landlord & wife were Russian and spent the war in German labour camps. Lost 4 children. They came to Canada during the Khrushchev thaw when it was possible to get out. He worked for the railroad, as he had in Russia. I was just a kid and learned all this years later from my father.

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Kolokol's avatar

Quite a story. There are lots of them, many never told.

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urbando's avatar

Struck me as North African music (not that I know anything about NA music!). The opening track is one of those noisescapes, then structured pieces emerged. The middle of the show, the drummer really kicks ass! Don't know which drummer this is. The middle pieces started to sound pretty catchy, too.

Although a guitar can certainly play quarter steps by bending, it sure can't by means of frets!

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ebear's avatar

I'd love to talk to these guys and find out how their sound evolved. I'm guessing they're ear trained guitarists who tried duplicating some of the sounds they heard in Arab, Persian and Turkic music, but couldn't quite get there on a conventional 6 string. I think they had their guitars custom made, but you can buy 1/4 tone guitars (if you can find one).

https://reverb.com/item/14196119-revelation-rjt60-marrakesh-quarter-tone-guitar

Scales and tuning systems are a major part of music theory, but most western listeners are unaware of that, since the music they listen to is based on equal temperament, which is just one of many tuning systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_temperament

That's why Medieval music sounds so strange, because it predates the current tuning system and is more closely related to the systems that came with the instruments brought back from the Crusades.

Also, many stringed instruments are fretless, so you can play any scale you want within the range of the instrument. Some, like the koto are even tuned for specific songs, and you'll see the artists adjust the bridges between sets, or even between songs.

What USSSY have done very much illustrates what I'm aiming for with the 'worlds in collision' theme. Today, thanks to the internet, we are exposed to a huge variety of foreign musical styles and cultural themes. Musicians everywhere are noticing this now and drawing inspiration from it, often with very strange but delightful results.

This trend began with "World Music" as promoted by figures such as Peter Gabriel and Jah Wobbles, but has moved well beyond those early days where western producers often put their own stamp on what was released, thus reducing its authenticity. Producers like Nitin Sawhney put Indian themes on the map in Britain, but it was still a western approach, often being symphonic or jazz oriented. I had a friend who loved that kind of stuff, but couldn't stand the authentic Punjabi folk music I played for him. Not enough sugar...lol.

Today that influence wanes as more and more foreign artists are noticed by virtue of their online presence, and as other musicians emulate their styles without intercession from western producers. Reggae beats in Tatarstan for example, or Brazilian chops in Uzbekistan!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVlfWbDyhm8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvnhXzuqPDk

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urbando's avatar

Hah! I enjoyed both the Tatar and Uzbek vids.

Dunno if the homogenization of culture via the internet is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm putting my money on it being pretty bad. The West, for instance, is doing its damnedest to corrupt the rest of the globe. Movies, music, pop culture - all targeted at diluting long-standing local culture and customs. There has always been cultural cross-pollination via literature, language, and whatnot, but the increasing acceleration of information via the internet ensures that a lot of dreck is being transferred. Don't mind me, heh, I'm just cynical.

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ebear's avatar

I understand your concern, and it's a valid observation. There's always been tension between traditional values and modern influences. My favourite scene from the Blues Brothers illustrates that, where they found themselves in the wrong venue and had beer bottles tossed at them for playing the wrong music.

Here's a Tajik singer making a comic statement along the same lines. All these damn rules!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeNWQYNKkW4

I think the best way to look at it is that while there's a definite infiltration of western 'culture' into traditional societies, the same is now happening in reverse, as musicians such as USSSY discover elements of other cultures and incorporate them into their own work. It isn't all western influence either. Reggae in Tatarstan or Samba in Uzbekistan isn't so much western infiltration as simply borrowing from another culture of equal stature because you like their sounds. A form of respect actually. I don't think Uzbekistan is in any danger of being overrun by Taylor Swifts... they have their own way of doing things, and when they borrow from others it's still an expression of their own world view. Cultures evolve. They're not static, and change can be either good or bad - something for the living to decide since they're the ones who have to deal with it.

One thing to bear in mind is that the cost of production has come way down in recent years, as has the cost of marketing thanks to the internet. What that means is you'll get vast swaths of mediocre content, but at the same time really brilliant work that would otherwise not see the light of day. It's that aspect I'm focused on, and I'm finding plenty of artists who meet the definition. The commercial dross will always be there, but so will excellent alternatives. You just have to look for them.

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urbando's avatar

"Cultures evolve . . . they're not static"

Very true. What I sense is a fair amount of cultural *subversion* via the internet, not just influence. But that's just in my view; certainly there are lots of very interesting and valuable instances of borrowing and weaving as well.

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ebear's avatar

I gave some thought to what you said and I do have an example from personal experience that supports your view. About 25 years ago I was heavily into Bhangra. I went to all the concerts in the Vancouver area when it still had a traditional flavor to it. I even learned some Punjabi with help from my Sikh friends at work so I could understand the lyrics. Over time bhangra moved away from the traditional style to a more rap motif, emulating the gansta' theme that was becoming popular in hip hop. They also introduced that warbly vocal processing which totally ruined the experience. Same thing happened to the Hindi musicals around that time. They went from traditional themes to an over the top display of banality, with the fast cars, Armani suits and sunglasses, and dancing babes in skimpy outfits. Completely ruined it for me. I don't bother with Indian music anymore on account of that.

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Kieran Telo's avatar

Great tip, they're very nice, lots to explore on their BandCamp. They have a dorman fb page which describes their evolution:

Our musical style has changed from album to album.

Usssy (2009) black metal techno blues

Oko (2010) epic oriental black noise rock

Ud (2011) courageous oriental noise rock

Karpet Birch (2012) cover lo-fi noiserock

Afghan Music House Party (2012) microtonal melancholic noise rock

Unsharped Mask (2013) microtonal melancholic noise rock

Voyage(2018) desert noise rock

Po Krugu (2020) diverse oriental noise rock

Naghma (2022) indo-iranian meditative feedback rock

So far I like all I hear, whatever category it might be (personally I would maybe say post-postrock/math, with little echoes of Horse Lords, who are from Baltimore).

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ebear's avatar

I think those guys were probably being ironic when they created all those sub-genres. Look at their Discogs page and you'll see them described as:

Genre: Rock, Folk, World, & Country

Style: Alternative Rock, Math Rock, Noise, Psychedelic Rock, Avantgarde

I don't even know what half of that means. What the hell is Math Rock? Do Math Rockers use differential equations to compose their music? I do know that in the age of LP records a musician's greatest fear was being mislabeled by some clever music critic or popular DJ which would result in their records being placed in the wrong bin where they'd be hard to find. We got around that problem by going straight to the import bin, since the pressings from Germany and Japan were so much better. That's where we found "Kraut Rock" (LOL) and the emerging electronic "Cosmic Music" genre led by Edgar Froese, Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk. I saw Kraftwerk in Ottawa in 1974 with an audience of about 100 people in the Glebe High School auditorium. Later in 1979 I saw Tangerine Dream in Hamilton. Both those groups had a major impact on my musical direction, which up to then had been western guitar, mainly country and bluegrass (which I still love).

Most of the musicians I've known don't really think in terms of genres. That's something the marketing department tacks on. Take KLF for example. Those guys, who dominated the rave scene in the early 90's, were big C&W fans and actually had Tammy Wynette as a guest artist on one of their songs, 'Justified and Ancient' where she played the role of Eris, goddess of discord! Talk about cross-over. I'll bet those guys wore the groves off Hank Williams when they were chilling at home. I mean, who wants to listen to 'rave' when you've been up all night playing it, right?

I try to find good interviews for the artists I feature, but most of them are a disappointment, which is why I just post the link and no translation. Questions like "how would you describe your music" or "what would you say your major influences were" get old fast. Most of these interviewers come poorly prepared IMO. I'd have some questions of my own, like "why did you call your album 'Afghan Music House Party' when it doesn't sound anything like Afghan music, or what's the meaning behind the title of your latest release? Do you know who Naghma is? Have you ever met her?" Things like that. Naghma is the Tammy Wynette of Afghanistan BTW. Was that an oblique reference to KLF? If they didn't know that it might send them off in search of KLF or Naghma, which might have an effect on their musical direction. Stir them up a bit. I did that once with a Reggae band. Asked them about the meaning of words like 'dread' 'natty' 'i-ration' and so one. That was fun. 4 players, 4 different answers, then they started arguing with each other about the meaning of what they were playing! Many lols were had that night.

Oh God.... that was a rant wasn't it? I hate rants. OK, ebear over and out. Oh, and thanks for listening. I'm never really sure if people do unless they make a comment or hit the like button:)

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Kieran Telo's avatar

I agree that genre is very elastic term. Math rock is quite distinctive but also hard to describe so I won't bother. It's really just the unusual guitar sound. Plenty more listening to do.

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