naps.
now that i'm a little older, with a real job and all that, i find myself actually TIRED around 7pm most days.
waking up at 6am every day may do that, but i still feel like i may be missing something.
gone are the days of restless insomnia, and further gone are the days of sleeplessness wrought by thoughts spinning irrevocably.
these days when i lie down, i drift off in a manner of minutes, mostly.
unless i hear the faint but recognizable voice of the Speaker of the House (Andrew Romanoff) calling for final votes or Kevin the house reader auctioneering off some bill at a rabbit's click.
"will the clerk please close the machine and members proceed to vote"
it's odd how phrases and voices become melted onto our brains. we can tell what our parents sound like even when they're whispering, each set of vocal cords (chords, if you want to be poetic about it) rings out (see) a unique intonation.
think, right now, recall a voice, any voice, as a matter of fact, recall as many as you can, have them all say "take a nap, you're quite sleepy"
which brings me to the topic of this entry, in a very roundabout way.
i never used to take naps. in fact, i still don't really. once i'm asleep i'm asleep for good, and nothing but the unmistakable sound of my alarm clock can wrest me from my slumber (see what i did there?).
i used to not be able to go to sleep without some kind of soundtrack, but i was EXTREMELY (read: very) particular about what exactly i had to listen to. no vocals, or if there were, extremely melodic and lovely; no drums, really, unless they were very soft and pillowy; and no guitar solos, unless they were airy and weightless.
below is a nostalgic reenactment of a potential sleepytime playlist, for better or for worse.
now, i'm sure that At the Drive-in song isn't an at the drive-in song, but does anyone remember when that used to happen all the time?? like, you'd download a track on napster or something and it would be totally mislabeled but the song posturing as Thursday or something was WAY better than what you were actually looking for, this just happened to me. well, not quite, this track masquerading as AtDI isn't BETTER, but it's fucking great and i'm glad it happened (ps if anyone knows what the hell it is please fill me in)
i put that blockhead track on at a party once, and my friend Joe Seghatoleslami (i hope you Google your own name) told me, "you suck at DJing, this is what i listen to when i'm trying to sleep. while that may be true, i still always can't understand how this track isn't both a sleepy track and a banger simultaneously.
in fact, i'd like an audience-participation experiment
you may join in one of two ways, either leave a comment adding a song or songs to the playlist, or put the playlist on as you drift off to sleep, and tell me how you do. if there are tracks that need scrapping, tell me, if not, thanks!
digital/analog
jesus christ, superdub!
that's possibly the worst joke i've ever made.
but that's what Burial's 'Untrue' sounds like.
He made a pretty big splash in the dubstep scene in 06 with his self titled debut, which i heard and enjoyed, but it didn't do...THIS to me.
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listed above are three tracks from the record.
The vinyl scratches and the am radio interferes. It is dark, some ungodly AM hour where you're sure the sun should have started rising long ago, and it feels like it's never coming. this is the soundtrack for riding subways in the rain. this is being 16 and lost in brooklyn. it sounds like autumn. there are passionate vocals but they're not saying anything decipherable. it's dream music, language exists but it's incoherent yet full of meaning.
Burial sampled the vocals from his friends, cellphone conversations, people in his apartment building, anyone with a voice at all, not necessarily a very good one. he then pitch shifts the vocals (somehow) and chops and reorders them so that they sound like they may be saying something, but it's really up to you to interpret the 'words', if you need to. every now and then, you're sure you can make out some words, like in "archangel', you hear "that's impossible to do..." sort of.
i remember being in new jersey and seeing kids in basements with racks and racks of equipment making breakcore or dubstep or gameboy music or whatever, and it was generally interesting if not overall enjoyable, but it lacked something...structure. i know that's the point of some of this new electronica, to destroy any notion of tempo or beat for the creation of chaos etc., but what i love most about this record is that it is structured, yet slightly unorganized. every beat doesn't hit on the click, there are lags and missteps, but it makes the record beautiful. samples come in offbeat, drums fight with clicks and the sounds of bullet shells hitting the floor, but it makes perfect sense in context.
this album has its own language, much like sigur ros on their masterpiece "( )", words empty of innate meaning, but because of intonation and melody take on substance that language is too weak to carry.
sorry to pontificate like this, but i haven't been emotionally moved by new music in a long time...probably since Erlend 0ye's "Unrest"
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You may remember The Royksopp song from a Geico commercial, the one where the cavedude is on the horizontal escalator. Erlend sings the vocals.
Lately i can't listen to bands (unless they're Hot Water Music). I don't care about lyrics unless it's hip-hop, which has been the case for a while. I like the way electronic music sounds, perhaps more than actual music made by strings vibrating or air circulating through chambers and gateways. But a human voice is still the most beautiful instrument in the universe. I don't care if the lyrics mean anything particular, sometimes it's the icing on the cake but really lyrical content is not what i listen for anymore. That's the hook, the initial draw to a song, it's like seeing a beautiful girl for the first time. You go up to her at first because she is nice on the eyes, but you only stay if she's nice on the inside too. I hear catchy vocals or a good melody or some interesting words and i'm drawn in, but i only continue to be interested if the instruments themselves are put together well.
if you enjoy this, you can check out Burial's record label at http://www.hyperdub.com
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