OSCILLATIONS: THE NEXT DAY by David Bowie

What a surprise!  A new Bowie album! It's could easily be inconceivable that a man in his mid-sixties and ten years since his last album (another notable exception: Scott Walker) would be creating work as vital as past successes,  but let's face it,  David Bowie isn't just any old dude. The cover and title shout  concept here,  a kind of negation of past selves and a reinforcement of the creative process as part of a life truly lived.
                                                
                                                   "And I Say to Myself
                                                   I Don't Know Who I Am"

THE NEXT DAY suggests the mundane reality of the passage of time,  while also bringing jagged stabs of life to dark and ambiguous narratives filled with a keen sense of one's own mortality. A song like "Dirty Boys" has more to do with deceased, yet willfully present idols like Basquiat,  Burroughs,  and Warhol than hanging with the great unwashed. The record is rife with references to death as eventuality.  In many ways it almost seems like a sequel to Bowie-produced THE IDIOT (1977) by Iggy Pop,  as this album matches the production grit and dirty guitar sound so prevalent on that album,  thought ancient rhythm boxes make no appearance here.  The Berlin trilogy's iconic HEROES cover  makes a defaced nod to that period,  as does producer Tony Visconti .  It took me at least a half a dozen listens to connect,  but it was certainly worth the effort.  There are even small glimpses of Frippertronics,  Sonic Youth-like noise (a bonus instrumental),  Ziggy guitar riffs,  and scronky sax here, although none of them sound like any kind of plagiarizing or artistic ass-kissing.  After several serviceable,  yet uninspired releases,  Bowie has resurrected himself for real,  and is both topical (the school shooter in "Valentine's Day",  the soldier in "I'd Rather Be High"),  poetically ambiguous ("If You Can See Me"),  and rather angry,  which are all good things.  And that anyone is still speculating about "meaning"  here speaks volumes about Bowie's artistic health.

I WAS AN "INDUSTRIAL" ARTIST #14

This joint 7" featured the work of Controlled Bleeding and garage industrialists Doc Wor Mirran,  and was only available in a limited edition of 800 (500 multi-colored,  300 clear), but soon released in an expanded form on CD (both on Musical Tragedies/Germany/1994).  The Controlled Bleeding side was titled "Pets for Meat",  hence the cover painting.  I quite liked the circular saw blade edges of the 7",  but was rather taken aback when my cover lettering appeared a bright yellow instead of the requested gold (this oversight was corrected on the CD edition). Sometimes it's nice to see a proof of your artwork/design before going into production.  Ah,  the wonders of independent record labels!

NEW PAINTINGS

The above is the first in a series of small (six and a half inch square) acrylic paintings on wood that I'll be working on as an aside to the large scale vertical triptych I've been pursuing as of late.  This series will probably be comprised of 3-5 works.  The above may be called "In Reason's Aspic".

FOR SALE: EML 200 at CONTROL in Brooklyn

My EML 200 modular will be up for grabs at CONTROL in Brooklyn within a week or two.  It is one of the first commercially available modular synthesizers  (1969-1980),  and was produced in a small run of four hundred.  Hence time has made this a very rare instrument indeed.  The EML 200 was used to great effect by Alan Ravenstein of Pere Ubu on their earliest releases,  where the use of textural noise ingeniously insinuated itself into experimental pop glory. The instrument is in excellent shape throughout,  and contains the following:
                                                   2 oscillators

                                                   High and low pass filters

                                                   2 ring modulators

                                                   LFO w/ sample and hold

                                                   Stereo panning capability

                                                   Envelope generator

                                                   Spring reverb

Its 31 knobs and 60 patch points make for some great sound synthesis with a strong vintage mojo.  It comes with a xeroxed manual and a multitude of quarter inch patch cables (at least twenty). Call (347) 699-2875 for more info.

I WAS AN "INDUSTRIAL" ARTIST #13

The TESTAMENT LP (1988) was the brainchild of Ron Lessard of RRRecords,  a Massachusetts based noise conglomeration whose mail order branch claimed much of my hard-earned money.  Ron also released cassettes by seminal noise artists like Merzbow,  as well as producing harsh noise through his own recording project Emil Beaulieau.  Ron was a likeable guy,  so when he approached me to work on various design projects,  I jumped at the chance.  I believe that TESTAMENT was his first 12" vinyl release,  and provided a showcase for various international sound projects and visual artists (Illusion of Safety,  Swimming Behavior of the Human Infant,  Massimo Toniutti,  Randy Greif, John Wiggins, etc.).  Strangely enough,  the project's visual editor lived about two blocks away from me at the time,  making consultation,  editing,  and drinking much easier (remember this was before the internet was THE tool for communication/exchange of ideas).  The cover is a 12" by 12" acrylic painting on illustration board (present whereabouts unknown).  I later did a very similar painting for a Controlled Bleeding vinyl single. The outlet and plug drawing was made to accompany John Wiggins' "Love Song of the Neo-Media" track and manifesto.  The album-sized booklet and LP fit into a clear vinyl wallet (shades of Captain Beefheart's CLEAR SPOT LP),  making this beautiful alternative release more than a noisy curiosity.  Note:  Testament was also available as a rather grand box set.

ARRIVAL: NEW GOIKE CASE

Yes,  my new Goike powered case arrived a few days ago,  and the shifting of Eurorack modules could  be heard from a block away.  Now it's time to figure out module placement (by manufacturer, by  utility,  by color?) without the use of the modular grid.  I must say that it really is a beautiful piece of woodworking/electronics,  and I look forward to it steering me towards both excess and essence.

CIBO: RISOTTO

While the best risotto we ever had was served to us in Gubbio (a seafood risotto),  this dish comes in a close second.  "Fatto in casa"  with arborio rice,  garlic,  oil,  some chicken stock,  it was quite delicious. The addition of raw greens like baby spinach,  as well as a bit of just roasted red peppers made it even better.  BTW, the color of the rice here is due to a lack of white wine,  hence red was called in to service.

UNDERMINING A GIANT

Most modular synth people know how Don Buchla formatted his 200/200e systems to employ eighth inch cables to carry only audio signals and banana cables to transmit CV and pulse info into the bowels of his creation.  Why not bypass Don's intentions and go for even more of a mixture of electronic buggery? Try the above and see what happens.

MY DINNER WITH MERZBOW

It was a rather quiet New York evening considering Masami Akita's reputation for  explosive ideas ,  sounds,  and imagery,  the language barrier and Masami's reserved nature keeping things perhaps a bit too civilized.  He had come to NYC to write an article on the downtown art/music scene for a Japanese travel magazine (Excentrique), accompanied by then wife Reiko (who also performed with him live and often spoke for him,  as her spoken english seemed better), as well as a photographer. Coincidentally, my paintings were in a group show at Condeso-Lawler Gallery in SoHo,  so I appeared to be part of the art scene and made it into the magazine as well. I had been corresponding with Masami for quite a while at that point (late eighties,  early nineties),  listened to a multitude of his cassette releases,  and knew his influences and procedures pretty well.  We were joined that evening by Paul Lemos of Controlled Bleeding,  who certainly brought a bit of humor to what could have become a rather dour meeting of  international noisheads.  Paul cracked me up,  being outfitted like a lounge singer in a white dinner jacket,  tie,  and black dress slacks. We all had a few drinks at my place and then proceeded to a nearby Italian restaurant where pizza and beer were our chosen staples. Ironically, my overall impression of Masami was that he was somewhat shy,  though seemingly bursting with ideas about  japanese culture/sexual attitudes,  the innate body politic of extreme noise,  and a fetishist's obsessiveness with restless creativity. The encroachment of any kind of noise culture seemed subtle at best,  a quality not usually associated with either Merzbow or Controlled Bleeding at that point. All in all it was a rather uneventful evening,  with the exception of Paul's "kiss on the cheek" greeting of Reiko,  who was visibly taken aback by what she probably considered a personal intrusion.  It was hardly an international incident,  but seemed a strange bit of culture shock after what most would consider Masami's rather left-field interests and extreme body bludgeoning noise.  And so it goes:

"Most Japanese noise artists never use computers or very high-tech equipment. We tend to be very low-tech and analogue, so our actions show the effects of expanded noisehands, muscles...the body's movement." 

                         Masami Akita (Merzbow)

I WAS AN INDUSTRIAL ARTIST #12

Most of  the BLADDER BAGS and INTERLUDES CD (1992 , Vanilla Records,  Japan) is aptly described as "ultra noise",  and given the sensibility at work,  the visuals do justice to the crawl through  trash in evidence here.  This archival release harkens back to Controlled Bleeding's noise roots as well as to my beginnings in gestural abstraction.  All paintings were done to scale,  shrinking gesture and brush velocity to the size of a CD booklet. Keep in mind that at this point I had very little faith in most alternative record companies' ability to reproduce my work,  but in this case,  immediacy won over cost-cutting and sloppiness.

BEYOND SURFACE and INTO?

As my brother mentioned in a recent blog post,  "... all art is essentially about memory,  a pointed tug at what inhabits the liminal spaces of our now dreamt pasts".  He continues "Perhaps this work offers a key to those dreams,  a faintly recognized fragment that bridges a gap between us and ghosts".  What he suggests here is that the way of really seeing art in a meaningful way must include an intensely personal (read:  cultural,  emotional,  intellectual references) re-structuring process that could and should produce ambiguity,  disorientation, and even discomfort. The word "liminality" comes from the greek for "middle",  as in process,  journey, or travel.  In other words,  art that can be described with a superficiality is probably not art at all.  Art must include ideas about identity,  time,  and even community,  as those are the connecting tissues of the myriad  meanings that have very little to do with  pretty pictures of a sunset or a dog,  which at this point in our cultural hypnosis is what most people think of as art. That is the monoculture at work,  governed by what I would term the "liminal lie-box",  the pervasive technology that does little to progress our ideas of self beyond a splintered superficial text.