then we saw the stars again

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Funny how time works. Last week was mostly spent at the Recital Studio from morning until late evening, Monday through Thursday, setting up, rehearsing, improving, changing, improvising, performing, tearing down and packing up. And now that this show is over, it somehow feels like the whole process was a long-forgotten dream, a distant memory. Maybe it’s the nature of the music and the visuals, maybe it’s because you invest a lot into a project for months and then it’s gone…
But it was a great experience, and working with Darren has been an eye-opener. I’ve always treasured the friendships I make through music, and I can only hope something else with him will crystallize in the future. Of course, there are things we wish we had had more time to work on, but you have to know when to let go at some point, and give something to the audience.

“Returning home” was the last piece we added to the show, literally one day before the premiere. Darren wanted something dark, with a sense of foreboding, but also a hint at new beginnings. The piece goes towards the end, and the visuals at that point take us through a quick montage of the boy’s previous experiences, dreams and nightmares. That sort of ‘life flashing before your eyes’ moment.
So I tried to work with that, and at a subconscious level I must have had NIN’s “beside you in time” at the back of my mind, because the way Reznor places that song just before “right where it belongs” seems to fit that hopeless/hopeful dichotomy.
Clearly, the visuals add a lot to the dynamics of the piece, and if you watched the show, I hope you enjoyed that part. I think that’s what I liked the most.

Still, that is over.

What now?

I owe the Lard Brothers a remix, which I hope to finish in the next 2 weeks. It’s going to be released later in the year, along with other remixes of their songs by other friends and musicians in the local scene. That should be fun.
We have 2 dates in Manila! I’ve heard a lot of good things about gigging in the Philippines, and I’m looking forward to meeting friends there.
And in the slightly longer term, I suppose I have started working on the second album. I really want it to sound different, and this seems to be the natural direction the new stuff is taking, so we’ll see where it goes…

So I guess 2010 hasn’t treated me too badly yet…

Don’t miss next week’s special “the boy who sees with stones” EP!! it’s all happening right here…

I often dream in music. What I remember of it when I wake up is usually a clear yet fragmented succession of chords, or impressions. The music in my dreams is actually vivid and tangible, something that should have been recorded somewhere in the universal library of forgotten ideas and unfinished thoughts. A place like Dream’s Library in The Sandman, only with phantom LP’s instead of books.
The music doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense on a rational level, but it does have an internal logic, as dreams do. And if I would be hard pressed to recall a melody, I can definitely conjure up some sounds that would be pretty close to their oneiric equivalent.

I’ve been toying with this track for about a week now. It has gone through several revisions, and while it is still mostly a demo, I do feel that the sound is as close as it gets to what I was trying to achieve. Things are distant, and yet you can touch them; you are running in a vast empty land but you find yourself in a familiar room; you have never seen this person before, and yet you know you’ve always loved her…

I don’t believe in over-analysing dreams, and I’m not one to relentlessly look for clues and freudian symbols, because you kill their primeval magic in doing so, but I truly believe that dreams can be an unexpected source of inspiration. The trick is in recreating these apparently disconnected vignettes into a narrative that anyone else could relate to.
Michel Gondry is a master of the trade, and I suppose his universe has been a major influence in this project. At least, as far as I’m concerned. It only makes sense that I keep thinking of Bjork’s Post as I listen to the track.

I think this is one of the weirdest pieces of music I’ve come up with so far. In a good way, I hope…

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The show is in less than 10 days. We have most of the music figured out at this point. Not yet sequenced, but we know where we’re going! I can’t wait to put everything together once the 2 animators arrive tomorrow. Next stop, Sunday practice with visuals. Then, it’s time to pack everything and set up the Recital studio. Exciting!

We watched Where the Wild Things Are this morning. As expected, Luca thoroughly enjoyed it, and it seemed as though the emotional involvement in the characters was not entirely lost on his 4 year old way of watching movies. He laughed at the slapstick humor, the physical jokes and the fighting scenes, but he looked perplexed and troubled during the quiter, more introspective parts.
When the movie was over, he asked me: “is it true what Carol said? Is the sun really going to switch off soon?”
And I really didn’t know what to answer, without going into the whole “it’s all going to happen after you and I will be long gone” schtick. I guess I’ll have a lot of explaining to do later…

Of course, I loved the movie. One of those rare occasions where big studios do things right, and where a filmmaker is not afraid to show growing up for what it really is: you laugh, you cry, you get mad, you get better. Too many family-oriented movies just dumb everything down, and the result is one big infantile mess. Stupid for the children, insulting for the adults. Pixar have managed to crystallize the formula, Dreamworks less so… but in my book, Spike Jonze came really close to what it really feels like to be 9.
The Neverending Story came out when I was 9, and that is another brilliant example of a family movie that is not afraid to show blood or children in danger. And this has nothing to do with the desensitized way we portray violence right now. Quite the contrary. Both movies take us back to this Grimm-like place in ourselves, which we eventually lose as we grow up.

I think Karen O and Carter Burwell did an excellent job for the original score. Karen O’s voice mixes the manic with the innocent, and her instrumentation remains simple, without becoming simplistic. And that’s the trick: how do you make music about children? Should you over-simplify melodies? Should the music only sound like it was recorded on a cheap xylophone? Or should we look inward, and try to recreate the sounds of our childhood with our articulate, grown-up vocabulary?

I suppose i’ve been asking myself the same questions, as I’ve been hard at work on our show. We are creating the imaginary soundscapes of a boy who has stones for eyes. His reality is like Max’s, a product of his imagination, a series of dreams and recollections. And if I try to remember my childhood, what did it sound like?

It was mostly a happy time, mostly by myself until my sister was born when I was 8. I was quiet, bookish, and very curious. Music was everywhere, all the time. And one of the sounds I remember most is the classical guitar that was lying around. The sound of old nylon strings, and my grandfather trying to teach me some chords.

Maybe this is why I’ve been playing on this little toy guitar more than on any other instrument in the past couple of weeks…

I couldn’t resist. I keep reading end-of-the-year lists everywhere, and I thought I’d do one too. 2009 has been a busy year for releases, and we’ve been showered with some true masterpieces. whoever thinks that the music industry is dying is clearly not listening to the right music, because there are so many awesome new bands, it’s almost impossible to keep track.
The flipside of course is that with so much going on all the time, how do you get the attention that you deserve? I always think that the best record is the one I haven’t heard yet, but for now I think I have my little top 5 for 2009.

This is not necessarily the top 5 I’ve been reading everywhere, and as much as I enjoy Animal Collective and the Antlers, I can’t say I was blown away by their records. I have listened to them throughout with no distraction, and then I put them back in their cases. I admired the craft displayed in those albums more than I found a visceral connection to them. In fact, I realise I’ve only listened to most of last year’s releases only a couple times each, only to move on to the next one.
Except for the following.

They may not be the blogosphere’s best albums of the year, but they are the ones I enjoyed the most, each for a different reason.
No ranking here, if not alphabetical.

1. Andrew Bird, Noble Beast / Useless creatures

Here is the perfect example of a late discovery. I have literally missed the first 10 years of Andrew Bird’s career, and what a revelation this has been. I am very particular about voices (and this is why I don’t listen to Anthony Hegarty or Patrick Wolf among others) but there is something immediately comforting and endearing about Bird’s tone. Almost timeless. Each song on the album sounds so effortless and the arrangements are always ornate without becoming precious. Useless creatures, the other instrumental half, is one of the most daring things I’ve heard last year. 10-minute loop experiments? check. Weird violin miked through a Leslie? check.
In a way, this is what Smile could have sounded like if Brian Wilson had been sane enough to complete the damn record 40 years ago. Quaint yet elegant, odd yet refined.

2. Mono, Hymn to the Immortal wind.

A few months back I wrote about Mono in relation to Beethoven. And though I still prefer “you are there” and their collection of EP’s, the affinity to classical music, and Beethoven and Schubert in particular, is most apparent in their latest effort.
With Hymn to the Immortal Wind, Mono don’t overuse the typical soft/loud pattern of post-rock or merely rely on an ever-growing barrage of sound. Instead they create some of the most beautiful and terrifying music of the decade, a universe where the glockenspiel is as important as a white-hot jazzmaster. The balance between the classical influences and the metal leaning never feels contrived or forced, and their understanding of melody and harmony is most welcome in a genre that sometimes relies more on layering and repetition than genuine musical (re)invention.
Romantic music for the new Century.

3. Russian Circles, Geneva

Another late discovery. And not unlike Mono, the Chicagoan trio has expanded its sound to include a string section, and even some horns to create some of the most harrowing sounds of 2009.
Though there are only 7 tracks here, the album takes the listener to many different places within its 45 minutes confines. From the chugging metal riffs of Geneva to the ethereal beauty of Melee, Russian Circles demonstrate that you don’t have to sacrifice variety for the sake of cohesion in an instrumental record.
There is nothing groundbreaking here, but the execution and sequencing are flawless. Special mention must be given to the rhythm section too, for churning out some of the most inspired fills and breaks in a post-rock album.
My favourite loud music of the year.

4. St Vincent, Actor

I remember being really excited about Bjork around the Debut/Post period. You could say I was a fan, obsessing over all the details of each song, finding out as much as I could about the singer’s musical tastes and personal preferences. Her universe was so completely idosyncratic: oddball comedy meets sensual femme fatale.
I suppose I feel the same way about Annie Clark now. How she manages to marry the delicate with the abrasive is a mystery, the dangerous balancing act of dancing a waltz to a Nine Inch Nails song. And she does this, and so much more, in only 40 minutes. The time it takes you to be completely won over by her delightfully bizarre showtunes.
Total schoolboy crush.

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5. Them crooked vultures, Them crooked vultures

I realise that I’ve almost stopped listening to mainstream rock, the exception being Kings of Leon, anything by Jack White (you stop being indie once you score a James Bond song) and Queens of the Stone Age. And in a way, those bands share a secret ingredient in common: sex.
More often than not, a lot of rock music (and yes, I’m also looking at you, hipster indie-rock) is a lifeless, self-important affair. Which is a shame, because the great hours of Rock ‘n’ roll were founded on the very axiom that getting laid was all there was to it.
And admit it: Josh Homme is a master at singing about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. His guitar riffs are not the most technical stuff around, but they sure make you want to get it on. Dave Grohl on the drums and the living god John Paul Jones on the bass and mellotron can’t really hurt either.
This is a record that makes you fall in love with rock all over again.

Claude Debussy, Preludes Volume I. Voiles

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It’s the end of the year. For some it’s the end of the decade, though everyone knows that the decade will only end next year… either way, everywhere you turn someone is writing a top 3/5/10/100 somewhere.

So that set me thinking. If I were to pick my 3 favourite piano pieces, which would they be? I’m perfectly aware that those 3 choices would change tomorrow, next week, or even later, but I’ve been giving this top 3 some thinking, and for the time being, I’ll stick to it. So in the next couple of episodes, this is what I’ll share, rather than a more obvious tie to a postrock theme or feature. Of course, you may find affinities of your own if you listen closely…
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There was a time when I started getting bored with classical music. I suppose you could have put this on the account of a teenage crisis, a reaction against the music my parents would mostly listen to at the time, or the fact that I wasn’t entirely thrilled about my piano lessons… So I swapped the piano for a Roland synth and a Stratocaster, dropped out of the music school I was attending, and got into MTV’s alternative nation and 120 minutes.
And postrock, once that term came about.

And that was great. By myself and with friends, I learnt a lot more about music theory and harmony over those few years than in the laborious decade that had preceded. There’s nothing like the automatic chord predictor function on a keyboard to let you understand how a song works, and finding it out on your own makes you realise that music is just another language that you are slowly mastering.

That’s when I started missing classical music again…

Music can be like close relationships. You fall in love, sometimes you fall out, sometimes you make up and when that works out you understand why you fell in love in the first place. Debussy made me fall in love with classical music again.
In my senior year of high school I wanted to resume my piano lessons, and besides the obvious romantic staples of Chopin, Schumann and Brahms, Debussy opened a world of possibilities I wasn’t aware of. His unusual harmonies and chord patterns belonged to a whole different universe from the classical music I had been used to until then, and his sense of melody seemed both instinctual and incredibly foreign.
You can’t really beat the piano for versatility and range, but with Debussy the instrument suddenly sounded like bells or windchimes, thanks to his ingenious use of the pedals and harmonics.

Like the Impressionist painters he was often linked with, Debussy was an artist of transition, a modernist with late-romantic ideals. Tone and colour are fundamental in his work, whether solo piano Etudes or fully orchestral pieces. Technique is never an end but a means to achieve this ethereal quality, the twilight skies of a Monet painting. And the Preludes should be seen as a series of musical polaroids, sudden sketches where the subjects are left incomplete rather than fully fleshed out. The score is just an outline. The rest is our own interpretation.
That seemed like a perfect match for me, as a musician and as a student. I could totally relate to Debussy’s soundscapes and artistic vision, and I still believe that his music achieves the delicate act of balancing familiarity with experimentation.

There was only one problem, and I found out about it too late. I wasn’t good enough anymore to really play Debussy properly. But that’s another story…

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Many pianists have recorded Debussy’s Preludes and Etudes. Claudio Arrau gives a refined and aristocratic reading of those pieces, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s version is bold and exuberant, but the benchmark is Still Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli’s recordings.
The elusive Italian pianist was famous for his exacting sound and attention to detail, and with Debussy he was able to commit to this uncanny precision to the fullest. The tone of his piano is surprisingly rich and varied, as clear and metallic as it can sound distant and wooden. The control and restraint that he displays are remarkable, light years away from the more polarising and egotistical stars of the lid of our generation…
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Unfortunately, the video cannot be embedded by request from the uploader.

You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrVyQhUM5C4