News on Quiet, Minimal and Otherwise Atmospheric Music on the Big and Small Screens: (1) As of my first viewing, I can’t say if there’s enough of a proper score in No Country for Old Men to fill a 7″ single, but what there is is evocative, as blissfully mundane and forebodingly arid as the […]
The title to Douglas Gordon’s exhibit currently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — Pretty Much Every Film and Video Work from about 1992 until Now — could mistakenly give the impression that it’s a single compression, a montage, of elements of various moving-image works by various creators from the past five years.
In […]
John Cage loved his toy pianos for good reason. Those instruments, with their simple construction and even simpler range, invite chance with every plink — sour notes, rusty mechanics, and so on. And the one-man toy-piano band known as Twink (born Mike Langlie) milks those industrial-design eccentricities for all their textural value.
Just check out his […]
News, Quick Links, Good Reads: (1) Art by Orb/KLF member James Cauty was removed by municipal workers in Brighton, England, when it was mistaken for graffiti (nytimes.com, ink-d.co.uk). … (2) The Guardian on noise abatement and urban soundscapes: “Visual aesthetics are a major part of the planning system with strong guidelines determining what is acceptable […]
News, Quick Links, Good Reads: (1) An illustrator has taken the concept behind Alvin Lucier’s “I Am Sitting in a Room” and applied it to his daily self-portraits (snooks.livejournal.com). … (2) The Wild Beast is the name of the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) new music pavilion. It was designed by the Los Angeles-based […]
Film composer Elliot Goldenthal has been an underscorer worth keeping an eye on at least since 1989, when his Drugstore Cowboy and Pet Semetary both saw release. Of course, he’s not afraid of bombast, as his Titus with his partner, director Julie Taymor, showed. Now they’re back with Across the Universe, which sounds a bit […]
Quote of the Week: “They do not need to be correct because they are symbols; they stand for the essence of music, not specific notes. Their unconventionality also reminds me of the graphic scores of experimental music; they are their kitschy cousins.” That’s Christian Marclay, as quoted on the back of his new box-as-book collection, […]
Quote of the Week: “It is hard to leave the subject of Minimalism without mention of Count Basie, master of the art of leaving out.” That’s Bernard Holland in his entry as part of a roundup, last week, of the New York Times’ classical-music critics’ take on recorded milestones in minimalism (nytimes.com). The list of […]
Quote of the Week: Osamu Tezuka is the subject of a retrospective exhibit, Marvel of Manga, at the Asia Art Museum (asianart.org) in San Francisco. (Full disclosure: I am employed by one of the exhibit’s corporate sponsors.) Of a Beethoven manga by Tezuka, titled Ludwig B, the exhibit notes state, “Possibly because of […]
Score is a new album collecting background music by someone who has recently been pursuing a spot in the foreground. It’s a retrospective compilation by Herbert (born Matthew Herbert and aka Doctor Rockit) of pieces he’s written over the years for film, cues of churning, introspective textures by someone whose modus operandi of late has […]