Much urban doorbell activity speaks of the need for quick fixes — and the results of uninformed, poorly planned ones. The situation here could very well be evidence of casual vandalism. It could also be a quiet moment in the midst of just the sort of jury-rigged, duct-taped upgrades that pedestrians become either inured to or, in my case, fascinated by. Perhaps the tenant or owner is currently at the local hardware store, sorting out a selection. Given the haphazard angle of the board and the monochromatic palimpsest of prior attempts, it’s more likely this will look the same, if not worse, on my next stroll.
From the Netherlands: "Be open for anything that can happen."
/ By Marc Weidenbaum
This Junto Profile is part of a new series of short Q&As that provide some background on various individuals who participate regularly in the online Disquiet Junto music community.
What’s your name? Michel Banabila.
Where are you located? Rotterdam, Netherlands. Born in Amsterdam, then I grew up in Hilversum, Bijlmermeer, Buitenveldert, Amsterdam. There were always instruments at home. My mother, who is Dutch, played piano, my half sister played harp, my Jewish grandfather played violin and mandolin. The abrupt change when I was 9 — from living in nature (bird sounds, lots of trees, owls) to a flat apartment in an Amsterdam suburb under construction (ongoing sounds of pile driver hammers) after my mother and stepfather separated — made quite an impact. I was raised by my mother, as I did not know my biological Yemeni father, who left us when I was two. I met him once, for the first time in my life, when I was in my late 30s. Because of stories about him, I started to listen to all sorts of Arabic music. (However, I do not speak Arabic, so I just follow the music, not the lyrics — but I guess I do that actually most of the time with songs in English as well. I never pay much attention to lyrics.) I left home when I was 15 and started to live on my own in Amsterdam when the rest of the family moved up north. Listened a lot of different music at that time. Around the time I was 20 I discovered an 8-track studio in Amsterdam. I quit school and have no formal musical education. I pretty much tried to discover a lot by myself. I would say that listening (to music but also to sounds around me) was my education. Hearing Music for Films by Brian Eno was one of the things that gave me the direct motivation and inspiration to record. In that 8-track studio I made my very first recordings. They have been lost.
What is your musical activity? For years I recorded on a very regular basis at home with a computer. It was a huge liberation when the first Macintosh HD recording became available and I realized that with that I could record whenever and as long as I want. I record music for myself (these days available in self-released limited editions) and music for assignments (dance, theater, film). Some of my music has been published by labels like Steamin’ Soundworks, Bureau B, JJ Tracks, Séance Centre, Eilean Rec, and Knekelhuis. I record a lot outside, as well, using a field recorder, or simply my phone. I do not really seriously control any instrument but I play some keyboard and use my voice and any possible found objects. I performed live in bands, as well, and I still often love to collaborate with other artists. I feel I am not active in one particular genre, but more exploring different ideas, and the sort of music of course also depends on who I work with or the project I am involved in.
What is one good musical habit? Be open for anything that can happen. You can plan or compose whatever you want, but many things can and will happen that are not foreseen, whether it is a mistake, or something unexpected, whatever, and this can be to your great advantage. So you need space in your mind to tune in — not always easy, but necessary. Holger Czukay, a great composer, used to say a lot about this in his interviews. So although I can be very persistent and eager to get something in a way I want, whatever effort or time it will take me, I still have to admit that I feel the nicest and best things that happened to me musically so far actually took very little or no effort at all. When your brain is set into “playfulness,” great things can come in and then I actually never feel like I “did something,” but more like that I tuned into some stream from where everything happens naturally.
What was a particularly meaningful Junto project? Although I have been a Junto member since 2012, I did not record that much (compared with others) but still have about 54 recordings so far (banabila.bandcamp.com/album/disquiet-junto) and I am listening to all that right now. It is so nice to listen back, and it all feels quite playful and experimental. And each track is so different! Very hard to chose one particular one really, but:
– For Disquiet 0207 I had the honor to have my first LP from 1983 being remixed by the Junto members (Remixing Marilli), which brought amazing results and it was great to hear all these different contributions.
– Last but not least, I still miss my dear cat Tapu, who unfortunately fell from our balcony and died — but I still have her lovely calming purr sounds in my very first Junto recording ever
Could you tell people what the music scene is like in Amsterdam? I don’t know that much of it, but I recorded several times with Gareth Davis (bass clarinet), who lives in Amsterdam (though he is mainly on the road performing abroad nowadays) and recently I recorded with a very old friend from Amsterdam, Olaf Keus (drums), who was also present on my very first live gig in Paradiso, in 1984. I love that beautiful old venue. You have a couple of interesting places / scenes, like Splendor, De Ruimte, and of course Bimhuis. A few weeks ago I went to a concert by Anton Goudsmit there, an Amsterdam based guitar player that I like a lot. He plays on some of my recordings. The Bimhuis is now in het Muziekgebouw, beautifully located at the water close to Central Station. I went to the Bimhuis in the ’80s already, when it was still situated at the Oudeschans in the centre, where me and my friends saw mind-blowing improvisations with people like Martin van Duijnhoven or Micha Mengelberg or Han Benninck. It made a huge impression on me. Those were the first times I saw concerts like that, and very exciting. There’s also OCCII, a great place where I performed at the Haperende Mens Festival in 2017. Musicians I follow now are like Oene van Geel and Albert Van Veenendaal, who I saw live with Bora Kim in Splendor. These days everything in the city gets more and more commercialized so musicians and venues in general are hugely dependent on subsidies. So far I’ve never been to De Ruimte, I really should go there. I can not always afford to go see concerts in Amsterdam. However, I do look forward to seeing two concerts soon, one by Die Wilde Jagd, and one by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.
Shortly after posting a photo of a proposed interface for synthesizer design (real object, just not musical) that involved a keyhole, I randomly walked by an actual instrument (not an imaginary one) that has a proper key.
Each Saturday morning, usually over coffee, I take a few minutes to gather together into one post most of the little comments I’ve made on social media the previous week. I sometimes edit for clarity, and I might flesh some out a bit. There’s a feedback cycle to this process. During the week, I find I am sometimes cautious about attributing a time frame to items because I know I’ll repurpose the material a few days hence.
In any case, I spent the week on Long Island on vacation with family (that’s a photo above of Long Island Sound from a short hike I took), and thus was offline a lot, thankfully. In fact, aside from recent photos also posted here, as well as a brief appreciation of the late composer Scott Johnson, I didn’t post anything on Mastodon (where I am at @[email protected]) at all, apparently — and I didn’t even register so until this morning. I take this as a good thing.
I do a pretty good job of being offline on weekends. The healthy part isn’t so much the not-posting part or even the not-reading part so much as the not-awaiting-reply part (which is complemented by the then-not-replying-in-turn part). Those are three different categories, and the third of them has the greatest impact on my attention. I’d like to be offline even more solidly than I already am, and I already cease social media activity not only on the weekend but also after dinner during the week. (I do occasionally post a weekend photo to Instagram, another habit I’m trying to curtail.) Fortunately I sleep soundly, so I don’t regularly find myself up in the middle of the night, but if I did, the last thing I’d do is look at my phone. I have a Kindle, and I’d just read a little, or more than a little, as I waited for sleep to reclaim me.
That’s what’s on my mind as I emerge from the semi-bubble of this all too rare vacation break. Here are some notes that did surface during the past week:
Wordplay: A “sound” as a “narrow channel of water” (rather than, you know, sound in the sense of the aural) apparently is from Old Norse “sund” (“a strait, swimming”), or the Middle English equivalent (etymonline.com).
Semi-public space: I have no idea what encourages a small business owner to transform the tone of their retail locations by situating a large television playing highly polemical material at a loud volume during working hours. I imagine this has just been a frog-boiling situation that originated with ordinary radio news, and then news got televised, and then all the more overtly opinionated, and rather than turn off the news in public, people just went with their chosen flavor of reality. (Also, a bright TV spewing nonsense has a very different presence than an unseen radio doing the same.) Me, I couldn’t get out of that bagel shop fast enough.
Hit parade: Whenever I come back to New York, I wonder if I’ll hear local (overplayed) heroes Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, or Bon Jovi in a public place first — or if I’ll hear some of their counterparts from the San Francisco Bay Area (Metallica, Journey). I heard none of them, not even once.
Drum hallucinations: On the flight home I listened to the great new Necks album, Travel, for the 10th time, or something close to it. A certain expression I was making with my face would loosen the seal of my earbuds, allowing the harsh white noise of the cabin to momentarily seep in. At first I thought this was the band’s drummer, Tony Buck, doing some sort of intense rumble. It was uncanny.
