How did we all do in the electricity part of our high school physics’ classes? And how much of it do we all remember? I was generally fine with all of the Newton’s Laws; light and sound waves; concepts of work, energy and power; satellite motion; refraction and Snell’s Law. Even Einstein’s Special Relativity fascinated me. But, I just didn’t get Current Electricity, Field Potential, Ohm’s Law, Resistance etc. Therefore, I can write almost nothing about how the analog modular electronics pictured below makes its noises and will instead refer you to a website that will clarify any doubts you may have about voltage-controlled oscillators and envelope generators.
Kyle came back in town to perform Morton Feldman’s Oboe and Orchestra (1976) with his compatriot Ernst Karel at the Stone last Friday. Instead of an orchestra, they cleverly used recordings of an orchestra altered and enhanced by the analog modular electronics accompanied by Kyle’s real-time, acoustic oboe. It was fantastic. They also improvised another piece and played a second set with Bhob Rainey on soprano saxophone. They call themselves EKG (the Ernst and Kyle Group), which is also the acronym for electrocardiogram, an electrical recording of the heart’s oscillations. (Yes, I know you knew that already. Wouldn’t it be cool, though, if they all hooked themselves up to actual heart monitors while playing?) What seems to be an extreme idea about music comprised of oscillations, grinding, clicking, pops, reverberations, fades and feedback turns out to be quite mesmerizing, at least for me. It was all about Ernst’s patches & knobs producing aleatoric textures woven with the oscillations of acoustic instruments driven by Kyle and Bhob.
After watching the video of Finland’s entry to the Eurovision contest in the blog entry below, I thought I should also post this video in response to DD’s dig “proof of the superiority of Europe or not?” Obviously, Finland has much more to offer than silly imitations of American monster rock. **** that Eurovision thing is amazingly stupid caricature of international culture. It had 10 million viewers, though, while this video has only had about 580. click here if you can’t play the video.
Of course, Finland has much more to offer than Lordi. For instance, there’s the Helsinki Complaints Choir.
I suspect you read a lot more into my final comment than I meant to be read into that, although I do think that three years of living overseas and getting repeated variations of “americans are low culture, europeans are high culture” poured down my throat gives me a certain amount of desire to point out counterexamples to that principle.
Heidi/Doug – This brings us back to Celine Dion.
Here is the question. If a work of art is not significant unless accepted as such by a society then where is the good/bad line drawn?
Mmm…. this stuff is my cup of tea. I’m bummed that I missed it – sounds like a great ensemble performance, which is so sadly rare for the crowd interested in these musics. Please publicize any future performances (especially after June, when I might be able to attend).
Eurovision is one of the worst things in the world. Everyone should know that. For the half-year I spent in Scotland, I didn’t meet a single person who thought Eurovision was any good. Lots of people paid attention to it, sure… but nobody actually *liked* it.
All westernized coutries battle the imaginary woes of low culture, but that whole high/low argument is subjective at best, and straight up stupid if you think about it. Of course when one continent basically spawns the honkies of another, the historical precedent is hard to deny. Then again, since I am a lowbrow American, I say fuck all that. Plus, my five years in Europe will attest to the utter denial of Europe as the seat of high culture. Those fucks simply love camp, kitsch, and pop art, and god bless ‘em for it.
By the way, well done BODAG. Not that you need my praise, but I really enjoy reading your posts. That show sounds amazing. Cheers.
Wow, the Helsinki Complaints Choir was hilarious. In Italy, a lot of palazzos (apartment buildings with big courtyards) have a ‘complain about your neighbors’ evening once a year where everyone drinks and bitches in public about each other.
Thanks for the compliment, John, and now, if I may hijack my own comments section, I’d like to pose this question: is Grindhouse high culture or low culture? If it’s neither, how useful are the terms high vs. low culture?
P.S. I luuuvvved Grindhouse.