An admirer of Henry Cowell, Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern, John Cage experimented with prepared piano, allowing new sounds. He encouraged appreciation of everyday noises, and unusual instruments, and chance, including the I Ching, as part of music; and Cage—who once declared that everything we do is music—could be said to be as much a philosopher of sound as a composer.
Dinner for Two or More: David Byrne and St. Vincent (Annie Clark)’s collaboration Love This Giant
“When collaboration works, you get this third thing. A third person appears, and it’s kind of their music, not yours,” surmised David Byrne, the author of the book How Music Works, to Jesse Dorris writing for Time (Sept. 17, 2012). Byrne is a man of whose vivid surfaces are inspired by depth; and true shallowness is a mystery to him.
A review of The Amber Amulet by Craig Silvey
It’s a lovely story, full of subtle and rich characterisation amidst the fun and bravado. Martinez’s illustrations are vivid and strange and further adds to the character of Liam, as one almost feels as though we’re privy to some kind of journal, with bits and pieces that he’s culled to create his fringe physics (what he calls his geo-alchemy) and his superhero ethic.
Kill Your Limitations: Tomorrow Sunny/The Revelry, Spp by Henry Threadgill with his band Zooid
Threadgill, interested in many of the arts, had a comprehensive bohemian sensibility; and, with a strong sense of musical conception, he is considered an eloquent and original composer in the field of creative, improvised music. He has spoken of not being confined by the European classical tradition, or the focus on the major/minor system of notation.
I Told My Wrath, My Wrath Did End: The Garden of Love, from the Martha Redbone Roots Project
It may be important now to recall that William Blake not only saw the poverty in British society, but that he died poor. Martha Redbone has found an author who belongs to the canon and whose work signifies in lives today; and music such as this helps a culture to live a little longer, transmitting subject and sound, experience and values.
The Popular Music of Stylish Young Chinese Men, The Honor: Selection 1 by The Honor
The repetition is intended to drive the lyrics into the brain, but the simplicity of the lyrics—as in “What’s Your Feeling”—can find a place there but they are not significantly resonant. They distract momentarily—like youthful engagement in a nightclub: just enough engagement to make a friend or find a lover, and get one into trouble.
Talk of Talented New Orleans Phenomenon James Booker, Pianist, in Britain: Manchester ’77
Emotion is ground and sky for artists, but artists can forget that their emotions do not have the same firmness as stone, and the human world is a harder place; and while artists, soft of flesh and sometimes soft in the head, go about chasing their passionate visions, the world is making plans both to exploit their work and to live without them. Greatness elevates, but it is not protection.
Interview with Jillian Schedneck
The author of Abu Dhabi Days, Dubai Nights reads from and talks about her book, about the differences (and similarities) between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, about her current research project, about seeing a culture through the eyes of a foreigner,…
A review of Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne
It is hard to believe that Dickens was not thinking of Sterne’s novel when he began his own. Even the tie-in with the future fate of the main character is similar: Tristram Shandy laments that if his parents had considered how much depended upon their attentiveness to their task, at the moment of his conception, his life would have turned out much better.
A review of Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone by Stefan Kiesbye
Kiesbye’s writing is stark and matter of fact, which makes the children’s actions even more despicable—you don’t see them coming. The adults in the novel are very much secondary characters, which poses many questions. What values have the parents taught their children? Are the children doing these things just for attention?