The Residents have been around since the early ’70s, have made over 60 albums, 10 DVDs, 3 CD-ROM projects and numerous music videos and short films. And they make weird-assed music and dress in tuxes with top hats and eye masks. You May Also Like: The Residents – Meet theRead More
Now here’s a rather famous piece of process music. Composer Alvin Lucier teases out the resonant frequencies of a room by taping a recitation of a piece of text, playing that recording back out into the room, and then continuing on in a sort of infinite regression. You May AlsoRead More
Like WTF Wednesday alumnus John Oswald, the outlier troupe Negativland gained much notoriety with sampling that flouted the boundaries between fair use and outright unauthorized copying of another artist’s material. You May Also Like: Casey Golden – ‘ATLAS’ (2018)
This week I’m taking a break from the truly bizarre to have a short visit with the only moderately bizarre. You May Also Like: Gregory Lewis, with Marc Ribot – Organ Monk Blue (2018) Elliott Sharp, with Mary Halvorson and Marc Ribot – Err Guitar (2017) Marc Ribot’s Ceramic DogRead More
The Bay Area guerrilla thrash-jazzers the Splatter Trio were only together for five or six years during the first half of the 90s, but they managed to leave a path of destruction in their wake. You May Also Like: Peter Brotzmann, Majid Bekkas + Hamid Drake – ‘Catching Ghosts’ (2023)
Loving covers of popular music is a grand jazz tradition. From blues vamps to show tunes to popular song of the day, jazz musicians have explored the harmonic opportunities found in pop music. You May Also Like: Anthony Braxton – ‘Quartet (Standards) 2020’ (2021) Thumbscrew [Mary Halvorson, Michael Formanek +Read More
A long time ago, I was with my cousin at some guy’s apartment and this guy pulls out an old Sarah Vaughan record, puts it on the turntable and the song he played just blew me away. You May Also Like: Why Deelee Dube’s ‘Trying Times’ Remains Such a ComfortRead More
People who have a rigid conception of what music is (read: chords, harmony, melody) are often surprised to learn that musical inspiration can materialize from very unlikely sources You May Also Like: Dave Seidel (Mystery Bear) – ‘Involution’ (2021)
“I love feedback very much.” When you hear the noise art of Otomo Yoshihide, you understand what an understatement that is, coming from him. You May Also Like: Otomo Yoshihide & Chris Pitsiokos ‘Live in Florence’ (2020) Satoko Fujii + Otomo Yoshihide – ‘Perpetual Motion’ (2023)
It starts off with some relatively straightforward arpeggios, tensely shifting back and forth between two chords. And then…a kind of beautiful mayhem. You May Also Like: Bill Frisell – Music IS (2018) Bill Evans – Time Remembered, The Life & Music of Bill Evans (2016, DVD)
