Art Watch: Tim Hawkinson

Whitney until May 29



For larger version of "Emotor":
http://www.kellysalerno.com/art21/images/image36.jpg



Mirror is a self-portrait in which Hawkinson represented not how he imagined he looked, but exactly how his image appeared in a mirror. 'I produced my reflection in three dimensions by sculpting my self-image onto the surface of a mirror exactly as I saw it reflected,' writes Hawkinson. 'The result was a three-foot-tall 'gnome,' seemingly grotesque and distorted but, from my original perspective, quite accurate. I made four of the figures, cut them into small cubes, and spliced the cubes together to 'grow' the figure to life size. This accounts for its somewhat digitized appearance.'

Celebrity Watch: Eliza Dushku and New Beau

Music Pool: Monade, Basement Jaxx

A Few Steps More

On A Few Steps More, the line between Monade and Stereolab is blurrier. With the addition of permanent members, Monade are now a proper band recording in a professional studio, and the result sounds a hell of a lot like Stereolab. Sadier has one of the most distinctive voices in indie rock, so in one sense the similarity isn't surprising. Catch her in a duet with your granny on bongos and you'll still hear plenty of our beloved Groop. But here so many of the trademark influences and timbres (AM radio horns, Brazilian rhythms, lots of Moog) are presented in essentially the same proportions we've come to expect from late-period Stereolab, and it's a little strange that two different bands can be pointed in almost the exact same direction. It also makes me wonder what Tim Gane-- the person I once imagined to be Stereolab's genius auteur (there's subconscious sexism for you)-- is contributing at this point. Still, once you get past the initial disorientation, A Few Steps More is a solid record. Sadier's vibrato-less purr (she's singing mostly in French here) is as enticing as ever on "Das Kind", and halfway through she dusts off the high-pitched, far-off wail that shows which layer of Beach Boys harmony caught her attention. "Wash and Dance" has a nice build, transforming from a floaty ballad into a swirl of ringing guitar and driving drums. A few songs are too long, and it gets a bit samey by the end, but the album projects a coherent and well-realized mood: Mid-tempo, mellow, and dreamy, these songs make me glad spring is just around the corner.



Kish Kash

Ah! So with Kish Kash, Basement Jaxx deliver yet another disc pumped to the gills of every sound in the world they can get their hands on. Curiously, much like their pop music opposite in Timbaland—he who values open space as opposed to Ratcliffe and Buxton’s zest for overlapping layers that theoretically shouldn’t work, but do, oh so well—Kish Kash finds the band settling into a comfortable groove, almost refusing to push any sort of an envelope, but instead—the crucial instead!—almost playing a sort of catch-up, lapping up production—Indian strings, most prominently—that we have heard in far more vital context on Rooty, or ... top forty radio! ...Kish Kash, the album, rides triumphantly along the Basement Jaxx formula we know and love, the formula of throwing weird shit in everywhere!...These are real songs here, with choruses and verses and vocals wrapped around each other. "Good Luck" opens this album, a clear, absolute presentation of the best of Basement Jaxx.

p.s. A great article about the underestimated brilliance of the '67-'71 Beach Boys:

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=648

Included on the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey two-for-one is the bonus track “Can’t Wait Too Long”, which was another lost masterpiece of Brian’s recorded in separate sections between SMiLE and Friends. My bet is that bands like Stereolab and Radiohead have heard this groundbreaking production, for many of their soundscapes echo the sublime sonics and instrumentation of “Can’t Wait Too Long”. This song is easily one of Brian Wilson’s greatest achievements as a songwriter and producer; in five minutes and thirty-five seconds it does for his musical legacy what the entire White Album does for the Beatles. “Can’t Wait Too Long”, with its trancelike repetition and ultra-modern ambiance, is another piece that sounds right at home in the 21st Century.

Music Pool: Bob Dylan's First Album

Bob Dylan

This album now seems as remarkable as his mid-'60s breakthoughs. Like Presley's Sun Sessions, it is both the remnant of a lost rural America and the seed of rock culture. The music is primarily Dylan, with acoustic guitar, barking traditional folk, and blues. He was 20, a Northern hick come to New York to be the next Woody Guthrie. It's amazing that at 20 he sings "In My Time of Dying" and "See That My Grave is Kept Clean," not as traditional songs, but making their doom and resignation sound personal.

Music Pool: Mutantes, Mary Hansen

E Seus Cometas No Pais Do Baurets

The fifth album from Os Mutantes was officially their last, although they would record another one in the same year, released as Rita Lee's solo album. There was little sound technology available, so they had to invent their own wah-wah, flanger, and phaser pedals, sound systems, and more. The second track is an acoustic ballad where the innocent voice of Rita Lee presents the love declaration of a bitch to her dog, backed by a bumbo leguero (typical instrument of South American countries and a trademark of protesters against dictatorship). It is no surprise that they were hated by the government: censorship delayed the release of the album, due to the title and the lyrics of "Cabeludo Patriota" ("Hairy Patriot"). Os Mutantes changed it to "A Hora E A Vez Do Cabelo Nascer" and added some noise over the censored lyrics. That leads you to think that their debauchery, irreverence, and utmost ignorance and alienation in relation to the grave happenings of the time produced some serious awareness. On the properly musical side, they show uncanny virtuosity in several different styles (rock, funk, ballad, jazz-rock) in tracks longer than the usual, filled with improvisation and beautiful and challenging solos.



Hybird

2005 4-track CD single compilation of solo works recorded by Stereolab vocalist Mary Hansen who died in a road accident in 2002, featuring two tracks from her deleted 7" single plus the final track that she was working on before she died - 'Marching Music' - which has been finished by Andy Ramsey of Stereolab in keeping with prior discussions with Mary, artwork is taken from original designs and from her photo collection accumulated from years of touring.

http://www.recordstore.co.uk/duophonic/

Book Club: Ideas for Book Club

A suggestion: rather than the usual one-person-assigns-one-novel-to-whole-group-and-several-months-later-it-will-be-your-turn-finally book club premise, maybe we ought to create an anthology of essays, poems, chapters, and any other kinds of small pieces. How about we each submit 10-15 pages photocopied from our personal libraries? One of us with access to a heavy-duty copier (me, for example) will receive and collate the submissions into a single anthology and mail full copies to everyone. Then we read them and either meet in person to discuss, or meet online to discuss, or both!

Please comment!

Art Watch: Damien Hirst at the MFA

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/hirst_np.html

Welcome to Dirty Trotsky!

Dirty Trotsky is the online nexus for [insert glib name for our group of friends based on a perverted in-joke] to discuss what books to read, what music to buy, and what art to see.