[lbo-talk] Rough Trade Shops proves I'm no longer hip

Jeffrey Fisher jeff.jfisher at gmail.com
Sat Nov 20 09:11:06 PST 2010


That's a pretty harsh judgment of Eno, and if he's right, it's really disappointing. But as Penman says, Eno has so many other things he's doing now that it maybe shouldn't be surprising if the music he's making isn't his best. But I need to listen to it.

On the list itself, I've barely been listening to music recently (unfortunately -- and what I have has been a fair bit of classical, and older rock like pearl jam's album from several years ago), so out of that top 25, the only one I've listened to in its entirety is *Broken Bells*, which I absolutely love and recommend to everyone who will hear me. Don't judge it by the first single ("High Road"). IMHO (de gustibus and etc.). I completely missed that Dangermouse had another project this year (which checks into this list at 92), so I know to go listen that.

On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 3:22 AM, Hein Marais <hein at marais.as> wrote:


> Mike, saw Penman's skewering. Over the year's I've found his verdicts are
> not off the mark too often, though I like and respect Eno enough to hope
> he's wrong this time.
>
> Has anyone come across Bob L Sturm's "Music from the Ocean"? "Field
> recordings", so to speak, generated with the data collected at offshore
> buoys off the coast of California . None of the soothing, gurgling sounds
> one hears on Attenborough's Blue Planet -- just these undulating electric
> sheets of sound, a real sense of relentless immensity. You can read an
> interview with Sturm here:
> http://www.swanfungus.com/2009/06/interview-bob-l-sturm.html
>
> H
>
>
> On 18 Nov 2010, at 10:18 AM, Mike Beggs wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 6:37 PM, Hein Marais <hein at marais.as> wrote:
>>
>> Talking of whom, one of the more better (and more interesting)
>>> releases this year is Black Dog's Music for Real Airports, a reposte to
>>> Eno's Music for Airports. You can read about it and hear snippets here:
>>> http://www.musicforrealairports.com/live/
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for reminding me about this, I love old Black Dog and I had
>> heard about 'Music for Real Airports' but it slipped my mind. Good
>> stuff... I have to say though that it would be nice to live in a world
>> where Eno's version would make sense in airports.
>>
>> Speaking of Eno, I just read a savage review of his new one in the
>> Wire by Ian Penman:
>>
>> "This may be the first solo Eno work that is entirely without
>> interest. It is bafflingly below par. Start with that wincingly twee
>> title, so icky and precious it sounds like some high-scorn Young
>> British Artist parody of a previous art era’s solipsistic formalism. I
>> dunno really: what IS it? Eno’s idea of a joke? Some personal code or
>> anagram? A joke about the dangers of self parody?... Mall Gift In Silk
>> Wrapping doesn’t even have the virtue of being terrible, or boring. If
>> it broached the sublime shadowlands of Boring it might not be so
>> bad... Eno is not a dumb guy. Does he not know that, in 2010, the bar
>> has been raised – in terms of both quantity and quality – as far as
>> anything Ambient/Drone/Imaginary Soundtrack related goes? In other
>> words, is it merely the result of myopic laziness, or of overly
>> diversified priorities (in other words, straightforward CD-making
>> isn’t what really interests or excites him any more)? Or is it
>> something more on the level of a kind of politely veiled dishonesty –
>> for if the real Eno were to really make music about his real thoughts
>> and drives and emotions (an Eno who is, as we know, in real life, full
>> of mischief, eros, humour, anger, politics, politicking, who is wide
>> open to new sounds and musics) it would surely be a world or two
>> removed from this... this... overly polite, formulaic, neat-freak
>> suite of instrumental bits and pieces, things that appear to have no
>> real need to exist."
>>
>> Joel, if that's your thing, seek out Chris Watson's work. You may
>>> remember
>>> him from Cabaret Voltaire in the early 1980s. My favourite of his is a
>>> recording of glaciers shifting, which he turns into a troubling,
>>> emotional
>>> piece of work, believe it or not.
>>>
>>
>> That's Vatnajokull off Weather Report - I came across this recently
>> too, as it happens, and I love it too. I hear he does the sound
>> recording for David Attenborough.
>>
>> Mike Beggs
>>
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