2653: The Year In Review

The following excerpt was originally published in Growth And Prosperity in the Modern Age with Howliday Publishing inc. I have decided to reprint it here based on it's seemingly insightful observations which we all know were completely unfounded with the light of hindsight.

The year 2653 was an uncharacteristically innovative one compared with the basically boring output of 2652. Maybe we just had to find our own niche to set ourselves apart from the roaring '40s. We needed some breathing room to reinvent that iconic decade's impact on the greater Magellanic Clouds or at least absorb and digest all that had changed and happened. For me, the early '50s were most of all characterized by a mourning of the end of a very special era. An era that we can be proud to say that we had taken part in and will look back on in the coming years with love, and nostalgia.

But the time of mourning has passed. Making headway in this burgeoning scene of new-anti-genres and pro-anti-neo-genres were such ambitious newcomers like People w/Problems, The Dumbest Luck, and So So So. Not only were these three visionary in their output, but signify a certain shifting of the guards. Spawning a bumper crop of imitators, we can see, easily, that these two groups and a collective will have an indispensable influence on the landscape of music in the years to come. I for one, welcome our nanite leaders in this exciting new age. . .

. . .first and foremost of course, are Pw/P. Unabashedly influenced by Gamma Sigmotron The Last Human Band (not to be confused with Sigmoidal Gamblon), Pw/P more than anyone else this year, signified the birth of something new. It was not a derivative sound, it was an homage. At times it could be said that their approach was a general critique of all the 8-bit knockoffs that surfaced at GStLHB's peak, adding all the more irony to Pw/P's imitators. The approach of uploading themselves into planet bound containers and making music the same way as the humans of GStLHB, while the bodies slowly died as caustic atmospheric gases ate away at their fragile bodies, seems like a gimmick at first, but then you hear how it sounds. Theres something to be said for the loving adherence to the tropes of an old fashioned style which we had all thought could never have another relevant reinvention. I for one, only listened to 22nd century music for a long, long time after getting into Pw/P. Their second album was unleashed upon the public at the tail end of the year, still only several kiloseconds ago as I write this now. The eponymous album, a single 16 hour project cataloging and slowly reminning the dying cries of sentient supernovae, is oddly in sync with their other effort. Yes, this is a collective to look out for, lest they eat the diamond that your soul is stored on, and we may never look at the planets, or the stars, the same ever again.

World Mix Tape Volume VII (Songs from Taiwan)

This post contains no music whatsoever from Taiwan.

Also, this photo (compliments of AJ Kuech) is of the really big buildings in Hong Kong, instead of the really big buildings in Taipei, because I don't have any good ones yet.

The Mustangs

Ace - Miami

Anyway, the days of this site being a geographically lopsided diode are over, because I (Mazur) have moved to Taipei. This in part explains the lag in posts recently, because the intra-net here wont let me upload songs (endless thanks to Laz for uploading them for me). Additional downtime was due to, as Laz commented on, her being in Romania, OMGIMike losing his blogger password, and DJ getting something in his eye which hurt real bad. Real bad.

Anyway, since this is my first post from across the Pacific, another installment in the ohmygodimmike World Mix Tape (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) seemed fitting. As resident jet-setter (and Romaniac moonlighter) Laz pointed out in her installment to this worldly collection, world music "according to Wikipedia, has to be non-western, or non western-influenced" which she then states is "pretty hard to come by these days." Our mix tape, which consists heavily of alt or experimental rock, (often from western, sometimes even *gasp* North American countries), like Canada's Black Mountain, Italy's now defunct Dada Swing and Australia's Howling Bells, definetly fails in that respect. So perhaps it would be better to call this an International Mix Tape, or maybe I should just shut the fuck up. Either way, I hope this helps continue our pirate captian DJ's stated goal for this "project" of "only posting songs falling into the rigid category of those made in this one world" and "changing people's hippified perception of world music (ie. not just african drum circles and sitar music)." Although, sitars are, of course, totally sweet.

Anyway, here's some info about the bands posted up top:

The Mustangs were traditionally a noise-rock band from Seoul, South Korea, but their new album (which the above track is off of) finds them drifting into stripped down drone rock territory. HERE's a video of them playing at a club in Hongdae, Seoul.

Next, Miami consists of two women (Ai Kajiya and Ai Kobayashi) from Toyko who play violins and laptops, as well as some other various samplers. And they totally rule. This track is off their recent EP, Great Composers.

And now the sad sad news; wonderful Italian yes-wave band Dada Swing have broken up. Hopefully it's just a sick joke. But probably not. In honor of the twitchy greatness that was, HERE's a link to some sweet free Dada Swing downloads, which again I can't post due to my Taiwan intra-net woes.

Fine.

Well, I just got back from Romania. And already I'm posting about it. Because I love our readers. I hadn't been there in 8 long years and it was good to feel the Romanian soil under my feet once again. I wasn't alone though, I was accompanied on this journey back to my roots and into my very soul, if you will, by some of my best friends. We traveled the country together and we had a great time.

The top picture of the cool bananas is from Costinesti, the Romanian Ibiza, by the Black Sea. This mural painting from the Club Banana ( or whatever ) was gracing that wall last time I was there13 years ago . Being eleven at the time I thought it was pretty darn cool, and I was really happy to find it right where I left it. A lot of things were like that in Costinesti, it's like the whole city is stuck in the beginning of the 90's. ( This is a theory I also had about Madison WI, but with Madison it's 1996-98 in particular, musically and flannel-wise. ) In Costinesti people had mullets, which I thought was a myth about Eastern Europe. I like mullets though, so that was a pleasent surprize. Another fun observation I actually just made, was that the young party-people of that city are actually pretty similar to those bananas. I don't care to elaborate, you can just let your imagination run free with this one.

In Bucharest we found cooler people and this fun old club called Club A ( my mom has actually been there back in the day. Only there was apparently no dancing back then, only you know, really serious discussions. Of course). That's were the sorry-ass, poor, sweaty, dirty, foul-smelling students hang out. To quote the taxi driver who drove us there. The description made me hopeful, since we had just left Club Max, a place filled with 6-7 dancing brides ( wedding dresses and all), a lot of go-go dancers in cages, gross old men with mobile phone cameras and guys with mullets (again). And really slutty chicks with bad highlights. (Yeah. Take that, scary Romanian girls!). But seeing a bride is considered good luck in Romania, so I'm all set for the next few years after that night. That's pretty cool. Here are some more good luck and bad luck Romanian sayings:

Make a wish:

- First time you eat a fruit you never had before.
- First time you eat a fruit at the beginning of it's season, every year.
- Eyelash, put it inside your shirt.

Good luck:

- Seeing a bride.

Bad luck:

- Whistling inside.
- Whistling inside a car.
- Owning an in any way broken mirror.
- Owning anything broken.
- Pouring water the wrong way. Can't explain that one. Hopefully you're doing it the right way.

At Club A I heard this song about a beautiful gypsy for the first time. Everybody got up and danced in traditional horas ( circles), and sang along super loud. I was singing along too and watching it all when I became really aware of being in the middle of a city where I have so much more to discover.

Inima de Tiganca

The main part translates " Gypsy-girl you are beautiful, my gypsy-girl, I love you and I can never forget you". Enjoy.