Philip Corner - "Satie Slowly" CD, Album, 2014 (Unseen Worlds)

Erik Satie is very much in my DNA.  I was raised with his music due that my parents played the Aldo Ciccolini recordings of Satie's music, especially volume one, that was released by Angel Records, with the Picasso portrait of Satie on its cover.   There are many other versions by different pianists making Satie's piano music, but I was devoted to only the Ciccolini recordings.  Due that they are the best?  Or just out of brand loyalty?  For whatever reason, I could never get fully behind other's interpretations of his piano music, I think at the time 'why bother?'  Recently I got Philip Corner's collection of Satie piano music called "Satie Slowly," and it enchanted me from the very first note to the last in this double CD set.

"Satie Slowly" can mean Corner is playing the notes and melody in a steady slow pace, or it can expect to enjoy the music on one's own natural slow pace.  Nevertheless, there is something organic about Corner's approach to Satie's music, that is never fussy, and the melodies ring out slowly like peeling a juicy orange and making sure not to have any moisture from the fruit land on your white pants.  Each cord he plays on the piano has a slight echo that rings to the next note, and it's a subtlety that is small in comparison of playing something significant, but the spacing allows the essence and beauty to come out of its music. 

A mixture of nightclub cabaret and reflection, this is where Satie lives, and Corner plays his music in the sense of grace, humor, and the essence of everyday life coming and going.   It makes sense that Corner is also a visual artist as well as a member of Fluxus, an art movement that is hysterical and serious at the same time.   These piano recordings, at this moment, are my favorite Satie performances.  I want to thank Alejandro Cohen of The Dublab Creative Cultivation for turning me on to this double-CD set.  It's marvelous. 

Suede - "Suede" Vinyl, Reissue, Album, 2014/1993 (Demon Records)

As mentioned before on this blog, I have been avoiding Suede for 25 years.  Usually, when I do something like that, it's for a good reason.  I here now to admit I was wrong.  They're a terrific band with solid songs.  My problem with them is that they wear their influences quite loudly, and that got on my nerves.  25 years later I read lead singer Brett Anderson's rather remarkable childhood/teenage memoir which led me to re-listen to their catalog.  I'm slowly buying up their albums on vinyl, and it's an exciting listening experience. 

Suede's first album, simply called "Suede" is a homage to both Bowie and The Smiths.  Bernard Butler, the co-writer as well as their guitarist, is a mixture of Mick Ronson and Johnny Marr.  Incredibly skillful with the many-layered sounds of his strings, I'm often drawn to his playing over the music or anything else on this album.  The music is sensual with a JG Ballard/Bowie lyrical stance of wasted young people on the verge of death or some sort of life on the boundaries of a world gone wrong.  In other words, it's a romantic work.   Mat Osman and Simon Gilbert are a terrific rhythm section, but it's really the presence of Butler and Anderson that is the first stage of Suede.   Butler does remind me of Marr in a sense they are both music geeks.  There is a formula at work, in that most of the songs reach the chorus dreamily with the phrasing and echo of Anderson's vocals.  

Beside the Brit-Pop being full of good looking lads (and ladies), all the bands of that time don't sound the same.   If I had a gun to my head, I could see traces of Pulp and Suede sharing a certain sensibility, but Jarvis Cocker is a much more realist at looking at his world.  There is nothing romantic about Pulp which is a significant part of their appeal.  Also, I believe they may have been slightly older, so therefore more experienced in the relationship department.  Suede is very teenage angst, but also on a street level.   I look back at those times and hear this album as something new to me.  

Holger Czukay - "Der Osten Ist Rot"/Rome Remains Rome" 2 x Vinyl 10", Compilation, UK, 2014 (Grönland Records)

I'm not a total Can virgin, but I do have two Can albums and one Holger Czukay "Movies" LP.  Just recently I found some odd Holger releases that I know very little about, and I suspect that they were originally released as 12" LPs, but recently re-released by Grönland Records (out of Germany) as a trio of 10" double disc sets.   "Der Osten Ist Rot/Rome Remains Rome" is one such set.

I like Can a lot, but I prefer the solo music by Czukay.   Eccentricity rules the aural world, and I'm a huge fan of Czukay's mix-and-match style of music making, where I suspect he uses samples of classical music, voices, and outtakes from Can sessions.   This particular package of music is both catchy, danceable, and experimental in the Musique Concrete style of making music.  There are also moments of great beauty, that is like watching the sunrise or set, and not expecting to see that due that maybe a building or mountain is covering the rise and fall.  "Der Osten Ist Rot/Rome Remains Rome" is a joyful experience from Side A to the end of Side D.  

The Beatles "Rubber Soul" Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissued, Remastered, Mono, 2014/1965

As a gentleman (if I may call myself that) born in 1954, The Beatles were truly a band that I grew up with, as the albums were released.   It's so odd for me to hear such a sophisticated album "Rubber Soul" when I was 11 years old.  How could I possibly understood "Norwegian Wood" at that age, yet, on its original release I played that song over and over again.  Even as a young child I like songs that sounded sad, that somehow I felt was a reflection of my being at the time.   Of all the Beatle albums, "Rubber Soul" is an album that I can listen to in my head by just reading the songs off the back cover.  They're etched not in color, but in black and white, just like the photos on the back cover of the album.  A very contrast black & white, compared to high definition images replaced by "Revolver" their next album. After that, it was all bright technicolor photos of The Beatles from "Sgt. Pepper" to "Abbey Road."

The sound I hear on "Rubber Soul" is four men, who seemed to be older (of course) and perhaps wiser, yet, in reality, it's a record of reflection of men still young.  Almost like a soldier who came from the front lines of a war, young, but bitter from the experience.   In reality, there is not one bad song on this album, yet, it's not my favorite Beatles album anymore.  I recently purchased the album in mono (all the Beatle records I own are in mono, except "Abbey Road") and as I played it, I didn't feel any emotional attachment to "Rubber Soul" whatsoever.  Yet, as a child, it had a huge impact on me by how it brought a sense of sophistication into my world.  If you think of the pop music (almost all great) being made in 1965, especially by the British Invasion bands of the time, "Rubber Soul" in comparison is a rainy day with thick clouds in the sky type of record.  "Michelle" is probably the first time I heard a song that is sung in partly French.   How could I possibly relate to that, except I loved how the language was sung by Paul in that song.  Not exotica in the sense of an American tourist in a foreign part of France, but conveyed a sense of bitter romanticism just by Paul's voice and instrumentation.  

"Rubber Soul" is an important album, and when you think of it as being released in 1965, the Fab Four were somewhat distanced from all the others in the music market at the time.  It reminds me image-wise of Fellini's early film "I, Vitelloni" (1953) when one of the characters at the end of the film moves on from his childhood/teenage friends to a new world, but traveling alone.  In a sense, The Beatles were waving goodbye to their contemporary fellow musicians and some fans, that they are moving on, to territory that is not yet formed or idealized at the time. 

Perfume Genius - "Too Bright" Vinyl, LP, Album, 2014 (Matador)

I discovered Perfume Genius in Tower Records in Shibuya Tokyo.    It was the year of "Too Bright's" release, so it must have been in 2014.   I was intrigued by the album's front cover shot of Mike Hadreas.   I felt it had a connection to David Bowie's "Hunky Dory."   I put the headphones on and got to the second cut on the album "Queen," and thought to myself, "this is it."  When I got back to Los Angeles, I purchased the vinyl edition, and it is one of my favorite 'new' albums.  Keep in mind that I never bought new music anymore.  The fact is, the past draws me back to certain eras, not due to nostalgia, but because it's new to my ears.  When I hear French Musique Concréte of the 1950s, it just blows everything current away.   But to be honest, it's the past that brought me to Perfume Genius.  As mentioned, it reminded me of the old Bowie cover, but also a time when homosexuality in pop music meant something to me.  It was a forbidden world in the 1970s, especially being surrounded by macho rock icons like The Eagles and so forth.  I just wanted that world to go away, and therefore Roxy Music / Bowie/ Glam became part of my chosen language. 

Playing "Too Bright" from side one to side two, exposed the world that lived in shadows.  There is a low-key technique that Hadreas conveys in his expressionistic view of that planet, that I find intriguing.  The songs for one, are very short.  They're not The Ramones, except I felt that the shortness of the Ramones first album was a statement in itself.  I think "Too Bright" has a similar appeal to come into one's consciousness and then leave as soon as possible. It's like a dream that you awaken from in the middle of the night, but once you go back to sleep, you forget the details of that dream, but you're left with a presence of some sort.  "Too Bright" is that presence that stays like an aftertaste of a good mint chocolate candy. 

The songs have a quiet groove that at times, reminds me of minimal Electro Prince.  Yet there are moments of great majestic gestures that are glam like, but then goes back to a quiet mode of communication.  Adrian Utley, of Portishead fame, co-produced this album, and here he shares an ambiance that is very suitable for Hadreas aesthetic.  An excellent match-up of talent here.  

David Bowie - "Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)/'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore 10" 45 rpm Vinyl (Columbia)

A 10" vinyl release with a retro cover.   David Bowie's packaging of this long player single as well as its music was the first gesture that changes will come within the Bowie world.  My first impression is that this is some long lost recording that Bowie did for ECM Records.  Big jazz band music that borders on the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht side of life.  "Sue" is a theatrical tale of a murder that reminds me of Brecht's "Baal" which Bowie acted in a British TV version of this early play by the master.  Songs by Brecht in that theater piece deals with murder with a very detached language that's poetic and equally horrifying.  Bowie uses the same technique as Brecht here on this song.   The music is by Bob Bhamra, Paul Bateman, and Maria Schnieder.   At the time, this sounded like a one-off track, but now we know that this will lead to Bowie's last album "Blackstar." 

The b-side has my favorite Bowie song ever  - which is saying a lot because I love his music so much.  "Tis A Pity She Was A Whore" sounds like a demo recorded by Bowie by himself, but I'm not sure if that's the case.  The noise and electronics are a work of beauty.   Violence with an amount of grace mixed into this great cocktail of a record.  This too showed up on "Blackstar," and like the A-side a new or different recording.   I'm not sure which version I like more - both are very different although it's the same song, and the arrangement is similar.   The 10" single is a must to have, especially if one is a fan of "Blackstar."  Bowie was on a high aesthetic mode toward the end of his life.   May he live on in our hearts and minds.