Ballot be casted!

Yesterday was a nonpolitical day - I usually listen to WNYC and beloved Brian Lehrer, BBC World and Democracy Now!, but I just couldn't take it, it almost hurt. Only one thing matters at this point: the vote. Instead of saturating myself with news on news coming from DR Congo and Somalia, and the massive mash of election and economy coverage, I bathed in the hours and hours of music I've acquired lately from various sources. The crunked FruityLoops dubstep of Benga, the dark crooner Mahmoud Ahmed and his funky horn band, the hypnotic Gang Gang Dance, Zé Di's explosive samba, the wailing sarod of Asad Qizilbash, the gentle, lush, slightly dissonant indie pop of Broadcast. In the afternoon, I bought compact, rather insufficient computer speakers and plugged them in when I got home. Can you believe that, in a full year without having stereo speakers, I only went out to buy some yesterday - and they were mere computer speakers? Oh, what you have missed for so long, with only the tinny amplification of a Macbook! To full blast the new speakers went, creating a rhythmic, melodic and harmonic massage.

Well, a few minutes ago I walked a couple blocks to the local elementary school and voted for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Now it's just a matter of waiting out the day - all of us, Brian Lehrer, the NY Times election team, the Arts and Letters editors, the Iraqi journalists on Inside Iraq, contributors to Cokemachineglow and Resident Advisor, the young people in black winter coats and black eyeshadow waiting in line behind me, my coworkers, all of us have to endure the excitement, anticipation, anxiety and tension of this day. Hearing the results that will come in late tonight, literally seeing and hearing them, knowing that they are truth, might feel like drowning. Or, it could be like breathing air again.

Headhunter, "Nomad" (Tempa)

Rating: 80%

Nomad opens mysteriously, with a mild vacuum and electronics like gales of wind. The steady kick drum quietly enters and gains velocity. An implacable piece of electro-percussion pans back and forth, scampering like a horned lizard. Over two minutes pass before a seductive synth line and a grooving high hat alight on the creeping bass. Who is this nomad, and through what hazy region does he travel? It seems that this is an outsider of the future, either on the run from a cyborg-killer or looking for the nearest nightclub.

In fact, the nomad is the boyish Headhunter, the Bristol, England, producer of the ever-evolving dubstep genre that emerged from the UK Garage scene alongside grime several years ago and quickly took on a global following. Nomad, Headhunter’s first full-length release and first offering in CD format, is steeped in dubstep’s traditions—the sprightly half-step beat, the ominous two- and three-note synth lines, the heaving, subsonic bass that blasts out of the sub-woofer directly into your solar plexus—and sure enough, Headhunter employs the trademark “wobbler” bass in the aptly-titled “Baseflow.” Dubstep tunes from the likes of Skream and Benga are spacey and dark by nature, but hits like “Midnight Request Line” are tinged with hyphy-esque funk. Headhunter’s Nomad, taking cues from the mutated sonic vocabulary of minimal techno connoisseurs like Berlin’s Basic Channel, is altogether headier and more unreal. This is a futuristic, moody and vaguely menacing kind of dance music.

Saturated in colorful trails, bursts and spurts, driven by an ostensible half-beat shuffle—think “dun dun POP dun,” not “dun POP dun POP”—and overlaid with fast, intricate and infectious patterns of claps, shakers, congas and snares, these ten tracks meld together in such a way as to imitate the evolutionary phases of some half-organic, half-robotic being. “Prototype,” with its creepy echoes, propulsive bass and whipping snare, brings to mind Johnny Mnemonic’s would-be assassin, whose thumb doubles as a razer-sharp lash. It’s capable of triggering a quasi-spiritual trance on the dance floor, and just as well the soundtrack to the nail-biting final showdown between Molly Millions and the assassin up in the windy, decayed geodesic domes of Nighttown. The pursuit gives way to the plodding kick drum, lazy snare, and squawking, wandering bass of “Technopolis,” which segues into the leering “Grounded,” in which rapid-fire congas, propulsive taps and popping sounds deliciously snap together in intricate concert. Liquidy layers and juicy layers, all sandwiched, pushing deeper and forward, finally give way to the breathtaking “In Motion,” an anthem for cyborg sex if there ever was one, with cool, shimmering high hats, a punching synth hit that seems lifted from Nintendo and a bass that groans and beckons: Prithee, dearest cyborg, satisfy my loins for all time.

“Physics,” “motion,” “flow”...if Headhunter was Robo-God’s messenger, his statement to the growing international dubstep clan would be clear, familiar and irresistible: move that body.

:: myspace.com/dubstepheadhunter

This review was published today on Cokemachineglow.

Songs on love, in all its joy and despair

Love songs can compel one to do crazy, bold things; they seem to imbue relationships with magic. But love is fluid, taken for granted and thrashed, and often it finally dies under strain. From that void of emptiness and despair come the heartbreak songs. This cosmic bond rarely survives the sojourn through hell, to produce an inspiring work like Windy & Carl’s Songs for the Broken Hearted. Continue...

Published yesterday on Cokemachineglow.

Toast To Us

If Hawnay Troof was a workout routine and not a hyperactive electronic dance act, Vice Cooler would be its spasmodic Richard Simmons. At the band’s September record release party at the Williamsburg performance space Death By Audio, Cooler set the beats on his Dell laptop to an ear-pummeling volume and gyrated his heart out. Wearing a black dress shirt and beige suit, he barked into the microphone, jumped, wriggled, and spun. He crashed into the audience and fell to the floor. Back on the twelve-inch-tall stage, he drew the audience into his reverie, beckoning with spirit fingers. “Don’t you touch me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!” he sang, leading some forty audience members in the chant from “Connection,” the dizzying hip-hop track from his new release, Islands of Ayle. “Why can’t you feel me? Na, na, na, na!” Continued at the Brooklyn Rail... Photo by Savage Pink.

Deeper into the dark

This morning, my boss and I were called into the conference room to sit in on a meeting between Mr. M., VP of G/MP, a modestly-sized and resilient publishing house of stationery and children's educational toys, and the president, Mr. G.

Sharply dressed, his collar unbuttoned, his arms taut, his eyes piercing, his expression serious, his deep wrinkles and leathery white skin augmenting the sagacity of his words on business, G.G. sat at the end of the dark wood table and calculated in his head - twist this, cut down on that, pour money into this, bring up those numbers. The VP, an immense fellow with a cool demeanor, sat to G.G.'s side, nodding, interjecting, consulting documents. My boss sat across from me. Brainstorming about ways to maximize profitability, the three of them engaged in a numbers conversation that seamlessly shifted from subject to subject and grew faster and faster, to the point that it became incomprehensible to me. Suddenly, a live recording of the Ethiopian singer Mahmoud Ahmed and his band popped into my head. I listened to the imaginary alto saxophone wend its way through a sultry and ominous melody.

These days feel like October 2006, when the Military Commissions Act appeared and shot through Congress in a flash: Being thrashed and upturned, experiencing fundamental change, falling ever deeper into the "death-spiral." Only then, I applied sharp focus to the ghastly tectonic shift meant to swallow up the invisible Others. Now, I am aloof, focused on countries continents away, other peoples and cultures, but the devastation is descending on me and my ilk.

The other day, on my usual calling spree, I asked Stewart, the owner of a book store in Illinois, if he'd like G/MP's catalogs. He gave a deep sigh. Sure, why not? "We're not doin' a whole lot right now," he said. "But who knows? Better times will come."

On Cokemachineglow, a track review of Alva Noto's "U_03"...

Suffocated by my Macbook’s worthless speakers, “U_03” sounds like a fax machine on the fritz. But in the hermetically sealed soundscape of my headphones, this track sounds like a fax machine—or even one of these fancy multi-use appliances—that has been dismantled and rebuilt into a cyborg that communicates in funky rhythms. Alva Noto mastermind Carsten Nicolai, an intense looking German who mines jpg data files, telephones and indeed fax machines for sonic material, starts the piece out with a rapid succession of high-pitched blips and abrupt kicks that pan right and left to make a tight beat. It gets heavy—really heavy—when deep and buzzing electronics suddenly burst forth. Verily, upon this aural plateau, the fax machine cyborg ghost rides tha whip.

The river, the desert, the wild...

On Saturday a jolly band of misfits joined adventurer Rob Buchanan on a row up the Hudson river to the mythic ruins of a castle along the Palisades, near a sandy bank a quarter-mile past the George Washington Bridge. The tip of the island sat before us. We assembled benches from logs, collected fagots to make fire, played the celebrity game (Wim Wenders and William Carlos Williams, if just a W!), and drank white wine and beers and cider into the night, while the remaining dots of cityscape radiance endured.

When all was quiet on the lawn of the ruins, overgrown with lush green grass, I slept beside Martine Holmquist, an old friend of mine. But the sudden rattling of rain drove me to consciousness. Dreamily content, massaged by the oppressive sound of the water, I immediately fell back asleep. After I emerged from the tent, I took strange-tasting instant coffee, in my glass jar-cup, and for a moment it felt as if I hadn't had coffee in days, weeks, months. Ha!

Back on the Whitehall gig, in the fog and sprinkle, the world was a damp and cold gray. It felt broken.

This week on the Glow, a review of Group Inerane's Guitars From Agadez:

The Tuareg people, camel-herding nomads of the unforgiving Sahara in West Africa, are known to perform a unique kind of blues known alternately as Tichumaren (which means “music of the unemployed” in their native tongue of Tamasheq) and simply “guitar music.” In the ’90s, it sprung up as a form of local communication—often the only means of distributing information, cassettes of Tuareg bands like Tinariwen spread from refugee camps in Lybia and Algeria into the villages deep in the Sahara and Sahel deserts, telling the news and calling for freedom from oppression. But over the past several years, the genre has rocketed to international fame and taken on new meaning. It has spoken to oppression worldwide: In 2003, the Navajo traditional/punk band Blackfire performed in solidarity with their subjugated kindred spirits at the “Festival in the Desert” in Mali. And Tichumaren has unified musicians hitherto unrelated: lately, Tinariwen has teamed up with the French band Lo’Jo and… Robert Plant! Guitars From Agadez, the latest installment of what Sublime Frequency calls the “Tuareg Guitar Revolution,” is a set of live recordings by Group Inerane, a ragtag band of men and women from Niger, headed by Bibi Ahmed, a master of languid guitar grooves. The record is a nice historical document, but it’s the band’s hypnotic desert blues that will make English-language listeners smitten. Continued here...

And a Q&A with Portugal. The Man's John Gourley:

When they’re not touring, half of the foursome Portugal. The Man resides in the northwest. The other half hails from the sylvan wilds of Alaska. Songwriter John Gourley, for his part, is a native of Wasilla, the epicenter of the state’s evangelical movement and the home town of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Last month, Gourley posted a touching missive against the Alaskan governor on his band’s website. Over e-mail a day before the vice-presidential debate last Thursday, he didn’t have any juicy tidbits on Palin to share, but he shouted out to his musical allies, recommended some Alaskan bars, explained how his father might’ve met Jesus and discussed the band’s new album, Censored Colors. Read more...

Photo by Nadia Chaudhury.

In the den of Republicanistan, Palin rules

Last night, I joined a team of bleeding-heart liberals to cross into "Republicanistan" and crash a watching party for the New York Young Republican Club at the Houndstooth Pub in Midtown. I had pretty low expectations for the Vice-Presidential debate after reading Jack Shafer's primer and I expected to lose composure at some point and blow our cover. In the end, the experience was not nearly as infuriating as it was surreal and depressing.

The debate began shortly after our team downed some Jagger shots and briefly chatted up the well-dressed, 30-something technocrats sipping cocktails in the bar's dimly lit basement space. Watching the debate on FOX News, I whooped and hollered on cue for the first half, simultaneously trying to keep up the act and focus on the actual words of the candidates. I got the impression, though, that us city-dwellers weren't the intended audience. With Palin's cornpone talk and Biden's invitations to visit his working class home town, they clearly were trying to court the small-town "Main Streeters" of America's battleground states.

Both of them put up a pretty good fight, but I don't think either of them came out particularly victorious. But Palin's getting a lot of credit for not doing anything extremely stupid. As the NY Times notes, “She succeeded by not failing in any obvious way.” For me, Palin proved to have the most memorable comments.

Early on, with total lack of irony, she parroted Barack Obama's platform of change: "I do respect [Biden's] years in the U.S. Senate, but I think that Americans are craving something new and different and that new energy and that new commitment that’s going to come with reform,” she said. “I think that’s why we need to send the maverick from the Senate and put him in the White House, and I’m happy to join him there.”

Later, she repeated McCain's economic policy: a key to economic stability is cutting excessive government spending. Clearly, the Republican ticket wants it both ways, since they simultaneously plan to continue the War in Iraq, which is estimated to cost $2 billion a week.

She proceeded to lambaste Barack Obama for not supporting the so-called surge that, she said, "has proven to work." McCain did the same thing in last Friday's Presidential debate. The weird thing is that, in fact, the surge has proven not to work. Let's not forget that America started the surge in 2007 to make "breathing space" to build a viable Iraqi government. When he unveiled the plan, President Bush said that, "over time, we can expect to see Iraqi troops chasing down murderers, fewer brazen acts of terror, and growing trust and cooperation from Baghdad's residents. When this happens, daily life will improve, Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders, and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas."

But has the Iraqi government made any progress? No. Iraq's parliament is just as fractious, corrupt and unreliable as it was over a year ago. Recently, an Iraqi journalist for McClatchy newspapers named Laith wrote that, over a year into the surge, most Iraqis still have no faith in their government: "All the Iraqis realized that our political parties don't care about us and that money and power are their only concern. We just wait for the last day of the age of this failure government and parliament. Until that day; those people means nothing to us but a thorn in the heart of Iraq that casues pain and bleeding."

Experts credit the "Sons of Iraq," who turned against Al Qaida in Iraq and joined forces with the US military, for bringing down the violence. They also note that Muqtada al-Sadr brought down the violence when he enacted the Mahdi Army cease-fire. But according to this transcript, Palin never even mentioned the words "Anbar" or "Mahdi" (although she did say the word "maverick" 15 times) during the debate. At any rate, there are signs that the peace is about to crumble again into sectarian conflict and political infighting. [Lunch break is almost over: I'll have to post a blizzard of hyperlinks later.]

My carefree whooping came to a halt when Palin declared, "Now, Barack Obama had said that all we're doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause. That's not what we're doing there. We're fighting terrorists, and we're securing democracy, and we're building schools for children there so that there is opportunity in that country, also. There will be a big difference there, and we will win in -- in Afghanistan, also." I could no longer cheer for such inaccurate and preposterous acts of rhetorical gymnastics.

This marked a turning point in the debate, after which everything got progressively more disturbing. At one point, Palin made a crack about Biden's late wife, once a schoolteacher. "You mentioned education and I'm glad you did," she told Biden. "I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?" To that, the Young Republicans cheered.

I dwell on Sarah Palin here because she is a dangerous campaign tool who has trivialized the election. Lately, I've wondered if there is a medieval demon-impostor I can compare her to. Over e-mail today, I brought the question to my mom, an expert on Rennaissance literature. She had a fascinating and insightful response:

I’m more familiar with early modern imagery . . . But in both periods, you have two strands: either religious imagery of anti-Christ figures/ female monsters or secular imagery of folksy, secular Robin Hood heroes. Most of the folksy lore pits “haughty and wealthy elites” against “the folk,” “the many-headed monster” of the peasantry. Robin Hood lore is rich in the early modern period, but what you see is either 1) that the aristocrats were right all along to fear the vulgar, rough peasants who would wheedle their way into high places of authority or 2) that the rough peasant is a hero, by overthrowing an always corrupt or inept aristocracy.

The female monster tradition is probably the tradition that best characterizes the current situation, but it is viciously misogynistic. It draws upon the “lipstick on a pig” metaphor—you may see a beautiful appearance, and you may be captivated and charmed, but this woman is really the whore of Babylon, and will lead you to Hell. Or worse, she is a pig.

The problem --for thoughtful people-- with this literary tradition is that there’s no position to occupy to critique the folksy hero—except to take the side of the haughty elites. You are either folksy, vulgar and peasant OR you are an aristocrat who holds yourself high above the lowly, little people. There’s no way to critique the false posturing of the peasants who would rise to power without validating the aristocrats.

Basically, Sarah Palin is drawing upon this whole tradition—and the polarization works in her favor— as have the Republicans and the red state/blue state distinction for the past 8 years. This distinction serves a figure like Sarah Palin very well—because it distracts both red state and blue state believers from the contradictions within these categories. Red Staters will not critique Sarah Palin, because she “stands for” their resentment of the elite, Washington insiders, and everything you want to associate with them. Whether she is qualified for the position is irrelevant—her genuine, authenticity as a folksy outsider is all the qualification she needs.

Check out these lyrics by Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Red, White and Blue” from their Vicious Cycle CD, produced in –you guessed it—the big year for political music, 2003. And a performance-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26vYdayusrU Here’s the Sarah Palin anthem if there ever was one.

But where would Lynyrd Skynyd be without plastic LA friends and music producers?????? Indeed, this positioning is pretty dishonest.

Love,

Mom

"Red White And Blue"

We don't have no plastic L.A. Frynds,
ain't on the edge of no popular trend.
Ain't never seen the inside of that magazine GQ.
We don't care if you 're a lawyer, or a texas oil man,
or some waitress busting ass in some liquor stand.
If you got Soul
We hang out with people just like you

My hair's turning white,
my neck's always been red,
my collar's still blue,
we've always been here just trying to sing the truth to you.
Yes you could say we've always been, Red, White, and Blue

Ride our own bikes To Sturgis
we pay our own dues,
smoking camels, drinking domestic BREWS
You want to know where I have been
just look at my hands
Yeah, I've driven by the White House,
Spent some time in jail.
Momma cried but she still wouldn't pay my bail.
I ain't been no angel,
But even God, he understands.

My hair's turning white,
my neck's always been red,
my collar's still blue,
we've always been here
just trying to sing the truth to you.
Yes you could say
we've always been, Red, White, and Blue

Yeah that's right!

My Daddy worked hard, and so have I,
paid our taxes and gave our lives
to serve this great country
so what are they complaining about

Yeah we love our families, we love our kids
you know it is love that makes us all so rich
That's where were at,
If they don't like it they can justget the HELL out!

Yeah!

My hair's turning white,
my neck's always been red,
my collar's still blue,
we've always been here
just trying to sing the truth to you.
Yes you could say
we've always been,
Red, White, and Blue

oh..oh..Red, White, and Blue....
Red, White, and Blue
oh..oh....Red, White, and Blue

Palin portrait courtesy the Alaskan government.