The Binary Marketing Show, "Yield What You May" EP

The two unassuming southerners who make up The Binary Marketing Show are friends of mine, but I’m not the kind of person who would write a glowing review of something that actually sounds awful. I am more of a humanitarian type, one who would risk looking foolish to try to save somebody or something he loves from self-destruction—and if there is one band in this world that always seems on the verge of exploding into a mess of brilliant strands that never regroup, The Binary Marketing Show is that band. Its very essence centers around workicide: the band describes its 2007 full-length Destruction Of Your Own Creation as “synth folk textures in a context of hopeless and nihilistic fanaticism,” and most of the dozen or so performances I’ve seen (usually after I’ll get a text message alert about the show at the last possible minute) consist of cathartic, frustrated improvisations on the skeletons of their intricate electro-rock recordings.

Yield What You May is by turns disjointed and pulverizing, but the EP also has its moments of sweet bliss. Instrumental “Trust And Candor” opens with a twisting mash of musique-concrète, and gradually gives way to Jason Meeks’ galloping drums and a syncopated 8th note build-up that seems stolen from a circus carousel’s organ. Then, cymbals and toms burst in and meld with layers of reverberated trumpet in a dramatic climax that evokes heavy rain. In “In Tongues And Ideas,” the jarring shake of an electronic hi hat guides beatific, shining layers of guitar as Abram Morphew sings in a homey southern twang, “And everyone bumps into one another / But we are hardly aware of each other / And this separates you and me / Might as well be infinity.” The blissful chorus plays host to driving strains of cascading guitar and a ghostly keyboard line, as the two cry in unison, “Whoa oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh.” The closer, “Six To Eight Hertz,” with an off-beat accordion-like rhythm line and a testy back and forth between Morphew’s vocals and crashing drum fills, suggests—as Binary Marketing Show so often does—that the EP’s dying moments will brim over with power and glory. Instead, the two suddenly and unpredictably descend into a sublime half-beat chord progression and drums playing in reverse, making a calm lull that sucks up into silence. Perhaps the two are suggesting that all of this should just be remembered as a tempestuous hallucination, or not remembered at all.

On a Brooklyn rooftop one night this summer, I realized that this duo commands a restless sound that needs to be nurtured, not killed. In the first few minutes of their set, the party’s lanky birthday boy shot into the air like a rocket, sparking the modest crowd into a frenzy of dancing. The next twenty-five minutes felt like we were all one exhilarated organism. Take that, workicide.

Rating: 70%

:: Stream the entire EP
:: myspace.com/thebinarymarketingshow

This was published yesterday on Cokemachineglow.

"Rubber Chicken" by Caspa

Whoa. This tune merits some explanation. The dubstep producer’s success is definitely not measured by the girth of his or her wobbler bass. But the fact that the dizzying subsonic effect has wiggled its way into Britney Spears’ 2007 hit “Freakshow” demonstrates that it hasn’t only become the shake by which you identify dubstep, but a colour friendly to even the most trite fodder of the masses. Senior dubstep producers like Skream and Benga, who nurtured the style with reggae, dubplates, and the delightfully pseudo-analog FruityLoops TS404 patch (and who now share an affinity for wobbling with certain Estonians) must be well aware that there is something about that deep gestation that draws you in. In quarter- and eighth-note tremors synched up with sultry half-step beats, the wobbler disturbs and coaxes, eases and throttles.

Caspa's “Rubber Chicken,” which appeared on vinyl in 2007’s Tempa Allstars Vol. 3 and got mixed by Youngsta into the Rinse label's new I Love Dubstep CD compilation, is so overwhelming that, frankly, it took me a great effort to finally listen to this all the way through, only to listen a dozen more times. And that happened in my room, where it flowed out of a paltry pair of computer speakers—imagine being in a giant, foggy black club amongst a crowd of sweating people and having this thick tone pulse through your body with megawatt speakers…

At my next engagement with Dub War here in New York City, I’ll say bring it on.

This track review was published today on Cokemachineglow.

"IRAQ WAR ENDS"

So reports Page One of the curious "New York, Saturday, July 4, 2009" edition of "The New York Times" I obtained tonight.

The lead article, by Jude Shinbin, reports: "WASHINGTON - Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom were brought to an unceremonious close today with a quiet announcement by the Department of Defense that troops would be home within weeks."

It continues: President George W. Bush, "noted that the Iraq War had resulted in the burning of many bridges. 'Yet our history with allies runs deep,' he said, 'and we all know that friends forgive friends for anything. Or nearly.' A spokesperson for the French Ministry of Defense confirmed that France would assist the U.S. withdrawal. 'The U.S. helped the Soviet Union defeat Hitler. We do recognize that.'"

Also in this issue, columnist "Thomas J. Friedman" announces his resignation: "I have no business holding a pen, at least with intent to write. ... to have been so completely wrong about so huge a disaster as what we have done to Iraq - and ourselves - is outrageous enough to prove that people like me have no business posing as wise men, and, more importantly, that The New York Times has no business continuing to provide me with a national platform."

Keep your eyes out for a copy of the "Times" that might be floating around the streets near you...

Update, 11/12, 1:07 pm:

The real Times notes that the infamous Yes Men have taken credit for the fake newspapers. In a statement issued today, they wrote: "In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street."

Independent Bookstores of New York City Unite!

As it appeared in the New York City section of The AV Club in the 10/23-10/29 issue of The Onion. [It's not available online and I'm having problems with posting a pdf.]

Shop Write
A few small bookstores worth haunting

Small bookstores in our famed literary city are precious wellsprings of inspiration for aspiring novelists, forums for chain-smoking anarchists, prime loitering spaces for jobless weirdoes, and more. But ever-rising rents and the encroachment of corporate chains and online booksellers have killed off many treasured shops, and the economic meltdown suggests a bruising season to come. To save indie shops from extinction, a new alliance called Independent Booksellers Of New York City has put up a website (ibnyc.org) with a list of over 70 affiliated stores, a map of their locations, and a pretty pink bird. Among some of the uncommon favorites:

Bluestockings
(172 Allen St—Lower East Side)
Organized as a feminist worker’s collective, Bluestockings is run by hip 20-something volunteers (women outnumber men 4 to 1) and a staff of co-owners who describe themselves as “reluctant capitalists.” The focus has always been on feminist texts by authors like Jennifer Baumgardner and bell hooks, but there are also essential titles on politics, economics and activism from the likes of Naomi Klein and Michael Albert. All day, young anarchists and old Democratic Socialists alike pore over the ’zines, drink the coffee, and prepare for the leftist revival. Evenings play host to activist-led discussions, such as recent lessons for how to divine compost from garbage.
Emblematic impulse buy: DivaCup menstruation kit
Model patron: Thurston Moore

Oscar Wilde Bookshop
(15 Christopher St—East Village)
This historic shop has served the gay community in Greenwich Village since 1967 and favors everything from Ellen Hart’s series of “Jane Lawless” mystery books to Randy Shilts’ definitive tome on homosexuality in the U.S. military. The friendly staffers are knowledgeable within their specialized focus, and they’re eager to share what they like about undiscovered gems. All of which makes for a warm and welcoming environment, especially for those who fear being outed in a bustling aisle of Barnes & Noble.
Emblematic impulse buy: Firefighter/merman Christmas tree ornament
Model patron: Vaunted memoirist Alison Smith

Brownstone Books
(409 Lewis Ave—Bed-Stuy)
Urban planner Crystal Bobb-Semple opened this family-oriented shop with her husband eight years ago to build up community along a sleepy avenue in her family’s picturesque neighborhood of Bed-Stuy. (There’s also a branch at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in Fort Greene.) The focus tends toward what the owner herself deems “important books” (The August Wilson Century Cycle, Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao), and the tiny space makes for quite a neighborly place, with events that have featured a children’s book illustrator and the inspirationalist behind The Hustler’s 10 Commandments.
Emblematic impulse buy: Moleskine notebook
Model patron: Queen, a former Black Panther

Melville House
(145 Plymouth St—DUMBO)
Situated in a neighborhood peppered with the offices of literary journals (The Brooklyn Paper, The London Review) and lots of other bookshops, this showcase for the publisher Melville House carries its own titles plus essentials from fellow indie houses like Verso and Soft Skull. Laid-back events marry cheap beer with timely presentations: It might have even been reassuring to visit during the second presidential debate, when Harper’s publisher John R. MacArthur discussed his new book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers To Democracy in America.
Emblematic impulse buy: Bobble-head doll of Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem
Model patron: A multimedia artist pushing a stroller

Freebird Books & Goods
(123 Columbia St—Red Hook)
Freebird is an ideal place to laze away a Sunday, and not just for the special section labeled “Great Jackets, Bad Titles, And Just Plain Weird” (see: Loxfinger: A Thrilling Adventure Of Hebrew Secret Agent Oy-Oy-7). The soft-spoken owner might just brew you some coffee and offer fascinating insight into the yard of Red Hook shipping containers across the street. The monthly events are impish (recently, visitors celebrated Thomas Pynchon’s birthday by faxing the author congratulations), and the “post-apocalyptic book club” might yet prove prescient.
Emblematic impulse buy: Moxie soda
Model patron: “Sweaty Eddie,” junk salesman —Peter Holslin

Interview: Josh Diamond of Gang Gang Dance

Gang Gang Dance is renowned for explosive, brain-melting sonic adventures inspired as much by African indigenous music as London grime. But this Manhattan-based foursome is no one-trick pony: last spring they pulled off an elaborate audio-visual presentation at the Whitney Biennial in New York, in August they conducted an orchestra of 88 drummers on the Brooklyn waterfront in an epic cross-country collaboration with the legendary Japanese band Boredoms, and most recently they released Saint Dymphna, a transcendent record that the Glow’s own Mark Abraham calls “possibly the most complex and weird dance album of the year.“ The day after Barack Obama was voted in as the first African American president in US history, guitarist Josh Diamond spoke with CMG on the phone about channeling the right energies, using a guitar hooked up to MIDI, upcoming plans to record a new album, what happened to former drummer Tim Dewitt, the purity of Japanese food, and more.

CMG’s Peter Holslin (CMG): How do you feel about the outcome of the election?

Gang Gang Dance’s Josh Diamond (GGD): I’m psyched man, I’m really psyched. I’m a little bewildered, as well, because it seems like this unbelievable potential for our country to finally be more progressive. You travel around the world, and most places get it by now, and it’s so frustrating. I mean, New York gets it. There’s a lot of places that get it.

[Barack Obama]’s a real caring human being, you can really tell. And it’s just beautiful. I think it’s beautiful to go from slavery to today. I just feel there is a chance, you know, for some progress. And I haven’t felt that way in a long time and, if anything, was really cynical for the last eight years. You just feel the weight of everything. I know that there’s pit falls as well. I know also that the world is pretty fucked right now, and we’re pretty fucked in a lot of ways. But I think that there’s a chance for Robin Hood. For true Socialism.

CMG: So, I just want to get this straight: Is Gang Gang Dance named after the Gang-Gang Cockatoo?

GGD: No, we found out about the Gang-Gang Cockatoo later. It’s named after this record that Brian [DeGraw, the band’s keyboardist/percussionist] got. I never remember the name of the band, but it’s like, he went to a record store and bought all these different, really diverse records and brought them to the counter and the guy was like, “Oh, you like all this stuff? Try this record out.” It was some band and the title of it was Gang Gang Dance. He took it home and it was the worst record he’s ever heard in his life.

CMG: So when you found out about the cockatoo, what was your reaction?

GGD: Is that the bird that won’t stop singing?

CMG: Um, I don’t know.

GGD: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. It’s nice to have strange connections. There was another one, it was a video of Ashanti’s. She was describing this dance move that she did and she said it’s not quite hip hop, it’s not R&B, it’s not funk, it’s kind of experimental or whatever. She said it’s called ‘gang gang.’ So that’s a little connection too. Pretty cool.

CMG: So you’re heading to Milwaukee right now, a few days into your tour. Is there any place that you’re looking forward to, or not looking forward to?

GGD: Right now, particularly just with this new kind of potential environment we have here in the United States, I’m looking forward to seeing all the places, you know?

CMG: Do you prefer to play in any specific kind of environment?

GGD: Oh, for sure, for sure. We started off this trip opening for Of Montreal and we were playing these big theaters and a couple of them were kind of nightmarish for me personally. There’s seats, and everybody’s sitting down in assigned seats. The vibe is just gone. I like playing places where you feel the audience there with you. I like the smaller clubs, where we shine.

CMG: Gang Gang Dance has a very distinct sound, but there are also elements of reggaeton, grime, and other styles of music. Are you planning this out, or are you just inspired in such a way that elements of different music end up in your songs?

GGD: It’s the latter for sure. We improvise. It’s a really natural thing. This is my therapy session.

CMG: How do you feel about Saint Dymphna? Do you think it’s a more mainstream record as most reviewers, and as your press materials, have said?

GGD: As far as the mainstream thing, I think it’s still pretty weird. The production quality is a lot clearer than our last record, which people pick up on. I don’t know, we just make music, man, that’s what happens. It’s not up to us, people can decide whatever they want, if it’s more mainstream or less. We didn’t plan it to be any particular way.

CMG: From what I’ve read, it sounded like the process of making Saint Dymphna was pretty fractured and frustrating. How did the record come together?

GGD: It didn’t come together for a long time, it was a fractured process. And I think maybe there was a bit too much in our minds at the time when we started making it. There was a lot of pressure inside the band to make this more ambitious thing, whatever that was. I think that force, the pressure to do that, was messing everything up. We have a really natural way of making music. Things work out the best for us when we actually just accept ourselves.

But that was only one thread of the fractured process. We’d start recording and then we’d have to go on tour. We would go to a studio and make some headway, and then, like, not finish what we were working on and have to take, like, two months off, and gather money, or go back on tour, and come back to try and start where we left off. By that time, we couldn’t even go where we left off, you know?

CMG: It’s like you have this energy going, and then once you cut it off, you’ve lost it…

GGD: It’s lost, to a large degree. We also had a really hard time, like, putting the right energy into making the record. But finally, in the last month and a half, that’s really when the record was made. We had one last push, we recorded almost all of the record. We used a couple of old recordings but almost all of it was recorded then. And we mixed with our sound engineer, Sean. It was a much more natural process and I think we finally just were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna get this done.’ It was just so relieving to have something. I’m proud of it, I just can’t deny that there was turmoil in making that record, you know? But we’re going to record a new one, to make up for that.

CMG: It’s in the works right now?

GGD: We’re gonna record in January. We’re going to the desert, to Joshua Tree, for a month. And we’re going to make demos on our own, and then our sound engineer, Sean, is going to fly out. We’re just going to record it all in the family, you know? I think it’s gonna be awesome.

CMG: When you look back, how do you feel about the band’s development? Have you ever had an idea of what you wanted to do, where you wanted to go with your music, some sort of plan or goal or something?

GGD: It’s intense to look back on it because it’s almost been a decade of my life, with the band and my friends making music. But looking back is always way different than looking forward and I don’t think that we had a plan. Certainly not in the beginning. Really, I think that we just really believe in our music and we try and be as pure as possible and as close to that kind of ideal, the ideal that we believe in our music. To continue making music, all the time. The only sort of plan is to try and move forward, to try and not rest, or like get stuck in some specific frame.

CMG: How did you, personally, start making music?

GGD: I played the violin from the age of four to the age of, like, fifteen. Music has just been something I’ve always done.

CMG: As for your guitar—is it run through a MIDI processor?

GGD: I don’t know, I could get techy on you…it is a MIDI processor, but it’s a pick up that is able to split the signal into like six different signals, then it’s a box that recognizes the pitch and converts it to MIDI.

I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I’ve had different guitars that have different pickups and I finally got a nice piezo pickup. If anybody wants to do it, those are the best ones for the job. The real weird thing about it is that it’s basically failed technology. This stuff has been around for years and nobody really wants to use it. It doesn’t sell very well, it has no money behind it. It works pretty well, actually.

CMG: Why do you use synth sounds on a guitar, instead of using a normal guitar or a keyboard?

GGD: Well, as far as the normal guitar thing, I like to think of our music as very colorful. I feel like there’s a lot of different textures and colors it makes. That’s what makes our music special. I felt, with a guitar, it felt too limited. No matter how much you change the sound, it always sounds like a guitar. And as for not playing on a keyboard, you just play differently on the guitar, there’s different ideas. To me it just works. I’ve been doing it for many years, and it just makes sense to me. It might not make any sense to anybody else, but…

CMG: Has your increased popularity over the past few years brought the band more funds, for new equipment or better production quality? How has that affected the band, if at all?

GGD: There’s up and downs for us, all the time. There are some times that we’ve had in the last few years where we did get some money, to be able to get equipment and to be able to…like, we payed for our last studio time by ourselves. I think that we’re more fortunate than a lot of bands out there. This summer was really hard financially, and all of last year before we didn’t have this new record out. They didn’t wanna book us anymore. They were like, “Come back when you have a record out.” And we were out of fashion and out of favor. And we’re in fashion, I guess for the moment, and we’ll probably fall out of fashion, but still make music. I just think there’s an even flow.

We don’t make very much money. We’re below the poverty line, as far as this country is concerned. I would like things to change a little bit as I’m getting older. We’re all getting older. And it’s not age, specifically, but it’s the demands on your life, you know? When you’re doing this, it’s very intense. I’d like to have some sort of…not reward, but it’d be nice to feel more secure.

CMG: Do you have a day job?

GGD: I bartend in New York, at a bar in Brooklyn.

CMG: What happened to your drummer, Tim Dewitt? I read that he got shot, which is very saddening to hear. Also, he’s not credited as a band member on Saint Dymphna.

GGD: He’s in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he’s OK, totally fine. I don’t know, he wanted a break from the band. He wanted to, I think, make his own music for a while. I don’t think he was happy living in New York City. He had a hard time there. He would’ve been happy just being on the road all the time. Going home for him is like ripping his heart out or something like that. He’s still one of my best friends. He makes amazing music right now, and producing, learning how to produce records. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the future. I mean, we saw him in Chicago and he almost jumped in the van with us.

CMG: Gang Gang Dance is often glommed together with Animal Collective and Black Dice. Since 2000, a lot of similarly weird acoustic-electronic hybrid bands with quasi-tribal, experimental and worldly elements have emerged. Do you think this is a movement, a phenomenon? Or is this just part of a cross-cultural musical conversation that’s been going on for decades?

GGD: [Chuckles] Intense. I don’t know, that’s a long question. Well, you named some of our contemporaries. We used to share a practice space with those two bands. That was years ago and it was like this little strange vortex. It was all three of us in the same room, in the practice space. The one thing that really stands out to me about that is we were all very different. There were a lot of similarities at the same time, but the sounds of the bands were very distinctly different. And that was beautiful.

I think we were just trying to make our own music, and that’s how we made it. And we still try to do that, you know? And now there’s all this press, and attention, and this idea that there’s like this thing going on, which isn’t anything. It goes on in different places as well, in Indian music you hear music from ’60s rock and roll and stuff like that. Whatever. One of the most beautiful things you can do is just make your own music, do your own thing.

CMG: How do you feel about the term “world music”?

GGD: I think it’s a capitalist term. It comes from, to some degree, trying to categorize something so you can sell it. I think that that’s a large part of it. Categories can be helpful, in some ways. I can go to a store and I can look in the world music section, and I can go to the section on Africa.

The term “world music” is very trivial. I mean, ideally, I’d like there to not be any borders in the world the phone cuts out for a couple seconds, cutting him off mid-sentence. That’d be Utopia, for sure. Even now, we have Obama and it’s interesting, because I think that patriotism is OK to a certain degree as long as it doesn’t turn into some sort of crazy nationalist thing. But, it’s interesting. Now, we’re Americans again. I felt like we’re Americans today.

CMG: What are some of your nonmusical sources of inspiration—like books, places, food?

GGD: Japanese food. And Japan is wonderful. We went there this summer. I’ve been to Japan twice. It’s inspiring for me to go through Japan. Just the way that people treat visitors when you go there, with humility, and hospitality, and respect, and patience. People are beautiful there. There’s just a different kind of way to take in a visitor, an outsider, to their home. That’s been really inspiring. I try to take some of that with me when I leave. I’m still workin’ on it. It’s really intense, man. For me, that’s a heavy thing, to be treated so well, so beautifully. And Japanese food, it’s just really fresh and healthy and if you stay there…like we were there [this summer] for like ten days and it just makes your body feel good. It’s just really pure food.

This interview was published yesterday in Cokemachineglow.

Asad Qizilbash, "Sarod Recital/Live in Peshawar" (Sub Rosa)

For centuries, Pakistan’s northern city of Peshawar has withstood the plunder of invaders and served as asylum for refugees. Today, flanked by war-torn Afghanistan and war-torn Kashmir, it’s a magnet for bloodthirsty members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But things aren’t all bad: Sitting on the Iranian plateau at the edge of the Khyber Pass has had the effect of making Peshawar a cosmopolitan place rich with diverse languages and cultures. All of this explains a lot about Sarod Recital/Live In Peshawar, a performance alternately mournful and free by Pakistani sarod player Asad Qizilbash: the stark red of the cover, the fact that the producers edited out the audience’s applause to ensure their safety, and the guttural wails of Qizilbash’s courtly instrument.

The sarod, a wood and skin lute with between 18 and 25 strings that sit on a fretless piece of metal that lets the strings glide up and down the octaves, is itself a contested thing. There is some dispute over whether it originated in Persia or India, but either way both influences are apparent—considered a bass version of the Persian rubab, it’s often performed in the classical Indian style of raga, whereby the musician improvises on a recurring motif. Qizilbash draws heavily on the teachings of Indian sarod master Ustad Amjad Ali Khan with his adventurous glissando phrasing and bold staccato plucking; his work is heavier than the oft-bland tracks on The Rough Guide to the Music of Pakistan, and his sarod is deeper and more muscular than the sitar.

In elongated, improvised strands, the three tracks on Sarod Recital soar and quiver. The moody, 27-minute improvisation “Raga Darbari” moans with passion. Its opening minutes are an impressionistic dawn full of searching slides and gentle plucks, conjuring the hues and textures of mountain terrain and the frenzied bustle and spicy aroma of an age-old bazaar. Five minutes in, Mustafa Khan enters with a throbbing tabla beat as the sarod’s heavy strings stab, jerk and slash, mirroring the sadness and spilled blood of battle. Halfway through, at the fourteen minute mark, Qizilbash’s fingers flail and whirl around a galloping melody that echoes in your head after the record has finished. Treacherous and full of wonder, it’s like watching the crags pass as you ride into Afghanistan on a horse.

In the American media, Pakistan gets a terrible rap. The picture hardly strays beyond the political gamesmanship of various statesmen and paramilitary types and the looming threat of nuclear weapons. Sarod Recital/Live in Peshawar shows a far more complex Pakistan, a lustrous place built by an array of peoples, including Buddhist ascetics, Sufi mystics, and the red-hatted Shi‘i Muslim warriors of the 14th century known as the Qizilbash; a place at once traditional and modern, with a culture inhabited by cardamom tea, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s velveteen voice and the Hellfire missiles of American Predator drones.

Rating: 70%

This review runs today in Cokemachineglow.

Change has come

CNN's video of President-elect Obama is streaming into my ears. When I first heard, I was in shock with such happiness! So many times on this blog, I've bemoaned so many of the tragedies America has wrought, I've cried for the fog of propaganda to fade away. Life has become unreal and horrific. Now, I cry for this. I feel reality again. I am inspired. I gush tears of joy.