aworks :: "new" american classical music

Voxorgachitectronumputer (2007). Charlemagne Palestine & Joachim Montessuis /panic-poetic spaces/

Charlemagne Palestine has a new live recording. I've played the hour-long track once on rdio and haven't yet sorted it out in my mind. Usually, I have a more immediate reaction, good or bad, to Palestine's music.

On Joachim Montessuis:

His noise and video events are devised as panic-poetic spaces in which sensorial disturbance and blurring occur, starting from silence to wall of sound. 

Schlingen-Blängen (1979). Charlemange Palestine /at one's pleasure and will/

Image via WikipediaCharlemagne Palestine to play Schlingen-Blängen in LA in March:

In a rare return visit to Los Angeles, where he lived in the early 1970s, he'll pull out all the stops on the world's largest church pipe organ. Always accompanied by his family of stuffed animals, Palestine has gained worldwide notoriety for his transcendent and earth-shaking performances, which create the illusion of dozens of organists playing simultaneously. His pure and animistic music creates trance-like drones that must be heard live to be fully appreciated.

I listened to the recording over the holidays and it remains memorable and provocative in a minimal and intense way. lala:

Charlemagne Palestine: Schling...

Ingram Marshall on Palestine's aesthetics:

Once, many years ago, he and I were listening to a beautiful, sensuous orchestral work of Debussy, and after a particularly ravishing passage he said to me, "If only it would stand still and stay that way for a long time." In a way, that is what he has been trying to do, turn music into a physical entity that can be experienced like a painting, as something to be contemplated at one's pleasure and will.

---

prior schlingen-blängen posts on aworks: initial exposure. beguiling organ. available on emusic

Schlingen-Blangen (1979). Charlemange Palestine /emusica/

Image via Wikipedia

I'm still digging through all those New World Record albums now available on eMusic. The latest find is the long single track of Charlemagne Palestine's Schlingen-Blangen.

What I said five years ago:

9/1/03 update: I bought the CD from Amoeba in San Francisco. It's 71:38 of organ drone aka "rocks on the keyboard." I admit to liking it although it is a bit overhelming as well. It's hard to tell what is actually being played versus what are "psycho-acoustical" effects from a Baroque tracker organ, of all things.

The Golden Mean (). Charlemagne Palestine /animal/

Adam Baratz attends that Feldman/Palestine piano concert and makes an interesting observation:

Palestine's music, despite its flirtations with Eastern thought, struck me as being very animist. All his hammering seemed like it was trying to tap the same energy reached by the man-animal deities that surrounded the pianos.

The Golden Mean (). Charlemagne Palestine /boston/

Charlemagne Palestine performs The Golden Mean and Stephen Drury performs Palais de Mari by Morton Feldman in a Boston concert next week.

Palestine is the esoteric, fascinating artist and composer who visited the Bay Area earlier this year. Wikipedia:

A contemporary of Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Steve Reich, Palestine wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences’ expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music.

Drury is the artistic director of the The New England Conservatory Summer Institute for Contemporary Piano Performance as well as the pianist on the superb Cage CD In a Landscape.

palestine: composer site

Strumming Music (1974). Charlemagne Palestine

David Toub comments on Kyle Gann's recent post about Charlemagne Palestine:

I never heard any of his music until last year, and devoured much of what I managed to find. Palestine is unusual, much as I found LaMonte Young and his wife, Marian Zazeela to be unusual. Eccentric doesn't do any of them justice, and they are unique, highly creative and gifted composers/artists.

Agreed. I think if you like the music of Young, you would also like the music of Palestine. And if you think minimalism is Zzzzzzzz, ???

2002 Palestine interview here. A description of his Strumming Music from an old Shandar recording here:

The music consists of a single track of approximately 45 minutes per solo piano played by Palestine. A composition very strong and intense, the acoustic sound of the piano, thanks to a great technique and a very strong physical force, becomes the sound of an entire Orchestra full of harmonics.

Timbral Assault (1987). Charlemagne Palestine

I haven't heard the Godbear CD by Charlemagne Palestine (with the work Timbral Assault among others). However, I found the CD in one of the many lists presumably from Paul Morley, in relation to his book I haven't read titled Words and Music (via Little Raindrops).

“Has pop burnt itself out? Paul Morley, author of the acclaimed memoir Nothing, takes the reader on an epic drive through the history of music to find out. The drive is inspired by the video for Kylie Minogue’s hit single ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’; it’s as if Kylie is driving towards a virtual city built of sound & ideas.

A succession of celebrities, geniuses and other protagonists led by Madonna, Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Erik Satie, John Cage & Wittgenstein appear in Kylie’s car to give their points of view. Detours & sights along the way include Missy Elliott, Jarvis Cocker, Eminem, Human League, Radiohead, Lou Reed, Now! That’s What I Call Music, Ornette Coleman and the ghost of Elvis Presley.

City of Sound found the book inferior to Anthony Lane's Nobody's Perfect, of all things.

From the web page of lists (which I assume come from Morley's book), here's a subset of what I've heard that I would recommend. In hindsight, listening and liking all this pop music has likely skewed my classical preferences, and probably leads to Charlemagne Palestine. Also keep in mind music like Edgard Varese, Coltrane's Meditations or The Monkees are for specialists only...

File Under Popular Music (1) – 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
o Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works Vol II
o Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica
o Velvet Underground – Live 1969

File Under Popular Music (2) – 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
o Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children
o Bowie, David – Low
o Bryars, Gavin – Sinking of the Titanic
o Sinatra, Nancy – Greatest Hits
o Who - Sell Out

File Under Popular Music (3) – 100 Greatest Albums
o Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
o Cooder, Ry – Paradise & Lunch
o Neu! – Neu!
o Nirvana – Nevermind
o Velvet Underground - & Nico

File Under Popular Music (4) – 100 or More Greatest Albums
o Pink Floyd – Meddle
o B 52s – B 52s
o Orb – Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
o Monkees – Monkees
o King, BB – Live at the Regal

88 Albums - If You Think Radiohead’s Kid A is Weird, Then You Should Really Hunt This Music Down
o Sonic Youth – Goodbye 20th Century
o Varese, Edgard – Arcana/Ameriques/Ionisation
o Arvo Pärt – Tabula Rasa
o Hendrix, Jimi – Are You Experienced?
o Ligeti, Gyorgy – Lux Aetena
o Pablo, Augustus – King Tubby Meets Roots Rockers Uptown
o Conrad, Tony/La Monte Young/John Cale – Inside the Dream Syndicate Vol 1
o Palestine, Charlemagne – Schlingen Blangen
o Coltrane, John – Meditations

110 Other Albums to Think About if you Think That Radiohead’s Kid A is Really Weird
o Volans, Kevin – Cover Him with Grass
o Partch, Harry – Delusion of the Fury
o Cowell, Henry – Mosaic

121 Songs That Explain Why Kraftwerk are Kraftwerk & Just How & Where & When Their Influence Spread & Turned
o Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls
o Soft Cell – Tainted Love
o Anderson, Laurie – O, Superman
o Radiohead – Idioteque
o Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds
o Aphex Twin – Acid Avid Jam Shred
o Orbit, William – Water from a Leaf Vine
o Hancock, Herbie – Rockit

Greatest Pop Single of All Time (210)
o Clark, Petula – Downtown
o Turtles – Happy Together
o Morrissey – Every Day is Like Sunday
o Beck – Loser
o Police – Walking on the Moon
o Chemical Brothers – Block Rockin’ Beats
o Flying Lizards – Money
o Garbage – Stupid Girl
o Beastie Boys – Sabotage
o Wonder, Stevie – Superstition
o Rufus – Tell Me Something Good
o Surfaris – Wipe Out
o Cornershop – Brimful of Asha
o Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun

Still File Under Popular Music: 100 Greatest Albums of All Time
o Boards of Canada – Geogaddi
o Dreyblatt, Arnold – Adding Machine
o FC Kahuna – Machine Says Yes
o Various Artists – Incursions in Illbient

And for those who read this far, a couple quotes about Timbral Assault. Jason Morehead:

On "Timbral Assault," you're standing inside a tower as the bells above chime out their song, each one fighting to be heard, but everything coming together in a sound My Bloody Valentine might dream of. The sounds begin to sway and careen and the walls begin to pulse and shift as Palestine dives deeper and deeper into the mass he creates.

Sound Projector:

Palestine doubted if the piano alone would be capable of unleashing these powers, until he heard what a Bosendorfer grand could do. Before that connection - one that could only be made by physical contact - he supposed the answer lay in electronic music, his beloved carillons he played with his feet in church, or even simply in loud volume. Then he hit those piano keys and depressed the pedals, and learned to live in the overtones.

orangejazz:

There is simply nothing like this at all. I don't want to come off too technical, but what starts off as a piano becomes a room of swirling sounds with so many different combinations and ideas that change soley on where your head is placed. It becomes tangible and physical sound. It's by far the most spiritual music I've ever heard.

Schlingen-Blangen (1979). Charlemagne Palestine

I'm still beguiled by this piece on the New World Records CD. It can be hard to listen to as there are no clear structural sections or divisions but instead, 70+ minutes of streaming organ. But the effect is so interesting, maybe because of the timbral and chordal emphasis.

Ingram Marshall comments about the composer's static orientation in the liner notes (PDF file here):

Once, many years ago, he and I were listening to a beautiful, sensuous orchestral work of Debussy, and after a particularly ravishing passage he said to me, "If only it would stand still and stay that way for a long time."

What's interesting, though, is that in the midst of such static music, small changes become dramatic, which is the minimalist's credo, I suppose.

Piero Scaruffi called this music "colossal."

Schlingen-Blangen (1979). Charlemagne Palestine

I don't much about Charlemagne Palestine, other than some affiliation with the 1960s minimalism community. But "Schlingen-Blangen" streams on the Minnesota Public Radio / Music Mavericks - Smooth Live 365 site and whenever it comes up, I take notice. The long, drawn-out chords convey both stasis and energy, in a beguiling way.

In an interview with Palestine, he says that "Schlingen-Blangen" is a way of "humming in space."

The Database of Recorded American Music describes the origins of the organ piece.

9/1/03 update: I bought the CD from Amoeba in San Francisco. It's 71:38 of organ drone aka "rocks on the keyboard." I admit to liking it although it is a bit overhelming as well. It's hard to tell what is actually being played versus what are "psycho-acoustical" effects from a Baroque tracker organ, of all things.

---

9/13/03 A good review on Almost Cool. The music is compared to the sensation of being in a dark, silent cave and surrounded by the experience.