----------------------"Kiss the Honey, Honey E.P." by Shinjuku Zulu, feat. "Hey La" as heard on "Paris Hilton's My New BFF", and "Dirty Liar", "Kiss the Honey, Honey", and "SXYLV" as heard on Degrassi. All tracks at 

----------------------"Sonorous Susurrus" by K.I.A.: "Susurrus" Downtemp/Chillout Sampler video, feat. "Scatter" (trip hop & jazz), "Dubmarine" (chillout haikus), "Howdydaomaori" (ambient) at iTunes HERE:


----------------------VARIOUS CHIMERAS by SHINJUKU ZULU feat. "Make Me Shake (We Pull and We Push Push)"(electro/rap/sexopop), "Shanghai Masai" (mulitisyllabic electro rap), Dirty Liar (rap, blues, bluegrass banjo + electronica) and "Scarborough Fair (A True Dub of Mine) (21st cent. Siimon & Garfunkel ambient dub) & 15 other tracks VIDEO SAMPLER:


----------------------BROKEN (dubstep/chillout) by K.I.A. & Shinjuku Zulu: THE VIDEO, feat. liquid'd limbs & hurricane'd faces...

"Broken" by K.I.A. & Shinjuku Zulu is featured on the 13-track downtempo/chillout release "DXLR8-Downtempo Best Of K.I.A & Shinjuku Zulu". Also on the release: "Mrs. Major Tom", "Scatter", "Rainbowbeau", etc. At iTunes here:
Broken by Shinjuku Zulu, the video:



-----------------------WE DO SUPERSONIC by Shinjuku Zulu: the No Mo' Slo-Mo Video
"We Do Supersonic" by Shinjuku Zulu (the No Mo' SloMo Video)

mp3 @ iTunes:

Here come the future, cool like silicon, here come the future, hot like the sun... Ya to fast, No to slow... A go-go global tour, from Tuktuyuktuk to Timbuktu, with stops at Dubai, Shanghai, and, er, Flin Flon, to the song "We Do Supersonic" by Shinjuku Zulu.


-------------SLOW IS THE NEW FAST by Shinjuku Zulu: THE VIDEO... watch it fast and get multiple impressions each time you see it, or watch it slow (using pause button) and get the full text. Or just rap/sing along to the lyrics a la karaoke:
MP3 for "Slow Is the New Fast" feat. MC Shankhini from the 19-track "Various Chimeras" release by Shinjuku Zulu, at iTunes:
and any-player MP3 at Amazon.com, etc:
-------------SXYLV by Shinjuku Zulu: THE VIDEO... the electrobopornodisco
mp3 at iTunes and Amazon.com, etc:




-------------------------------------
NEW RELEASE: "DXLR8", available at iTunes, Amazon.com, Cdbaby, etc. (see links below) features:
- "Mrs Major Tom" (continuing the story started in Bowie's "Space Oddity", but now from the wife's perspective)
- "Allelujah" (as heard in a hot scene in the hit t.v. series "Dirt", where Courteney Cox-- of "Friends" fame-- does it with a rising star in a limousine)
- "Scarborough Fair -A True Dub of Mine" (a futuristic dub/ambient interpretation of the traditional folk song)...
ITUNES:


VIDEO SAMPLER OF THE SONGS:



-------------------------------------
NEW RELEASE: "DXLR8", available at iTunes, Amazon.com, Cdbaby, etc. (see links below) features:
- "Mrs Major Tom" (continuing the story started in Bowie's "Space Oddity", but now from the wife's perspective)
- "Allelujah" (as heard in a hot scene in the hit t.v. series "Dirt", where Courteney Cox-- of "Friends" fame-- does it with a rising star in a limousine)
- "Scarborough Fair -A True Dub of Mine" (a futuristic dub/ambient interpretation of the traditional folk song)...
ITUNES:

Songs and descriptions:
01 "Scarborough Fair -A True Dub of Mine" (21st cent. version) -Shinjuku Zulu
02 "Mrs. Major Tom" (continuing the story from the wife's p.o.v.) -K.I.A.
03 "Allelujah" (dancehall, 17th cent. style) -K.I.A.
04 "Rainbowbeau" (ambient pop) -Shinjuku Zulu
05 "Yedayed" (chillout/world) -Shinjuku Zulu
06 "Broken" (dubstep & soul) - K.I.A. & Shinjuku Zulu
07 "Scatter" (splifftronica) -K.I.A.
08 "One Come We" (electronicamraderie) -Shinjuku Zulu
09 "Dubmarine" (chillout, feat. two reggae haikus) -K.I.A.
10 "Sweetness Likes the Reverb" (acapellatronica) -Shinjuku Zulu
11 "Rise Up" (dub, w/choirboy vocals) -K.I.A.
12 "Coal Coal Black" (blues + dub) -Shinjuku Zulu
13 "Uneunoia" (instrumental/ambient) -K.I.A.

---------NEW Shinjuku Zulu TRACKS UP AT iTUNES, "Kiss the Honey, Honey" E.P. : feat. SXYLV (dance tracks a la Justice, Mstrkrft, Daft Punk, Simian Mobile Disco... check it out at the at this link (copy/paste to the end of the numbers into your browser): http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=267459458&s=143441

*************************

"Da Riddim Griffin" (electro + japanese cheerleaders + disco + german cabaret) by Shinjuku Zulu -free MP3 for download

On the Shinjuku Zulu myspace site for a little while... from the 19-track CD "Various Chimeras"

*************************

SXYLV & Make Me Shake & Dirty Liar: Shinjuku Zulu

Here's a widget w/some Shinjuku Zulu trax, which you can share and embed by copy/pasting the code by clicking the share button... SXYLV is in the Justice / Daft Punk 'hood, Make Me Shake is kinda Fergie/Gwen Stefani/M.I.A. -ish, and Dirty Liar is, er, sorta Ye Olde Schoole Hippe Hoppe. Check them out, they're on the Various Chimeras CD and the Kiss the Honey, Honey E.P. (at iTunes, and any-player MP3s HERE








*************************



"SHANGHAI MASAI": The Velocity Collage (video)
A sexy-slash-seasicky video of more than 400 images compiled in a speed-rebus for the song "Shanghai Masai" by Shinjuku Zulu can be seen on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq31I5ims1s .
It features various celebrity appearances, from Madonna to Immanuel Kant, some explosions, some bums, and lots of visual puns (the lyric "We cowboy mofo" is depicted as a Wii console, a Marlboro Man, a person mowing his lawn, and and an album cover of Adam Ant's "Friend or Foe".) Fun for music triva trainspotters trying to catch all the references.
Look for lightning cameos by Brad Pitt, Michael Jackson, and Jack Nicholson.
Oh yeah, and check out that enormous bubble butt.
Links to the track are on the Shinjuku Zulu myspace page.



*************************



Ayahuasca... & YEDAYED

"Ayahuasca":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayahuasca is a psychotropic drug used in South America by shamans in religious ceremonies to induce transpersonal experiences.

Some of the experiences sound wonderful (plants speaking directly to you, instant healing), some perhaps a little frightening (vomiting black snakes, and um, bug people)... but all are ultimately transformative. (Listen to this News For the Soul archived radio show on the topic; it's about a third of the page down, dated Feb. 15th, "HERE":http://www.newsforthesoul.com/moreshows1aaaaaaaaaa.htm )

In a recent book "Power and Somethingsomething" by Somebody Somebody (sorry I can't remember) the author asks a shaman about the ayahuasca process, and in particular why he seems to speak and sing strange words during the experience. He answers that he uses metaphors and oblique words-- for instance instead of using the word "ground" he'll say "where the peanuts fall"-- because when he uses direct words, he crashes directly in to what he is trying to describe, and therefore can no longer see it. Yet if he uses indirect descriptions, he is able to keep circling around and around his vision, and get a better overall perspective of it.

And ain't that a great description for how songs can also lead to enlightement, or at least greater insight into things... By instead being evocative and not explicit or explanatory, good art enables you to circle around and around...

So the music for this post uses phonemes instead of words to evoke that impossible-to-describe, calmly exuberant feeling life occasionaly gives you...

The track for this post is called Yedayed (which means "sound of the morning rain",) and is from the first Shinjuku Zulu CD (on iTunes "HERE":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=7899232&s=143441&i=7898006 , and also other online distributors) and was, incidently featured in one of the very first podcasts by the "CBC":http://radio3.cbc.ca/



*************************

O.B.E... & RAINBOWBEAU

I used to wet the bed. My pea-sized bladder was so full I'd awaken and quickly throw off the covers and clamber quickly out of bed. I'd feel the thick threads of the rug on my bare feet, and the little shock of static as I opened my bedroom door. In the moonlight, I'd pull up the porcelain toilet seat (cool on my fingers), and pee, the stream hitting the water loudly in the dead-silent house, parents and brother asleep in rooms down the hall. Finished, I'd start to fall asleep as I shuffled back to my room, but manage to get in bed and pull over my covers-- hearing little pops of static from the blanket-- before blackness.

And immediately awaken to wet sheets. It was always a mystery to me, because I knew I'd just gotten up to use the bathroom.

Sleep is a strange thing. I used to be so good at it; now I seem forever awake. I barely have time to achieve R.E.M. now, whereas before I would always wake up dazed with wonder at the beauty and comfort and awe and other mysterious things I'd experienced in my dreams while I slept...

Like this dream, which I had when I was a teenager: It was late in the day. There were some rain clouds in the sky, but they not threatening because they were full of sideways-light from the lowering sun. Way up, from those impossibly high prairie clouds, I could see a blur of raindrops begin to fall. As they got closer, and resolved into individual drops, I noticed something: each one was a different color. Blue, red, gold, violet, turquoise, burnt sienna... all hues, tones and shades, thousands and thousands and thousands of unique colors. (And as those drops caught that late light, they would also glow, or sparkle... it was like soft ameythst and gentle emeralds and tender rubies and more, descending from heaven...)

In another dream that's also stayed with me for a long time, I'm moving into deep space, silently, and passing huge swirling planets and spining twin stars and arcing dust bridges millions of miles wide. I move between massive gaseous balls (which I realized are suns composed of suns, and galaxies made of galaxies) and many more things which I had (and still have) no words to describe. I felt that I was way, way out, farther than I'd ever been before, (but I strangely didn't recall any "before"). And then I heard a voice. It simply, but strongly-- firmly isn't the correct word-- asked "Why are you here?" I answered ("To explore") and woke up sometime later. The only other thing I recall about the dream is that the voice had a face: bald, with distinct eyebrows... and maybe eyes with an epicanthic fold (but I'm not 100% sure on that last detail.)

I also often used to dream of arcing tunnels as I fell sleep. The walls of these circular tunnels were of light (not solid,but like lace,) and mostly white and light purple and blue. I would travel through them at a very, very high speed, but could never see the exit (like when you're in the Space Mountain roller coaster going up a hill.) And here's the thing: after years and years of dreaming of the light tunnels, suddenly, I didn't.

In a more recent dream (even still, six years ago; as I said, I don't dream much anymore), I'm in an enclosed space. There are lots of other people and objects around, and everyone is very active and busy, I can hear them, but the only thing I see is black. Suddenly the floor disappears, and a microsend later i'm dropping, and aware that I'm falling from a great height along with the other people. There's no fear, and in a moment there's a feeling of transition, of transformation. I woke up with a particular phrase echoing in my head, which I told my wife that morning to remember because it was so unusal and clear...

I'm splitting this post into 2 parts, so next week where I'll get into the above phrase and other synchronicities with the dreams...

In the meantime, here's Rainbowbeau , taken from the Various Chimeras CD by Shinjuku Zulu, "at iTunes here":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=154068465&s=143441 , and whose genesis was the multi-colored raindrop dream. (Vocals once again by Larissa Gomes, who also appears on "Mrs. Major Tom":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5126742&s=143441&i=5126722 and "Sweetness Likes the Reverb":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=7899232&s=143441&i=7898129

*************************

DOG TECHONOLOGY...& SHINJUKU ZULU

When European explorers encountered the Inuit, apparently northern Canada's indigenous peoples were fascinated not so much by the explorer's/exploiter's guns, but by their dog technology. The Europeans had trained their animals to perform all sorts of functions and understand commands like point, fetch, and so on, in ways that the Inuit hadn't considered, or considered possible. (Dogs can do....that? )

When the idigenous peoples of Central or South America encountered the first ship from Spain , they had a hard time seeing it, because apparently massive, wind-powered ocean-crossing ships were so far outside the realm of their experience didn't have the ability, or the neural-connections, to comprehend them. (According, anyway, to the writer who proposed this idea, whose name escapes me at the moment.)

And here's the reverse: electric light bulbs existed in ancient Egypt, depictions of which are carved in stone images in "Dendera":http://www.ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=72 . But modern scientists won't acknowledge it. They haven't considered the possibility of sophisticated ancient technology-- or it's just too far outside the realm of what they can comprehend. The funny thing is that so-called debunkers love to say the image is simply a depiction of a lotus... but refuse to acknowledge that actual working versions, based on the wall image, have been made. (Ancient people could do... that?)

For that matter, Tesla over a hundred years ago was working on a lot of things that are just now coming into use, like the idea of transmitting energy not through wires but directly through the ground or the air... a simple instance of this is all the talk these days of the magic of having your cell phone charged just by walking around the city. But Tesla's more complex ideas relate to all sorts of things like scalar waves, HAARP, earthquake and weather control, and other 'magical' technologies. And yet Tesla, at this time, is virtually unknown (except as a mad-scientist movie character). Maybe it's because only recenlty have his ideas become so inside our realm of possibilities that they are now actually being made. (Radio frequencies... will do that?)

By 'technology' I mean a tool that improves or enhances or even simply changes your experience of life. With only slightly different insight, the Inuit might have 'upgraded' their dogs decades before seeing the European's advances. (It would've been like getting an iPhone when everyone else still had rotary dial.)

So onto my dog-technology song. (Voices alone can do... that?) The idea was to make a song that sounded as if an ancient African tribe had experimented with (or 'upgraded') their rhythms, and had arrived, pre-computer, pre-sampler, at drum'n'bass.

It would perhaps have sounded like the track accompanying this post; it's the first track off my first CD, Shinjuku Zulu (at iTunes "HERE":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=7899232&s=143441&i=7897615 )

Every sound on the song comes from a human voice; and by the end over 30 separate voices have been used.

~AJ8AQxJ51TO.mp3~

Another acapella electronica track is "Bedouin Engine":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5126742&s=143441&i=5126738 , from the K.I.A. CD "Adieu Shinjuku Zulu". See also this "earlier post on acapellas":http://mog.com/Shinjuku_Zulu/blog_post/47841

FINAL NOTE: the book that relates the Inuit story is Noah Richler's "This Is My Country, What's Yours":http://www.amazon.com/This-My-Country-Whats-Yours/dp/0771075332/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-6080290-1482256?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182789246&sr=8-1


SPEED BADMINTON...& WE DO SUPERSONIC

Faster is officially the new fast, (despite my earlier "shout-out for slow":http://mog.com/Shinjuku_Zulu/blog_post/75695 ). How do I know this? Because now even badminton is an extreme speed sport.

I was recently contacted with a request to license We Do Supersonic for the inaugural Speedminton tournament in New Orleans. (They approached me because they'd heard of the use of that same song in a Fast Yoga competition.)

Speedminton, for those who don't know, is badminton on four-times-fast-forward. Here's how they breaknecked the game: the birdie is rubberized and it no longer has the same velocity-losing drag shape; there's no net in the game; the racquets are shaped differently; and instead of gatorade you gulp ice espresso.

But don't bother with Speedminton because it's already evolved; now there's Blackminton, which is the same as it's predecessor but is played in the dark with black lights, glowing body paint and booming music. And you don't use a racquet, you use a racket (implying noise.) And you gulp chilled Red Bull.

Oh, you're too late-- Blackmington is already passe-- it's morphed into Badassminton. Which is like it's so-five-seconds-ago precursor, except there's more more: the court is set about four feet off the ground (like for a fight in a martial-arts movie) and there's strobing LEDs on the floor (like Saturday Night Fever 2012). You gulp crack slurpees. Oh, and while you play, the audience is allowed to taser you.

Anyway, check out We Do Supersonic below, taken from the Various Chimeras CD by Shinjuku Zulu; the ragga vocal toasting is by Prince I, who also appears on much slower "One Come We":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068620 and "Dubmarine":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=30919350&s=143441&i=30919261

We Do Supersonic is available at the iTunes link "HERE":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068613

Final Thought: As the song says...
"Here come the future, cool like silicon
Here come the future, hot like the sun"

And here's a link to a "Blackminton video":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QjI597xuVE on (skip the intro; go to about 4:20)

STOPPING... & SLEEP

"Did you hear about those people who got killed at the bus stop?" someone at the table next to me had just asked me. The man was pointing with a tobaco-stained finger to the newspaper on his table. The lead story was about how a bus had gone out of control in the snow and had run over a father and his son.

"You know, I hit a deer once." He slowly lifted his cup and took a sip of his Dunkin Donuts coffee, and continued. "With my truck, on the highway. It was raining, nightime, all of a sudden there it was in front of me, couldn't stop." He set down his cup and clapped his papery hands together hard as he could, imitating the smacking sound of the accident. "It didn't even bleed, like you'd a thought." He reached in his pocket, took out a wrinkled pack of smokes, laid it on the table. "She was a real beauty, too. I felt her heart stop." He took out a cigarette, placed it next to the pack.

"I'm from Drumheller. Lots of dinosaur bones around there." He moved the cigarette to the other side of the pack, then mentioned he was only in Calgary for a few days, this time. He almost never came to town, and only did now because he had to. He loathed leaving home, and the long drive was hard on his eyes.

"This crappy coffee'll kill ya, but I love it." He shuffled over to buy another cup. Coming back, he caught his reflection in the window. He patted down his thin hair, which was white but yellowed by the dim light. He said he always liked to look good for the ladies, and winked. He asked me if I had a girlfriend, was I engaged. He'd never been married, but had wanted to, once. He had a dog though, to keep him company. It made him laugh. "He's always hiding bones under my pillow."

"I've smoked forever. Can't stop." He picked up the cigarette, put it down, picked it up. "Tried lots of times". Finally he put it back in the pack. He looked out the window again. It was late twilight; a couple gold clouds directly above caught the last light.

"You know, in the city you gotta break your neck looking up just to see the sky." He returned the cigarette pack to his pocket, got up to go. "That's what I love the most about home. You look straight out, and the sky there goes on forever. It just never stops."


The above (condensed, but not altered,) hour-or-so conversation with the elderly man, which happened when I was a teenager, has come back to me many, many times over the years, most recently when I read that "Damien Hirst":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst had just finished the most expensive artwork in history. He's made a "platinum skull":http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/01/98-million-platinum-cas_n_50401.html , encrusted with diamonds, "valued" at $98 million.

One of the arguments about why people make art is that it's anti-death, it's a base reaction to mortality-- art extends the life of the person long past his or her physical death. The chat I had in the donut shop with the old man-- who told me he was in Calgary for bone-cancer treatments, and circled around, circled around, (dead deer, bones, stopping...) but never directly addressed his dying-- will stay in my head (my heart!) far longer than any of Hirst's cheap stunting.

So that elderly man still lives, still lives.

"Sleep", the song for this post, is of a different narrative but similar theme to the above story. The song is a minimalistic-ambient-blues-electronic-fx and handclaps number, like maybe Moby meets Boards of Canada. It's from the chill-out disc from the K.I.A. CD "Sonorous Susurrus":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=30919350&s=143441

Vocals are by Sydney White, who also appears on Shinjuku Zulu's "My Man, Amen":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068609 , "Slow Is the New Faster":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068622 and K.I.A.'s "Scatter":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=30919350&s=143441&i=30919265



COLLAPSING TIME... & HUMMINGBIRDS

I was in an old building with large windows, right next to Naka-Meguro train station. It was a typical Toyko summer, super humid, and the windows were open to try and create a breeze (there was no air-con).

A bird flew in and settled on a desk before looking around. When it noticed its salaryman surroundings (shady, but sllim-food-pickings), it decided to leave. It immediately crashed into a closed window, then looped out and tried again, and then again, smacking into more and more invisible walls. As it grew crazier in its flight it drew more attention, and people were trying to open all the windows they could. They were also getting brooms and shaking newspapers and waving their arms to try and direct the little bird out. Nothing worked.

Eventually, after an especially loud thump on the window, it fell to the floor. (It remained on its feet, like an aging professional boxer near career's end.)

The bird, a sparrow, was near me at this point, so I slowly shifted, carefully extended my arm, and snatched quickly. I grabbed it from behind, and as my fingers curled around to its breast, my index finger landed on its heart, and I could feel its fast-fast beat.

It was a strange moment-- papers and brooms and arms waving, a train roaring past, people clamoring, the oppressive humidity... all of it collapsed to the tip of my finger.

I managed to get the bird to the window without it getting away or crushing it, and when it flew out, the world restarted. (And it was good.)

A year or two later, someone was coming from L.A. to visit me in Tokyo. Any airport is chaos, but an airport where the language is not the one you grew up with is chaos cubed. I wasn't even sure if I'd recognize this friend-- it'd been a long time since we'd seen each other-- and I was late and a little stressed out. But there she was, and she came over and gave me a big hug.

And the world collapsed again-- I was now used to bowing from a distance, but I felt her heartbeat against mine, I felt her tiny ribcage in my arms (she's slight, and beautiful, like an exotic little bird), and all the airport anarchy just dropped away for a moment. (And it was great.)

Much later, and in another country, I now have a daughter (with the woman above!) She's sad, in the way only a three-year-old can be, she sees I'm busy working and knows not to interupt-- but she's hovering around me like a hummingbird around a flower, getting closer, getting closer.

So I pick her up... and the world collapses. I feel her tiny ribs, and her little heart, and her melancholly melts away, and she smiles. (And it's wonderful.)

So here's the song that grew from those moments; it's from the "Sonorous Susurrus CD by K.I.A. at iTunes":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=30919350&s=143441 (In the minimalistic singer/songwriter style, a la Feist, Tori Amos, etc.)

(Vocals ar by Larissa Gomes, who also appears on "Mrs. Major Tom":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5126742&s=143441&i=5126722 , "Rainbowbeau":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068610 , and "Sweetness Likes the Reverb":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=7899232&s=143441&i=7898129



------------------------------

E-YEAH...& ALLELUJAH
For me, chants in music are the equivalent of abstract art; you rorschach yourself into a meaning and vibe. The vocal provides the human link, but the lack of lyrics allows you to bring your own experience or state of mind to the work (think audible ink blot.) The same track could resonate as being haunting/relaxing, sad/uplifting, or ancient/futuristic, etc., depending upon your mood, the time of day you listen to it, how much caffeine (or other substances) you have ingested, your location, whatever.

Of course I'm a big fan of words, and appreciate great lyricists like Sufjan Stevens-- Casimir Pulaski Day is such a great song-- and of course the obvious writers like Dylan, Cohen, and so on, but with a song with lyrics you're somewhat stuck in one emotion or human experience-- a meter maid, anarchy, uh, being under umbrellas, or riding in cars. (In case you're from mars, attributions are as follows: the Beatles, Sex Pistols, Rihanna, and any number of artists-- Gary Numan, Loverboy, Beach Boys, Kraftwerk...)

Elizabeth Fraser ( "Cocteau Twins":http://www.cocteautwins.com ) found a fantastic place between literal meaning and non-linear meaning: she would choose words from piles of foreign (non-english) dictionaries and fashion them into lyrics. The words were most often chosen exclusively for their poetic sound, and because they are 'real' words she's able to construct a melody around the syllables so it seems like a language. The lyrics seem recognizable and are suggestive, or more correctly are evocative, but I defy anyone to explain what a lot of the songs are 'about'.

So combining that abstraction with the emotional, as well as my continuing interest in mixing eras, below are a couple of my aural paintings (links to iTunes):

My Jackson Pollack: "E-yeah!":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5126742&s=143441&i=5126730 from the Adieu Shinjuku Zulu CD by K.I.A.

My Barnett Newman: "MMM":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=30919350&s=143441&i=30919313 from the Sonorous Susurrus CD by K.I.A.

My Mark Rothko: "Allelujah":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=5126742&s=143441&i=5126720 from Adieu Shinjuku Zulu

(Maybe in a later post I'll include my Ellsworth Kelly and maybe a Malevich song or two. )

FWIW, I'd describe Alleluljah as 17th century dancehall (realizing of course that one man's 17th-century-dancehalll is another man's Caribbean New Age)

~pp2gEAVK6ei.mp3~

FINAL THOUGHT:

What if computers had been invented in, say, Trinidad instead of Silicon Valley? Relating that thought to music, I always found it very interesting that "dub":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dub_music , a very electronic. abstract and futuristic type of music, came not out of some major high-tech urban enviroment like Berlin or Tokyo, but a relatively small third-world island nation. Listen to some Lee Scratch Perry's stuff from Jamaica 35 years ago and you'll directly here studio techniques that an artist like Trentemoller uses today.

And here's links to examples of the above painter's work:
"Pollack":http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/painting1.shtm "Rothko":http://www.nga.gov/feature/rothko/classic1.shtm "Newman":http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?69321+0+0

----------------------------------SPEED TRIBES...& SLOW IS THE NEW FAST
In Japan, there is a certain subculture who sci-fi their motorbikes and they ride them very loud and very, very fast. They are called the Bosozoku, which roughly translates into The Speed Tribes.

But we in the west are the true speed tribes. In our tricked-out gogo gadget lives, not only is faster better, faster is the only option. Too much is not enough, and even faster is still too slow. (Ever felt impatient waiting less than half-a-second for a web page to load? You know what I mean.)

The other day I watched an elderly woman with a cane walk down a short hallway. It was like watching a special-effect sequence in a movie; everyone around her was a blur of movement, too fast to capture-focus; she stood out because she was so slow. It took her a few minutes to walk maybe 20 feet. She was smiling the whole way, lost in her thoughts, clearly enjoying herself. Watching her was calming, like watching a zen garden; I began to feel a different sense of time. (Well, for a little while anyway. I didn't have the patience to watch her get the end of the hallway. Maybe she's still walking it.)

This woman was probably in her eighties, and didn't have too many years left. And even if she lived another ten years, perceptually it would probably fly by as if it were months. (My little theory is this: say a one-year-old lives another year-- he's lived 50% again the length of his life by the time he's two. But that eighty-year old who lives another year has only lived about another 1% of her life-- perceptually, the equivalent experience or feeling of a year to a one-year-old would have to be another eighty years to an eighty-year-old. The more years you live, the more that each year you experience seems to pass by more quickly. (Remember those endless summers when you were eight?) So if the average life- span is seventy- two, you really only experience a year accurately-- perceptually, anyway-- as a full year around the age of thirty- six...

So anyway my shout-out for slow is this song: "Slow Is the New Fast" (at iTunes "HERE":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068608 ) from the "Various Chimeras" CD by Shinjuku Zulu. Continuing on my themes of cross-genre/multi-era music, it's an acid- jazzy-bluesy-trip-hoppy-1920sy kinda track, maybe in the zone of the Verve Remixed tracks, or Radio Citizen spliced with Portishead. The sung- vocal is by Sydney White (who also appears on "My Man, Amen" from the same disc, and "Sleep" and "Scatter" by K.I.A. from "Sonorous Susurrus":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=30919350&s=143441 . ) The rap vocal is by Shankhini, who also appears on "Coal Coal Black" and "Shanghai Masai" from Various Chimeras.


~0aLi97vmsfD.mp3~

FINAL THOUGHT:
I lied in an earlier post when I stated that humour doesn't really belong in songs, cuz some of the lyrics in "Slow Is the New Fast" are meant to be funny; why else would you rhyme "rastafarian" with "librarian"?

Here's a sample of some of the lyrics from the outro rap:

hey! love is the new pain, modesty is the new vain!
clarity is the new misunderstand, woman is the new man!
spiritual the new material, reality the new ethereal!
modesty the new bling, gentle the new sting!
right is the new wrong, naked the new thong!
diminuitive the new big, (no big is the new big!)
rastafarian the new librarian, lil kim the new maid marion!
me the new you, and new the new new!

And there's also a remix of the track-- faster, of course, and more on the 4/4-- called "Slow Is the New Faster", with the rap taken out, also on VC.


-------------------REPAINTING MONA LISA...& SCARBOROUGH FAIR (A TRUE DUB OF MINE)

I wouldn't want to re-paint the Mona Lisa, or say something more interesting like "Nude Descending A Staircase":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_Descending_a_Staircase . They are fine as they are, and are perceived as even "finer" the longer history frames them. Why fuck with that?

But actually, it's not even that-- it's more: why recreate when you can generate? I make music from the perspective of a "visual artist":http://web.mac.com/neuphoria-- and the thought of painting another person's work is just, well, strange. To try to paint a copy would only end up showing the new version's flaws ("he didn't get the smile right"), and interpreting would only descend into parody, like painting "The Homer Lisa", or even worse, something I call philisophimilophical (faux thoughtful,) like painting Kate Moss smiling as she faints from hunger, calling it "The Bony Lisa", and explaining it in the artist's statement as "a comment on the space between beauty and ugly consumer society" . (Side note: you wouldn't believe how many artist statements use the phrase "space between x an y". Pet peeve o' mine.)

I know a cellist from an internationally-famous quartet. I asked him how much of his time is devoted to wrting his own pieces. He said none. I didn't understand, as all my music time was for writing original songs. He said that it was because he knew the classical master's works so intimately, he understood he could never compose an original piece on that level. And so he never tried. (This was, and perhaps naively, shocking to me.) So his whole career-- and he'd been doing it for decades-- was performing someone else's music. I understand interpretation, and the creativity it involves (an actor portraying a real person) but I don't understand it (I'd never rewrite someone else's poem.) How much room for creativity is there when the boundries are finite? After ten years of "covering" Beethoven, would you have played out all possible interpretations, and would it become rote? (On the other hand, the Rolliing Stones probably now feel like a cover band, even though it's their own songs.)

I could be persuaded about covers if they were a radical do-over-- like say, how Sid Vicious did "My Way" or Johnny Cash did Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt"... but then unpersuaded by hearing Nelly Furtado doing Gnarlz Barkley's "Crazy", or any version, ever, by anyone, doing the song "Fever", especially Celine Dionne.

(I can also see cover-bands as a job, kinda, but would someone please explain to me the cover-band-groupie phenomena? I mean,you know it's not really Bret Michaels up there, right? You bought your official-Poison-tribute-band (TM)Rat Poison tickets, you know they're fake, why get so worked up shrieking at the front of the stage? (Is your elation the same when your husband gives you a "cover" diamond-- i.e. cubic zirconia?) I mean I like the idea of simultaneously experienceing two realities (real hair band and fake hair band, past and future) in a multi-dimensional kinda way... but somehow I don't think the simulacra-groupies are thinking the same way. Or at all.)

So, after all that devil's advocate yada-yada, here's my dubbed-up-ambient-choral-version of the (at least) 350-year-old song "Scarborough Fair", from the "Various Chimeras CD by Shinjuku Zulu at iTunes":http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=154068465&s=143441&i=154068611 .

FINAL THOUGHT-- there are computer programs that have studied and mathematically broken down famous composer's works, from Beethoven to the Beatles, and which can now produce a completely 'new' work by those artists, exactly in the style of. Not ony that, but voice emulating/singing software is getting very close to getting the down the exact articulation, accent, harmonics, even signature phrasing, of famous singers. So a new