BTDubs. FYI.

Hey, ladies and germs. I'm high-tailing it to wordpress. Nothing wrong here; just thought I'd changerino it up. It's a work in progress, but it'll show up if you click the link below.

Cheerio, kids!

(www.aestherkorb.wordpress.com)

Weather's alright and everything, but...

...seriously?

This was on May 2. It's a bit greener now. Thank gouda. We actually broke a snow record. All the way back into the late 1880s and we've never had this much snow this late in the year. Holey nostrils.

An Amateur Review of Professional Kickassery

I've always been the type that garners a certain kind of pleasure from learning how things work -- the human mind, an engine,** continental drift, cheese -- and instead of killing the awestrike* of watching the sun set amidst a wild melange of color o'er verdant fields of grass and weed, understanding how something works manages only to enhance the experience for me. It's art. It's science. It's pretty cool.

* (defn: [aw-strahyk]; verb, noun; the act of being slapped around by the overwhelming  feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc.,  produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful)

** though maybe not the engine thing so much. I'll settle for a superficial understanding of combustion engines, thank you. 

I'm also interested in understanding what makes some music work -- whether one song or an entire album -- while other music, sadly, does not. The music I've been thinking on the past week was pretty recently borne into the world. I'm writing, of course - or not of course - about The Strokes fifth full-length album, Comedown Machine, released end of March.

I've read a half-dozen or more other reviews of Comedown Machine as a matter of general curiosity. (Isn't it weird how dearly you wish that other people will enjoy the things you love most - not for your own validation, but to know that other people know just how wonderful certain wonderful things are? That's not just me, is it?) Each review I read, excepting one in ALL CAPS LOCK that got far too annoying to finish, used the album's immediate predecessor, Angles, and the band's breakout album, Is This It?, as major points of reference. Many of the comparisons I saw seemed to lack any intimate familiarity with the band's discography nor with its members' solo musical careers. As a long-time fan, perhaps I can provide a different view of the thing.

I have gone and come back to The Strokes a few different times since 2001, then a young tot of 13, having since gained a profound appreciation for their music as a complex art - an exquisite amalgam of musical texture, lyrical creativity, cyclical tension and release, and a balance between continuity and change. And that's just for a start. Is this getting too hoity-toity for you? Oh, well.

While I'm no musical theoretician, I did take a semester of Music Appreciation at university. Through the Honors Program even. So I suppose I can say I have a pretty thorough understanding of how one is to appropriately appreciate music. Inappropriate music appreciation is just so... inappropriate. Y'know what I mean? It's just plain ol' dangerous.

As for my review of Comedown Machine?

I love it.

You didn't think that was all, did you? All that introductory verbosity for a three-word review? Here are three more words for you:

Don't be silly.

 I'm going to ramble in this vein until your brain's abuzz with a verve for musical appreciation. It's going to get pretty exciting in here. (I bet you can't wait for the excitement that will be my post on continental drift. Now there's a zinger.)

Back to the point we're all here for: Comedown Machine has been playing on a loop since I received my copy in time for the holiday weekend. I've gotten to know it as well as the hair on my heinie. I've even made a graph. Of the album, not my butt fuzz. I think CM manages wonderfully to act as a cohesive and fluid whole, a quality I felt to be a little lacking with Angles. Which is kind of a funny thing as there is not a single song on their fourth record that I dislike. As an entire listening experience, however, the album left something to be desired. I'll save that for a little later.

This fifth album opens with a great nostalgic turn towards 80s synth with definite undercurrents of old Strokes and a skosh of Casablancas solo album Phrazes for the Young. The few opening seconds of 50/50 is reminiscent of Is This It?'s 'New York City Cops' before it morphs into an entirely different beast. The titular track, #5, startled me a little. Not in the sense that it was unusual, but because I caught myself singing this slow tune to myself at work out of the blue. The latter half of the record keeps up with the first half without incident. The refrain of Partners in Crime goes all zoot suit on us in the second half, a catchy little ditty if I've ever heard one. The highlight of the album for me ended up being the lovely partnership between the third and fourth tracks, 'One Way Trigger' and 'Welcome to Japan', respectively. But they are only two standouts in a line of eleven.

For me, The Strokes is written all over this record, though I know for some reviewers it seemed to depart too much from their identifying rocker sound of Is This It?, Room on Fire, and to some extent First Impressions of Earth. Other critics sounded skeptical of Casablancas' ability to sustain his lovely falsetto outside the recording studio were The Strokes to bring these tunes on tour. Fingers crossed for a tour. To their skepticism I say, for anyone who's ever seen this, we can feel confident that our lead vocalist will be up to the job -- so long as we don't require he play guitar and remember all the lyrics at the same time. A little joke.... and a lit'le bit true. It's endearing though, right?

Other critics have opined that the band still seems in search of their direction, lost since their parting after FIOE - and perhaps even earlier when they purportedly left behind some of their original "scruffy charm", pursuant to that "bigger sound" with their third album. I'm not sure, but I think a changing of direction is to be expected with anything human. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. Their growth and change over the years has felt quite natural to my ear, untrained though it is, and their sound has managed to retain a certain strain of continuity while deftly avoiding the plague of stylistic stagnation. Plus, they're still full to brim with scruffy charm if you ask me.

Artist's rendering of their musical direction - adrift a sea of meaninglessness. (Not to scale.)

When it comes to  identity -- be it a group or personal identity --  (a topic I do have some major knowledge on. Literally. It was part of one of my college majors.) there are different camps that hold polarized views on the flexibility and fixedness of identity. In a gross oversimplification, I would say there are those who believe that within each of us there exists a kernel of true, innate identity -- a Self-ness, so to speak -- which we must only uncover and discover through self-reflection, experience, and a happy trail of  mistakes. From this perspective, our Self is stable, fixed, resistant to drastic change. Our tastes for food may evolve over time, but certain personality traits shall never waver. If we are shy as children, we shall be shy adults. Anyone who acts otherwise is just pretending. I for one know that I shall never enjoy a pickle. But me shy? Bah.

In another camp on quite a different end of the spectrum, there are those who believe that our Selves are about as fixed as a lump of rock hurtling through the cosmos. We may gravitate a little towards different bodies (planetary or otherwise) as we pass by and they may alter our path forevermore, but there is nothing to say that we couldn't just as easily shoot off in the other direction or sizzle and burn in the senseless heat of our plasmic sun. That last part of the metaphor might be death, but I can't be sure. The senseless heat might be something metaphorical, too ...Chili peppers?

So far, there has been little to no sizzling or burning for The Strokes. Not in the bad death way anyway. Nor in the chili pepper enema way either, I can only imagine. Some wrote that CM had an air of being a fifth and "final" album. I would beg to differ and am immensely excited to think that at this very moment our five favorite New Yorkers might even be starting to recharge for their next musical exertion. I think something smart and new is just getting started for these guys.

And before I go, I'll just say that the above illustration was not the hair-butt graph I was talking about. This is:

Now don't tell me that's not excessive in all its handsome creaminess. I tried it out to figure out if this ("this" reads: "tension-release") had anything to do with my funky feelings toward Angles. I may have put the finger on the nose. The hammer on the head. The bees on the knees. All that and more. They sure ratcheted up the tension in their fourth album by way of a number of things: textural layer, tempo, lack of at least a couple decently slower melancholic numbers. It doesn't give a whole lot of room to breath. It's similar with visual art. The composition needs to balance areas of interest with places the viewer can rest their eyes. An anchor. Too much information and the mind can't take in much of anything. Give a person space to reflect and relax and some much-needed mental mastication is possible. Obviously a graph like this will differ from one person to another, but you oughtn't feel the need to make your own graph for my sake. I do things like this for fun. Yeah, I'm that kind of person.

I've thought of shuffling some of the tracks on Angles around to see if I can get something to work. When it comes to artists I especially enjoy, I want an cohesive listening experience over the course of the album. Sometimes listened to on a loop, as discussed. I've never gotten that particular urge so with Angles and have only shuffled its tracks into a few playlists for a bit of fleshing out. Assuming a successful reshuffling on my part, all of that may change, and very soon.

UPDATE:
So I set out to create a tracklist that carried a similar flow and cohesion I felt with every other Strokes album, and here it is, alongside some pretty schnazzy album art I whipped up. At least moderately schnazzy album art. With a pinch of aimless meandering. And salt. (Rock sea salt. None of that pansy table variety.)

It didn't even need new art. I just enjoy doing weird and pointless things. Like wandering through your yard with a pair of shears to trim each and every blade of grass to the most aesthetically pleasing height. But, then, instead of using the shears to cut the grass, you hurl your gut upon its glittering apex rather than trim 4 acres of grass with shears, which I'm pretty sure is just a fancy word for scissors. Or like graphing things that don't require graphing. See above... and below.
Oh, the simple joys in life.

I think it's about time for that tracklist. I tried one alteration for a few days... still didn't work. This is my second go, which works for me. Plus, it makes a pretty graph.
(original track number in parenthesis - another useless fun tidbit)

1. Games (6)

2. Machu Picchu (1)

3. Under Cover of Darkness (2)

4. Gratisfaction (8)

5. Call Me Back (7)

6. Taken for a Fool (5)

7. You're So Right (4)

8. Two Kinds of Happiness (3)

9. Life is Simple in the Moonlight (10)

10. Metabolism (9)

 Note the beautiful angularity of their artistic direction.

All set wonderfully adrift a sea of meaninglessness, don't forget.

And just because I know everyone is wondering, here is a permutation on the comparative graph above. Enjoy, geeks.

The blinding magenta line follows my own arrangement, which I cobbled together on instinct. When I graphed it, I wasn't all too surprised to see its new, much up-and-downier shape. Now that's what I like to hear.

On Frivolity

I came across these quotes on frivolity today - on a fashion blog, albeit - and I thought they were interesting. Applicable to the arts in general, the notion of frivolity is one I've pondered in the past. I.E. "Am I wasting my  time by bringing more non-functional things into the world?" I always skate around the question a bit though, afraid that my logical mind will tell me to give up my passion and do something sensible and lucrative. After having encountered these thoughts below, however, I'm quite dedicated to making this work. It's going to be delicious.

“There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray.” (Joseph Joubert)

“You’re considered superficial and silly if you are interested in fashion, but I think you can be substantial and still be interested in frivolity.” (Sofia Coppola)   

“If you compare it with philosophy, [fashion] is frivolous. But frivolity may be something good, something that is part of our lives. So I don’t dislike it. And what I like is the mix — that in your life you can have serious things, more frivolous ones. Fashion is about beauty and the search for beauty, I think it’s a fundamental thing. No one criticizes if you want to do beautiful homes. No one criticizes if you want to buy a beautiful chair. But so many intellectuals still criticize why you want to wear beautiful clothes, and it’s only our body, so it must be important in a way.” (Miuccia Prada) 

“I think here's nothing wrong with being interested in frivolity, so long as it isn't your be-all and end-all. Physical things like fashion, architecture, design are important to me because they frame the life you lead - they're the backdrop and settings that intersect when you form an emotional attachment or memory in association with them.” (Lin, out-of-the-bag.blogspot.com)

(quotes extracted from a fellow blogger here)

what elephant? (I see no elephant in the room.)

 "What Elephant?" - 12"x16" - framed at 16"x20" - gifted to a good friend on christmas

 

I've had this hefalump cutout and the lovely blue wallpaper backdrop set aside for some time now. I knew I wanted to marry the pieces in some way, but didn't really know what message I was going for - if any. Turns out, not a lot of message, just a lot of elephant (for those who didn't get the "hefalump" Winnie the Pooh allusion). What do you think? 

Hope you've been enjoying the holiday season out there. I'm off to clean up the papery residue of a fruitful family christmas... and birthday. Twenty-four and counting...

Cheers. x

So, you want to become an artist?

So, I log-in to blogger this morning and the first thing I see in my 'following' roster is the this: "Want to become an artist? Win your scholarship"

Technically speaking, I don't reckon I'm eligible - and, heck, I don't know if I'd want to live in NYC even for schooling purposes (England is where my true heart lay :) ) - but for any of you eligible folk out there, you must absolutely check this out. Here's what she wrote over on A Matter of Style:

"Today I'm excited to share with you this amazing competition offered by The New School of New York. If you think you have the talent to make the difference as an artist this is your chance to win your dream education in New York City. The New school is seeking for talent and it's ready to reward it with a scholarship valued up to $160,000!

"The challenge is to answer logical reasoning & The New School quizzes and solve a creative case by presenting a video. The competition offers four full and four partial scholarships for Bachelor’s degree within art & design, liberal arts, fashion or music and it's open to high school and college students worldwide. 
Scholarship winners must be a high school graduate on or before June 2013.

"The following four divisions of The New School are participating:
•        Parsons The New School for Design
•        Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts
•        Mannes College The New School for Music
•        The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music


"DEADLINE January 27, 2013
READ MORE  @ http://www.thenewschoolcompetition.com/ "


P.S. Scanner still on the fritz, hence (in part) my lack of artistical postage. Also, I've not been so artistically prolific as of late. Shh - don't tell. I do have some projects lined-up, but am lacking the necessary verve. In time, people, in time.