SKYPHONE
Avellaneda
(Rune Grammofon)

By Erik Morse

The Danish trio of Thomas Holst, Keld Dam Schmidt, and Mads Bodker has deepened the exotic secrets first whispered in its 2004 debut, Fabula (Rune Grammofon), with a new quiet masterpiece, Avellaneda.

Possibly a titular reference to the small port city in Argentina or the aristocratic family for which the town is named, Skyphone’s Avellaneda seems to recall nothing less than the cryptic landscapes and genealogies of Jorge-Luis Borges. In name alone, tracks like “Schweizerhalle," “Quetzal Cubicle,” and “Yetispor” present odd, polyglot taxonomies of old Europe and the New World. While the grab bag of gizmos in Avellaneda – glockenspiels, toy pianos, analog synths – and field sounds are all found in the band’s debut, the manner in which they are layered together vertically in the former rather than stitched laterally in the latter liberates the space of each track, allowing the sounds to tarry and erect their own internal rhythms.

This is a great leap forward in Holst and co.’s working method. As a Scandinavian relative to artists like Alog, Phonophani, and Kim Hiorthøy, Skyphone’s achievements in lush, ambient soundtracking are not without referents, but in demurring to the post-dance emulsions of glitchy beats or po-mo production, Avellaneda puts the group in a sonic universe somewhere between Debussy and Eno. In fact, the conjurations of moody bliss and non-Western rhythms make the album a sequel of sorts to Eno’s 1975 classic Another Green World (EG). Deserving of all of the hype, Skyphone confirms why Scandinavia is still at the forefront of avant-garde electro-acoustic music.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Imagine our grandfatherly gay delight at the megaspectacle promised by the approaching SF Symphony's holiday show: a big screen showing of The Wizard of Oz accompanied by a live symphony orchestra! Imagine!

Let's hope the piccolos don't drown out those flying monkeys ...

This event is looking to be super-popular, so get your tix now! Oh! And come dressed as your favorite character -- there'll be a contest in the lobby!

The Wizard of Oz with the San Francisco Symphony

Thursday, December 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Friday, December 21 at 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 22 at 2:00 p.m.
Children welcome and encouraged!
(Pint-sized ruby slippers not supplied)
www.sfsymphony.org

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Posted by Marke B. at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ah, yes – it’s that time of year again, and why not? There was a whole lotta sonics to love this past year in music, and below is my enhanced top 10 guiltless pleasures of 2007 list. I hope you disagree with and enjoy!

1. Jill Scott, “Hate On Me”

2. Cool Kids, “Black Mags”

3. Honey Soundsystem DJs

Continue reading "Marke B's Top 10 2007" »

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Posted by Marke B. at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

By Erik Morse

German composer, serialist, sonic renegade, and electronic investigator Karlheinz Stockhausen died Wednesday, Dec. 5, at age 79 in Kuerten-Kettenberg, Germany. Largely responsible for introducing - or spoiling - the experimental harmonics of early 20th-century composers Messiaen and Webern to the futurist world of sine-wave electronics, tape-music, and micro-rhythms, he was lauded by everyone from Pierre Boulez to Paul McCartney, who famously included him on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s. Along with the works of LaMonte Young, Stockhausen’s varied and immense oeuvre proved to be the most influential and compelling of the latter half of the 20th century. According to a writer at London Observer, Stockhausen represented the spirit of rock ‘n' roll long before it acknowledged its forefather. Without Stockhausen, there would be no Beatles, no Velvet Underground, no Brian Eno, no Aphex Twin.

In proper cybernetic tribute, collected here are a number of interviews and excerpts from his work.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

An incredible argument against America’s tragic downsizing of school music programs? Why sure! What do you get when you create a national system of youth musical education that reaches 250,000 kids, spawns 120 orchestras, and offers even the poorest kids in the country an opportunity to express themselves and plug into global culture? Well, El Sistema, as the huge and tuneful operation in Venezuela is known, is one. Complete and utter musical bliss in the form of the globe-trotting Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra, under the direction of world hotshot 26-year-old conductor Gustavo Dudamel, is another. Check it:

(and before all you neo-cons jump all over the whole national program thing with your musty Soviet-socialist rhetoric, that’s the delightfully heretical Shostakovich they’re playing to cleverly diffuse you, dudes). The Youth Orchestra, which will be playing ol’ Shosty’s 10th Symphony, Bernstein’s West Side Story and some fiesty Latin American selections at Davies Symphony Hall this Sunday Nov 4, get pretty festive too:

Of course, there’s a temptation to romanticize these talented kids as geniuses of the barrios – but in many cases that’s indeed what they are. Come out this Sunday and see where a little inspiration and support can lead ….

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra
Sunday, Nov 4, 7pm, $25-$81
Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Avenue, SF
(415) 864-6000
www.sfsymphony.org

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Posted by Marke B. at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Johnny Ace: a blues icon turns into one of rock's first casualties.

By Erik Morse

With Halloween soon approaching, all the party mixtapes and Goth soundtracks will inevitably be programmed with the scary and spectral. It only seems appropriate, then, to take a look at a history of some of these ghostly recordings, albeit of a slightly different kind.

Twentieth century music must have been possessed from the moment it became electrified, a seemingly endless séance of dead voices stripped of a bodily source and projected into the ether, replayed endlessly through phonographs, radios, tape-players, and iPods. And like other technologized art forms, popular music created a simultaneous narrative stream of folk tales and urban legends that emanated from fan to fan and fed back into the collective experience of "hearing" like the vibrations of an E string squealing against a Vox amplifier. More than a 100 years since Edison recorded the sounds of a nursery rhyme (extra credit if you know which one) in his Menlo Park laboratory, the most famous moments in popular "sound" have played loudly alongside a haunted loop of forgotten breakthroughs and discarded reels remanded to the archives of the preening critic and obsessive fanatic. These ghostly recordings and events may have been buried for ages so there’s no better time than Halloween to go digging them up again.

Never mind Brian Wilson’s infamous Smile, Bob Dylan’s electric turn at Newport ‘65 or Prince’s Black Album, these 12 notorious sonic “events” constitute a spectral and alternative history in recorded music’s century long canon. The more cryptic, the more incredible, and the more emphatic the anecdote, the scarier the sounds. Try playing some of these at your next Halloween party and see just how spooked your guests will get.

Continue reading "Spooked sounds: 12 lost albums and forgotten performances" »

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You may not love to listen to Beethoven like Annie Lennox's fabulously unravelling housewife ....

But would you listen to him if the conductor looked like this?

Does sex sell classical? Sure!

I know I would. And I will, as young Swiss conductor Philippe Jourdan leads the San Francisco Symphony (and renowned French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard) in Beethoven's lovely, sweeping, and somewhat hot-blooded Piano Concerto #3 -- as well as Ludwig van's Egmont Overture and Richard Strauss's An Alpine Symphony, October 26-27 at Davies Symphony Hall (and Thursday the 25th in Cupertino). Come for the cutie, stay for the music -- that's what I always slur ....

This Friday and Saturday evening. Click here for more dishy info.

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Posted by Marke B. at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From upon high: Tallis Scholars.

As summer melts into fall, symphonies, singers, and fine classical music purveyors shift into high gear. Contributor Ching Chang delved into a few Philip Glass performances, and offered an array of classical and opera picks in his fall arts preview - here are a few more selections.

More Philip Glass Works

Music for Two Pianos

This benefit concert for the Other Minds festival highlights Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa in a recital of works for two pianos by Philip Glass and JS Bach, as well as new works by Balduin Sulzer, Chen Yi, and San Francisco composer Adam Fong.

Oct. 11, 8 p.m. (panel discussion 7 p.m.), $20-$50. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF. (415) 934-8134, www.otherminds.org

Synesthesia: Bridging the Senses

San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s BluePrint presents a performance of Philip Glass’s Facades, with projections by local video artist Elliot Anderson.

Oct. 13, 8 p.m. (discussion 7:15 pm.), $15-$20. Concert Hall, SF Conservatory of Music,
50 Oak, SF. (415) 503-6275, www.sfcm.edu

More Classical Music to Look Out For

Strauss's Alpine Symphony

Young Swiss conductor Phillippe Jordan is quickly emerging in Europe as an exciting interpreter of Richard Strauss. For his SF Symphony debut, he leads the Alpine Symphony, a massive tone poem scored for an orchestra of 120 musicians, which the composer uses to capture the epic feel of a journey through the Alps.

Oct. 25, 8 p.m., at Flint Center for the Performing Arts, 21250 Stevens Creek, Cupertino. Oct. 26-27, 8 p.m., at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF. $25-$125. (415) 864-6000, www.sfsymphony.org

Tallis Scholars

The finest a cappella ensemble in the world, the Tallis Scholars pay a visit to the Bay Area in their latest US tour, performing renaissance motets by Palestrina, Mouton, and Josquin, and other 15th and 16th century works centered on the Virgin Mary.

Nov. 30, 8 p.m., at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing, Berk. Dec. 1, 8 p.m., at Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF. $48. (510) 642-9988, www.calperfomances.net

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know there are oodles of deeply closeted classical freeeaaaks out there, who are far too shy to venture toward the mink stole and helmet hair cabal at Davies Hall. Good news is that the San Francisco Symphony's Friday 6.5 Series now offers an earlier program at 6:30 p.m. than the usual 8 p.m. performance and features an intro by the conductor for the evening, accompanied by music generated by the fine members of the pit.


SFS music director Michael Tilson Thomas leads the pack.

I think we can all agree that it'll be nice to eat earlier than later for a change. San Francisco Symphony’s Friday 6.5 Series continues on Friday nights at 6:30 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF, with Lawrence Foster conductor, and Radu Lupu, piano, on Jan. 26. Coming up: Feb. 9: MTT and Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano; March 16: James Gaffigan, conductor, and Yundi Li, piano; May 4: Hans Graf, conductor, and Alexander Barantschik, violin.

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Posted by Kimberly Chun at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The noses were small, the dresses were expensive, the Mayor was in attendance, and the music was sublime. Yep, I crashed the annual SF Symphony Opening Gala, chockful o' Zellerbachs, Wilseys, DuPonts and whomever else rich-like, and lived to blog all about it (despite being almost kicked out for yodeling during the singing of the National Anthem, ahem.)

"Pose for the Guardian? I've been in National Geographic, and I thought that was weird ..." (actual quote)

Continue reading "Gala Symphonix" »

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Posted by Marke B. at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)