Another newish mp3 blog on the block I just discovered (via good old wisdom goof) is Word in the Alleys. Recent offerings included Explosions In The Sky, Scout Niblett, Divine Comedy, British Sea Power and Wilco. Pete and Sean do not mince matters and write in a style which often makes me smile. It probably is British humor or something.

In general I am no fan of compilations but this one really captures the spirit of post punk which had been paved by the dilettantism of punk. Post punk was experimental, it drew from many different styles, it had the punk attitude without being so one-dimensional, it was exciting, clever and fun at the same time. Also nice about this compilation is the juxtaposition of earlier post punk and post punk revival songs from around 2000. The new tracks have been chosen quite well. Most of them can stand up to the old ones.

The other 28 songs I really dig from this sampler (the first cd is more consistent):

• 1.1 Gang of Four - I Found That Essence Rare (1979) A perfect starter. Funky polit punk with hard guitar beats from Sheffield. Personally I prefer Damaged Goods but this is fine as well.
• 1.2 Les Georges Leningrad - Georges Five (2002) A messy piece by some Canadian post post punkers. Only for people who can support distorted vocals. At the end the woman and the man outdo each other in shrieking. The man sounds like a lion roaring in agony.
• 1.3 The Pop Group - We Are All Prostitutes (1979) Isn't this Captain Beefheart screaming there? Funk meets free jazz meets radical criticism of the consumer society. There is even an avantgarde cello in here. Totally essential.
• 1.4 LiliPUT - Die Matrosen (1980) A Swiss woman band which can even whistle! This is an unpolished ear candy from the early NDW years.
• 1.5 The Rapture - Out of the Races and onto the Tracks (2001) I prefer Luke Jenner when he has his voice almost under control like here. A fine song playing with the antagonisms adagio/dynamic and minimalistic/orchestral.
• 1.6 Delta 5 - Mind Your Own Business (1979) Huge bass line and sound. Feminist fuck-off lyrics. A noisy guitar at the end. Good stuff.
• 1.7 The Slits - Shoplifting (1979) Reggae plus punk plus many breaks plus petty delinquency lyrics plus some good screaming. I don't know The Slits too well but this song is ace. As is the album cover of course (1st row, 2nd column above).
• 1.8 The Rogers Sisters - Delayed Reaction (2002) I love girl's voices, dub and hypnotic guitars. It's all here.
• 1.9 Pigbag - Sunny Day (1981) Funky instrumental with lots of reverb and a nice percussion solo.
• 1.10 ESG - You're No Good (1981) Renee has a nice soulish voice which works quite well with the rhythmic carpet rolled out for her on this one.
• 1.11 Swell Maps - Another Song (1979) One of the most punk of all tracks on this comp. Nikki Sudden's voice is not exactly impressive but there is something to it. I almost want to take him in my arms so frail does he sound here.
• 1.12 Au Pairs - You (1979) Another great band with a female lead singer. Perfect beginning. The guitar lines are catchy as hell. Much better than anything on Marquee Moon.
• 1.13 New Age Steppers - Fade Away (1980) Adrian Sherwood produced this echo and reverb feast. The keyboards are staggering drunkenly along. Amsterdam coffee shop feeling guaranteed.
• 1.14 Public Image Limited - Careering (1979) I really can't stand Johnny Rotten's wailing goth voice but fortunately there was more to PIL than him. This isn't the strongest PIL song neither but there are all these weird unearthly noises which make this appealing. The song closest to ambient on the comp.
• 1.15 DNA - You and You (1978) This must be the band which taught Sonic Youth how to create chaotic and unsettling guitar noise. No beats at all. Additionally the inhuman shouting is extremely intimidating.
• 1.16 Life Without Buildings - The Leanover (2000) Rickie Lee Jones on speed? A song going nowhere at all but it doesn't matter. It's all about the vibe.
• 1.17 UK Decay - For My Country (1980) An anti-nationalist rock anthem. The most pompous song on the sampler but the intentions were good.
• 1.18 Scritti Politti - Skank Bloc Bologna (1978) I didn't know that S.P. had a life before white soul synth-pop which always made me run away. Here they are phantastic. Playing the scale up and down on the guitar Green Gartside sings in a touching melancholic way. Not the brightest song they have ever made but the best I have heard yet.
• 1.21 Liquid Liquid - Groupmegroup (1981) Post punk meets African world music. Almost every member of the band plays percussion on this one. Plus marimba, roto toms and congas. The singing is in a non-human language and makes the track even more shaman and captivating.
• 2.3 James White & The Blacks - Contort Yourself (1978) Normally not my cup of tea this funky no-wave song. I don't like the voice and the chorus neither. But there is a lot of free jazzy improvisation going on which saves the track for me.
• 2.5 Blurt - The Fish Needs a Bike (1981) Another fuck you all song music wise. I wouldn't listen to this as a lullaby but occasionally I need my portion of noisy mayhem.
• 2.7 Gramme - Like You (1999) A sexy funky voice and an irresistible groove. Sounds pretty undergroundish to my ears.
• 2.8 Magazine - Definitive Gaze (1978) This is the first Magazine song I have ever consciously listened to. Totally different from the rest of the comp but it's great and very addictive. The combination of low-key minimalism with Jean-Michel Jarre like ethereal electronic sounds and tinges of arena rock works. I really need to buy an album by Howard Devoto and mates. Always loved The Buzzcocks by the way.
• 2.11 23 Skidoo - Last Words (1981) Reminds me a lot of Arthur Russell. Who was first? A very relaxed flow. Warm and cosy. Should be nice to fall asleep to.
• 2.12 Chicks On Speed - Yes I Do (2000) My fave of all the new post punk songs. A powerful girls' band. Some very controlled and matter-of-fact singing. A line like "They think I'm vermin 'cause my parents look German" is instantly classic. Produced by the German band Die Goldenen Zitronen. If that isn't cool I don't know what is.
• 2.16 Young Marble Giants - Searching for Mr Right (1980) A band which was operating on an island totally isolated from the rest of the music world. Charming minimal lo-fi pop. Alison Statton has got the smooth voice which is the cream on top of Stuart Moxham's ditty.
• 2.19 Mo-Dettes - White Mice (1979) A lovely tune by another 100% female outfit. I feel that it would be very easily played to death. The clou is when they all sing in the background. A heavenly choir.
• 2.21 Essential Logic - Aerosol Burns (1978) This is Lora Logic from X-Ray Spex (my fave female punk band) screaming and playing sax plus mates. A raw diamond of a voice in the middle of structured chaos with beats and breaks.

One small criticicism I can't conceal. I may understand that there are neither The Cure nor the Wipers nor Sonic Youth on this comp though I miss them but why the hell is there no Joy Division? If there was one band in the world being the culmination of post punk it would be those four lads from around Manchester.

If you want to know what happened in the German "underground" in the early eighties you should absolutely get the phantastic 2 cd compilation Verschwende Deine Jugend. Maybe not always as radical as the Anglosaxon post punk but at least as much fun.

• File all the papers on my desk
• Install new version of firewall and virus program
• Pay the bills
• Go shopping for food and stuff
• Cut the grass if the weather is fine (very unlikely)
• Review post punk sampler
• Comment on Minima Moralia
• Separate the blogs in the kinja digest from those in the blo.gs blogroll

From my referrers: Mystery & Misery is a fine blog on independent and underground music with external mp3 links. Nice plain layout, terrific taste and lots of bands to discover.

Great ILM thread which has just been revived:

When You First Heard Your Favourite Record...: "...when was it? ...how old were you? ...where were you? ...who were you with? ...what did you think? ...what did you do or say? "

My answer (I cheated concerning the one record) was and still is:

keith jarrett - sun bear concerts ...when? around 1980 ...age? 17 ...where? on my loudspeakers at home ...who with? me and keith jarrett's groaning ...what did you think? how can one guy on a piano make such intense life-transcending music? ...what did you do or say? i turned the record, put on the next, turned it, put on the next... etc. (there are ten records altogether though i don't think i ever listened to all of them in one sitting)

p.s. the answer to "what did you think?" was too short. at first listen i stopped thinking and was blown away. i was enchanted by the melodic beginnings of each concert, suffered through the aggressive, disharmonious free jazz passages and forgot about the world around when the music reached its hypnotic melodic climax. when jarrett melded with his instrument. those improvisational piano concerts are about sex. listening to them is like watching someone having sex with the instrument he plays. and it is not embarrassing like watching people making sex as your ears actually take part. eyes observe, ears receive.

ILM threads:

• Quite fascinating analysis of the cover for Morrissey's new album

• MP3 blogs story On NPR

• Some dream pop, shoegazer, noise pop, atmospheric etc. of the zero years to download on the page of the Pehr label. Great song sounding like Lush meeting noisy My Bloody Valentine (at the end) by Experimental Aircraft: Symphony (via mystical beast)

• The Pixies at Coachella, May, 1st (rename to *.mp3) via <a href="blog.largeheartedboy.com"lhb. 20 songs, mostly classics.

• Scott Woods 1967 choice is of course the Banana album. I think up till now I'd have chosen exactly the same records.

• Five recent shows of apocalypse post-rockers Godspeed You Black Emperor! and The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra plus Tra-La-La Band to download (via kingblind).

bernd begemann ist ja sowas von scheiße. so affektiert und von sich überzeugt. die stimme ist zum kotzen, die witze sind schal, die lyrics sind peinlich und die musik erst recht (gut, dass es keine mp3s auf seiner seite gibt). frage mich wirklich wie der 19 alben machen konnte, wer hat die denn nur gekauft?

der junge mit der gitarre (inklusive hörproben), der in eine ähnliche kerbe schlägt (stimmlich und vom selbstbewusstsein her), gefällt mir hingegen. hat an der grand prix eurovision vorentscheidung teilgenommen und ist jämmerlich gescheitert. und hat einen ohrwurmigen song darüber geschrieben. der typ kombiniert ganz nett indie mit pop und deutschen lyrics. nicht ganz so gut wie wir sind helden (kenne nur das eine lied), aber doch ziemlich gut. eher in richtung münchner freiheit und prinzen, auf die ich beide in der richtigen stimmung gelegentlich ziemlich abfahre. der junge hat das gespür für melodien. und etwas punch dazu.

I have always taken for granted that John Cage's 4'33'' was a joke. The idea of a piece of music without any music just seemed like avantgarde arriving at its final point where it abolishes itself. After having read most of this longish essay on 4'33'' (discovered at popshots) I must admit that I was wrong. In the essay it says on the first performance of 4'33'' at Woodstock, New York, on August 29, 1952 by David Tudor, a young pianist:

This account already shows what 4'33'' is about. It is not about silence at all but about its opposite. About noises. The roles of composer/performer and audience are kind of reversed. The audience (plus outside environment) make the "music". 4'33'' is the only piece of music which hands over the performance to the audience. That means of course that 4'33'' is totally different every time it is "played". It is unforeseeable which sounds the listeners will make. In a way it is the most democratic of all compositions. Cage says it better:

But there is another more profound experience behind this piece:

Now this is fascinating. We cannot hear silence (even if it existed) as to be able to listen we have to live and to live our heart has to beat and beat is sound. We enter philosophical territory here. I'd like to quote an extreme point of view. Berkeley's subjective idealism says : "To be is to be perceived." From this follows that not to be perceived is not to be. What we cannot perceive simply does not exist according to Berkeley (he is a kind of doubting Thomas). Ok there are many things our senses cannot perceive but they are there. High frequencies for example. Our ears are not precise enough to hear those frequencies. But this seems to be a completely different problem. Which could be solved by widening the range of frequencies we can hear using transformation (or measuring) devices like radios for example. Not being able to hear silence as we always hear our pulse and nervous system is more like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle which states (in layman's words) that you cannot observe something without changing that which you are observing. This is a fundamental dilemma.

Scientists tell us that there is silence in the space between the stars but this silence is meaningless if we cannot hear it. As meaningless as a God stuck in a black hole, a God whose existence or non-existence wouldn't have any effect on our lives.

People say that silence is unbearable. That it can be used as a torture. But that's rubbish. We can't hear silence. We always hear the rhythm of our body. Maybe this kind of feedback is unsupportable and kills us in the end. Maybe real silence would be wonderful, would be paradise. The torture actually consists in making us approach silence very closely without ever making us reach it. People subjected to this false promise of silence are driven crazy. By themselves.

Thanks to John Cage I now know an answer to the famous koan "What is the sound of one hand?". In the morning it would be the birds singing. In a stormy autumn night the wind blowing etc.

P.S. An afterthought which makes these ramblings rather dubious. What about deaf people? They should "hear" silence, shouldn't they?

Die Passage im letzten Kapitel (das er kurz vor seinem Tod noch mal umgeschrieben hat) von Erhart Kästners Kretabuch, in der es um den Krieg und Freundschaft geht, hat mich wirklich umgehauen gestern. Kästner ist mit seinem Kumpel/Kamerad or whatever Alois bei den Wiglis. Das ist die Großfamilie, die früher in Samaria lebte, bevor es zerstört wurde (von den Nazis, glaube ich). Die Wiglis verkauften dann später die Samariaschlucht für damals viel Geld aber heute nen Appel und nen Ei (5000 zahlende Schluchtwanderer daily in der Saison) an den griechischen Staat, der daraus einen Nationalpark machte.

Man muss wissen, dass die Kreter natürlich eher antideutsch eingestellt waren damals, die Nazis hatten Kreta ja überfallen und nicht die Allierten. Und trotzdem hatten Kästner, der unter dem Schutz der Wehrmacht seine Liebeserklärung an Kreta verfasste, und insbesondere sein Kompagnon (er war beteiligt an einem Film über die kretische Wildziege, der nie das Licht der Welt erblickte, glaube ich) die Freundschaft der Wiglis erworben. Sie verbrachten zehn Tage in Samaria in der Schlucht, die Vorbereitungen für das Gedenkfest für den zwei Jahre zurückliegenden Tod des Wiglivaters liefen gerade. Als Kästner und Alois aufbrechen wollen zurück die Schlucht hinauf gen Omalos, sagen ihnen die Wiglibrüder, dass das nicht geht. Die beiden verstehen dies nicht und gehen mit drei Wiglis dennoch zurück. Auf dem letzten Stück, am Ende der Schlucht, schon fast auf der Omaloshochebene, sagt ein Wiglibruder, dass weiter oben Deutsche sind. Kästner und Alois sehen nix. Man verabschiedet sich und die Brüder verschwinden in der Schlucht. Und es stimmt natürlich. Oben trifft Kästner den Leutnant. Der ihm erzählt, was passiert ist. 27 deutsche Soldaten sind von kretischen Partisanen nach einem Schusswechsel in unwegsames Gelände gelockt und massakriert worden. Die Wiglis wussten das natürlich und kannten die Partisanen mit Sicherheit und waren auf ihrer Seite. Und trotzdem haben sie es riskiert mit Kästner und seinem Freund die Schlucht hinaufzugehen. Sie taten dies, um die Partisanen, die irgendwo in den Felswänden waren, davon abzuhalten die beiden Deutschen abzuknallen, sie schützten ihre Freunde. Hätten der Leutnant und seine schwerbewaffneten Mannen die Wiglibrüder gesehen, hätten sie bestimmt nicht gezögert, sie festzunehmen oder zu erschießen.

Das hört sich alles sehr phantastisch an, aber Gastfreundschaft ist/war genauso wie Blutrache in gewissen Teilen von Kreta eine der am stärksten verwurzelten Ursitten. On a slightly different but related matter: wer jemals versucht hat, eine Kreterin in einer Disco anzumachen, auf die auch ein Kreter ein Auge geworfen hat, weiß, dass dies sehr schlimm enden kann.