On reflection...

I really ought to apologize for the tone of my last post. To dislike a piece of music is one thing, but to let my dislike turn so readily venomous is distasteful in the extreme. I am truly sorry, and I will try to keep better control of myself in the future.

Absolut Null Punkt - Live in Japan

No matter the aesthetic value of surprise, I think it can safely be said that this mess of noise lies irredeemably on the distant side of good taste. Occasional passages of rhythmic cohesion are the only concessions made on this album to conventions of musicality. The sounds coming from my speakers are as ugly, as inchoate, as aleatory and, plainly put, as painful as can be. 

Imagine you had audio recordings of every visit you've ever made to the dentist's office. Now imagine listening to all of them at once: Every scrape and gargle, every whoosh of suction and muddled attempt at speech, every buzz of every drill... Your reaction would not come close to the disease I feel while listening to this awful assembly of noise.

Even if I admit a benefit to seeking out new listening experiences, even if my absorption in the iPod of Lewis Mint has shown me this strategy for combatting the stultefying sameness of my day-to-day experience, there can be no reason whatsoever to pursue discomfort such as this... No reason, perhaps, but these: To shock one's peers, and thereby prop up the facade of one's so-called personality, or else simply to punish oneself in a way less bloody, but no less desirous of attention, no less self-aggrandizing, and no less pathetic than to administer little wounds to one's own flesh.

A.R. & Machines - Die Grune Reise

This album, in fact, offers a good example of the sense in which Mint, in his listening, seems to have sought the subversion of expectations. The music here is in many aspects, quite straightforward rock 'n roll. Some of the guitar riffs will remind the listener immediately of other, better known songs. The first track, "Globus", made me think of that "Spirit in the Sky" song, often heard on classic rock radio.

It doesn't take long, though, for subversion to enter the picture. Traditional rock structures are upended and in some instances dissolve into incredibly strange sound manipulations: squeals of feedback, multiple layers of screaming and laughter, electronic bleeps and bloops, and so on.

There is, too, a distinct Eastern tinge to much of this album. Web research shows that A.R. stands for Achim Reichel, apparently a key figure in what has been labeled (after the fact, of course) as Kraut Rock, a movement among German rock musicians of the late '60s and early '70s. That era's interest in non-Western spiritual traditions seems to have manifested itself here in droning textures reminiscent of the raga. Personally, I have never been much interested in the kind of reverse colonization evident in, say, George Harrison's sitar fixation. There is too much hand-wringing and apology in it for sincerity to persist untainted. But seen from what I increasingly think of as the Lewis Mint perspective, the integration of foreign sounds into a traditionally rock 'n roll context would make for surprising listening indeed.

Sorry for my silence!

First off, let me apologize for the long break between posts. I spent the last few months overseas in pursuit of a personal obsession different from, and (obviously) taking priority over the one to which this blog has been (spottily) devoted. 

About the specific nature of this second interest, which has so dominated my attention of late, I will tell you only that I am no nearer to satisfying it now than I was when I left home all those months ago. Beyond that, there is nothing else I want to tell.

Regarding the focus of this blog, I assure you that I did not abandon my interest in Lewis Mint during my long absence. In fact, while traveling I thought often of my mysterious house guest, and while I arrived at no significant conclusions regarding his personage or whereabouts, I did spend quite a lot of time listening to his playlists, and I return to this project with renewed vigor and, perhaps, a better appreciation of the subject at hand. 

I wouldn't go so far as to say my listening over the last few months has made me a fan of any of the bizarre music Mint seems to prefer, but it has given me an idea of the aesthetic tenets to which he subscribes. Mint's musical selections vary drastically in style, instrumentation, genre, time and place of origin and so on. What they have in common seems to me to be the effect they have on the listener, and the discipline required of the listener for, if not actual enjoyment, than intellectual engagement to occur.

Seen in this light the drastic variations evident between Mint's selections become a unifying factor. Difference is Mint's muse, as it were. Above all else he seems to seek surprise. To be disoriented, or to have one's expectations subverted is for Mint (in my opinion) a means for the renewal of listening as an activity. 

Think of it this way: Every morning I put the kettle on to make my coffee (I use a french press, as all coffee lovers should). And every morning I am just a little further bogged down by the drudgery of such daily tasks. I sit in somnambulant stupefaction waiting for the water to boil and, at the whistle, I stumble back to the stove to remove the kettle from the element, pour the water, and wait for the grounds to steep. Now imagine that one morning, without prior warning, rather than whistling, the kettle should bark like a dog. Seen from Mint's point of view, the surprise of this would startle me out of my stupor, and for at least that one morning I would be able to appreciate again the subtle pleasures of waking, boiling water, and slurping up that first delicious sip of coffee.

I hope that makes sense, as it is an idea I intend to return to in the future. For now, however, let's turn again to Mint's music.

A.C. Marias - One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing)

Another abrupt change of pace, this album features some rather disorienting electronic sounds and fairly straight-forward bass guitar overlaid by the flat, disaffected vocalizing of (according to Wikipedia) Angela Conway. 

While the vocal style rarely changes, the music on this album is actually fairly diverse. Wikipedia says Ms. Conway was assisted by one Bruce Gilbert, of a band called Wire. A Google search turns up hundreds of links for this band, and although I've never heard of them, they seem to have been quite important to any number of people. 

I'm beginning to think my last post may have been a little too harsh on Mint, or at least that the aim of its harshness was mistaken. Rather than an exploitation tourist, Mint might in fact be simply a tourist of forgotten (or altogether unnoticed) cultural niches. This is an avocation I can respect, I guess, if not entirely endorse. I've always preferred deep immersion in a prevailing culture to the romanticization of those cultures that have failed to thrive, but this is probably a reflection of the relative ease of my lifestyle. Were I in another demographic situation, I might not take such a kind view of the prevailing culture of our times. Given what I know of his presentation of himself, his manners of dress and conversation, and the circumstances under which he came to stay at my apartment (more on which later), it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Mint has often found himself on the short end of the stick, culturally speaking.

(Actually, all of the above is probably wrong. My admittedly limited experience with Mint's type of cultural, shall we say, specialist, the music or film snob, the fashion enthusiast, and so on, tells me that these people are in general so grossly over-privileged as to be (ironically, I suppose) unaware of the fact, and consequently to gin up a sentimental (and inaccurate) idea of themselves as somehow outcast or looked down upon.)

24-Carat Black - Ghetto: Misfortune's Wealth

At the very least, this is a change of pace. According to the blog I Killed The Darkness (ikilledthedarkness.blogspot.com), the 24-Carat Black was "composer and noted souse Dale Warren's attempt to document the plight of the inner city through song, spoken word, and judicious use of chimes."

The genre is funk, I guess, or soul (I honestly don't know the difference), and the lyrical focus is just as I Killed The Darkness says. This was recorded in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, and the lyrical tone reflects that. 

The music is actually quite enjoyable, as opposed to the awful noise of 16 Bitch Pile-up. My question is whether my mysterious house guest, Lewis Mint, is involved somehow in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, or is rather the kind of counter-cultural tourist that has become all too familiar these days... You know the type: A part-time Tarantino on his own private exploitation trip. Put more plainly, does Mint actually care about "the plight of the inner city", or does he just get off pretending he's some kind of post-racial super-liberal even though he's never actually met a person of another race. (Mint is white, as this post should make plain, and my brief experience with him leads me to think he falls into the latter category, however disappointing that may be.)

16 Bitch Pile-up & Sword Heaven - Split LP

Next comes this nearly unlistenable release by two bands with utterly ridiculous names. Sword Heaven would seem to imply some sort of violence worship, a motif to which 16 Bitch Pile-up adds an uncomfortable element of misogyny. Neither theory can be expanded upon based on any element of either band's so-called music.

The album consists of three tracks, the first of which is 15 minutes of something by 16 Bitch Pile-up. Apparently recorded live at someplace called "bld", there is not much going on here but accumulating layers of sounds, ranging from little electric squiggles to something not unlike a jet engine firing far up in the sky. There is little rhythmic dynamism to it, and the cumulative effect is akin to what I imagine a white-noise machine would produce.

This is followed by two tracks by Sword Heaven. The first, "We of the Fucking Mountains" begins with some kind of primordial gurgling accompanied by brushed cymbals and proceeds from there. There is a steady drumbeat of a primitive sort, the bleating of what sounds like some kind of horn, and some truly horrible shrieking. The next track, "7minus1times3" (also known as 18), begins with a very slow beat, some unidentifiable noises, and the kind of vocal sounds I expect would be all too familiar to any phone sex operator. A stringed instrument, probably a guitar, makes its appearance shortly thereafter, along with a sound like that produced when you flick one of those tightly coiled springs that keep a door from gouging the wall. Eventually the tempo increases, and the whole thing devolves into another shrieking mess.

I honestly cannot imagine what kind of person would listen to music like this for fun. Maybe I'd rather not track Mint down after all.