New Musical Rediscovery

So I had heard The Mars Volta before, and if I remember right, I wasn't very impressed. But I just heard 4 songs off of their new album, and ... holy shit.

It kicks so much ass it's not even funny. Or at least the 4 songs I've heard so far do.

Let me find a song for you to listen to.

Wax Simulacra
Illyena
Goliath
Askepios

And that was as much as i was able to find.

The Universalism of Music

I was reading a chapter of my Psychology book today about the human brain, when I came across an interesting little anecdote. The authors were elaborating on a friend, Asha, who had suffered a stroke--after the stroke Asha had trouble making sense of everyday speech and finding the right words for things. When asked to identify simple objects such as a cup, she knew what it was, she just couldn't find the right word for it. However, when the authors brought a recording of music (I believe it was Indian flutes or something equally complex/exotic), she was able to appreciate it and it calmed her down. This was due to the basic difference in the left and right sides of the brain: the left is used for complicated activities such as mathematics, speech, and solving jigsaw puzzles and the right is used for "nonlanguage sounds" such as instrumental music, though I would imagine that music containing lyrics would use both sides, the left to understand the lyris and the right to take in the music). This all has a point, amazingly, and that is that I was somewhat amazed to find serious studies of music-related subjects in my Psychology book. It got me ruminating on the different ways that music can be applied and the universal applicability of it. Just basic subjects in math all have uses related to music, look!

• Mathematics: This one is rather obvious, but nevertheless... music theory and math are closely related, in that one needs to be able to understand the beats, counting, measures, and the different time signatures to truly understand serious musical theory. If you really want to understand this, scan this for all the mathematical references. There are a plethora!


• English: This mainly applies to lyrical music, but with all the focus on lyrics in modern pop music, English (or, to be less enthnocentric, language) classes should be a must for potential musicians. The fact is that songs are simply a different type of poetry, and the best songs tell some kind of story. Some of the best songs in history tell stories: "Ziggy Stardust," the rock star who "really sang, screwed up eyes" and could "lick 'em by smiling (David Bowie);" Lucy, the girl with kaledoscope eyes with sun in them (The Beatles); Tommy, "that deaf dumb and blind kid" who "sure played a mean pinball, (The Who)" and so many other examples.
  
• History: So many songs have their roots in the time they were created, especially in times of war. Would John and Yoko's famous bed-in and monumental performance of "Give Peace a Chance" have ever occurred were it not for the Vietnam War and the vocal dissident that arose from it? Also consider how certain songs have been forever linked to the events surrounding them. Again, "Give Peace a Chance" is a good example, as it will forever be connected with the words "bed-in" and the famous photograph.
  
• Science: I more or less started with an anecdote regarding science and how it relates to music, but there is still more. There are entire therapies based around scientific theories that music can have soothing effects on the brain and possibly be, if not the cure, than at least an alleviation many of humankind's problems: substance abuse, depression, Alzheimer's disease, and even mental illnesses like Down's Syndrome.
  

Anyway, besides allowing me to waste more time which I could be using studying, I wanted to really underline something I've been saying for a while, and that is that music is a unifying and universal artform. It has so many applications (despite that "all art is quite useless" [Oscar Wilde]), even though it's a conundrum. All art is indeed "quite useless," yes, however it also CAN have unintended uses.

Even More from the Library

I didn't even want to go to the library but it ended up working into my trip so I went anyway. I'm really starting to have to grasp at straws, but that's part of the fun of this library... I get to explore outside of my comfort zone, musically.

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Big Star - In Space
Björk - Debut
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - B.R.M.C.
Blind Melon - Blind Melon
David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise
Daft Punk - Discovery
Bob Dylan - Blonde on Blonde
Echo and the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
Neil Young - Ocean Rain

New Additions from CD Trader

Traded in three CD's (Black Sabbath's Cross Purposes, My Chemical Romance's Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, and Quiet Riot's Metal Health) for this one.

Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows

eMusic Additions

I've been subscribed to eMusic since September, and it's a wonderful service filled with indie and other music, at such a cheap price ($10 per month for 30 songs per month at the cheapest) it's hard for me to cancel my subscription. Unfortunately, I need to, as I need to save up money for other things than music--gasp! Anyway, this is my last month for a while, and this is what I'm getting.

Bee and Flower - Last Sight of Land
Isis - Panopticon
This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You
This Will Destroy You - Young Mountain

Additions from iTunes with Gift Card

As one of my graduation presents, I received a $15 iTunes gift card. With it, I purchased these.

Porcupine Tree - Up the Downstair
Smashing Pumpkins - American Gothic (EP)

More Additions from the Library

I went to a different library to apply for a job there, and my sister came with and got a library card, and awesomely let me check out a few CD's on her card which my regular library didn't have, as far as I could remember.

Beck - Midnite Vultures
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Take Them On, On Your Own
The Sisters of Mercy - First and Last and Always
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

New Music Discovery: Eagles of Death Metal

I was bored and browsing around Queens of the Stone Age' page at RYM when I noticed Josh Homme was in another band called Eagles of Death Metal, and they are awesome, from what I've listened to.

Speaking in Tongues
Midnight Creeper
Already Died
Chase the Devil

New Additions from Disc Replay

Well, I went into trade a bunch of CD's in and they took none of them, but luckily for them (and me, I suppose...) I found two CD's to buy, for $4 a pop. They are...

Live - Throwing Copper

Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris

New Additions from the Library

Ah, I love my local library, it has such a selection, and since it's obviously free to grab stuff from it, I do tend to be alot more reckless when choossing my selections, so I've discovered a few things through that. Anyway, this is what I picked up...

Beck - Guero
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
The Beta Band - From Heroes to Zeros
Counting Crows - August and Everything After
The Decemberists - Her Majesty the Decemberists
Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy
The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Veruca Salt - Eight Arms to Hold You

Christmas Additions

I got quite a few different CD's for Christmas...

The Beatles - Rubber Soul
David Bowie - Outside
Johnny Cash - The Legend Box Set
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Interpol - Our Love to Admire
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Melvins - Houdini
The Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet

New Music Discovery: Bass Communion

Well, here it is... my first musical discovery of 2008--courtesy of browsing a list of the best releases of 1999 by lindseysomeone. It is...

Bass Communion--one of many side projects by Steven Wilson, singer of Porcupine Tree. Reading up on it, it's him doing ambient stuff. Sounds absolutely up my alley.

Also, I remembered something which I had apparently forgotten to add to my expansive elephant of a wishlist--No-Man--another Steven Wilson side project, but with Tim Bowness and him doing post-rock. Mmmm.

Ghosts on Magnetic Tape II - Bass Communion
Can't really link directly to these, but there are four songs at No-Man's Myspace.
Also here is the link to Bass Communion's site at Steven Wilson's official site, which houses many previews of Bass Communion tracks, though they are all in .ram format.

Theories about music

Over the years I've developed some theories about music. They usually come to me as I'm listening to something I particularly like, and I've just now started to jot them down. I'll edit this post if anymore come to me.

I could come up with a no doubt endless amount of metaphors to describe my thoughts on a particular aspect of music--exploration--but for now I'll just stick with this one: essentially I view music as an endless road of wonder, where, at the end is a beautiful and mysterious cloud of unexplored territory.

Music has to move me in some way, whether it be the somber and bleak tone of Red House Painters, or the hyper-literacy of the Decemberists and Morrissey (the Smiths) that makes me have a complete nerdgasm.

I always try to have an open mind, but I also accept that there are certain "artists" that I don't need to listen to much of to determine that I don't like them. These would be Avril Lavigne, anything from High School Musical, 50 Cent, etcetera.

To date I have not found one single genre of music that doesn't (for me) have a single worthwhile artist belonging to it. Rap? A Tribe Called Quest, among others. Death metal? Opeth. Jazz? Miles Davis, of course. Pop? Regina Spektor does it for me. Acoustic? Nick Drake is the man! You get the picture, I'm sure.

More will follow, no doubt.

What is this?

I've made a new blog, as you can no doubt see. It's just going to be for all things music, and probably pretty chaotic, but I'll try to organize it a bit. I'm going to note when I get a new CD (or digital files... hehehehe), random thoughts on music, when I discover a new artist, whatever. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to blogging. /nerd