| In the Mormon Hive / SLC with Eagle Twin | 16 08 2009 | |
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| Rest In Peace: Rashid Ali | 16 08 2009 | |
| Rashied Ali, Free-Jazz Drummer, Dies at 76
By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: August 14, 2009 Rashied Ali, whose expressionistic, free-jazz drumming helped define the experimental style of John Coltrane’s final years, died Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 76. The cause was a heart attack, said his wife, Patricia Ali. Mr. Ali, who first encountered Coltrane in their Philadelphia neighborhood in the late 1950s, made the leap from admiration to collaboration in the mid-1960s, when he joined Elvin Jones as a second drummer with Coltrane’s ensemble at the Village Gate in November 1965. Mr. Ali recorded with Coltrane and Jones on the 1965 album “Meditations” and, after replacing Jones as Coltrane’s drummer, on the duet album “Interstellar Space” (1967), one of the purest expressions of the free-jazz movement. “I didn’t know what it was, but he called it multidirectional rhythms,” Mr. Ali said of his drumming in an interview for the documentary “The World According to John Coltrane” (1990). On Mr. Ali’s Web site, rashiedali.org, Rashid Ali's Web site his playing is described as “a multirhythmic, polytonal propellant, helping fuel Coltrane’s flights of free-jazz fancy.” Mr. Ali was born Robert Patterson into a musical family in Philadelphia. He started out on piano and dabbled with trombone and trumpet before finding his way to the drums, which he began to play seriously while serving with Army bands during the Korean War. Perhaps thanks to his military experience, he always executed drumrolls with crisp precision. On returning to Philadelphia, Mr. Ali played in local rhythm-and-blues and rock ’n’ roll groups before moving on to jazz. He studied with Philly Joe Jones and paid close attention to heroes like Max Roach and Art Blakey, but a turning point came when he listened to Coltrane’s recordings with Jones. “Instead of being a timekeeper drummer, I wanted to play more,” he recalled for the Coltrane documentary. Mr. Ali moved to New York in 1963 and began playing with progressive jazz musicians like Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler. His first important recording was with Shepp on the album “On This Night.” After pestering Coltrane to be allowed to sit in with his group at the Half Note jazz club and eventually getting a chance one evening, Mr. Ali passed up the golden opportunity to perform as a second drummer with Jones on the album “Ascension,” the seminal record of the free-jazz movement. He later realized his mistake and accepted second-drummer status at the Village Gate and on “Meditations.” After Coltrane’s death in 1967, Mr. Ali performed with Alice Coltrane and then toured Europe. Returning to New York, he opened a club, Ali’s Alley, in a building he bought in SoHo, then in its early bohemian phase. The club, a showcase for free-jazz musicians, was at the center of the loft jazz scene of the 1970s. It operated until 1979, and Mr. Ali lived in the building for the rest of his life. From the 1980s until his death, Mr. Ali performed and recorded with several avant-garde groups, including Phalanx, By Any Means and Prima Materia, an ensemble devoted to interpreting the music of Coltrane and Ayler. Most recently he appeared with the Rashied Ali Quintet, which he formed in 2003, and performed as a duo with the saxophonist Sonny Fortune. Besides his wife, he is survived by two brothers, the jazz drummer Muhammad Ali and Theodore Patterson, both of Philadelphia, and nine children. “He could play straight, put down the time and swing,” the critic Stanley Crouch said. “He had a good command of his instrument. He once told me that he thought of himself as playing in 4/4, but the other realms of 4/4 that we don’t usually hear.” From nytimes.com | ||
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| RIP Les Paul | 13 08 2009 | |
| Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94
By JON PARELES Published: August 13, 2009 Les Paul, the virtuoso guitarist and inventor whose solid-body electric guitar and recording studio innovations changed the course of 20th-century popular music, died Thursday in White Plains, N.Y. . He was 94. The cause was complications of pneumonia, the Gibson Guitar Corporation and his family announced. . Mr. Paul was a remarkable musician as well as a tireless tinkerer. He played guitar alongside leading prewar jazz and pop musicians from Louis Armstrong to Bing Crosby. In the 1930s he began experimenting with guitar amplification, and by 1941 he had built what was probably the first solid-body electric guitar, although there are other claimants. With his guitar and the vocals of his wife, Mary Ford, he used overdubbing, multitrack recording and new electronic effects to create a string of hits in the 1950s. Mr. Paul’s style encompassed the twang of country music, the harmonic richness of jazz and, later, the bite of rock ’n’ roll. For all his technological impact, though, he remained a down-home performer whose main goal, he often said, was to make people happy. Mr. Paul, whose original name was Lester William Polsfuss, was born on June 9, 1915, in Waukesha, Wis. His childhood piano teacher wrote to his mother, “Your boy, Lester, will never learn music.” But he picked up harmonica, guitar and banjo by the time he was a teenager and started playing with country bands in the Midwest. In Chicago he performed for radio broadcasts on WLS and led the house band at WJJD; he billed himself as the Wizard of Waukesha, Hot Rod Red and Rhubarb Red. His interest in gadgets came early. At the age of 10 he devised a harmonica holder from a coat hanger. Soon afterward he made his first amplified guitar by opening the back of a Sears acoustic model and inserting, behind the strings, the pickup from a dismantled Victrola. With the record player on, the acoustic guitar became an electric one. Later, he built his own pickup from ham radio earphone parts and assembled a recording machine using a Cadillac flywheel and the belt from a dentist’s drill. From country music Mr. Paul moved into jazz, influenced by players like Django Reinhardt and Eddie Lang, who were using amplified hollow-body guitars to play hornlike single-note solo lines. He formed the Les Paul Trio in 1936 and moved to New York, where he was heard regularly on Fred Waring’s radio show from 1938 to 1941. In 1940 or 1941 — the exact date is unknown — , Mr. Paul made his guitar breakthrough. Seeking to create electronically sustained notes on the guitar, he attached strings and two pickups to a wooden board with a guitar neck. “The log,” as he called it, if not the first solid-body electric guitar, became the most influential one. “You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be sounding,” Mr. Paul once said. The odd-looking instrument drew derision when he first played it in public, so he hid the works inside a conventional-looking guitar. But the log was a conceptual turning point. With no acoustic resonance of its own, it was designed to generate an electronic signal that could be amplified and processed — the beginning of a sonic transformation of the world’s music. Mr. Paul was drafted in 1942 and worked in California for the Armed Forces Radio Service, accompanying Rudy Vallee, Kate Smith and others. When he was discharged in 1943, he was hired as a staff musician for NBC radio in Los Angeles. His trio toured with the Andrews Sisters and backed Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby, with whom he recorded the hit “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” in 1945. Crosby encouraged Mr. Paul to build his own recording studio, and so he did, in his garage in Los Angeles. There he experimented with recording techniques, using them to create not realistic replicas of a performance but electronically enhanced fabrications. Toying with his mother’s old Victrola had shown him that changing the speed of a recording could alter both pitch and timbre. He could record at half-speed and replay the results at normal speed, creating the illusion of superhuman agility. He altered instrumental textures through microphone positioning and reverberation. Technology and studio effects, he realized, were instruments themselves. He also noticed that by playing along with previous recordings, he could become a one-man ensemble. As early as his 1948 hit “Lover,” he made elaborate, multilayered recordings, using two acetate disc machines, which demanded that each layer of music be captured in a single take. From discs he moved to magnetic tape, and in the late 1950s he built the first eight-track multitrack recorder. Each track could be recorded and altered separately, without affecting the others. The machine ushered in the modern recording era. In 1947 Mr. Paul teamed up with Colleen Summers, who had been singing with Gene Autry’s band. He changed her name to Mary Ford, a name found in a telephone book. They were touring in 1948 when Mr. Paul’s car skidded off an icy bridge. Among his many injuries, his right elbow was shattered; once set, it would be immovable for life. Mr. Paul had it set at an angle, slightly less than 90 degrees, so that he could continue to play guitar. Mr. Paul, whose first marriage, to Virginia, had ended in divorce, married Ms. Ford in 1949. They had a television show, “Les Paul and Mary Ford at Home,” which was broadcast from their living room until 1958. They began recording together, mixing multiple layers of Ms. Ford’s vocals with Mr. Paul’s guitars and effects, and the dizzying results became hits in the early 1950s. Among their more than three dozen hits, “Mockingbird Hill,” “How High the Moon” and “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” in 1951 and “Vaya Con Dios” in 1953 were million-sellers. Some of their music was recorded with microphones hanging in various rooms of the house, including one over the kitchen sink, so that Ms. Ford could record vocals while washing dishes. Mr. Paul also recorded instrumentals on his own, including the hits “Whispering,” “Tiger Rag” and “Meet Mister Callaghan” in 1951 and 1952. The Gibson company hired Mr. Paul to design a Les Paul model guitar in the early 1950s, and variations of the first 1952 model have sold steadily ever since, accounting at one point for half of the privately held company’s total sales. Built with Mr. Paul’s patented pickups, his design is prized for its clarity and sustained tone. It has been used by musicians like Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Slash of Guns N’ Roses. The Les Paul Standard version is unchanged since 1958, the company says. In the mid-1950s, Mr. Paul and Ms. Ford moved to a house in Mahwah, N.J., where Mr. Paul eventually installed both film and recording studios and amassed a collection of hundreds of guitars. The couple’s string of hits ended in 1961, and they were divorced in 1964. Ms. Ford died in 1977. Mr. Paul is survived by three sons, Lester (Rus) G. Paul, Gene W. Paul and Robert (Bobby) R. Paul; a daughter, Colleen Wess; his companion, Arlene Palmer; five grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.In 1964, Mr. Paul underwent surgery for a broken eardrum, and he began suffering from arthritis in 1965. Through the 1960s he concentrated on designing guitars for Gibson. He invented and patented various pickups and transducers, as well as devices like the Les Paulverizer, an echo-repeat device, which he introduced in 1974. In the late 1970s he made two albums with the dean of country guitarists, Chet Atkins. In 1981 Mr. Paul underwent a quintuple-bypass heart operation. After recuperating, he returned to performing, though the progress of his arthritis forced him to relearn the guitar. In 1983 he started to play weekly performances at Fat Tuesday’s, an intimate Manhattan jazz club. “I was always happiest playing in a club,” he said in a 1987 interview. “So I decided to find a nice little club in New York that I would be happy to play in.” After Fat Tuesday’s closed in 1995, he moved his Monday-night residency to Iridium. He performed there until early June; guest stars have been appearing with his trio since then and will continue to do so indefinitely, a spokesman for the club said. At his shows he used one of his own customized guitars, which included a microphone on a gooseneck pointing toward his mouth so that he could talk through the guitar. In his sets he would mix reminiscences, wisecracks and comments with versions of jazz standards. Guests — famous and unknown — showed up to pay homage or test themselves against him. Despite paralysis in some fingers on both hands, he retained some of his remarkable speed and fluency. Mr. Paul also performed regularly at jazz festivals through the 1980s. He recorded a final album, “American Made, World Played” (Capitol), to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2005. It featured guest appearances by Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Sting, Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The album brought him two Grammy Awards: for best pop instrumental performance and best rock instrumental performance. He had already won recognition from the Grammy trustees for technical achievements and another performance Grammy in 1976, for the album “Chester and Lester,” made with Chet Atkins. In recent years, he said he was working on another major invention but would not reveal what it was. “Honestly, I never strove to be an Edison,” he said in a 1991 interview in The New York Times. “The only reason I invented these things was because I didn’t have them and neither did anyone else. I had no choice, really.” | ||
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| L'Enfer (essais), d'Henri-Georges Clouzot | 13 08 2009 | |
| Extrait 3 de L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot, film inachevé dont il ne reste que ses essais Avec Romy Schneider et Serge Reggiani Sortie en salles le 23 septembre (docu-film de Serge Bromberg)
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| SUNN O))) vs Brooklyn 0909 | 12 08 2009 | |
| Poster by Josh Graham | ||
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| Sun Boxes in Rhyolite Nevada | 12 08 2009 | |
| Sun Boxes is an environment to enter and exit. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels. There is a different guitar sample in each box all playing together making the composition. The guitar samples are all of different lengths so the whole piece keeps evolving.
Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers. It sounds different inside of the array. There is a different sense of space inside. Certain speakers will be closer and louder therefore the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array.. Creating a unique experience for everyone. There are no batteries involved. The Sun Boxes are reliant on the sun. When the sun sets the music stops. The piece changes as the length of the day changes. Making the participants aware of the cycle of the day. — Craig Colorusso | ||
| Bering Strait Project II | 11 08 2009 | |
| OFF Architecture / Bering Strait Project
Aug 2009 By Karen Cilento — Filed under: Awarded Competitions , Infrastructure , Bering Strait, OFF Architecture From archdaily.com 
A few weeks ago, we shared the Bering Strait Project which asked participants to create a massive spanning element connecting Russia to America. The design would physically join the world together and could potentially promote world unity and peace. Paris-based OFF Architecture’s team of Manal Rachdi, Tanguy Vermet, Mathieu Michel, Takanao Todo, and Lily Nourmansouri was awarded second place in the professional category of the competition. Their project “does not simply concern itself with the construction of a commercial or railway link, nor a bridge connecting one continent to another. The amplitude, siting, geopolitical context as well as the global ecological conscience entails a proposal far more audacious, an active project sensitive to the conditions of the site.” More about the proposal after the break. 
Working in compression, the structure’s 10 meter wide parallel walls are held with bracing, which at times is habitable. The enclosed space “becomes an interface for human passage and exchange, providing visitors and inhabitants the opportunity to traverse the Strait by foot, as was originally intended by primary civilizations.” As the Strait’s relatively shallow water levels allow the proposed structure to descend to the bottom of the ocean, users can experience constant views of the entire marine landscape. 
Perforations in the main structure allow the marine animals to move through the spaces while adjacent laboratories provide an excellent research space for scientists. Other perforations in the structure act as marine current turbines, accelerating water movement and currents. Because the water level in the Strait is relatively shallow, flows tend to be faster, generating more energy. The project includes large turbines to provide energy for the residential areas and laboratories; yet the turbines move at such a slow pace that no animals would be harmed. 
Extending past the primary space, a series of 10 meter by 10 meter modular cubes, faced with a polished reflective metal, float above the water’s surface. “The subtle undulation of the modules solidifies once the ice freezes into a unified plane, displaying the instability, political and climactic, that exists in the zone.” 
Residences, theaters and cultural centers are dispersed among the 400 meter high island. Such hermitic structures create a new mode of living. Due to the innate thermal mass of the subterranean rock, the diverse program is attributed natural heating and cooling qualities. 
All images courtesy of the studio. As seen on . 
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| SUNN O))) Shoshin vs Supersonic 2009 | 11 08 2009 | |
| Photos taken by Pete Ashtone with TTV machine: ttv.peteashton.com/ | ||
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| Gnaw in Brooklyn | 11 08 2009 | |
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| SUNN O))) vs Historic Brookdale Lodge 10th August 09 | 10 08 2009 | |
| SUNN O))) live @ Historic Brookdale Lodge from (((folkYEAH!))) on Vimeo. | ||
| Bill Herzog in the riff cave | 10 08 2009 | |
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| Ketola sketch | 08 08 2009 | |
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| Iommi, Seattle, Now | 08 08 2009 | |
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| SUNN O))) ve Neumos | 08 08 2009 | |
| Hail to Lori Lefavor for the great 2 nights in Seattle! Victory!
The only real problem is that we had to leave town before the Heaven & Hell / Neurosis gig this weekend. Cheers to the great bands who played: Earth, Eagle Twin, Accüsed, Pelican, Black Breath & Trap Them. Also to the arcane headz who emerged: Rex, Dawn, Herzog, Thayil, The O'Malley clan, Menche. Special thanks to Chet for the awesome help... Pics by Menche. | ||
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| SUNN O))) vs Independent | 06 08 2009 | |
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| SUNN O))) vs CMG | 06 08 2009 | |
| Long format SUNN O))) iterviews with Coke Machine Glow posted here:
http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/4685/interview-sunno http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/4693 | ||
| Mockingbird | 06 08 2009 | |
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| ON LAND festival | 05 08 2009 | |
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| Eliane Radigue trailer!! | 03 08 2009 | |
| Eliane Radigue trailer from Anaïs Prosaïc on Vimeo. | ||
| Thorr's Hammer vs Comfort Inn Bar Shoreditch 430AM, thee mourning after | 03 08 2009 | |
| Sorry, this means too much for us to not be posted. Such a great time was had. | ||
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| SUNN O))) vs Brookdale Lodge | 01 08 2009 | |
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| Hildur Ingveldard Gudnadottir & Elín Hansdóttir bursting helium balloons | 31 07 2009 | |
| Hildur & Elín destroy large weather balloons filled with helium following their 23rd May performance at Armenius Kirk at Skanu Metz Festival, Riga Latvia.
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| SUNN O))) vs Brookdale Lodge | 31 07 2009 | |
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| Anti-Sweden | 30 07 2009 | |
| No, we are by no means Anti-Swedish... its the name of a Norwegian jeans brand with a patriotic complex.
Commercial for Norway's Anti-Sweden brand of jeans, featuring artwork by Justin Bartlett and a soundtrack of SUNN O)))s "O)))BOW1", mixed by Masami Akita / Merzbow, from the 2001 SUNN O))) album "Flight of The Behemoth" May be collaborating with them soon also... | ||
| Aluk Todolo vs Paris | 29 07 2009 | |
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