Mass for the present time / Music Religion Vs (Versus Series)
A Listening Room-drink given by Axel and Francis in Congress June 9 2010
"We must also remember those who forget where the road leads"
Heraclitus
listening room # 19 "Mass for the present time / vs music. religions "(Versus Series)
Thank you for being here tonight with us for this" mass. " Congress, which welcomes us once again, is not a temple but rather a futuristic symbol of mobility and speed. We're not evangelists, just traffickers sounds. "
Tonight you will hear a selection of songs that revolve around the relationship between music and religion. It will not, strictly speaking, religious music (the subject of other listening rooms) but of artists who have chosen religious references in their music. Why? We do not know. So, we will interpret (the rooms listening are biased interpretation and contextualization, sometimes against the current of the intention of the musicians themselves). The series versus explores the tensions between two worlds.
To multiply the points of view, we have created a schism: we start with the proposal of Francis, to chain by mine.
I do not want to start listening to this without a word about my own relationship to religion (which follow the lines and mini-courses are those of me).
Ten years ago, I became a professor of religion. A choice dictated by the need to change jobs quickly. The fiber teaching came very quickly, do not worry!
I grew up in a nonreligious, free to believe what I wanted. I began studying philosophy at the university. And then I asked a critical look at my "atheism".
The first thing that undermines the foundations of atheism that is the thought of infinity (mathematically, but also spatial). I can not think of an infinite space, or store (in any case).
The second thing is the meeting at the university with the thinking of Henri Bergson (about my memory). In his book, Matter and Memory, I stumbled upon his theory of memory. I read the book 20 years ago but here's what I remember. The memory is an inverted cone whose point is our present (see diagram on the blackboard).
These two things make me now an agnostic.
[1] That's mini-courses in religion by ignoring your master / DJ.
"Mass for the present time" Tracklist
Proposal Francis
1 / Xela A Corpse Hangs In The House Of The Lord (excerpt) (Dekorder - 2010)
Xela is a British electronic musician, which tends in its last recordings to adopt an approach more and more abstract. The piece included here is from the album "The Divine" originally appeared only on tape (yes it still exists!, It gives an idea of how radical this man) and finally released on vinyl LP (but not on CD it would still not sell his soul to the devil of commercialism). The Divine is the second film after "The Illuminated," a trilogy about the divine and sacred. But as always with Xela is primarily a dark and disturbing that emerges from this long beach misty which emerges from church bells and fragments of prayers.
2 / Emmeleia Dead Can Dance (4AD - 1993)
Dead Can Dance was one of the jewels of the 4AD label, who played in the early 80's some new wave aesthetic, atmospheric and gothic (Cocteau Twins, Bauhaus , X-Mal Deutschland, This Mortal Coil ...). Among their influences major, there is the religious music, be it medieval ("Orbis of Ignis" on the album The Serpent's Egg, "Summoning the Muse" on the album Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun) and Eastern ("Song of Sophia "Always The Serpent's Egg). The singer of the group, lit Lisa Gerrard, was also used to perform in concert wearing a white robe of a priestess. "Emmeleia" is from the album Into the Labyrinth and is a duet accapella inventing its own language and songs inspired by Eastern Orthodox.
3 / Arvo Pärt Fratres (1977 - Berlin Philharmonic Cellists, ECM New Series 1984)
Austrian composer of Estonian, Arvo Pärt is one of the most famous contemporary composers. His work is strongly influenced by his Christian faith and has produced numerous works for chorus of religious inspiration. In 1976, emerging from a long silence, he applies the method of writing that became his trademark: the "tinkling". The composer says he is working from very few elements, a moment of silence or three notes of a triad, which sound like bells. Composed in 1977 in this minimalist style, "Fratres" is based on repetition of a theme austere, whose sound is amplified to progressively, reaching its peak in the middle of the work. "The work's title suggests that this music was inspired by the vision of a solemn procession of medieval monks to move at the flickering candles [...] to the chapels of the abbey, for one of countless services that regulated monastic life "(Richard E. Rodda, Booklet Fratres, I Famminghi).
4 / Vera Hall Death, Have Mercy (1960 - Atlantic, 1993)
This song is from the cabinet Sounds of the South, which contains recordings made in 1960 "on the ground" (fieldrecordings) by the great ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in the southern United States. Lomax's work has been to record and preserve folk musical traditions of many parts of the world. The third part of Sounds of the South is dedicated to the "Negro Church Music" and incorporates traditional religious songs. As stated Alan Lomax in his notes, the Negro Spiritual combines the testimony of religious faith and an expression of revolt. "Death, Have Mercy" considering the arrival death in a particularly dramatic and realistic, describing the terror of the soul faced with the specter of death incarnate. For the record, it's in the box Sounds of the South that Moby has drawn heavily on the source of her samples for her album Play of 1999 ("Honey", "Find My Baby," "Natural Blues").
5 / Henryk Gorecki Kleines Requiem für eine Polka (Edit) (1993 - Sinfionetta London, Nonesuch Records, 2005)
Polish composer, Henryk Gorecki is usually classified, along with Arvo Pärt, among the "mystical minimalist". It was an unexpected success in 1992 when his Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) has sold over a million copies in the version recorded on Nonesuch Records with the soprano Dawn Upshaw. Written in 1977, this symphony already reflected the religious feelings of its author, since two of the movements inspired by prayers (one taken from songs of the fifteenth century, the other a text to the Virgin Mary by a registered Polish prisoner in a Gestapo cell). In more recent composition, "Kleines Requiem für eine
Polka" reflects an atmosphere of introspection, with its bell sounds and meditative piano.
6 / The The Good Morning Beautiful (Intro) (Epic - 1989)
In 1989, Matt Johnson aka The The, Mind Bomb album achieves largely devoted to his troubled relationship with religion. Denouncing the warlike fanaticism in "Armageddon Days (Are Here Again)" ("God Does not live in Israel or Rome or God Does not Belong To The Yankee Dollar / God Does not crash the bombs for Hezbollah / God Does not Even go to church / And God Will not send us down to Allah to burn "), he claims in" Good Morning Beautiful "in a clear spirituality of human religions (" I Know That God lives in everybody's souls And The only devil in your world Lives In The Human Heart "), symbolized by the muezzin chants which opens the song.
7 / Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Shadow (Real World - 1996)
Pakistani singer with an extraordinary voice, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan popularized to a Western audience the qawwali style musical in the tradition Muslim Sufi , including his collaborations with Peter Gabriel (on the soundtrack of the Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ) who has hosted his Realworld label. The songs qawwali of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan are long chants punctuated by hypnothiques the sound of the tabla and the harmonium, which often stretch over nearly half an hour. Given the limited time of our listening rooms, I turned to a more reasonable piece format, from an album made in collaboration with musician Michael Brook.
8 / Xela A Corpse Hangs In The House Of The Lord (a) (Dekorder - 2010)
Proposed Axel
1 / Richard Lowe Teitelbaum Golem (extract) (Tzadik)
Golem is a multimedia opera created by Teitelbaum in the 80s. Teitelbaum is a founding member of Musica Elettronica Viva all, a group of electro-acoustic improv of the 60 who set to music including the film Zabriskie Point. In this opera, he gathers together his extensive research on the myth of the Golem. This myth is a patchwork of themes: "the mysteries of creation, the dangers of magic and technology, the challenges of cybernetics and artificial intelligence and even the problems of racism, violence and the oppression. "(Liner notes) The golem is a creation of man to save the world from destruction. But the creature is "monstrous." The noble intent was not enough. A Biblical version of Frankenstein ...
2 / Prayer Burial (Hyperdub)
Burial is a mystery. Anonymous. This music is created in east London, and exudes the asphalt. Burial is one of the spearheads of the movement Dubstep, who signed the return of slow rhythms and heavy atmospheres (one is away from the Summer of Love by Deep Dish). Prayer is aptly named. Burial means "burial". So much for the frame. The content is pure condensed Tube (London Underground). Simple beats, clicks dummy, incantatory songs ... The street is home to a temple, juvenile delinquency is the rite of passage from a lost youth. Burial we leave it to meditate, pray. This album has been much talk of him leaving.
3 / Bola Vespers (Skam)
Hours of Office (Vespers in French) are here to honor. Say once in the evening today in the afternoon (before and none after Compline), according to the "Petit Robert.
What pushes Bola (vehicle Music Darrell Fitton) to explore this theme? We are on the Skam label (founded in Manchester in the 90s by Andy Maddocks and partner since the early Autechre) and is like a beating heart. Darrel Fitton has become known in the electro community in 1994 by publishing a piece on the legendary label's Artificial Intelligence compilation Warp (you can find worse as ancestry). The days are punctuated by prayers. There is a certain relation to temporality. At the inner life, too. For me, religion is a way of experiencing temporality (I am very sensitive to the notion of Shabbat, for example). (From Wikipedia)
4 / GusGus Starlovers (4AD) This collective artistic
(video, graphics, music, etc..) Comes from Iceland. It had its moments of glory (remember a concert in the Orangerie ultra full of Botany) to sink in a few years of relative indifference. In 2009, they returned in great shape, resurrected by the label Kompakt (definitely always close to us).
Preview the album This Is Normal (1999), this song is about the quest for meaning, in adolescence. 'They need love, They Need god, They Need guidance from above. " Distance, approximation, the group ... The cocktail teenager who leaves him vulnerable ... This vulnerability makes it so beautiful ...
5 / Deep Dish Mohammad Is Jesus (Deconstruction / Deep Dish Records) We're in 1998. Dance the planet shines at its brightest as we approach the Millennium. This duo is the Iranian-American firmament. They remixed the biggest stars of world Pop. Meanwhile, they create two labels and flood the dancefloors of their music, BPM-specific and regular (120 beats per minute). In this piece, they are experimenting with ecumenism: Richard Morel, singer and author of the text, tells the story of the birth of a child who takes the shape of a prophet. The refrain "Mohammad IS Jesus is Buddha Is Love Is The Way I See It" How to understand otherwise the title? Blasphemy or logical consequence of monotheism? If God is creator, he has fired on all cylinders ... Love has the final word.
6 / Geeez 'n' Gosh The Love of God (Mille Plateaux)
Behind this project lies Atom (aka Uwe Schmidt) and a thousand other projects. Some of you were at the party Raster-Noton (the recent BEMF - Brussels Electronic Music Festival) and saw the beautiful room in Atom the Henry Le Boeuf. Here, Uwe pays tribute to blues and gospel, by covering a layer of beeps and other sound defects. The ultra modern (always already a bit outdated) joined the timeless: the music makes this kind of an oxymoron (always happy to put that word). Geeez 'n' Gosh are distortions of Jesus 'n' God.
7 / Chango Oba ilu, Cuba (Soul Jazz Records)
Chango is a group whose Afro-Cuban religion, Santeria has its roots in the Yoruba tribe of Niger. Slavery brought, as we know, Africans to the New World. African religion became Santeria in Cuba, the voodoo in Haiti and Candomblé in Brazil. Faced with the English colonists, slaves were subtly blended their beliefs with Catholicism to form the Santeria.
Oludumare is the almighty god of Santeria. It is beyond the human realm. However, just below it, are the Orishas, who themselves are available santero (the faithful of Santeria). (Notice the cover)
8 / September Collective Sasqualtera (Mosz)
This group is in itself a kind of "supergroup", understand that each member is known to work in another context (where he gained some notoriety). Barbara Morgenstern, Schneider, and Paul Wirkus chose to gather in the Johannes Kirche (a large Protestant church in the center of Düsseldorf) to use the organ of this venerable institution. The timbre of an instrument, the spirit of a place: so much for the concept. The organ has been MIDIF (fed by extraneous sounds) and the church has been stuffed (literally) of microphones. On the disc are few fragments of this long improvisation session. An album austere, torn between his loyalty to the place and its betrayal of the stamp ...
House listens to come
# 10 DJ Culture: 5X10 (five DJs ten songs they prefer to dance) . Delayed but still it happens ... (Special issue) # 19 H2O
sound qualities of the Blue Gold (Series 4 elements). With a mineral water bar as in Japan. # 20
20X10en2010 the tenth meeting room listening to the twentieth.
New Weird America # 21 (Series Imaginary Territories). The U.S., a territory that is to dream again?
# 22 To continue in French, type 1. The phone and its diversion into music (Series Items)
fingering # 23 From: the harp and accordion in pop format (Instruments series) # 24
Figures absence (homage to Rachel Whiteread) (Arts & series ; Plastics)
# 25 Red Green Blue (Homage to Ellsworth Kelly) (Arts & Plastics series) # 26
The Structure of Revolutions musical (music Sciences Research) (series para / / ELE) # 27 House
close / music sex (serial para / / ELE) # 28
Expéri-Métal/deux worlds are total opposites? (With the assistance of Fabrice Altes
# 29 Masters and Disciples / school of music (serial para / / ELE) # 30
Noise Vs Silence: a double bed and listening (with the draw as to whether begins with the sound or silence) (Versus Series)
calendar next room listening to Congress in 2010 (date!)
Wednesday, September 15 - Wednesday, November 17
Become an exclusive member of Chambers listening ...
For 7 euros (11 euros for lovers, friends or another pair of individuals), you would be exempted the TECC (the fee for listening pop and collective) and you can enjoy a host of other benefits and information. All for one year (if registering today, I will refund the TECC 3 euros).
Support Room to listen and talk to your friends ...
listening rooms are an offshoot of enthusiastic Grandensemble, the blog of Collective Action and Culture Shared
www.grandensemble.blogspot.com
[1] Le Petit Robert defined agnosticism as "the doctrine that everything that is beyond the experimental data (all that is metaphysical) is unknowable. "
