Esoterica – Page 2

“Oh, I already wrote the greatest pop song of the 21st century. Did that in 2006.” The National Pep.

19 October, 201630 April, 2017 Esoterica, Pop, Record 0

Andrew Hickey reminisces on “Jaded” by The National Pep, from the EP Love Punks Want To Make You Cry.

Rosebud: Discoballs: A Tribute to Pink Floyd (1977).

18 October, 20169 May, 2018 Dance, Esoterica, Prog, Record 0

Thanks to Paul Haesler for tipping me off to this inspiring work after he saw the Polka Floyd video yesterday.

Links: bad lyrical subjects, worse record companies, Psychic TV and Polka Floyd.

17 October, 2016 Esoterica, Industrial, Industry, Links, Musician 0

Don’t whinge or povertysplain, worse music industry players, Psychic TV’s film Kickstarter and a reworking that works too well.

Theodor Adorno wrote all the Beatles’ songs as a Cultural Marxist assault on America. Possibly.

13 October, 20166 June, 2018 Esoterica, Opinion, Pop, Rock 17

One of the finest conspiracy theories in popular culture is the claim that Theodor Adorno, a main figure in the Frankfurt School of “cultural Marxism” fame, secretly wrote all the Beatles’ songs.

Links: Dr Dre and Apple, Alan Vega, Dangerous Minds.

16 August, 20169 September, 2018 Esoterica, Industry, Links, Punk, R'n'B, Your rights 0

Dr Dre and Apple’s new headphone jack, reminiscences on Alan Vega (and Bruce Springsteen) and clickbait for aging record nerds.

Death to the traitors, death to the traitors, death to the tra-ai-tors.

12 June, 20166 May, 2017 Esoterica 0

Canadian Cultural Worker’s Committee: “Death to the Traitors” from The Party is the Most Precious Thing, 1979.

Scott Walker and the freedom to go seriously weird.

9 June, 201625 August, 2016 Esoterica, Pop 0

Listened to Scott Walker’s 1984 comeback Climate of Hunter again recently. It’s a strange record, but Scott went strange pretty much as soon as he could. After his early pop hits with the Walker Brothers, he took the chance to make his individual vision obvious by the time of Scott 3 and Scott 4 in the late 1960s. He tried consciously mainstream records in the early ’70s that nobody bought, followed by an abortive Walker Brothers reunion, so Climate of Hunter has that “fuck it” that so often signals something good.

The original song for the worst hold music ever has been found.

5 June, 201610 September, 2016 Esoterica 0

The original song the ultimate hold music was built around has been found. It’s called, of course, “Picture Perfect”.

The ultimate hold music.

3 May, 201610 September, 2016 Esoterica 0

I’ve spent thirty years listening out for the most obnoxious and intolerable sounds available. The music that will ruin your world in thirty seconds. I like to think I know a thing or two about this general field of endeavour, if you will. I’d mark this as a contender.

Today’s links.

11 December, 201529 September, 2016 Esoterica, Industry, Links, mp3 0

“Happy Birthday” is finally acknowledged as being public domain. Probably. The history of the hidden track. Format-shifting music you’ve bought in the UK is

Doctor Who goes disco. Delia, we are so very sorry.

9 December, 201511 December, 2016 Dance, Esoterica 0

The Doctor Who theme has of course been done in every possible style. Today we have disco versions from Space Disco and Mankind. But

Alvin and the Chipmunks at 16rpm.

7 December, 201524 December, 2016 Esoterica 3

Retrospectively obvious, but this is what Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like at 16rpm: normal vocals with GRIND CORE DEATH SLUDGE DRONE music. That being how they were actually recorded. I think we’ve uncovered Sunn O)))’s secret past.

Links links links.

3 November, 201428 August, 2016 Classical, Esoterica, Links, Pop 0

My daughter just started learning viola. She could, of course, be the next Jimi Hendrix. There’s a whole genre of 9/11 Truther songs, and

Links for your delectation.

28 August, 201420 October, 2016 Esoterica, Links, Metal, Musician 1

You don’t play the ANS synthesizer (Russia, 1938) with a keyboard. Instead you etch images onto glass sheets covered in black putty and feed

Today’s unbelievably terrible sounds for your delight: neo-Nazi rap.

28 July, 20146 May, 2017 Esoterica, R'n'B 0

Hey, it worked for Christians,[citation needed] perhaps co-opting rap music will work for neo-Nazis! Multiculturalist site Imagine 2050 writes of White Power rap used

The Church of Scientology has its own kiddie pop groups.

1 May, 201426 August, 2016 Esoterica 0

As if the Scientology rap wasn’t enough, Vice gives us Kids Of Today For A Better World. “In time we’ll become the leaders of

Why we love repetition in music.

14 March, 20146 May, 2017 Esoterica, Writing 0

Why do we listen to our favourite music over and over again? Because repeated sounds work magic in our brains. Do anything repeatedly and

The levels of musical appreciation.

5 February, 20146 May, 2017 Esoterica, Writing 0

From The Dark Side Of The Room. I’ll note that Rocknerd has already reached the later levels. HT Ms45.

Macaulay Culkin has formed a pizza-related Velvet Underground tribute band.

10 December, 20136 May, 2017 Esoterica 0

That is all. Available on Bandcamp.

Black MIDI is not as cool as it sounds, but is still pretty cool.

30 October, 20137 January, 2017 Esoterica 0

When presented with a new musical technology, the first question that occurs to a certain sort of mind is “what happens if I press

Beethoven’s 9th on Russian doll theremin.

30 September, 201318 September, 2016 Classical, Esoterica 0

From NPR: So here’s Beethoven’s 9th played on 167 theremins built inside Russian dolls. Oh, and wait for the boogie, about 1:20. HT Liam

The Twinkle Variations.

23 May, 20136 May, 2017 Esoterica 0

Scott Bradlee takes you through the history of recorded music, as expressed via “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

A Lord Horror timeline.

3 January, 201331 March, 2017 Esoterica, Post-Punk 0

Well, that was certainly a thing. I was a teenage Joy Division/New Order obsessive, and for many years I’ve found covers of them inherently

The struggle for existence.

19 June, 20127 May, 2017 Esoterica 2

So much for the argument from design. Computational biologist Bob MacCallum at Imperial College had too much time on his hands was inspired to

ARC and KSW with Arp Cola at the Melbourne Day Org.

3 March, 201226 August, 2016 Esoterica, R'n'B 0

Official Church of Scientology Australian rap music. That is all. (This is what I get for declaring something the possible worst.)

Now this is just silly.

21 November, 20116 May, 2017 Esoterica 1

Feel like brushing up on your Beatles, but don’t have all day to listen to all 226 recorded tracks? Ramjac has helpfully put together

The world’s ugliest 88 notes.

9 November, 201110 May, 2017 Esoterica 0

An earnest attempt to construct the world’s mathematically ugliest music. (Several minutes intro, then the tune.) Personally I think this fails to correctly ascertain

UbuWeb is your finest cultural value.

24 April, 201110 May, 2017 Esoterica 1

UbuWeb is an archive of avant-garde text, music and film operating on the basis of putting up unavailable stuff and taking it down as

WFMU launches the Free Music Archive.

7 May, 200920 May, 2017 Esoterica, Radio 0

WFMU is a fine New York-based “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT”-format public radio station. They have a blog with a fine selection of the

Artist’s shit.

27 April, 20093 May, 2017 Esoterica, Opinion 2

This week, the cheap shitty MP3 player is filled with improvised noise. I have entirely too high a tolerance for this sort of thing if it’s the right genre, in this case early industrial — all those albums from the eighties released in limited editions of a few hundred for the Artist’s Shit market.