The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Gig #140: Of late 45: Debby Friday, Adrian Corker, Andrew Poppy, Pierre Bastien, Blarf, Alpha Maid, Odd Nosdam, Pharmakon, Monte Espina, HIDE, Yatta, Jay Som, Jung An Tagen

 

Debby Friday
Adrian Corker
Andrew Poppy
Pierre Bastien
Blarf
Alpha Maid
Odd Nosdam
Pharmakon
Monte Espina
HIDE
Yatta
Jay Som
Jung An Tagen

 

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Debby Friday Fatal
‘Debby Friday is a Vancouver-based producer/vocalist who continues in Deathbomb Arc’s tradition of merciless industrial-rap experimentalists like Death Grips, clipping., and JPEGMAFIA. The source of this outward aggression, as she’s suggested in interviews, stems from the oppression and trauma she endures as a queer black woman and Nigerian-Canadian immigrant. Similar to the work of political activist Moor Mother or the diasporic electronic collective NON, she wields the sound of violence as a tool for resistance and empowerment, conveying it in her ferocious “bitchpunk” tracks through screeching demands for sexual satisfaction. On her new terrifyingly seductive Death Drive EP, Friday continues to entangle polar Freudian concepts, underscoring the similarities between brutality and desire, love and carnality.’ — Michelle Kim

 

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Adrian Corker Inflow Pt 3
‘Adrian Corker gets curiously transfixing results from purpose-made acetate locked grooves, arranged in various states of natural decay to pensive, off-kilter effect recalling the rustle of Bellows or Pole processed by William Basinski. A lock groove is one cycle of one groove on a record. This is 1.8 sec cut at 33RPM and 1.33 cut at 45RPM. Corker used the cutting lathe currently residing in the living room of The Exchange mastering legend Graeme Durham to experiment with different sounds cut onto acetate and then recorded over different durations back into a computer. Because of the softness of the acetate the lock grooves break down as they are re-recorded causing unexpected effects as the needle carves away the surface of the vinyl. This generative process adds layers of unpredictable noise culminating finally in white noise. These are combined and edited forming frames for performances of violin, percussion and piano. The pieces reflect on the tension between the mechanical and the human gesture/expression and place where they merge.’ — boomkat

 

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Andrew Poppy Rainy Must Kiss Everybody
‘Andrew Poppy is a composer, arranger, musician, performer, record producer, and writer. An artist with a unique body of work, his collaborations mix acoustic and electronic sounds with language, visual images and performance disciplines. In the 1970s he studied music at Goldsmiths College, London University where he began performing Glass, Riley, Cage and Feldman and composing. He later attended a summer school with John Cage and started collaborating with other musical artists, choreographers, theatre makers and performance artists. Andrew signed to Trevor Horn and Paul Morley’s maverick pop label ZTT releasing his first album The Beating of Wings in 1985. He continues to make projects which evade classification. Hoarse Songs is both a new album and performance – a recording, a concert and a cinematic happening, all at the same time.’ — Uncover Liverpool

 

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Pierre Bastien Rail at a Liar
‘Equal parts composer, inventor, mechanic, and performer – Bastien translates his imagination into instruments and compositions that defy any musical categories. Whether it’s preparing instruments like playing a trumpet underwater or through a kazoo, using belt-driven motors and mechanical components to perform cumbersome yet surprisingly musical operations on traditional instruments and household items, or using a fan to hit the strings of a kundi harp with flowing paper – Bastien’s love for tone, rhythm, noise and harmony is poetically reflected across his quite extensive oeuvre.’ — Seance Centre

 

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Blarf Boom Ba
Cease & Desist comes with a dare to “make it through six minutes of this album.” … The tracks on Cease & Desist are bound together like files collected in a downloads folder: a collection of random mp3s that someone found interesting. There are short Girl Talk-style mashups that weave bongos through what sounds like The Fast and the Furious soundtrack, Death Grips’ aggression folding into dream pop, Jorge Ben mixed into intentionally annoying “Soundclown” auditory memes, Scandinavian noise that becomes cheesy violin.’ — Zoe Dubno

 

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Alpha Maid As You
‘Alpha Maid (aka Leisha Thomas) is a member of the ever-morphing multi-disciplinary project and label, that has included shows and releases by Lol K, Raisa K, Brother May and others. Producing a punk-informed guitar music, tracks like ‘So Pretend’ and ‘Gov Funds’ echo the post-hardcore convulsions of early-90s Nirvana or turn-of-the-21st-century Fugazi and Shellac. ‘As You’ is more pop-oriented, where Thomas interrogates themes of surveillance, control and power with a decidedly British vocal that brings this bass-driven US grunge style to a new generation of crunching, creaking rock. It’s one that’s been updated and intensified by turbulent electronic elements reflecting the social anxieties and music culture specific to this side of the Atlantic.’ — aqnb

 

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Odd Nosdam The Burn
‘New one from pioneering abstract hip-hop producer and Anticon cofounder, Odd Nosdam. Mirrors is a woozy dreamscape of colours and textures buoyed along on slow burn, head nodding beats. Which is what he does, pretty much. It didn’t take him long to find his interests lay more in the instrumental possibilities of hip hop as sound collage and he’s spent 20 plus years exploring them as an experimental approach to music making. He’s been loads more ambient and more abstract before now but Mirrors is a focused application of his well honed skills. It’s also a crate digging record.’ — Echoes and Dust

 

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Pharmakon Self-Regulating System
‘There is a strong power of suggestion that whatever Pharmakon album you pick up is meant to upset you in some way. The psychic dread Margaret Chardiet brings to her work is a logical result of her examinations into how different aspects of human life can deteriorate. Her fourth album with the project, Devour, looks at systemic failure through cannibalisation on a micro and macro level. Chardiet growls and distorts her vocals to the point where her lyrics are hard to decipher; they may be better left unknown. Harsh sounds and distorted vocals are all part and parcel of noise compositions. As on previous work, Devour begins with immediate, startling sounds that shape our understanding of the work as intentionally challenging, if not pointedly unpleasant.’ — Amanda Farah

 

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Monte Espina & Locations live @ Back Yard on Bell
‘Monte Espina is an electroacustic free improvisation duo consisting of Ernesto Montiel and Miguel Espinel. The group focuses on the use of amplified sounds and signal processing to create evolving soundscapes and musical forms. Montiel and Espinel, both Venezuelan born, met in early 2016 while attending experimental music shows around the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. They began creating music in the summer of 2016 and shortly after got opportunities to perform live.’ — the wild detectives

 

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HIDE Chainsaw
‘Heather Gabel and Seth Sher are renowned for their electric live performances, and channeling the voices of those who have been brutalized through their music. Their 2016 EP Black Flame was dedicated to the memory of Reyhana Jabbari – a 27-year-old Iranian woman who was hung for allegedly killing the person who tried to rape her. Their 2017 debut album Castration Anxiety addressed issues surrounding the dynamics of power within a patriarchal world. Now, on Hell Is Here, HIDE are screaming fiercely in to the void created by society’s chronic lack of empathy.’ — The Line of Best Fit

 

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Yatta Rollin
‘The music through and around which YATTA’s music might be glimpsed is incidental and precarious but no less eventful, because like jazz, noise, improv, riots, insurrections, and loving, WAHALA is multiple, disordered, and cacophonous, and just as it reveals the desire for harmony to be as capricious as chaos, so too do its shards, fragments, and slivers proliferate into other impossible futures, as incomprehensibly harmonious as they are revelrous. The music neither begins nor ends with the click of a cassette player nor the abrupt needle drop; it is there in its anticipation, in the dizzying daydreams of where it conveys you (for who can sustain a gaze?), in the words and applause and desires that make it and love it and the listening that continues ever after, for, in it, it has changed you, and you are its echoes, its whispers, its voices.’ — Evan Coral

 

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Jay Som If You Want It
‘Melina Duterte’s process has always been entirely self-contained. On her first two releases as Jay Som, she recorded, produced, and engineered everything herself. This “recorded alone in her room” quality has often resulted in her music being described as bedroom pop. The label is inevitable given that she works in a home studio, but it flattens the complexity of her work. From the first few notes of opener “If You Want It” to the meandering guitar solo on “Crown,” the compact and punchy choruses found in Jay Som’s earlier work are replaced with inky, moody bass and guitar.’ — Vrinda Jagota

 

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Jung An Tagen Wreath Products (F#, G#)
‘The main arc of “Proxy States” consists of a 16 against 17 poly-rhythmic synth line that through different intonations of the kick drum always transforms its syntax. This synth line always scales up 1 key, in the middle of the track, foreseeing the upcoming structure. While these tracks (3, 4, 5, 6: “Wreath Products”) follow an almost obsessive-compulsive order, the remaining tracks seem to blow up the structure entirely like the last scenes of the 1970 Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Zabriskie Point”, creating an event inside the event.’ — Editions Mego

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Keatonmite, Montmartre has a couple of those metro stops too, but they do elevators rather than escalators, and I say a big no to that. The metro is great. Best in the world, or the world I’ve seen. I’ve been in La Poissoniere a few times. Yeah, nice. Yeah, it’s probably that I just don’t have the ghost sense. I would just immediately think it’s my brain or cigarette smoke or something. I’m too practical sometimes. Wow, benzos. I haven’t thought about them in ages. Ride them. ** Shane Christmass, Thanks, man. I haven’t talked to Gary in a long time. He’s a very complicated guy who’s hard to stay friends with, but I like his writing a lot, of course. Very happy that Semiotext(e) is restoring his books. Ha ha, very nice artwork, Shane. Woke me right up, it did. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. van Dyke’s book is much less obsessive and much sweeter than Camus’s, but his book’s form is reminiscent, yeah. Oh, yes, I think I know all about what’s happened to Camus. It’s no secret here. Ah, you’re in the infamous FB dungeon, eh? Everyone, Mr. E is in Facebook jail, and if you want to know why — hint: Susan Sontag — and know other stuff as well, go to his FaBlog and check out Jailhouse Rock. And, if you’re in the LA area and still haven’t partaken of his estate/ garage sale, you still can by zipping a little email to cllrdr@ehrensteinland.com. And, last but not least, you can go read a film review thing by him called ‘Where’s My Roy Cohn? or The Return of The Repressed’ here. I look forward to your FB release. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I think this is definitely not the era in which ‘Tricks’ would be appreciated without many qualms. Racial fetishising is rampant in it. Curious about your ‘Ad Astra’ review. I’m on the fence as far whether I’m interested enough in it or not. Everyone, Mr. Erickson gives his opinion of James Gray’s ‘Ad Astra’ right here. I really, really like the new JPEGMAFIA. I had it on repeat all day yesterday. He’s such an exciting artist, I think. Yeah, fantastic. Everyone, one more thing from Steve, in his words: ‘The 2017 documentary THE TASK has gotten lots of press and a few festival screenings but no real distribution (apparently because it was made as a gallery installation.) It’s now available for free streaming here. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Cool, and, yes, a very exciting time in-fucking-deed! ** Misanthrope, Thanks. Then read ’em, man. No one really knows for sure yet what will happen on any front if Brexit happens, and that’s still a big if, but I’ve been told that US citizens will probably have it the easiest as far as getting in and out of the UK, but who fucking knows. They have plenty of non-Japanese food in Tokyo. I don’t know if they have Sizzlers or places like that, but unless he’ll only eat meatloaf or roast beef and mashed potatoes or something, he’ll be just fine. ** Bill, Hi. Yeah, quite a sad story. Very strong book of poems. You did know Kiki intimately. Me too, obviously. Good old Rick. Good guy. Wow, Red Dora’s Bearded Lady! I had a something-or-other to eat or drink there  a couple of times. I’d blanked total on that place. Cool that you got to see one festival show at least. I saw Wiese here last year, and it was okay, but I was surprised by how underwhelming it was. ** Brendan, Hi, B. Getting there. I’ve gone vegan for a period months every year or every other year for ages, just to clean myself out. It doesn’t that last long, a month or three. If someone invited me to eat pizza or something, maybe not today but next week, say, it would end. I’m out of Mac ‘n’ Cheese. It’s so sad. But LA ain’t so far away in time. ** Right. Today you get one of my gigs featuring stuff I’ve been into in recent days, and you are invited to press play on the videos and find out if there’s something there you’re also into, and obviously I encourage you to do that. Cool? Cool. See you tomorrow.

10 Comments

  1. KeatonPotter

    I had some time last night to review the most recent escort and Kiki posts, really great stuff. You don’t do elevators? One of my boyfriends claimed he was a descendant of the inventor of the elevator. Paris is a city of permutations to me. I remember when the romance was Clichy. Near Pont Neuf is the place I feel the most recently. Watched AMS ’84 last night. Tested negative for HIV again. Maybe you have like a computer-side. Haha, I need to get off them. They make me forgetful. And Prince Valium sleeps just fine without them. They are interesting. I get a there you go, there was the world thing from them. Haha, ghost books at the ready. I am convinced there is a curse to the writings of W.W. Jacobs. It might just be a fetish. If I’ve a good conversation with one this season, I will send it your way for a ghostly experience. Come to think of it the radio in my new car sounds awful.

  2. David Ehrenstein

    ‘Cancel Culture” — the term the loathsome Dave Chappelle uses to attack anyone who objects to the “comic” creeps he adores Strikes Again — thank goodness ! This is a genuinely funny piece.

    I’ve just read the sad news that Terry Jones of Monty Python fame is suffering from a degenerative brain condition that has rendered it impossible for him to recognize his friends. I’m sure Chappelle has a real thigh-slapper to give the world about that.

  3. KK

    Hey Dennis,

    Had a weird dream that you and I and a few others worked at an indie bookstore in a mall right next to the food court, but you kept leaving to write Vice articles. I woke up smiling.

    I love that Pharmakon album! I’m seeing her next week with Consumer Electronics. Never seen either before so I’m pumped. I haven’t met Sarah or Philip but we lurk each other on instagram now and again. Great people. I’ve read a few of Philip’s work, intense, but great.

    I went ahead and ordered that Eric Walker book: definitely intrigued. Will let you know what I think once I’ve made contact.

    Yeah so take your time with that manuscript. I definitely want to hear your thoughts on it, but no rush. I want to hopefully find a place for it by next summer. I’m asking Matt to help design the book, at least the cover. I’m obsessed with the work he did for his book, and I’d like to further showcase that talent.

    No I’m not vegetarian, but I’m trying to transition into it. I bought a bunch of cans of good looking soups that’ll get the ball rolling. I need to get off the dairy. That shit’s destroying my insides, I can feel it. Also transitioning out of booze. My other energy killer, among other things.

    Man I’m excited for this Pharmakon show. Listening to Consumer Electronics’ newest as I write this. Staying lowkey this weekend. After class gets out I’m seeing Ad Astra to a hopefully empty theater. Then it’s reading and more watching for me. Might get a haircut. Will eat soup.

    Good weekend to you. Take it easy.

  4. Bill

    Hey Dennis, I thought the Wiese set was quite competent, but I was “done” about 10 minutes in. I was really curious to hear Carl Stone again after all these years, but my Sunday night was spent preparing for work, sigh.

    I wasn’t keen to see Ad Astra, and Steevee’s review makes me even less keen. (Unkeen? Diskeen?) I’m not sure I can take another mediocre pretty boy space film so soon after High Life.

    Funny, I was at the store last weekend, and the Pharmakon cover totally caught my eye. Will check out more over the weekend. I have a handful of screenings and events on the calendar; hopefully I’ll get to more of them…

    Bill

  5. Steve Erickson

    In a much poppier vein than all this music, here’s my review of Tove Lo’s new album SUNSHINE KITTY: https://www.gaycitynews.nyc/stories/2019/21/tove-lo-sunshine-kitty-2019-09-18-gcn.html

    This time around, the sound collages strike me most: Odd Nosdam, Pierre Bastien, Adrian Corker (who reminds me of Leyland Kirby.) However, I don’t find Blart listenable for more than a few minutes at a time.

  6. _Black_Acrylic

    Very much into the Pharmakon material. Interesting to learn she’s supporting Consumer Electronics, they seem particularly well suited. I still listen to the CE Estuary English LP on a regular basis, it’s good for my Brexit catharsis.

  7. Misanthrope

    Dennis, Sypha is all about plain pasta or rice with butter and chicken nuggets. (God, I hope he sees this, hahaha.)

    Justin Isis is a bit of foodie like me. He and I will get along really well on that front. We’d have to sit there and eat and watch Sypha try not to throw up. 😛

    Okay, I’m about halfway through my next-to-last chapter. Been debating doing the last chapter and then an Epilogue, but I decided against it today. The last chapter will be that. This chapter will be a juxtaposition of the two styles in the novel to kind of “end” it. We’ll see…

  8. Armando

    Hey, man,

    How are you?

    Sorry, I really don’t mean to disturb you, but I’m going to be completely honest. I am here to ask you for a *GIGANTIC* favor.

    I sent you another email; a new one, yesterday.

    In this very particular case could you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read it as soon as you can, sorry??? It’s really kind of urgent and *I SWEAR* it won’t steal that much of your time and it’s also EXTREMELY important to me.

    I know of course you’re always very busy, but still, I wanted to try asking you for this very very very special one-time favor.

    I really hope you are indeed able to check that out.

    Thank You so much either way.

    Any specific plans for today?

    All the Best,

    Hugs,

    a.

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