Author: tunequest

Hum – Downward is Heavenward: gotta go down to get up

Hum’s Downward is Heavenward is a lost gem among rock records in general and 90s rock records especially. Those of you with particularly acute memories might recall that Hum scored a minor US hit in 1995 with the single Stars which is actually one of the weaker songs imho from You’d Prefer an Astronaut.

Even so, I really enjoyed that album and, during that year, Hum became one of my top tier bands for the remainder of high school and the beginning of college. Devoted fan that I was, I eagerly awaited the band’s next album. On the cold January morning in 1998 that Downward is Heavenward was released, I remember leaving school between classes and waiting for the mall to open so I could buy it.

But it seems I may have been the only person who did that, because this album tanked… big time. The album barely made a splash and no one seemed to take any notice of it. Sales were abysmal and the record label (RCA) dropped the band later that year. The group split up shortly thereafter.

I once had a short-lived newspaper column called ‘records that time forgot’ where I would find old, nearly forgotten records at used stores, thrift shops, etc, with an eye toward resurrecting lost masterpieces, and then write about them. Downward is Heavenward almost became the subject of one, even though the album was barely 3 years old at the time, because I felt it hadn’t had the chance to be remembered, let alone forgotten. And that’s a real shame, because this thing is smartly put together and executed by expert musicians.

Like its predecessor, this album features some very tight and complex songwriting, with a brilliantly clean distortion that overlaps shrouded and oblique, but thought-provoking lyrics delivered with such earnestness by Matt Talbot. Then there’s that guitar riff that never seems to end in Ms. Lazarus, I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anything so intriguing.

April 11-13

wow. a whirlwind of music the past couple days. i guess that’s what happens when impending deadlines force you to stay at the office into the wee hours of the evening. who says publishing isn’t a rewarding field?

some great music this time around:

  • alan silvestri [back to the future ii]
  • christopher franke [babylon 5: the ragged edge]
  • string theory [anhedonia]
  • hum [downward is heavenward]
  • christopher franke [babylon 5: lines of communication]
  • medeski, martin and wood [combustication]
  • john barry [across the sea of time]
  • stereolab [dots and loops]
  • christopher franke [babylon 5: the coming of shadows]
  • daft punk [discovery]
  • at home with the groovebox
  • mikhail pletnev performing tchaikovsky’s morceaux (18) for piano
  • mouse on mars [distoria ep]
  • christopher franke [babylon 5: no surrender no retreat]
  • oslo philharmonic performing tchaikovsky’s manfred symphony
  • yoko kanno [cowboy bebop: vitaminless]
  • orbital [diversions]
  • christopher franke [babylon 5 volume 1]
  • man or astroman? [destroy all astromen!]

•

dots and loopswhile we’re on the subject of leaps-above-the-bar music, i must also mention both stereolab’s dots and loops and hum’s downward is heavenward. though i’ve been a stereolab fan for quite some time now (i’ve even been to 2 shows), i didn’t realize until i was preparing this write up how highly rated dots and loops is. stereolab is a great band, but it can be very uneven. on most albums, every 5 star song is countered by a 3 star song (the lowest on my ratings scale; 1 and 2 stars are reserved for organizational purposes), but not dots and loops. every song on that album is either 4 or 5 stars. ‘miss modular, ‘prisoner of mars’ and ‘parsec’ stick out as particularly outstanding works.

i remember my first stereolab reference. it was my senior year of high school and i was on a road trip with 2 friends and my mom, scouting colleges in central florida. we were walking around the campus of the florida institute of technology when my friend roy mentioned that he was getting into this new band stereolab (of course, the band had been together about 6 years at that point, but it was new to him). now, i never really trusted roy’s musical recommendations. our tastes overlapped for the most part, but not enough for me to heed his opinion. nothing really came of it, but i do remember seeing dots and loops laying about his room. it wasn’t until 2 years later when i heard cobra and phases that roy was vindicated in that regard. the rest, as they say, is history. •

a note about the babylon 5 music: i’ve gotten about 60% though my collection of it and i still can’t make head or tails of it. it all just sounds so… the same. the 30+ albums that make up the more than 17 hours of music is a lot to digest, particularly when it’s all a similar style. that’s not to say that it’s not good. each season’s theme is excellent of course, and some choice cues are great, such as the classical guitar work that i heard in the ragged edge today. but there’s a lot of more ambient ‘mood setting’ music that kinda blends together from album to album, which makes it hard to decide which tracks to take special note of.

then of course, there’s the coming of shadows, which also made the playlist today. the entire production team was firing on all cylinders for this episode, including christopher franke, who has written some very tense music for a very tense episode. if i had to recommend any of the babylon 5 albums, it would be this one. •

quickies:
some smooth slacker jazz from medeski, martin and wood.
the surf-inspired stylings of man or astroman?, including a rendition of the MST3K theme.
some competent electronic work from orbital.

April 10 – 91 songs played. 5 removed.

what a day! 91 songs played and 5+ hours of listening. that’s what i need to be doing everyday. it’s not likely to happen, but it is something to strive for.

also, it seems that this tunequest page has managed to obtain a google pagerank of 4 in just over a month. from what i understand, that’s pretty good, so huzzah for tunequest!

  • bjork [selmasongs]
  • blind melon [blind melon]
  • massive attack [blue lines]
  • danny elfman [batman returns]
  • matmos [a chance to cut is a chance to cure]
  • franz waxman [bride of frankenstein]
  • danny elfman [batman]
  • savath + savalas [apropa’t]

i’ve mentioned before about the randomness of the ipod and, despite allegations that the device isn’t very random in the first place, one shouldn’t read too much into supposed patterns of play.

nevertheless, it is disconcerting that my ipod chose to play not only danny elfman’s batman and batman returns, but a performance of the adam west batman theme by the royal scottish national orchestra. the ipod even tried to play batman again after i was forced to stop and restart at one point. it’s all randomly possible, i know, but is still wiggy. not that it matters, elfman’s batmans are classics and his theme is, of course, instantly recognizable. recommended all around. •

speaking of scores, i had pegged bride of frankenstein as one destined for my dust bin. after a careful listen though, i must say that i am fascinated by it. it was composed in 1935 and sounds much more like an orchestral suite or ballet than a film score. it turned out to be quite the highlight of the day. •

also some good trip hop by the likes of massive attack and some excellent spanish-influenced melodic downtempo by savath + savalas (aka prefuse 73 amongst other things). •

and a final note about blind melon, a group whose music it seems i should have outgrown by now. i’ve had the album for 13 years now, and it is inseparably linked to and trapped in time with the alternative explosion of the early 1990s. sometimes i think it’s time has just come and gone, but fads aside, it features song really decent songwriting with catchy hooks and impressive guitar noodling. blind melon’s debut is more mellow, groovy and musically complex than many of its contemporaries. though i feel like i should let it go, but just can’t seem to make myself do it. •

April 6-9 : 82 songs played. 23 added. 19 removed.

out with the old, in with the new. tunequest is now powered by one of those new-fangled intel-powered imacs. getting it set up and customized took a good portion of my weekend, but my first impressions are quite positive. the thing is remarkably fast. it’s not perfect, but is a large improvement over the previous g4. for one thing, iTunes isn’t nearly as sluggish, and that can mean only good things for the tunequest.

despite the new hardware, not all is well in tunequest world. i’ve got two months of tunequesting under my belt and the numbers aren’t looking good for achieving my goal. in short, i need to be listening to more music. when i started, i had to listen to 44 songs per day; i haven’t been meetings that goal, so it’s now 46. likewise, i’ve got to listen to 318 songs per week, a number i’ve only achieved once in the eight weeks i’ve been doing this.

so i must redouble my efforts. it’s no easy task, since i want to actually listen to each song, not just play them.

onward to lackluster tunequest:

  • radiohead [high and dry] single
  • the cardigans [gran turismo]
  • the dandy warhols [dandy’s rule ok]
  • charlie hayden & pat metheny [beyond the missouri sky]
  • morcheeba [big calm]
  • soul coughing live in new your city 1992
  • jamiroquai [cosmic girl]single
  • the verve [bittersweet symphony] single
  • klaus doldinger [das boot]
  • gustav holst’s suite no.2 in f (performer unknown)

companion to holst’s suite no.1 is suite no.2, which is also quite brilliant, particularly the second movement: ‘song without words.’ go listen to it. go now.

today’s powerhouse album however is das boot. klaus doldinger puts out some epic, pulsing, tension-building music. this was the first time i actually seriously paid attention to the score in the 4 years i’ve owned it and must say i regret not listening to it sooner. it’s too bad i won’t be able to listen to it again for a while because of tunequest’s ‘no repeat’ rule. •

the big loser this tunequest is the charlie hayden & pat metheny album. i kind of feel bad about it, because it was given to me by a friend who has since passed away from cancer, but i’ve never been able to get into it. i respect the album, but just have never been able to listen to it. it’s jazzy, but for the most part slow and has a hard time holding my attention. so i ended up removing most of it from my library. •

Roni Size: a cause & cure for hyperventilation

Back in the day, Roni Size’s / Reprazant’s Brown Paper Bag and the accompanying video on MTV’s AMP remember AMP? were just the mind-blowing thing a musically-experimental shiftless college student needed to expand his horizons. I credit both Brown Paper Bag and The Chemical Brothers’ Dig Your Own Hole with diverting my attention away from rock and focusing it toward the burgeoning electronic scene.

Considering the state of rock throughout 1997 and 1998 and where it has gone since, those acts may have saved me from much musical mediocrity, for which i am eternally grateful.

To this day, the sweet wobbly guitar riff that drives Brown Paper Bag, as well as the pulsing beats and the interjection of some subtly smooth rap continue to make this song compelling, even as my interest in straight-ahead drum and bass is on the decline.

From the album New Forms. Hear the song for yourself and enjoy the awesome video:

Roni Size/Reprazent – Brown Paper Bag

April 4-5 – 93 songs played. 3 removed.

if you’re into pictures and charts (and who isn’t?), i’ve posted some graphs of my progress.

  • r.e.m. [automatic for the people]
  • gustav holst’s suite no.1 in e-flat (performer unknown)
  • christopher franke [babylon 5: z’ha’dum]
  • berlin philharmonic performing dvorak’s concerto for cello and orchestra
  • mercury rev [deserter’s songs]
  • roni size [brown paper bag]single
  • yoko kanno [cowboy bebop]
  • john barry [dances with wolves]
  • camera obscura [biggest bluest hi-fi]
  • the faint [blank-wave arcade]
  • yoko kanno [cowboy bebop: music for freelance remixes]

switching gears now, i first heard of the faint when a friend convinced me to go to a show in fort walton beach, fl in the summer of 2001. tucked into the corner of a otherwise-empty, impossible-to-find hole-in-the-wall bar with about 20 other kids, the faint’s brand of synth-rock-with-so-much-pop-flavor-you-must-dance completely blew my mind. the group’s performance was amazing, with apocalyptic smoke and lights which gave an edge most sinister to a group whose make-up was pale and dress was black.

after the show, i briefly talked with the frontman. i forget what we spoke about, idle chit chat probably, but i found the experience a bit surreal. he was still all dolled up in his goth-stylings, but he was just sitting there, chatting it up,  arms folded, like a regualr-joe from omaha. i bought blank-wave arcade from him. •

quick notes:
holst’s suite no.1 is a good work, especially the third movement. but as i’ve mentioned before, i’m a sucker for a good march. mercury rev’s deserter’s songs is majestic and symphonic; it is the group’s finest recording. my youthful devotion to r.e.m. disappeared rather rapidly around the time new adventures hi-fi came out, but i still consider automatic for the people a classic.