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CDs non reviews: the CDs I bought in the last months #2

As I’m currently travelling on some remote island, with no scanner and limited access to the Internet, it’s the perfect time for a new batch of vaguely reviewed CDs. Like last time, there are too many of them for real reviews, and again I insist on buying CDs – for me the safest support for long-term music storage (I don’t believe in the sustainability of our society and I think that virtual music can very easily vanish, together with our high technology and wobbling economy – but that’s another story…)

So, first you have Magma’s Mekanïk Destruktïẁ Kommandöh – it should have been in the previous non-reviews post but I forgot to put it in –, one of the few hundreds vinyl LPs I was listening to during the first half of my life, and haven't been fully replaced so far... When you want to listen to something that sounds like absolutely nothing else, go for Magma, one of the greatest band ever, with its unique mix of rock, jazz, choirs and avant-garde music. I’m amazed how musicians in the 1970s could be so steadily crazy and create and perform such radical music, when it’s so difficult nowadays to put a post-rock band together! Then comes Natalie Dessay singing Haendel – the kind of voice you need hearing just once on the radio to order the CD right away – can be rock or baroque music, it’s the same for me! Vic Chesnutt I just discovered recently – too late unfortunately –, and what caught me was the sound of the guitars on Splendid, the mix of heavily effected electric and acoustic guitars… I’m not used to this kind of music, the only thing I can relate it to is Neil Young – and Neil Young is grand!

Stephan Orins Trio is a piano/bass/drums jazz trio from France whose subtle music I enjoy a lot – it’s their third CD, and they are part of the jazz and improvised music collective Circum that has released good music in the last years – and that I cheerfully recommend to you (the fact that they are friends from my hometown doesn’t influence my judgement, I swear!) The Rolling Stones’ Let it Bleed and the Doors’ first eponymous album were also in my vinyls collection and I listened to their music avidly as a teenager (secretly, since I was in the post-punk/industrial music scene!) Still as good, fresh and wild as on the first day!

Gil Scott-Heron’s last CD should have been his great comeback, would he have survived it… I love how he respects no rules, and recycles any kind of music – from folk to batcave via electronica, hip-hop or blues – to support his soulful voice (BTW, have you seen the excellent video Chris Cunningham made on his own remix of New York is killing me?) H.F. Thiéfaine is probably unknown out of France, and it’s a shame since he’s been one of its best rock musician – if not the only one – for over four decades, and this album from the 1980s is a landmark in a long series. You’d be surprised, look for his live videos on YouTube! Kouyate and Neerman are two percussionists – one plays traditional balafon from West-Africa, the other plays vibraphone enhanced by electronic effects, and together they play quite unique music! The album is not as intense as their live performances – but it’s often the case with jazz…

Here comes the controversial stuff – well, the storm-in-a-glass-of-water kind. I do listen and enjoy a lot Lou Reed + Metallica’s Lulu and I’m amazed by all the hateful comments I could read from Metallica’s fans and rock critics about this album! I never really listened to Metallica before, and I understand that with Lou Reed, they do something different than what made them sell a lot of albums before, but the lack of tolerance of their own listeners should make them quit the business out of shame! Anyway, who cares? Energetic, hypnotic, inspiring, deleterious, that’s the good surprise of last year. Marc Ribot’s Exercises in Futility is my first Ribot’s album in years – he’s one of my favorite musicians ever but I kind of lost him in his Cubanos Postizos phase… This fresh and joyfully provocative minimal solo acoustic guitar album reveals again how Ribot can shake conventions of guitar playing to create his own music. And last but not least, Pat Metheny’s Zero Tolerance for Silence was a CD I listened to a lot ten years ago – until I lent it to someone who never gave it back to me –, and I needed to listen to it again. Falsely controversial for the same shallow reason than Lulu – Metheny is not playing the music he’s famous for –, it’s also an album showing a free mind – even free of the canons of free impro or noise music…

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Pedalboard

OK, a pedalboard is not much if you consider that I ambition to build guitars - a sloooow process as you might have noticed - but at least it is really useful - since I switched back to pedals after a long multi-effect phase (I've been an avid user of Korg's Pandora - that fits in one's pocket), I've been carrying around a few kilos of pedals (and I don't even have boutique ones!) and lost a lot of time plugging and unplugging!

So this pedalboard made of aluminium mesh fulfills my needs: it's compact, light and cheap. I'm not super happy with the red rubber bands - there's a clear lack of coolness there -, but the system works and that's what matters! It fits in a basic alu tool case and I have a trolley for it, so I won't have a broken back anymore when I arrive at the rehearsal studio (knowing that I usually also carry two guitars, it was time that I take care of this!) At some point, I'll have to get new cables with proper length and flexibility, but this is not en emergency. 

OK, the next project is another planck guitar for a friend in France, that should quickly be used on stage for his current act - more about this later.

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As you can see, lately I've been interested in ergonomic hollow body guitars... I was wondering if it would be realistic to make one myself, and I came up with the idea of an aluminium front hammered in an archtop shape, and I combined it with a straight neck / pickups alignment with a Fender style bridge... 

pedalboard troubles

I can't believe that I've spent two hours rearranging these pedals just to make them fit in the case! Now I found the right disposition, with zigzagging cables, but I can't understand why MXR pedals still have their power jacks on the side on the 21st century, it's so unpractical!

Anyway,  a little bit more drilling, cutting and screwing, and my super-light portable pedalboard is ready!

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Meet Leo Lospennato

Yesterday I met up with Berlin-based Argentinian luthier Leo Lospennato, and it was a nice meeting. I first noticed Leo when I saw is book 'Electric Guitar & Bass Design' in Steward-MacDonald's catalogue, and I was very interested as it's quite an unique book! 

The dominant opinion about guitar design being "we already have Les Pauls, Telecasters and Stratocasters, why invent anything more?", it's refreshing to find someone who made the effort to gather and share knowledge about guitar design, and proposes creative tools to expand it. Leo kindly offered me the book and I will avidly read it in the coming days - and probably review it here.

I was happy to discover on Leo's website that 1) he's living and working in Berlin and 2) he's giving guitar-making workshops, something that I'm willing to do to reach another level. Not that I want to become a pro guitar maker myself, but I still would like to collaborate with a luthier or a company to have some of my guitars built, and I need to master more the subject to do that. I still have to decide if I will take his workshop in Berlin over the next few months or go to France to have a 10-day intensive one next summer with luthier Xavier Petit, but during our one hour meeting, Leo gave already interesting insights about guitar design and building - a.o. how to vectorise my sketches to rework them on my computer in scale one. 

concert review: The Horrors in Lido, Berlin

On sunday I saw the Horrors, and I'm sorry to say that it was quite a disappointment. I'm probably partly responsible for this, because I expected something like their debut album Strange House, the thrilling tongue-in-cheek faux-garage-goth I enjoyed so much when it started to be visible on YouTube (one of my favorite way to discover new bands, always more interesting live than in studio) and didn't listen to the following albums. 

Well this is not the same band obviously, not the same music, not the same spirit - the musicians look bored - not the cool blasé look of wannabe idols they sport on earlier videos, but more going-to-the-factory-to-earn-the-daily-bread bored. Most of the audience was bored too actually, if you except a bunch of drunk over-excited teens who could have been in front of Justin Bieber (to be honest, I don't know Justin Bieber's music, I just noticed his hairdo on top of pimpled faces), bawling the single's words. The music is mostly layers of synths with cheesy factory sounds covering the rest (but the drummer - Spurgeon was super sharp and prevented me from falling asleep).

Badwan's voice matured nicely and he has now some late Peter Murphy vibes, but with their current music it's just a waste. At some point I realized with horror that this music reminded me one of the worst band I've ever heard: Simple Minds! At least when Kaiser Chiefs are pillaging the Boomtown Rats, they have the good taste to steal interesting music. Only the last song was a little bit exciting, with a chaotic and noisy guitar and a long crescendo, but I felt too frozen to enjoy it, it was too late. No songs from Strange House, no Sheena is a Parasite, no She's the New Thing, alas...

Let's still talk guitars: Hayward plays Jazzmasters and Jaguar - Fenders and an unidentified copy - and a AFS Ibanez semi-hollow (with tape on the headstock, maybe Ibanez isn't cool enough, but for me their semi-hollows are highly desirable), and plenty of effects. Webb plays a precision bass with a cool metal pickguard - I liked him much better playing organ and leaving bass work to Cowan and his Dan'o Longhorn... If someone's interested, here is a pic of Hayward's pedalboard. 

They could have been cult, they will just be successful, the Horrors have lost their mojo!

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pedalboard project

A man my age should have a proper pedalboard, thought I last week, mostly because I'm fed up loosing 20 minutes unpacking, plugging, unplugging and repacking my pedals each time I go to the studio to rehearse. Because I never have enough unachieved projects, I started working on one right away, with two constraints: keeping it as cheap as possible, and as light as possible (these are not gratuitous constraints I'm afraid), but still make a nice object. 

I settled for aluminium mesh with wood structure, and I still have to decide if it should really fit in the case I planed to use, because it's on the edge of no room enough. These are the pedals I use for my current music project, though I have to admit that the Wrong Side of Uranus and the Rat are a little too new to have found their definitive place in my rig and my sound yet - but they will, I'm working on it... And I have a few pedals that I will want to use some day - the rehoused-to-be Rocky Road, a reverse delay also by Danelectro, my DYI fuzz box... And I will need a few more - a MXR equalizer, a EHX Freeze, a Chi-Wah-Wah... (and one day I will replace the Boss Fuzz by a real Fuzz Face because that's the only sound I use on it).

Then I will probably need 2 pedalboards anyway...