Bon Iver, Pitchshifter and Breathmints

Let's have a lesson in Vocoders and Pitch Shifters....

I was never a fan of a heavily processed voice. As a rule I like it raw. The voice is a beautiful thing. Why wreck it with a machine?

I think Cher's Pitch Shifted song "believe" (click links if you wanna here it, i certainly ain't putting it on my website though) was the first time I became aware of such an effect. And it totally ruined it for me.
That said, I think Cher may have ruined me full stop. Man... I still shudder at this film clip. It destroyed me. (click links if you wanna SEE it, i certainly ain't putting it on my website either)
Freud would have a f*cking field day. The combination of so much, sorry many, semen, sorry seamen... and the phallus to end all phalli. (yes, that plural is too good to be true. "The Dubai skyline just looks like a bunch of phalli". Use it, it's fun.)

Anyway, Radiohead did a cool thing with fitter, happier (beautiful clip) and Tomahawk did an even cooler thing with aktion f1413 (scary song). They both used computers or computer generated vocoder voice manipulation to sound futuristic, cold and detached.. nice

Then Kanye sampled Daft Punk and I lost my shit... It can sound funky too! (forget the fact that Daft Punk did it first. They're a bunch of overrated robots anyway... Seriously.)

You know what they say about Kanye yeah?

If it's cool enough for Kanye, It's cool enough for everybody!

Anyway... Earlier this year I heard this INCREDIBLE song.



The music is by Bon Iver. Who played possibly the best gig I've seen in the last 12 months. And the album was one of the best albums released last year. (ask anyone, they all think the same!) People were in tears around me. Heart wrenching beautiful stuff.

This is a newer song for Bon Iver. Normally he's so stripped back... Just bare emotion ya know? This time it's his layered voice with pitch shifter and reverb. It starts of makin me feel uncomfortable but ends up sounding so lush and rich and beautiful. The orchestra of layered vocals is pretty breathtaking. Bon must have had fun making this.

It's like nothing I've ever heard. What a simple and original way to use the pitch shifter! I'd never seen it before... or again... I'd never liked pitchshifter so much.


until...


this add...






Dammit! Advertising f*cks up everything!

Either Bon Iver isn't hip at all. Or Eclipse are the Freshest! of all Mints... Even more so than Mentos.

Ain't No Midnight Cowboy

I was invited to The Toff In Town by a boss... (Sweet Venue/Bar with great sound but a slightly pretentious vibe on Swanston Street's most exciting building)
It was late afternoon business meeting.
A bunch of people in my industry were to have an informal Q&A session to talk about an exciting opportunity/venture.

Sounded exciting and intriguing.

John Voight and Dustin Hoffman

The meeting was made up of about a dozen people that were kind of famous (within our industry). All very well respected and highly regarded.
They were people that I admired.

I was introduced to them all. I knew who they were but they didn't know me. I wasn't scared or intimidated, in fact they all made me feel very welcome...
But i felt I was there really just there to take it all in and learn (and look handsome).

We all grabbed a beer/wine/g&t and sat around a table and had a question and answer session. Some pertinent questions were asked...
some pointed answers were made...
it was food for thought.

Remember this meeting was in a bar so it was it was a bit hard to hear (my hearing is crap anyway but the music was just above comfortable conversation level)

I sat and listened with respect, nodding my head and grunting agreeably (and lookin handsome), taking notes until the stereo started blaring a few notches higher in volume... playing an incredible piece of music.

it was loud. awesome. and very distracting.
12/8 time signature. Corny strings, synths, accordian, drums, guitar. Not much subtlety. A bit of an epic vibe. I've loved it for years.




We had to wait until the climax of the song had died down untl we could actually speak again.
Every one at the stopped meeting was like.

"what the f*ck is this song"?

I knew exactly what it was.
In my head I said with enthusiasm

"It's Faith No More's Cover of the theme from Midnight Cowboy! Off their 1992 album Angel Dust (2nd last track, just before their cover of Lionel Ritchie's 'Easy')! Midnight Cowboy was A classic but wildly controversial 1969 movie starring John Voight and Dustin Hoffman! There's thousands of versions of this song around! This one's great!"

I knew all this. I could have told them all how much I knew. I could have risen above my observing roll and taken center stage...

but i didn't.

the moment passed.

I wonder if they would have been impressed with my knowledge of Faith No More and 60's cult westerns? I've wondered this ever since that afternoon at the toff.

Anyway, in the second of two amzing reunion announcements a coupla months ago I found out that Faith No More were reforming!

F*CKIN YEAH WOOOOOHHHHOOOOOO! I'm pretty excited about the prospect of seeing them. I'm going to tackle the issue of mike patton (lead singer extraordinaire who doesn't even appear in the midnight cowboy cover) in a future blog... I imagine it'll be some of my best material.

OK...

ADDED ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN BONUS SONGS!!!!!!!

Henry Mancini's original version of the Midnight Cowboy theme song. Infinately classier than Faith No More's version. Oh yeah...




Harry Nilsson's Classic Song off the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack "EVERYBODY'S TALKIN At ME... i can't here a word they're sayin..."

Ethnomusicology

When I studied music at 'The Con' in Melbourne. I got an outrageously good mark for this subject we had called "Music Cultures of Asia".
I rocked that sh*t. Ask me anything about Ragas, The Music of the Highland Hmong or Kecak. I can tell you soooo much stuff!

Anyway, I think you should watch this. It's mesmerising.




Now watch this (below).
The video is really bad, (so listen to it, you don't have to watch) but its the only way I could stream the music.
Indonesian KECAK, heavy metal stylee... At 2 minutes 40 into this video. Amazing. Inspirational. Crazy. Ridiculous. I miss Mr. Bungle, but I'm happy that Mike Patton is back playing with his second best band eva. Faith No More.

Goodbye Sober Day



i got sent a letter from the Dean of my university advising that I should specialise in ethnomusicology.
Not much in the way of a career path if you're an ethnomusicologist... There ain't a big demand for them. No-ones paying big money for ethonomusicologists...

But maybe I should have become an ethnomusicologist because I LOVE it when I'm listening to some cool music and I hear a band that have looked in interesting places for their influences. My ears prick up and try and place the heritage of the sounds.

So. Listen to this. It's my favorite song of the last 2 days. It ticks all the boxes for me.





It's cacophonous at times and pulls it's influences from all over the world. So many different sounds that it's kind of created something new...

Dig it!

The other boxes they tick are.

Asian/middle eastern Sounds.
Medievil Choir Chanting Harmonies
Cool Voice, sounds like she's the chick from THE KNIFE
Can't understand the lyrics (i love not understanding lyrics, or not having any at all)
Radicool Synth Bits.
Great Guitar work.
Funny/interesting song structures
it's released on WARP (which makes me go weak at the kneeeze)


GANG GANG DANCE - HOUSE JAM...