Haven’t done one of these in a while. In light of the “Geek-off” this week, I made a playlist out of what I think of as my “geekier” music, and let ITunes assemble a random list from that playlist.
1. **Elizabeth and the Catapult, “Waiting for the Kill”**. E&tC is a NYC band that plays what they call “baroque pop”; pop music, with heavy jazz and classical influence. I heard them interviewed on the local NPR station, and immediately grabbed their first album – isn’t just an EP, but it’s fantastic. This is the best track.
2. **Flook, “The Tortoise and the Hare”**. The worlds greatest trad Irish flute-based band. Flook is really unbelievable: so full of energy, it’s impossible to *not* like them.
3. **Frank Zappa, “Drowning Witch”**. Old stuff from Zappa; incredibly goofy, and yet pretty darn cool musically.
4. **Genesis, “Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist”**. A very strange track off of Genesis’ masterpiece from their Peter Gabriel days, “The Lamb Lays Down on Broadway”.
5. **Gordian Knot, “Komm Susser Tod, Kom Sel’ge”**. Bach, performed on the electric touch bass guitar.
6. **Mogwai, “Acid Food”**. Another one of those “Post-Rock Ensembles” that I’m so fascinated by. Mogwai is simply amazing; a bit more loud than the Clogs or the Dirty Three, but brilliant.
7. **Moxy Fruvous, “King of Spain”**. My wife’s favorite MF song. MF is a Canadian band that specializes in goofy a-capella. “Once I was the king of spain, Now I eat humble pie, I’m telling you I was the king of the Spain, Now I vaccum the turf at Skydome”.
8. **Steve Reich & Maya Beiser, “Cello Counterpoint”**. An amazing composition by Steve Reich. It’s all performed by Maya Beiser on cello – there are *16* tracks of Maya, all overlaid. Unbelievable. She performs it live with a recording of 15 of them, and plays the 16th live.
9. **Thinking Plague, “Blown Apart”**. Another post-rock ensemble. By far the strangest of the PREs that I listen to. Thinking Plague often goes totally atonal; and even when they don’t, they have a strange sound. One fascinating thing about them is that the vocalist treats her voice as just another instrument in the band. She’s in no way a “lead vocalist” like you’d find in a traditional band; she’s just another instrument in the mix. Her voice is as likely to be part of the background rhythm supporting the guitarist as it is to be singing a melody.
10. **Philip Glass, “Train 1” from “Einstein on the Beach”**. A small piece of Glass’s strange but brilliant opera. The opera is about four hours long, with no intermission. This section is formed from arpeggios played by saxaphone and keyboard, plus a chorus singing a pulsing counterpoint. Other parts of the opera consist of the voices chanting numbers. It’s strange, and not the easiest thing to listen to, but it’s worth it.
Good Math/Bad Math
The beauty of math; the humor of stupidity.
If you like post-rock such as Mogwai, you really need to check out Godspeed You Black Emperor! (a group so nerdy that they call themselves a “collective” and move the “!” around in the name of the band every couple of releases). Sadly, they have not produced new GYBE! material since 2002. I saw them in 2003 at the Warsaw in Brooklyn. Best album: A toss up between Yanqui U.X.O. and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.
However, the GYBE! collective does still do spinoff projects involving subsets of their members, the most prolific of which seems to be A Silver Mt. Zion (whose name characteristically also changes fairly frequently), whose best album thus far is This Is Our Punk-Rock, Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing (under the name of Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band).
Interesting selections…
I was under the impression that Thinking Plague was classified as RIO (for rock in opposition). I’m not quite sure what the various classifications mean, but I think it is basically that RIO came out of preogressive rock, and post-rock came out of indy rock. That said I would probably classify both as “experimental rock” and be done with it.
hmm… I’ve just proven my nerdyness haven’t I…
FWIW, I also think of Thinking Plague as RIO (the Henry Cow influence on their first record is pretty strong).
“Drowning Witch” isn’t that old – 80’s, isn’t it? Good stuff. Now it’s running through my head: “She could mutate insanelyyyy…” 😎
“Supernatural Anaesthetist” isn’t my favorite track from LLD, but it’s nice (“he’s such a fine dancer”…). What a great record.
My fave section of EotB is “Bed”. That must have been something, to see it at the Met in 1976. Just before my time, alas. I also like the opening part (or as we used to call it, “Side 1”): could it get some wind for the sailboat, indeed.
hmmmph
me, my favorite music is Bach. I think Bach may be the ultimate geek music. Isn’t counterpoint inherently geeky?
I also like Jazz, which I think is cool geek.
Peter: As I’ve mentioned in past FRTs, I think that Bach is the greatest composer who ever lived, and quite likely the best who ever will. The man was a genius beyond works; his music is as close to perfection as anything we’re likely to experience in life. I don’t think of Bach as geeky; it’s too magnificent for that. How could anyone listen to the opening chorus of “St. Matthews Passion” without being knocked off their feet? That’s not geeky; that’s just perfection.
Orac: I just ordered “… antennas” by Godspeed… If it’s no good, I’m going to hold you responsible 🙂
Mark I handn’t seen your earlier posts (I’m new here….fun site! Geeky is good!). What’s an FRT?
As to Bach…..yes, perfection. But ALSO there are works like the Art of the Fugue, which, some people think, was never even intended to be PERFORMED. Perfection in geekiness!
I recently read
Evening in the palace of reason: Bach meets Frederick the Great in the age of enlightenment by James Gaines, and, while I don’t think he uses the word ‘geek’ even once, the idea of Bach as music geeks would love is inherent in a lot of it
Another reason I think of Bach as music geeks would love is that the idea of writing a book comparing Godel, Escher, and any OTHER composer is, well…..ludicrous (and Godel is a sort of uber-geek, while Escher may be the geek’s favorite painter…..)
Anyway, thanks for running this blog. A lot of fun.
I think you should listen to Tub Ring, personally. Might not be your style (I’m terrible with genres, but it’s mostly rock of some sort), but it’s quite geeky. They have a song about Descartes, and their album names are “Drake Equation”, “Fermi Paradox”, and “Zoo Hypothesis”. Geeky as hell, if you ask me. ^_^
Plus, the core of the band has another band called Super 8-bit Brothers, who are all about gaming music. They’re awesome.
Check their myspace pages for some samples, or you can hit up http://www.tubring.com. The latter has a horrible layout, but there is a fun secret to discover on it that leads to another page which, itself, has a riddle to get in. I was very amused by it all.