Demdike Stare

Had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with Miles and Sean from Demdike Stare last night when they played at the Empty Bottle hosted WIRE: Adventurers in Modern Music Festival. Got some great insight into their process for music making, life in England, what the new album may (or may not) sound like, and the serious record digger's hunger for that one album no one has heard in 30 years. 

Oddly, their sound, which is always visionary and forward thinking, is completely dependent on the past for source material and inspiration (everything from ultra-obscure sound library records from France and Italy to a far-out 60's oud and modular synth duo from Turkey). To me, this is what makes their music so interesting amidst the vast plain of emerging electronic musicians, this reverence for the past. It's the new face of folk music. Compositions of crackling voodoo trance rhythms, earthy primal bass thuds and passages of adder-like tape hiss, all seem to be passed down and utilized in the folk tradition. They handle their found sounds with the veneration Cecil Sharp or Alan Lomax would have given one of their rural singers, or perhaps more aptly, considering their influences, the way a witch might apply the incantations in a magical Grimoire.

The hair-raising and erotic occult horror imagery spliced together in their live video projection is a sort of mask the duo wears as an homage to the witchy ritual nature of their music and aesthetic, but underneath the oh-so-alluring darkness, I was happy to find two very friendly fellows who were just excited to be traveling the world and hexing concert goers with their hoodoo rhythms.

If you haven't heard them, check out their music here.    

Thanks to seijinlee for posting the videos

Planetary Unfolding

Very excited to have been turned on to the excellent electronic soundscapes of Michael Stearns, an American composer whose brilliant work has unfortunately slipped into the gluttonous aether of 80's obscure self released "New Age" recordings (much of which is haplessly disposable). 

Basically, the dude was like the Bob Ross of synthesizer music, blending a cosmic tonality and expansive approach similar to Klaus Schulze or Roedelius with an uncanny melodic underscore and pleasantly graceful atmosphere. Take for example Stearns' 1985 LP Planetary Unfolding. Like Ross' gentle commentary and lackadaisical painterly handiwork on his famed public access show, Stearns makes the music as simple to listen to as it seemingly would be to play, never mind the complex network of patch cables and ensemble of keyboards it took to create it. Stearns enables the listener simply to drift off into the astral plane with the closing of ones eyes. He even kinda looked like Bob Ross!

Thanks to Bryan Lear for pointing this one out to me!

More New Work from Meng Yang

This illustration, by my buddy Meng, was based around the idea that during the Black Death, beer was actually safer to drink than water!

More of Yang's work here.

More Recent Artists On My Mind: Odilon Redon

 "Apocalypse de Saint-Jean Et le lia pour mille ans" lithograph

 "Silencio"

"Germination" lithograph

Artists of Recent Interest

A selection of some of the most fascinating painters and draughtsman I've had the pleasure of discovering in the recent months.

Vija Celmins "Untitled Web 2" mezzotint

Michael Borremans "Untitled" oil on canvas

Michael Borremans "Automat (I)" oil on canvas

Denis Forkas "Manifestation of Azrael" acrylic on paper

Denis Forkas "Utech Sabbath" ink, salt, tea on paper

Meng Yang's Genghis Khan

A beautiful illustration of a young Genghis Khan and his wolf mother. In response to a proposed idea about a local semimonthly drawing club group, I recently got this image emailed to me from my good friend Meng Yang a brilliant designer and print maker, who operates a very cool online poster store, Know Your Flag. Be sure to drop by and check out some of his work. Beautiful craftsmanship, design and a wealth of Chicago historical knowledge!