A Life Unfinished, Finished

Christmas morning I finally finished John Tilbury's Cardew biography, Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished, having saved the final, political years for my third extended session with the book. In the 1970s, Cardew turned away from the avant-garde music that had gained his reputation, and began writing more populist music that would be useful in mobilizing the troops for the imminent revolution.

Captain Beefheart, RIP

Sad news today that Don van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, passed away. I was a Zappa fan, and Beefheart sang Willie the Pimp on Zappa's first solo, Hot Rats, which rapidly became my favorite song on the album. Zappa had also formed two labels, Straight and Bizarre, and I picked up everything they released. One of earliest releases was Beefheart's monument, Trout Mask Replica. If this was

Sound toward the light

Ren� Daumal was a mystic and writer in interwar France, a fertile time for the imagination even if it was highly unstable economically and politically for most of Europe. Born in 1908, his early years most famously included a bit of drug experimentation, specifically inhaling carbon tetrachloride, which gave him a glimpse of a higher reality. Although he later renounced external stimulants, he

December at Furthernoise.org

The December 2010 issue of Furthernoise.org was published today, and it includes two of my reviews, both featuring Australian music. The first is a review of Gail Priest's Presentiments From The Spider Garden, an extended web of unanticipated exotic territories formed into a long suite. The second is an overview of the first four releases on the Melbourne label Vicmod, which together show off