From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V9 #1 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Friday, January 3 2003 Volume 09 : Number 001 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Nowottny- "Illusions of the Sun" ["abaton" ] Re: best of 2002 [Joseph Zitt ] Re: 48 hours of world music ... and favorite movies ["Xenu's Sister" ] Velvet Belly news - finally [Yngve Hauge ] favorites ["dave" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 02:32:34 -0800 From: "abaton" Subject: Nowottny- "Illusions of the Sun" Hi Everyone, The new Marianne Nowottny recording "Illusions of the Sun" on the respected Camera Obscura label is now ready for ordering from the Abaton Book Company. We have several dozen copies of this import only release, making it available for the first time to her mailing list and interested others. This beautiful recording includes 6 tracks recorded at WNYC studios in New York, a live track from CBGB's and 3 tracks of enhanced video content from the then seventeen-year old artist. An 8 page lyric booklet and cover self portrait by Marianne complete this stunning package, all put together from the folks at Camera Obscura and Abaton. All this for $14.00 including shipping. Go to: www.abatonbookcompany.us A paypal link has been set up. Or write to: abaton@voicenet.com To reserve your copy now. Enjoy the release! *************************************************************** Marianne Nowottny has been performing at New York City gallery and avant-garde performance venues since the age of 15. An autodidact and child prodigy, Nowottny captured the attention of playwright Lauri Bortz in 1998 with a hand full of homemade cassette tapes and high-school notebooks filled with prose. This material surfaced in 1999 as the CD "Afraid of Me" on the Abaton Book Company imprint. This debut CD was warmly received in publications such as The New York Times, New York Press, Wire Magazine and Magnet. Since then Marianne has released other recordings, including the 2001 double CD "Manmade Girl" which solidified her position as "one of the most important artist's of her generation" according to Joe H. Harrington, author of "Sonic Cool". She has performed on the same bill as Elliott Sharp, Cul de Sac, Genesis P. Orridge and Daevid Allen of Gong. With a unique appeal across the musical spectrum, she counts as her fans Jim O'Rourke, Matmos and Bernard Stollman of ESP-Disk Records. A constantly evolving songwriter and performer, her compositions exist in a state of flux, which allows her to articulate musical ideas and phrasing in an improvisational manner. Her individualistic keyboard work on radio shack keyboards, harmonium, and piano is unique with its moments of surprising harmonic complexity. Her haunting and unsettling vocals maneuver into bizarre uncharted areas producing deep, evocative textures, and revealing complex internal narratives. Marianne Nowottny is now 20 years old and a sophomore at William Paterson University in the United States where she is studying art and politics. She continues to explore and develop her visionary mode of songwriting and performance independent of anything else going on in music right now. "Illusions of the Sun" is Camera Obscura's first multimedia CD, containing seven audio tracks and a twelve minute three song video. The audio portion of the CD contains five new, more developed recordings of some of Marianne's favorite songs from the "Afraid of Me" and "Manmade Girl" releases, as well as two new and previously unrecorded songs. The video portion of the release contains an August 2000 performance of the songs "Panopticon", "Sapphire" and "Barely Nearly" recorded at Signal 66, a performance space in Washington D.C. The release also contains an eight page lyric booklet and a self-portrait by the artist, which is featured on its cover. "Marianne Nowottny redefines the medium, with melodies that swoop and dip like butterflies to underscore her enigmatic reflections." - Bernard Stollman of ESP-DISK, New York City, 2002 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 00:21:16 -0800 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: best of 2002 On Wed, 01 Jan 2003 17:22:41 -0500 meredith wrote: > Musical Aberration Of The Year: > > * Norah Jones > > Now, I usually reserve this spot to rank on some ungodly maker of > musical evil ... but I don't think Norah Jones is that. Still, I just > don't get why the world is having multiple orgasms over a bland, > breathy-voiced kid who clearly doesn't feel anything she's singing and > whose music all sounds the same. (This past week there was a thread > over on the Susan Werner list about Ms. Jones, and I know my opinion > is very much in the minority ... but good lord, how can anyone listen > to someone like Susan Werner, who not only brilliantly interprets the > standards but is currently writing standards of her own, and then > listen to this pretender and *not* shake their head in disbelief?? > But whatever. YMMV. :) Oh, yeah. About the most that I can say about this is that it is the Distilled Essence of Inoffensiveness. Just about anyone can put it on in the background, nod their heads and say "that's nice", and pat themselves on the back for buying something packaged as jazz. The Norah Jones stuff seems to be the latest stage of the dissolution of Bill Frisell. Much like the old story had tigers running in circles until they turned into a pool of butter, Frisell has diluted his previous edgy work through so much sweetness and production that much of the music he's doing sounds like audio Frappucinos. It's funny, but it seems that jazz is some bizarro universe mirror of Planet Ecto. To look at the charts and what people are buying (as I see it from my vantage in a wrecka stow), jazz, as a genre, consists almost entirely of female singers: Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Jane Monheit, Karin Allyson, Kelly... uh... something. Oh, and there are a few old men making up the other 10% of sales. And a longtime jazzman (the father of a friend, who used to play with Spike Jones and hang out with Ella Fitzgerald) aptly described it, the original singers (Ella, Sarah Vaughan, et al) were singing their own hearts and voices; the new ones are singing received *styles* rather than spinning their own work. Some of these (Krall and Allyson, for example) are quite competent at what they do, but they certainly don't make me hear anything in their songs that I hadn't heard from others doing the same material. And others (Monheit and Kelly Whatever come to mind) seem to have made careers out of photographing well. Not that that's a bad attribute, but it shouldn't be mistaken for musical talent. And, as you say, the splendid current original women are just left behind. Grr. - -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 04:20:31 -0600 From: "Xenu's Sister" Subject: Re: 48 hours of world music ... and favorite movies At 09:24 PM 12/30/2002 -0800, Birdie wrote: >Dance Into the New Year With World Music! > >On December 31st, beginning at 5:30 PM ET (2:30 PM PT) WorldLink will be >airing 48 hours of World Music documentaries and videos, including five >brand new video blocks (142, 143, 144, 145, 146) Thanks for this! I had taken World Music off my Tivo list because I needed the space for geeky TV Two Towers stuff. Looking at the lists, I see that they've taken videos from other shows, but some I haven't seen yet. I have a full list of what's played on all the World Music shows. Do you (or does anyone) want a copy? I only bought 2 new music CDs this year (Amos & Gabriel) so I'm not qualified to rank music. We did buy quite a few DVD-Audio recordings. I do wish Happy, Kate and Peter would release some of these! However, my Top 20 movies of 2002 (alphabetical): Adaptation Bowling For Columbine Catch Me If You Can Frailty Frida Gangs of New York The Good Girl Heaven The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Lost in La Mancha The Man From Elysian Fields Minority Report One-Hour Photo Punch-Drunk Love (this would be #1, if I were ranking them) Rabbit-Proof Fence Real Women Have Curves Solaris Sunshine State Y Tu Mama Tambien (# 20 is held for a 2002 film I haven't seen yet, there are still so many!) I also really, REALLY liked: 13 Conversations About One Thing, About Schmidt, Auto Focus, Barbershop, Below, Bloody Sunday, Birthday Girl, Changing Lanes, Crazy As Hell, Dinner Rush, Femme Fatale, The Hours, Igby Goes Down, Insomnia, The Kid Stays In the Picture, Last Orders, Lilo & Stitch, Lovely & Amazing, Moonlight Mile, The Panic Room, Possession, The Ring, Road to Perdition, Secretary, Signs, Spirited Away, Tadpole, and Undercover Brother. There are several more that I thought were decent to pretty good, such as Ice Age, 8 Mile, Reign of Fire, Festival in Cannes, Scotland, PA, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Morvern Callar, Attack of the Clones, Spider-Man, K19, and Harry Potter, and several more that were just ok, such as Clockstoppers, Windtalkers, and White Oleander, to name a few. In all, it's been a fairly good year in movies. The new year promises to be great, if only for the 2 Matrix sequels and Return of the King. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 06:14:43 -0500 From: "Michael Colford" Subject: Re: best of 2002 - ----- Original Message ----- From: "meredith" > Cool. I enjoyed this book, and I'm a fan of McHugh's. She has some pretty unique takes on gender and culture. I also enjoyed your best of 2002 list, Meredith! Michael n.p. Chantal Kreviazuk - What if it all means something? n.r. Otherland by Tad Williams ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 01:17:41 +0100 (CET) From: Yngve Hauge Subject: Velvet Belly news - finally Hi, It looks like Velvet Belly has got the URL back, and a webpage is in the making. What is better news, however, is that there will be a new album released March 17 this year. No title or song-info as of now, but at least there are some news from the band. - -- Yngve ****************************************** * E-mail: onealien@mo.himolde.no ********* * Cell: +47 41330571 ********************* ***** Blessed be!!! ********************** ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 01:56:27 -0500 From: "dave" Subject: favorites Ok, here's this years favorites.. Favorite single from what I know would be my favorite album but I haven't managed to get a copy yet.. Kasia Kowalska - Antidotum Favorite non 2002 find.. Myriam Hernandez - + y Mas I've played this one almost daily for months now.. Chilean singer, I guess I'd group her in with stuff like Lara Fabian. And the rest... Thalia - Thalia Grey Eye Glances - A Little Voodoo Rachael Lampa - Kaleidoscope Nichole Nordeman - Woven & Spun Shania Twain - Up! Martina Sorbara - The Cure For Bad Deeds Jennifer Love Hewitt - Barenaked Jennifer Pena - Libre Kelly Willis - Easy Limite - Soy Asi Diana Krall - Live in Paris Vanessa Carlton - Be Not Nobody Faith Hill - Cry Lisa Loeb - Cake and Pie / Hello Lisa Odalys - Ven a Ver Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk back into my cave till next year... ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V9 #1 ************************