Manafonistas

John Darnielle is a human male and American musician who was born in Indiana.

Alone or in collaboration with others, he has been known as the Mountain Goats since 1991.

He grew up in Central California, and has lived in many states, but now lives in North Carolina with his wife and child and at least one cat that I have observed.

I visited his home in the year 2011. I took off my shoes when I came in the door because that is my habit. No one made me do it.

John Darnielle’s house is not rockstar huge, nor rockstar glamorous. It does not have a home theater or rolfing center. It’s modest.

There is an office packed with shelves reflecting his preoccupations: pulp horror and philosophy and religious study. John Darnielle is fascinated with both death metal and the Holy Bible and speaks eloquently of the dark magic and elegance and grace of both.

Now I am going to tell you that, in the study by the stairs, I stepped in a little bit of cat vomit.

I can report that John Darnielle was not embarrassed. Because he knows it is in a cat’s nature to vomit, and because he saw an opportunity for kindness. He loaned me some socks, and they were argyle, warm from the dryer and very soft.

The house has a basement, which John Darnielle describes as “awesome.”

The basement is not particularly awesome. (I have seen some awesome basements.) It has some drums and guitars in it but otherwise is a fairly typical basement of a modest, middle-class home. Normal.

It is my impression that this may be why John Darnielle considers his basement to be awesome, for such normality was not necessarily going to be his fate.

Inside the basement is a box of a limited-edition, alternate vinyl version of his album The Sunset Tree, which came out in 2005. Each one is hand-painted by John: white sleeve traced with naïve snakes and swirls of bright color.

John Darnielle told me that he made these when things were going well in his career, but he was still not convinced he was going to make it…when he still thought he might have to go back to psychiatric nursing, which is what he did when he started writing and recording songs.

Those first recordings, you may have read, were made on a simple cassette recorder. And those tapes of just him plus guitar are full of hiss and urgency. They were made for one reason. Like these hand-painted LPs, even if all else failed, they were going to get out there, no matter what.

He has written almost 600 songs now, and some of them are very sad, dealing with hard drugs and tragic ends, hurting yourself and others, sicknesses of both body and brain, off-brand alcohols. They are told in beautiful, unnerving, specific detail, because John Darnielle is a very good writer, and also some of them are just true stories about his own life.

But many have noted that John Darnielle seems often very happy, and his demeanor on stage is almost exclusively unhaunted, ecstatic.

Anyone who reads his Twitter feed knows he takes great delight in his delights: vegan cooking, fat babies, hockey, the beautiful alchemy of Chemex coffee, Anonymous 4, playing music for people, loaning out socks when the time comes, basements.

These are the consolations; and if some of his songs suggest that there are real hells on earth, other songs remind that the heavens are equally close at hand.

(Sometimes they are even the same songs.)

It is my impression that this is the ecstasy John Darnielle is feeling: that thrill of having survived, escaped for even a second to enjoy those small transcendent delights, and to sing of them.

And I can report that if you are standing in the basement with John Darnielle and wondering how he survived this far, to stand happy in this heavenly basement, you may look down at the hand-painted album of songs you are holding and realize the answer is in your hand.

Like that album, TRANSCENDENTAL YOUTH is full of songs about people who madly, stupidly, blessedly won’t stop surviving, no matter who gives up on them.

I can report that it is a very good album and has many more instruments on it than those early tapes, including Peter Hughes on bass, Jon Wurster on drums, and, for the first time, a full horn section. And all of this makes a very joyous noise.

Everything I have written here is true, to the best of my knowledge.

I am not giving back the socks.

That is all.

John Hodgman
2012

Bill wer? Bill Fay? Nie gehört, aber er war da, in den frühen 70er Jahren, zwei Alben bei Decca, manche Songs (habe diese Lieder jetzt „nachgeholt“) aufschäumend mit Bläsern und Violinen, mit einem Pathos wie bei den legendären vier Scott Walker-Alben (jenen, wo er die Spuren von Jacques Brel sondierte), manche wiederum einfache Balladen, die in nichts anderem ruhten als in sich selbst: die Stimme spendete Trost im Dunkel, lauschte der Natur nach (besonders gern dem letzten Tageslicht),den Menschen, die verschwanden (und keine Notiz hinterliessen). Bill Fay verschwand dann selber und hinterliess diese zwei Schallplatten, die verramscht wurden, von einigen wie Schätze gehortet, und irgendwann im Wohnzimmer von Jeff Tweedy landeten. Wie sollte aber auch einer zum Mythos werden, der nicht mal Selbstmord beging, und einfach nur ein guter Songschreiber war, dem die Ruhe mehr lag als der fortlaufend anders getönte letzte Schrei. Und jetzt, 40 Jahre später, eine Ewigkeit, die Rückkehr: LIFE IS PEOPLE. Die ersten Reaktionen der britischen Musikkritik überschlagen sich, und das, obwohl die Musik keinen Pfifferling auf die Moderne setzt, und wieder in nichts anderem ruht als sich selbst. Jetzt ist der Wirbel gross, und Bill Fay begegnet ihm mit Ruhe. Totgeglaubte werden gern mal kurz in den Himmel gehoben. Ich habe die neue Platte heute morgen zum ersten Mal gehört: ergreifend! (M.E.)

Success in songwriting is as much a lottery as a measure of true quality.

Some writers instantly catch the zeitgeist, and become household names; others, like Nick Drake and Bill Fay, struggle for exposure, only finding their audience years later. Bill Fay made a couple of ambitious but overlooked albums on the cusp of the Seventies, then drifted into obscurity, his cult status gradually rising along with their eBay price, and the esteem of fans like Nick Cave and Jeff Tweedy of Wilco. But it’s Bill’s time now: with the wonderful Life Is People, Fay has finally created the masterpiece that will secure his reputation and, hopefully, his future.

It’s not a young person’s album, Fay no longer being young; though even when he was, his eye was always drawn to the shady side of the street. But there’s no reason why anyone who bought a Leonard Cohen album shouldn’t appreciate Life Is People: it’s as if the accumulated wisdom and compassion of a lifetime has been condensed into a dozen beautiful, heartwrenching songs. And while there are devastating moments of quiet emotional turmoil, it’s an experience from which one emerges more positive and hopeful and generous towards one’s fellow fallible humans.

It opens strongly with „There Is a Valley“, a tableaux of landscapes stained with bloodshed, leading eventually to Jerusalem, where Christ’s stigmata represent the memories of all atrocities. „Big Painter“ – a metaphor for God – and „City of Dreams“ find Fay a fretful outcast from society’s brash media fantasies, the arrangements of vibes, organ and delicate guitar tracery establishing a static, ominous mood. „Be at Peace with Yourself“ is a sibling-song to Fay’s earlier „Be Not So Fearful“, while „The Coast No Man Can Tell“ offers the fondest of sad farewells to a dying friend.

But „The Healing Day“ is the knockout punch here, an anticipation of eventual redemption which, thanks to Fay’s characteristically undemonstrative, modest delivery, offers an overwhelming hit of compassion stripped of the kind of bombast that usually attaches to such anthems. Truly, the album of a lifetime.
 
 
 

 
Video: Bill Fay – Your Life Inside (Bill Fay in jungen Jahren)

Viel ist die Rede dieser Tage vom Ungemach der Leistungsgesellschaft, von Überforderung und Desintegration (Farewell To Multikulti) und von den Gefahren der digitalen Demenz. Passend zur Urlaubszeit im Folgenden ein Zitat zur Bekräftigung des Innehaltens – einer Potenz, die der Vita Activa das Vermögen zur Kontemplation entgegensetzt. Gemeint ist die Fähigkeit zur Abstandnahme und Abschlusshandlung – angesichts des Übermasses an Möglichkeiten und Beliebigkeiten. Die Sufis nannten das „Retreat“:

Ohne jene „abschließenden Instinkte“ zerstreut sich das Handeln zu einem ruhelosen, hyperaktiven Reagieren und Abreagieren. Die pure Aktivität verlängert nur das bereits Vorhandene. Eine wirkliche Wendung zum Anderen setzt die Negativität der Unterbrechung voraus. Nur vermittels der Negativität des Innehaltens kann das Handlungssubjekt den ganzen Raum der Kontingenz durchmessen, der sich einer bloßen Aktivität entzieht. (Byung-Chul Han, Die Müdigkeitsgesellschaft)

Besser also wäre es, nicht immer gleich dem nächstbesten Projekt hinterherzujagen, in das unsere Wünsche und Pläne uns verstricken. „Wie´s frömmt, so´s kömmt!“ – so die kritische Bemerkung eines Kunstprofessors zum erstbesten zu Papier gebrachten Einfall eines von sich selbst überzeugten Studenten. „Wer sich schon anschickt, Pinsel und Leinwand zu kaufen …“ – gerne auch gedachten wir dieser Mahnworte des Joseph Beuys und seiner Honigpumpe am Arbeitsplatz, als wir jüngst die dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel besuchten.

First song I ever bought: Beatles: Rock’n’Roll Music
Song that always gets me dancing: Talking Heads: Cities
Song from my childhood: Kinks: Sunny Afternoon
Perfect love song: The Gist: Love at first sight
Song for my funeral: Leonard Cohen: Who by fire
Song that makes me, me: Brian Eno: Spinning Away

(npr.org plays this game)

Karl Bruckmaier schreibt zu

Antony and the Johnsons
„Cut the World“
(Rough Trade/Beggars)
und er ist doch dümmlicher als alle behaupten ***

Sag mal, Karl, bist du eigentlich auch so dümmlich, wie einige Menschen in meinem Umfeld behaupten? Man kann auch dümmlich sein, wenn man, wie du, Peter Weiss und seine „Ästhetik des Widerstands“ schätzt. Eine gewisse Intellektualität schliesst eine gewisse Dümmlichkeit nicht aus, die sich in diesem Falle mit einer gewissen Blasiertheit zu mischen scheint. Beste Grüsse von einem aus der Ethnie deutscher Hundebesitzer, die du ja, wie du einst kundtatst, generell nicht magst. Vielleicht solltest dir aber doch mal einen kleinen Kläffer (einen von der nervigen, etwas verzogenen Sorte) zulegen, du könntest so einiges über dich erfahren, an einem lebendigen Gegenüber!

in the liner notes for the ECM recording of modern interpretations of lachrymose sixteenth-century composer John Dowland’s songs, In Darkness Let Me Dwell, composer Robert White notes the connection between Dowland’s fascination with the lachrimal, accompanied by the larger Elizabethan celebration of melancholy, and our current preoccupation with depression, saying, „What his age knew, and we sometimes lose sight of, is that meditating on a beautiful expression of sadness can help to provide a thoroughly uplifting sense of consolation.

Der Name der Formation DANS LES ARBRES ist ein Fingerzeig: Richtung Naturgeräusch. Man verschmäht den vertrauten Sound der gespielten Instrumente, erforscht die Klänge am Rande der Wahrscheinlichkeit, naturalisiert den Ton: Zwitschern, Rauschen, Luftbewegung. Zur Natur, zur nordischen Folklore zog es den Saxofonisten Jan Garbarek früh in den 70er Jahren, da wurde schon mal mit der Windharfe improvisiert, in seinem besten Jahrzehnt konnte Garbarek kaum irren, Meilensteine reihenweise, einer davon hiess „Dansere“. Zudem rundet diesen Mittelteil der nächsten Klanghorizonte ein Vokalensemble aus Estland ab, welches das Mittelalter eigenwillig erkundet. Anfang umd Ende bilden die wind- und wettergeschulten Soundtrackmeditationen von Christian Fennesz, fur einen Film, der auch Naturmeditation ist. Dem Kitsch und seliger Naturromantik widersteht der Österreicher sowieso. Zwei Songalben entführen tief in ländliche Folklore made in USA & England: DEAD WESTERN beweist, dass der Wilde Westen nicht wirklich tot ist, wenn ein Sänger wie Troy Mighty die Zeitlupe neu definiert und im Niemandsland Geister aufspürt. Sam Lee singt dieweil uralte Lieder ohne einen einzigen Gitarrenton. Kammerfolk. Geisterstunde. Sie sind willkommen. Klanghorizonte-Zeit am 13. August (Vogelgesang im Hintergrund: aus dem Soumdtrack MORE, von Pink Floyd)

Guy Sigsworth talking: „I played at Punkt two years earlier and …“ (Audio-Clip)

All our communication, external and internal, travels along intangible “roads” or “systems” that are made up of an odd collection of parts. These parts may be something external, like the internet, or internal, like a memory or an image. Some are ancient and some are modern, but they all carry messages back and forth between us and the world. Sound particularly evokes vivid associations aside from and including the musician’s intent. Often we aren’t conscious of the system and its role and therefore each system part can form both a liberation and a restriction. We find ourselves in a time when even gathering daily information — newspapers, message boards, emails — has become an ordeal, as we scramble for tastes of every pie our abundant access has made available. In the grab for cultural experience, the time spent with functions, institutions and settings in the infrastructure of culture has afforded us the appearance of a freedom whose credibility is seriously overdrawn. It takes a twist of perspective to breathe fresh life into any system and its parts.

It is in this domain that Thomas Köner performs his rather magical form of art. The throbbing heart at the pulse of Köner’s cathartic sound is an alternate encounter with the world through the mediation of a kind of auditory viewfinder, programmed in different ways by the abovementioned systems. In true minimalist style, this involves removals and absences, and a challenge to our experience of the ultimate system, Time.

Novaya Zemlya literally means “new land” and is the name of a cluster of remote islands in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia. From the outset, one is metaphysically thrown into the landscape as early sounds reflect an image of melting ice tumbling into a heated ocean. Initially the sounds are an exhortation on the dangers of global warming. Soon the silent spaces evoke feeling as well as landscape. It is easy to make a match between the depleted cold, polluted morass of the most remote place on earth and its corresponding vibration in our soul. Through the ghost of a melody, the mood slides from barren wasteland to dystopian anxiety. Later in the piece, Köner revisits the theme of time with haunting radio dialogue suggesting an older military presence on the islands. This sound still carries an ominous message despite its subterranean ambiguity.

This listening experience is more than distorted field recordings of a potential catastrophe. Köner gives us an opportunity to notice our bustling fluster of a life and reminds us that our many and varied systems of interaction with the world have material impact. We are brought to a remote part of the planet in an involved systematic intimacy. We are that remote part of the planet, it is inside us, we build and create it each day in the circulatory adherence to the circuitry revolving around our immediate interests. These systems are feeding back and we would do well to take heed.
(source: dustedreviews)

Zu finden: in einem Eintrag am 26. August