Dominique Leone, your "Out Music" PFM columns are a treat

"January begged for cold music, and though that might otherwise translate to ultra-minimal house or techno, drone or serialist classical, last month we enjoyed a modest chill-- perfect for evocative Scandanavian electronica, clicks and motive rhythmic patterns from percussion fashioned from ice, and introverted avant-pop. One reason things seemed not so chilly was the growing notion that 2007 is going to be a great year for music: Deerhoof, Marnie Stern, Rhys Chatham, and Panda Bear have dropped early hints that the next 11 months are going to be good for anyone who likes their "rock" music brilliantly colored and creative." http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/41007/The_Month_In_The_Month_In_Out_Music_2

So would uh, John Mayer or Nickelback fans, say they like their rock music drably colored and uncreative. I like the column but I'm not that crazy about that one phrase (it doesn't convey clearly enough what musical qualities Deerhoof, et.al. posess that makes their sounds so distinctive and special this year).

I'm sure their fans wouldn't say it, but I might; maybe not "uncreative" per se, though I would say the structure of the songs I've heard by those people is not exactly unusual. As for drably colored, that's a no brainer for me, mostly because I associate colors with music a lot of times, and Nickelback is pretty monotone orange-grey. Not very interesting to me. But I didn't go into that kind of thing in the column because it wasn't the point of what I wanted to write about.

Maybe in the future, I should do a column about why I might group, say, Deerhoof and Marnie Stern into some "brilliantly colored and creative" gang. It's hard to talk about that stuff without getting either a) muso-technical, or b) mushy-mystical.

Yeah, I was thinking muso-technical, but you're that is sometimes hard to follow as well.

you're right that such an approach is sometimes hard to follow as well.
(ugh, typos)

x-post to Dom: True, but there should be some distinction. Would you rather reconfirm an audience's supposition or simultaneously do that while welcoming another audience potentially unfamiliar with the bands in question? (So, for instance -- some person hears about 'this Pitchfork thing' for the first time today, comes to the site, sees that lead. Does it engage them in the potential discourse or possibly shut them out?)

I would rather have them read my mind, that seems the best.

So would I, but people complain about the blank reviews I send in as a result.

I don't think discussions of color necessarily have to fall into either of those categories. There is usually some sort of representation going on with album packaging, etc. that relates to the color aspect of the music's intended aesthetic. I think it's a very significant topic.

(Also, Dom, I'm sure you didn't intend it this way, but I bristle at the term "muso-technical" because, naturally, not all Musicology is the Musings of Musos : D )

in all seriousness, Ned is of course right -- and I actually am trying to slowly build up to more on the "technical" aspects of music, at least as far as how pieces are put together, why it might be interesting to know something about, say, the score of a stockhausen piece

yes but Tim, relating to color in music as represented by packaging is yet another column!!

I actually find a lot of academic modernist music to be very monochromatic, and indeed often represented that way in album packaging. Of course, it's a different monochromaticism - one more related to modernism/minimalism/abstraction - than the monochromaticism you might perceive in some bland rock band.

Psychedelia, I think, remains a big color factor. Significant color "moves" (as Meltzer would say!) in music often seem to involve some sort of continued relationship with a psychedelic aesthetic.

I'm not that familiar with Deerhoof - haven't heard their recent music - but does their aesthetic involve some sort of relationship between psychedelic and more minimal, modernist senses of color?

hmm, Deerhoof certainly aren't minimalist -- they remind me in spirit of XTC up to about Black Sea; melodies that seem right out of the beatles and beach boys (or gershwin and cole porter for that matter), but finding really unexpected ways of placing them in the context of their songs, either with unusual harmonies, or counterpoint (usually from guitar). It's like watching a beam of light zig-zag through space, as everything around it changes from bright color to bright color, like dozens of different-colored strobe lights. Deerhoof don't sound like this all the time (and lately, seem to be calming a little bit), but when they do, I love them. And I guess that is kind of a psychedelic experience!

Ha: they sounded perfectly natural covering "Bungalow Bill," and would probably sound even more natural covering "Scissor Man!"

dominique this is the first time I have ever actually wanted to listen to deerhoof

if your description proves to be accurate then I will be forever indebted to you

Get reveille.

Moment of truth awaits: I've just bought 'Viva Koenji!'...