This post is technically two days late. However, to me it is the most meaningful post I'll have this month. Three years ago, on February 26, 2010, Seba Jun aka Nujabes died in a motorcycle accident. As a musical figure, Nujabes was honestly the first time I enjoyed hip hop music. As such, I feel a great sense of disappointment and grief in knowing that no more of his music will ever exist.
The genre that Nujabes preferred to work in was a blend of hip hop beats and jazz that even if you didn't always agree with, always worked and was always a pleasure to listen to. In the United States, my guess would be that he is most famous as the composer of the soundtrack to Samurai Champloo. With tracks like the opening, 'Battlecry', to 'World Without Worlds' to 'Aruarian Dance', Nujabes made sure to make interesting beats meld with really traditional themes to create beautiful music for the anime. On another note, 'Aruarian Dance' is actually an arrangement of Ravel's 'Pavane pour une infante defunte' with a hip hop undertone.
What's sad to me in particular though, is that it took Nujabes' death in order for me to go back and really listen to everything he's done and properly enjoy his music. While he had catchy songs like 'Lady Brown' and 'Blessing It', you understand that hip hop and jazz are his roots. But as mentioned earlier, he had a great understanding of past music and respected classical music enough to put his own stamp on a theme well known in the classical world.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Top Tracks - Fantasy
This time around we come back to Top Tracks. For this segment I will be covering the song 'Fantasy' by LAMA. This song isn't the most out there or bizarre track in my library for sure but I hope you find it as enjoyable as I do.
The song is sung by the Japanese group LAMA which consists of a group of really well known (in Japan) artists who I guess came together and just started jamming. To be honest, I don't actually like most of their songs but this one just works in my opinion. Whether it's the piano line that starts off the song or the very distinctive male and female voices that just never seem to sing at the same time, everything just kinda fits. The handful of pauses that cause dramatic effects. The reiteration of the piano line creates a natural transition back to the male voice. All of these end up being really standard and well used musical techniques. Even so, though the song is not as adventurous as the electronic sound of 'Cybernetic Mariachi' or the synth-y sound of St. Vincent, the song still manages to put itself in an interesting musical space. It isn't quite what we would associate in the US with as mainstream pop music, but it also doesn't sound as raw as indie music tends to be. Overall, I just like the piece and whether I have quantifiable reasons as to why or why not don't matter that much to me.
More info on the song itself. It was the ending to an anime (Japanese animated series) called UN-GO which aired in the fall of 2011 (October - December). The anime itself was a supernatural detective type of show and in my opinion both the soundtrack and this song fit the style and vision of the show very well. FYI, I might go into covering anime but that's still up in the air for now as I have plenty of music to talk about and other interesting things in store for the coming months. I hope you enjoy the song and you enjoyed the post. See ya next time.
*As a note, it is actually possible to find a full original version of this song streaming. Just not on YouTube.
--CsMiREK
The song is sung by the Japanese group LAMA which consists of a group of really well known (in Japan) artists who I guess came together and just started jamming. To be honest, I don't actually like most of their songs but this one just works in my opinion. Whether it's the piano line that starts off the song or the very distinctive male and female voices that just never seem to sing at the same time, everything just kinda fits. The handful of pauses that cause dramatic effects. The reiteration of the piano line creates a natural transition back to the male voice. All of these end up being really standard and well used musical techniques. Even so, though the song is not as adventurous as the electronic sound of 'Cybernetic Mariachi' or the synth-y sound of St. Vincent, the song still manages to put itself in an interesting musical space. It isn't quite what we would associate in the US with as mainstream pop music, but it also doesn't sound as raw as indie music tends to be. Overall, I just like the piece and whether I have quantifiable reasons as to why or why not don't matter that much to me.
More info on the song itself. It was the ending to an anime (Japanese animated series) called UN-GO which aired in the fall of 2011 (October - December). The anime itself was a supernatural detective type of show and in my opinion both the soundtrack and this song fit the style and vision of the show very well. FYI, I might go into covering anime but that's still up in the air for now as I have plenty of music to talk about and other interesting things in store for the coming months. I hope you enjoy the song and you enjoyed the post. See ya next time.
*As a note, it is actually possible to find a full original version of this song streaming. Just not on YouTube.
--CsMiREK
Friday, February 15, 2013
Musical Discovery - St. Vincent
Before we move onto other parts of the world with musical discovery, I have to talk about St. Vincent. A relatively well known indie pop/rock artist, St. Vincent is one of my favorite current American artists. St. Vincent is the stage name of the singer songwriter Annie Clark. To date she has released three incredibly colorful and wonderfully different albums.
Her first album Marry Me is definitely the most accessible of the three albums that she's released. With a strong pop sound coupled with a myriad of wildly different instrumentations, she forges a fun and enjoyable debut album. Starting with 'Now, Now', her album throws interesting chords directly at the listener. Paired with her voice, it's an experience that's just plain different from any current pop artist out there. Getting to track 4 is the titular track Marry Me. While not the most memorable track on the album, it makes awesome use of panning and is a completely solid song in its own right. Chugging along is 'Paris Is Burning', which is perhaps the most popular and memorable track on the album. To be fair, that exact song is how I got hooked into St. Vincent's sound back in 2008 and ever since I just always come back to the song. With an awesome cello line and a surprisingly refreshing meter change from 4/4 to 3/4, it's just an awesome song that I could listen to for hours. After that, the remaining songs kinda pale in comparison to me, but are each incredibly well thought out and good songs.
Her first album Marry Me is definitely the most accessible of the three albums that she's released. With a strong pop sound coupled with a myriad of wildly different instrumentations, she forges a fun and enjoyable debut album. Starting with 'Now, Now', her album throws interesting chords directly at the listener. Paired with her voice, it's an experience that's just plain different from any current pop artist out there. Getting to track 4 is the titular track Marry Me. While not the most memorable track on the album, it makes awesome use of panning and is a completely solid song in its own right. Chugging along is 'Paris Is Burning', which is perhaps the most popular and memorable track on the album. To be fair, that exact song is how I got hooked into St. Vincent's sound back in 2008 and ever since I just always come back to the song. With an awesome cello line and a surprisingly refreshing meter change from 4/4 to 3/4, it's just an awesome song that I could listen to for hours. After that, the remaining songs kinda pale in comparison to me, but are each incredibly well thought out and good songs.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Musicians and Programmers Pt. 2
So it's been over a month since the last post in this series on musicians and programmers. I suppose that means that it's about time to continue. At the end of my previous post, I left you with a couple of questions. At this point I would like to answer some of those.
First, what makes a "good" program? This is arguably a difficult question as different people regard different things as good. We can't simply base it off of popularity as there are plenty of terrible programs that are wildly successful (anyone remember Farmville?) On the other hand, we would be remiss to say that programs that are popular and successful are not good programs. Perhaps an apt way of gauging the "goodness" of a program is its ability to affect a large group of people. Again it ends up being quite arguable as to what constitutes a "good" program. Another example is Google. Quite likely one of the most well known websites in the world, it connects humanity to reservoirs of information the likes of which never existed previously. Surely it must be a "good" program. It affects millions of people daily, serving billions of searches per day to people in over 100 countries, with trillions of searches per year (see this). And yet, an article like this was published in 2008. If you think about it, it is actually true to an extent. The way we receive, parse, and then analyze data has drastically changed since the advent of Google and the accessible web. That's not to say that we are or aren't any smarter due to Google but it's an interesting thought exercise to carry out. In more recent history we have Facebook. A site with billions of users and yet, a single bug can wipe out large regions of the internet. What I'm trying to say is that even the most influential websites and programs have their dark sides and that makes it increasingly difficult to understand what a "good" program really is.
First, what makes a "good" program? This is arguably a difficult question as different people regard different things as good. We can't simply base it off of popularity as there are plenty of terrible programs that are wildly successful (anyone remember Farmville?) On the other hand, we would be remiss to say that programs that are popular and successful are not good programs. Perhaps an apt way of gauging the "goodness" of a program is its ability to affect a large group of people. Again it ends up being quite arguable as to what constitutes a "good" program. Another example is Google. Quite likely one of the most well known websites in the world, it connects humanity to reservoirs of information the likes of which never existed previously. Surely it must be a "good" program. It affects millions of people daily, serving billions of searches per day to people in over 100 countries, with trillions of searches per year (see this). And yet, an article like this was published in 2008. If you think about it, it is actually true to an extent. The way we receive, parse, and then analyze data has drastically changed since the advent of Google and the accessible web. That's not to say that we are or aren't any smarter due to Google but it's an interesting thought exercise to carry out. In more recent history we have Facebook. A site with billions of users and yet, a single bug can wipe out large regions of the internet. What I'm trying to say is that even the most influential websites and programs have their dark sides and that makes it increasingly difficult to understand what a "good" program really is.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Underappreciated Instruments - Accordion
New posts means new sections. This one's all about instruments I love that just don't get the love they deserve. I mean sure trumpets and oboes and violins are cool and all, but there are plenty of instruments out there that have rich and distinct timbres that just get ignored. This particular post is all about the accordion.
While a popular instrument in bygone eras, the accordion has kind of faded in recent years. You might occasionally chance upon a track with an accordion feature, but then again you're probably not listening to pop music. For whatever reason, society has shelved the accordion as an old fashioned sound and it has fallen into general disuse.
For the uninformed, the accordion is part of a class of instruments often called squeezeboxes. The sound is generated by the bellows, the folded regions which create changes in air pressure, and the buttons which change the pitch of the instrument. Interestingly enough, there are actually many kinds of accordions, some of which have piano keyboards, likely what we are used to thinking of as accordions in the US, while others have buttons arranged differently, an example being the Russian bayan. Depending on the construction of the instrument, the direction in which the bellows are moved can both change the volume and the pitch of the instrument which adds another layer of difficulty to the playing of the instrument. Another fun fact is that depending on the construction of the accordion, it is possible to play a range of notes greater than almost any other analog instrument.
While a popular instrument in bygone eras, the accordion has kind of faded in recent years. You might occasionally chance upon a track with an accordion feature, but then again you're probably not listening to pop music. For whatever reason, society has shelved the accordion as an old fashioned sound and it has fallen into general disuse.
For the uninformed, the accordion is part of a class of instruments often called squeezeboxes. The sound is generated by the bellows, the folded regions which create changes in air pressure, and the buttons which change the pitch of the instrument. Interestingly enough, there are actually many kinds of accordions, some of which have piano keyboards, likely what we are used to thinking of as accordions in the US, while others have buttons arranged differently, an example being the Russian bayan. Depending on the construction of the instrument, the direction in which the bellows are moved can both change the volume and the pitch of the instrument which adds another layer of difficulty to the playing of the instrument. Another fun fact is that depending on the construction of the accordion, it is possible to play a range of notes greater than almost any other analog instrument.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Musical Discovery - Rise Against
Continuing my series on enlightening you readers to the various musical artists in the world is this segment on Rise Against. Now I imagine that many of you might know Rise Against as they're a somewhat well known US rock band. But for those out of the country or unaware, this might be interesting to you. I promise I'll get to weird and obscure bands and singers in the following posts in the series. You'll just have to bear with me as I get through some of the more well known bands. I will not cover the likes of say Evanescence or Linkin Park or Sara Bareilles as well...to be fair I think most people know them by now, not much to discover.
Continuing on before my little rant explodes into some random tangent, Rise Against is originally from the Chicago area and formed in 1999, although that's just information I took from Wikipedia. As you might imagine I wouldn't talk about them if I didn't find them interesting. As of this post, they've released 4 major albums which are, in order of release: Siren Song of the Counter Culture, The Sufferer & the Witness, Appeal to Reason, and Endgame. (They released two indie albums previously) All four albums are quite similar in tonal quality with a focus on relatively common punk rock sound. There are a couple of exceptions obviously as you'll find in 'Swing Life Away' which is from Siren Song for the Counter Culture.
Continuing on before my little rant explodes into some random tangent, Rise Against is originally from the Chicago area and formed in 1999, although that's just information I took from Wikipedia. As you might imagine I wouldn't talk about them if I didn't find them interesting. As of this post, they've released 4 major albums which are, in order of release: Siren Song of the Counter Culture, The Sufferer & the Witness, Appeal to Reason, and Endgame. (They released two indie albums previously) All four albums are quite similar in tonal quality with a focus on relatively common punk rock sound. There are a couple of exceptions obviously as you'll find in 'Swing Life Away' which is from Siren Song for the Counter Culture.
Friday, February 1, 2013
More Site Stuff
So this is gonna be a short post. Mainly I wanna point out that the title of this site is really long. It kinda sucks if you wanna type it out. So instead you can send this around if you don't wanna type. http://bit.ly/V9fqmd. Still sucks, but it's shorter. That'll end up redirecting to the main page of this site. Fun fact, you can also make your friends type "aural abstractionist" in quotes like that into Google's search engine. As of me writing this, the only results will be links to this site. If you're on a mobile phone I just got a QR code from bitly as well so you can copy this places and have people scan it.
Look forward to more site stuff including style changes and all sorts of awesome in upcoming posts.
--CsMiREK
--CsMiREK
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