http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_abridged.html
Here is a really fine piece of work! It's a whole album called "Abridged Too
Far" released on ubu.com by People Like Us. I've been listening to this for
a couple of hours. I'm particularly fond of "I've got you" when "kay sara
sara whatever will be will be" is overlayed with something that fits
beautifully and unexpectedly. Excellent! This is a jump-up-and-downer! Vicki
Bennett's music is too beautiful for contemporary radio! Too smart! Too
funny! Too beautiful! Here's info from ubu.com on it:
————————-
People Like Us "Abridged Too Far" (2004) For the first time, UK-based People
Like Us (Vicki Bennett) is releasing a new album exclusively online here on
UbuWeb. "Abridged Too Far" is a collection of audio work first conceived
through experimentation through or on radio. On this new collection, People
Like Us continues its pastiche of impressions of popular music from Europe
and America from the 1920s thru to 1990s. Vicki Bennett's work is an
examination of the affect of hearing well known tunes and lyrics in
fragments, then putting those elements to play– resonating, intermingling
and recombining with the listeners own associations and shards of memories.
Full-color downloadable artwork and liner notes are available.
————————-
Following last year's posting of their full 14 year discography for free
download at www.ubu.com, People Like Us is going one step further in
releasing a new album exclusively online. Given the poor state of
music/media distribution for non-major label music, PLU are favouring
circulation of one's work as the ultimate goal, in the belief that gift
culture ultimately reaps as much, if not more rewards by reaching more
people.
"We strongly believe in the power of profit through free distribution. Often
people have never heard of an artist because they aren't being distributed
through as many channels as they should be, due to the very poor state of
music/media distribution for non-major label music coupled with ignorance of
the way that avant garde art forms infiltrate mainstream culture. Also many
prints of a work are allowed to go out of circulation or are deleted for no
reason other than cost effectiveness by a label/publisher. This makes
perfect sense financially, but no sense whatsoever that a year's work by an
artist should also disappear for such reasons. So get all of this while you
can, and we completely endorse getting one's work out there, no matter what.
If you don't share, your profit is limited."
"Abridged Too Far" is a collection of audio work first conceived through
experimentation through or on radio. Given that this was the initial point
of inspiration, it feels most appropriate to release this on the internet
which has similar 'on the air' qualities. The experience found from internet
broadcasting and sharing is very different to that of the world of retail -
the effect is immediate and far fetching, plus the feedback can be immense.
It is a good feeling to know the work is far more likely to reach it's
intended audience since it transcends physical borders.
On Abridged Too Far, People Like Us continues its pastiche of impressions of
popular music from Europe and America from the 1920s thru to 1990s.
Bennett
"Abridged Too Far" by People Like Us
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Type: discussion
Comments
I see she's made changes like this: the original lyric is 'kay sara sara
whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see'; Bennett's is 'kay
sara sara whatever will be will be; the future's not kay sara sara' (in
'I've got you').
The level of care and consciousness in what she's doing not only with the
music itself but even the language is remarkable.
ja
> http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_abridged.html
> Here is a really fine piece of work! It's a whole album called
> "Abridged Too
> Far" released on ubu.com by People Like Us. I've been listening
> to this for
> a couple of hours. I'm particularly fond of "I've got you" when "kay sara
> sara whatever will be will be" is overlayed with something that fits
> beautifully and unexpectedly. Excellent! This is a
> jump-up-and-downer! Vicki
> Bennett's music is too beautiful for contemporary radio! Too smart! Too
> funny! Too beautiful! Here's info from ubu.com on it:
On 20 Nov 2004, at 10:36, Jim Andrews wrote:
> The level of care and consciousness in what she's doing not only with
> the
> music itself but even the language is remarkable.
I must try the album again. I found it unlistenable but I'm fully aware
that this might be my philistine ears rather than any fault with the
music.
- Rob.
–
Friends don't make friends do DRM.
> > The level of care and consciousness in what she's doing not only with
> > the
> > music itself but even the language is remarkable.
>
> I must try the album again. I found it unlistenable but I'm fully aware
> that this might be my philistine ears rather than any fault with the
> music.
It's at http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_abridged.html .
I've done a bit of the sort of work Vicki Bennett is doing, but it was more
programmed for algorithmic combinatoria. The range of music in Vicki
Bennett's album spans the 20's through the 90's. So there's a certain
historical vision of twentieth century music going on here. The historical
space is broad. It isn't all the music around the world from the 20's
through 90's, but the space is nonetheless pretty broad.
She is an articulate composer of pastiche. To hear that two songs go
together is needed, or could be made to under certain circumstances. And
then sometimes you fluke into it, the happy accident. But you have to be
good to be lucky at such stuff, and she's both.
She has an interesting sense of rhythm, if you follow it rhythmically. Also,
it is brilliantly tuneful, I thought. And tuneful in directions different
from the original material, which is important.
I gather she does or did a show on WFMU from NY (which is probably where she
met Kenny Goldsmith of ubu.com). But she's UK-based. There's a great combo
of European and USA ears going on in this album.
Also, there's a mix of the old sounds with pops and electronic flutters of
the digital.
The melody of a piece like "Cattle Call", with the way the two songs overlay
to form a different melody than either of the two originals, very cool.
"Close to You" (Karen Carpenter) also contains "Candle in the Wind" (about
Marilyn Munroe) and a third female-sung song I don't know. I'm guessing it'd
be another tragic figure, though I could be wrong.
Other pieces also seem to comment on a common element among the tunes.
So she's composing on all sorts of levels.
You just don't hear that very often.
ja
Nobody would ever write this sort of music:
http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/People-Like-Us/Abriged-To
o-Far/People-Like-Us_Abridged-Too-Far_11-Cattle-Call.mp3
This is "Cattle Call" by People Like Us. It's too brilliantly off-key.
I love it.
When asked what sort of music he likes to listen to, the south african
novelist J.M Coetzee replied "music i haven't heard before."
I *have* heard a great deal of the material in "Abridged Too Far" by People
Like Us, but I haven't heard it composed with this sort of consciousness.
"Attention is the soul's prayer" said um maybe Paul Celan. The slide of the
two songs over one another in "Cattle Call" is brilliantly observed. Or
composed.
it's been said of stories that they should follow from their premises, but
usually the premises are too predictable.
when you listen to music, you may like to figure out where it's going the
moment before it arrives there. harmonizing or whatever. like a story, only
moment by moment rather than whodunit or whatever. if you do, then you'll
probably like Vicki Bennett's music. Because there's logic to how it
progresses, but it isn't so easily predictable. the musical premises are not
standard.
it's also been said of stories that a good place to start is with a
disruption of the routine.
typically, with music, even if we don't predict it initially, we get it on
the second play through. how many times do you think you'd have to hear
"Cattle Call" before you could really hear it in your head? It's just not
playing by the rules. Yet it sounds great.
As though we remember in 'vectors' rather than 'bitmaps'. A piece like
"Cattle Call" adds a few more nodes to the ole song memory data structures.
Yet draws on all sorts of oldies already jiving around in your head.
At the end of the song, we hear what i presume is Vicki Bennett pum-pumming
along on some strange tangent. Is that under it all, what she's making of
it? No, it's one of her takes on it. But it's a large combinatorium and she
seems to be saying that could be there too, 'Do or DIY', as in the title of
another of her pieces.
A generation should have music that is undiscovered and brilliant, not some
retro hangover from the last forty years, which is mostly what we get these
days in North America, or something so musically simple it's just for kids.
Here's work that is brilliant and undiscovered–and yet is made of music
from the 20's through the 90's.
The whole album is at http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_abridged.html or, if
you're on a windows machine,
http://vispo.com/temp/People-Like-Us-Playlist.M3U lets you hear them in a
better way than the download/ wait for it cycle.
By the way, Canada's John Oswald (of Plunderphonics fame) was just given the
country's highest award in art.
ja
Here is Vicki Bennett's show (she's People Like Us) on WFMU "featuring all
things avant retard": http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/PL
ja