Pitchfork review of Eno's Lux

With this most recent album, I am falling in love all over again with Brian Eno's approach to ambient composition.  This is a great review, too, that touches not only on this new release, Lux, from 2012, but situates this album in terms of Eno's career, his theory and practice, and interesting technological issues, such as how ambient sound design functions via different recording formats and for different environments.  A highly recommend review and album!

 

 
Besides being a great discussion of the album, this is a good opportunity to introduce you to Pitchfork if you're not already familiar with it.  Enjoy!

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17303-lux/

John Cage, "Williams Mix"

The piece begins with a momentary flash of a very subtle hum of what may or may not be an audience. This is quickly drowned out by what appears to be the tuning of a radio complete with multiple moments of white noise, bringing an element of texture and tonality to the piece. The content within these brief moments of clarity while the tuning of the radio occurs intensifies as the piece continues accompanied by a frog-like croaking sound giving the piece depth and narrative. As the song arrives at its finishing point there is a recording of an audience cheering and jarring that lasts long enough to allow the listener to question if it is part of the piece or part of the environment in which it was performed. 

Grandmaster Flash - The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel

The track stutters to life before diving into a myriad of samples. Sugarhill glides into Chic and Blondie before it backs off into Sugarhill again with the ever prevalent bass lines from both Queen's "Another Bites the Dust"and Sugarhill Gang's "Rappers Delight" almost interchangeable. Flash displays his expertise in scratching to create many of the transitions. The most dynamic highlights of each sample are utilized in this song. I notice the beat never alters. The "clap, clap, clap" is relentless and carries the song from beginning to end allowing the samples to seamlessly blend together. How did Flash know he could utilize this beat and create such a smooth work of music with such versatile samples to choose from? How would the song have changed without the Rappers Delight frame that carries it?

John Cage- Imaginary Landscape （想象的风景）

Imaginary Landscape （想象的风景）

The sounds start with silent for about three seconds, and then it begins to play the change of radio station. The frequency of the change rate is about two to three seconds. Somehow, it goes back to the station that the author had already listened to before. In addition, there also has some News broadcasting in the mix. Around 2:00, it stops for a while for changing channels. As the process goes on, it seems like the author is little bit impatient, he increases the speed of changing the channel. The background of this music is the sound of turning those buttons of the radio. Then, it last for a while, he goes back to this loop. Change the channel, increase the speed, and stop it. For the final part, it ends up with fades out for ten seconds in absolutely quiet. I hold the view that, this music is very unique, if you close your eyes and feel it. It just likes a five minutes radio traveling. However, It’s a really intriguing idea, isn’t it? What’s the author’s proposition to make this kind of abstract music? 

DJ Food: Raiding The 20th Century

DJ Food: Raiding The 20th Century:

The track begins with a sample of the 20th Century Fox drum/trumpet roll, which sounds like its pitch has been lowered a little bit, with an added kick drum and cymbal. That sample then fades into a variety of vocal samples, that seem to have come from a lot of different sources; probably films, radio, or TV shows. This progresses into a orchestral sample, with is layered with a pitch-lowered 1940's/50's vocal sample. From there another classical music sample is layered with a clip from a anti-piracy speech. This turns into a montage of older popular songs, with an assortment of vocal clips mentioning downloading music illegally. The track proceeds to become a somewhat hectic and very random mash-up and layering of a huge variety of artists and genres, from the Strokes, to maybe Pantera, to the Beastie Boys, which continues far longer than any other sample. The Beastie Boys "Sure Shot" accappella, continues over a couple more different sampled instrumentals. This fades out into Jay-Z, over what sounds like John Lennon looped. The song basically continues as a very long montage of mash-ups, including but not limited to: KRS-One, Destiny's Child, The Specials, The Offspring, etc. After this the track progresses to another montage of various vocal clips, which sound like they are from the the 1940s/50s. They deal with subject matter ranging from early cassette tape splicing, to flying saucers. A few different drum breaks then begin to loop, layered under the vocal clips. The vocals cease, but the breaks continue, and then the purely drum breaks evolve into funk breaks, including James Brown, as well as some late early 80's hip-hop breaks. More, extremely random vocal samples continue over more drum breaks, including Queen. The loops and breaks then progress back into the more hectic mash-up of music that was frequent at the beginning of the song, before ending with what I think is Madonna.

"Buffalo Galls" - Malcom Mclaren and the Worlds Famous Supreme Team

The song Buffalo Gals starts with an intro and it begins with scratching behind it.  As one line starts to echo and die out a new line with a faster speed begins. Then the beats of the song start to build up, while there is a repetitive scratching in the background of the beats.  It was a repetitive drum beat that was being played. Then it switched to western lines being spoken in the mix of the beat. Next the song changes to a different voice and a slower pace.  But this only goes for a small part of the song then it goes back to normal buffalo gall track.  Why mix in so many different types of music?

John Oswald - Don't (Vessel Ripley) [Blog Post 1]

Sounds begin with instruments playing a slow, steady tempo, with a light chorus of vocals echoing in the background. The instruments sound distorted in a way, their sounds are oddly quiet and they are coming in with odd pitches and tones. Miscellaneous, metallic vibrations and other sounds overlap the sounds of the instruments. The voice of Elvis Presley soon cuts through the other sounds and plays loud and clear. His voice sounds slightly off though, as if it's being played through a filter of some sort. The sounds continue like this for a while, until a second Elvis comes into the track, voice being played at the same time as the first Elvis. Both voices have a similar range in tone, but not quite the same either; the variation in the lyrics further misaligns them. Vocal loops of Elvis begin playing under and between the two Elvises. Suddenly even more Elvises begin to come into the track and play along with the rest; the vocal loops also seem to be multiplying. The metallic sounds also sound a little louder than before, and the chorus continues playing in the background. The vocals of the Elvises become more misaligned, some falling behind others, creating a kind of echo. Suddenly the sound starts to rise as keys begin to play rapidly and erratically. The sounds of the keys are all off-key and they grind against each other and al the other sounds as they continue to bring the track to a fever pitch. The vocals of the Elvises also rise in volume and there seem to be half a dozen of them now. The sounds breaks off for a few seconds before a lone key breaks through the silence and the tune returns to a quieter volume. The keys begin to play again at an even more rapid pace as the volume rises even higher than it was before. The Elvises also rise in volume again, this time their voices becoming more and more distorted, becoming deeper. Soon they are incomprehensible, both because of the distortion and from the sounds of the keys playing overpowering them. The keys play through rapidly, each one a lower tone than the last, and they fade away into silence quickly, the track coming to an end. As the track continued along, the increasing amounts of distortion, the multiplication of the Elvises vocals, and the rising volume of the piece gave it a very disturbing and unnerving quality. One might wonder though, is the distortion and multiplication of Elvis' voice in the track meant to reflect the distortion of Elvis Presley's name in the track title? Is this track attempting to create a twisted, alternate version of Elvis, and if so, what are we meant to think of it?