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Music portals to the world – online magazines

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Explorations of music beyond the pop’n’rock canon has given me a taste for new sounds. A lot of the music I posted in the Arabic threads is several years out of date already. Things move so fast these days. Below are a few websites that seem to curate different musical artists and genres in an entertaining way.

As ever, let me know what you think, or post your favourite online music/cultural magazines for the Afterword coffee table.

beehype is run by 100+ music journalists, bloggers and DJs from around the world who collect and select what is best in their local scenes and present it to the global audience. They have introduced around 3500+ musicians from about 140 countries

World Music Network – guide to world music gives 5 pages of articles on the history of different national and regional music, with clips. It’s connected to the Rough Guide series and is quite basic, but seems like an easy way in for the newbie.

One of my favourite places to visit – Sounds and Colours, dedicated to the culture and creativity of Latin American and the Caribbean. In addition to covering the region’s culture- music, film, » Continue Reading.

Arabic music alternatives – beyond the oud

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Having posted one thread on Arabic music this weekend, it might seem like a bit of overkill to follow it up with a second one. But in listening to all the variety of music since January, it became quickly clear there was a simple division to help me categorize what I was hearing and liking – beautiful voices and instrumentation on one side (the other thread) and what I might delicately call ‘headfuck’ music – stuff that may not immediately compute, but which is exhilarating and exciting and often electronic. Alternative and beyond the oud that dominates classical Arabic music.

There’s no sedate list of 10 songs/tracks here – just a concert from Islam Chipsy to start things off. Described as “one of the most violent and psychedelic contemporary experiences of Arabic melodies. Islam Chipsy and his E.E.K. band (Two percussionists Ta’ta Islam ‘and Khaled Mando) separate themselves from the related electro-chaabi and mahraganat (“festival”) music genres – rather the new wave of Chaabi and Nile Delta synth”, I love this riot of sound, whose chaos and blurting noise reminds me of being at a Young Gods concert.

There will be more to follow, and these are some of » Continue Reading.

Arabic music – a beginner’s view

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Kaisfatdad’s posting about Rachid Taha prompts me to get on with my promise in the February Blogger Takeover thread to write something about Arabic music. So why Arabic music? Not for the lyrics, that’s for sure, which could be problematic in unwittingly choosing songs with dodgy lyrics.

Curiosity, really. I was at a conference in Egypt last year. I will be at another in UAE this year. Reason enough to connect to Arabic culture, and music seemed like a fairly accessible way in. I was dancing to Mahraganat with local staff in December – who knows how I can use the musical knowledge to connect with people a year from then?

Also, I like my share of North African music – mainly Malian desert blues and the albums Justin Adams made. I have a few Natacha Atlas albums. I thought I knew what I might be letting myself in for. I’ve started posts on Colombian, Brazilian and Ukrainian music. What can be so hard?

And here comes to the reason why it took me so long to get to this – it’s so daunting. The previous posts referred to were charted territories – there were a lot of » Continue Reading.

Fall out with the family

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I know next to nothing about the Fall*, and am quite happy in that state. But I also think it’s a good thing that there are Afterword Fall fans. Integral part of post-punk culture, grit in the oyster, that sort of thing.

So I’m quite pleased to be able to wedge a post out of a Guardian article and exploit it for a general call out for anecdotery, informed opinionating and YouTube clippage related to all things Fall. Plus silly wordplay and obscure quotes.

Who knows, I might learn something?

______ * Hit The North and Victoria is about my limit.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/02/mark-e-smith-fall-members-house-of-all-martin-bramah

ATM – about the mouse

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At the moment, around the ‘mansion’, all the ‘maidens’ are terribly miffed as tiny mice are taking much advantage to make abode, turning my attention towards murderous attempts to make attractive traps – mouth-watering and tasty morsels.

Alas! Transparently my assays to make a tempting meal are thoroughly mediocre.

Are the massive able to make any triumphant measures available to me?

View post on imgur.com

Architecture or Morality? No more luxuries of life

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In these straitened times, maybe we no longer have the luxury of both/and with regard to album titles.

But which is it to be? Architecture or Morality?

Phew, it’s a hard choice. architecture is important, but when all else is failing, we do need some morality, among the Einstürzende Neubauten.

And then there are others. Flux or Mutability? Quark, Strangeness or Charm? etc.

The choice is yours/Add (or subtract) your own.

Conversations are like bike rides

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I had a idle thought this morning about comparing conversations to bike rides.

A simple chat is like a short bike ride in 1st gear – doesn’t get you very far but easy to start, little exertion, easy to stop – lightweight, good for about 5 minutes. Sometimes, if the going is good, you go up a gear – more hard work, more in depth, but you go farther, can explore further than just round the block and back. If things are going well, you can get into top gear and go for a good exploration.

Like any bike ride, it’s best to ease down through the gears to stop, rather than coming to an abrupt halt. And if you are starting again, it’s very hard work to start in top gear.

For those of us not always adept at small talk, it can feel like the chain is slipping round the gears when you press the pedal. Or you try to start in a high gear and you need a lot of confidence and strength to just get going.

Of course, the context counts. Start on a level playing field and you’ve got as good a chance of » Continue Reading.

Hess is More

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I love it when my jaded musical palette is refreshed with something unexpected and joyful. And Hess is More seems to deliver that is spades with ‘Apollonian Circles’. “a multi-disciplinary musical concert and art installation experience that combines elements of electronic music, jazz, theater, and performance art.

The music is composed and arranged by the Danish multi-instrumentalist Mikkel Hess and performed by his band (“Hess Is More”) comprised of musicians from Copenhagen and New York

In the literal center of the room is a large table (decorated with other-worldly artifacts and ornaments) that is both stage and set piece for the performers and audience to gather. This is a holistic approach to putting on a concert, as conceptualized by Hess Is More and Kaja MANAGEMENT. Joining everyone around the table – an enduring cultural symbol of unity and celebration – breaks down the barrier between art and spectator and all performative aspects of the evening are shared”.

I thought it might find an appreciative audience in some of the AW community.

http://hessismore.com/apollonian-circles/

New Year’s Eve?

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I’m on a train just leaving Chelmsford on the way via bus replacement service to London to bring in the New Year with a dear friend, starting at a vegan cafe and going on to Cafe Oto for some Lee Scratch Perry/George Clinton style DJ sets. Anyone else doing, or for those in the Deep East and South, done something to mark the end of 2022 and the start of 2023?

(I may report back later on how long my 50 something body was able to withstand before flagging retreat…)

We will be replaced by robots

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A man walks into a website. Man: Ah. I’d like to have an argument, please. Receptionist: Certainly sir. Have you been here before? Man: Yes, I come here every day. Receptionist: I see. Well, do you want to have the full argument, or were you thinking of taking a course? Man: Well, what would be the cost? Receptionist: Well, there’s no charge, but you are welcome to contribute to the site’s upkeep. Man: Well, I think it’s probably best if I start with the one post and then see how it goes from there, okay? Receptionist: Fine. I’ll see who’s free at the moment. (Pause) Receptionist: Mr. Tiggerlion’s free, but he’s a little bit conciliatory. Ahh yes, Try Mr. Herzog and Mr. Žižek; room 12. They never stop talking. Man: Thank you. (Scrolls down the screen. Opens post.)

https://infiniteconversation.com

Hey Julian!

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You are probably more aware of the latest album releases than I am. In which case, you may know that Julian Lennon has a new album out – called ‘Jude’. I saw the interview attached to this post in my YouTube feed, and was vaguely intrigued enough to watch it. Julian is my real first name, and Hey Jude was number 1 when I was born, so there was enough hook to keep my attention.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy coaxes Lennon to talk about his life in what seems to be a necessarily gentle way. Lennon comes across as quite at ease with who he is, which is encouraging, because he always seemed to be rather damaged goods, forever in the shadow of his dad (John Lennon of The Beatles). He has produced a rather good, if earnest documentary about soil restoration and climate change (Kiss The Ground. He recorded a version of Imagine to raise money for Ukraine. He has got into photography. All good, solid projects.

Calling his album ‘Jude’ seemed a cool idea – confronting his legacy so he can move on. Jude has unfortunate connotations – the patron saint of lost causes, Jude the Obscure with its » Continue Reading.

A call out to the post-punk generation

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tldr: take pity on an ageing Goth, and post clips of anything angular and weird from the last 40 years that takes your fancy.

I like coming to this site, coz there’s a relaxed comfort about dropping in, perusing the threads, and seeing the familiar names I’ve known for a decade, chewing the breeze and chasing the fat. Recently I’ve been going through old copies of Word magazine (yet to get to The Word) – leafing through in case there’s anything of note from 15 years ago and quickly disposing of them (Why did I keep them?)

In both cases, there’s a feeling of gentle anomie that must grip all Gen-Xers – caught between the OK Boomers and their progeny, the Millennials. On one side, there’s your 70 rock – from prog to pub to yacht. On the other side there’s hip-hop and grunge. Demographical strength exhibited through cultural dominance.

Please don’t think this is a grumble. Oh no! Play to your strengths. It’s more a rallying call for those of the Linklater generation to rekindle the nostalgia fires for the avant culture of the 80s+. Play more old, (but not that old).

Maybe there’s a dedicated site for » Continue Reading.

Fungible or non-fungible?

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A paired set of adjectives tied to finance and law, and apparently to quantum physics is quite intriguing. I take their meaning to be something like replaceable vs. irreplaceable. Gold, apparently is fungible. Diamonds are non-fungible, because of each diamond being unique.

When I lose something, it is because it is non-fungible – there is only one. Possibly it is semi-fungible, in that another item will do the same job, moreorless. Such as a slightly broken set of earbuds, or a biro instead of my favourite pen. Best is really if it is fungible, like a piece of blank paper. There’s always another piece of paper around.

Non-fungibility breeds attachment, and that’s not good, is it? Like a horcrux (I imagine), we tuck a little bit of ourselves into that item, familiarity has made a bond. Yes, it’s great to have it, but it’s terrible to lose it.

There is a fluidity to the easily-replaceable, it encourages me to think of everything of having a potential, anything could be a tool, an objet d’art, no matter how commonplace.

Maybe make connections with things that can be easily replaced? Record collections seem to be intensely non-fungible, until they are not. » Continue Reading.

The big game, eh?

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England vs Germany I have no idea what is going on, apart from a flurry of yellow cards, but it’s a big event. My daughter is all for Germany, my friends in the stadium are England fans. Anyone watching (with an smidgen more knowledge than me)?

“I’m going to fetch my belongings, and I do not expect to receive a bill”. Bernard Cribbins

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No bill for Bernard, but masses of well-deserved eulogies. Wasn’t he a good sort? Almost a Zelig in the cultural history of the last 60 years – always present but never obtrusive, adding to the gaiety of the nation by his engagement in British culture.

I thought Mr Cribbins was worth more than a line in the Obit thread, so am putting this here in case you want to share in an indulgent nostalgiafest for one of the greats

ATM: selling books?

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It’s a good idea to have a clear out every now and then – take everything off the shelves and go through 45+ years of book collecting to decide what are keepers and what are chuckers. I found 100 books that either I’m never going to read or that are way past their use-by date. Current affairs books from the time of Blair and earlier, old text books, philosophy tomes that I’m so relieved I don’t need to refer to, novels by star authors I thought I would dedicate time to, but never got around to it, old Bond books that I picked up for the classic covers, but didn’t fancy delving into.

When I look at my shelves now, they’re still full, just not completely overloaded with dead wood slices. ~275 at a rough count, so about a 35% cull.

The question is, what do I do with them? Just put them out in the street book cabinet shelves and let anyone passing by help themselves? Or try to make a little cash on a book sale site. I’m pretty sure that’s wasted effort and nobody would pay anything for them, but I thought I’d ask the Afterword bees » Continue Reading.

Their most famous album isn’t their best

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Looked at from a distance, a recording artist’s output is distinguished by the most well-known songs, the albums which are seen as pivotal in musical history, or as archetypes of a certain genre. (Best albums of all time, etc).

As you get closer to the discography, it becomes a bit more complicated. LPs that got (over) praised on their release might have novelty on their side, but don’t stand up to repeated listening as the internal coherence of the tracks is not so evident as on other less prominent releases.

In the pinned article, Darran Anderson articulates something possibly heretical that I have long thought. Primal Scream’s best album is Vanishing Point.

Screamadelica is like Sergeant Pepper – groundbreaking, but not better than the sum of its parts. Vanishing Point is a far more satisfying and coherent album, particularly with Echo Dek as a coda, as the author suggests. Don’t get me wrong. I love listening to individual songs from Screamadelica – there isn’t a bad song on there – some are my favourite of all time. But they are just so different from each other that their effect is negated by the proximity. I’m listening to Vanishing Point right » Continue Reading.

We are family

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Bear with me. i have a heavy load to cack out.

Family. This is a word that has been clanging like a church bell in my hintergrund for some months.

Do I mean family? No. I think I mean familiarization.

What does it mean to become familiar with things? How do we learn to connect?

You all know Tigger’s six listens. It is such a powerful trope, that it has become entwined in the epigenetics of this site. You have to listen at least six times to a song, a track, an album, before you can ‘get it’.

What we do when we repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat the playing of those sounds is we embed the sonic experience in our heads. We hear the same song, but not the same song, because each time what we hear is different. The first time it might be familiar or completely new. What makes it familiar? It is similar in some way to what we have heard before. Not exactly the same, but there are resonances, echoes, repeated phrases, steals.

But it is in some way new. Or it is not.

And then the next repeat. That connection » Continue Reading.

Paint My Name In Black And Gold / Waiting For Another War

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Author:Mark Andrews / Trevor Ristrow

I came late to the Sisters of Mercy – just after their second lineup split following a concert in the Royal Albert Hall in June 1985 and the release earlier in the year of their first album – First and Last and Always. With no product for another 2 years (Floodland) or live appearance until Wembley Arena in 1990, all that there was to absorb from the band was the first album, previous singles, eps, bootleg live albums, one video from the RAH (Wake) and collections of old music press stories and reviews.

These two books are biographies of the band in those first 5 years from 1980, coincidentally both published last year. Although my quest for TSOM product has long been sated, and the story of Eldritch and co was quite familiar – Ely>Cambridge>Leeds>multiple gigs/groupies/alcohol/speed/monomaniacal powercraziness>band collapse I was intrigued by how the two authors would flesh out the story.

Both start well by choosing as Book titles song quotes the fans would know (Heartland/Valentine), and there’s a fair amount of reference in both books to the literary/linguistic wordplay that Eldritch liked and that drew me to the band.

Although covering the same time » Continue Reading.

Desert Island Discs, the Afterword remix

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Something for everybody, 8 songs, 1 book, 1 luxury – rules are:

1. Songs/tracks should be: (i) from early childhood (ii) first favourite of pre-teen youth (iii) favourite of teenage years (iv) best experienced live (v) best from when you fell in love (vi) best coz it’s really meaningful (vii) best you like now you never would have liked when younger (viii) the one you keep when the waves wash all the others away

2. A sentence or more to explain your book and luxury choice

3. Don’t think too long about it. You won’t be held to account in years to come when someone does a similar thread and your choices have changed

4. Don’t do it at all if you don’t want to. It’s just a bit of fun.

5. Oh, and ignore all the above rules if you want to do it differently, including the song choices

6. Finally, ignore rule number 5.

Confused? I know I am

Ey up – Bratford’s City of Culture

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Something to celebrate – the home of New Model Army, the 1 in 12 club, NMPFT, School of Peace Studies, Saltaire, etc has been made 2025 UK City of Culture – the gateway to the Dales and the Calder Valley where it rains every day and the cobbled streets are paved with glass, but the curries are magnificent, and the beer – I miss it so.

That was my experience 30 years ago. Any more recent markers for the jewel in the West Riding?

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/may/31/bradford-named-as-the-uk-city-of-culture-2025

New Order love-in

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Every now and then I just get tired of listening to new stuff and think let’s go back to my old favourites. And one of those most definitely has to be New Order. Sod all the Barney vs. Hooky shenanigans, all the dull post-Factory albums – switch my generic player to random and deep dive into their beats and synths and flakey lyrics and vocals, but above all the polyphony of synths and beats. And that sublime Hooky bass – an aural massage if ever there was one – Just bliss. They knew what they were doing.

There have been so many versions and remixes and extended dubs etc, that something unexpected will rise up among all the classics. Here’s a podcast that I downloaded many years ago with a variety of new versions that weren’t familiar to me, but make me very happy to listen to. Track listing below.

In tune with the rapturous responses to music recently here, I just felt like (over)sharing. But do put your favourite New Order or other reliable source of musical sustenance below, if you feel like it.

Run 2 (Extended Version) Vanishing Point (Instrumental Making Out Mix) Subculture (Sarm West Mix) Best » Continue Reading.