Sounds of Summer

Well, it is becoming increasingly hot outside and rising temperatures has put me in the mood for some vintage folk princesses. I really feel like singing great folk songs, partly because I'm being inspired by the best. Awesome hazy spacey chicks with powerful voices. Singers (especially female singers) today just try so hard to be over the top soul powerhouses, or they are computer augmented and arranged so that any actual talent isn’t even a requirement. I want to listen to someone actually sounds amazing and not like a robot Aretha Franklin with an attention complex.

I like the tendency of folk music to tell a story, have a narrative or historical/national point of view. The voice and the song blending together, when done right is just has a magic authenticity that just doesn't seem to exist today. Here is a sampling of the ladies I'm embracing right now-

Sandy Denny

Fairport's leading lady and solo artist Denny is an obvious choice. I love her voice, it is instantly recognizable but she has the vision and artistry to adjust her performances to each song. I think her phrasing in Matty Groves is great. Just a total classic.

Linda Thompson

Well it should be said that I have some kind of indescribable emotional connection to the albums Richard and Linda Thompson did together, I can’t help it, just think they are fantastic . Still, I don't think I really have to argue the point that Linda has a gorgeous voice. While the most significant work she did was done in tandem with her (then husband) wherein most of the lyrics and arrangements were done by him, I think the point (as is with Denny) is more the spirit and intangible romantic quality she gave to the music.

(Side note-apparently Linda Thompson is also the name of a sometime girlfriend of Elvis Presley, and a google search of the former will lead to many results of the latter. This Linda is NOT the plastic tan one.)

Judee Sill

Criminally over-looked American writer-singer. Compelling songwriter and absolutely amazing voice. Overlooked in the shadow of Joni Mitchell and Carole King, Sill had a much deeper and darker perspective. She was fascinated with religion and death and was a habitual drug user. She was arrested for robbery (pre music career) and spent time in a reform school. A really cult chick. In short, the kind of woman I'd rather hear stories from. (If you read that article, I think it is pretty revealing and disturbingly funny when she said that as a hooker her heart "just wasn't in it." Because, you know, that is a job you do for the love of it.) Many of her songs have a "church-ey" quality, as in something I would have heard in some forgotten church on a dirt road that five people go to on Sunday mornings, but I think that’s because she relies on a hymn-like choral structure and some obvious religious imagery when really much darker and more achingly curious themes lie beneath. Sill seems distinctly American, (as American as Denny and Thompson are British) and still quite otherworldly. I think that I have trouble connecting to many of Judee's more famous peers because they don’t have any kind of real weight or substance to them. They are pretty veneers of zeitgeist movements. They are like historical documents with no real historical gravity. Sill just seems to go beyond that.

I really love the song Down Where the Valleys Are Low (couldn't find a good video version, don't mess it up by listening to a poor version). I think the first time I heard it I actually stopped what I was doing because there is a real intensity to it and her voice is really masterful. It was also a live version, which was pitch perfect so doubly impressive.

Well clearly this is a cursory glance and there are other talented singers I'm overlooking, but I'm just really impressed with Sandy, Linda and Judee so I'm having trouble moving on. Suggestions are welcome of course. Until then I really wish I was hanging out in an awesome field with a great flowy dress and some very select company. Back to listening and singing along for now.

Shiny and New

"I prefer being relevant to being cool"

Fantastic interview with Alber Elbaz of Lanvin in a series about the future of fashion from those prominent in the industry. Basically Elbaz has to reconcile the idea of being an artist (several others interviewed in the series were editors and reviewers) in an arena that is increasingly influenced by commercial sales and novice access to information/product. He is (maybe one of the few legitimate) distinctly modern designers who has a classical sensibility and professionalism while still decidedly moving forward and making style new.

One of the things that struck me in the interview was when he commented on how designers are now expected to do so many collections a year, and that to maintain a pace like that in any medium is unrealistic. Wouldn't creating two impeccably done, stylistically forward, artistically strong collections a year be vastly preferable to six throwaway collections in 12 months? Of course the unfortunate answer is no, people want to consume as much as possible so that they never have to actually consider what they are trying to be a part of or defining anything of their own.

I think this idea applies with equal validity to art/film/creativity in general. Because, for the most part, the issues affecting the modern fashion world are the same ones that affect anything creative. Status, and money rule everything. No one wants to make clothes people don't want to wear, and no one wants to make a movie no one will see. Because its all about the cult of followers and the money they bring. Now, fashion as a whole is about an aesthetic that is not going to happen if the clothes remain in a showroom, so designers (like Elvaz, who had been incredibly successful at this) have to merge their artistic sensibility with the human form and some sense of functionality. Movies, books, television and art thrive when they have an audience to whom their points are imparted. (Not to say an unpopular or unseen piece of art is invalid, I'm just talking about the underlying issues that have seemed to create the current entertainment atmosphere.) And people have no attention span. They have too much to absorb. Therefore, no attention to detail, no skills for analyzing and processing, no appreciation of theme, form and structure. In a better world the myriad of options would allow people to demand quality-they could choose the best and reject anything less than. Entertainment could compete based on artistry. This unfortunately, is not the case. The only winners are what is loudest, brightest, most amusingly absurd in a non committal way. Artistry is a liability. Too slow, too complex, too disturbingly unpleasant fails to ignite the serotonin levels and is passed on for something a bit less taxing. Either artificially sweetened or cliché emotional are the only endings we accept. What is truly disturbing is that we do not just accept it as our preferred viewing, we have allowed it to become art. Our standards are so low that anything with a marginal effort is lauded.

Art is supposed to be challenging, but for anything to be challenging we have to pay attention to it. We have to require more from it. Real life is difficult, its brilliant, terrifying, funny, sad, confusing, and mad. Art, and, yes, entertainment should reflect that or its just distracting us from making any of ours better.

Below, several looks from Lanvin's stellar Fall RTW 2010 collection-

Art in Interesting Places

There is so much "high art" today that means nothing. The idea of art itself barricades it from real criticism, so much is so ancient and revered it has become a superstition. No one can look through the vapor of the idea of a piece of classical art to see what exists behind it. A real radical idea is rare. When I was younger I had a collection of beautiful notebooks and journals that I would never write in because I felt like any ideas I would have wouldn’t match the book itself. I've realized however that anything worth keeping was usually mad scratchings and scribblings on scratch paper and napkin fragments.


So what is the point here? Don’t ignore the subversive power of a real idea in a surprising location. Maybe that even increases its power.

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Sonic Atmosphere

I am interested in sonic atmospheres right now, noise and music that create and respond to entire ideas of being like an inescapable wall of sound, a rolling wave you have to succumb to. Living in an ocean of deep sound, revel in perfect moments of clarity.

Over-saturation of banality is an enemy. Believe only in what matters.

Let go to be alive.