Back in the day i used to take extensive notes while listening to music. The thing is - my brain generates a lot of thoughts and when they just float around my head starts to boil and having it hot is no good.
And when you write it down - the pressure's off and you can keep your head fresh.
I stopped doing that due to work-related burnout. But why not try it again?
Here are some of my notes on songs by seminal New York No Wave band DNA.
The thing you need to know about DNA is that this was the band that wasn't in the whole music thing. They were doing a thing of their own that just happened to be expressed with sounds. Also - this is how Sonic Youth would have sounded like if all the articles about them were accurate.
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1 - New Fast
This song is like sonic naked lunch moment doing start-stop charlestone with a thousand yard stare and reverse poker face grin. It feels awkward but obscenely right.
The opening bass bumble is begging to be cut for sample loop and playing until the end of time. It scratches your back and finds out that there is nothing underneath and does nothing about that.
The scramble avalanche part of the song is something happening to me every time i think of paper smelling like cheese. messes up the wiring bigly.
Verse melody is the sound of things dragging on when everything around seems to stop.
Also - the guitar part on the verse sounds like chicken cutting braggadocio verses against the sky for being too grey to be blue in their eyes.
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2 - 5:30
I don't know why - the opening notes sounds like a prelude for Red Alert's death part.
But then songs decides to take a journey to the center of the earth.
But it turns out that there is a swamp of molten quicksand peanut butter inside and the song falls into it.
And then it tries to get out but it is burns too hard so the song throws in agony instead but it is all futile anyway and so it succumbs to its dark fate without ever coming to any resolution.
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3 - Blonde Red Head
There is a horse galoping in the distance. I think so 'cause it is pitch black darkness all around and there these particularly evocative rumblings.
I can hear Johnny Depp gearing up to do his best Jack Kerouac impersonation but never having enough guts to start going. I guess he's doing an invisible man schtick instead.
This would've been a nice waltz if those chords just stuck on a loop. By the time it shifts into more menacing dissonant tone there is a notion that monitors are really off and folks don't hear that they play in different keys.
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4 - 32123
The beauty of this song is that it doesn't even try to do anything but bumble along some notes.
The guitar sounds like the wall crumbling under the pressure of somebody breathing really hard.
The cracks accompany the slow crumbling with the dubious chirping whistling.
Then comes the verse which sounds like hard boiled hangover in the school play deemed too boring mid-way through so they scrambled back before the time ran out.
***
5 - New New
The opening ringing tremolo is something you can hear on the background while you are picking your nose if you think about it.
There is something charming in playing random notes as chords and then tightening the noose back and forth. It is an exercise in irritation.
When the bass tears through the thick of the hapless strumming - you know things are going to get rough.
So the guitar break into panic and starts running around in death rattle because its head was just turn off by fear itself. After some time - it dies.
The song really gets going with this stumbling bo diddley beat that has some kinky fantasies about Iron Maiden but never acknowledges that and denies any association.
Arto Lindsay definitely goes for reperformance of my neighbour Petro being drunk and stuck in the elevator and chanting his wife's name in 1995 because the rest of his vocabulary was misplaced and the verbal interface doesn't have any other words left to transmit information. I don't think it is true, but this bit got me thinking about that.
The circling bass and pointly drum roll are confused about it and try to stop by being obnoxiously pointless. It doesn't help so the song erupt in a futile stump into nowhere.
***
6 - Lying on the sofa of life
That bass slide and drone really doesn't work because of all the treble.
The episodic splats of drums coupled with bass slap is a prelude for the body imploding into itself and becoming a crumpled bunch of hair and earwax.
And then it starts again because "love me two times" - but this time bass slap make a little melody that suggests to not think too hard about it.
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7 - Newest Fastest
Imagine early Swans bonecrushing stomp not being pretentious and just being a childish mashing on the instruments in a monotonous menacing groove.
The song sonically tells a story of mind processing the fact of the body's innards combusting due to pressure, because body happened to be in the outer space out of nowhere. This whole thing happened because of taking a breath to stomach this situation.
For some reason the cognition of this situation takes much more time than the situation itself. I suppose it is fun to think about it and then to reflect on that.
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8 - Detach
Imagine having nothing to play and attempting to pull a song out of thin air by simply playing on the instrument. You hope that it all will eventually come together or at least you will generate enough ideas to subsequently turn them into songs.
But it never comes and it goes on and on as an exercise in futility until the band locks into the groove and starts doing something and it is caveman 1/1-2 stomp with a bit shoo on the tail but it would have been much better as a part of something bigger because as it is it sounds like a public service announcement soundtrack.
***
9 - New New
The other version of the song is actually much more focused.
The introductory tremolo really tries to interpret "I wanna be your dog" intro into a string quartet tune-up impersonated by detuned guitar performed for a bottle of water.
Atonal strum sounds like it is soundtracking Dale and Flash Gordon being stuck in a tin can in outer space in an ersatz adaptation of Garry Garrison's Sacrifice.
Then goes an arpeggiated bass that runs in circles while the drums are tapdancing in the middle waiting for the opening to race right into a brick wall.
On the background - you can hear birds singing fountain.
It all falls apart because this whole thing is ridiculous but the song never gaves up and tries to pull itself back together. It works but the song turns into a monstrous confetti grinder that revolves but can't do anything to these pesky colourful stripes.
***
10 - Brand New
Imagine Shadows hooking up with The Deviants for an Apache jam but it gets too contemplative and slowly devolves into a murderous rampage of air and sweat.
And that angular up and down sawtooth. The room turns into a centrifuge and it starts rolling while the band is tossed around like ragdolls over and over again.
But then things get back to normal and the band tries to play Apache again but they are too roughen up to get it right.
***
11 - Not Moving
This groove reminds me of the useless machine that turns on only to turn itself off stuck on the loop and coupled with a prolonged tap dance routine with heavy chorus effect tacked on it.
At the same time, air raid oscillator is trying to find its own identity with a dogged persistence.
It tries out different tones while the drums are doing "falling down the stairs" steady beat. The repetition of the pattern is reminiscent of the infinite zoom. Also reminds me of Herr Starr trying out new hats in front of the mirror trying to cover one of his defining features.
Then the song gets back to the original groove but it gets too dullsome so they stop.
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