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Music

Weirdest voicemail to date

We had Friday off during the students’ Spring Break this past week.  This was a tremendously wonderful thing.

The most amazing part of it, though, was the voicemail I had waiting for me on my phone when I returned to work this morning.  To quote from memory:

This is the Alameda County sheriff’s jail with a call.  Would you like to accept or decline?

I would have accepted, had I been here, but only because I’ve watched this too many times:

Telephone (ft. Beyonce) – Lady GaGa from jake on Vimeo.

I can’t even play guitar

But these nom-ably adorable zebra finches can – all thanks to a new art installation by French composer Celeste Boursier-Mougenot (website non-existent.)

Running at London’s Barbican Centre – and titled “Birds” – this sound experience asks the audience to walk through a curved room filled with forty free-wheeling finches, Les Paul guitars and cymbals filled with bird seed.  The amateur musicians flit and flutter from space to space, making frenetic soundscapes worthy of the best experimental musicians.

Enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed the BBC America report over coffee and email this morning.

(Thanks for the image goes to Locally Toned)

Listen: IRM by Charlotte Gainsbourg

The acting of Charlotte Gainsbourg was only made known to me after watching The Science of Sleep in 2007.  (Kate tells me that I saw her in an earlier role when we watched Jane Eyre but I really cannot remember doing so…and it would have come after, regardless.) While I find her acting compelling, I really had no compulsion to explore her musical career.

Which was – as my decisions sometimes are – a mistake.

To paraphrase Wired‘s brief review of the newest album, Gainsbourg is essentially the singing equivalent of tofu: she takes on the sonic qualities of the collaborator with whom she’s working.

On IRM, Charlotte has partnered with Beck, who served as producer, musician and vocalist. Happily, she doesn’t just sound like a female singer channeling Beck, though.  Instead, Gainsbourg absorbs all of what makes Beck spectacular, kooky and somewhat foreboding and then effortlessly pours it out again with her own (decidedly French) style.

So what’s to like on this recording?  Let’s start with the single, “Heaven Can Wait” and its delectable, disturbing video:

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Heaven Can Wait from Charlotte Gainsbourg on Vimeo.

My other favorites:

(I apologize if these videos vanish – her record label, Because Music, seems to be throwing a bit of a fit.)

Update: How I missed this fact is beyond me, but the album name IRM actually comes from MRI, a machine that Charlotte Gainsbourg spent much time in after having a cerebral hemorrhage.  She thought the sounds of the MRI would “make a great music.”  I had the exact same thought after being scanned myself two summers ago.

Watch: Dan Black triple feature

I started out this evening by literally stopping what I was doing to look up more about Dan Black after seeing his video for “Symphonies” on NewNowNext Music. It’s below. You’ll see what I mean after you watch it:

Dan Black “Symphonies” from chic & artistic on Vimeo.

All the fantastic, stylized glamour of movie credits. Clever placement of lyrics within the on screen text. ¡Esplendido!

And then I found “Alone” while getting the embed code from Vimeo:

Dan Black Alone from chic & artistic on Vimeo.

A bit like Beck meets Fischerspooner as translated through a younger generation with a smaller budget and less serious intentions.

Which leads us to “Yours.” Watch now:

Yours – DAN BLACK from The Hours Entertainment on Vimeo.

Students: there is no reason you couldn’t be doing things like this. Please, do things like this. If you need someone that looks like Dan Brown to stand around in hipster clothes in your video, I’m game.