Ok Malach what the Hell are you playing now?

6.09.2007

No Plugs.
And an early blog, got some RPGing tonight.

You are Listening too . . .
Revolution 9, a 8 minute long, experimental, avant garde sound collage off The White Album. Yes it is rather disturbing, and bothers many people who have listened to it. Very dark also, it is actually very hard and uncomfortable to listen to the entire piece, but try it. This piece marked the the peak of the bands studio experimentation and for a pop music album was unprecedented. The recording was actually begun as an ending to Revoltion 1 and developed into a Musique concrète and sound collage highly influenced by the likes of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen futher manipulated with editing and sound modification (if you have stereo sound to can hear the panning and fading). The piece is rife with tape loops, vocal and music sound clips, sound effects, and strange noises. As with Revolution the them of the piece is the 1968 French riots, and the piece in an attempt to get the feeling and violence of those riots. At just over 8 minutes long it is the longest Beatles track ever released.

McCartney had little to do, and perhaps nothing to do with the track, and it was the brainchild of Lennon and Harrison, Starr, and Yoko Ono and made varying degrees of contributions. Ono's obvious avant garde's influences are obvious in the track, and McCartney and George Martin were both against releasing the track on the album, but Lennon won out.

The song structure begins with a breif piano intro, and then is followed by the oft repeated "Number 9" loop which fades in and out (and left and right) as a motif of the piece. There is choas, screamng, crowd sounds, feedback, unrehearsed overdubs, and continued tape looping that follows.

Portions of the song are recordings of Beethoven and Sebilius and the piece is one of the earliest examples of sampling (many people don't realize the huge influence the Beatles had on rap and hip hop). Other bits of audio include nonsensical rambling, various food and swallowing sounds, reversed recordings, and NFL chants of all things.

This mix of sound had not only heavy influence on the later "Paul is Dead" controversy, but also Charlie Manson drew odd interpretations from the sound collage, and related Revolution 9 to Revelation 9 (hey Martin Luther, your were right in the money with your opinion about Revelation).

Interestingly, McCartney recorded a similar piece around 13 minutes long called Carnival of Light. A year or so early that thus far has never been released, and very few people have ever heard.

If you would like some more on this song, there is a interesting blow by blow of the entire piece here, and a pretty in depth analysis here. You can also go here and play around with some of the tape loops. And if you want to really drive yourself batty some guy here re-recorded it backward.

The Mood of Red Sox Nation.
After a long slumber JD Drew came back to life. The Mood: I wish we could always play the NL.

Oh man . .
Do I miss the Pope's blog.

Damn.
Watch those sports cremes people.

Malach's Quote/Video of the Day
If you gave me a million years to ponder, I would've never guessed that true romance and Detroit would ever go together. - Alabama Whitman

I am Malach and true romance does go with Malach