tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1 2011-11-14T23:16:32Z Movable Type 3.35 tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.249 2011-11-14T23:15:26Z 2011-11-14T23:16:32Z

you can tell with near certainty from the acoustic guitar intros that you find sometimes in some of the songs on albums by nazi black metal bands that the guitarists used to listen to aerosmith when they were kids there is something sad and lonesome in the near-total certainty that the guitarists of the nazi black metal bands liked aerosmith when they were kids back when they were kids listening to aerosmith....

you can tell with near certainty from the acoustic guitar intros that you find sometimes in some of the songs on albums by nazi black metal bands that the guitarists used to listen to aerosmith when they were kids there is something sad and lonesome in the near-total certainty that the guitarists of the nazi black metal bands liked aerosmith when they were kids back when they were kids listening to aerosmith. tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.248 2011-10-27T22:52:36Z 2011-10-27T23:06:53Z

wanted to begin by saying that in the future there would exist a poetry sufficient to describe not only the splendor of the album that's presently blasting in my kitchen but then I was forced to confess to myself and to you, my brothers and sisters, that such a poetry will never be and cannot be: or that it exists already, and that it is the poetry of the blood, the blood unvanquishable, author of all true songs and also of songs that shrug off the term like the howling of wolves or early Slayer records. I wanted moreover to...

this record by Of Antiquity screams Not for you, not for you: to almost everyone it screams this in its nearly invisible midwestern way. And yet I must tell you, as a solemn duty, that the true blood lies here and not elsewhere: that real ambition comes now cloaked in the garish colors of desktop publishing and broken CD spindle teeth. I wanted to begin by saying that someday a poetry would come to be in which the praises of the album Nocturnal Grind might someday be sung but that poetry cannot come or else it exists already in the smallness in the sufficiency in the resistance. ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.247 2011-09-08T14:54:52Z 2011-09-08T15:04:05Z

dear power metal bands it's important to use real pianos I really can't stress this enough we play a low-stakes game a trillion years ago power metal might have meant a paycheck now it's craft for the love of craft which means that if you're going to do it you have to be willing to bleed for it or else why bother those of us who respond to what you do with hearts still keen to feel wonder in this world are offended by these digital pianos seriously get a studio with a big honkin' grand and unleash your inner...

dear power metal bands it's important to use real pianos I really can't stress this enough we play a low-stakes game a trillion years ago power metal might have meant a paycheck now it's craft for the love of craft which means that if you're going to do it you have to be willing to bleed for it or else why bother those of us who respond to what you do with hearts still keen to feel wonder in this world are offended by these digital pianos seriously get a studio with a big honkin' grand and unleash your inner Liszts put a candle on the damn thing and let the wax drip do the damn thing do the damn thing all night but of this patchy depthless grand-piano-setting style let us hear no more and meanwhile tell your vocalists who think we don't notice little autotune fixes that I will have words for them in Hell tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.246 2011-06-05T23:15:41Z 2011-06-06T00:07:29Z

attention everybody at my funeral I am looking at you from a keyhole in time somewhere way back in the mists of when I was alive & was probably avoiding most of you because, a., I am a bad friend, and because b., I crave solitude, but be all that as it may, I can see you, & I can't help noting that you have ignored my explicit instructions, to wit, that you play The World, the Flesh, the Devil by In Solitude when the day to put me in the ground has arrived at last, i.e., today. So from...

The World, the Flesh, the Devil by In Solitude when the day to put me in the ground has arrived at last, i.e., today. So from my hawk's view of your rebellion against a dead man's wishes, let me just take one deep breath before I tell you that I hate you all, however much I may have loved you in life, which I in fact did; but the World etc is the music I wanted playing as you lowered me into the earth, and I told you as much, and if you will not start playing it now— now, as the coffin that holds me descends on its hydraulic riser— then I hope, and I pray, to Satan if necessary, that my stiff body reanimate suddenly, and punch through the box Bruce Lee style, if Bruce had been a more morbid person generally speaking, and I pray that those of you who believe in the devil feel great fear as I levitate and start singing "Serpents are Rising" to you in a voice intended to strike dread and panic into the hearts of you gathered here to mourn me: I, who evidently did not die entirely, but kept some portion of his essence back in order to let you know how much I loved this record, how quickly it came to mean quite a great deal to me really, more than I'd expected a record of dark melodic metal songs to mean to me in 2011, when I walked the earth full of life, smiling, whole, with cares great and small and sweet to have, my step lightened by rare songs such as these. do you see the corpse risen before you? are you having a bad funeral? did you even bring the damn CD? attention everybody at my funeral: it's time. ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.245 2011-02-21T10:14:29Z 2011-02-21T10:17:26Z

it was dark and also late and I was awake so I listened to the scott tuma album on digitalis and then I let it be quiet for a while; but after that I wanted to hear more music, more something like that and so I played the song ringside suite the last thing we've heard so far by souled american. there isn't any band I feel about the way I feel about them; there isn't any time in the world quite like time alone in a dark or lit room or a half-dark room or a lit one spent...

it was dark and also late and I was awake so I listened to the scott tuma album on digitalis and then I let it be quiet for a while; but after that I wanted to hear more music, more something like that and so I played the song ringside suite the last thing we've heard so far by souled american. there isn't any band I feel about the way I feel about them; there isn't any time in the world quite like time alone in a dark or lit room or a half-dark room or a lit one spent listening to them, to this; they sound like some things that they heard once, and then heard again many times over, but it's fair also to say that there's never really been anyone like them. they have chosen near-silence as goal and grail both within their practice and as part of it; the last song they shared with the world was ringside suite that was four or five years ago it was one of two songs they've released since 1997 I choose the word released for lack of a better one. I listened to ringside suite and it summoned the vague and wondrous glory of its title slow waltzing salute to images hard with grain, living images, live things; and I thought about the last plane to jakarta leaving the airstrip in the cooled cobalt blue of some night local to somewhere, God knows where and isn't saying and I looked down at the ocean through the window of that plane whose engines run sometimes loud and sometimes silent and I thought I don't do this very often any more but this, this song, this view from this window, this is why I do this. tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2011://1.244 2011-01-15T20:46:42Z 2011-01-15T21:18:44Z

ok well you know I have a rule that I only write about music here breaking that rule just because one I don't get around to writing about music much these days which is largely because there's a surfeit of people sharing music and their opinion thereupon whereas when lptj started there was kind of a deficit just feel like adding to an already blurred cacophany is only occasionally valuable and besides I'm mainly listening to Russian classical music which I'm not qualified to speak about and to heavy metal which I am qualified to speak about & have already...

]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.243 2010-12-29T21:45:18Z 2010-12-29T21:54:10Z

i. wonder if I wrote at all about that finnish band ride for revenge probably I did & probably I could check the archives but to my great surprise we now live in a world in which the archives have become: if not the problem then a pretty potent symbol of it ii. I have a double gatefold ride for revenge record that kicks my ass every time I listen to it not listening to it right now listening to anwynn right now they're only ok plenty ok it's not like I'm going to go over there and turn it...

i. wonder if I wrote at all about that finnish band ride for revenge probably I did & probably I could check the archives but to my great surprise we now live in a world in which the archives have become: if not the problem then a pretty potent symbol of it ii. I have a double gatefold ride for revenge record that kicks my ass every time I listen to it not listening to it right now listening to anwynn right now they're only ok plenty ok it's not like I'm going to go over there and turn it off kinda like the vocals despite myself but ride for revenge this is a band who when I think of them I hear the record and remember it and feel it in my body the problem with the metal now is that people will go to bat for stuff that's really quite fine and is utterly unmemorable and could not grow a barnacle if it sat in wet dock for a thousand years and another thousand and then several more thousand unrotting stable post-everything no barnacles it's fine and all but ride for revenge you may not love them when you hear them but you will remember them which was the thing which was supposed to have been the point iii. still wonder if I said all this before or something like this could probably check the archives anybody who's right now checking the archives or about to: no offense but you are symptomatic of the more general problem tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.242 2010-10-26T14:12:58Z 2010-10-26T14:16:11Z

today I shall listen to incantion's decimate christendom which when latter period death metal's pedigree is reckoned will rank high you say it's no onward to golgotha that's what you say and you're right, you're right but like don't be a dick about it decimate has a vibe too you know it's that four friends in a basement who've they've just learned they're locked in and are going to starve to death vibe let's play those riffs we were all working on before we all go crazy and start biting off our own fingers I know, I know onward to...

decimate christendom which when latter period death metal's pedigree is reckoned will rank high you say it's no onward to golgotha that's what you say and you're right, you're right but like don't be a dick about it decimate has a vibe too you know it's that four friends in a basement who've they've just learned they're locked in and are going to starve to death vibe let's play those riffs we were all working on before we all go crazy and start biting off our own fingers I know, I know onward to golgotha no one can deny it I'm just saying some of you guys ought to lend an ear to decimate christendom, that is really all I'm saying ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.241 2010-09-17T22:04:40Z 2010-09-17T22:34:52Z

unless which mind you is entirely possible your stacks run deep, you've never heard this -- and I haven't heard it in years: I bought it for a dollar when I was a scruffy young science fiction kid didn't know who hawkwind was didn't quite get what was going on can still sing some of the songs though that dude moorcock is a deeply weird singer gets in your head 2010 continues along its unusual wallhanging tapestry way I think I've heard more music I loved this year already than I heard last year and the year before combined lots...

this -- and I haven't heard it in years: I bought it for a dollar when I was a scruffy young science fiction kid didn't know who hawkwind was didn't quite get what was going on can still sing some of the songs though that dude moorcock is a deeply weird singer gets in your head 2010 continues along its unusual wallhanging tapestry way I think I've heard more music I loved this year already than I heard last year and the year before combined lots of complex gimmick fighters coming through on the circuit will explain what that means some other time anyway christofer johnsson has a vision it's not the vision he started with which appalls people who loved therion when their choruses were grander their riffs starker and when you didn't under any circumstances have a guy break in with a harmonica and then a guy with a flute but I think it's opened up onto a weird celluloid field in which gleams the new therion honestly one of the finest albums I've heard in a year when odd things hold me fastest it reminds me of that deep fix album both in terms of the scales johnsson's favoring and the vibe he squeezes from them I don't want to tell you too much about it it'll be more fun if you go explore and make your own peace with it it will help if you remember that everything eventually refers to things you heard once and then forgot all about until something conjured up what was left of them in you ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.240 2010-08-05T13:53:41Z 2010-08-05T13:54:29Z

the choruses on the new blind guardian album are stacked several dozen voices high not crazy sevenths & thirteenths brian wilson style but minor chords and towering fifths like enormous crystal sculptures in far-flung fields where the wind blows and the rain turns to ice and the traveler squints but continues on the solos meanwhile on the new blind guardian album are cleaner than ferraris yes the singer still sounds like he's afraid of a monster and yes his subject matter still comes from science fiction and fantasy books and there's a dragon on the album cover and then what's...

the choruses on the new blind guardian album are stacked several dozen voices high not crazy sevenths & thirteenths brian wilson style but minor chords and towering fifths like enormous crystal sculptures in far-flung fields where the wind blows and the rain turns to ice and the traveler squints but continues on the solos meanwhile on the new blind guardian album are cleaner than ferraris yes the singer still sounds like he's afraid of a monster and yes his subject matter still comes from science fiction and fantasy books and there's a dragon on the album cover and then what's more get this this dragon, flanked by two dudes with axes, is emerging from a fucking pyramid you've seen that bumper sticker, "real men worship jesus" go ahead keep telling yourself that tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.239 2010-07-16T02:21:43Z 2010-07-16T02:38:54Z

went out tonight to see the new paul taylor piece along with esplanade which remains among the most beautiful things I've ever seen phantasmagoria brings half a dozen different things into the frame and lets them sort of collide except collisions break things whereas what happens here is an absolute harmony in which the old yeats question becomes totally incomprehensible it's tremendous but esplanade man I'm pretty sure that's one of the greatest things ever attempted by anyone I've seen it twice now and I like vivaldi & all but I think you could perform this piece without any music...

the new paul taylor piece along with esplanade which remains among the most beautiful things I've ever seen phantasmagoria brings half a dozen different things into the frame and lets them sort of collide except collisions break things whereas what happens here is an absolute harmony in which the old yeats question becomes totally incomprehensible it's tremendous but esplanade man I'm pretty sure that's one of the greatest things ever attempted by anyone I've seen it twice now and I like vivaldi & all but I think you could perform this piece without any music at all and I'd still end up in the same condition awed wrecked shouting with joy I knew but didn't know a guy who shot himself last summer I feel like somewhere in esplanade is the truth that would liberate the suicides we all grow up and endure partings that separate us from more things than one our younger selves our sense of play the spectre of some internal divorce from the self that makes us who we are looms and threatens to capture us in spreading shadow we can't let that happen we have to feel everything as deeply as we can let it run through us and then having taken in as much as we can leap into the air with our friends by our sides and if not with friends then with the audience before us knowing they're there whether we can see them or not in the often blinding glare of the footlights ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.238 2010-07-08T15:37:57Z 2010-07-08T15:47:57Z

gonna go out on a limb here and say that somewhere out beyond the final star in the universe there is a building standing on a grassy hill suspended there in the final iteration of all seeing like the cover of some trippy science fiction paperback and since I am feeling emboldened to describe things seen by few and remembered by fewer let me further speculate that there is a record player inside the building and speakers in the windows on the second floor the speakers point out toward the small field whose terminus is the void; the turntable to...

wisdom of the few its sleeve is on hi-gloss stock and it's an awesome record no matter what anybody tells you if you listen to it now as many times as you can then when you arrive at that final floating island it will feel very familiar to you. on the other hand if you wait then you'll be really surprised the choice is yours, as mr. case, my algebra teacher, used to say ]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.237 2010-06-11T16:23:11Z 2010-06-11T16:24:48Z

the rain falls in early June on the green prairie that must somewhere have a beginning but the prairie if asked: "where was your origin?" wouldn't answer, not because it has no mouth to speak of or with but because neither it nor any of us on it have any idea the question resembles "what is zero minus zero" some places when you're there make a point of quietly and effortlessly erasing all that preceded them when we emerge from these places we find that they have congealed around a point somewhere in our thoughts and the point resembles a...

Trouble in Dreams was an underrated record]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.236 2010-06-07T08:04:58Z 2010-06-07T08:17:42Z

cut it out marty cry the children we know it's you and not some ghost or weird zombie creature nobody ever heard of just good ol marty if only you believe in miracles, so would I even as a spirit in the trees you 1) can't get your tenses straight and 2) have a super pretty voice but here is the thing about marty balin in the trees and the children who shrug off his little ghost game: they all listen to the same new record when they go to sleep tonight on the floor of the forest that record...

if only you believe in miracles, so would I even as a spirit in the trees you 1) can't get your tenses straight and 2) have a super pretty voice but here is the thing about marty balin in the trees and the children who shrug off his little ghost game: they all listen to the same new record when they go to sleep tonight on the floor of the forest that record is by jacob newman and it is called reflections and diffusions, available on the earth mantra label which gives its records away for free about that title by the way one day I will hire some death metal guys to write titles for the albums of the new age guys to stop the new age guys from using words like "reflections" and then we will all walk through the dark woods meditating on what we've learned cut it out marty we know it's you]]> tag:www.lastplanetojakarta.com,2010://1.235 2010-05-02T00:36:33Z 2010-05-02T01:11:25Z

after a year in which so much bad stuff had gone down that it still pains me a little to remember it but having come out still breathing, still fighting, alive, hardly able to believe that i was still somewhat whole, i gave myself a present. i flew to tennessee to see amy grant who was touring the twentieth anniversary of her album lead me on, which was special to me. i have been meaning to write an article about the whole experience for some time now maybe pitch it to some of those magazines that run personal-narrative articles you...

lead me on, which was special to me. i have been meaning to write an article about the whole experience for some time now maybe pitch it to some of those magazines that run personal-narrative articles you know the kind of article i'm talking about they begin in medias personal res and then gently flesh out a few details and toward they end they circle some greater truth like a dog who's worried there's a trap somewhere near the food dish. i wrote the intro to the article and tucked it away. it was going to take a long time to process how i'd felt seeing those songs played by the band that recorded them, or most of that band. today i learned that will owsley, who played on that record, is dead by his own hand. mourn for his family, mourn for his friends, mourn for the darkness so deep that a man can see no way out. will owsley, you are gone and can't hear my voice. i bear testimony that your music, while you were here, made an enormous difference to lots of people. i was one of them and i'll remember you. who among us has not stood near the abyss that claimed you, and heard in its roar some ghost of a liar's promise, and wondered how hard it it would be to find out, at last? let those few of us count themselves blessed indeed. ]]>