sovay | When the Devil is too busy and Death's a bit too much

I didn't have time to mention before I ran for the trains yesterday, but the mail brought two very welcome gifts: Projekt Presents: A Dark Cabaret,* the compilation that caught my penniless attention last week and which

oldcharliebrown most thoughtfully procured for me (IOU fiction), and

erzebet's Vertebrate Dreams, a tiny and beautifully detailed collection of images and text from her bone panels. So far, I love the CD—and now I'm eyeing other bands on their site, if for no other reason that some of the names intrigue me. (Android Lust? Voltaire? Faith & Disease?) I think I'm still getting over at least the surface likeness of Revue Noir to the Dresden Dolls, although I will acknowledge that Nicki Jaine's voice is closer to Marlene Dietrich than Amanda Palmer, but I've imprinted on Black Tape for a Blue Girl already and I'm getting there with Katzenjammer Kabarett and Pretty Balanced. I need more music. I always need more music. I can't afford it, but there are worse habits . . .**

In the realm of something completely different, I was in New York City last night to see Rigoletto with a dear someone who does not have a livejournal (and would never remember to update it if he did) and incidentally meet up with

shirei_shibolim, whom I hadn't seen since 2003. We had dinner at Pizza Cave, where I was informed that the frum-rock from the overhead speakers was not part of the customary ambience—as indeed no speeded-up pop version of "Chiribim, Chiribom" with synthesized horn should ever be—and found out that technically we had gotten these tickets as part of a singles event at the Met. Well, so long as we got free champagne . . . I also had the rather curious experience of seeing for the first time an opera whose story I knew from a much later adaptation: the film Rick, which updates the plot of Rigoletto to a slightly Kafkaesque corporate world and plays up the blackly comedic aspects (to wrenching effect in the last act). I suppose I'll have the same slight dissonance if I ever see Madama Butterfly—thank you, Miss Saigon—but at least that's a case of opera converted to musical, not opera converted to twisted Christmas morality play with accordion soundtrack. I found myself cataloguing the differences as the opera progressed—and occasionally finding the film preferable. That said, I liked Rigoletto very much: particularly Rolando Villazón as the Duke and Eric Halfvarson as Sparafucile; fine actors as well as singers, and that's a dimension of operatic performance that matters to me. I should like to be in more operas when I have time in my life again.

I caught the train back this morning; consequently, I am a little short on sleep. I should get to bed before I download the entirety of Projekt's online MP3s, anyway. We'll see what this does to my dreams.

*I was surprised and rather pleased to realize that Projekt is the label responsible for This Ascension, whom I previously knew only from a sort of ethereal-rock version of "Personent Hodie" that VikingZen once put on a writing mix for me. If you're curious, it's available here. Excuse me while I download the rest.

**Perhaps. Exhibit A: I've just downloaded Voltaire's "When You're Evil." Even if I weren't honor-bound to respect someone who titles an album The Devil's Bris, I'd fall in love with this corrosive klezmer anyway. Now it'll be stuck in my head all night and I'll lie awake wondering if there's any way I could ever contrive to get on the crew of a film version of The Master and Margarita so I could slip this in over the credits. And hope that my books sell, so I can afford the rest of the album . . .

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah, the wonders of Projekt...

Black Tape for a Blue Girl were, in my humblest of opinions, very inconsistent in their output (leader of band runs label where band releases music = "we can release, basically, any crap we want with no editorial input from anyone," which almost always leads to listener distress), but are wonderful when you find the good stuff.

Lycia have always been my favorite Projekt band... Ionia still gets play after... erm. You hadn't hit puberty when it came out. Did someone reserve my space at the nursing home? I'm ready for it now...

What I've heard of Black Tape for a Blue Girl has been several versions of "Knock Three Times," their free bootleg album, and whatever was available for free download on their site; so far, I haven't found anything dubious. Which of their albums would you recommend, so that I never do?

I don't think I've downloaded any Lycia yet, although I have Tara VanFlower's "I Lost the Moon" and Mike VanPortFleet's "Echoes of a Lost Sea." (The latter of these reminds me a little of David Sylvian and Holgar Czukay's "Plight (The Spiraling of Winter Ghosts)" in its cold soundscape; this is not a bad thing at all.) Again, recommendations?

... erm. You hadn't hit puberty when it came out. Did someone reserve my space at the nursing home?

Oh, fear not. I listen to any amount of music from before I was born or grown—it wasn't until late college and early grad school, really, that I started listening to music actually written and popular in my lifetime.

for Black Tape: Actually, I'd start with the BT tribute album Of These Reminders, which will give you a wide, wide range of Projekt bands and let you decide what works for you lyrically from BT's catalog (as well, you get Lycia's version of "Across a Thousand Blades," so when you hear BT's version, you don't immediately shun it for life; Lycia does it fantastically, and without the... overeagerness, for lack of a better term... BT imparts). Human Drama! Attrition! Faith & Disease! Unquiet Void! And more, more, good god so much more!, as the Onion says. From there, find the relevant tracks on BT albums, and away you go.

My own experience with BT, ironically, is spottier than it is with just about every other band on the label. This is probably because I was a fan of so many of them before Projekt picked them up...

* * *

for Lycia: Ionia is absolutely the place to start. Not a note out of place on that disc. (Trivia: I've been trying, sporadically, to pull Lycia out of retirement for one reunion show for... six years? seven? now, as the Vans live about ten miles from me. No luck yet, though.)

I like Sam, but not always his music, and I am more than a little shy of picking up BTFBG... I enjoyed Scavenger Bride, but not all the tracks, by any means.

Ah, across 1000 blades... I adore that song, but only because I am congenitally incapable of taking it seriously. I was an angst ridden 17 year old when first I heard it, and it got me laughing like nothing else did until I was well into my 20s. If you've ever heard Swans "Failure," that stands out as another veritable masterpiece of pure bathos.

I've been trying, sporadically, to pull Lycia out of retirement for one reunion show for... six years? seven? now, as the Vans live about ten miles from me.

If you pull it off, I would be eternally grateful.

So I just got around to transcribing the lyrics to "Across a Thousand Blades."

As you try to pierce my poisoned flesh
As I try to pierce your tortured heart

. . . I was very impressed.

I found the CD you mentioned originally (Dark Cabaret) on the cheap and have been enjoying it a lot. I hesitated previously because I have a lot of those songs already (Dresden Dolls, Audra, Jill Tracy, The Rozz Williams/Gitane Demone song which has been a mainstay of my "gift" mixes for years...), but I've really been enjoying it, particularly "Simon's Sleeping."

Anyway

Are you interested in a musical exchange?
I've come up with an answer to your original question on what I would want for music in return, which would be anything to which you think the hypothetical person (me in this case) should be listening, but about which they may not have heard. In either case, I have a disc of MP3s on hand that has almost everything I would have compiled to give you (and very little I would not have).

...hrm, maybe a bad idea, because if you find yourself embracing the whole thing, your wallet will take a very severe hit not long after this. Ah, to just be discovering the wonderful world of etheral, dreamy goth again...

I think I'm less fond of ethereal than some of the weirder, more lyrically edgy stuff, but I have noticed that the two are not mutually exclusive. Right now I have zero money, but thanks for the recommendations! Someday I will have money again, and then I can put them into effect . . .

totally OT: finished Singing Innocence and Experience last night. I think I've been to that art store in "Till Human Voices Wake Us."

Heh. Entirely likely. It was shamelessly stolen from the real world. : P

When the Devil is too busy and Death's a bit too much

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