Sven Wunder
Toryanse
scum stats: they probably pressed a decent amount...
I'm neck deep in White Stripes archival work today and then old tour manager John Baker called and we talked about old time like a couple of old guys. For seventy minutes. And I still need to update the wider team with some historical White Stripes fact-checking.
So I'm phoning in this one.
You know you've got a problem when you accidentally buy the same record twice. I don't wanna hear shit about your Discogs collection usage...I PRE-ORDERED this record twice. That's just silly dumb. And shit wasn't cheap, something like $25 all-in. Don't tell my wife. Or do. Whatever. I don't care.
Anyway, the slow erosion of my short-term memory and eventual descent into madness is YOUR gain. Impress me in the comments, however you think best, and you get my extra copy of this record.
The songs are stylized takes on traditional Japanese folk songs from the Edo period. "Toryanse" is oftentimes played in connection with traffic crosswalks in Japan. When the music is done...it is safe to walk. That's pretty cool, though I think "Sakura" is far more of a jam here...just drum style for days.
Delivered with the slavish attention to detail that I've come to expect from Sven, I'm eagerly awaiting more material from their realm.
And back to the archives.
The only fan letter I have ever written was written to the great Japanese director Kōji Wakamatsu. In college, a friend showed me some grainy, possibly bootleg, DVDs of Wakamatsu’s early work, movies that were meant to be trash exploitation but which he infused with existential angst and political unrest. They had names like GO GO SECOND TIME VIRGIN! and THE EMBRYO HUNTS IN SECRET. They were weird films, sometimes messy and hard to follow, but I couldn’t stop watching them. What I loved most were their soundtracks — dark, anarchic Free Jazz. At the time, I’d never heard anything like it. I didn’t like jazz, back then, I wasn’t into noise or even instrumental tracks generally. But these soundtracks spoke to me. I couldn’t track down any recordings so I made rips from the DVDs themselves, overlayed with Japanese dialogue I couldn’t understand. I started looking into music that might be similar, stumbling first on Kōru Abe, working my way backwards up the chain of influence through Peter Brötzmann to Anthony Braxton and finally back to Ornette Coleman and Coltrane, who I’d never bothered to listen to before. What blew my mind was understanding how these ideas bounced their way across decades and over continents, starting in America only to become the obscure Eastern soundtrack to a movie imported back to little Western me. (And look, here we are: another musical bounce, Japanese traffic lights to Swedish musician to American listener.) My fan letter to Wakamatsu, dutifully translated by my friend, ran more than twelve pages. I told him about how much I loved his storytelling, his odd visuals, his embrace of chaos, and all about my musical “discoveries” in the wake of watching his films. Almost a year later, I recieved a note back. It was one line, written in Japanese with an English translation written in ball-point pen next to it. It said: “With no hard music there is no easy life.”
whenever I go to estate or yard sales people sometimes sell 45s from a jukebox, and they are dirt cheap. I’ll always buy them out (if I can afford it) because no one ever takes the time to root through all of the records. Anyways it’s mostly perry como, weird niche 80s jams, and dancing queen. The amount of copies I have of dancing queen is tremendous(might be 10, I’m not quite sure.) Anyways the coolest thing that has come out of buying these jukebox jams is a promotional copy of “When the Tigers Broke Free” by Pink Floyd. Which was worth $30, and that’s the most I’ve ever seen a ‘45 go for (I go for the $1 + under pile.) Its one of the coolest records I own and maybe one of the cheapest. Second only to a Jazz record I found in local store in Nashville in the free shit pile (go listen to urbie green and the 21 trombones of you haven’t heard it, its damn good).
I live in a Detroit suburb and I am angry that Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes in 2016. I am working hard to make sure that does not happen next week. I have thought about moving to Tennessee when I retire but I am second guessing this because it consistently votes for Republicans (including Trump). I do not understand this. The music industry is mostly Democratic and Nashville and Memphis are music hubs. I know it is country music which leans to the right. Just don’t know if I can live in a state like that. Sad to say. I guess Swift has no impact with her social media posts. Trump is such a disaster. An incompetent fool. He called our war dead losers and suckers. He should be getting zero votes. I am so beside myself that he will get over 50 million people voting for him. How can people be so easily manipulated? And believe all of the lies he tells?
Vote!
If you haven’t already and have the ability, do it now. Then reward yourself with vinyl.
But… VOTE
Only time this is an issue for me is when my wife and I both preorder the same album as a surprise.
I straight up get records in the mail I never remember ordering. When I check email archive always stuff I did after 2 a.m. The good part is random late night shopper me really nails his choices.
I have 14 copies of elephant by the white stripes. if I see it in a store I have to buy it. got nearly all the different original versions and several copies of the same kind. so preordering two? light
It’s just the Tao guiding you to share this music with another who will enjoy it.
Confucius say man who own own most copies of this album hold two records. ;)
Mistakes happen, haha. I’ve entered paintings accidentally into art shows simultaneously and had to forge my own artwork to pay for my idiocy. Much more difficult the second time around.