New collaboration

I've never read the source material, and I know next to nothing about it, but when three incredible artists (David Fincher, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) come together on a project, this is the kind of thing you can get. Impressive trailer, amazing cover.

Fresh off of their collaboration on The Soical Network, the contemporary masters are back at work together again. I can't wait to see the finished product.

Musical prodigies

Musical prodigies. The true game changers. Artists that stand on the precipice and give the world music that will never be forgotten. The transcenders. The progressers. The virtuoso's you can point at and unequivocally know were ahead of their time and culture.

Plant and Page. Bowie. Morrison. Reznor. Hendrix. They are classical. Their art is eternal. Jackson. Mercury. Yorke. Kobain. Ramone. True rock prodigies.

But who was the last musical transcendent that appeared from the nether and set the art form of music as we know it on a new course of exploration? It feels overdue to me. Enter the current mediocrity of contemporary music.

I'm not someone that likes to attack people for their art. The detractors that spend their time and energy filling blogs, websites and forum posts with venom for things they don't like, are people I am always keen to distance myself from. That kind of 'bad karma' doesn't do anyone any good. If you don't like something, don't waste your time. That said, I find it hard to get too connected to any music I've heard in the past few years. Maybe it's a sign I'm getting old, and that the generation gap is growing like a chasm between a pair of tectonic plates, separating at glacial speed. I've just noticed recently that every new band I hear is, for want of a better word, plain. I haven't had a piece of music get inside my blood, and speak to my soul, the way artists like Nine Inch Nails or David Bowie did the first time I heard them. Maybe music isn't what it used to be. Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age. Maybe I'm going deaf. Who knows. I just know that I have to stop myself almost daily from thinking that whatever contemporary band I'm hearing on the radio doesn't measure up to what I used to hear in my younger days, lest I become a crotchety, old curmudgeon, complaining that new musicians can't do covers that compare to originals. I need a new rock prodigy to light the fire I used to feel.

There could, of course, be an external explanation for how underwhelming I find current artists. Maybe because bands are worrying too much about their twitter feeds and what kind of DRM their new tracks are embedded with, rather than being concerned about committing some gross acts of rock 'n roll, drug fuelled debauchery, has something to do with it. I don't use drugs personally, but if music history has taught us only one thing, it's that drug culture and amazing music run parallel. Name any great artist, and chances are their 'third eye' was teased open with a little chemical inspiration.

To equate that point better than I ever could, here's a clip from the late, great Bill Hicks on music and drugs...

Girl power

Late last year, like many others, I watched the trailer for David Fincher's 'The Social Network'. It had quite an effect on me. Visually it was a little underwhelming. It consisted of a mash up of shots of Facebook pages, seemingly random profile photo's of people fading in and out, relationship status' being updated, and words like 'where are you?' and 'this day sucks!' filling the screen with the ominous text cursor blinking next to them. All this was obviously there to show how personalized and integrated the social networking phenomenon of 'Facebook' has become in how people interact. However, the thing that made this trailer so effective to me was the haunting cover of Radiohead's 'Creep', which sounded to me like it had been performed by a women's choir with a simple, understated piano accompaniment. Thom Yorke's beautifully angst filled lyricism, combined with this angelic performance, really fit and catapulted the bittersweet mood that the trailer was obviously trying to invoke.

I liked the cover so much that I did a little looking about on google and found that it had been arranged and performed by two brothers, the Kolcancy Brothers, and a Belgian girls choir, known collectively as 'Scala'. To quote Scala's website; "Scala is a youth choir from Aarschot, Belgium, roughly sixty teenage girls, directed by two talented brothers, receiving international recognition." And much deserved recognition, in my opinion. After listening to a few more Scala tracks I was very impressed with what I heard. Scala has made five studio albums, along with a collection of live recordings. They do alot of covers of well known acts. Some that jumped out at me as being particularly good were 'Underneath it All' by Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', Rammstein's 'Engel' and 'I Touch Myself' by The Divynils. The group tackles all kinds of genres, and manage to make everything they do sound delicate, precise and, above all, hauntingly beautiful. The instrumentals in Scala's music are always understated, typically nothing more than some sombre, simple piano. The vocalisation by the sixty or so teenage choir singers are amazing; beautifully harmonized and directed.

If you look at the impressive list of well known songs that Scala has tackled, it's easy to recommend the group to anyone that loves covers. They've done songs by Garabge, The Chilli Peppers, The Verve, Sinead O'Connor, Muse, The Police, Depeche Mode; the list goes on and on. It's also easy to recommend Scala to anyone that loves beautiful music. Scala is amazing. In fact, the group is fast becoming my current musical obsession.

You can find Scala's website here.

Dean & Gene Ween

In an American high school in an eighth grade class two dudes named Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo met, fate conspired and then what might be one of the greatest bands that has ever walked the earth was formed. Ween.

I have not been a life long Ween fan, which is a real shame. My only exposure to Ween was in the mid nineties when, inexplicably, 'Push th' Little Daisies' became a huge hit for them. That video was on alot here in Australia and it consisted of the duo, who called themselves Dean and Gene Ween, performing in some kind of inebriated state a sickly sweet pop love song. I didn't get it. I think alot of people didn't get it and that was the last I heard of Ween for almost eighteen years. Then I come across some stuff about Ween online. I hear Henry Rollins doing a hilarious spoken word bit about them. I start reading about this huge underground following for this band on some alternative music sites. I hit Weens Wikipedia page and the bands website. Interest is picked and then enter the last six months or so. I grab a Ween album at random from itunes. The album is 'The Mollusk'. I listen to it. I'm hooked. This album is amazing. It's a nautically themed pop-rock record, throwing some satire on everything from 60's Brit pop with tracks like 'Buckingham Green' and 'The Mollusk', to Irish drinking songs with 'The Blarney Stone'. I immediately download the rest of Ween's library. Over the past several months I fall in love with this band. They seem to jump from genre to genre with ease with some great pop, some pretty kicking rock songs, some psychedelic experimental stuff and even an entire country album called '12 Golden Country Greats' (with 10 tracks on it). I listen to some of their live recordings like 'At the Cat's Cradle' and 'Live at Stubbs'. I hear a band having so much damn fun. Ween's appreciation for drug culture becomes apparent. When I listen to Ween I hear two guys (probably stoned) making the music that they want to make. This is the heart and soul of artistic integrity. Ween doesn't pander to trends, they skirt the lines of classic pop but the 'against the grain', alternative nature of their sound is always there. When you listen to some Ween albums its almost like listening to two guys with guitars and a DAT machine in a recording studio making music simply to amuse themselves and one another. There is no pretense there.

My big regret is that it took me so damn long to realize this brilliant band were doing what they do. I could have been listening to these guys all through high school. They would have been a serious part of my 'life's soundtrack', if you will. I suspect they still will be, I just wish I had been turned on to Ween before six months ago. Anyway, if you want some amazing, honest, unpretentious, psychedelic rock-pop then look no further than Ween. I will say it again; possibly the greatest band to ever walk the earth. All hail the might Boognish, may he grant you wealth and power.

Return of the Pretty Hate Machine

It was recently announced on the Nine Inch Nails official website that NIN's first album, Pretty Hate Machine, is going to be remastered and re-issued. This, I have to say, is very good news. I have always loved Pretty Hate Machine since I was first exposed to it in early high school. It is a fantastic album from start to finish. The record is almost entirely electronic, even more synth heavy than any of Reznor's later NIN albums. Reznor wrote and recorded Hate Machine when he was barely into his twenties, and although it lacks the sonic complexity of later stuff there is no denying the importance of this album not only to Nine Inch Nails fans such as myself, but also to the progression of modern music itself during the early nineties when it was released.

However the thing with Pretty Hate Machine is, that by modern standards, this just isn't a very well produced record. It sounds very 'tinny' and the lower bass tones are very understated. This gives the album a dated sound and it has always bothered me. To hear such brilliantly written and arranged tracks so under-produced dates this album so much. I can't wait to hear this thing once Reznor has put it through the sound lab and gives these songs a new life.

The currently announced release date is the 22nd of November. I will be making sure I have space cleared and ready on my mp3 player come November.