R.I.P Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007), the german composer passed away this december.

Post war Germany has seen a gradual demise of its music scene to a point where few traditional projects are heard anywhere in Europe. It seems that the young musicians are so burdened with guilt by the nationalist movement in the 30’s and
40’s, that no attempts have been made of introducing the grandness and intensity characteristic of Germanic music.


The new big thing in Germany is now Balkan music, with a strong scene emerging in Berlin which has become a hub for artists from all over Eastern Europe. One such artist being DJ Shantel, winner of Radio 3’s Awards for World music, which combines electronic and Gipsy tunes. DJ Shantel observed the success of other Balkan musicians, the Gipsy brass orchestra Fanfare Ciocarlia, which experienced enormous success in the jazz clubs of Berlin a few years before.
Fanfare Ciocarlia is a twelve-piece brass band from Romania with roots in Turkish military bands. The great appeal found in their music is their optimistic approach, fast paced beats and a nonrequired attention span from the listener.


However the biggest success was found by the Ukrainian band Gogol Bordello, a multi-ethnic Gypsy punk band, which has toured Germany for two years in a row and has even made regular appearances on MTV; the well known and respected broadcasting institution.


It appears this is the end for traditional bombastic German music, in a country in which the minds of the young have been systematically neutered in Universities and where a green party has reached Parliament.


The rejection of anything Germanic has become so serious and humourless, that when David Lynch organised an absurd lecture at a Berlin university, where he presented the “Raja of Germany”, a speaker dressed in a toga and wearing something resembling a Burger King crown, the audience took it as genuine. Even more, when the Raja began shouting nationalist slogans in a manner resembling that of Goebbels, everything turned to chaos, when it would be expected that such a display would not be taken as real.

From Stockhausen to Lynch in 400 words, confused? Why would you read the last lines anyway.
Rest in peace Karlheinz Stockhausen; on with the Gipsy music.

Sunn 0))) at the Kentish Forum in London

Thirty days after witnessing the megalithic musical concept and what can only be the most thunderous sound ever created, the effect of seeing Sunn0))) live has still not worn off. If we could grade the importance of a live concert by the impression made on a listener, then this performance can only get the highest marks.




We seem to think of life as an inexhaustible well, but things happen only a certain number of times and a small number really. How many more times would you remember an event from your life, five of six times perhaps, maybe less; some after noon so deeply part of your being, that you cannot even consider living without it, perhaps five or six times more, perhaps less.



However in this case the experience was beyond recording memories, because the composition of Sunn 0))) can barely be called musical, alchemy could only be the only appropriate word to describe this noise, sound which is not heard, but felt with your loins. This experience is something which has imbedded itself on to the brain and which I do not have to go back to remember, but rather remains attached as a stain on my mind.


Call me impressionable but until one has not seen Sunn 0))) live, cannot compare it to any other concert. Go check this band live and while you’re at it, take a deaf friend with you, they might just be able to hear it.

Bonus Feature: hardcore journalism with a difference

One of the most mind-blowing websites I have discovered recently is a project made by professors at the University of Lyon, backed by one of its faculties, the Institute of Oriental Asia; a project called Chinese Torture/Supplice Chinois: Iconographic , Historical and Literary Approaches of an Exotic Representation.What makes this site unusual is the professionalism with which a subject so hard to digest such as torture has been presented.


The website is a portrait of what has often been associated with Chinese life at the beginning of the 20th century: cruelty on a mythical proportion and punishment applied by the authorities during the late imperial China, a period which may be
described as feudal even though it is so close to our times. Thus a very unusual window in history has been opened, where law making in the manner comparable only to the middle ages in Europe, has been recorded by journalists in a modern era with the help of modern equipment.



The resources on the subject are diverse and plentiful, but the main window inside this unusual topic is the large collection of pictures presented on the website, from watercolours, engravings and photographs of executions.
At first glance if you happen to stumble across the visual references, the website may appear as a shock site, though what makes this website stand apart from other websites is the amount of resources and research concerned with this gruesome subject. The team behind the project numbers 20 academics, which leads for the question to be asked; why would a team of academics research and record a morbid collection of essays and photographs depicting such brutality?


Over the years the internet has been flooded with shock sites which have been condemned for trying to capture an audience by presenting shocking material in a superficial manner. Many websites of similar type of material have been gathering images of riots, fights and other brutality, and example being comegetyousome.com which claimed as reason behind its existence, the need for society to become aware of such evil.


The reasoning behind the French website is a bit more confusing, since it is also a government funded project. Perhaps, the motive may be that while it is hard enough to reconcile oneself to so much evil in the world, it may be even harder to reconcile oneself to good people who have no understanding of evil.
This look at these abuses is only a drop in the bucket. Apologists argue that 'life was harder then, people were used to pain', but their arguments fall flat at the shrieks of unreasoning agony that echo throughout history.



Warning: I have not posted the URL for the website, only its title since it should be visited responsably; it contains material which is likely to produce depression and nightmares without a background into such material from the viewer.