Wednesday, Aug. 24 @ Faktorý
Tomten (from Seattle, WA)
Just Another Snake Cult
Loji
Ofvitarnir
Tomten are a baroque pop / dream pop band from Seattle, WA. They came here to perform on Menningarnótt, and are squeezing in one last minute show before they leave. Take a listen:
I’m still currently reading Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks. Reading detailed descriptions of the many of musical gifts others possess has made it clear to me just how far I am from possessing any of these. Yet music is something I’m both very connected to emotionally and interested in intellectually. Likewise, I am fascinated by the mind. If there are any answers to be found to the meaning of life, I think an understanding the mind is the key. So despite its endless anecdotes of strange patients, the book is an interesting read.
Did you know that by looking at a brain it would be hard to impossible to tell if a person was a great mathematician, scientist, writer, etc.? But there are obvious and tell-tale signs of a musician. Yes, the musical(ly-gifted) brain is visibly, physically different!
Why do we have music? Sure, it’s a cultural artifact, but it, in its various traditions, also spans across every culture. Very curious.
I always assumed that music simply makes use of a misappropriation of senses and cognative abilities that evolutionarily developed for other reasons. Sounds help us take in our environment, which is crucial for survival. Pitches and tibres help us recognize the various constituents of a scene, for example animal types. Rhythms we encounter everywhere. Having a mind for them could help us, for example, with footsteps — both for our own for running, and that of others we are hunting — along with countless other things.
Did you know that we are all born with absolute pitch recognition (similar to our absolute color recognition)? People in cultures with tonal languages (like the Chinese) are six times more likely to retain absolute pitch, while infants exposed instead to non-tonal languages like English lose this in favor for relative pitch recognition, like most of us Westerners have. If we didn’t have relative pitch, we wouldn’t recognize a melody in a different key as being the same song.
What’s become clear from reading Musicophilia so far is that there is absolutely no way that an understanding and appreciation of music is simply coincindental — that we have ears and a mind for other reasons and can also incidentally take in music with them is just not possible. Understanding music is not so simple. Music involves many parts of the brain working together in a complex and developed system. And as a general purpose brain could not be repurposed for a function as advanced as language, neither could it for music. We don’t process music as random sounds; we order it and make sense of it. Melody, timbre, harmony, rhythm — to order and interpret all these requires highly specialized faculties of the brain. Like exposure to language early in life is required for becoming a linguistic being, exposure to music early leads to the development of a musical mind (and without that early exposure people have a much more difficult developing musicality — if they are even capable of it at all).
So why music? Why did we evolve such an intricate and neurologically specialized capacity? Why do most of us crave it and attatch emotional meaning to it?
Musicophilia tells of a theory that during our evolution, we first evolved musicality as means of communication — that there was once a “proto-music-cum-proto-language.” Before linguistic language, we communicated with each other in song! Later we would evolve our linguistic capacity, in turn jettisoning music-communication, but retaining much of the capacity as evolutionary baggage. And as we are born into a world of linguistic communication (instead of musical communication), many of our remaining musical mental faculties are never developed. Our brains, as they are apt to do, even often repurpose these neglected areas to recruit them for other functions that receive more stimulation.
To me this theory is so profound — that music isn’t some crass, manipulative cultural artifact, but deeply immersed in our biology, in our humanness. It has intrinsic communicative and emotional value. Can you imagine?
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More and more I wish I wasn’t making “rock” or “pop” music, rather that I was somehow exploring these deeper connections between music and our souls.
I guess for the time being I can do both.
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I must admit, I’ve taken this theory to heart based on a good story and wishful thinking, without taking any real scientific support into account. Such good stories are easy to fall for. But then you kick yourself when you see how the science can pile up. With similar reasoning I’ve believed global warming is real and human-caused, and that the world ends in 2012.
I now think the science suggests more strongly that solar activity determines earth’s weather, temperatures, and cloud formation, and that the global warming hype obscures the most urgent crises, both environmental, social, and metaphysical, perpetrated by global industry, industrial living, and–succinctly–global capitalism.
And in regards to 2012, the world is constantly ending at each and every moment. 2012 will likely be no different.
As I’ve probably explained before, Iceland’s “export music” only comprises a small fraction of the music that is created and performed here.1 A curiousity I’ve picked up on while living here is that what foreigners typically know as “Icelandic music,” Icelanders typically know as “ugh, more cute crap.” (“Cute” being a translation of the word “krútt.”) Whereas in the States I’d typify “cute” music as naive, simplistic, nice, and often lo-fi; here the concept is extended quite a bit to cover music that is often dramatic, energetic, sophisticated, epic, nuanced, virtuoso, and typically both experimental and highly developed.
So for an American underground music fan it can be conceptually difficult to reduce Sigur Rós and Múm to simply being “cute” bands. Indeed, when we first heard these bands we perhaps thought “shoe-gazey post-rock” and “glitchy experimental electronica” respectively. Perhaps the common denominator in Icelandic music as seen from abroad was thick Icelandic accents combined with refreshing inventiveness and stellar musicianship. Though — I’ll admit that with their latest releases, Múm and Amiina have collided into almost same band. Still, as an outsider it has been hard for me to understand the reduction of Sigur Rós et al to cute. Feels like showing somebody paintings by great impressionists and getting the response, “ugh, more paintings with flowers.” Feels like they miss the point.
Recently I saw Amiina perform and was blown away by some of the simple but effective things they were doing with meter in one song and just how harmonically rich and beautiful it all was. Many of my musical friends here invariably scoff with disinterest in response. “Isn’t it just more xylophones and accordions? Ugh, just more cute crap.” Another one of these friends even once put on a Yann Tiersen album (musically and thematically just as cute as, if not cuter than, any krútt band). He also said he likes Watercolor Paintings (who are as cute to an American as Múm are to an Icelander). But of Amiina he complains “they’re such cute cliche: wearing old blue dresses, and all their artwork, it all fits formulaically.”
So perhaps that gets closer to the heart of it. Having not been steeped in it I’m oblivious to the cliche, and therefore see beyond it. Or actually I’ll give in and say perhaps I enjoy it. I like old things. I like bright colors. I always have had a profound appreciation for both. And I am sick of guitars and “rock music.” I don’t see any reasonable grounds to fault a creative scene whose aesthetic is influenced by the unique place from which it originates — the colorful houses, the old simple architecture, instruments that have been with their heritage almost since they crawled out the caves (or actually in our case, rock mud and turf huts, which wasn’t so long ago). Especially when these are the most innovative and interesting of the bands in Iceland..
I think people are too quick to see the cliches outside themselves and their identity, but quite oblivious to the cliches they participate in (or at least not as quick to fault themselves as they would fault others). I guess I grew up surrounded by a completely different set of cliches. When we were growing up cool kids had dyed-black Spock-haircuts and Locust belt buckles. 
That was a cliche, It was comon for people to feel either associated or disociated — to like those people or dislike them — based their own internalization of the aesthetic, or lack thereof. Remember Vice magazine, American Apparel, and fixed-gear bicycles? Oh yeah, as far as I know that’s still going on. Oh, you’re into punk or hardcore and tattoos? Same thing. A discounted, package deal on your tastes saves you a whole lot of exploration and thought. You find these things everywhere from the mainstream all the way over to Plan-It-X folk-punk, K-recs indie, or anarchist activism.
We all fall in for external ideas and aesthetics. Nobody is entirely original. That’s just an impossibility. But there are different ways to go about it. Some people borrow bits, analyze, synthesize, repurpose. This is perhaps often on a more conceptual or foundational level, which is then rebuilt or acted upon. But others adopt more directly — often superficially. This is the same difference as between a band that copies another band and a band that identifies with the same principles as another band. It is a question of depth. Is there meaning and thought, or is it vapid?
To my ear there is little-to-no superficial musical copying among the Icelandic krútt bands. Perhaps on the visual aesthetic side of things, but it’s hard to say. Definitely not any more than any other musical scene. Nobody has absolute aesthetic pitch. Whereas we can see a color and identify it’s frequency (blue), aesthetics are more like how most of us (without absolute pitch) hear notes. If we hear just one note we don’t know what it is, but when we hear it in the context of other notes we get a much greater understanding. When we experience two things aesthetically we can compare and contrast them (whereas in a void each is meaningless). And so it seems only natural that aesthetic works are developed in comparison or contrast to others.
Recently I’ve been reading a couple popular science books about the mind. I wonder how much the brain predetermines which type of idea+aesthetic adoption you do, and which you’re even capable of doing. I’ve sometimes been amazed at the ease others have at adopting some new trend. On one hand I’ve scoffed at how there must be nothing inherently “them” if they can apparently change so easily. (But of course the structure of their mind remains unique to them.) But on the other hand, their minds poses an advanced ability to grasp and digest the fullness and nuances of some aesthetic+conceptual movement in a way I never could. And doing so–utilizing such an advanced analtic and emotional mental capability–I assume, brings them fullfillment.2 Perhaps “tools” are not so despicable after all. Perhaps they are only human.
It is unhuman to be driven soley by intellectual persuits — even intellectual ideals in creative persuits (such as one I was advancing just three paragraphs previous). Fullfillment comes in many forms — emotional, physical, mental. From exploration or repetition. Shared and in solitude. We all have different minds, which are in various ways flexible to growth and change and in other ways predetermined. Each mind has its own requirements for fullfillment.
I guess this line of thought leaves us off here. Like what you like — scoff at everything else. Your mind will never grow beyond or transcend its boundaries. Even if you’re sarcastic and cynical (or just ironic), you’re perfectly fine how you are. But if you’re into it, open your mind.
[1] Iceland has a quite dominant pretentious contingent. (Which explains why we are building an Opera House that per capita is many many x bigger than Copenhagen’s at the cost of 2% of our GDP.) As such there is a lot of cultural and governmental support for “high music.” And classy jazz music. But there’s rock and indie, and there’s also metal. For a while there was a bustling hardcore scene. Oh yes, and being basically European, there is of course the electronic dance music! But keep in mind that we are also talking about a smalltown in a small country trying to be cosmopolitan — so more prevailant than a scene or scenes are countless one-off imitators of foreign acts or foreign scenes. What saves the music scene is that the amount of musicians per capita is huge and concentrated. Also, it’s not exclusively relegated to just a youth movement — people of all ages are active in music here (and so there is a future!). These counter-balance the insulating barrier of hundreds miles of ocean that makes Iceland an unfeasable stop for most touring bands.
[2] There are so many ways in which we cannot change the human mind. These include the behaviors that are exploited by P.R. and advertising firms. There is no becoming smarter and overcoming them. The human is not a rational species and to imply that it is is detrimental to understanding our condition. We are evolutionary designed for a different world. And since we can’t change our minds, we must change our world. We must abolish capitalism and its inherent expliotation of [our] consumer minds. Let our mind function the way it does for the right reasons — not for the benefit of corporate entities.
Lately I’ve been reading some popvlar science books abovt the brain that my parents have given me. One of the books had an online qviz to take to see what kind of brain type (disfvnction) I may have. My resvlts were inconclvsive.
Today I started reading Mvsicophilia. It talks a lot of abovt people who can hear mvsic in their heads. And how “profesional” mvsicians all can do that, and even compose in their heads. As mvch as mvsic plays a necessary part in my happiness and preoccvpies mvch of my thovghs and time, I do not have that gift. It is a strvggle. Running in snow. Swimming in honey.
Thovgh more and more I’ve been noticing certain intuitions svrfacing. Thovgh I can’t hear the melody, I’ll intvit to program in some certain MIDI notes — visvalizing a completely silent relation between distances — and when I hear it play back it’s exactly what I had in mind, bvt in a pleasant avdible form.
Still, my mental powers for evocation are close to non-existant. I’m always blown away that people are able to describe to sketch artists the face of a person they’ve only briefly seen and get a realistic portrait ovt of it. I’m more likely to see the same person again and not even recognize them. I have very poor memory for melodies. They vsvsally don’t stick vnless I’ve associated them with a mechanical learning process, like learning to play it on an instrvment. Forget abovt names.
Anyways, jvst now the page I was reading made me recall a discvssion from a philosophy class abovt ontology. We were discussing silly questions like is reality external or internal? is there a mini version of the world inside yovr head? I remember making the point that recollection wasn’t like experiencing — that seeing green and remembering green aren’t the same. Well, for me they never have been. Bvt from what I’ve since read, this is apparently not trve of the mind. Recollection can stimvlate the same parts of the brain as the sense data itself does, and for some people can be jvst as vivid, or more.
So it occvrred to me to try — that is, to close my eyes and try to see colors. First came red. Red is easy becavse that’s what shines throvgh yovr eyelids. Next–and interestingly I had no control over this decision–was to try green. It took me a little bit.. and then came bits of green noise in the red. And then there is was, flashes of hyper-vividly green forms. Pvrple! Magenta! Then orange. Sometimes a color is hard to tvne in. It takes a moment, yov gotta look arovnd and find it. Bvt it comes. Cyan. Yellow! Yellow was big. Blve? No blve.. I can hit left and right of it, bvt what is blve? I can’t find blve — I’ll come back to blve. After the vividness of the other colors I was dovbting that my red was the real deal. Went back throvgh the spectrvm. Yep. Yep. There it is! I can do this, and there’s svch a pleasvre of finding something so remarkable somewhere so vnexpected. Bvt blve? In the backgrovnd Tom Waits is singing abovt an ocean. I can see the textvre, the ripples, the vastness. I can see the sky beyond it. Bvt what I’m seeing is like what I’ve always seen.. there’s no blve, jvst the knowledge that these things are blve. And finally, there it was, blve! And blve again! Not the most vivid of the bvnch, bvt that completes the spectrvm.
Bvt then, after blve, and completely vninstigated by myself, I was treated to a svdden Avrora Borealis of the Mind — in fvll spectrvm color.
Spring has arrived. I spent two days outdoors in short sleeves, leaving my face sun-tinged, my hair wind-swept, my mood bright. My days are filling with things to do.
I’ve also discovered the wonder of the local library — wandering the isles, coming across books of interest and return day after day until I have finished it.
I like hand-me-downs. I like collecting items from people’s past lives, when they move on and leave things behind. I like stumbling across a basement that’s been forgotten for 50 years. I like when a friend is moving and leaves behind a fully-furnished life. I am a collection of such things. Snapshots of hopes and dreams. Reflections of worldviews. Experiences architected. Past intentions and alternate visions. Sorted, arranged, and reconfigured. As such I am not a very creative presence – I am merely a collage artist.
These surroundings they put work into selecting – everything has a story, a history, a context – have a lot more character than something straight from the sweatshop (and not that weight on my conscience, of putting new waste into the world). These are the rich details they have selected and designed to augment experience. I am living in their building, I am riding their rollercoaster, I am watching their film. And though they wrote the original script for these details, when left behind they become profoundly mine.
When Jamie was moving from Santa Cruz to Kansas City he left a bit of stuff behind. I painted my room with his paints, I used his cartravision as a bedside table, I used his lights to illuminate the Birds Fled From Me music video, and I still sometimes wear a pair of his old shoes! Another of these items was a book that he hadn’t yet read but came highly recommended – Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
I am since then fanscinated by Bruno Schulz – both his writing and his art. The book is a portrait of a Polish town on the verge of modernization/Americanization, but also of that world being intruded into, one precious, spirited, and furnished with interior adventures. Of that existential alienation, the aloneness that comes with being a seperate conscious being, and of having everything, having the world, having your very own world, nonetheless. His drawings are perhaps the same. It’s in the facial expressions, the dynamic between subjects. I have rarely liked art, and even then only for superficial reasons–aesthetic or consciously ideological alignment. And so I am surprised to find myself having such a profound appreciation for this. I feel like Carol King in Killing Me Softly With His Song, I feel like Friedrich Nietzsche in the Birth of Tragedy. Somebody has read the secret stories of my soul and is retelling them.
This week we had a good deal of snowfall. The streets sheets of white ice. A good week for sauntering about.
Life is strange. I was eating some soft vegetable patties and over-boiled potatoes, and something sharp is either lodged in my throat or sliced me up bad going down. So it’s been an uncomfortable couple days. But that passes.
I don’t have internet at my place, which is fantastic. So updated will be much sparser. There is where I live:
I want to paint the walls, but haven’t gotten around to it. Not sure what colors. I’m thinking green for the lower half, a light yellow for the upper half, and leaving the top white.
On Saturdays I’m out at Lækjatorg with Food Not Bombs. Come by and say hello and partake in the feast – dish after dish of the finest finery. Or, come by the apartment for tea or pancakes or something. It’s above Noodle Station on Skólavörðustígur; my doorbell is the orange one.
I’ve been working on more songs, so expect to hear those soon! I’ve been making lots of banana barley flax pancakes. I’ve been eating like a king. I’ve also been making good progress on my music video for Birds Fled From Me, which has also been a crash course in painting.
If anybody here in Reykjavík would like to play music with me, I would love that — Please be in touch.
Listening to music sometimes there’s an instrument and I’m like oh that’s cool, that one sounds like somebody hitting a piano’s strings with a stick, sort of sounds like a harpsichord – Which is silly, because I’ve played around with a dulcimer once and I definitely know what one is. I just never really put two and two together. Today I did, and now I really want to learn how to play the hammer dulcimer.
Actually, I sort of want to try my hand at making a hammered dulcimer. Just not sure how to do the tuning pegs. Also not sure if it would sound any good.
Can you guess which one is mine?
