intimacy

Bittersweet Symphony (Arca, Arca review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

 

Let we forget, music doesn’t always have to have lyrics, and sometimes it’s even more beautiful when it does have lyrics, but we don’t understand the lyrics that we’re listening to. Because of language barriers.

Just something mull over in preparation of this week’s review.

Arca – Arca

released April 7, 2017
********* 9/10

 

Alejandro Ghersi, better known by his stage name Arca, is a Venezuelan electronic DJ, songwriter and producer. He has released three studio albums to-date, including the self-titled Arca (which I’m about to review). Ghersi has worked with artists like Bjork and Kanye West, so you know he’s legit.

Born into a wealthy family, Ghersi has previously lived in the United States and currently lives in London, England. His music is incredibly beautiful to listen to. Full of production value, interesting and complimentary sounds, and sometimes it is creepy as fuck too. Like that album cover, man does that ever give me the heeby jeebies.

This is the first album to feature Ghersi singing in Spanish, which is probably why it feels both foreign and familiar to me. I’m not completely without understanding of the French language, and there are some similarities between French and Spanish, plus my girlfriend understands Spanish, so I’d be remiss not to mention that. And I’m just going to out and say it, but I don’t know why electronic music is so capable of elevating itself to the same level as classical organ rich hymns, but Arca has managed yet again to entertain a strong reign over the spiritual, while upending it with his own battles of sexuality and identity.

Ghersi has been making music since he was young, and his dedication to piano as well as explorations of electronic landscapes have allowed him to transition from pianist, to synth pop teenage dream artist, to electronic guru.

Arca is a combination of those things, and also none of them. You can hear the pop throughout different parts of the album, and the amphitheatre effects are a credit of his technical training, but it’s when they are combined with his experiences as producer that we can see how the chaotic and vibrant sounds of electronic music can make this all work together.

I kind of hate to make comparisons, but it reminds me of the experiences I had listening to Sampha and his album Process a few month ago. The emotion is there, it is raw and visceral like when I listen to the track Child or Piel. There is humour found in Whip and simplicity within Coraje.

This is a soundscape and a place for intimacy. Ghersi admits that Spanish is the language he first learned to process emotion with, so it makes sense that we can feel the emotion in his lyrics when we listen closely, Anoche provides the most vulnerability that Ghersi is comfortable with.

I find myself oddly happy to be writing this post, because at first I thought I would have nothing to say about Arca and Arca. And yet, as I’ve mentioned this is an album without consequence of lyrics. Conceptually it makes me very happy to just enjoy the music and not get caught up in the intent, instead the production and emotion speaks clearly. I could see this being played at a club, in a performance piece, during a play, and even at an art gallery – it has that much range

Like an opera.

theories Summarized

 

Arc of the past few years would have expected you construct your own narrative from his work, but this time around, it’s all there on display for the world to take in and sit with. The majesty and the pageantry of sound that is Arca is both a backdrop and the main event. I don’t know you can listen to this and not be affected by it in some way, and I have this theory that no matter your personal outcome, Arca will get along just fine.

Tim!

The Truth Is Out There (Neil Strauss)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

So how many of you remember when I wrote that post a couple of months back about one of my personal goals for the year? Nope, not the one about my movie watching goals (The Watch List), and also not the one about my music reacquiring goals (The Back Catalogue). Want a hint?

It has something to do with reading. Reading via that dying form of book learning.

It’s a tough one to accomplish for sure, in a world where working 40+ hours a week is the norm, exercise, food, and sleep are required, and social relationships must exist in order to be a contributing member of society proper, where does an artist fit in time for absorbing artistic endeavours in tactile paper and ink objects AND find time to produce his own work? Well, obvs you have to have a schedule and a game plan.

Which is what I came up with. I wonder if you know what I’m eluding to just yet.

I’ll share a snippet from the post I have in mind to give you a reference point –

Buying a new album and film every week is a start, and participating in social media to build an empire is a good for discipline, but I’ve always found that reading is the best way to spark ideas. Which is why I’ve decided to start The Reading List. It’s ambitious for sure, but it’s the only way I know how to flesh out a process, by dreaming big and digging in.

My goal for the rest of the year, and then for the rest of my life as I know it, is to read one book a month in a packet of categories. I’m going to start slow though.

…

I will read one book a month from the 5 groupings below, slowly expanding the number of books read so that I reach the point of 5 books a month. A book for each group:

  1. LIFE – Biographies/Art/Music
  2. LOVE – Classic Fiction/Non-Fiction/Graphic Novels
  3. LEARN – Business/Leadership/Self-Help
  4. LABEL – Philosophy/Sociology/Psychology
  5. LEET -The Internet

If I can get to the point where I read a book from each topic a month, I’ll be flying pretty high. You see, dear readers, if I can embrace the 5 L’s of LANGUAGE (my own idea), then I can contribute proper to your own education and personal growth in the age of the Internet – Hence the LEET grouping.

The great thing about having a reading list is that it continuously reminds me that I should be consuming books, not because they make me smarter, but because I should be participating in culture and sharing what I learn back with you, my dear sweet readers.

The Truth About Neil Strauss

This month I decided to reach out into the LEARN section of my 5 L’s of Language and look at a book by one Neil Strauss. The book I decided to read is called The Truth, An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships. If you have been around for the past ten years, you’ll probably recognize his breakout bestseller The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society of Pickup Artists.

Now before I receive a bunch of boo/hiss comments, because as much as I don’t want to get into apologetics for pick-up artists, I’d rather do that defending thing and say that Neil Strauss is something of a pioneer in my opinion, then have you shut er down “just because”.

Bold talk timotheories, but go on.

He saw how social cues and dating etiquette was evolving in the early 2000s and because he had never had a serious relationship, he was sick of living in a victim mentality, and he went out and learned some skills to better himself and gain confidence.

We’d all be incredibly naive if we didn’t think that sex, attraction, dating and relationships didn’t have something to do with skillfulness and ability. Just like literally everything else in life.

So many of us expect romance and love to just happen for us, but we have to gain emotional intelligence and sexual prowess if we want to find that person (or persons) that compliment us appropriately and with who we also compliment.

The Truth is a book about Strauss’ realization that while he had learned how to seduce women and how to better understand what women wanted from a sexual partner, what he didn’t learn was that in order to have romance, and then healthy commitment, we have to understand our upbringing and the challenges we carried with us into adulthood. Otherwise we have half the necessary skill-set to be a functioning sexual being. Yes, the book explores themes that demonstrate how some people can live a single life, others can get polyamorous, and most of us go monogamous, but it’s our individual responsibility to figure out for ourselves what defines our intimate nature and then mature into a healthy adult.

This book taught me, that no matter what kind of sexual identity I take on, my personal happiness is still my responsibility. Whatever physical or mental imperfections I am faced with, I choose to be defined by them OR to work with and through them, especially at a pace that is manageable.

And that’s a heavy topic for an artist to tackle, whether you’re a writer like Strauss, a musician, an actor or a visual artist.

I highly recommend this one. Give it a shot, you’ll likely learn something about yourself.

Tim!

I #Love My #Dad (Father’s Day)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

That’s right, we’re doing my first-ever reaction post to my own post. I’m sure it’s been done before, but this is exciting for me, because I get to refresh you memory about my Mother’s Day post, all while celebrating the fathers in our lives.

Even better for me, because Father’s Day is a very short 3 days away, so there is still time for you to reflect on this holiday before it happens, and hopefully do something meaningful for all the dads you know.

In anticipation of writing this post, I did basically nothing for research, and at first I thought maybe it was because I was tired from the work day, or maybe it was because my girlfriend is working out of town for the summer or maybe it’s because I was scared to write about Father’s Day because we don’t communicate with our dads very easily anymore.

I’m going to share a commercial with you dear readers. This time it won’t be a satire of Mother’s Day, because all of the comedy channels seem just as ill-prepared as I am for this holiday.

See, I promised something of a mirror post, and so far so good.

The ad we just watched explicitly pointed out how disconnected we are from our families, how little time we all appear to be spending on communication and teachable moments.

Dads have always been shown to be the solid figures in our lives, whether they are there for us or not, they are stoic in their presence and reliable. But this Gillette ad uses emotions to prove that all over the world children are leaning more and more on the internet for sage wisdom and less on one of their best real-world teachers, their dads.

I have a theory that the reason why the first few things that come up when you type “Father’s Day” into Google are gift ideas is that we don’t give our dads the real gifts that they would like communication and intimacy. When you go and ask your dad for advice, your giving him an opportunity to share knowledge with you and impart some of his own personality.

A poorly kept secret is that most everyone you and I know will admit that dads are hard to shop for, but while it’s true that many of them don’t want a gift, it’s because they would much rather have an experience with you.

Another reason why I personally think Father’s Day takes a backseat is because it was invented to complement Mother’s Day. And on top of that when Father’s Day initially took off, it only received attention through the promotion of it’s founder Sonora Smart Dodd. When she left to study at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1920s, the holiday faded away.

When Dodd returned to her home town of Spoke in the 1930s, she began to promote the holiday again, this time focusing her efforts and raising awareness at a national level, so that it finally stuck in the United States.

Because we never gave fathers a holiday that was uniquely theirs we assumed that they would figure out how the want to celebrate it. The problem with this logic is that both mothers and fathers are wired to give more than receive after they have children, assuming they are healthy. If we want to celebrate our fathers properly we might need to turn inward and focus on them as individuals, rather than as symbols.

But that’s just a theory.

What do you think? Have I finally gone over the edge? Leave some comments below!  Share! Subscribe! Otherwise, I’m out of theories for the week, I think I’ll take a break and wind down for my own fathers Father’s Day celebrations.

Tim!

 

 

 

Red VS Blue! (How Environment Effects Creativity)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I’ve said it before, and I’ll definitely say it again after this post… but throughout human history creativity has often been thought of by the masses as a gift from another world, not something that comes from the brain and which can be developed and cultivated.

I bet you thought I was making a reference to TMNT, nah, I would never do that.

Michelangelo's_comical_scream

Moving right along; as a creative person I’m sure that this concept of creative influence is both fascinating and horrifying for you, because you want to succeed and get support to accomplish your creative goals, but if anyone can be creative, then that means you are no longer a special snowflake.

And I’ll let you decide which one fascinating, and which one is horrifying.

But what if I told you that your environment can be controlled in such a way as to effect your creativity either positively or negatively? What would you do? I bet most of you would jump at the chance to make subtle shifts in how your environment operated.

For instance, did you know that colour can elevate different kinds of creativity? According to this study, red can promote analytical aspects of memory retrieval and proofreading, whereas blue is good for brainstorming and innovation. Also in the same study, researchers have uncovered a correlation between noise levels, distraction, and types of work done – moderate noise and high noise produce more abstract processing vs low noise, but high noise impairs information processing, so moderate noise is the sweet spot for creativity, something which I touched upon in a previous post.

The most interesting thing about this study, of course, is that it demonstrates the correlation between creativity and improvement.

Another article I found recently references other aspects of life which can impact creativity. This is another one which Professor Juliet Zhu has looked into, and is a huge advocate for. Apparently dim lighting vs bright lighting an produce different results. Believe it or no, dim lighting has a positive association with abstract thinking and creativity.

cave-painting

Maybe that’s why cave painting started us off on this creative pathway in the first place?

But the article goes on to demonstrate that temperature and space make a difference too. Choose a cool setting for simple tasks and a warm place for complex ones. Clutter creates less self-control (binge eating for example), whereas organization creates self-regulation and persistence, both useful in their own situations. And that latter topic also happens to be something I’ve written about previously.

Still another article I read described the importance of writing out ideas by hand, which helps with idea generation, learning, and memorization. And apparently taking walks and working in rooms with high ceilings helps to promote creativity too.

But what you may not have considered is the importance that comfort can play in creativity both physical and mental. Having a space which has both small areas of intimacy and large open areas can stimulate different kinds of thought. And of course, you also need to be able to experiment and fail at projects. No one is capable of perfection, but surrounding yourself with individuals that do not support risk-taking stifles creativity quite a bit, so do what you can limit those kinds of interactions.

Jim Rohn said it best with the following quote

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

It is imperative that you consider your relationships carefully, and to be closely surrounded by positive, supportive people who want you to succeed, and it’s also necessary to have critics. Though I suspect we can touch on that last point in a lot more detail and so I shall save it for another day.

What did you think of that theory? Does your environment fit the conditions above? Have I missed anything? Please leave some comments below, like and share this post, and of course please subscribe to my blog for more stimulating ideas about the arts.

Tim!

 

The Night Is Dark, And Full Of Terrors (My Personal Murderer, Cauchemar review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

The Game of Thrones TV show and the book series which it is based off of, A Song of Fire and Ice, features a rather complex fantasy world with various belief systems and a cast of interesting and rich characters to fill these roles.

One of these belief systems in the world is the religion of the Lord of Light, a belief system which espouses that there are two gods, one a good god of love and light, and the other a god of darkness and evil.

This week’s Melodic Monday entry is about a band which asks questions of dark and light and hopes to share some thoughts on the duality of those themes.

But obviously life is not so simple as to be divided in this way.

Or is it?

 

 

 

My Personal Murderer – Cauchemar
released February 4, 2016
******** 8/10

cover

My Personal Murderer are a Ukrainian rock group which have been been active since 2008. Influenced by director David Lynch, the 1990s, and the socio-political environment they live in, My Personal Murderer have created three studio-length albums in the past six years.

I was very happy to hear from the band’s frontman and get an opportunity to review this album, because it’s themes are interesting and the sound distinct. I admit I had little idea what I was getting myself into, but I’m glad I said yes to Yevgen Chebotarenko. Did you know that the word Cauchemar is of French origin and means “to have a nightmare”? My Personal Murderer are a rock group with a few self-proclaimed influences, ranging from alternative, to atmospheric, depressive rock, post-punk, shoegazing, and I would also add emo into that mix.

Yevgen has an incredible control over the music and lyrics of MPM, as he is the lead vocalist, guitar player, and heart of the band, and he told me that Cauchemar the album has been a labour of love from the start. The band has seen some lineup changes from the time that the first single of the record, Constant Waiting, was put together last year, but the trio worked out the kinks and got the album out.

Yuriy Kononov plays drums currently, but Maxim Kovalchuk, who played bass, left the group midway in 2015 and was replaced by former bassist Nikita Perfiliev.

Cauchemar represents that collaboration between these three artists and a new direction for the band. The album evokes feelings of intimacy throughout, shifting from obsessions of lust, pain, spirit and struggle to grind out the themes focused in each track. The title track features a talking sequence and is one of my personal favourites on the record. With lines like “why is there nothing, if there is nothing, where did I come from?” asking questions, the tone is set up quite well. You can hear the talking sequence shift to feature background voices and eventually give way to percussion and wind instruments.

The Worm Prince traces out the actions of a body in contortion, fighting itself and attempting to excise the unwanted portions (people and emotions) and challenges with a hollowed out self, while Constant Waiting is less obvious. The melancholy is there but the lyrics on this one are curious, I can’t tell if it’s an admission of lustful guilt or a suicide note, but the pain and suffering in the story is very deliberate.

Dear Pigeon is up next and has a similar pacing, but the tone is one of both anger and empowerment, the author is aware that he suffers, but he wants the audience and players in his life to admit their limited participation and lack of commitment to his misery.

I think my other two favourites are Crawling Son and Soup For the Creature. Crawling Son has a spiritual feel and evokes a story of fallen angels, while the later includes a narrative of the end of a love story, a lover spurned, a lover lost.

Finally, comes the song Streets. This is the longest song on the record, at 9 minutes and 32 seconds. The build up for this one is pretty intense and delayed, the first three minutes are instrumentals; it then dips back and forth into instrumentals after the 5 minute mark. Another story to be told here about identity, maturation, and the struggle of isolation by defying conformity.

 

 

 

It’s important to recognize that while the members of this band are collaborating together, My Personal Murderer is a band not yet fully realized. I am willing to bet that Yevgen and the rest of the group will come into their own as they perform these songs and hone the focus of these tracks. Shoegazing is a genre of music which isn’t for everyone, but if you are interested in introspection and want to hear some solid music, give this album a try. It can be found on mypersonalmurderer.com and is worth the price of admission.

After all, the night is dark and full of terrors, and it can be scary to go it alone.

And that’s it for today, dear readers. I’ll see you tomorrow with another introspective genius review, or should I say review on an introspective genuis?

Tim!