My latest mix for Dazed & Confused focuses on the long, resonant vibration of strings. Just like the piano, stringed instruments have been modified, repurposed, and co-opted to create a stunning variety of sounds — from the ancient harps and droning tamburas of Mesopotamia to the violins and cellos of Renaissance chamber music. Tapping into this rich tradition, the sustained, harmonically complex tones of stringed instruments provide a gorgeous palette for the modern underground musicians represented here.
Visit the Dazed Digital site for the tracklist and some commentary on the pieces I selected.
The Double Life of Terry Allen
Synonym Journal, Issue 2
Brad Barry
Terry Allen doesn’t see the disconnect between recording an outlaw country album in West Texas and making fine art for a gallery in New York. At 69 years old, the Lubbock native has created art that jumps between genre and audience, but somehow remains authentic. In his 50 years as an artist, he has worked in sculpture, music, painting, installations, theater, lithographs, literature, performance art, and radio plays. And, to him, it just seems natural.
“As a kid I kept notebooks and I would make lists of what I wanted to be,” Allen explained from his studio in Santa Fe. “It would always rotate between writer, musician, and artist. It wasn’t until much later that I truly realized that I could do all of it — that it’s all just telling stories.”
It’s Allen’s prowess as a storyteller that prevents his work from feeling fragmented; his pieces, no matter the medium, are held together by detailed story lines. Like David Byrne’s 1986 True Stories, a film whose soundtrack Allen contributed songs to, he weaves individual, off-beat stories together into larger, united works. Allen’s pieces, whether theater productions, prints, or concept albums, are focused on making connections.
I’m starting a new mix series for Dazed Digital in the UK. With this first edition, I wanted to look specifically at the piano. Mostly through necessity, the piano served as the primary instrument for early experimental music. Even though we now have access to more instruments than those early composers could have dreamed of, the piano is still being used to create novel, surprising, and beautiful experimental music.
Visit the Dazed Digital site for the tracklist and some commentary on the pieces I selected.
Boredom Precedes Action
Maxime Guitton on Curation and Consumption
Synonym Journal, Issue 1
Brad Barry
It turns out that Maxime Guitton is a fixture of the French music and art scene, but my introduction to the 35-year-old Parisian came in a much more pedestrian manner.
Last fall, I discovered, and immediately fell in love with, a mix of late 60s and early 70s folk and Texas country that Guitton posted online. After some additional searching, I found a few more mixes, each of which was equally astounding. Somehow someone in France was finding great, obscure American records and presenting them in a way that was not only cohesive, but told a story. After exchanging e-mails and links to YouTube videos, it became apparent that Maxime Guitton might be the coolest person ever.
In an e-mail interview, which he graciously conducted in English, Guitton revealed the scope of his artistic endeavors, discussed the difficultly of exploration in a world of huge archives, and dug into the responsibilities of both curator and consumer.
