Sunday, March 20, 2011

GY!BE - 03/14/11

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (henceforth referred to as GY!BE) start from where Echoes left off. That, however, is not to deny them originality or to comment on some supposed derivativeness or undue Pink Floyd influences. Their long, unending, grandly ambitious instrumental sagas with somewhat minimalistic, vaguely relevant found footage films running on projectors in the background (see picture) to which their music seems to provide a narrative of sorts; resemble Floyd only in the most superficial way.

Almost classical in scope (Shekhar used the word 'meditative'), with none of their songs-with-no-vocals clocking in less than ten minutes, they can seem to be an acquired taste - especially their meandering, experimental, purposeless-on-the-surface initial phase jamming which will then suddenly gel together to form an intricate harmony in which the projectionist's footages of panoramic views from trains/arbitrary industrial landscapes suddenly seem to acquire a meaning of their own.

Although musically the band they might resemble most is Mogwai, it is easy to see that they transcend their predecessors by focusing not just on creating "serious guitar music" but by also incorporating sounds from instruments not generally associated with rock music (the eight person band (?) has members playing violins, cellos, two sets of drum kits and at least three guitars).

When the venue's Terminal 5, a good vantage point is of paramount importance. With the ever-resourceful Shekhar at his side, NF was lucky to have found that and a set of very comfy ass-rests. The mild state of buzz - courtesy the beers - and the background GY!BE footage viewed through the partially filled mug, added to the ambience and sprinkled a dash of good weirdness (in the form of inebriation) to the already very heavily atmospheric music.

And GY!BE? They didn't speak a word. No hi, no bye, no sorry, no thank you.

They arrived, they played, they fucking destroyed!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Goddo supiido yuu! Burakku emparaa !!!

Nanga Fakir (and I am sure fellow Japanophile Bejin Hakumei is with him in this) awaits Japan's coming back to life - the land of gojiras, samurais, anime, manga, seppuku, gomi, harakiri, the insane J-pop culture, kamikaze, Takeshi Kitano, Takeshi Miike, robots, ninjas, cosplay, otakus, hikkikomoris, an army of kawaii gyaru chans, gore films, Boris, Mono and everything that is awesome about our shitty, shitty world right now.

Zetsuboushita! Serious, hardcore zetsuboushita!

...

Nippon Banzai !

Thursday, March 10, 2011

बकैती !

Those who've known Nanga Fakir are well aware of his almost obsessive, bordering-on-the-creepy, hero worship of SatyaVrat.

Now the august company of The Hindu joins him. (Link: Join the rationalists online or over chai.)

The link above is The Hindu's profile of that mysterious master belletrist, gonzo-street-fighting-philosopher-on-the-loose, who's vowed to hound the dark forces of ignorance and irrationality, corner them, capture them and then bijli dance them to death.

...

Too bad he doesn't blog more often - despite promises to himself of maintaining a one-post-a-fortnight schedule.

Perhaps this is his way of telling us that he is also human. What a relief! And yet, what a disappointment.

Monday, March 07, 2011

Vignettes

मिस्राजी अपनी धुन के पक्के थे. उनके समूचे व्यक्तित्व से हमेशा एक वीभत्स-सा आत्मविश्वास टपकता रहता था - ठीक उसी प्रकार का, जैसा एक उज्जड, अनपढ़, अल्हड़, बेतकल्लुफ कूपमंडूकता से उत्पन्न हो सकता है.

और फिर मिस्राजी वो काम करते हुए पाए गए जिसकी पूरे गाँव में किसी को उम्मीद न थी...

Friday, March 04, 2011

Debug this bitches!

/* The अटरिया.c program */

#include(stdio.h)

void main()
{

do

{
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... [टूँग तादुंदुंग!];
गुटर गुटर ... ;
} while ('sanity lasts') ;

printf("Bappi Lahiri is the latest avatar of Vishnu\n");

}