Land of Kush, Against the Day (Constellation Records)

[central.oklahoma.mensa at gmail.com]

Certainly there's enough of all kinds of music out there now, maybe what dave and I would like to hear is something other than shit on the radio. It does feel wonderful to know that millions of people are hearing and enjoying something relevant all at once.
I'm a youngster, here, so educate me. Was punk really a popular musical revolution or just a particulalry loud and inflated cult scene?
-d

will this work?  

--- Original Message ---
From:"rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
Sent:Thu 2/5/09  10:07 am
To:"Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
Cc:pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Subj:Re: Land of Kush, Against the Day (Constellation Records)

haven't heard the record so can't comment on its merits but the
longing for a new revolution in music sounds lazy to me.
Music today (as with many art forms) is as diverse as can be--the work
is in finding the stuff that you dig--the old way of relying on the
media to give u the heads up is long gone.
Yes, I too was once enamored of Tales from Topographic Oceans so I see
his/her point
but one can easily yammer on about new punk bands who can't play a
lick but may have read marcuse in college and think they know now how
to eat pussy and can be as shocking or revolutionary as they want.

this is one of my favorite music blogs:  mutant-sounds.blogspot.com

in short, there are no boundaries any more--u can't critique genres
any more--seems rather pointless in this day and age

Rich
Suzanne says The Revolution is My Boyfriend


On 2/5/09, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> Against the Day
> Land of Kush
> Constellation Records
>
>
> We need something akin to the original punk revolution. We really need
> something akin to the original punk revolution, something that'll come
> through, wipe out the bloated excesses of the indie-rock world and
> bring rock music back down to earth, like the class of '77 did to
> obliterate prog and disco's bloated hold on people's ears.
>
> Don't believe it? If the latest string of self-obsessed art-rock
> goofballs hasn't already proven our point, Against the Day, Land of
> Kush's first album, should serve to underscore the urgency of a new
> rock revolution. In an era when obscenely orchestrated acts are
> common, the 30-member ensemble is overblown in its own right. When it
> harnesses that sort of manpower in an effort to recreate a sound of a
> 2,000-year-old Egyptian orchestra, it's clear it's high time someone
> needs to bring a safety pin to this art-rock bubble.
>
> Land of Kush's pretense isn't even matched by its competence. Never
> quite sounding like the ethnomusicologist's wet dream it thinks it is,
> Against the Day sounds more like a bunch of stoners hitting the bong,
> dropping a tab and mincing cheaply scored Egyptian television shows
> with cheaply manufactured psychedelic rock. If a Patrick Troughton-era
> episode of Doctor Who paid a visit to Tutankhamun, this might be what
> you'd hear playing in the background behind those famously low-budget
> special effects. Electronics and a brass section bolster songs that
> put the violin (an anachronism by about 15 centuries in the
> pyramid-era sound) and a brass section right in the middle of the
> action. "The Light Over the Ranges" and "Bilocations" dabble as an
> instrumental and with-vocals tracks, respectively, and serve more as
> an ode to the excesses only a giant ensemble and an unmanageable
> concept can bring.
>
> Against the Day is concept and arrogance first, music second, existing
> less for listeners than for the perverse joy the band's members found
> in making it. Throw in liner notes that masturbate about the impact of
> Thomas Pynchon'