-
neumu
Monday, October 7, 2024 
-
-
--archival-captured-cinematronic-continuity error-daily report-datastream-depth of field--
-
--drama-44.1 khz-gramophone-inquisitive-needle drops-picture book-twinklepop--
-
Neumu = Art + Music + Words
Search Neumu:  

illustration



edited by michael goldbergcontact


Jarboe's 'Men' Charts Turbulent Emotions

Jarboe, once of post-punk's terminally loud, brazenly experimental Swans, has always been concerned with extremes. Her lovely voice, honed through years of singing lessons and trained in jazz and lounge traditions, can sound like a tortured animal, a sophisticated torch singer or a little girl. A collaborator by inclination, she has worked with many of the avant-garde's most innovative artists, not just Michael Gira but Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten, Steve von Till of Neurosis, and Jim Thirlwell of Foetus, among many others. And, she has never shied away from self-exposure — the lacerating Anhedoniac chronicled her break-up with Gira, and now a collaborative effort called Men documents another abusive relationship from its hopeful beginning to soul-shredding end.

"So the thing is a journey, six years of my life," Jarboe said in a recent phone interview. "It started out with this kind of hope and a sense of the future ahead and being, I guess I'd use the words 'in love.' And then I started to blame myself because I saw this person as an angel, as it were. I saw myself as being self-destructive and closing the door on the future with that person."

The album reaches a ferocious climax in a series of "Feral" songs, featuring the distorted, extreme vocalizations of Blixa Bargeld. "'Feral' represents the time when I realized that the person had rejected me for good, and I had to accept it," Jarboe said.

Though she declines to go into details about the man who inspired Men, Jarboe said that she ended up using an extremely negative, abusive situation as raw material for her art. She demo'd the 20 songs for this two-CD album, then sent them out to an extremely diverse group of mostly male collaborators, including Iva Davies, the Academy Award-winning composer of the "Master and Commander" film score, Bargeld, Alan Sparhawke of Low, and Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots. "I gave each of them descriptions of what each song was about and then I said, 'Add your signature, what makes it you, your personalized touch to it, with no reins from me. Just completely add your stamp to it."

Ka-Spel, she said, saw a cinematic landscape in her skeletal song, realized in the epic closing track, "Edward Life." To Bargeld, she confided that she was looking for "the voice of madness," and the horrifically intense "Blixa Feral" resulted. Bargeld, like Jarboe, can create an astoundingly wide array of textures with his voice, from conventional song to the abstract and harsh sounds on this animal-referencing cut.

Jarboe explained that she had long been fascinated with art that challenges the traditional concepts of beauty and ugliness. "I've always kind of fought against beauty. I don't like the obvious," she admitted. "So I prefer myself kind of unadorned and raw, whether it's physically or vocally. There's something about that that shows the ravage or shows the... the Japanese have a term, which is the beauty in the damaged or the tainted or torn, the beauty in decay. I think that's what I like, too. I prefer things that are kind of burned and scarred and used and have a sense of history about them, where you show the scars of life."

That willingness to go to the edge has always distinguished Jarboe from the common run of artists. She is never happier than when singing in front of a bludgeoningly loud, metal-into-rock band — even when it hurts, as on her 2005 European tour. "That was a huge rock spectacular. It was two full rock drum kits, bass and electric guitar," she said of these shows. "It was very loud and bombastic. The show was not about my voice, even though I put my voice through an amazing range of intense screaming, a lot of that low, guttural death-metal voice that I love. I really ripped my voice to pieces and back."

These shows came 20 years, almost to the day, after Swans toured Europe with a double-drum-set lineup, and Jarboe said she was mindful of the band's legacy as she made her way over the continent. "The idea was really to make this statement, you know? She's not fucking around," Jarboe explained. "There's no chaser, just the hard stuff."

The fact that former Swans partner Michael Gira was touring Europe at the same time with Akron/Family, making a decidedly softer, more countrified kind of music, was an added incentive. Gira's new split with Akron/Family includes a version of Swans' "Mother/Father," Jarboe said, one that substitutes a chorus of "Love and destruction" for the original's more abrasive "Fuck and destruction." "That's why our encore was 'Mother/Father,' but it was with the lyric 'Fuck and destruction'," she said. "People loved it. Everybody said, this is so great. You're giving us the Swans show, and he's gone country."

A self-described "one-woman cottage industry," Jarboe has a typically full slate of projects scheduled for the coming months. She will be singing on an upcoming record from Jesu, Justin Broadrick's post-Godflesh project, as well as with Bila, an offshoot of Dysrhythmia, and Cobalt, a heavy-metal band from Colorado. She just concluded a January/February tour on the West Coast that included four shows with Blixa Bargeld and two with Red Sparrowes.On Friday she'll perform in Seville, Spain at a spoken-word festival, a first for her, and expects to play a dozen or so more unplugged dates while in Europe. "I'm always busy, but it's particularly insane right now," she said. "Though it's all really good, creative stuff."

For complete dates and lots of other Jarboe-related information, visit her Web site. — Jennifer Kelly [Thursday, March 2, 2006]


Alejandro Escovedo's Joyous Rebirth

John Vanderslice Kicks Genre

Paul Duncan's Elusive Pop

Stephen Yerkey's Wandering Songs

French Kicks Complete 'Two Thousand'

Spazzy Romanticism: Love Story In Blood Red

Brain Surgeons NYC Rock The Big Questions

Jarboe's 'Men' Charts Turbulent Emotions

Delta 5's Edgy Post-Punk Resurrected

Blitzen Trapper Spiff Things Up

Minus Five: Booze, Betrayal, Bibles and Guns

New Compilation Spotlights Forgotten Folk Guitar Heroes

Chris Brokaw's Experiment In Pop

Old And New With Death Vessel

Silver Jews: Salvation And Redemption

Jana Hunter's Beautiful Doom

Vashti Bunyan Finds Her Voice Again

Nick Castro's Turkish Folk Delight

Katrina Hits New Orleans Musicians Hard

Paula Frazer's Eerie Beauty

The National Find Emotional Balance

Death Cab For Cutie's New Album, Tour

Heavy Trash's Rockabilly Rampage

Help The Wrens Get Their Albums Released!

Devendra Banhart, Andy Cabic Launch Label

Lydia Lunch's Noir Seductions

Bosque Brown's The Real Deal

PDX Pop Now! Fest Announces Lineup

Sarah Dougher Starts Women-Focused Label

Jennifer Gentle's Joyful Psyche

Mountain Goat Darnielle Gets Autobiographical With 'Sunset Tree'

Mia Doi Todd's Beautiful Collaboration

Return of the Gang of Four

Martha Wainwright Finds Her Voice

Brian Jonestown Massacre's Acid Joyride

Solo Disc Due From Pixies' Frank Black

Heartless Bastards' Big-Hearted Rock

Mike Watt's Midlife Journey

The Black Swans Balance Old And New

Nicolai Dunger's Swedish Blues

The Insomniacs' Hard-Edged Pop

Yo La Tengo Collection Due

Juana Molina's 'Homemade' Sound

Beans Evolves

Earlimart's Songs Of Loss

Devendra Banhart's 'Mosquito Drawings'

Negativland Rerelease 'Helter Stupid'

Alina Simone Transforms The Ordinary

Sounds From Nature: Laura Veirs

Octet's Fractured Electric Pop

Sleater-Kinney Working With Lips Producer

The Cult Of Silkworm

The Evolution Of The Concretes

Devendra Banhart's Exuberant New Songs

Catching Up With The Incredible String Band

Gram Rabbit's Desert Visions

Three Indie-Rock Stars Unite As Maritime

Remembering Johnny Ramone

Jarboe's Many Voices

Phil Elvrum's Long Hard Winter

First U.S. Release For Vashti Bunyan Album

Incredible String Band To Tour U.S.

New Music From Lydia Lunch

Le Tigre Protest The Bush War Presidency

Joel RL Phelps: Bleak Songs Rock Hard

Time Tripping With Galaxie 500

Patti Smith Wants Bush Out!

Sharron Kraus: A New Kind Of Folk Music

The Fiery Furnaces' Psychedelic Theater

Harder, Heavier Burning Brides

Sonic Youth's Ongoing Experiment

The Dt's Do It Their Way

Poster Children Cover Political Rock

Rare Thelonious Monk Recordings Due

Uneasy Pop From dios

Beck, Lips, Waits Cover Daniel Johnston

Understanding Franz Ferdinand

The Truly Amazing Joanna Newsom

Mylab's Boundary-Crossing Experiments In Sound

Have You Heard Jolie Holland Whistle?

The 'Magical Realism' Of Vetiver

The Restless, Rootsy Songs Of Eszter Balint

The Sun Sets On The Blasters

Devendra Banhart To Tour U.S.

The East/West Fusion Sounds Of Macha

Destroyer Gets Mellow For Your Blues

TV On The Radio Get Political

Sonic Youth, Modest Mouse To Play Lollapalooza 2004

New Music From The Fall

Apocalyptic Sound From The Intelligence

Fast And Rude With The Casual Dots

'Rejoicing' With Devendra Banhart

New Album, Tour From The Polyphonic Spree

Shearwater Take Wing

Sleater-Kinney To Tour East/West Coasts

Resurrecting Rocket From The Tombs

Visqueen Want To Get A Riot Goin' On

Lloyd Cole Makes A Commotion

Funkstörung's 'Cut-Up' Theory

Waiting For Mirah's C'mon Miracle

Electrelane Find Their Voice

The Television Is Still On!

Experimental Sounds From Hannah Marcus

The Ponys Play With Rayguns

Ex-Mono Men Leader Returns With The Dt's

Mountain Goats' Darnielle Adopts A More Hi-Fi Sound

Sun Kil Moon To Tour U.S., Europe

Nothin' But The Truth From The Von Bondies

Sultans Survive 'Shipwreck'

Sebadoh Reunite For Spring Tour

Xiu Xiu's 'Reality' Rock

Meet The Patients

Beth Orton, M. Ward Make Sadness Taste Sweet

Oneida's Pathway To Ecstasy

Radiohead, Pixies, Dizzee Rascal To Play Coachella

Young People Tour Behind War Prayers

Pixies Tour Dates Announced

Ani DiFranco Tells It Like It Is

Deerhoof Back For 2004 With Milkman

McLusky Set To 'Bring On The Big Guitars' Again

Pixies Reunite For U.S., European Tours

American Music Club, Decemberists To Play NoisePop 2004

Damien Rice Set To Tour U.S.

The Frames Accept Your Love

Punk Rock's A-Frames To Re-Record Third Album

Finally! Mission Of Burma Record New Album

A Solo Detour For Ladybug Transistor's Sasha Bell

Return Of The Old 97's

Spending The Night With Damien Rice

Tindersticks Reissues Due This Spring

The Evolution Of 'A Silver Mt. Zion'

Neil Young Rocks Australia With 'Greendale'

Poster Children Back In Action

'The Great Cat Power Disaster Of 2003'

Chicks On Speed's Subversive Strategies

Oranger At A Crossroad

Peaches On Tour And In Control

Jawbreaker's Complete Dear You Sessions To Be Released

Belle & Sebastian + Trevor Horn = Sunny Pop Nirvana

Von Bondies' Pawn Shoppe Heart

Descendents Are Back!

Modest Mouse Touring; Album Due in 2004

London Suede Take A (Permanent?) Break

Saul Williams Wants You To Think For Yourself

The 'Zen' Sound Of Calexico

Elliott Smith Dead AT 34

Debut Due From Mark Kozelek's Sun Kil Moon

The Hunches: Music That'll 'Fucking Live Forever'

Vic Chesnutt Speaks His Mind

90 Day Men Cancel Tour

Keith Jarrett, Cecil Taylor Highlight SF Jazz Festival

For My Morning Jacket, It's The Music That Matters

EP Due From The Polyphonic Spree

Bright Eyes, Neva Dinova Collaborate On EP

The Rise & Fall & Rise Of Ben Lee

Catching Up With Cheerfully Defiant Tricky

Hanging Around With The Polyphonic Spree

Sophomore Album Due From The Shins

Noise Rock From Iceland's Singapore Sling

Death Cab To Tour U.S.

Rufus Wainwright's Want One Is 'Family Affair'

Death Cab's Transatlanticism On The Way

Heartfelt Rock From Sweden's Last Days Of April

The Minus 5 Get Down With Wilco

Tywanna Jo Baskette's Southern-Gothic Rock

Xiu Xiu's Stewart Takes On 'Gay-bashing'

Portishead Producer Resurfaces Behind New Diva

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wire, Primal Scream On Buddyhead Comp

Yeah Yeah Yeahs To Tour West Coast

Sonic Youth, Erase Errata Kick Off 'Buddy Series'

The Locust Are One Scary Band

Damien Rice In The 'Here And Now'

Remembering Karp's Scott Jernigan

ATP-NY Postponed 'Til At Least 2004

The Soul Of Chris Lee

Gits' Frenching The Bully To See Re-Release

Stephen Malkmus Is In Control

Superchunk To Release Rarities Set; Teenage Girls To Swoon As A Result

Summer Touring For The Gossip

Babbling On About Deerhoof

Irish Song Poet Damien Rice's O Released In U.S.

Chatting With ATP's Barry Hogan

Former Digable Planets Frontman Surfaces With Cherrywine

ATP L.A. Festival Rescheduled For Fall

Freakwater's Janet Bean Takes A Solo Turn

Lee's 'Cool Rock'

Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs Highlight YES NEW YORK

Mark Romanek's 'Hurt' Revives Johnny Cash's Career

The Rapture's Post-Punk, Post-Dance Sound

R.E.M., Wilco, Modest Mouse Highlight Bumbershoot Fest

Set Fires To Flames' Sleep-Deprivation Sound

Southern Gothic Past Shadows Verbena's La Musica Negra

The Subtle Evolution Of Yo La Tengo

Spring Tour For Jolie Holland (Plus A Live Album)

Liz Phair Still Pushing The Limits

Gold Chains Wants You To Dance And Think

Young People's War Prayers On The Way



peruse archival
 



-
-snippetcontactsnippetcontributorssnippetvisionsnippethelpsnippetcopyrightsnippetlegalsnippetterms of usesnippetThis site is Copyright © 2003 Insider One LLC
-