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Fortean-Themed Albums, Songs & Music

Somebody has posted the whole of Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum on YouTube in John Ogdon's recording. That is to say the whole damn four hours and forty-seven minutes of it:

Sorabji's Opus Clavicembalisticum NSFW!

You may consider that a bit excessive but the poster has chosen to illustrate it with a photograph of some old bloke's fatal misadventure with giant dildos!

Maybe sitting through the piece will leave your bum sore but that has to be one of the oddest things on Youtube. Needless to say, some of the comments express puzzlement and annoyance. Those of a squeamish disposition had better not look! :wtf:

edit: "Fatal" in place of "Sexual" misadventure, since viewers may need warning of the post-mortem nature of the photograph.
 
Brain scans of rappers shed light on creativity
http://www.nature.com/news/brain-scans- ... ty-1.11835
Functional magnetic resonance imaging shows what happens in the brain during improvisation.

Daniel Cressey
15 November 2012

Open Mike Eagle, one of the authors of the latest study, performs on Knocksteady TV.

Rappers making up rhymes on the fly while in a brain scanner have provided an insight into the creative process.

Freestyle rapping — in which a performer improvises a song by stringing together unrehearsed lyrics — is a highly prized skill in hip hop. But instead of watching a performance in a club, Siyuan Liu and Allen Braun, neuroscientists at the US National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders in Bethesda, Maryland, and their colleagues had 12 rappers freestyle in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine.

The artists also recited a set of memorized lyrics chosen by the researchers. By comparing the brain scans from rappers taken during freestyling to those taken during the rote recitation, they were able to see which areas of the brain are used during improvisation. The study is published today in Scientific Reports1.

The results parallel previous imaging studies in which Braun and Charles Limb, a doctor and musician at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, looked at fMRI scans from jazz musicians2. Both sets of artists showed lower activity in part of their frontal lobes called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during improvisation, and increased activity in another area, called the medial prefrontal cortex. The areas that were found to be ‘deactivated’ are associated with regulating other brain functions.

“We think what we see is a relaxation of ‘executive functions’ to allow more natural de-focused attention and uncensored processes to occur that might be the hallmark of creativity,” says Braun.

He adds that this suggestion is “a little bit controversial in the literature”, because some studies have found activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in creative behaviour. He suggests that the discrepancy might have to do with the tasks chosen to represent creativity. In studies that found activation, the activities — such as those that require recall — may actually be less creative.

“We try to stick with more natural creative processing, and when we do that we see this decrease in the dorsal lateral regions,” says Braun.

Pump down the volume
Rex Jung, a clinical neuropsychologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, has also studied the link between brain structures and creativity, finding an inverse relationship between the volume of some frontal lobe structures and creativity3. “Some of our results imply this downregulation of the frontal lobes in service of creative cognition. [The latest paper] really appears to pull it all together,” he says. “I’m excited about the findings.”

Jung says that this downregulation is likely to apply in other, non-musical areas of creativity — including science.

The findings also suggest an explanation for why new music might seem to the artist to be created of its own accord. With less involvement by the lateral prefrontal regions of the brain, the performance could seem to its creator to have “occurred outside of conscious awareness”, the authors write.

Michael Eagle, a study co-author who raps under the name Open Mike Eagle, agrees: “That’s kind of the nature of that type of improvisation. Even as people who do it, we’re not 100% sure of where we’re getting improvisation from.”

Liu says that the researchers are now working on problems they were unable to explore with freestylers — such as what happens after the initial burst of creative inspiration.

"We think that the creative process may be divided into two phases," he says. "The first is the spontaneous improvisatory phase. In this phase you can generate novel ideas. We think there is a second phase, some kind of creative processing [in] revision."

The researchers would also like to look at how creativity differs between experts and amateurs of a similar artistic ilk to freestylers: poets and storytellers.

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2012.11835

References

Liu, S., et al. Sci. Rep. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep00834 (2012).
Show context

Limb, C. J. & Braun, A. R. PLoS ONE 3, e1679 (2008).
ArticlePubMedChemPort
Show context

Jung, R. E., Grazioplene, R., Caprihan, A., Chavez, R. S. & Haier, R. J. PLoS ONE 5, e9818 (2010).
ArticlePubMedChemPort
Show context
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Maybe should have put this in Notes and Queries, but I'll see if anyone here knows what I'm on about. There was a "song", or a piece of music, I heard on John Walters' show Walters' Weekly back in the 1980s which consisted of the "musician" "playing" his body parts.

So what you heard was a lot of slapping and knocking, along with - and this is what was so memorable - farting. But no singing, oddly. Must have been from the 70s, but does anyone know what that might have been?
 
gncxx said:
Maybe should have put this in Notes and Queries, but I'll see if anyone here knows what I'm on about. There was a "song", or a piece of music, I heard on John Walters' show Walters' Weekly back in the 1980s which consisted of the "musician" "playing" his body parts.

So what you heard was a lot of slapping and knocking, along with - and this is what was so memorable - farting. But no singing, oddly. Must have been from the 70s, but does anyone know what that might have been?
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bobby mcferrin ? although i think he drew the line ...
 
I had clean forgotten about that Youtube posting of Sorabji's marathon work accompanied by a photograph I described but - understandably - never saved!

Now it has been removed from Youtube. Did anyone ever click on that link?

It was possibly the most surreal combination I have ever seen - no indication it was intended as parody. :shock:
 
Thanks for the replies, it was more likely to be John Otway than Bobby McFerrin (!), but from what I recall it wasn't a proper song, it was more an experimental piece, no lyrics, just slapping and farting.
 
It may have been track 1 on Roger Waters & Ron Geeson's Music From The Body

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOXcHI36Otk

It's the soundtrack to a very "of-the-time" 70's documentary finally coming out on DVD next week:

Amazon

So I guess my old pre-cert video is no longer worth anything!

Made in 1970, this remarkable study of the human body is neither scientific nor medical; it is, rather, a deeply intimate feature-length film exploring the physical experience of being human.

Narrated by Vanessa Redgrave and Frank Finlay with a commentary by poet and playwright Adrian Mitchell, The Body traces the human life-cycle from conception to death. Photographic techniques never seen by cinema audiences at the time of release - including the use of internal cameras - allow an unprecedented insight into the body's functions; these visuals are beautifully complemented by a soundtrack by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and pioneering composer Ron Geesin, incorporating the latter's experiments in biomusic - in this case, sounds created by the human body itself.
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That's it! What an amazing coincidence I was reminded of it the week before it's out on DVD! I'd forgotten there was a piano on the track, but otherwise it's just as I recalled, farting and all.

Thanks, SB! Might have to get that DVD...
 
I used to work with a guy who collaborated with Ron Geesin on his Tune Tube project, 22 years ago...
 
gncxx said:
That's it! What an amazing coincidence I was reminded of it the week before it's out on DVD!
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Glad to be of help - and yes, quite the coincidence!

I'm pretty sure that track is more Geesin than Waters.
 
Here's a review of The Body DVD:

BrainDamage.co.uk

For those who are keen to hear the music in isolation, though, the producers of the DVD have thoughtfully included it as a 38 minute "music suite" in the extras. The music is accompanied with kaleidoscopic imagery.
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Got my copy this week, might give it a spin at the weekend. Worried that review describes it as "hard to watch" in places, though, I get squeamish about that sort of thing!
 
I knew I'd mentioned this before - but, blimey, I've just given myself something of a shock finding out how long ago.

Anyway, more than enough time has elapsed to justify repetition, and I also didn't find a link to it back them.

So, Byrne and Eno's The Jezebel Spirit, from the album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - complete with its very own exorcism.

Also, in the same post (way back on page 1): not necessarily Fortean - and I know Robbie Robertson is not a name you might expect to come up in a discussion like this - but, if you like a bit of atmosphere before you go to bed at night, then listen to Twisted Hair last thing with no-one else in the house and the lights off.

(Listen - I am dancing underneath you. A line to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and no mistake.)

Edit: The choir of voices behind the opera singer is actually a recording of crickets slowed right down - an effect apparently discovered by a guy called Jim Wilson. ('Apparently' because some people believe the effect is faked - and I don't know nearly enough about the subject to make a call). There's a sample of his work here: God's Cricket Chorus.
 
And, yes, I 'm possibly repeating myself again (happens when you reach a certain age) because I think I've already mentioned this, but on another - possibly purged - thread.

I'm not sure how appropriate it is here, either; Fortean? Hmm, I don't know - but it's definitely off main street in the same way that the Music From The Body piece is.

Anyway Jóhann Jóhannsson's, IBM 1401, A User's Manual.

There's some argument on the web about whether this actually uses sounds from the computer or is simply based on those sounds but the confusion is clearly from thoise who haven't consulted Jóhannsson's website - here.

In 1964, a computer - the IBM 1401 Data Processing System - arrived in Iceland, one of the very first computers to be imported into the country. The 1401 has been called the "Model T" of the computer industry - the first affordable, mass produced digital business computer . The chief maintenance engineer for this machine was Jóhann Gunnarsson, my father. A keen musician, he learned of an obscure method of making music on this computer - a purpose for which this business machine was not at all designed. The method was simple. The computer's memory emitted strong electromagnetic waves and by programming the memory in a certain way and by placing a radio receiver next to it, melodies could be coaxed out - captured by the receiver as a delicate, melancholy sine-wave tone.

When the IBM 1401 was taken out of service in 1971, it wasn't simply thrown away like an old refrigerator, but was given a little farewell ceremony, almost a funeral, when its melodies were played for one last time. This "performance" was documented on tape along with recordings of the sound of the machine in operation.

When my father told me about this in the year 2001, I felt that, besides being a nice, touching story, it reflected many things that I was interested in. Man-machine interaction, old, discarded technology, the nostalgia for old computers, human and artificial intelligence, technological progress and human evolution, the "spirit" and the machine. I started to write music using those themes, basing it on those 30 year old recordings of the IBM 1401 computer...
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So, for example, as I understand it the rather eerie woodwind sound that runs through Part 1 - ibm 1401 Processing Unit, is not a woodwind instrument at all, but a sample of an actual recording of the machine.

Anyway, here's the opening section: Part 1 - ibm 1401 Processing Unit.

I think it's beautiful.
 
gncxx said:
Got my copy this week, might give it a spin at the weekend. Worried that review describes it as "hard to watch" in places, though, I get squeamish about that sort of thing!
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Well, I watched it, and all very interesting inspector, but where was the farty song?! Nowhere to be heard in the film whatsoever! Bit let down by that, but not a bad film, kind of spacey in a hippy hangover way.
 
It must be, but I haven't listened to it yet.
 
US Punk band The Misfits have two songs that are related to JFK, if anyone is interested in punk music, or perhaps the lyrics. If you're not interested, you have wasted your time reading my post, especially this bit right here as I have no need to have kept on typing, you see.

The Lyrics for Bullet, about JFKs assassination is below:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/misfits/bullet.html

And Who Killed Marilyn? below

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/ ... BE000813A1

In fact, I could write a thread if I could be bothered about these guys who, the more I think about it are quite fortean. Very horror/sci-fi based at times with the two songs above one being quite sick and they obviously have an interest in conspiracy with their song about MM.
 
Worth checking out as well is defunct pop punk legends The Groovie Ghoulies. They are fun and have such songs as The Beast With Five Hands, The Blob, and my favourite .......Running With Bigfoot! Awesome!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8O3Duq6nAE

===========
r
Send More Paramedics were a Leeds based thrash/punk band, who's name is taken from Return Of The Living Dead. All of the lyrical content is about the dreaded zombie apocalypse, or zombie films and even some instrumentals of zombie film music, pure class. Probably my favorite band ever.

If you've ever seen Zombie Flesh Eaters 2;

Burning The Body (The lyrics are fantastic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR4J4fJTDrU
 
Edit: The choir of voices behind the opera singer is actually a recording of crickets slowed right down - an effect apparently discovered by a guy called Jim Wilson. ('Apparently' because some people believe the effect is faked - and I don't know nearly enough about the subject to make a call). There's a sample of his work here: God's Cricket Chorus.
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I had a go at the practical for this myself by slowing a cricket's chirp down in steps to 128th of it's original speed.

Anyone for cricket

It just sounds kind of like what you'd expect.

This guy has also done a similar experiment including speeding back up the 'choral' alleged cricket sounds, to show that they don't actually sound like crickets at all.

I do like the track but sadly someone's been telling porkies there.
 
gncxx said:
One of the greatest musical eccentrics of the twentieth century has to be Ivor Cutler, and his last album, A Flat Man, has just been reissued by his family. I was listening to it tonight, and although it's supposed to be his "darkest" album there was still stuff that had me laughing out loud. Nice to hear his weirdness didn't mellow with old age.
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The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler had a career spanning five decades before his death in 2006
Ivor Cutler's off-the-wall humour, surreal songs and poems inspired everyone from Billy Connolly to the Beatles. Now he is the inspiration for a new show from the National Theatre of Scotland.

Eccentric is the word that is often used to describe Ivor Cutler but it is "a bit cheap and obvious", says James Fortune, the musical director of the Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler.
Fortune says that if Cutler had been born in Eastern Europe he would have been taken a bit more seriously as an artist, like Nikolai Gogol or one of the "absurd" Russians.
"But over here, because of the silly hats and his life manifesto, everyone thought he was bonkers," Fortune says.
"I think he has got a lot of depth, a lot of darkness, especially when he talks about his childhood."

Born in Govan in 1923, in to a Jewish family which was of Eastern European descent, Cutler always maintained his miserable childhood made him more creative.
Cutler, who died in 2006 at the age of 83, had a difficult relationship with his mother and with Scotland, where he always thought he was undervalued.
He is reported to have later said that 95% of people thought his work was nonsense.
"In Scotland it is 100%," he said. :twisted:

After serving as a navigator in the RAF during the war, where his "dreaminess" was not an asset, Cutler became a teacher in schools in Glasgow and Paisley.
But the brutal world of post-war Scottish education was not for him and he "escaped" to Sussex in the early 1950s where he taught at the "alternative" Summerhill school.

While remaining a teacher, he began writing, performing and recording his surreal songs, usually accompanying himself on the harmonium.
Many of his songs, such as Gruts for Tea, were inspired by his miserable depression-era Glasgow childhood.

Over a career spanning five decades he influenced everyone from the Beatles to Billy Connolly and every new generation afterwards.
Connolly once said the world needed Ivor Cutler "in order to think differently".
The Glasgow comedian said that, like the West of Scotland rain which seeps into your very being, nobody encapsulated the word "dreich" like Cutler.

In the mid-1960s Paul McCartney of the Beatles saw Cutler on the TV show Late Night Line-Up and was impressed by his wit and his ability to "hang on to child-like wonder".
The pair became friends, with McCartney describing Cutler as a "cult hero".
When the Fab Four were making their 1967 film Magical Mystery Tour, Cutler was cast as Buster Bloodvessel, the tour guide who wanted people to enjoy themselves "within the limits of British decency". 8)

In the 1970s it was the eclectic tastes of radio DJ John Peel that brought Cutler to the next generation.
Sandy Grierson of the theatre company Vanishing Point, who plays Cutler in the new show, says: "The thing with John Peel is that you would get such a variety of music and you would hear so many different things and Cutler would just slip in there.
"But he would immediately jump out at most people."

Andy Kershaw, who went on to work with Peel and present his own radio shows, which also featured Cutler, first met Ivor as entertainments secretary for students at Leeds University in the early 1980s.
Kershaw says he did not know how much to pay Cutler for his performance so he asked if £500 would be alright.
"Lower," came the reply from Cutler. :D

The DJ says Cutler also insisted he did not want to stay in a hotel and instead slept at a student flat occupied by Kershaw and his friends.
Kershaw says: "He was extremely popular with people of all ages."

etc...

The Beautiful Cosmos of Ivor Cutler starts at the Eden Court theatre in Inverness on Friday before travelling to Glasgow, Greenock, Stirling and Edinburgh over the next month.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-26819858

It's a bit Fortean the way I came across this piece - it was linked to from BBC Sussex...
 
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