MBV vs. MEV

Obvious to you, I'll grant. Tain't never heard of this MEV bunch none.

the sound pool >> loveless

Eh? I don't get it, is this a group I'm supposed to automatically know?

the sound pool >> loveless

Ah, you see, this is silly talk, because Loveless is greater than everything. ;-)

Ned - start with Leave the City - then try to find the AMM split. Then get Bryan's Space Tecno - sheer brilliance. One of my favorites.

KILLS MBV, no contest

i remember reading in the Wire interview that Frederic Rzewski played some sort of contact-miked glass piano device on at least one of their records? does anyone know where this might be?

ha ha! most ppl are saying MEV (so far). great to see. ned, I think hamish was being sarcastic.

my 18 yr old self: what's MEV?

my 23 year old self: MEV is the biz. MEV is so much better bcz you can see new avenues to explore (oh yes!). with MBV the possibilities close down...the death of music! (no MBV recs since 1991).

well, seriously, i've heard much less MEV than i'd like to; actually i very much hoped there'd be something by them on 'The Wire 1982-2002' box set (there ain't!), and i haven't got a single piece of MEV music in me home; yet i'm quite sure that i won't love MBV any less the more MEV i get to hear

MEV, however, are a different bird indeed. even though there have been millions of electroacoustic improvisers since then, nothing really sounds like those records.

Leave the City is great - it's like the blueprint for the No Neck Blues Band, only 20 years earlier - but it's not a "proper" MEV album, as it's just a bunch of French hippies that only had some tangential relationship to Curran, Teitelbaum, Rzewski, etc.

had the opportunity to watch rzewski play a 25 min. long piece at the university last week - he performed "North American Ballad No. 5," re-arranged for piano. he said it was originally written for a full orchestra, but that he had condensed it down for solo piano a few years back. the piece was based off a tune that originated in a Texas chain gang - "It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad". he started off the piece by slapping the underside of the piano and drawing out some ambience as he plinked out the main melody. variations on the main melody led into more and more complicated lines, until the main melody gradually became obscured. the piece also featured the rattling of a chain, whistling, clucking and bashing out huge sheets of notes w/ both of his forearms.

a group of 4 musicians (vibes, clarinet/baritone sax, flute, & piano) followed that by playing "Les Moutons de Panurge ("The Sheep of Panurge"). the music in the piece is made up of a 65 note sequence, with each musician starting at 1 and then starting over and adding 1 note on each repetition like so (1, 1+1, 2+1, 3+1, etc) until you reach 65. once 65 is reached, everyone reverses back the other way, subtracting 1 note from each repetition until everyone is back to 1. and then everybody furiously improvised awesome snake-like patterns. then they repeated the 1-65 and back again and ended.

(note: the clarinet player switched between clarinet & baritone sax at points)

anyway, it was inspiring and i feel lucky to have been able to be there. sorry about the bad writing..

I liked reading abt those 'events' where MEV wd invite ppl to join in etc. as talked abt earlier on here but all we get now is solo projects and the odd (bad) MEV re-union. BAH WE'VE BEEN CHEATED!!!