Thematic Echoes (Through An Incongruent Means To An End)

In this moment, as I look around me at the sky and its elements, the scenery and all its imagery, the beings and all their movements and sounds, the world and all its strangeness travels a line acute to a path made absent by its sum and visible by its others.  I can't find a description yet, in my 28 years, that fulfills the contours of life's general facade, or even begin to speak of it without using a word that contradicts its former.  In this, I have chosen thematic echoes to represent the limbo I dwell in, and hope to nurture a body of sound and pass it through an incongruent means to an end, at a tilt, in a time, and a treasure to be found by a current within an auditory system of pleasurable sensations.  I share this with you, as my other, in a line of the 41st Podcast by the Funky Soul Burner.  

Thematic Echoes (Through An Incongruent Means To An End) Track Listing:

    1.    (0:00:06) Lisa Gerrard CELON - Australian composer and singer who has won a Golden Globe award for the music score for Gladiator along with Hans Zimmer and Klaus Badelt.  Ms. Gerrard began her professional career with the band Dead Can Dance in 1981.  This amazing harmonic piece was written a few days before she gave birth to her daughter, and was accompanied by Jacek Tuschewski and John Bonnar.  This is off her solo debut record, The Mirror Pool, from 1995.  Celon refers to a river out of J.R.R. Tolkien's world of fiction. 
    2.    (0:05:53) Tool 10,000 DAYS (WINDS PART 2) - Over 27 years worth of time, 10,000 days, represents the period in which lead singer Maynard James Keenan's mother spent paralyzed due to a cerebral aneurysm before she passed away.  Tool is one of the most influential bands for me, personally, because the music and lyrics blend and evolve beautifully with each complex composition and album.  This is from their latest LP, 10,000 Days.  I recently was fortunate enough to see them front row at the All Points West festival in Jersey City, and I'm continually amazed each time I see them live.  As a whole, their art stands alone in progressive rock music, and along with guitarist Adam Jones' creative video and coverart (he used to work for Hollywood sculpting creatures for flicks) the great spiritual artist, Alex Grey, uses the music of Tool to generate a visual reference to the euphoric Self, the transmigrating spirit, and the eternal reflection of Being.  
    3.    (0:16:48) Dan Weiss TURKA (COMP. HABIBBUDIN KHAN) - Dan Weiss studies with tabla guru Samir Chatterjee in NYC, who my best buddy, Todd, also studies under.  Dan transcribed classical tintal compositions onto the drumset, and performs for over an hour straight for his solo on this particular album.  This is one part composed by Ustad Habibbudin Khan.  Wikipedia explains that a tintal is one of the most famous talas in classical Indian music.  It is a 16-beat pattern, which has four equal divisions (vibhag), the third being the khali, or open division.  To follow the tal, the audience claps on the appropriate beat, which in tintal is beats 1, 5, and 13 or the first beat in each full division.  A wave of the hand indicates beat 9, which is the first beat of the third division or khali.    Dan has been recognized by The New York Times as one of the five up and coming drummers in the jazz world and you can read the article here (Dan is pictured wearing his Messuggah t-shirt with sax player David Binney): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/arts/music/12drummers.html?_r=1&emc=eta1.  
    4.    (0:18:02) Moderat PORC#1 - A 2-part electronic composition by the wickedly brilliant group Modeselektor and Sascha Ring or Apparat - hence the neologism, Moderat.  
    5.    (0:20:42) Moderat PORC#2 - The idea behind the music of these two great electronic acts coming together started with the foundation that each would abandoned his comforting approach to creating music, and delve deeper into the idea of building blocks within a theme and passing it to the other artist to tweak and construct new elements.  With every layer, a new approach, an evolution to their sound, they attempted to create a piece as a whole that would remain timeless in electronic music spanning its beginning and its future.  By doing so, they had to take the tempo down a notch and work outside of their comfort zone, creating more space for new sound and hidden elements they previously hadn't attempted.   
    6.    (0:23:36) White Rabbits PERCUSSION GUN - A surprising band who smacked me in the face at this year's All Points West festival with their electric performance.  Easily out-playing and out-performing several other well-known acts that followed them, this percussion-heavy band uses rhythmic patterns as the foundation to their sound and energy.  This track is off their It's Frightening LP.
    7.    (0:26:38) Gogol Bordello DUB THE FREQUENCIES OF LOVE - One band that certainly knows how to amp up the crowd is this gypsy-punk-ska tour de force.  Eugene Hutz, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, is arguably one of the most energetic performers I've seen live, and along with his sidekick, Sergey Ryabtsev, the violinist and backing vocalist, they rock the stage with an Eastern European party frenzy until the last note.  This band is also appears in Madonna's directorial debut film, Film and Wisdom, where Eugene Hutz portrays the main character.  Hutz also is a DJ in NYC when he has time away from performing with Gogol Bordello (the name comes from Nikolai Gogol who 'smuggled Ukrainian culture into Russian society, and Bordello refers to a brothel.  They intend to smuggle their gypsy/Eastern European music into the English-speaking world).
    8.    (0:32:40) Dead Weather HANG YOU FROM THE HEAVENS - Another wicked track off their debut record, Horehound.  Jack White demonstrates how to rock behind a drumkit properly, with his wicked drum groove over an open hi-hat pattern, while Alison Mosshart rocks her twisted and powerful lyrics.
    9.    (0:36:12) Dredg PARIAH - One of my sleeper bands that I started following after a friend recommended them to me in college just before they released their sophomoric masterpiece, El Cielo, in 2002.  Dredg works around concepts for each of their LPs, where El Cielo revolved around Salvador Dali's Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening, their latest, The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion was inspired by the essay A Letter to the Six Billionth Citizen by Salman Rushdie.  This San Francisco-based group, like the avant-garde hip hop group Anticon, pushes rock music into a conscious-minded orientation without being too progressive or emo about it.  Gavin Hayes' lyrics usually veer from the norm in the sense he can talk about a room and its dressings, a landscape and its spiritual presence, and philosophical doctrines.  
    10.    (0:40:03) Mad Season WAKE UP - The late Layne Staley lead singer of Alice in Chains, Barrett Martin drummer of Screaming Trees, Mike McCready lead guitarist of Pearl Jam, and bassist for The Walkabouts John Baker Saunders all came together in Seattle during the grunge era to form this supergroup in 1994.  A self-titled LP, which has been highly-acclaimed never received a follow-up album due to the success of their other respective bands.  Both Staley and Baker Saunders suffered from drug addiction which led to their deaths.  
    11.    (0:47:20) Live T.B.D. - A powerful representation of Live's music and lyrical composition by lead singer Ed Kowalczyk off their hugely popular sophomore effort, Throwing Copper.  As much as an influence on American rock during the '90s, Live never shook the aura that surrounded Throwing Copper, even though their debut record, Mental Jewelry and their third and fourth records, Secret Samadhi and The Distance to Here were fantastically successful in terms of musical composition.  This track, however, remains one of my favorite by the group.  
    12.    (0:51:25) Amon Tobin EASY MUFFIN - One of my all-time favorite compositions by this Argentinean-Brit, DJ/electronic music composer.  I have featured many of Tobin's compositions throughout my podcasts, and I will certainly continue to include his eclecticism in the future.  This is off his Bricolage LP.
    13.    (0:56:04) Interpol TAKE YOU ON A CRUISE - I have yet to include an Interpol track, so I thought I would sneak one in to satisfy those that like them.  I was a fan of their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights, but quickly lost interest afterwards.  This is a nice track off their sophomore release, Antics, and displays the always amazing groove and backbone to the band in drummer, Sam Fogarino.  Without Mr. Fogarino and bassist, Carlos Dengler, sadly, the band would not be much of anything special.  
    14.    (1:00:45) Bibio CRY ! BABY ! - Check it, Bibio finds their way back into the second to last track in two consecutive mixes.  How did that happen?  Chance, I tell you!  Another brilliant representation of his latest Ambivalence Avenue LP.  
    15.    (1:04:20) Antlers KETTERING - A hauntingly wicked track off this beautiful noise-rock band's latest LP, Hospice.  Pay close attention to the wonderfully written lyrics by lead singer, Peter Silberman.  The entire album includes an epic story of a man losing his loved one to cancer and having to witness her death first-hand.  Painfully tragic, yet beautifully documented along with the music in which it embeds itself in.  This is a must have album from 2009, from this Brooklyn-based indie group.