Year Dispactké2004                                                           p. 4



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Aneikit Bonnel – “Sidewalk Song”
Aneikit put this on a three song EP given out to a few people at the end of the year. Hearing it played live a half dozen times or so throughout the year were some of the most pleasant moments I spent all year. “Sidewalk” so calms and grounds me, perhaps because it speaks to many of my worlds—the romantic, noise experimental, storytelling.

It shifts through three movements—quiet verse, ditty chorus calling out to you, and then a bridge comprised of experimental appregios that are so arresting as to be the very definition of aural peace. When she jumps back into the chorus it is like being jolted from a trance-like sleep and ushered back to this world. A baroque, three-minute gem of a pop song.

 
Amy Edith Shapiro’s “Hey is for Horses”
Hunter College MFA Thesis Project Exhibition

So if as a kid you greeted someone with, “hey,” your mother would say "hay’ is for horses.” And so Shapiro explores how really to greet someone—an interpretation of the soul shake. Medium size paintings deconstruct the mechanics of the shake (or of learning it?) —the shake itself, the snap, the final hug. Shapiro has a way of taking action (or thought, feelings, states of being) and exploring them through repetitious re-placements, angular searches, endlessly approaching and re-approaching the acts through drawings that are vibrant, bulbous, morphic. A video displayed two brothers (by that I mean Negroes) coming upon one another performing the shake, snap, hug, and pound. (A video below showed two female hands attempting to work their way through and learn the motion.) A massive wall drawing has an arm going through the motion in a more solitary, sparse, formalized manner. The movement has been absorbed, abstracted, explored, conceptually humanized. This MFA exhibition as a whole was one of the strongest shows I viewed all year, plain and simple. I particularly liked the work of Jen Kelly, Ofri Cnaani, and Kelly Anne Sturhahn, though nearly all the work was engaging. Maybe I should have gotten my ass to grad school after all.


TV on the Radio / Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Liars @ Warsaw
Back in February the Yeahs Yeah Yeahs gave a surprise performance sandwiched between headliners Liars and TV on the Radio at Greenpoint spot Warsaw. It was pretty hype—the first time I’ve actually dug the YYYs live, with the Liars insane of course, falling into the drum kit during their electro noise operas. Devoured some pierogis, polish finger sandwiches, and $4 wine too—that Polish Warsaw fare. (I missed the Chromatics.)
The Break In: Dynamics of Urban-Lifestyle Art
A group showing of underground artists at Paul Rodgers Gallery, featuring Ces, Dalek, Doze Green, Ewok, Shepard Fairey (Obey), NYC Lase, Seen, and the Tats Cru. Legendary monsters throwing it down.

We’re Wolves – “The Cigarette Basement” (Enamel)
This is a three song EP from punk-pop trio We’re Wolves, hailing from Pittsburgh. Caught them opening for Electric Turn To Me (those cats again) at Lit late in August and was just blown away. Crushing, melodic punk rock glory. Watch out for these ‘uns.
The Brown Bunny by Vincent Gallo
You would think people had never seen a blowjob on film before. Admittedly Gallo has only himself to blame for the complete lack of focus on Brown Bunny the film rather than the inconsequential shit surrounding it. If you can get past anticipation of “the moment” you’ll witness a stunningly beautiful, emotionally arresting piece of experimental filmmaking. The controversy we should have been discussing is how Brown Bunny fits into the experimental filmmaking cannon, and what that might mean.

Amp Fiddler – “Waltz of a Ghetto Fly” (Genuine)
Detroit house funkified soul. Deep organ keyboards from former George Clinton and Carl Craig Experiment keys man Amp Fiddler. Soulful, sublime (and title of the year). This record kept me from putting my man Roy Davis Jr.’s Chicago Forever off Ubiquity Records here. Though I find Fiddler’s record stronger as a whole, Davis’ disc contains more standout tribal tech-house romps. There are places where house music has evolved and become sophisticated, folks.

(Though I still love me some of that ghetto hard disco electro-techno shit, fuck all of them “rockists.”)


Okay, enough.

January ‘05

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Year Dispactké2004                                                           p. 4