Comments on: Pompey Ran Away

By: legible sheet music for Pompey Ran Away « Soup Greens

legible sheet music for Pompey Ran Away « Soup Greens — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 18:35:50 +0000

[...] When I previously blogged the old old sheet music for "Pompey Ran Away", I used a scan that sucked: [...]

By: openmusicdoors

openmusicdoors — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:33:31 +0000

It seems i can get better ideas and tips to improve my guitar music skills from your posts.

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:56:23 +0000

Hey kev, sorry it took me so long to approve your comments here. I didn’t realize there was stuff in the comment moderation queue.

Yeah, isn’t it bizarre and amazing to find that flavor of contemporary african music embedded in these old tunes? It’s like the Jurassic Park deal of using DNA in blood in mosquitoes in amber to make living dinosaurs.

By: Kevin Prichard

Kevin Prichard — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:06:03 +0000

I hear something not entirely unrelated to contemporary African music in this piece. Nice find and rendition, Lucas.

By: Soup Greens » the classical blowhard POV on Pompey Ran Away

Soup Greens » the classical blowhard POV on Pompey Ran Away — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:45:12 +0000

[...] blowhard POV on Pompey Ran Away 1907 edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians on Pompey Ran Away: It has the incessant repetition of phrase found in so many negro airs. As to the African origin of [...]

By: Soup Greens » afro indie

Soup Greens » afro indie — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:48:46 +0000

[...] a comment on Pompey Ran Away Greg Borenstein surfaced a connection between indie rock and African [...]

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:37:43 +0000

How come I recognize that electric guitar line in Hatari? Anyway that raw tone works like crazy. I’m hearing a Deerhoof angle and a some Remain in Light -kind’o Talking Heads.

By: Lucas Gonze

Lucas Gonze — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:33:31 +0000

That’s an awesome cite, Greg. It kind of blew my mind to follow these links.

The African influence is risky because of the potential for a tie die world-music influence. But that’s just one way of recontextualizing this source and it turns out to work great in the indie context too.

Speaking musically I love the piano accents and theramin in Knotty Pine. Also the layering is really vital.

By: Greg Borenstein

Greg Borenstein — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 05:20:51 +0000

Totally dig this one, Lucas, especially the connection you’re drawing to early 80s Sonic Youth. There’s a bunch of contemporary band exploring this africa/low-fi blues connection right now. Two of my favorites are Dirty Projectors. Their recent collaboration with David Byrne, Knotty Pine, is a great example of them at the top of their form in this regard: http://hypem.com/search/knotty%20pine/1/ Another great example is tUnE-yArDs, a band that’s about to put out their first release on Marriage Records. Two of the songs on it explore either side of the african/traditional influence in indie/low-fi music. Hatar has the african flavor: http://idfdz.tumblr.com/post/86225886/hatari-by-tune-yards-their-new-record-is-solid and News has a more old-timey feel:http://idfdz.tumblr.com/post/86986358/news-by-tune-yards-another-song-from-their

Both of these bands emphasize the circular rhythms and phrase-oriented melodies you cite as coming from the african influence. It’s interesting that a lot of the more virtuosic contemporary indie bands are looking to these kinds of african techniques to express their mastery rather than the more traditional “wanky” rock version.