Holding post

I am working on another GTM post right now, but don't seem to be able to achieve the level of concentration necessary to get it finished just yet; in the meantime, here's one of those less-detailed-but-hopefully-somewhat-informative "holding posts" that I fire off from time to time.

1. Another new release - of sorts, but not exactly a normal one: I was rather amused to see today that the sizeable Braxton discography on Discogs.com has sprouted an entry under the previously-unrepresented "singles & EPs" category. Naturally, this does not indicate a misguided assault on the singles chart; rather, it just happens to be one user's interpretation of a new (ultra-)limited box set, comprising four single-sided, lathe-cut 7" vinyl picture discs, under the title Difficult Messages Volume Five: Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton Live in Los Angeles. Doubtless this is the kind of thing which could make hardcore collectors lose their shit entirely, it being pressed in a run of just thirty copies, each of which features unique and hand-painted cover art by John Olson and Nate Young. It will probably sell very fast and will inevitably start commanding ridiculous prices on resale, as such things have a tendency to do... As for the music, it purports to be "the entire set", whatever that means: no date or venue is given on the current entry, so it's far from clear which live set we are talking about. The concert which I wrote about earlier this year, in which B. took a nasty-looking (but apparently not serious) tumble onstage, comprised a first set lasting almost fifty minutes, and a second of just twelve minutes; the present release totals just over twenty-five minutes across its four sides. So, this is not from that concert, then: but although I knew about two further dates this year, those were in NYC and Philadelphia, and I had not heard about any repeat encounters in LA. What gives?

- Wherever and whenever this new thing was recorded, the actual release will realistically only ever be available to a tiny number of people* and is therefore destined to be little more than a footnote, at least as regards B's discography (the Wolf Eyes discography is presumably full of stuff like this** - and that's not even getting into the far more complicated matter of discographies for Olson and Young individually). It's still worth mentioning, though... as for the question: is it an album or an EP?, that's the sort of thing which would never get settled, no matter how many collectors weighed in on it. The designation "mini-album", which I found pretty useful as a teenage record collector in the '80s, has long since fallen into disuse, and inevitably it's now the case that one person's album is another's EP***. There being no hard and fast method for determining which category a given release falls into, it is doubtless one of those things which "you can just tell" - meaning, of course, that in practice people will vehemently disagree about such things (since each of them believes unswervingly that his - almost inevitably, his - instincts on the matter are "superior" to everyone else's). That's collection mania for you... I'm quite happy to sit this one out, even while I'm quite charmed that such an item exists.

2. The BBC Prom concert which is due to take place in just over a month's time will very probably have to happen without me; when I first wrote about this, I just assumed that I would attend... but that has looked increasingly unlikely ever since. The sad reality is that I hardly know anybody in London any more, and the hassle of getting up there, into the centre, out again and all the way home afterwards is quite considerable. At the same time, London is so prohibitively expensive these days that renting somewhere to stay overnight is not really an option, or at least not which I'm prepared to countenance. If I knew anybody who would go with me, or indeed if I still had a direct line to B. himself and could arrange to meet up with him afterwards, this would absolutely be something worth doing. As it is, unfortunately, listening to it on the radio seems like by far the more sensible option. Sad but true :( 

3. Continued (sporadic) efforts to get hold of the Czech box set Four Compositions (Wesleyan) 2013, as previously discussed most recently in March (and in rather more detail last October), are foundering - having looked quite promising at one point. There does not appear to have been any real attempt to distribute the release outside of Eastern Europe, which needn't come as any great surprise I suppose; and although some websites closer to home did begin listing the album at sane-ish prices, that looks to have been fairly short-lived and said prices have begun spiralling upwards into insane territory again. It is of course possible to buy the album directly from the label, or from another source based in Eastern Europe, but the very reasonable price for the actual album would be decidedly offset by the punitive cost of getting it sent to the UK, especially since my country is no longer part of the EU (don't...), and thus now levies extra taxes on top of the shipping cost. I do really want to buy this album, but I reckon it's going to have to wait until someone in the UK wants to sell it to me...

* In principle it could get released on CD or in digital form, but in practice, what would be the point? This type of release is all about owning something strictly limited, not about actual musical content. That's always been the case, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is kidding themselves...

** I haven't exactly checked, but that certainly appears to be the case - and it is what I would assume anyway. It's a (very) long time since I made any attempt to keep up with this kind of stuff, but I'm not completely unschooled in it: in my twenties and early thirties I did take an active interest in the industrial / noise music scene and even dabbled in collecting it, so I do remember the pull of tiny, hand-numbered and -crafted editions featuring borderline-unlistenable sounds. (Some of it worked as music, some of it didn't; some of it was really never intended that way.) Anyone who wanted to amass a comprehensive collection of, say, Olson's American Tapes label now would need a huge amount of money and patience, and a whole house to put it all in - and what would one then do with it, besides sitting on it and waiting for the optimal time to cash in by selling it to some Japanese fanatic?

*** This has nothing to do with length/ running time, as one might think: for example, the grindcore band Agoraphobic Nosebleed has put out multiple "albums" which last less than twenty minutes - absolutely standard for this sub-genre, among others - and an "EP" which lasts more than twice as long. There are ways of looking at this question according to which this does indeed seem to make sense, but as noted above, it's always going to end up being subjective, and giving rise to bad-tempered dispute.