Illusion is the First of All Pleasures

Compilation for a Cat

Not the usual musings, but this is very important to me.

A compilation featuring 37 tracks by different artists, many exclusive, put together to help a kitty get an operation he is in desperate need of!

This compilation has been put together by myself - Amanda Votta - with assistance from Peter Bjärgö, Neddal Ayad and Michael Tanner, to help raise funds for my cat Bran’s medical expenses. At the beginning of December Bran badly injured his right hind leg. At first, the veterinarians thought he had a small fissure in his tibia, but after two weeks and new x-rays, it became apparent that the real problem was a broken thigh and hip. A piece of the bone has actually broken off and needs to be removed. The surgery will cost 15,000SEK—approximately $2,187 US—which is more than I can afford after all the previous visits and x-rays. He also needs rehabilitation after the surgery since the muscle in his leg has deteriorated and become stiff from lack of use. Bran, the cat in need, will be two years old on the 18th of March—young enough that they anticipate a full recovery if he gets the necessary surgery as soon as possible. All of the proceeds from this compilation will go directly to Bran’s expenses. I’m not profiting by it and the artists involved have kindly donated these songs so that Bran can get the help he needs.
You can find out more about Bran and the fundraising efforts here: www.facebook.com/acatnamedbran

This compilation is available as a donate/pay what you will release. Many of the songs are unique to this compilation and others have been previously released and are no longer available, while some will be on future releases. This compilation will only be available for a limited time, after which it may be quite a while before some of these tracks are heard again, if at all.

Though you can download the entire compilation for free if you so wish, we ask that you consider donating something as it was put together for the purpose of raising funds to help cover the costs of Bran’s medical expenses. You get to help a kitty in need and listen to some wonderful music!

Tracklist, starred indicate exclusive or otherwise unavailable elsewhere tracks:

*Tony Wakeford – Cats Sleep Anywhere

*Arcana – Dehkbala

*Raison d’Etre – Luminous Shield

*Desiderii Marginis – Land of Strangers

*Tribes of Medusa – Hope

*Korperschwache – Bran Sez Ouchie

*Kammarheit – Kosmos

*Peter Bjärgö – As We Evaporate

*David Galas – The Rain (retro version)

*Maarten van der Vleuten – A Vision - The Garden Of Comfort (DIY Purr-Along-With-Bran Instrumental)

*Gustaf Hildebrand – Spherical Ether

*Sophia – In Slow Movements

*The Floating World – Anthion

*Chimerical Sound Engine – Duet for Cat and Piano

*The Aves – The French Window

*The Cloisters – Hymn for a Metacarpal Pad

*Tex La Homa – Ben

*The Implicit Order – The Green Meadow

Elizabeth Veldon – Pussy Cat Drone (After Polk Miller)

*Staalkracht – Inner Struggle

Vera Bremerton – Heart of Nihil

*In Slaughter Natives – Still With a Cocktail

*Seeing Red – SKEK

Madame B – Lullaby of Faith’s Rebirth

*Richard Moult – Be Still You Little Leaves

*Brian Lavelle – We Are the Cats Inside

*Agitated Radio Pilot – Because Fog Lifts

*Thalassing – Top Tieb

*Secrets to the Sea – This is How They’ll Find You

*Troy Schafer – Reflecting

*The Joy of Nature – Nobody’s Fault But JJ’s

*The Great Attractor – DTHRCKR

Susan Matthews – Ellipse-Theme

*Veil of Blue – Drifting

*Sathorys Elenorth – Become the Silence

Ignis – Más Allà Del Rio Skai

Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt – Various Pitches, Bends, and Invocations

Hybridity, Robert Johnson, Legba, Noise

Thinking about the idea of transculturation/asymmetrical hybridity again and how the beliefs of one culture come to be a part of the beliefs of another, I was reminded of the American blues musician Robert Johnson and the tale of his deal with the devil or— as some have put forth—not the devil after all, but Legba. In Vodou belief, Legba is the guardian of the crossroads, the god who “removes the barriers” and is the first called upon in a ceremony that he might open the gates (Olmos, Paravisini-Gebert 110). One must ask him for permission before summoning another lwa and “care must be taken not to offend him, as it could result in a believer’s being deprived of the protection of his or her own lwa” (110). Legba is also seem as the master of roads, paths, and the crossroads especially—a place where offerings are left for him (110). As I understand it, he is also associated with music. Based on this and the idea that in the 1930’s there still remained enough belief in pre-Christian practices amongst the African American population that going to the crossroads to leave offerings and ask favors was still prevalent. So in this theory, it is Legba and not the devil Johnson waits to meet in the middle of the night at the crossroads. It is Legba who bestows on him his musical ability.

It’s an interesting idea and I don’t immediately see why there would be cause to believe that African Americans had somehow forgotten practices that one can find alive today. As one researcher, Patricia Schroeder, put it “The crossroads story would have resonated for his friends and family, who would have interpreted it both as Americans and as heirs of African spiritual traditions. While many of Johnson’s contemporaries were Christian, churchgoing people, some of them (sometimes the same ones) would have looked to African practices—bottle borders, spirit writing, hoodoo charms—for guidance in everyday living” (35). Schroeder also discusses Julio Finn’s findings in this regard, according to whom “one reason the black Church in the Delta castigated the blues was for its strong association with hoodoo, which they saw as an anti-Christian throwback to ‘primitive’ unsaved Africa” (35). It is theorized that Johnson went to the bayous to find a Root Doctor to pledge himself to and that “his initiation into and intimate knowledge of hoodoo are evident in his lyrics, that his pact with the devil might have been a hoodoo ceremony in which he sought Legba’s assistance in opening the gate to his talent” (35). Not being well versed enough in the folk practices and beliefs of the 1930’s Delta region, I can’t attest to how likely or unlikely this scenario is, but it is still interesting to consider.

Shroeder points out the connection between the blues and hoodoo with the plethora of references to the crossroads, black cat bones, mojo hands, bad signs, etc. that one can find in blues lyrics (35). She also makes a point of describing how, in their own communities, blues musicians were seen as the devil’s minions. According to statements made by Reverend Booker Miller, a musician turned minister, “Them old folks did believe the devil would get you for plain’ the blues and livin’ like that … [the idea of selling your soul to the devil came from] those old slavery times” (29). So in this we can see some kind of transculturation or hybridizing element at work—Legba became identified with the devil due to his status as a trickster, his “combination of supernatural power and caprice” (34). So then it is this concept of the devil that was being spoken of in the Delta at this time and not purely the Christian devil.

According to some sources Johnson told this tale himself and according to others it was invented after his death to promote the sale of his reissued work. Son House, one of Johnson’s contemporaries and something of a mentor figure—though he used to often berate Johnson for his lack of ability with the guitar—has said that Johnson told him the tale of this meeting himself. The story itself is that Johnson went to a crossroads just before midnight, to make sure he was there on time (midnight being the preferred hour for such transactions since it too is a crossroads). He then waited, playing his guitar, until a black man—the devil, or Legba—walked up to him, took the guitar, tuned it and played some on it before returning it to him. Thereafter, Johnson was able to play anything he heard and to write his own music as well. This deal is supposed to account for why, before he left his home and traveled around the delta for about two years, he was so abysmal on the guitar and then suddenly—two years later—so good. Although, speaking as someone who has played an instrument for many, many years, in two year’s time it’s perfectly reasonable to go from novice to quite polished with dedicated practice. But this story is much better.

This story is interesting to consider from several angels and not just transculturation and hybridity. One could apply the primitive vs civilized debate, with the pre-Christian beliefs characterized as primitive compared to the civilized Christianity. As well, it can possibly demonstrate the ability for a people’s native beliefs to survive the kind of trauma being captured and enslaved would cause. As in Vodou beliefs became blended, deities became associated with saints, imagery and ceremonies became a amalgamation of ideas drawn from both sources. We can even see in this story the carnivalesque of Mikhail Bakhtin. Perhaps he and other musicians like Tommy Johnson or Peetie Wheatstraw deliberately cultivated this image of the anti-order trickster figure associated with the ambiguous devil figure. Being thought of already by the more conservative members of the community as unsettling and threatening to the natural order of things thanks to their chosen profession, it would have increased the appeal to those already sympathetic to the idea of uprooting, overturning and in a way mocking the establishment. Or at least those looking for a good time.

As well, I know there’s precedence for tales like this without looking to beliefs carried over from Africa—Paganini being a case in point. I nevertheless find it interesting to consider an interpretation of this story in light of the idea of transculturation, hybridity, the meeting and melding of different belief structures to create something new.

This also leads me nicely into the next book I plan to start on shortly. Noise: The Political Economy of Music by Jacques Attali. There is much discussion of the musician’s role in socety throughout history—and, of course, the implied discussion of music as a commodity. But already from the early pages I’ve found reason to keep reading:

“He is one of society’s first gazes upon itself; he is one of the first catalyzers of violence and myth. I will show later that the musician is an integral part of the sacrifice process, a channeler of violence, and that the primal identity magic-music-sacrifice-rite expresses the musician’s position in the majority of civilizations: simultaneously excluded (relegated to a place near the bottom of the social hierarchy) and superhuman (the genius, the adored and deified star). Simultaneously a separator and an integrator” (12).

It’s amusing that an economist wrote something I can get so excited about.

Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Trans Brian Massumi. University of Minnesota Press. 1977.

Fernandez Olmos, Margarite  and Paravisini-Gebert. Creole Religions of the Caribbean. New York University Press. New York, London. 2003.

Schroeder, Patricia R. Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture.  University of Illinois Press. Urbana and Chicago. 2004.

Transculturation

A concept I’ve been experiencing something of a renewed interest in recently, thanks to my reading of Creole Religions of the Carribean, transculturation is, in essence, the merging and converging of cultures to create something new and unique. This term was first coined by the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz as a means to counterbalance the term acculturation—which was used to describe the development of Caribbean cultures as an imposition of the culture of the conquering nation onto the conquered society (3). Acculturation, according to Ortiz, devalued and supplanted the indigenous cultures, while in his view colonialization was instead an ongoing process of appropriation, revision and survival leading to the mutual transformation of the preexisting cultures into a new one (4). Ortiz believed that his concept of transculturation is a more accurate view of the process that leads to modern Caribbean cultures (4). Unavoidably, religious practices were at the heart of this process of transculturation (4). In this way, the African practices provided important resources for both reconstructing ethnic ties and social relations disrupted by slavery as well as for creating new collective identities and belief systems that were a blend of the cultures of diverse African peoples and served to help them meet new challenges and deal with social oppression (4). Ortiz metaphorically referred to transculturation as a soup, ajiaco, made from a wide variety of ingredients and in which the broth that remains at the bottom is representative of an integrated national identity which has been produced through synthesis (4).

Ortiz’s ideas on transculturation have not gone without criticism, however. Critics say that this notion fails to take into account or do justice to the “undissolved ingredients”—the magical and life-affirming aspects of Afro-Caribbean religions (4). The Cuban art critic Gerardo Mosquera argues that “beside the broth of synthesis, there are bones, gristle, and hard seeds that never fully dissolve, even after they have contributed their substance to the broth. These undissolved ingredients are the survivals and recreations of African traditions within religious-cultural complexes” (4). This is, perhaps, the most glaring flaw in this theory according to its critics. And, as with all theories, being critical isn’t a bad thing but is something that can help to further refine and alter them into something that may have a more solid foundation—or to discard entirely ideas that come to be proved less than useful.

Transculturation is, to be sure, an interesting mode of approach in examining the blending and recreation of society and culture after a great upheaval such as invasion and conquest, but as Mosquera pointed out it is also wise to remain aware of the bits that do not simply merge, but survive in their own right. To this end, the idea of asymmetrica hybridity may be of more use, which is something I would like to examine further at some point.

I find the idea of transculturation—or asymmetrical hybridity—interesting in the context of studying ‘hybrid’ forms of music, or music that deliberately borrows from other traditions. How exactly are these different elements blended—evenly or disproportionately? Is one tradition favored over another in certain hybrid styles? And what constitutes a hybrid style and how is it distinct from something not intentionally hybridized but displaying characteristics of different musical traditions?

Books I want to read this summer

1. The Anthropology of Music, Alan P. Merriam

Published in 1964, this is a landmark work in the field. It goes beyond the bounds of ethnomusicology by discussing the meaning of music within a culture itself. Mirriam argues that we need to examine music as a whole and not just from the standpoint of sound analysis. We must also consider the creation of music, its performance and how we think about it in order to fully understand it and the role it plays in culture and identity. He developed a three-fold, tirpartite, model for the anthropological study of music. Sound analysis is one of these, but he also suggest behavior in relation to music as well as concepts about music as areas of study. Merriam also moved from the idea of music in culture to music as culture, which is an important one for those who wish to argue music’s place of importance.

2. Musicking: The Meanings of Performance and Listening, Christopher Small

Small argues that music isn’t a thing, but an activity. His term ‘musicking’ is a verb that he uses to encompass the entire musical process, from composing to performance to listening to participation. According to the synopsis: “Small demonstrates how musicking forms a ritual through which all the participants explore and celebrate the relationships that constitute their social identity.” All I think when I see that, thanks to recent reading, is communitas, liminality, carnivalesque. This is sure to be an interesting read as the idea of music as ritual is one I’m very enamoured with—as well as the role it plays in social identity. Small argues here that any action taken as concerns music—listening, performing, creating, imitating (singing along)—constituted musicking. In this, he demonstrates the importance of music in creating relationships between audience and musician, between audience memebers. Essentially, this constitutes a look at music activity and the importance of all the varied realtionships and their nuances that music inspires.

3. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music, Simon Frith

Frith seems to be attempting to define just what popular music is, how it affects one socially and individually and how it can help to define both. He examines what it is we are talking about when we discuss music and why the distinctions we make about good and bad, high brow and low matter. All of this is part of how we construct our social identity and play into how and why we enjoy the music we do. He also asks if a technical understaning on the part of the listener is necessary for one to enjoy the music one hears and concludes that it is not. While not a new concept, it is one that leads to ther questions. Such as the idea of a hierarchy or elect few being the voices of ‘art’ or what exactly constitutes talent and why the answers differ from person to oerson and culture to culture.

4. Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Jacques Attali

Written by an economist, this isn’t exactly your anthropologucal examination of music and its role in society. Rather, it examines music as a predictor of social change and as a commodity. He discusses the exchange relationship between music and culture and defines four stages of music. The first, Sacrificing, refers to music prior to approximately 1500AD - the time before mass production of notation. Second, Representing, the era between 1500-1900AD during which music begins to be tied to physical media and therefore first becomes a commodity. Third we have Repeating, 1900AD until now, when recording replaced notation or printed music and broadcasting came about. There is a fourth stage, Post-Repeating, hinted at bit never fully developed and discussed. While written by an economist, it appears to be an interesting read and rather useful for understanding varying viewpoints on the evolution of music and its role in culture.

5. The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-One Issues and Concepts, Bruno Nettl

A book—a textbook, really—comprised of thirty-one essays on different topics pertinent to ethnomusicology. This is an uodated version of the origial book, which contained twenty-nine topics. In this version, current research has been included and addressed, as well the addition of thise four extra chapters. Case studies are included to help illuminate the concepts discussed and Nettl includes much of his own field research. From Western urban music to the Middle East and many more besides, we are treated to insights and a critical look at developements in the field. Of particular interest to me is a chapter dealing with the ethnomusicologist’s study of their own culture. This seems especially pertinent to my own interests as well as being timely considering how many people are doing just that.

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6. How Musical is Man?, John Blacking

This small yet thought-provoking book examines Western music and the music of the Venda people. To the Venda, everyone should participate in music. There is no elect few ‘talented’ individuals who have the pleasure of making and performing music. By contrast, Western music is rife with the idea of talent and there being a correct way to create music. It is an interesting study, but it does have its flaws—there are only the two traditions covered, making the title something of a misnomer. Yet it does provide insights about Western standards and ideals, raises quwsrions as to how and why the Western tradition developed the way it did as opposed to the Venda tradition. This book is one that seems to be a good introduction to the field, as well as one that would be of interest to non-specialists for the simple fact that it encourages creativity. Blacking said that after spending time among the Venda he could no longer understand the Western tradition, why we have such a hierarchy in the arts. For that point alone, it’s worth a read.

7. The Anthropology of Performance, Victor Turner

From the man that brought us the concepts of communitas and liminality—taking a cue from van Gennep—Turner here investigates the concepts of performance, carnival, theater and more. His intention here seems to be to eexplore in a new way idea about sectacles and the audience. To explore performance. I admit to being fascinated by his ideas for many years, so this volume is one that I’d like to include here as I feel his concepts have something to offer in the study of music in culture. As well, the idea of performance, whether it be theatrical, ritual or musical, is something that is seemingly an intrinsic part of human activity. The idea that a performance of any kind momentarily suspends the regular order of things is one that is quite pertinent to a survey of music in culture as music is meant to be performed.