Every Friday, Dusted Magazine publishes a series of music-related lists compiled by our favorite artists. This week, a pair of composers: Paris’s Etienne Jaumet and Brooklyn’s Jessica Pavone.
Etienne Jaumet is one half of the much-blogged-about electronic duo Zombie Zombie. The Parisian music fanatic’s history on record goes back a lot longer, though. He got his start as an engineer for artists like Herman Dune (half of which makes up the other half of Zombie Zombie), Julie Doiron and Kimya Dawson at the beginning of the decade. It wasn’t until 2007 that Jaumet set folk music to the side and dived into the French electronic scene. His new Carl Craig-produced solo album, Night Music, builds significantly on his work in Zombie Zombie, prompting our own Bernardo Rondeau to write “Jaumet needs no reanimator shtick in order to thrill.”
For this week’s Listed, Jaumet eschewed text and offered this 76-minute mix. The tracklisting and download link is below.
Câlin - “Money Poney” Uncle O - “Jupiter Menace” Bot’Ox - “Crashed Cadillac” Joakim - “Travel In Vain” Turzi - “Sebastien Tellier Sportswear Remix Refused” It’s A Fine Line - “Grease” Poni Hoax - “Budapest” Chromehoof - “Tonyte” Bogus - “Holidays” Invisible Conga People - “Weird Pains” Shackleton - “Blood In My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now Mix)”
Brooklyn violist and composer Jessica Pavone has worked with many of the leading figures in improvised and experimental music. Best known for her work with Anthony Braxton and her duo with guitarist Mary Halvorson, she also heads a 1960s soul-inspired band called the Pavones. Our Adam Strohm recently called her Tzadik-released Songs of Synastry and Solitude “full of lyrical beauty and lush melodicism, but…smart and spare, composed with an economy that never veers into anything saccharine.”
1. Basically anything that Holland Dozier Holland wrote for The Supremes “My World is Empty Without You,” “Love is Here and Now Your Gone.” I prefer the bittersweet. Shout out to Flo Ballard, original lead singer and stronger vocalist, who lost her spot in the limelight after Diana started sleeping with Berry Gordy. She died at the early age of 32 from alcoholism and despair.
2. Leonard Cohen - “One of Us Cannot be Wrong” What can I cay about this man. Don’t get me started. I saw him last spring at Radio City Music Hall. Upon bidding his audience farewell and wishing them a good evening, he reminded them not too eat too much on the way home. The words, or the poem I should say, that comprises this song are really cleaver and beautiful. I love the way Leonard fades away in agonizing “la la la” at the end.
3. Marvin Gaye - What’s Going On I am referring to the album, not the song. I dig the concept of concept albums. This is also musically, creatively and politically brilliant.
4. John Cage - “Quodlibet – Spring” (String Quartet in Four Parts, 1949-1950) The whole piece is amazing. The timbre of the strings is particularly striking, partially due to harmonics and senza vib., but the chord choices also adds to its uniqueness. The first time I heard it, I thought I was listening to wooden flutes. “Quodlibet” is my favorite movement, or “song,” clocking in at one minute and 18 seconds. Short, sweet and moving with such grace. “Songs” for “chamber music ensembles” has been an interest of mine for a while.
5. Terry Riley - You’re No Good Brilliant piece. It is a tape manipulation of an obscure soul tune by Harvey Averne. The ratio of the length and speed of the loop as the piece progresses within the entire structure of the piece is striking as well as its deconstruction.
6. Sun Ra and Nu Sounds - “Chicago USA” In general, I dig most everything by Mr. Blount, but in particular, I love the Spaceship Lullaby collection of vocal groups from 1954-1960, as well as The Singles. “Chicago USA” was composed as an entry in a contest to write a new theme song for the city of Chicago. I don’t think it won. Besides just being a great song, I love the way they try to create the feeling of the waves of Lake Michigan and the clickety sounds of El train.
7. Beethoven - The Complete Piano Sonatas I’ve always loved this composer. In my torturous days of playing in orchestras, I breathed a sigh of relief when his symphonies appeared on the bill. The piano Sonata’s are deep, heavy… romantic.
8. Ornette Coleman - Skies of America And I love the movie Ornette: Made in America, a documentary about Ornette and a concert (maybe a premier? I can’t remember) of this piece in Ft. Worth Texas. The movie is so strange and awesome. Am I getting off task?
9. Brandon Seabrook - Seabrook Power Plant I tried to keep personal friends and colleagues out of this, but I couldn’t resist. This album kills. Brandon plays both guitar and banjo in this power trio with his brother Jared on drums and Tom Blancarte on bass. Brandon plays and composes from the gut. CHECK HIM OUT!
10. Elliott Smith - “Pitseleh”
“They say that God makes problems / Just to see what you can stand.”
Every few weeks there is a song that I listen to constantly. Over and over. This has been on rotation a bunch the past few weeks. It hasn’t totally stood the test of Pavone time yet, but it serves promise.
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