Café 80

Lovely

2012-01-28T09:35:00.000+01:00

Bowie du Jour : I'm Deranged

2012-01-26T22:26:00.000+01:00

This has been hanging around for some time.
Favorite song from the "Outside" album.

"Cold Sweat" on TV

2012-01-23T20:50:00.001+01:00

Thomas Lesourd's film "Cold Sweat", based on my music, has been broadcast part of some French arty TV show on TéléNantes. Nice! At 33.15 of the program.

I Love the Lennon Sisters

2012-01-16T22:51:00.000+01:00

I wanted to post this for Christmas and forgot.

New Short Film Coming Up (and it's Horrible)

2012-01-15T23:05:00.000+01:00

My song "Heart of Darkness", from the "Broken Sails" EP will be featured on Thomas Lesourd's new movie, "Horrible Boy", a great, weird little work that should be online in March. Stay tuned for more info.

Lomography

2012-01-14T17:24:00.000+01:00

Work

2012-01-11T22:20:00.000+01:00

Quick Tempest

2012-01-08T17:18:00.000+01:00

Quick video for the upcoming NAMM show. We (the proud DSI Tempest owners) were asked to produce a short (30-60 sec) demo showing the performance capabilities of this great analog drum machine. There you go.

Papa's Got a Brand New Mic (Again)

2012-01-07T12:38:00.000+01:00

Last time was a Bluebird and it's a great vocal mic, but this deal was just too sweet to pass on. A second-hand Neumann TLM103 for 439€.

First tests show a fuller, warmer sound, I'll post a comparative soundclip tomorrow.

Youtube Update : Last Night I Was a Ghost

2012-01-05T01:06:00.001+01:00

Some of you have trouble with the Dailymotion streaming, so here's the Youtube upload as well. Today, back to work on finalizing the mix.

I'm planning to release this on the "Crack-Up" album.
The new DSI Tempest is drumming all along and boy does it sound great.
Otherwise, the usual suspects : plenty of Moog and Prophet 08, as well as some acoustic guitar.

Into my Parlour

2012-01-04T23:06:00.000+01:00

Microkorg Patches (Not Mine, This Time)

2012-01-02T10:26:00.000+01:00

Remember my 70's string machine Microkorg? Well, here's an external link to some very cool vintage-sounding Microkorg : http://snakecult.tiredmachine.com/1025-custom-microkorg-patch-library
If you own a Microkorg, or plan to buy one, and dig retro-analog-vintage-oldie sounds, you should definitely check these out

Happy New Year, People

2012-01-01T18:56:00.000+01:00

More seasonal photographs...

Wintertime II

2011-12-31T16:58:00.002+01:00

Wintertime

2011-12-30T19:59:00.000+01:00

Work in Progress : Last Night I Was a Ghost

2011-12-27T22:46:00.000+01:00

New work on the upcoming "Crack-Up" album.

Miss Roxanne on vocals.

The outstanding DSI Tempest drum machine provided the basis for the song, and I've added lots of Moog Little Phatty and Prophet 08. Also featured, the new Chamberlin expansion for Gforce M-Tron Pro.

Work in Progress : Last Night I Was a Ghost par khoral_kmore

Hands Down

2011-12-25T22:56:00.000+01:00

The Line Begins to Blur

2011-12-23T21:15:00.000+01:00

Tempest Video Demo

2011-12-19T16:07:00.000+01:00

For demo purposes only, the Tempest track in isolation, from the "Static Song" sessions.
Not the best recording quality, my audio interface might be getting old, but with all the little live manipulations, I didn't want to do another take, so there you go...
A fair amount of Lexicon MX200 reverb (the only built-in FX are analog distorsion and compression, no digital ones).

Work in Progress : The Static Song

2011-12-15T21:25:00.000+01:00

Work in Progress : The Static Song from Karim More on Vimeo.

RetroFuture

2011-12-13T22:28:00.000+01:00

Hats Off to Mister Selvaggio

2011-12-11T18:57:00.000+01:00

Lots of things going on these days, hence the lack of posts.

I'm still piling up songs for the "Crack-Up" and working on videos.

But I'm also collaborating with this outstanding Italian musician, Marco Selvaggio, aka Hang Drum.

He plays that rare sort of chromatic drums in a very melodic way and I'm sure we'll come up with great music.

Check out his work :

http://soundcloud.com/hang-drum

http://www.youtube.com/user/kunderahouse

Street Music

2011-12-08T12:59:00.000+01:00

Listening Mode : Right Where it Belongs

2011-12-02T19:36:00.000+01:00

In this song, like Fitzgerald before him, Reznor comes to grip with the hollowness of public life and the collapse of one’s ego. Both men stare at their own reflection and find something is askew. In his “Crack-Up” papers, Fitzgerald realized he had become a dry, empty shell, a fac simile of being, the ghost of a ghost. The writer who had achieved stardom faced a void of purpose, “the hollowness inside of your heart”, an empty house only haunted with the remembrance of things gone west. A shift is taking place, leaving the man to ponder the directions in which his personality is splitting up.

Crippled with uncertainty, finding no time for rigid, by-the-book protest slogans, this is a song of existential questions. “What if all the world you think you know is an elaborate dream?“ In the mirror, the man sees his future self: “if you look at your reflection, is that all you want to be?” Indeed, today’s Reznor is a bodybuilding, wealthy musician who churns out neatly produced songs like a well-programmed robot assembles cars, a laborious rock star, creating music on autopilot. Stuffed like the Hollow Men, comfortably numb, digging up the same hole over and over. “Is that all you want to be?”, his former self seems to ask. “What if you could look right through the cracks?” The man in the mirror entertains the masses with professional, slick, clean-cut shows and packs up muscle as if layers of flesh may fill up the void once depicted in this song. “I used to have a purpose, but then again, it might have been a dream”, laments Reznor elsewhere on the album.

Of course, one is hard pressed to find fault, both musically and technically, to his post-“With Teeth” output. His last commercial work to date, “Year Zero”, is a tour de force of clever programming, catchy choruses and rich artwork. Its marketing campaign was also pretty elaborate, with USB songs lost on purpose in hotel rooms, so that they might resurface on their own. Yet there is something unsettling about the whole album. Something missing, some sense of urgency and danger, that music is the expression of a deep-seated urge to tear the universe apart. On the other hand, “Right where it Belongs”, like his pre-“With Teeth” work, is the diary of a dark night of the soul, profoundly humane, flawed and fragile.

Fitzgerald again: “Every man has a breaking point”. This is the point of realization, where there is a choice you have to make. “You can live in this illusion - You can choose to believe”. Well, like TS Eliot once said, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” You either face complacency or moral despair. Fitzgerald chose the former, going back to Hollywood, a dull, mediocre version of his youthful flamboyant self. On “Right where it Belongs”, the use of applause samples reminds us of Pink Floyd’s “Welcome to the Machine”, another song about the empty pursuit of fame and fortune. Indeed, Reznor make it very clear that the hollowness of his neat little world is at stake. This is an outstanding piece of music, which speaks from the heart, the self-diagnosis of a painful transition, the record of a loss that the writer is unable to fully understand.

Macro Flowers

2011-11-30T22:48:00.000+01:00

Broken Girl

2011-11-28T19:04:00.000+01:00

Work in Progress : "All the Drugs" (session 1)

2011-11-27T16:14:00.000+01:00

Recording sessions for a new song.

No playback, all shots show the actual takes being recorded.

I'll update the video as the recording and mixing goes along.

Untitled from Karim More on Vimeo.

Shapes

2011-11-25T20:37:00.002+01:00

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

2011-11-22T13:23:00.000+01:00

Recycled from my archives. Circa 2004.

This was originally a demo for a project I had with an American singer, creating a whole EP based on my favorite X-Files episode, but relationship issues tanked it. There were some nice songs in there, so I'm digging them out.

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas by khoral

Tempest Early Impressions Video

2011-11-19T15:55:00.000+01:00

This is a short video to show what can be done right out of the box with the new Tempest analog drum machine, as you're learning your way through its rather complex interface.

The Crack-Up (Mellotron Version)

2011-11-14T22:38:00.000+01:00

This is a 100% Mellotron rendition of the title song off my upcoming album.
All sounds : Gforce Chambertron.

The Crack-Up (Mellotron Version) by khoral

Promenade

2011-11-13T17:48:00.000+01:00

Docks

2011-11-12T19:57:00.000+01:00

Lots of photographs lately, but new music to come this month (and Tempest videos).

Yup, It's Here

2011-11-09T13:23:00.000+01:00

And it sounds fantastic.
Audio and video tests to come.

Tempest Ahoy!

2011-11-06T22:27:00.001+01:00

My Thomann order was getting nowhere fast, so I've canceled it and switched to the belgian site Key Music.
Yup, a French buying a Californian analog drum machine from Belgium.

Portal

2011-11-04T18:24:00.000+01:00

Glass Eye

2011-11-01T11:14:00.000+01:00

Time is Running Out

2011-10-31T23:21:00.002+01:00

Tempest Ahoy?

2011-10-28T07:47:00.000+02:00

All right, I've placed my order this week, but it's not yet in stock at Thomann...
Ugh, I hope it won't be too long.

I mean, check these out : http://m.matrixsynth.com/search?q=tempest

Korg Monotribe Review

2011-10-22T13:34:00.000+02:00

Yes, the Tempest is here, but till I get one, let’s review something much much more primitive, the Monotribe.

It’s a fully analog monophonic synthesizer, drum machine and sequencer, and it’s Korg’s follow-up to the diminutive Monotron.

Now the Monotron was a fun little thing, and I bought one as soon as it was released. It was small, and I mean really small, hardly bigger than an Iphone. It sported a single oscillator and a recreation of the famous MS20 filter. The sound was dirty and gritty and vicious, and blatantly analog. There was just one problem. It was impossible to play. Thanks to the awful ribbon controller, there was simply no way to produce a melody or at least a musically sane succession of notes. Yes, I know, some people used stylets to play melodies, but they were far more patient than I am. So, you were basically bound to produce beeps and screechs and crazy effects, and it was not very versatile at that either. So I sold it back.

That said, I knew that the Monotron was only Korg testing the waters for some more serious analog gear, and there it is, the Monotribe.

The construction is good. It’s actually surprisingly good. The Monotron was a cheap piece of plastic, the cheapest you’ll ever see on a synth. The Monotribe on the other hand is bulky and solid, with a nice reassuring metal feel. The knobs feel right and so do the switches. It’s much less portable than the Monotron, but feels more professional and trustworthy, especially since it’s designed to travel along with you.

On the rear, you’ll find a mono line output, a small headphones output, an audio in to process external sound and a couple of sync in and outs, so you can sync the Monotribe with another instrument or an external click.

The filter is still glorious. It isn’t your mellow, warm, round Moog filter, and it sure ain’t digital either. No, it’s an aggressive, buzzing, in-your-face filter, with that special analog flavor.

One issue though, you can’t filter external sound without having it mixed to the oscillator. This is plain stupid and actually is the only thing that makes one regret the Monotron. For all its limitations, the Monotron was able to process sound without adding the oscillator in the mix. Why in the world the Monotribe can’t seem to do that, I have no idea. The Moog LP can filter external sound, and if you want the external sound alone, you just have to put the oscillator volume to zero. On the Monotribe, well, screw you, you can’t. That’s really dumb and renders external filtering largely unusable. Too bad.

The drum machine is limited to 3 sounds, which, uh, is not much. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of much, it’s awfully less. How lesser can you get. A kick, a snare, a hat, and there you have it. To some extent, I like that, it’s primitive and simple and straightforward, but come on, 3 sounds? Not that I was expecting a complete kit at this price, but some sort of cymbal or tom would have been nice.

That said, the drums sound superb. The kick is powerful and warm. The snare has a very pleasing 1978 sound and the hat is crisp without being too harsh. You can’t change the relative loudness of them, so take note that there’s a slight emphasis on the kick. In action, they all click in perfectly, providing that tight, groovy sound we’ve come to expect from a real analog drum machine, as opposed to sequenced samples.

One big issue is that you can’t pass the drum sounds through the filter. And you can’t change the drum tones either. So you’d better like these 3 sounds because you’re going to hear them a hell of a lot. That’s a bit of a shame, really, because, as great as they sound, it’d be useful, to say the least, to be able to introduce some variation in there. But you can’t, at least not without custom modification.

On the back, yup, that’s right, it’s a speaker. While not as bad as the Monotron speaker, it hardly does the Monotribe justice. It’s decent, but the low end of the drums is basically gone, leaving us with the question : why oh why. Why a speaker. I haven’t got a clue. Well, I guess it’s meant to be able to play everywhere without headphones, but why would you do that? It’s not like the speaker is good enough or powerful enough to do an impromptu gig in front of people. And trust me, if you actually do that, it won’t be long until they get bored and start to hit you on the head with it. So, I guess, my real question is: why not using the space that’s wasted with this in order to add something, I don’t know, useful.

Let’s state it once and for all: these Korg ribbon controls are bad. They’re atrocious. If you thought their mini-keys were bad, you haven’t put your flabby finger on this awfulness of a controller. Oh, but there’s improvement there actually. The Monotron was impossible to play. The Monotribe is merely a pain in the backside. Having realized how useless the Monotron ribbon was, Korg has added the option to turn the ribbon into a fac simile of chromatic keyboard. Thank you, but what about simple buttons? Do we really need a ribbon that bad? What about a MIDI IN? Sure, the Monotron was too small to implement MIDI, but the Monotribe? Which brings me back to: why waste valuable space for a speaker, considering the drastic limitations the user faces elsewhere? Ha, well…

All right, I’m complaining a lot here, because there are lots of flaws in the product, but the truth is, I’m glad I’ve bought one and I have no plans to give it back. Why is that? Because it’s so damn fun to play! It’s small, not too expensive, and sounds awesome. There’s a minimal set of features, but just about enough to produce a very decent array of different sounds and grooves, and the mini-drum machine itself sounds very good. You can program an 8-steps sequence on the synth and juxtapose it with a 16-steps sequence on the drums, and introduce some swing if you use the iPod/Phone SyncKontrol application. While it’s playing, you can short the whole sequence to any number of steps or have it skip any particular step. Overall, the simplicity of the controls turns the Monotribe into a nice performance tool, with all the unpredictability of analogue.

Now should you buy one? Well, if your setup is purely digital and you’re looking for some cool, cheap analog flavor, you might want to consider the Monotribe. It’s a luxury of course, because the same amount of moment would get you a second-hand Doepfer Dark Energy, or for that matter, a number of overlooked analog polysynths. But if you’ve got the cash on hand, it’s a nice little addition to any studio, with a distinctive and punchy sound.

A Quick Look at the Korg Kronos

2011-10-15T10:23:00.000+02:00

Disclaimer : This is NOT by any means a review, just quick impressions from playing the Korg Kronos at my usual music shop the other day.

I have conflicting feelings about workstations.

On the one hand, I do believe they tend to produce a very pro but tame sound. To put it simply, they all sound the same, in a clean, generic, cheesy, dull sort of way. And the integration of zillion of features sometimes make them overly complicated, with very few knobs and lots of screen menus. And of course it also makes them pricey.

On the other hand, they've often become very fun to play, with their in-box grooves and sophisticated arpeggiators and evolving patches. I certainly liked playing the Korg M50 once in a while when my ex-keyboard player was using it live.

That said, I was at the store the other day, asking about the Tempest, and spent some time on the new Korg Kronos. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed by how powerful, complex and musical that thing actually sounds.

The juxtaposition of high-end drum samples, assembled in swingy, groovy beats, with deep synthesis engines and the old Karma system to produce intricate, evolving motifs, well, this all makes the Kronos a blast to play. Just browsing the presets and fiddling around the parameters is a joy. There's an immediacy to the performance that reminds me of the Wavestation, in that you can conjure up a whole song with a single patch, just by improvising and tweaking the parameters in real time. And like the best instruments, it's pretty unpredictable too. Also, when you switch from one patch to another, the lingering notes on the first patch continue to ring, without being cut off by the change of patch. This is rare and very pleasing, because you can hop from one patch to the other in a smooth, musical way.

Not many knobs of course, but you get a big touch screen, with menus laid out logically. In a matter of seconds, I was able to find my way through the basic settings and start to alter the presets composing a patch. The screen interface itself is a bit ugly and cheap, as you can see on the following pic.

The keyboard itself didn't impress as much. It's decent, but in that price bracket, you would expect better response. The overall build quality is okay, although the design is pretty boring. I mean, hey, the 90's are gone, get over it.

All in all, a very exciting experience (which was enhanced by my subsequent playing on the new Roland Jupiter-80, which is bulky, awkward to play, ugly, and doesn't sound nearly as good).

Buy Pot

2011-10-11T18:18:00.001+02:00

So I finally got myself to purchase the Pot upgrade for the Prophet 08.

The original Prophet had a couple of issues

One was that all knobs were rotary encoders, which meant that you couldn't picture what the sound parameters were just by looking the panel, because the knobs were rotating endlessly.

The other problem was that a whole batch of these early Prophets came out with a set of faulty encoders, leading the owner to periodically do Deoxit surgery.

Both these issues are solved with the Pot edition, which brings back traditional, trustworthy potentiometers. And for the encoder version, the upgrade is available from DSI for 249$ (I've got a better deal, actually, because my Prophet was one of the faulty units).

It might seem a bit pricey, but the truth is, the upgrade brings the Prophet 08 back to where it should have begun. That is, the price of the instrument plus the price of the upgrade is pretty much the correct price one should pay for an 8-voice analog synthesizer. The instrument becomes a LOT more fun to program and play, so if you're a serious Prophet user like myself, you might definitely want to consider the upgrade. There's no doubt in my mind it's a safe bet on the future of a classic instrument.

What's Up

2011-10-08T22:12:00.000+02:00

I guess I'm procrastinating a bit. Don't seem to be able to finish off projects.

But this is well under way : "The Crack-Up".

Electro-pop EP, in the 80's vein of the previous "Broken Sails" albumette, very poppy and very analogue.

Demos from these have been posted now and then, but the final product should be ready this winter.

Here's the work-in-progress CD artwork.

Black and White

2011-10-07T21:46:00.000+02:00

Free Album : "Upon a Sleepless River"

2011-10-01T19:51:00.001+02:00

As mentioned by a reader, the netlabel which hosted this instrumental album has gone missing...

So I'm releasing this again here.

Download the whole album with artwork.

"Upon a Sleepless River" is a dense, dark, political, cinematographic album with moody piano improvisations, noise experiments and a mix of cold digital landscapes and searing analogue leads.

This is a work about victory in the XXth century, from Harry Truman to General McArthur, with Kurtz the European Son providing historical perspective.

1 - Harry S. Truman at Hiroshima

2 - The European Son

3 - Last Words of Mistah Kurtz

4 - A Remarkable Man

5 - McArthur visits Unit 731

6 - Upon a Sleepless River

Main instruments : Moog Little Phatty, Prophet 08, M-Tron, Korg Wavestation, Roland D50.

Groove on “Last Words” and ambient sound design on “McArthur” by John Fisher aka Ricemutt aka Bagger288.

“McArthur” is featured on short film “Cold Sweat” by Thomas Lesourd.

Cold Sweat from Thomas lesourd on Vimeo.

Devine Tempest Extravaganza

2011-09-28T22:41:00.001+02:00

All right, this gotta be the first Tempest video to actually show what it's capable of. I'm (finally) impressed.

Tempest - Beat Exercise from Richard Devine on Vimeo.

UPDATE
Well, just check out Matrixsynth and this guy. I'm sold. Tempest is THE groovebox.
http://m.matrixsynth.com/2011/09/dsi-tempest-demo-1.html

R.I.P. R.E.M.

2011-09-22T09:33:00.000+02:00

The End of REM

Damn. There are a LOT of bands I wish to see dismantled. Not this one.

Yeah, the last albums showed fatigue, but apart from Queen, they were my favorite group with the best written songs and the best singer. Ha, well...

Cities on Film

2011-09-20T23:29:00.000+02:00

Source : Mini Diana Lomo camera.
Location : NYC

Growing Mellotron Family : ChamberTron

2011-09-17T20:25:00.000+02:00

Yup, had to add this one to my Gforce library...

This is meant to be the ultimate Chamberlin emulation, which is the precursor to the fabled Mellotron.

My first impressions are quite good, although I feel that the pricetag is relevant to the rarity of the sampled instruments, rather than to the sheer number of new sounds it provides to the M-Tron Pro.

Nonetheless, a fine expansion pack, and I'm currently recording a small EP of songs entirely done on the M-Tron Pro.

Totally Deutsch : Voigtländer Vito CD

2011-09-15T23:23:00.000+02:00

Bought last weekend for a mere 30€, a classic camera from the sixties.
Seller said it went through North African deserts.
Just put some b&w film in there, let's see if it still works.

Jesus, the Fish and the Eye

2011-09-14T22:56:00.000+02:00

Passing by with a camera and a Samyang fisheye lens...

The Crack-Up

2011-09-12T21:35:00.000+02:00

Life Among the Spiders

2011-09-11T19:40:00.001+02:00

Yup, It's Dead

2011-09-08T21:01:00.000+02:00

Looks like netlabel Bitkins is dead indeed and its creator is out of reach.
So, I'll be releasing again here my instrumental albums, "Upon a Sleepless River" and "Uniforms of Snow", in a remastered version.

Roger's Tempest Quick Video

2011-09-05T08:30:00.000+02:00

Not much on the versatility of the sounds (especially since Linn only uses the analog oscillators and doesn't tweak them much), but a good overview of the nice workflow the machine is capable of.

Deconstructing Manhattan

2011-09-02T22:44:00.001+02:00

Bowie du Jour : Tired of my Life

2011-09-01T22:19:00.000+02:00

This has been hanging around my archives for some months now.

Often mentioned to be the very first song he wrote, but it's more likely been written circa 1968. Recorded in 1970. Reworked for the 1980 "Scary Monsters" album. Re-recorded in 2001 for the unreleased "Toy" album.

Piano and Gforce M-Tron Pro.

Tired of my Life by khoral

At the Museum

2011-08-31T22:14:00.001+02:00

Boston Again

2011-08-30T22:03:00.001+02:00

Sky High

2011-08-29T22:28:00.001+02:00

(I Wish I Was) Back in Manhattan

2011-08-28T12:27:00.001+02:00

Ghostbusters!

2011-08-26T14:18:00.002+02:00

Ghostbusters par khoral_kmore

Dead Site?

2011-08-25T22:48:00.000+02:00

As a reader kindly told me, the Bitkins.com website is down.
It's the netlabel for my instrumental albums, "Uniforms of Snow" and more recently, "Upon a Sleepless River".
I'm checking into that and if it turns out it's definitely dead, I'll re-release the albums.
A track from "Upon a Sleepless River" has been used in "Cold Sweat".

Big Screen Lingerie

2011-08-24T20:16:00.001+02:00

Gotta love Times Square...

Providence

2011-08-23T13:28:00.001+02:00

Walking in Lovecraft's steps.

This is the house described by Lovecraft in the novel as the home of Charles Dexter Ward.

The house in the middle was described in "Call of Cthulhu" as the home of the disturbed dreamer.

Where the Master lies.

Boston

2011-08-22T19:02:00.001+02:00

American Fauna

2011-08-21T00:52:00.001+02:00

Times Square Again

2011-08-20T17:35:00.001+02:00

Back from NYC

2011-08-19T23:51:00.001+02:00

I am indeed back from the Big Apple, so expect lots of photographs these next days.

Oldie du Jour : We are from your Future

2011-07-27T21:38:00.002+02:00

This.
Is.
Classic.

Oldie du Jour : En Français dans le Texte

2011-07-26T21:58:00.000+02:00

Long long before Gainsbourg covers became fashionable, there was, er, Jo Lemaire, I guess.
Who she is, where did she go, I have no idea.
But this is Belgian and it's pretty nice.

Oldie du Jour : Synths and Ninjas

2011-07-25T21:56:00.000+02:00

What the hell is going on here!
Gee, music used to be so much fun.
This is effing groovy.
Can't say that I recognize the synth. If anybody has an idea...

Oldie du Jour : Synths and Mustaches

2011-07-24T13:53:00.000+02:00

Fun Electro/Prog/Pop from (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) Hungary.
Nice Polymoog, man.
And don't get me started on the mustaches.

Dark Side of the Monotribe

2011-07-23T19:18:00.000+02:00

Another quick Korg Monotribe demo.
This is meant to show how mean the analog filter is.

One single take, no external effects.

Dark Side of the Monotribe by khoral

Moments Lost

2011-07-20T20:22:00.001+02:00

In memoriam F.M.

Moments Lost by khoral

Monotribe, Of Course

2011-07-18T19:13:00.000+02:00

Well, I just had to get one, right?

I'll do a review later on this week, but here's my first quick demo. All Monotribe multi-tracking, no external effects, sync'd by ear.

Monotribe Demo by khoral

A Lesson in Death: Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner

2011-07-16T13:15:00.001+02:00

Download pdf

A Lesson in Death: « Apocalypse Now » and « Blade Runner »

In « Apocalypse Now », following the narrative of the Conrad novel, « Heart of Darkness », Willard sails up the river in search for Kurtz, brilliant Colonel who’s become the omnipotent leader of a rogue army, pursuing a savage war according to his own rules. In « Blade Runner », Deckard hunts down four runaway replicants, genetically engineered in the image of man, and for that very reason, outlawed on Earth. Both films tell the story of a solitary, alcoholic anti-hero, haunted by a past the audience won’t know much about, put in charge by the authorities to chase and kill a charismatic and mysterious renegade, who acts outside the world of men, ruling as a living semi-god over a handful of souls. Willard will face Colonel Walter Kurtz, Deckard will face replicant Roy Batty.

Life on the Outside: Willard and Deckard

Coppola’s movie begins with Willard, whom we discover in a Saïgon hotel room facing his demons, lying despondently on an unmade bed, his eyes lost towards the ceiling. Dancing visions of napalm before him, long trails of fire over a dark jungle. Willard is a loner. When a mission is finally given to him, he complains having to share the trip: « I needed the air and the time. Only problem was, I wouldn't be alone ». Deckard too is solitary man, in life and in work. Retired from the blade runner business, he first declines the mission, but is soon called back to the stark facts of life in future Los Angeles: « If you're not cop, you're little people ». Afterwards, this blade runner looks oddly remote from his social function, delivering morally neutral sentences such as: « Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem ». Willard and Deckard first appear to be disconnected from society, then, as the movie goes on, disconnected from mankind. Like Willard facing his superiors, Deckard acts as an automaton. Only existing through his function in society, he superficially plays the game, with no personal involvement. To the replicant Rachel, he administers the Voight Kampff test that is supposed to discriminate man from its imitation. He speaks in a bored monotone, devoid of positive or negative emotion. The same way, Willard admits his inability to lead a normal civil life, but don’t seem to fit either with his fellow bandsmen. He’s no longer part of the living. He already belongs to the Heart of Darkness, Kurtz’s kingdom, that is the kingdom of Death.

The gap between Willard and the world isn’t merely of a social nature; it is existential. True, prisoner of his hotel room, Willard blames his disarray on the boredom of a soldier deprived of a mission. In a fit of self-destructive rage, he violently hits his reflection in the mirror, then contemplates with mute astonishment the blood dripping from his hand. This reminds us of the way the same Willard will later describe Kurtz: « He broke from them, and then he broke from himself », first indication that hero and villain are one and the same. Yet, Willard’s pain can’t be explained away by boredom. It is existential suffering. His act is an expression of despair, as pure and primitive than Batty’s wolf-like cry when Pris dies. Like Deckard, he only exist through his mission, which, like the vain eradication of « more human than human» replicants, is a chimera: « You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist ». Several times, Willard will point at the senselessness of his mission: in the middle of a surrealistic massacre, facing a thousand deaths, going up the river to kill a soldier accused of murder. His doubts echo Kurtz’s words at the beginning of the movie, fragments of monologues on damaged audio tape: « They call me an assassin. What do you call it, when the assassins accuse the assassin? » If Willard and Deckard, unlike Kurtz and Batty, do share a social function, this function is a veil of illusion, hiding an existential void. Without a mission to justify his presence to the world, staring into his reflection, Willard sees himself for what he really is: a nothingness, the Hollow Man from T.S. Eliot’s poem, as quoted by Kurtz at the end of the movie.

When the other characters express doubt about Willard and Deckard’s work, their alienation from the world is complete. Rachel asks Deckard if he ever «retired » a human being by mistake, if himself has ever passed the Voight Kampff test, if he actually would hunt her down if she were to run away. To Kurtz, Willard is neither killer nor soldier: « You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill ». Kurtz’s derisive reference to Willard’s superiors as petty salesmen is reminiscent of the mercenary attitude found in Batty’s creator: « Commerce is our goal here at Tyrell ». However, Kurtz’s sarcasm is misplaced. Willard, at this point, is no longer a soldier, nor is he a puppet at the hands of his superiors. He is an abstraction, a Beckett character, a man who fell down the world of men, the same way Deckard, finding the unicorn’s origami on the floor, realizes that his last thread to mankind has been cut. Willard and Deckard are existential outcasts.

Willard and Deckard are metaphysical misfits: on the fringe of society, but more importantly on the fringe of being, trying to decipher an arcane universe. Willard’s look upon the other characters is one of disbelief, the look of a XIXth century explorer confronting the incomprehensible customs of an unknown tribe. He’s part of their world but can’t understand the motive of their actions. Deckard, on the other hand, has gone beyond Willard’s constant amazement and obviously gave up on figuring out how people like Bryant and Gaff, perfectly fit to their social environment, manage to function. The blade runner displays a disillusioned passivity that goes well beyond the usual Film Noir ironic distance. Neither Willard nor Deckard can communicate with their fellowmen. Both face a wall: the chaos of the world, and what parades as « order » inside the chaos. To the soldier, an apocalyptic war and the absurd care for military hierarchy in the confines of Hell. To the blade runner, the urban nightmare that is the futuristic Babel of Los Angeles, infinite maze of titan buildings and foreign cultures, and, at the centre of this Bosch-like mayhem, the caste system based on the arbitrary distinction between humans and replicants.

Life on the Outside: Batty and Kurtz

Society has rendered the same verdict on both Batty and Kurtz: two deviant individuals, parodies of mankind that must be destroyed (regarding the replicants, « This was not called execution. It was called retirement »; regarding Kurtz, « Terminate with extreme prejudice »). Kurtz and Batty, self-ordained divinities, speak in riddles and look upon the mass with an absolute sense of superiority. At the same time, this superiority is the root cause of their downfall. The leader of the replicants is a nietszcheean figure, beyond mankind, doomed to fiercely burn and suddenly disappear. Batty must die because he is merely an imitation, a « skin job », a façade designed to perfectly imitate his creator. A slave, his freedom is the evil that Deckard must cleanse society of. Batty has been judged to be intrinsically foreign to mankind. Kurtz, on the other hand, must die because his actions have banned him from the world of men, because he has surrendered to the dark side of the soul, to a murderous madness that is tantamount to the primitive spirit of the jungle, according to the western General who briefs Willard : « Every man has got a breaking point. You have and I have one. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And, very obviously, he has gone insane. He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct ». The General is right: every man has got a breaking point. To this protector of order and social rationality, beyond the breaking point lies insanity.

At first glance, Batty and Kurtz do seem deranged. Batty’s emotions are subject to violent changes, he drools and cries like a wolf, and maniacally chases Deckard. Kurtz in his kingdom at the Heart of Darkness has abandoned all common rationality and detached from himself. « And what would his people back home want, if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone. He broke from them, and then he broke from himself ». He wanders in a labyrinth of ancient stone, reading aloud T.S. Eliot and rambling on. His only western companions are an ex-Marine with a vacant look and a brain-damaged hippie journalist. That said, Batty’s seemingly insane behavior is but the result of an existential quest that the replicant follows with an intensity of purpose that is forever alien to the common man. Bryant and the General can’t handle such purity (« Because there's nothing I detest more than the stench of lies », Kurtz). Batty only obeys to his own logic and the oddities of his behavior stem from the very conditions of his creation: a warrior with fake memories, condemned by his creator to master a lifetime’s experiences in the span of four years. Kurtz talks at length about his breaking point. He tells Willard about how the Vietcong, after American troops provided vaccine to the children of a village, gave orders to cut off every single arm. He recalls the event with admiration and repulsion, stunned by this extraordinary display of will. At this point, Kurtz understood the superior strength of his enemy, the all-consuming drive to vanquish, unaltered by moral considerations. Then only did Kurtz become the ultimate product of the Vietnam War that Willard meets in the deep of the jungle, an individual who’s become over-adapted to his environment, a soldier who totally identified with his enemy to overcome him. There’s no turning back from this transformation (« To make an alteration in the evolvment of an organic life system is fatal », Tyrell). Kurtz, and Batty, to some extent, are sane individuals dealing with an insane society. Such people cannot be allowed to prosper.

Room of Mirrors: Deckard versus Batty, Willard versus Kurtz

Willard and Deckard are morally ambiguous, and so are their opponents. After he coolly ends the life of an unjustly wounded Vietnamese girl, Willard remarks that, from now on, his companions wouldn’t look at him the same way. Neither will the viewer. This is Willard’s first killing on screen, who until then was a passive spectator of the war. Remarkably enough, this act is directed upon a civilian. Like Kurtz, Willard isn’t just prone to violence, he is wholly possessed by the spirit of war, breathing through a combat that he knows is meaningless. War, to Willard, is a drug. The opening scene is a withdrawal scene. Only this way can we understand the attraction/repulsion that Willard feels towards the fight. In this again, Willard and Kurtz are one. The Colonel, a force of nature who surrendered to the soul of war, then to the soul of the jungle, must die, because Death only can liberate him from addiction. War as a drug is a pervasive metaphor: see the psychedelic atmosphere of the movie’s last part, the hallucinated motions of Lance as the ship goes deeper into the jungle, the hypnotic, oriental melody of the Doors… Deckard too is ambiguous, who hunts down and kills sentient creatures we can’t tell from human beings (Tyrell mockingly quotes the parameters of the Voight Kampff test: « Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris », technical attributes that are supposed to distinguish man and machine). His relationship with Rachel is tinted with violence and domination. Is there a difference between Deckard’s and Batty’s executions? Deckard shoots down an unarmed Zhora in the back. A melancholy Batty confesses to his Creator, Tyrell: « I've done questionable things ». Indeed, his attitude towards violence is complex, as is Kurtz’s. Both individuals are warriors at heart – Batty, by design of his Creator, Kurtz, by vocation – but both painfully feel the proximity of death. Proof of this, the way Batty breaks the bad news about

Leon

’s demise, then his reaction when discovering the inert body of Pris, finally the tears shed while murdering Tyrell. Proof of this, the crack-up inside Kurtz, which reflects Willard’s inner torment, both soldiers doomed to live and relive “the horror”.

The superficial opposition between Deckard and Batty is the mirror image of Willard and Kurtz’s. Batty, as a lesson on human condition, turns Deckard into his double, a slave on the run: « Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave ». Replicants and soldiers learn to live in fear. Kurtz begs Willard to put an end to his existence and tell the world what he tried to accomplish. On the surface, Willard is a tool of society. In a more metaphysical sense, Kurtz drew his doppelgänger Willard closer and closer to him, like a magnet, like the backward surge of an infinite wave. Kurtz turned Willard into the means of his own deliverance. Willard indeed sees himself as the hand of fate: « Everybody wanted me to do it. Him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take his pain away. Even the jungle wanted him dead. And that's who he really who he took his orders from, anyway ». When he emerges from the Colonel’s lair, his machete covered in blood, stared at by the primitive cohorts, Willard is Kurtz. The replicant leader and the colonel have staged their death before a witness of their choosing: as soon as the « hero » meets his opponent, he’s fallen under his total control. All the time, Batty is able to kill Deckard. Kurtz strikingly worries about the way his story will be told back in

America

. Not a single second does he envision killing Willard and going back home. Kurtz burned all this bridges down. Beyond the breaking point, up the river, there is no return. The Colonel wrote his own dark legend and hopes Willard, his alter-ego, will bring his lesson back to the civilized world. Willard embarks the ship, Deckard runs away with Rachel, but it’s doubtful either one really escaped their opponent’s inner world. Willard and Deckard aren’t seen as enemies by their adversaries, but the witnesses to their rise and fall, to whom an existential lesson is delivered. Deckard is drawn to Batty, just like the river ineluctably leads Willard to Kurtz: « Weeks away and hundreds of miles up river that snaked through the war like a circuit cable...plugged straight into Kurtz ».

The Art of Death

The worlds depicted in « Blade Runner » and « Apocalypse Now » fall under the jurisdiction of Death. The latter, in the most obvious way: the Vietnam War is but the last avatar of a certain idea of warfare as the total annihilation of the Enemy (« We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army », Kurtz). Another subtler version of Death is at work in « Blade Runner »: a decadent Los Angeles, populated with artificial things, make-believe animals (the owl, the serpent) and androids that the viewer can’t discriminate from the dehumanized citizens of the future. J.F. Sebastian, plagued with degenerative disease, lives among his manufactured friends: « My friends are toys. I make them ». In this regard, both films are Gnostic allegories: characters imprisoned in an inferior world ruled by Death. Batty is a fallen angel, as he himself suggests: « Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rode around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc ». The dialog between Pris and Sebastian is explicitly Gnostic: « Pris: What's your problem? Sebastian: Methuselah syndrome. Pris: What's that? Sebastian: My glands. They grow old too fast. Pris: Is that why you're still on earth? ». Sebastian, like the replicants, like Deckard, has been sentenced to live on Earth, the inferior world, subject to entropy and decay. Life is elsewhere, in the heavens: « A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure ». Willard and Deckard are trapped in this mock reality: « When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there... all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ». Similarly, Kurtz’s first words are a nostalgic evocation of the lost paradise: « I went down that river once when I was a kid. There's a place in the river, I can't remember...must have been a gardenia plantation, or a flower plantation at one time. It's all wild and overgrown now. But for about five miles, you'd think that heaven just fell on the earth, in the form of gardenias ». Willard sails up the river, traveling back in time towards the primordial horror that Kurtz is the center of. The Colonel’s memories sail down the river, from the abomination of the present to the fantasy realm of golden youth.

The Colonel and the replicant deliver their own eulogy. Here only do they somehow part company. Kurtz has fallen to pieces: « I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart ». He who explored the depths of reality only wishes Death’s release: « The horror… the horror »… partly a reflection on war, for sure, but the line is directly drawn from the novel and most certainly deals with the primordial terror Kurtz experiences at the hands of his demons, in the deep of the jungle. Speculating is meaningless. Whatever Kurtz saw remains an enigma, just like Batty (« if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes »). What matters is that Kurtz has glimpsed into the Heart of Darkness. « Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared ». Kurtz is a man in ruins, torn apart by his obsessions, like Macbeth after the crime. Batty on the other hand, the fallen angel brought back to Earth to catch a supplement of life, believes that the brevity of his existence is a technical defect. Replicants only live four years. He meets his God, his Creator, the genius Tyrell (« He knows everything », says the Chinese engineer ; « It's not an easy thing to meet your maker », says Batty). Tyrell asks the prodigal son what seems to be the problem. Death is the problem. The Creator admits his own limitations in this matter: « Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction ». Tyrell explains that Batty has been designed as well as he could be. The finite character of existence isn’t open to negotiation (« You don’t ask Death for its credentials », W.S. Burroughs). Gaff, later on, will remind Deckard that Rachel too must be retired: « It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does? » Batty, by getting extra life, won’t become any more human. Knowing that his existence is finite is actually what defines him as Human. « The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy ». He is lucky in having a Creator to bring his grievances to. The almighty Tyrell, recluse in his golden tower on top of the city, is a tangible reality. Sole among the mass, Batty gets to receive an answer from his Creator. His mortality accepted, with a melancholy at odds with Kurtz’s shocked horror, he acknowledges the end of all things: « I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die ».

Thus, at the end of their journey, Kurtz and Batty appear to be polar opposites. Batty is frantically looking for longer life, whereas an existential disgust colors each and every one of Kurtz’s words: « I watched a small snail, crawling on the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving ». Death to Kurtz is deliverance from a never ending nightmare (« After such knowledge, what forgiveness », T.S. Eliot). Kurtz is the true Hero of this Odyssey. His survival in the presence of the « horror » shows where his superiority truly lies. His relentlessness to live despite a debilitating clarity of mind is of a mythical order. He is Prometheus, punished for his human condition, enlightened in a world of blind men. Kurtz, more so than the incontrollable Batty, perceives the vacuity of being: « We are the hollow men… We are the stuffed men… Leaning together… Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless… As wind in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass in our dry cellar ». In the end however both men share the same intimate experience of the impermanence of things. To Batty, this is an epiphany, borne of his confrontation with Tyrell: « Revel in your time ». In true nietszcheean fashion, Batty puts his Creator to death, thus getting full responsibility for his existence. In his final moments, the former slave acknowledges the rise and decline of all things..

Une Leçon de Mort : Apocalypse Now et Blade Runner

2011-07-15T10:02:00.001+02:00

(English translation coming up)
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Une Leçon de Mort : « Apocalypse Now » et « Blade Runner »

Dans « Apocalypse Now », reprenant la trame du roman « Heart of Darkness » de Conrad, Willard remonte le fleuve en quête de Kurtz, brillant colonel de l’armée américaine devenu le leader omnipotent d’une armée d’indigènes, conduisant selon ses propres règles des opérations de guerre d’une rare sauvagerie. Dans « Blade Runner », Deckard poursuit quatre replicants en fuite, humanoïdes créés par ingénierie génétique à l’image de l’Homme, et pour cette même raison, frappés d’interdiction sur Terre. Les deux films content l’histoire d'un anti-héros solitaire, alcoolique, hanté par un passé dont le spectateur ne connaîtra presque rien, chargé par l’autorité hiérarchique de traquer un renégat charismatique et mystérieux, oeuvrant à l’écart de l’univers des hommes, régnant en demi-dieu sur une poignée d’âmes. Willard sera opposé au colonel Walter Kurtz, Deckard, au replicant Roy Batty.

En marge de l’existence : Willard et Deckard

Le film de Coppola débute avec Willard, que l’on découvre dans une chambre d’hôtel de Saïgon, livré à ses démons, prostré sur un lit en désordre, le regard perdu au plafond, des visions de napalm dansant devant ses yeux, longues traînées de flammes sur une jungle obscure. Willard est un solitaire. Lorsqu’une mission lui est enfin attribuée, il se lamente de devoir partager la route : « I needed the air and the time. Only problem was, I wouldn't be alone ». Deckard aussi, dans la vie et dans le travail. Refusant de prime abord sa mission, prétextant être à la retraite, il est vite rappelé à la réalité : « If you're not cop, you're little people ». Par suite, le blade runner apparaît déconnecté de son rôle social, débitant d’un air indifférent des sentences moralement neutres telles que : « Replicants are like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem ». Willard et Deckard semblent déconnectés de la société, puis à mesure que le film progresse, déconnectés du genre humain. De même que Willard face à ses supérieurs, Deckard agit en automate. N’existant que par sa fonction, il se borne à respecter formellement les règles du jeu, sans implication personnelle. A la replicante Rachel, il fait passer le test Voight Kampff, supposé départager l’humain de son imitation. Son débit de parole est monocorde, dénué de toute émotion positive ou négative. De la même façon, Willard s’avoue inapte à reprendre une vie civile normale, mais ne paraît pas davantage à sa place au milieu des autres soldats. Il n’appartient plus au monde des vivants, mais au Cœur des Ténèbres, le royaume de Kurtz, qui est le royaume de la mort.

La rupture entre Willard et le monde n’est pas seulement sociale, elle est existentielle. Certes, prisonnier de sa chambre d’hôtel, Willard attribue son désarroi à l’inactivité forcée d’un soldat sans mission. Dans un accès de rage auto-destructrice, il frappe son reflet dans le miroir, puis contemple avec une sorte de stupeur le sang s’écoulant de sa main. Il est difficile alors de ne pas songer alors à la description de Kurtz que fera plus tard le même Willard : « He broke from them, and then he broke from himself », première indication que héros et vilain sont interchangeables. Pourtant, la douleur de Willard ne ressort pas de l’ennui, de la démobilisation, mais d’une souffrance existentielle, son geste est une expression de désespoir aussi pure et primitive que le hurlement de loup de Batty à la mort de Pris. De même que Deckard, il n’existe qu’au travers de sa mission, laquelle, comme la vaine éradication de replicants « plus humains que l’humain », est une chimère : « You understand, Captain, that this mission does not exist, nor will it ever exist ». A plusieurs reprises, Willard en considère avec effarement l’inanité : au milieu d’un surréaliste carnage militaire, au prix de milles périls, remonter la rivière pour tuer un soldat accusé de meurtre. Son interrogation fait écho aux paroles de Kurtz au début du film, bribes de monologues sur une bande audio crachotante : « They call me an assassin. What do you call it, when the assassins accuse the assassin? » Si Willard et Deckard ont une fonction sociale, à la différence de Kurtz et Batty, cette fonction même est une illusion, dissimulant un néant existentiel. Privé d’une mission, confronté à son reflet, Willard se reconnaît pour ce qu’il est : un homme creux, vacuité d’existence, le « hollow man » du poème de T.S. Eliot récité par Kurtz à la fin du film.

Le rôle de Willard et Deckard est d’ailleurs remis en question par les autres personnages, parachevant l’aliénation de protagonistes subsistant socialement par l’entremise d’une chimère. Rachel demande à Deckard s’il a déjà « retiré » un humain par erreur, si lui-même a passé le test Voight Kampff, s’il la traquerait… Pour Kurtz, Willard n’est ni tueur ni soldat : « You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill ». Incidemment, la référence faite par Kurtz aux supérieurs de Willard, assimilés à de vulgaires commerçants, renvoie au mercantilisme du créateur de Batty : « Commerce, is our goal here at Tyrell ». Ici toutefois, Kurtz se dépense en vain en sarcasme. Willard, à ce stade, n’est plus un soldat, pas davantage une marionnette de ses supérieurs. Il est une abstraction d’homme, un personnage à la Beckett, un individu tombé en dehors de la sphère des hommes, tout comme Deckard réalisant à la fin, en découvrant l’origami de licorne, que le dernier lien qui le reliait à l’Humanité est rompu. Willard et Deckard sont apatrides du genre humain.

Willard et Deckard sont deux marginaux : en marge de la société, mais surtout en marge de l’existence, aux prises avec un univers incompréhensible. Willard promène tout au long du film un regard incrédule sur les autres personnages, soldat observant ses compagnons d’arme avec l’air d’un ethnologue confronté à une peuplade inconnue aux mœurs indéchiffrables. Il fait partie de leur monde mais ne peut comprendre leurs motivations. Lui-même, qui ne saisit pas clairement les motifs de ses actes, est incapable de s’identifier aux autres. Si Willard est plongé dans un perpétuel étonnement, Deckard paraît avoir dépassé ce stade, avoir renoncé à comprendre ce qui motive les individus absolument adaptés à leur milieu, tels que Bryant ou Gaff. Le blade runner affiche une passivité désabusée dépassant de loin la distance ironique du protagoniste classique de film noir. Ni Willard ni Deckard ne peuvent communiquer utilement avec leurs contemporains, confrontés comme à un mur au chaos du monde, et à ce qui tient lieu d’ordre au sein du chaos. Pour le soldat, la guerre (dont le caractère apocalyptique est évident dès la descente de l’hélicoptère au milieu d’une bataille féroce) et l’absurdité d’une structure hiérarchique rigide au plus profond de l’Enfer. Pour le blade runner, l’enchevêtrement urbain d’un Los Angeles en forme de Babel futuriste, superposition infinie de constructions opaques et de cultures étrangères, et au centre de ce désordre digne de Bosch, un système de castes fondé sur l’opposition arbitraire entre humains et replicants.

En marge de l’existence : Batty et Kurtz

L’ordre social, incarné par les supérieurs hiérarchiques de Deckard et Willard, a rendu un même jugement contre Batty et Kurtz : deux êtres déviants et asociaux, deux parodies d’Humanité qu’il convient d’éradiquer (pour les replicants, « This was not called execution. It was called retirement » ; pour Kurtz, « Terminate with extreme prejudice »). Kurtz et Batty, divinités auto-proclamées, s’expriment par énigmes et affichent à l’égard de la masse une supériorité au-delà de l’arrogance, une conscience suraiguë de leur singularité. Dans le même temps, cette supériorité est la raison même de leur perte. Le leader replicant est une figure nietszchéenne, au-delà de l’Humain, condamnée à brûler intensément et s’éteindre brusquement au terme de quatre années. Batty doit mourir parce qu’il est une simple imitation, un « skin job », une apparence superficielle d’humanité, programmée pour singer à la perfection son créateur. En tant qu’esclave, sa liberté même est le mal dont Deckard doit purger la société. Batty est jugé intrinsèquement étranger au genre humain. Kurtz, lui, doit mourir parce que ses actions l’ont banni du genre humain, qu’il s’est entièrement livré au côté obscur de l’âme, à une folie meurtrière associée par le général occidental à l’esprit primitif de la jungle : « Every man has got a breaking point. You have and I have one. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And, very obviously, he has gone insane. He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct ». Le général a raison : chaque homme a son point de rupture. Pour le général, garant de l’ordre et de la raison sociale, au-delà du point de rupture s’étend le royaume de la folie.

Par suite, Batty et Kurtz font effectivement preuve, en surface, d’une sorte de démence. Batty est sujet à de violents retournements émotionnels, bave, hurle comme un loup et poursuit Deckard avec une intensité maniaque. Kurtz dans son royaume au cœur des ténèbres parait détaché de toute rationalité, détaché de sa propre personne… « And what would his people back home want, if they ever learned just how far from them he'd really gone. He broke from them, and then he broke from himself ». Il erre dans un labyrinthe de maçonnerie antique en récitant T.S. Eliot et proférant des monologues décousus. Ses seuls compagnons occidentaux sont un ancien Marine au regard vide et un journaliste hippie au cerveau calciné par les excès du Summer of Love. Cependant, la folie apparente de Batty et Kurtz n’est que le résultat d’une quête existentielle menée avec une détermination tout à fait étrangère au commun des mortels. Bryant et le général, qui jettent Deckard et Willard à leur poursuite, ne peuvent soutenir la pureté glaciale de cette quête de vérité (« Because there's nothing I detest more than the stench of lies », Kurtz). Batty suit sa propre logique et les étrangetés de son attitude sont le fruit des conditions de sa création, un guerrier doté de souvenirs factices, condamné par les termes même de sa mise au monde à maîtriser en une poignée d’années les expériences et les émotions d’une vie entière. Kurtz expose longuement à Willard où se situe son point de rupture. Il raconte comment le Vietcong, après la vaccination par les soldats américains de tous les enfants d’un village, a ordonné que chaque enfant soit amputé, et exprime une admiration matinée de répulsion devant cette extraordinaire démonstration de volonté. A ce moment, Kurtz a compris la supériorité de son ennemi, sa détermination à vaincre, au-delà de toutes considérations morales. Alors seulement est-il devenu ce produit final de la logique de guerre que rencontre Willard au fin fond de la jungle, un être sur-adapté à son environnement, un soldat s’étant totalement identifié à son ennemi pour le surpasser. Cette transformation est sans retour (« To make an alteration in the evolvment of an organic life system is fatal », Tyrell). Kurtz, comme Batty, incarne dans sa chair l’absurdité de la société des hommes. Un tel individu ne doit pas prospérer.

Jeu de miroirs : Deckard contre Batty, Willard contre Kurtz

Willard et Deckard sont moralement ambigus, qualité partagée par leurs antagonistes respectifs. Après avoir froidement achevé une vietnamienne injustement massacrée par les Marines, Willard remarque en voix off que désormais ses compagnons le regarderaient d’un autre œil. Le spectateur aussi. C’est le premier acte de violence de Willard, jusqu’ici témoin passif du conflit. De façon remarquable, cet acte vise un civil. Comme Kurtz, Willard n’est pas seulement enclin à la violence, il est tout entier possédé par l’esprit de la guerre, ne vit qu’au travers d’un combat dont il mesure par ailleurs la vacuité. La guerre, pour Willard, est une drogue. La scène d’ouverture est une scène de manque. Seulement sous cet angle peut-on comprendre l’attirance/répulsion de Willard pour le combat. En cela encore, Willard et Kurtz ne font qu’un. Le colonel, force de la nature envahie par l’esprit de la guerre, puis de la jungle, doit mourir, car seule la mort peut le libérer de la dépendance. La guerre comme drogue est une image omniprésente : voir l’atmosphère psychédélique de la dernière partie du film, la danse hallucinée de Lance tandis que le bateau s’enfonce dans la jungle, la lancinante mélodie orientale des Doors... Deckard est tout aussi ambigu, qui pourchasse et abat des créatures pensantes dont on ne comprend guère ce qui les distinguent des Humains (ainsi Tyrell récite-t-il d’un ton presque moqueur les attributs du test Voight Kampff – « Capillary dilation of the so-called blush response? Fluctuation of the pupil? Involuntary dilation of the iris » – la fluctuation de la pupille étant censée départager l’homme de la machine). Sa relation avec Rachel est empreinte de violence et de domination. Quelle différence entre les exécutions de Deckard et celles de Batty ? Deckard abat Zhora dans le dos, celle-ci étant désarmée et en fuite. Le replicant avoue à son créateur, Tyrell : « I've done questionable things ». Il affiche en prononçant ces mots une mélancolie teintée de remords. L’attitude de Batty envers la violence est tout aussi ambivalente que celle de Kurtz. Les deux hommes sont intrinsèquement des guerriers – Batty, par dessein de son Créateur, Kurtz, par vocation – mais ressentent avec une acuité douloureuse la proximité de la mort. En est témoin pour Batty la manière dont il rapporte la mort de Léon, puis qu’il découvre celle de Pris, et enfin, les larmes versées en assassinant Tyrell. En est témoin la brisure intérieure de Kurtz, reflétant celle de Willard, les deux soldats apparaissant condamnés à vivre et revivre « l’horreur ».

L’opposition apparente de Deckard et Batty reflète celle de Willard et Kurtz. Batty, en guise de leçon sur la condition humaine, fait de Deckard son double, un esclave en fuite : « Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave ». Les replicants, comme les soldats, apprennent à vivre dans la peur. Kurtz implore Willard de mettre fin à son existence et de raconter au monde ce qu’il a tenté d’accomplir. Superficiellement, Willard est l’outil de l’ordre social. En réalité, sur un plan métaphysique, Kurtz a attiré Willard, son doppelgänger, comme un aimant, comme le reflux d’une vague infiniment lourde, en a fait, de sa propre volonté, l’instrument de sa délivrance. Par suite, Willard se voit comme la main du destin : « Everybody wanted me to do it. Him most of all. I felt like he was up there, waiting for me to take his pain away. Even the jungle wanted him dead. And that's who he really who he took his orders from, anyway ». Lorsqu’il sort de la tanière du colonel, la machette ensanglantée, sous le regard de centaines d’indigènes, il est effectivement devenu Kurtz. Batty et Kurtz ont mis en scène leur mort, devant un témoin de leur choix : du moment même où le « héros » rencontre son adversaire, il tombe entier sous son contrôle. Batty peut à chaque instant tuer Deckard. Kurtz, de façon frappante, s’inquiète de la façon dont son histoire sera racontée en Amérique. Pas un moment envisage-t-il de tuer Willard et de rentrer au pays. Kurtz a brûlé tous ses ponts. Au-delà du point de rupture, au bout de la rivière, il n’y a pas de retour possible. Kurtz a façonné sa légende noire, dont il espère que Willard, son alter-ego, rapportera la leçon au monde civilisé. Willard reprend le bateau, Deckard s’enfuit avec Rachel, mais il est douteux que l’un ou l’autre ait réellement quitté le monde intérieur de Kurtz et Batty. Willard et Deckard ne sont pas perçus par Kurtz et Batty comme des ennemis, mais les témoins de leur grandeur et déclin, à qui une leçon existentielle est délivrée. Dès lors, le chemin de Deckard le conduit inéluctablement à Batty, de même que la rivière conduit Willard à Kurtz : « Weeks away and hundreds of miles up river that snaked through the war like a circuit cable...plugged straight into Kurtz ».

L’Art de la Mort

Les mondes de « Blade Runner » et « Apocalypse Now » tombent sous la juridiction de la Mort. Le second, de la façon la plus évidente : la guerre du Vietnam est le dernier avatar d’une certaine conception de la guerre comme entreprise d’éradication massive de l’ennemi (« We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army », Kurtz). Une autre vision de la mort, plus subtile, est à l’œuvre dans « Blade Runner » : Los Angeles décadent, peuplé de choses artificielles, animaux factices (la chouette, le serpent) et androïdes indiscernables des citoyens déshumanisés du futur. JF Sebastian, atteint d’une maladie dégénérescente, vit entouré d’amis fabriqués de sa main : « My friends are toys. I make them ». En ce sens, les deux films apparaissent comme des allégories gnostiques : les protagonistes sont pris au piège d’un monde inférieur sous l’empire de la Mort. Batty est un ange déchu, comme il le souligne lui-même implicitement : « Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rode around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc ». Le dialogue entre Pris et Sebastian est explicitement gnostique : « Pris: What's your problem? Sebastian: Methuselah syndrome. Pris: What's that? Sebastian: My glands. They grow old too fast. Pris: Is that why you're still on earth? ». Sebastian, comme les replicants, comme Deckard, est condamné à vivre ses jours sur Terre, le monde inférieur soumis au règne de l’entropie et de la décomposition. La vie est ailleurs, au firmament : « A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure ». Willard et Deckard sont prisonniers de ce simulacre de réalité : « When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there... all I could think of was getting back into the jungle ». De même, les premières paroles de Kurtz évoquent avec nostalgie le paradis perdu : « I went down that river once when I was a kid. There's a place in the river, I can't remember...must have been a gardenia plantation, or a flower plantation at one time. It's all wild and overgrown now. But for about five miles, you'd think that heaven just fell on the earth, in the form of gardenias ». Willard remonte la rivière pour atteindre Kurtz, remonte le temps vers une forme d’horreur primordiale dont Kurtz est devenu le centre. Le souvenir de Kurtz descend la rivière, depuis l’abomination du présent jusqu’au fantasme d’une enfance dorée.

Le colonel et le replicant délivrent leur propre eulogie. Ici se séparent les deux hommes. Kurtz est un être brisé, déchiré : « I'd never seen a man so broken up and ripped apart ». Lui qui a sondé les profondeurs de la réalité n’aspire plus qu’à la mort : « The horror… the horror »… reflet de la guerre, bien sûr, mais la réplique provient directement du roman « Heart of Darkness », et renvoie plus certainement à la terreur primordiale de Kurtz face aux démons auxquels il s’est livré au cœur de la jungle. Toute spéculation est superflue. Ce que Kurtz a vu reste une énigme, tout comme Batty (« if only you could see what I've seen with your eyes »). Ce qui importe est que Kurtz ait plongé le regard au Cœur des Ténèbres. « Horror has a face. And you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared ». Kurtz est un homme en ruines, tenaillé par l’obsession de l’acte, comme Macbeth après le crime. Batty, l’ange déchu revenu sur Terre aux fins de capturer un surcroît d’humanité, conçoit la brièveté de son existence comme une malfaçon. Les replicants vivent quatre années. Ni plus ni moins. Il rencontre son dieu, le génial Tyrell. Celui-ci est clairement une divinité créatrice (« He knows everything », dit le généticien chinois), identifiée comme telle par Batty : « It's not an easy thing to meet your maker ». Tyrell interroge Batty sur son problème. La mort est le problème. Ici, le Créateur reconnaît ses limites : « Well, I'm afraid that's a little out of my jurisdiction ». Tyrell explique que Batty a été conçu aussi bien que possible. Le terme de la vie n’est pas négociable (« You don’t ask Death for its credentials », W.S. Burroughs). Gaff, rappelant à Deckard que Rachel doit également être exécutée : « It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does? » Batty, en acquérant un supplément de vie, ne deviendra pas davantage humain. La conscience du caractère fini de l’existence est en soi ce qui le définit comme humain. « The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. And you have burned so very very brightly, Roy ». Sa chance est d’avoir un Créateur à qui adresser en personne ses doléances. Une chance, car le tout-puissant Tyrell, confiné dans sa tour dorée au plus haut de la cité, est une réalité tangible. Seul parmi la masse des êtres pensants, Batty reçoit de son Dieu une réponse. Sa mortalité enfin acceptée, aux antipodes du saisissement d’horreur de Kurtz, c’est avec mélancolie qu’il prend acte de la fin de toutes choses : « I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die ».

En ce sens, Kurtz et Batty apparaissent comme deux pôles. Batty est obsédé par l’idée de prolonger sa vie, tandis qu’une sorte de dégoût existentiel imprègne chaque parole de Kurtz : « I watched a small snail, crawling on the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor, and surviving». La mort est pour Kurtz la délivrance d’un interminable cauchemar (« After such knowledge, what forgiveness », T.S. Eliot). Kurtz est le Héros de cette Odyssée. Sa survivance en présence de « l’horreur » en fait un être d’exception. Son acharnement à vivre en dépit d’une lucidité débilitante est d’ordre mythique, l’expression d’une force primordiale. Il est Prométhée, puni pour sa condition humaine, qui a atteint l’illumination dans un monde aveugle, la supériorité au sein des médiocres. Kurtz, bien davantage que l’incontrôlable Batty, perçoit la vacuité de l’être : « We are the hollow men… We are the stuffed men… Leaning together… Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless… As wind in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass in our dry cellar ». Toutefois, les deux personnages se rejoignent dans leur compréhension ultime, intimement vécue, de l’impermanence des choses. C’est pour Batty une véritable épiphanie, coïncidant avec la confrontation de Tyrell : « Revel in your time ». En héros nietszchéen, Batty met à mort son créateur, et ce faisant, acquiert la pleine responsabilité de son existence et la conscience du déclin de toutes choses.

Single du Jour : The Crack-Up

2011-07-10T09:16:00.001+02:00

Inspired by Fitzgerarld's epiphany.
Download MP3

The Crack-Up by khoral

Roland JX3P and Microkorg vocoder.

"The Crack-Up

All life is a process of breaking down

Sleep and eat and getting old

Everything under control

The crack’s in me.

Time drips down from your bones – falling down

Dodge and weave and getting bored

Everything under control

The crack’s in me.

The cure does not work

Little boy lost in the woods

With anything he wants to do

Finding nothing, nothing he wants to do

The cure does not work

Little girl lost in the woods"

Pots on the Run

2011-07-09T09:51:00.000+02:00

All right, as the synth geeks regulars on this blog already know, I am a big Prophet 08 user, and owner of an early model, I've been plagued by a defect in the encoder knobs, that makes the values go bezerk every once in a while.

I've grown very tired of that and just ordered (at a discount and free international shipping, thanks DSI!) the Pot Conversion Kit. It replaces the endless rotary encoders with solid, traditional pots, increasing the value and ease of use of this fantastic analog instrument.

Cover du Jour : State Trooper

2011-06-30T14:53:00.000+02:00

This is actually a remake of a Springsteen cover song done a couple of years ago.
Still lots of Moog and Gforce VSM, but I also added Roland JX3P pad and strings, new vocals and better mix.

Download MP3

State Trooper by khoral

Free Download Ahoy

2011-06-26T20:03:00.000+02:00

Lots of streaming here lately, so these are the MP3 downloads of the latest songs.
Hollow Man Kurtz
Full of Holes
How the West was Won and Where it Got Us
Sweetness Follows
Place to Be

Unplugged du Jour : Place to Be

2011-06-23T19:53:00.000+02:00

Place to Be by khoral

“Pink Moon” is often regarded as Nick Drake’s best album. There’s a lot of truth to that, although we may be biased by the fact that it is the artist’s final work. There are, of course, polished gems like “Things behind the sun”, “Place to be”, “Parasite”, with sophisticated chord progressions and complex lyrics. But it’s arguable whether tracks like “Horn”, “Free Ride” or “Know” show Drake at his best, composition-wise. “Five Leaves Left”, in that regard, is more cohesive.

On the other hand, “Pink Moon” is Drake’s truly timeless album : a guitar and a voice, captured with intimate, detailed precision. “Five Leaves Left” and especially “Bryter Layter” sound dated in comparison, with their typical late-60’s English folk arrangements.

“Know”, “Pink Moon” and such embryonic songs can’t help but capture imagination. Their brevity alone is striking, like stark musical aphorisms. “Know” only features a primitive, hypnotic and, well, somewhat uninspired guitar riff, far-cry from the elaborate arrangements of his previous output. But then Drake wails : “Know that I love you - Know I don’t care - Know that I see you - Know I’m not there”. That’s all he has to say. I’m fine with that. This really set the tone of the album, which sounds less like flowery poetry and more like a factual observation of one’s state of distress.

“Parasite” is exemplary. “Take a look you may see me on the ground - For I am the parasite of this town”. That kind of statement may look commonplace after New Wave, Grunge and so on… But this is 1972, remember… such confessional lyrics are somewhat unusual to the era, and especially unusual for Drake, who would generally use a much more circumvoluted and abstract vocabulary. But now the man is down and he tells us so in no uncertain terms. That is what you do when you’re at the bottom and you don’t give a damn about what the world will think of that display of honesty.

The words even verge on nihilism: “Hearing the trials of the people there - Who’s to care if they lose”. The whole song is a cry of alienation, reflected elsewhere on the album by his plea for a shelter : “And I was green, greener than the hill - Where flowers grew and sun shone still - Now I’m darker than the deepest sea - Just hand me down, give me a place to be”. That is the portrait of the artist as a metaphysical outsider. When you don’t fit in, there is no place to be, as in “to exist”.

The choice of words is also remarkable. The pastoral imagery of the first couple of sentences brings us back to his early, “English-countryside-poetry” work, a nod to the delicate, civilized and peaceful wanderings of “Five Leaves Left”. The nostalgia here is striking since Drake is only alluding to three years in the past. He was green at the time, but 1972 is darker than the deepest sea. There’s only guitar on most of “Pink Moon”, giving the same sense of isolation and dread than Springsteen’s tenebrous “Nebraska” album.

There’s still something of that youthful style, and interestingly so, Drake has chosen to close the album with a fairly optimistic and serene “From the morning” that could easily feature on “Five Leaves Left”. Pure esthetical choice, heartfelt feeling of completion despite the bleakness at the work’s core? Who knows…

What we do seem to know is that, having completed the album, Drake just left the tapes at the record company’s desk, wrapped in an anonymous envelope. Only after several days did the company realize that the new Nick Drake album was here. Cioran once said that an obscure writer with no readers feels at his publishing house like an aging whore with no clients at the brothel.

These songs were recorded almost 40 years ago. The man and his suffering, which meant all the universe to him, all is lost. Every now and then I read something what would have happened if he hadn’t die so young, and speculations on the cause of his apparent suicide. Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether you live 20 years or 80 years. Life is a process of exhaustion. Or as Shestov put it, life, to sustain itself, must destroy itself. The small victories you held dear when you were a kid are null today. Whatever prize you think you’re winning by making it through 80, you’re taking it to the grave. Hence, regarding voluntary death, motive especially doesn’t matter. Suicide arises from the belief that life is a purposeless void, thus it makes no difference whether the trigger is personal catastrophe or a flat tire. Nick Drake died because he couldn’t live anymore, and I guess that’s it.

"I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon"

Let's Go Hi-Def : Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now

2011-06-20T08:11:00.000+02:00

I think Blu-Ray is more impressive on old movies than new ones. Of course, the latest productions look great, but what would you expect? What really stuns me is the way old, and sometimes very old movies can be rediscovered in this format.

So, these aren’t reviews of the films, and neither reviews of the discs. The focus of ths ongoing segment will be on the upgrade from DVD to Blu-Ray, and whether you should reach again to your wallet. For these movies, the answer is definitely YES.

Blade Runner

This Ridley Scott masterpiece has known many versions, and this one, like the previous DVD edition, will most likely be the definitive one.

The DVD looked great, but the Blu-Ray is an absolute must, restoration-wise. The picture is outstanding, clear but not clean, full of detail but not noise, the colors are beautiful, the blacks are black. All in all, this 1982 movie just don’t show its age, and actually looks a lot more impressive than many 2000’s sci-fi movies.

Apocalypse Now

Another movie with multiple versions. For once, I have to admit I do prefer the original theatrical version instead of the new Redux director’s cut, because I feel the added footage, mostly background stuff, only dilutes the story. Anyway, the DVD Redux edition was superb, and the Blu-Ray is breathtaking. The fiery orange Vietnamese skies, the spectacular helicopter attack, the darkly lit indoors scenes, everything shows a great amount of detail and a perfect colour balance.

If you already own the DVD versions, an upgrade is essential on these two.

Mellotron du Jour : Full of Holes

2011-06-19T09:44:00.000+02:00

All instruments Gforce M-Tron plugin (that was before I upgraded to M-Tron Pro).

Full of Holes by khoral

Roland JX3P Demo

2011-06-18T16:13:00.000+02:00

Still got some memory problems, but anyway, here's a quick demo of that sweet analogness of this 1983 beast.
All Roland JX3P.
I'll probably turn this into a song at some point.

The Crack-Up (Demo) by khoral

Cover du Jour : How the West was Won

2011-06-14T23:08:00.001+02:00

Download MP3

Don't Listen Mode : Scott Walker : "The Drift"

2011-06-10T22:20:00.000+02:00

All right, this is a text I had written last year but didn't post because the editorial line here is to only talk about stuff that I like, instead of chiming in negatively on music or films that I don't care about in the first place.

But I've just read it again and well, for a change, I'd thought I'd rant a little bit too.

What do you do when you’ve ran out of ideas?

Well, if you can’t write, you might as well write about the fact that you can’t write. If you’re Fitzgerald you might even draw a masterpiece from your personal void.

Otherwise, as Burroughs put it, you just have to start faking it.

Scott Walker can’t write songs anymore.

He can’t stay silent either. Which I can understand.

Do you really exist in the modern world without output? No you don’t.

Walker’s story began as a crooner of Broadway pop. Then he found out he could actually pen outstanding melodies, which resulted primarily in landmark solo albums.

Then there was writer’s block. All along the 70’s, Walker couldn’t find anything new so he spent the time covering country-western tunes. That was actually quite fun and I do listen a lot to his somewhat cheesy "Stretch" and "We Had it All" albums.

In 1978, he found four more songs within himself, and what songs : the fast-paced, post-nuke disco of "Shutout", the jazz-noise acapella oddity "Fat Mama Kick", and most importantly, the timeless "Nite Flights", later to be covered by long time fan Bowie, and "The Electrician", breathtaking, epic, definitive.

In 1984, the “Climate of Hunter” album was good too. Not as good, mind you. The melodies were less inspired, the whole work had a monolithic feel to it, like if Walker had had one good song idea and made variations of it.

On the 1995 “Tilt” album, nine songs share four different melodies. Compared to the previous album, there are less chord progressions, more ambient tracks.

It should have been evident to anybody who could hear : the man was running out of songs. We were witnessing a lake getting drier and drier.

Now if you can’t write a chord progression, you can always pretend that it’s daring to have only one chord over the whole song.

If you can’t write a melody either, you can pretend that your plan all along was to do atonal avant-garde songs.

If you're running on empty, if you're artistically dead, if all creativity has deserted you, if you're dry as a bone, hollow as the sky, well, my man, that's when you just have to start faking it.

“The Drift” is a fraud.

It makes me very angry to read positive reviews about it. It makes me pointlessly angry. I really shouldn't care. But positive reviews about “The Drift” evoke the inane blabber that modern art critics pour over paintings of white on white, or the pseudo-intellectual phraseology that literary critics would impose on awfully written, stupidly un-plot novels.It’s not arty, it’s not avant-garde, it’s just a fraud.

It’s not avant-garde, because it would have been avant-garde in 1960. It’s too late. You had your chance. Get over it.

From 1978 on, Walker has tried harder and harder to hide his inability to write a melody by pretending he was avant-garde, like an untalented, braindead painter who splashes feces on a white canvas and calls it modern art.

There’s no music on “The Drift”, but a clichéd collage of noise, that I would have found lazy and embarrassing in the early 90's, but today, well, it just makes me sad seeing how low some of most esteemed artists wallow in their last years.

Cover du Jour : Sweetness Follows

2011-05-31T21:54:00.001+02:00

Another tune from an unfinished Cover Series EP, this time REM.
Pretty folkish, with a small dose of Moog and vintage drum machine.

Download MP3

Getting Out of Here

2011-05-29T22:18:00.002+02:00

Single du Jour : Hollow Man Kurtz

2011-05-22T14:56:00.000+02:00

Hollow Man Kurtz by khoral

Opening groove : M-Audio Venom.
The rest is pretty much all Prophet 08.
Quote from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"

Lyrics :

These are the times
That wail and call for you
To bury your death
So deep inside of you
Prayers to broken stone
Dreams and bones and fortunes told
This is the way the world ends

“All that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate”

This is the way the world ends

ERS... Uninstalled

2011-05-21T12:44:00.000+02:00

Well, I was talking about those new ERS plugins yesterday, and after an hour of bugs and crashes, I uninstalled them.

They're very good, but is it my computer setup that needs a refresh or bad programming I don't know, the fact is, they just kept crashing and crashing.

So, I would suggest to try them on a test project, not your regular tracks.

ERS Chorus and Reverb

2011-05-20T21:23:00.000+02:00

A couple of new emulations. The classic EMT-250 reverb and SDD-320 Dimension D chorus.

Unlike the UAD plugins, these ones don't need dedicated hardware cards and cost a lot less.

I just installed the demos and my first impressions are quite good. The chorus is thick, warm and musical. The reverb is lush and soft, very natural.

I'm using these on a new song called "Hollow Man Kurtz", which I should release this weekend.

Once I had a Head of Glass

2011-05-17T19:30:00.000+02:00

"Up the River" Preview

2011-05-16T19:20:00.000+02:00

A little glimpse of the upcoming "Up the River" album.

This was recorded last week as an interlude of sort.

Miss Roxanne on vocals.

Piano, Mellotron courtesy of the amazing Gforce M-Tron plugin (alto, trumpet, vibes...) and... banjo!

Emily and the Art of Vanishing (II) by khoral

AKG K430

2011-05-14T13:00:00.002+02:00

For once, time to listen instead of playing. Since I do listen to a lot of music on the move, I badly needed a new set of headphones. After reviewing the options on the 30-60€ price bracket, I went for the K430 from AKG, a brand I already knew for the professional microphones and the (very good) K314P earphones I was currently using.

Let’s cut to the chase : they are excellent.

The building feels solid and trustworthy, with a head band that won’t feel uncomfortable or slide. The white design is slick, with a smooth leathery inside.
The cable is very short. That’s something you'll want to keep in mind if you’re considering getting one to listen on a hi-fi or TV or computer. You’ll need an extension cord. The K430 were clearly designed for nomad use.
The volume command on the cable is quite big, and I have to say, feels a bit wobbly compared to the overall build quality.

The sound : full and cohesive. It clearly emphasizes the low frequencies, providing powerful but well-defined basses and generally adding a lot of energy to the songs. As usual with bass-heavy headphones, one loses a bit of clarity. I certainly didn’t find the crystal clear clarity of my previous AKG earphones, but those were actually a bit weak on bass and often harsh.
That said, the K430 basses never overpower the mids and highs, and the stereo image remains clear and crisp enough. I especially loved how detailed the mid frequencies are, and how the K430 tends to smooth the highs in a very musical and pleasing way. You can push up the volume and feel immersed in the sound without ever being annoyed by hiss or sibilance, or having your eardrums crushed by overwhelming basses.
In conclusion, excellent headphones well worth the price.

Playlist

Depeche Mode – “Wrong”
The band’s last single to date was a great one but the analog lover in me tended to consider the synths a tad cold sounding. This is alleviated by the K430. Simply put, it sounds fantastic : there’s tremendous energy coming from the aggressive synth bass, the drums and the vocals, and the ability of these headphones to coalescence the sound in a natural way truly shines, without sounding muddy. Rocking.

King Crimson – “Vroooom”
This is an instrumental track with intricate hard prog guitar parts, with an unusual mixing style : there are virtually two bass-guitar-drums bands playing, one panned to the extreme left, one to the right, with occasional additional parts in the middle. This mix is crisp and edgy, with a cold, clinical feel. Thus it is a good test to check out if the K430 will respect the original mood. As it turns out, this is one case of the K430 slightly altering the spirit of the song : while it still comes out pretty edgy, the headphones do warm up the sound and smooth the highs, so that it the instruments sound "closer" than they really are. I wouldn’t say that it’s a problem : the track sounds awesome on these. But it definitely shows how the K430 isn’t totally neutral.

Stevie Wonder – « Superstition »
Now we’re talking serious ! Entangled web of clavinet, funky bass, blaring horns, it all pops out in 3D in my ears with the K430. This is one of the best way to listen to that classic stuff. The K430 enhances the bass line nicely, overall bringing great energy to the rhythm section.

Sting Nordenstam – “Everyone Else in the World”
Nordenstam's vocals are often mixed up front with a very bright, sometimes even harsh, sound.
Another example of the K430’s tendency to smooth the high frequencies. The vocals here sound more natural and soft than they usually do.

Nine Inch Nails – “The Big Come Down”
Here’s a track with some complex, heavy industrial groove going on, which comes out really good on the K430. Iinstrument separation remains excellent on this mammoth rhythmic section and I’ve heard some background haunting synth parts I had never noticed before, proving that the energy the headphones brings to the low frequencies doesn’t actually shadow the mids and highs.

Moog + Prophet = Fun

2011-05-10T20:12:00.000+02:00

A repost from a year ago, this time in streaming.

The Prophet 08 is playing the beat, which is fed to the Moog Little Phatty filter, itself triggered through MIDI by the Prophet and playing an arpeggio.
I then proceeded to add layers of Prophet 08, heavily using the sequencer.

Atari Forever by khoral

Born Under the Guybrush Sign

2011-05-06T19:17:00.002+02:00

What about you, geek?

New Pedal : EHX Freeze

2011-05-05T20:43:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time since I haven't bought an Electro-Harmonix pedal, eh?

Here's the Freeze.

It literally freezes whatever you play the instant you press the switch, which is why EHX calls it "infinite sustain".

Really good for creating textures and guitar pads. I'll be sure to post some sounds this weekend to show this off.

Meanwhile, check out these videos :

http://www.ehx.com/products/freeze
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOabP5WZLMY

"Cold Sweat" Wins Festival Prize

2011-05-04T19:40:00.000+02:00

"Cold Sweat", the Thomas Lesourd short movie featuring music from my "Upon a Sleepless River" EP, has placed 3rd at the DSLRcinema First Film Festival "Speechless".

Congrats to the man for this fantastic ambient piece of film.

You can download for free the "Upon a Sleepless River" album at Bitkins.com.

Cold Sweat (5mn version) from Thomas lesourd on Vimeo.