The Museum of Forgotten Journals: Trollheart Revisits the Classics

[Trollheart]

During my time here I read some truly amazing journals. Often these were only sporadically updated, but as they say, quantity above quality eh? What do you mean, other way around? Well anyway, one thing these journals shared in common was that on the rare occasion their authors chose to favour us with an entry, it was 100% brilliant and 100% worth waiting for.

But time has moved on, and some of these authors are no longer on the forum, or have abandoned their journals, with the result that they have slipped down the pages and can now be found gasping for air in the lower ranks of the section. This, to me, is not a good thing, and no way for such writing to be treated. So my plan is to descend into the bowels of the journals section and retrieve these gems, bring them back into the light for all to enjoy, perhaps for the first time, perhaps to remind you how great they were.

I make no claims about the music, much of which - possibly all of which, or most at best - is not for me. If it's your cup of cha, so much the better, but what I'm talking about here is the writing, which was always top-notch and on point. Journals need, in my opinion, to have three things going for them in order to be successful and interesting: a decent grasp of English, a true interest in and knowledge of the subject, and that old favourite, passion. Reading a journal without passion is really more like reading an old text book or manual, to me: if the writer doesn't show me he or she is interested in his or her subject, why should I be?

Needless to say, that does not apply to any of the journals I will feature here.

My original plan had been to pop a post in on these journals in order to raise them back up the ranks, but I'm not really sure that's my right, and I guess there may be some authors who would prefer their journals, for whatever reason, stay buried. So what I will do is post an extract from the journal in question and if you're intrigued you can follow the link to read more of it. Please note that due to the age of these journals, certain things such as videos and images may no longer work, but the writing is after all the thing.

If there's an old journal you'd like resurrected, and you either haven't the time or the patience to go searching for it, or if you only vaguely remember it, let me know and I will look for it. Criteria are simple: the journal in question must not have been updated for at least four years (this refers to an actual post by the author, not someone posting asking "are you ever gonna finish this" or something similar, and must be an actual post, not a "lol" etc sort of thing) and/or be on at least page six of the section. Or both.

**********************

First up is a man who may very well be still here, but if he is, I haven't seen him posting much. Anyone who has read his writing though will know this is more than worth a look. Hasn't been updated since 2016, but really 2013, so is currently languishing undeservedly on page 10. Here's the introduction:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

Spoiler for big pic:

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

This list is… well… basically exactly what the title says it is: twenty-five really good albums that I think are worth a listen, preferably sooner rather than later what with the lunar situation and all. That's not to say this the definitive list of my favorite twenty-five albums. Not at all. There's a lot I'm leaving off the list because I feel that they've already been discussed to death on MB or elsewhere, because I just don't think I have enough to say about them to warrant a write up, or because for whatever reason they just don't mesh with the whole Moon-crashing-into-the-Earth motif in my mind.

Anyway, on to the first entry...

Spoiler for Table of Contents:

25. Land of the Loops—Bundle of Joy
24. Alien Sex Fiend—Too Much Acid?
23. The YMD—Excuse Me, This Is The Yah Mos Def
22. Unsane—Occupational Hazard
21. Swans—Love of Life
20. Boris Kovač & LaDaABa Orchest—Ballads at the End of Time
19. Cornelius—Point
18. Harry Nilsson—The Point!
17. Sons of Otis—Spacejumbofudge
16. Lodger—Hi-Fi High Lights Down Low
15. Taj Mahal—World Music
14. Latin Playboys—s/t
13. Alabama 3—Exile on Coldharbour Lane
12. My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult—13 Above the Night
11. Electric Wizard—Witchcult Today
10. Clark—Turning Dragon
9. Neurosis—A Sun That Never Sets
8. The Flying Luttenbachers—Infection and Decline
7. Tin Hat Trio—The Rodeo Eroded
6. Ufomammut—Idolum
5. Leonard Cohen—Songs from a Room
4. Grandaddy—Sumday
3. Los Fabulosos Cadillacs—Fabulosos Calavera
2. Kraftwerk—Radio-Activity
1. Gavin Bryars—The Sinking of the Titanic

And now here's a sample, originally posted November 3 2012.

Originally Posted by Janszoon

1. Gavin Bryars—The Sinking of the Titanic (1990)

Take one of those faint radio transmissions that flits through the weak atmosphere of Callisto and follow it backward through space and time. The frost-scarred surface of that Jovian moon recedes rapidly as the radio wave pulls you back toward its point of origin. For a moment Jupiter itself occupies your field of vision but then fades away as you fly through the void, past rock and ice, deep into the asteroid belt. The protoplanet Ceres, king of the asteroids, approaches from one side, but yet you are still pulled back. Back past the red ball of Mars, dusty and ancient. Back to the green and blue of Earth, the gray sphere of the Moon but kissing distance away. Down past dead satellites, through the cool damp mists of the atmosphere. Down, down, down toward green hills and roads in some remote part of the world. Down into the steel of a massive antenna, into wires that run deep underground, protected. Down the wires, through soil and minerals, to room in a bunker deep inside a mountain.

In that room is one solitary woman calmly loading and transmitting data—the sum total of all human knowledge and endeavor—deep into space in the hope that somehow, someday some remote civilization might detect these transmissions and learn something from them, or least know that they aren't alone. Around her are cluttered desks and abandoned chairs, evidence of her many colleagues, all of whom, as the end approaches, have abandoned their posts and run off to be with their loved ones or to dash through the hills naked or to drink themselves into a stupor. Not her though. She has stayed at her post, remaining calm and carrying on, one final reassuring vestige of normalcy in the face of destruction, like the ship's band that continued playing on the deck as the Titanic sank.

That immortal image of the band playing to the very end is what this final album, The Sinking of the Titanic by minimalist composer Gavin Bryars, is built around. His vision was of the band continuing on even as the ship slipped completely beneath the frigid waves of the North Atlantic, the notes of their songs echoing through the darkness of the water for the duration of their journey to the ocean floor. It has evolved significantly as a piece of music throughout its 40-plus years of existence, beginning life as a short open-ended piece written in 1969 and expanding both in scope and length in the following decades. It's been recorded multiple times: in 1975 for Brian Eno's Obscure Records label, in 1990 in a much longer form, and again in 2005 with avant-garde turntablist Philip Jeck.

It's the 1990 version that I'm discussing here. Robert Ballard's discovery of the long-missing wreck of the Titanic in 1986 had inspired in Bryars a desire to revisit and expand the piece and the result is really something to behold. Recorded live in the basement of an early nineteenth century Belgian water tower, the performance is an overwhelming experience of texture and mood. Mournful yet beautiful strings and horns fill the air with slow passages. Distant pinging and clanging echo around and around evoking twisting steel and dripping water deep in the bowels of the ship. Not quite discernible recordings of survivors' voices skip around in the shadows. And a boys' choir floats above it all like the spirits of the victims drifting up into the night sky.

This is not the kind of album you listen to casually, not something you throw on while you're cleaning the kitchen or going for a run. This is an album that's so emotional and so captivating that you just sit still and let it wash over you. From the clanging bell at the beginning to the fading notes at the end, it envelopes you in tragedy. The odd thing, though, about being so immersed in it, is that you begin to see other facets of those moments. The bravery and heroism. The sheer humanity. The cold beauty of waves and metal and stars.

For a moment the sky consuming mass of the Moon appears to just hang there, so close it seems that you could reach out and touch it. It looks different now in the reflected light of the Earth, no longer frozen and gray but warm and inviting. Those last few moments move with the pace of centuries as the world collectively closes its eyes and holds its breath. For a moment there is silence.

And then collision.

The ground buckles. Moondust rains down over the surface of the planet. The areas of the Earth's crust along the perimeter of the point of impact explode outward into space, trailing tails of magma in some synchronized cosmic ballet. The force of the event activates every volcano on the planet. Continents tear themselves to pieces. The seas boil. The atmosphere is ablaze. Every last flicker of life on Earth is extinguished. But rising out beyond the pandemonium at incredible speed are the last broadcasts of that lone woman in the chair. They race out across the solar system, carrying the final accounting of humanity—and of Earth—to places beyond. Past where we found them on Callisto, beyond the famous rings of Saturn and the less famous rings of Uranus, past the blue face of Neptune and the frozen wastes of Pluto, into the depths of space, toward some distant meeting with an unknown civilization, in an unknown time, in an unknown place.

And here's the link:
25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

[SGR]

This is an interesting idea. I wonder if there would be some way for us to create a stickied index of 'important or excellent journals'. I don't know how we'd decide on that, but it seems a shame that, as you say, there's so many great journals out there (many I'm sure, being yours) that have quietly faded into obscurity and likely will receive little attention. Perhaps we need a curator (you?) - and we could have a weekly journal club where we vote on a couple (or a few) options to canonize in an index (good luck getting enough people to participate in a weekly journal poll, I suppose) - of course, we'd need mod support for that but I like what you're doing here Trolls.

Ive never heard of that Bryars album, I'm gonna check that out - I'm a big Titanic buff and have never heard of this.

[Trollheart]

See, this is the kind of thing I mean. So much has been written so well and is now all but forgotten. I mean, to hell with mine, though thanks for the compliment: I'm here and can choose to resurrect any old ones I like, such as the Classic Albums one and Bitesize, and I am working on others. But those who have put so much into their journals and then, for various reasons, left them, are having their work lost in the miasma of often sub-standard (though not always) and unattended journals, or those on which their authors have given up.

I'm not sure about the sticky. Good idea, but again I think it might possibly be seen as a little presumptuous by the owners, should they still be here or come back. There may be a good reason such journals have been dropped, and it would probably be unfair and even slightly arrogant to decide they should be, well, forced back into the limelight. Which is, again, why I abandoned the idea of posting in them to raise them to page one. This way, anyone can read them, but they don't necessarily get highlighted against, possibly, the authors' wishes. Of course, if those authors are around and agreed to such an arrangement, cool. But I don't think we should do it without at least their input, if not their agreement or permission.

[Trollheart]

I wandered on down to page 14 and had a look around to see what sort of floating wrecks I could find. There are a few. Carefully making my way from sunken wreck to sunken wreck I was distraught at so much lost talent, and determined to try to refloat something here. But how to choose? Well, call it bias because she's a friend if you like, but I chose this one for two reasons. One, the author is still here, and maybe we can convince her to take this up again, and two, well, it's just so damned clever. Wish I had thought of it.

Anyway, without further ado, I present to you a journal created by someone who has now changed her name, but is just as awesome as she was back in 2014, when she unleashed this on us.

Originally Posted by Celladorina

The secret is out. I'm a closet Britney fan. I'm going to use this journal light heartedly to show other members of the forum by which song I think that describes them most. I'm going to start with a few and continue in multiple posts. Let me know if you want me to do your video comparison. Just for a bit of fun.

Me first of course:



Mankycaant:



Lil:



Roxy:



Whateverdude:



Urban:



Ki singing to Lil:



Exo (sending strength to you bb):



Dwnwthvwls:



Anticipation:



Goofle:



Batlord:



More to come....

Come on now, form an orderly queue! You can see the journal here
MB Members Defined by a Britney Spears Song
though to be honest, the first post is all there is. Hopefully it will be the start of a revival!

[SGR]

Originally Posted by Trollheart

See, this is the kind of thing I mean. So much has been written so well and is now all but forgotten. I mean, to hell with mine, though thanks for the compliment: I'm here and can choose to resurrect any old ones I like, such as the Classic Albums one and Bitesize, and I am working on others. But those who have put so much into their journals and then, for various reasons, left them, are having their work lost in the miasma of often sub-standard (though not always) and unattended journals, or those on which their authors have given up.

I'm not sure about the sticky. Good idea, but again I think it might possibly be seen as a little presumptuous by the owners, should they still be here or come back. There may be a good reason such journals have been dropped, and it would probably be unfair and even slightly arrogant to decide they should be, well, forced back into the limelight. Which is, again, why I abandoned the idea of posting in them to raise them to page one. This way, anyone can read them, but they don't necessarily get highlighted against, possibly, the authors' wishes. Of course, if those authors are around and agreed to such an arrangement, cool. But I don't think we should do it without at least their input, if not their agreement or permission.

I get where you're coming from in terms of politeness, but at the end of the day, once they post it on MB, they don't own that data anymore - MB (or their parent company) does.

If they're no longer around, we can't get their permission - and since they're not around, I don't think they'll mind a simple link being posted to their journal in the stickied index. I mean, it's not like we're linking to their family photo albums or anything, we're preserving their work for any future readers - and at the end of the day, I think that's the whole reason they posted the journal - so that others could read it and possibly enjoy it.

[Trollheart]

Well I guess that would be a decision the mods could make. I won't say yea or nay; I still say it's not up to me. I'm happy if they, or a majority here, want to do that, but equally happy to provide links so people can jump to the journals and read them themselves.

The other issue I would see is quantity. If you end up with ten or more "classic" journals stickied, you're going to start pushing current journals (including MINE! ) off the first page, which sort of cuts off the nose to split the lips or something.

As Batty would no doubt say, shrug.

[rubber soul]

Maybe one idea would be to have sub-forums (Frankly, you need a sub-forum of your own, Trolls). At least one for music, and one for everything else. If nothing else, it would at least prevent the older journals from being buried as quickly.

[Trollheart]

Believe me, I did request it. The guys agreed, but also agreed it was about as likely as me being crowned Mister Universe. I would much rather have a sub-forum for my journals, because, as I worried - correctly - mine are now pushing everyone else's down by sheer weight of numbers. And there are new ones on the way. You ever listened to Dark Side of the Moon (duh)? "The paper holds their folded faces (or if you prefer, feces!) to the floor, and every day the paper boy brings more!"

[Trollheart]

If there was one man here who had possibly the most eclectic and wide-ranging tastes I think most people might agree it was Jackhammer. He ran a very successful journal - more than 200 posts - which is now languishing almost on the edge of journal land, on page 17. In this journal he did nothing terribly original, just reviewed albums, but to get an idea of what he reviewed, the range and breadth of his musical taste, this journal deserves to be brought back into the light. Here's his opening post, also featuring a review.

Of a grindcore album.

Originally Posted by jackhammer

The only criteria I'm giving to this is that the albums or tracks reviewed will almost certainly be a first time listen on what I have recently acquired or dragging an lost gem out of it's hidey hole kicking and screaming.

Agoraphobic Nosebleed- Altered States Of America (2003)



99 tracks long and clocking in at well under 12 minutes this is certainly an acquired taste. Four vocalists, a drum machine, one guitar and endless samples and F/X create one hell of a racket. Is it a gimmick or is it a sincere attempt to make one of the most intense albums ever?

Luckily I was growing up when Grindcore first reared it's head in the late 80's over here and I have been to many all day Hardcore/Grindcore/Punk festivals so I can 'tolerate' this a lot easier than if I was reviewing my first Grindcore album.

Listening closely I can say that it is certainly not a gimmick and despite the ridiculously short length of the tracks there is plenty of imagination and variation to keep me entertained. What used to bore me after a while with Grindcore was the guttural vocals. After a few tracks I got bored. With 4 vocalists on board and only one employing this vocal technique my attention is still kept up. This along with the electronic backbone in many songs give the band a 'Cyber Grind' tag (just in case I start being corrected on their genre tag).

I thought the album was enjoyable in both concept and product. If you fancy your ears being cleaned out or an experience in just how far Music can go sonically, then give it a go brave people. It's fucking mental.


-- Official Agoraphobic Nosebleed Site --

And then he went on to write about this:

Originally Posted by jackhammer

New Zealand Reggae/Dub Scene

New Zealand has over the past 10-15 years seen an explosion of Dub and Reggae bands that fuse Maori past along with the musical leanings of Funk and Soul. The most well known are Fat Freddy's Drop who are a firm festival favourite who wow their audiences with their improv slow jams and sleek delivery. Yet there are many others too worthy of a mention. Rhombus, The Black Seeds, Trinity Roots and the Roots Reggae band Katchafire (who started out as a Bob Marley tribute band!) all keeping the Reggae flag alive. Although the music does splinter and span many genres it's gratifying to know that a new audience is being introduced to Reggae infused music and still have something new to bring to the table.

Here is a selection of vid's for ya to bump and grind to:

The jam that kicks in just after3 minutes through this track is just toe tappingly good and they are a band I would love to see live:

Love the guitar work on this one and a great soulful voice too:

A band that likes a side order of fun:

Terrible vid but Fat Freddy's Drop are one of my absolute faves:

You can catch up on his musical musings here
What's the sound in my headphones today?