FundamentallySound Blog

Two nights ago I went to the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, a beautiful and intensely maze-like building housing the ashes of many northern Californians. I totally want my ashes to be kept there, it's a building of beautiful sun-drenched golds and browns with occasional blasts of razor sharp blue.

On the night I was there, eccentric composers from all over the area had descended on the place putting sound installations in fountains and flowers, Max/MSP garbled acoustic instruments making strange yelps from hidden hallways. All in all it was a wonderfully "California" type event, in the way it proclaimed that even death can be sunny, warm, and full of electronic music and smily people.

Now I'm so looking forward to seeing the not-so-young Francis Dhomont perform on Friday with Matmos. His Frankenstein Symphony was a huge influence on me when I was young and intellectually sponge-like. Well, I'm still pretty sponge-like, but am certainly not young anymore.

I think this may be tangentially related to Momus' recent pronouncement in which he stated "It's interesting that one of the key elements of the American identity touches precisely on this problem: Americans tend to believe that there is no conflict between 'staying in touch with your roots' and 'becoming whoever you want to be.'" There are so many connections to be drawn, I just don't have the time at the moment to give it the thought it deserves.