Mary Lattimore

am now up to track five and tbh this one does sound like the backing track off a panpipe record

brad my uncharitable fiction was in response to tim's "I never knew I needed to listen to at all times just to survive" & similarly serious

wow this thread went in a surprise direction

haven't really dug into this yet but she's opening for Iceage (?!) which should be interesting to catch

i always appreciate ogmor's position as post fahey diaspora skeptic, and value the check on my own enthusiasms even if i don't always agree sometime they do point out flaws in things i like (and continue to like)

haven't heard this new one but have been a fan of lattimore

i just came here to say that "wawa by the ocean" is a gorgeous tune

saw her last night in Denver, thought it was great! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

gave this a slight listen earlier

being charitable, it seemed to be going for a similar vibe to the beatific and stunning coda to wilco's 'one sunday morning' except without the subtle shifts in emphasis or the sonic density

it obviously isn't for me and as a practical criticism exercise can't come across as much more than pablum, but i guess we all get medicated our own way. not everything has to be listened to consciously (let alone analytically)

rooting for ogmor inasmuch as something has *happened* on ilm, and inasmuch as i favour 'invention' and 'maximalism' over new-age or ambient (n.b. i know this is often a false dichotomy)

kas, nu-eno etc irritate me more as they appear to possess some kind of intellectual justification for their music which this afaict lacks. iirc ogmor was similarly scathing about that william tyler album which i didn't mind so much either - like this, it just felt like a pretty doldrum, nothing too self-important or even particularly cloying, despite the almost complete lack of melodic complexity or, well, art

I like her

https://youtu.be/rpI6PoZGhSo

Just IMO a broad dismissiveness of saccharine prettiness is itself a position I can never get with, but if people want to tell their mom the world sucks and go to their room without any dinner and post on 4chan all night then who am I to stop them or judge their aesthetic priorities.

which are yr fav types of broad dismissiveness?

eh it’s good to have some dissent on these threads, and ogmor is generally bright, witty and informed and certainly more entertaining than the dull likes of myself so bring it on our kid

the more recent wave of post-takoma guitarists who show their cloth-ears by treating the new age copycats & originals as being much of a muchness

where and how do you draw this distinction? Like, because Eno and Steve Roach had to make do with comparatively primitive gear the sounds they achieved were somehow more artistic and musical than the guy who hears Emeralds or Oneohtrix and goes to Guitar Center and gets four pedals and an Arturia minibrute and creates sounds that to the average listener are indistinguishable from those made by the ambient 'pioneers?'

I ask this because I think you are onto something, and would agree to some extent that a lot of contemporary new age, ambient and drone music is naked emperor 101 (sidestepping, of course, the false dichotomies imago references) but I don't think Mary Lattimore falls into the latter category at all

always love to see some ogmor shit-stirring

seems v much of a piece with the more recent wave of post-takoma guitarists who show their cloth-ears by treating the new age copycats & originals as being much of a muchness. sure there's a lot of detail which can be hard to concentrate on, but if you unfocus your ears it all blurs into a sweet mellow vibe. it's utopian in the way a show-home is utopian, bland and featureless.

if ppl's anhedonia has rendered them numb to all but the most cartoonishly saccharine & they retreat into this mush as an act of self-care then they have my sympathies. mb ppl will find the strength to engage more intensely when the political climate improves, or mb it's just indicative of ppl tending to be at their most boringly self-involved and incurious between 30 & 50. in any case I'm managing fine with solids, ta

this except for the part where it's all a bad thing

Listening to this now, so I can pass the definitive judgment on it.

Shocked that Mary Lattimore's music could inspire such enmity. I saw her open for Parquet Courts a year ago in a church & it was beautiful, her music was obviously more suited to the venue than PC. New album is great. What's to hate?

she's been heading in a more dreamy direction lately, but some of her records (like the collabs with Jeff Ziegler) go into some wilder, more out zones. i like both sides of the coin.

This is pleasant yet dull. I could see it being fine for when I want to be in a very chill headspace, but it isn't exactly exciting to listen to, and the harp playing is a bit too hazy lazy for my taste.

well, that's settled, then

I loved seeing her play live last year.

Yep, you're welcome

xp

There's an imprecision to the harp parts that makes me itchy if I focus too much on it.

the guy who hears Emeralds or Oneohtrix and goes to Guitar Center and gets four pedals and an Arturia minibrute and creates sounds that to the average listener are indistinguishable from those made by the ambient 'pioneers?

hey i think you'll find that actually i own a microbrute

bet I know the four pedals though

it was, but I thought incurious reverie was a much more astute indictment given the way the board has gone and so hoped that's what he'd meant

― ogmor, Monday, May 21, 2018 1:52 PM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW I do think "incurious reverie" works as well in terms of capturing what (I think) the original point meant, though second guessing is perhaps a dangerous game.

Conversely, though, any debate that frames ILX's "problem" around what people listen to rather than how they listen to music and talk about it is missing the point IMO - and further, the issue with trying to refract that kind of critique through a single artist or album or etc. is that it's basically impossible to move beyond the what to the how, except as part of a bad faith "people who listen to this are like that" exercise. Even if someone was listening to a piece of music as an act of "self-care" this doesn't really get very far as character diagnosis given they may well be listening to (insert your favourite difficult / challenging / politically subversive artist) next.

There's a reason why rtc tended to criticise ILX (or segments thereof) for what music people refused to engage with (and how they tended to refuse to engage) rather than the other way around - it's far more instructive. The problem with Patrick Bateman (who is the archetype for the kind of discussion we're having) is not that he was wrong about the records that he liked but that his aesthetic value system was so rigidly foreclosed.

1) who is rtc?
2) why does he (he?) get to determine the nature of our discussion of the harp music of mary lattimore?

trying to project your thoughts onto people who enjoy a certain artist's music is a fool's errand/exercise in irrelevance imo

I listened to this and I like it

but I get partly was ogmor is saying, there's a lot of cultural signifiers involved in why this is this and other stuff is on those CDs they play at massage places

but I'd suggest they opposite rather that we underrated or dismiss the latter instead of overrate the former

yep

Suzanne Ciani's new age recordings are niiiiice

don't underestimate negative connotations and weird cultural associations with anything vaguely "yuppie"

also I blame punk rock for a lot of these idiot rockist opinions

but I get partly was ogmor is saying, there's a lot of cultural signifiers involved in why this is this and other stuff is on those CDs they play at massage places

but I'd suggest they opposite rather that we underrated or dismiss the latter instead of overrate the former

― The Desus & Mero Chain (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

can't we do both? with the work having been done to destigmatize "new age" music, is it possible that the music of, say, laraaji is more creative and interesting than this record, and express that opinion not as a cheap put-down but as a genuine aesthetic judgment?

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sharp%20knees

xpost - given laraaji is an all-time genius i would consider that to be neither a cheap put-down nor a particularly biting aesthetic judgment.

“maybe she should latti less” - ogmor

Haven’t heard the new album yet but really liked wawa by the sea so came to this thread to read some opinions on it on oh boy. Now ogmor has made me self-conscious and I’m aftaid of listening to it and liking it. I need to revaluate my life

I’m 32 and I have to admit I’m becoming less and less curious about the world and I don’t really get too excited about almost anything but that isn’t recent... I was born wealthy and that seems to be the trade-off for comfort in life I guess.

I am now feeling anxious about wasting my life, I just wanted to listen to some music.

im pretty sure rtc still posts here

I don't know. I liked the Withdrawing Room. It seemed to have the right kind of drift - expansive and measured. It also wasn't afraid of dissonance. This does seem pretty safe and wooshy in comparison. Which isn't a criticism at all; it's more that it doesn't catch on anything, just passes through. Which is fine.

Weird to single her out, though - especially given the amount of actual more rigidly obvious post-Takoma stuff that seems to get a pass.

xp lay some steve mcclaren bait out

I don't get the Laraaji love. Based on what I've heard his music has two modes: boring and corny.

Now ogmor has made me self-conscious and I’m aftaid of listening to it and liking it. I need to revaluate my life

this is the opposite of what is supposed to happen when healthy discussion occurs

ok, ok, i'm convinced, we can go ahead and declare the death of hyperbole

There's a reason why rtc tended to criticise ILX (or segments thereof) for what music people refused to engage with (and how they tended to refuse to engage) rather than the other way around - it's far more instructive.

Ppl's lack of interest in something as niche as instrumental harp music doesn't seem like a refusal until they latch onto one particular example and then you wonder why this and not that. There's been quite an upturn in interest in instrumental string music in recent years but it's largely centred around this american scene, w/ a mixture of ppl from the previous early 00s takomish boom (& those they've inspired), the usual mix of often older psych and drone fans, and increasingly ppl who have followed their bliss from other scenes which have moved into more mellow, new age territory, which has become a converging point.

I've complained abt the guitarists more specifically in ilx brigade threads (despite what chinaski may remember), but a lot of it comes down to the perennial tension between composing and performing. When ppl pull back from cutting loose to go freeform and still restrict themselves to solid compositions while they get less and less composerly, you get some real turds. a fun glimpse at a glorious alternative world here is jack rose initially thinking that fare forward voyagers was improvised, bless him. I'd argue the interest in sarod, sitar & veena players beyond Sweet Modal Dronin' is as a model for how to have expressionist performance w/ some structure. A lot of ppl talk the same game as their predecessors (even dress the same) but the attempts to thrash out some sort of coherent sound have made it more cliche, less surprising, less engaged w/ other material, less structured, less varied, and increasingly insular as it veers closer to being pure mood music. what was timeless becomes ahistorical, what was deployed w/ deft irony is cack-handedly hammered home over and over w/ blunt sincerity. there's no ambiguity, only superficial depth, no stakes, no drama. cadillac desert.

The uncritical positivity around the scene belies its narrowed interest and, indeed, 'foreclosed value system'. why does ML get so many more ilx ears than, say, toumani & sidiki diabate's gorgeously fluid, shimmering, spacious, limber & fantastically pretty 2014 album? toumani's much more famous, he's worked with loads of accomplished performers, represents ~70 generations of kora playing tradition and plays this beautiful, expansive, lucid, tender music that you can v happily zone out to or focus on as you see fit. people will occasionally spend an afternoon Vibing To The World Tip but are consistently excited to check out the last person who opened for thurston moore, are ready to pay for a boutique reissue of some californian who recorded two pretty ok songs in 1973, or suddenly pay attention to some mediocrity who's been plugging away in rightful obscurity for decades who Looks The Part.

idk quite what to make of it. do foreign rhythms harsh the buzz? do ML fans turn their nose up at lost of other instrumental harp music? is it more generous to assume ppl just want something as simple as possible or that they just pay more attention to white americans in plaid? anyway this thread has reminded me to order this, am stoked:

https://img.discogs.com/N2-OH_VqHkEnYgNJzAft5dA2exc=/fit-in/600x592/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-9596328-1483387259-4446.jpeg.jpg

lol ogmor william tyler really gets your aesthetic goat don't he?

again i'm not discounting some of your points, though i think certain players (sarah louise and ryley walker's new albums, chuck johnson's pedal steel stuff and what i expect from the next daniel bachman album based on his 1000 incarnations of the rose set) are breaking through to voices that are very distinctive...

also can i just say i love jack rose but the constant holding up as him and fahey as the "real deal" that can't be topped is its own form of blinkered that plagues the scene as much as the chumminess you're talking about

since we're basically rehashing mild brigade beefs here and it's getting attention outside of the regulars i'll repost Wu Fei, which you might dig?

Wu Fei is a native of Beijing & a current Nashville resident, is a master of the guzheng, the ancient 21-string Chinese zither. She was trained as a Western classical composer, a vocalist, & plays beautifully in the guzheng's vernacular–a musical language which is at least 2,000 years old. She mixes Western & Chinese traditional sensibilities with a contemporary idiosyncratic, experimental dialect

https://wufeimusic.bandcamp.com/

Weird to single her out, though - especially given the amount of actual more rigidly obvious post-Takoma stuff that seems to get a pass.

― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Tuesday, May 22, 2018 3:23 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but yeah ogmor is right he's def critical of many nu-post-takoma players in his defense

haha, i think ogmor's making interesting/valid points, but I also think that accusing people who are listening to and enjoying an obscure instrumental harpist of being musically incurious and self-absorbed (and maybe racist?) is a weird way to go about it. i own and love several diabate records fwiw.

thing about this record though is that it doesn't really feel like part of that that whole post-takoma thing (even though that might be part of mary's background? i don't know tbh). i can't really hear any connection with american primitivism or any other kind of quasi-rootsy authenticity. it's more that meeting point between new age and the gauzy ambientish indie of juliana barwick, colleen, benoit pioulard etc. would totally encourage people to go listen to toumani diabate though - 'new ancient strings' with ballake sissoko was a real game changer for me

haha, i think ogmor's making interesting/valid points, but I also think that accusing people who are listening to and enjoying an obscure instrumental harpist of being musically incurious and self-absorbed (and maybe racist?) is a weird way to go about it. i own and love several diabate records fwiw.

― tylerw

it seems a bit strawmanny to be honest, i'm not entirely convinced that there are loads of people who go ape over lattimore to the _detriment_ of diabate. ilx spending more time discussing a record that came out this year (and most of that discussion centering around ogmor's post, if not for it this thread would've died at ten posts) than a record that came out in 2014 should be a surprise to nobody.

that wu fei record is great, sorry i missed it when it came out but in my defense i had a lot going on in 2007

I meant in 2014 obv. I will check the wu fei. I quite like sarah louise but those other three are the worst offenders imo, but anyway, I'll leave you to yr healthy discussion, but tbh this biz is not what i'm about: constant holding up (of rose) and fahey as the "real deal" that can't be topped - something can be a v desperate copy without the thing it's copying being untoppable, but obv that wld require understanding exactly what it is that yr trying to top (for example: his curiosity). fahey is the real deal in that he's what everyone's copying; rose is a different, transitional figure. it all went wrong with james blackshaw, who was at least ahead of the curve, and some of you wld probably like a lot

hope mary lattimore doesn't start dating elon musk or shit is gonna get ugly itt

sorry harp threads make me aggro

how soon ye forget the wars of the newsom

man, god forbid someone just thinks lattimore's songs are pretty

If there's one cynical opinion that ogmor's arguments are reminding me that I've flirted with, it's that sometimes a hip and respected artist can make anything normally dull and uninspired interesting to their audience just because they're doing it. Is that kind of what ogmor is getting at here?

Fahey / Rose copycats are everywhere because it's the easiest style to passably imitate.

Yes and no. It depends on who you ask. How do you feel about abstract expressionist or color field painting?

I know that for every Jackson Pollock or Rothko, there are a thousand pretenders who think "I can do that," and they are usually dead wrong and end up producing something that bears only the slightest and most superficial resemblance to the genuine article.

folks would we even be having this massive struggle session if we were talking about MARIO Lattimore? makes u think

mario lattimore bravely challenges the culture of toxic masculinity on his new harp album

I think that guy did my kitchen tiles, but he pronounced it "latta-MOR-ay"

his tiling is sharp
then he plays you his harp
latta-MOR-ay

I've seen kora players in The Gambia and I like Marion Lattimorus, so check the size of my spuds.

the appetite for hostility is more disturbing to me than the substance of this particular accusation against the harp music of mary lattimore.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Monday, May 21, 2018 3:16 PM (two days ago)

This is seriously OTM, LL.

his tiling is sharp
then he plays you his harp
latta-MOR-ay

Ok, I LOLed

anyway the brigade threads have been generally the best and nicest threads on ilm for a long time and i really love all the regulars so i'm glad all this shit got hashed out in another thread, though lattimore probably has little to do with it.

“Ppl's lack of interest in something as niche as instrumental harp music doesn't seem like a refusal until they latch onto one particular example and then you wonder why this and not that. There's been quite an upturn in interest in instrumental string music in recent years but it's largely centred around this american scene, w/ a mixture of ppl from the previous early 00s takomish boom (& those they've inspired), the usual mix of often older psych and drone fans, and increasingly ppl who have followed their bliss from other scenes which have moved into more mellow, new age territory, which has become a converging point.“

This seems fair and reasonably likely to me though apart from a few isolated examples (e.g. Blackshaw) I don’t know much of the American music you’re referring to - case in point, I discovered Lattimore off a friend who has a shared love of the new agey end of Balearic revivalism. My go-to reference points for Lattimore when first listening (and especially her latest album) would be stuff like Wolf Muller & Cass rather than Toumani and Sidiki Diabate, though obviously if viewed in terms of the choice of lead instrument the latter makes sense. I had heard Toumani before, but not the 2014 album, and it is magical, though in ways that feel very different to me than ML.

In that sense my entry point and frame for ML are perhaps precisely the sonic trappings which you’d consider represent aesthetic choices which are wrong or dubious or cynical, I dunno.

man, god forbid someone just thinks lattimore's songs are pretty

https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-forests

excited for this!

the only track available is lush, reminds me of grouper a bit

Beautiful song

Painter of Tygers sounds just like His Name is Alive circa 1992. Gorgeous

meant to post here that if anyone is craving more fresh instrumental harp music SOAR by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita (on kora) is v v good

https://open.spotify.com/album/2s5WYOg1fezE42u6X0GqJc?si=NPVnH4Q7T06un-ZMOtnG_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urnm8Aync5s

Enjoying this, thanks.

Mary Lattimore on the PBS @NewsHour just now! Very cool 👏 pic.twitter.com/vkbeFymeVX

— Nicky Smith (@nickyotissmith) April 20, 2019

I just came to say her new album is rather lovely and then I re-read the thread...

I will state ftr that I'm in the upper reaches of the 30-50 bracket and have very much given up.

She is fantastic and I love the new one

I think this album is her strongest yet & ogmor can suck it

https://bfplny.com/event/electric-appalachia/

Jan 25 at 7:30pm
SILENT FILMS / LIVE MUSIC:
ELECTRIC APPALACHIA
Electric Appalachia is scored and performed by Mary Lattimore and William Tyler.

Experience the first evening of the Silent Films/Live Music series with the New York premiere of “Electric Appalachia.” Using found archival footage, the film offers a meditation on electricity and modernity in East Tennessee. Compiled by Eric Dawson (director at the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound – TAMIS) with score written and performed by guitarist William Tyler and harpist Mary Lattimore.
No RSVP is required. Seating is first come, first served. Free popcorn while supplies last.

New album today https://marylattimoreharpist.bandcamp.com/album/goodbye-hotel-arkada

Listening now, it's fantastic.

Was about to make the exact same post, lol

Great stuff