Mary Lattimore

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

can't abide by james blackshaw tbh

blackshaw isn't the worst point of comparison tbh - there's a latent medievalism in both their work rather than anything blues based

or blues derived rather

fahey is the real deal in that he's what everyone's copying

You accuse the ML fans / Diabete ignorers of engaging in (I guess hype-centered?) myopia and then you say this.

To say "everyone" is copying Fahey is so completely and demonstrably false, as you well know. I'd love to hear what exactly Nathan Salsburg, Cian Nugent, Paul Metzger, or Rick Bishop have to do with Fahey, to name four completely different acoustic guitarists we've mentioned on this thread and others. The frustrating thing for me about the so-called post-Takoma stuff (and things like the Thousand Incarnations festival) is that it shoves a lot of very distinctive players into this "American Primitive" box, which is imo probably the least musically interesting music being made by solo guitar players in 2018. Fahey / Rose copycats are everywhere because it's the easiest style to passably imitate. No one is "doing" Bert Jansch, to say nothing of Debashish Bhuttacharya, because that shit is way more difficult than figuring out how to play Mississippi John Hurt tunes for audiences raised on At The Drive In and Built To Spill.

This is not at all to discount the talent (and in many cases genius) of players like Fahey and Rose (and Bachman, who I think is a pretty huge cut above a lot of his contemporaries). I just think those guys should be the final word on "Sunflower River Blues" and sidelong slide guitar ragas because enough already.

yah i feel like blackshaw is way more descended from UK folk by way of Philip Glass than Am Priv

UK folk by way of Philip Glass

What is the best Blackshaw album to listen to for this sound? I've only listened to Apologia, which I like a lot but seems Ampriv/country blues-rooted to me. That description sounds awesome, though.

because that shit is way more difficult than figuring out how to play Mississippi John Hurt tunes for audiences raised on At The Drive In and Built To Spill.

this cuts deep

Sund4r - try The Glass Bead Game

Oh, 4m in, Glass Bead Game is definitely up my alley.

way more difficult than figuring out how to play Mississippi John Hurt tunes for audiences raised on At The Drive In and Built To Spill.

actually takes some practice champ try it sometime

sorry harp threads make me aggro

#side2mywar

At The Drive In and Built To Spill

would attend this co-headlining tour, mary lattimore opening ofc

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