(This week Kamelmauz released two new recordings, Poor City, and a free EP, Sleeper. You can listen to all the released Kamelmauz music at Bandcamp.)
Music is my number two* interest, and my number one obsession, and has been so for forty years and counting. Music is my primary metaphor too, because all of its features–listening, playing together, improvising, composing, etc.–provide interesting echoes for all sorts of human qualities, patterns and interactions. Also, both music and sound are, paradoxically, ubiquitous and mysterious.
For example, it is both common and strange that every person possesses musicality. I’m fascinated by the history of the universal human relationship to sound, and, how entangled are sound and language. I’ve tracked this relationship back by way of the anthropological scholarship about presumed prototypes for music and language. This becomes very speculative because a deep generalization about both is: before writing and musical transcription, aural productions are ephemeral, except inasmuch as the products were heard, stored, and made retrievable. …by mind. Much much later, the productive secondary instruments in both realms become part of the artifactual record. Last time I checked, a 40,000 bone flute marked the oldest sound producing artifact found so far–for either mode of production.
My quest for this sound of proto-music represents the centering discovery process for my musical cosmos. Around this orbits that which somehow, (or in various ways,) triangulates–for ‘prime’ example– Thelonious Monk, The Byrds, and Pauline Oliveros. The track leads, then, from the ongoing hearing to youthful enthusiasms and all the way back to the infancy of sound.
My productive musical alter egos are Kamelmauz, he of the naive yet vigorous approach to designing and making his music, or, evoking into a room the sound (he has) already heard. Another one is Dub Collision, who compiles mixes, nowadays in the form of downloads. In this way, he shares–I share–juxtapositions of songs from the vast archive. Ol’ Mr. Collision has been at his compilin’ art for a very long time. I blog my musical activities at nogutsnoglory studios blog, including Dub Collision podcasts at the rate of about one per month. Finally. ‘alter-ego-wise, there is the Hippiegoat, who does all the musically inspired graphic design for mssrs Kamelmauz and Dub Collision.
Every Dub Collision mix/podcast is noted below.
nogutsnoglory studios blog
Rhythm River imaginal musicology
Rhythm River has to do with an experiential learning process involving music I developed.
Mantra Modes
A blog about the music and artistry of Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim, and about the sound of South Africa.
Kamelmauz – recordings at Bandcamp
Kamelmauz’s recordings can be purchased at Bandcamp. (If you want a keepsake, you can throw a few smolians in the direction of the artist. If you LIKE Kamelmauz fan page on Facebook, I’ll send you a code for a free download of Poor City. If you email Kamelmauz, you’ll receive a code that knocks the price from $9 to $4.50.)
*My number one interest is observing and researching what makes people and relationships tick.
