Use of Music in Mental Architecture

Since time is short and I have giant bundle of different interests I’m always on the lookout for raising my efficacy standard and streamlining information sources so I can check many things with as little time spent as possible.

So this is my latest and most glorious find: Stereofox!

Stereofox is music portal by music lovers and enthusiasts covering sizeable span of genres but in concise and down-to-the point manner, not spamming the audience with excess multimedia but giving the opportunity to taste the recommendations simply and immediately. Since my first and foremost love is Post-rock here I have found a kindred spirit in “ivo” whose recommendations and preferences I came to trust immensely as well as enjoy his personal remarks.

Another thing I love about Stereofox is social media side that they keep up-to date and interesting all the while not being overwhelmingly affluent.

Some time ago I listened through Stereofox Collective Post-rock vol 1 and I fell madly in love with Mental Architects.

Photo taken from Mental Architects Last.fm page

Celebrations is so great an album I’ve listened to it every single day since I discovered it here on Stereofox on June 4th. For me this is the spiritual successor to Mirrored by Battles because I could not stomach Gloss Drop and there just was not math rock I liked since Mirrored even with all my beloved Japanese post-rockers counted in. So this is like a ointment for my hurt and battered soul lately; it holds just enough predictability (being MATH rock) so technically is in a way “anticipated” (as opposed to stressful by means of surprise) and also enough imagination to cross the threshold into experience that transcends auditory and uses emotional to build visual, sensuous, visceral.

My favorite song from the album is Once Again We Meet At Last and Mental Architects also have beautiful new video you can check here on YouTube:

Oz the Great and Powerful: The Prize for Greatness

I’ve seen Oz The Great and Powerful on Saturday and I can’t stop grinning ever since. This is one great and powerful movie if I ever saw one. Now that my general impression is out of the way and I told you I loved the movie, let me get into more details.

Original Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) Poster - owned by Disney

Oz the Great and Powerful, Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz

I have read gazillion reviews, some of which you can find here on Metacritic, but I haven’t find even one addressing meaningful questions about this movie. Fans and critics both have fallen into same simple trap of not watching the movie before them but feverishly desiring to fulfill one’s own expectations.

This is not really unexpected but is nevertheless funny. So I grin.

Reviewers/commenters (both critics and layman) say that there is no Oz. No Judy Garland. No patting audience on the back and no fodder for nostalgia. That is, of course, true. But on the other hand this is an example of pure brilliance of using psychological validity in making something out of nothing. Something unexpected. Magic. There is magical product inside magical package prepared by process no less magical because few of us can recount its constituent parts.

I can almost see some past meeting in some high-end back yard with selected few guests from movie industry, fashion maybe, some realtors and some know-it-alls and there happened to be few guys from Disney production company, maybe Mr. Franco, Mrs. Williams and Sam Raimi over some lovely catering spread and some cool drinks and with conversation going something like this:

Disney guys: We’re just recycling over and over and that is cool, I mean, but I wonder if there is something more we could do with all this material. Not that we need it, but we’re - kinda - bored.

Sam Raimi: Anything particular you have in mind to transmute?

DG: Well, no, not really, now that you ask. Anything. Everything. It just feels so dead.

James Franco: Don’t say things like that in front of almost PhD in English literature! [laughs] You have classics there, both cinematic and literary: Caroll, Barrie, Kästner, Baum - there’s ton of stuff you can do with them. This in pure gold.

SR: Dead, you say? I am specialist for dead [grinning widely, eyes glaze over with the flood of idea].

So they did not recycle. They made new stuff. Stuff that will be family entertainment, that would contain moral values we all could use and many of us miss dearly, stuff that does not “answer questions nobody asked” as one reviewer nicely puts but just the contrary - tries to give guidelines on how to grow up into honesty and integrity many of today’s adults-by-age sorely lack. And they do it all with cunning style, making use of long known psychological law known as Mere-exposure effect. They harvest the controversy, reap expectations, monetize nostalgia. They have used shroud of implicit contextual knowledge (social knowledge, no less) to bring forth bouquet of freshly picked CG enhanced flowers and not dried-up mementos of times passed.

To say I’m impressed would be to underestimate greatly.

James Franco:

I just love seeing how much people are blatantly underestimating his value as an actor due to his exquisite beauty. This guy is for real, kids! Not only that he is one of the most intelligent people in show business, he’s also intelligent enough not to make a spectacle of his IQ. We have a saying here in Croatia and it goes:”Tiha voda brege dere” (silent stream tears away mountains, very akin to “Still waters run deep”) and after seeing many of his films and reading many an interview I can say that this saying fits him like a glove.

I love how they have (actor and director both) made Oscar approachable, understandable and satirically over-expressive because, as Oscar Wilde finely put it so long time ago: “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you”

Mila Kunis:

... is just perfect as a person that loses her naivety at the doorstep of adulthood and finds herself filled with nothing but malice and spite. It is a rookie mistake that can still be corrected and I love how it was pictured like that in the movie also. Those tear-filled eyes one cannot fake without tasting despair once or twice for realsies and I congratulate to whoever picked her for this role.

Rachel Weisz:

... did a wonderful job being thief of opportunity. Evanora (Nomen est omen?) is not really evil but just in a position to claim things that doesn’t belong to her because no one is contesting her for them. She is not really evil but she has never had to be good. She is beautiful, manipulative, tactful and bored to tears. Bureaucratic evil.  In the end she falls prey to her own inability to adjust, rather than strength of an opponent - she just wasn’t prepared to defend her own - because she never learned how - because she never had to. One more character type we see every day of our lives if we only just look.

And finally, Michelle Williams. The good witch.

I don't like Michelle Williams. I find the discrepancy between her angel-like appearance and flat nihilism lurking out of her eyes disturbing, but this is what made her perfect for this role (just like many other roles before, like Cindy or Alma, to name a few). Sardonic remarks coming out of her mouth somehow make the perfect poison dart and yet I suspect there could be many a male (and quite a bit of females) who could not read the spoken from her lips, and could not hear it from too concentrated watching.

So, what is this all about? 

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read below if you would not like to know details from the movie!

Oz the Great and Powerful is a story about a man not wanting to grow up. It is very smartly made, using every dramatization trick and psychology gimmick there is. The only character in this movie is Oscar Diggs/Wizard of Oz and all the others are NPC's (= Non-player Character - I'm borrowing gaming lingo in lack of a better term), personifications in service of illustrating the point in question. Point in question is beautifully stated by our own protagonist and it is as follows: "Oscar Diggs died, so that the Wizard could live."

Right from the very first moment, shown in black and white, all of "real life" is shown colorless just like the protagonist sees it; small, frustrating, unimportant, boring. He is immoral, mean and petty and makes others feel as insignificant as he finds himself to be. Among other things he leaves behind a slew of broken hearts with nary a worry in his mind, using one and the same stupid pick-up line on each of them and consoling himself with the notion that they will get over him "as all of the others did", not really ever accepting responsibility for his actions nor showing a least bit of empathy for anything that surrounds him.

Then, he is faced with great fear (from death) and a change of scenery, into colorful and magic world of all things that could be. This is the world his great fear pushed him into. The world that exists only in the realm of his overinflated escapistic dreams - but he does not know that yet.

He slowly learns that not many dream stuff is what he expects it to be; that many beautiful things are in reality poisonous and that many relationships he took for granted in the real world were actually undeserved perks. It doesn't take long for him to begin to doubt his choices - things seem uncomfortably real when you have to say them out loud and not just implicitly take them as they come. This culminates when he meets Glinda and "recognizes" her as Annie, the woman who loves him in the real world and whose love he dismissed just before his terrifying trip to Oz. In one heartbreaking and magnificent scene all that he is is put in plain sight before him:

Oz: [whispering to Glinda, as her city celebrates his arrival] You know, I should tell you. I might not actually be a wizard...
Glinda: Yes, I know.
Oz: Oh?
Glinda: Well, at least not any kind of wizard we were expecting.
Oz: Uh, you could tell?
Glinda: Yes. I can also tell you're weak, selfish, slightly egotistical, and a fibber.
Oz: I see. Anything you don't know about me?
Glinda: Whether or not you'll save my people.
Oz: Ah, no, I just told you I'm not the wizard.
Glinda: But they don't know that. If you can make them believe, then you're wizard enough. (sadly) These are desperate times, after all. Can you make them believe?
Oz: (nervously) Um... Will I... still get that gold?
Glinda: (surprised) Ah. [nods her head yes]
Oz: [to the crowd] Good people of Oz. Your wizard is here!

And this is really what life is. Life is nothing until we give it meaning, and here he starts to learn how he can add meaning to his life.

Being mature is not a question of age or we wouldn't have so many 30 and 40-somethings squealing on social networks and victimizing themselves over mundane tasks and making a mess of both their own and their parents/partners/children/co-workers lives. Being mature is a question of realizing the connectedness of society and one's own power to positively influence their surroundings and to guide their life instead of just endure it. Being mature is taking responsibility for one's own actions not because this is "the right thing to do" but because it is the only way to live life. "If not now, when? If not I, who?" as Rabbi Hillel concisely said.

Awakened Oscar learns he does not have to start from scratch to turn his life around. He realizes all the things he already knows can (and should) be utilized in uniting his dreamworld with real world. And then we come to seeing through this unification, by words: "Oscar Diggs died, so that the Wizard could live." His weak, shortsighted and fake personality had to die so he himself could live. The illusionist was finally seen as an act, a persona and not a person and when seen for what it really is it could no more be sustained (this is one of the greatest psych gimmicks used here - my favorite: curse of knowledge)

What we really got is the best Oz we could get, because all of those squealing 30 and 40-somethings I mentioned above are just the ones that remember The Wizard of Oz best and they are the ones that can learn most by seeing this film. Film about family and about meaning, about taking responsibility and prioritizing, about how rare and precious is to have somebody believe in you (all the while knowing who you really are).




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Update:

I found  one review addressing meaningful questions from this movie and you can find it here.

Kreket at Teatar EXIT - Go See a Wonderful Play

Almost two months ago, on May 11^th I went to theater EXIT with a friend to see Kreket, a play based on The Frog Prince by David Mamet and I have been thinking about how to speak about this experience ever since.

It is so weird now that taking pictures with one’s mobile has become the norm, to come to the place where there is explicitly said: “Picture taking forbidden” as it is in Exit entrance.

So I submit this ticket photo as proof:

We met a bit early so I had a chance to nose around and to observe the “audience to be”. At one moment the doors to the stage opened and we flowed like the flood to our seats. Soon, everything started.

This play, The Frog Prince, is not widely accessible. Croatian libraries don’t seem to have copies of original and it seems the play itself was never translated as a book. I did not read it before I went to see it and I still did not manage to get a copy - but I would like to read it, so if you have a copy you could part with please drop me an e-mail.

So, how was the play? Acting? Scene? Music? Experience?

It was wonderful and terrible in one great undividable mesh.

Acting was wonderful: Luka Dragić, Mia Anočić-Valentić, IvanGrčić, Bebe Na Vole - they were all great. I loved how they were expressive and how their acting and playing was beautifully effortless - treacherous and sweet - surely showing endless hours of preparation so everything could look this smooth (congrats to Rene Medvešek, the director). Bebe na Vole, being the music part of this arrangement, was excellent and his music and storytelling both shined and were irreplaceable in progressing the story. Scene was absolutely brilliant and I am at a loss for words how great Tanja Lacko did the scene and Milena Medvešek chose the costumes. I am truly impressed and humbled with ingenuity and clear-cut simplicity that gave wings to the story.

I spent almost half of the play soundlessly sobbing in fourth row, with tears streaming down my face.

Why was that?

Well, there were many reasons and I think I’ll spell out a few.

First, the ingenuity of the stage is unbelievable and it becomes apparent in first few moments of the show.

Second, cast is magnificent and I’m always completely disarmed by what wonderful artists exist this close, so close that it is hard to believe that this people take off their costumes and walk among us every day, going grocery shopping or paying parking tickets, and still act with such force and believability they resemble more Gods than mortals.

And third, I was so shaken with reception by A LOT of the audience it saddened me down to the bone. You see, this is a multilayered story with multiple layers of both meaning and showcasing this meaning. Actors talk, but they do not only talk. They move, they change costumes, they non-verbally suggest and use lot of facial expressions to point out the discrepancy between what is said and the meaning implied. It is so wonderfully multilayered that you can rarely see something so elaborate and so well thought over. But it really felt, there in the darkness of the theater, that I’m surrounded by so many fools that are completely missing the entire story that this saddened me immensely. Every time they laughed at inappropriate place (scene) it just broke my heart. It was so Margaritas ante porcos that it physically hurt.

Disappointment by diagnostics - the harder they laugh, farther from meaning (stupider, really) they are.

I may be at wrong, but I do not think I am.

Go and see it! Next show in Zagreb is scheduled 12.Jul.2013 at 21:00.

Mika Male at Prostor Do 22Jun2013

Sometimes the music is not only music.


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I went to see Mika Male play at Spunk on Saturday, June 22nd 2013.

I have listened to them already before, last time being on ALU Cash&Carry day (Academy of Fine Arts open doors day) in May and it was very nice and I enjoyed their music but still I didn't like the very idea of hearing them in the daylight, in the afternoon shade and as a side show to Art exhibition, displaying music like craft - not that it wasn't great (because it was!) but because this felt inappropriate to ME - that whole assembly carried just too much normalcy and usualness and this are not adjectives I commonly associate with work of Mika Male.

Sometimes the music is not only music.

Harrison Wintergreen, Friedrich Nietzche, Sosuke Aizen, James Sidas - they all have something in common and I feel that I also participate in that something. I feel their soul-search and their imminent conclusions as my own. On the scale of life inevitability they have reached the furthermost step, the highest point of ability and excellence - and they just kept on going toward more, the invisible, the unfathomable, in the process of losing by winning.

One step back on that perilous ladder there is Samuel Vimes and he seems to have managed not to overstep. His knurd, property that they all share, is somehow - only just - big enough to bring him to higher most step but to somehow keep him still capable of social contact. That awe inspiring, precious spot, Sam Vimes in my mind shares with Mika Male Narrator*.

Mika Male make music so beautiful it really qualifies as music only to most simple layman. It is so rich, so simple in its complexity, so full of organic sound it really is more vision than sound. Picture, rather than musical composition. Listening to studio produced pieces with sounds of instruments interwoven with raindrops sounds and fragments of stories is just complete bliss. So that is why I wanted to hear them again, at night and in closed space, as main event, center stage.

So I went to see them play in Spunk.

But they did not really play in Spunk. As I got there I saw their gear already set in Prostor Do. I inquired on what brought on the change ("But sound is so much better in Spunk!!" ) and was explained that Spunk was too constrictive space for the band. I was already ready for everything after that explanation and few minutes later it was time to see if expectations match to reality.

They didn't match. The sound was great.

It was just beautiful. Orlan's wonderful voice. Dancing violinist. Passionate bass. Support guitar coming and going off stage. Exquisite jazzy drums, temperate and with brushes. Getting up and sitting down, going around picking up other instruments. Cooking with fire.

I loved how at one moment Orlan, in the middle of the song, said: "I don't hear keyboard." and he just got up and walked back to the mixer and adjusted the tone while music paused and audience cheered him on and clapped. And later on we could really hear the difference and it was better.

I love how he laughed to himself performing one of two new songs as he (seems to have) forgotten the lyrics for a moment.

I love how the music was so captivating I could not tell how long they were playing at all. I love how they played Nisam te pustio na vrijeme in the beginning of their set so the sadness will be already forgotten by the end. I loved Već smo bili ovdje as it rang in my soul pulling my hurt chords. I love how my friend that was out on a gig with me for the first time turned back to me in the middle of the set and told me: "I'm definitely coming along for more gigs!"

And it ended, beautifully and organically, just as it started - appearing and dissolving like a mirage it is - and later we stayed there, sitting on the terrace in the cool breeze after a hot summer day.

And I even got memento of the evening:

I loved how energetic the words "u ovih 14 katova smo sami" (in these 14 floors we're alone) sounded in Večeras smo sami that they performed for an encore.


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Sometimes the music is not only music. Sometimes the music is no music at all.


Just the void in my heart ringing with emptiness.


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* - "Mika Make Narrator" I consider the person sharing his stories through song lyrics. This does not have to be the lyricist, but I have not got enough information to confirm nor deny that this is the case. Instead, I'd rather hypothesize that Narrator persona contains described characteristics, and that actual lyricist can still be more rounded up, complete person, that can still be to a fairly high degree different from description above.

Akustika at Katran 14Jun2013 - Closing the Spring Season

I'm on vacation and in sudden cornucopia of events and travel experiences I managed to collect another backlog, and in this conditions I usually dismiss with concert reports altogether but this time I feel I'd like to say a few words so here we go.

Akustika closed spring concert season last Friday with 4-band concert at Katran and the lineup was: Seine, Gatuzo, And The Kid and S3ngs. As I love Seine and I wanted to check out the rest I went there to see them. Another reason for me to check this out was the venue itself as I'm still in search of that "trusted spot" that marries perfectly the social and the artistic of live music listening and this was an interesting addition to my inventory.

I have to say that Katran (Shock Show Industry venue) is absolutely beautiful and this is by far the coolest and prettiest (squat?) venue I have been to in Zagreb. It is situated in an old industrial yard on Radnička cesta 27 on third and fourth floor of abandoned factory building. On third floor there is the club itself and it is decorated functionally with as little intervention in "old factory look" of the place but with fun and lovely details such as armchairs and signposts and mannequins and fluorescent lights. On fourth floor there are toilets and I think this is the coolest toilet space I ever saw. Beside very clean and lovely toilets there are sofas and armchairs and small vanity tables and nightstands in "waiting space" with flyers for other venues and happenings. I went up to survey it and use it twice and there were always people there sitting and chatting and it felt very welcoming and university-like. Although this whole venue is in a place where you'd expect dirt and grease it is very clean and smells great and the personnel are excellent - hosts and bouncers and bartenders are all very handsome and approachable and nice and helpful.

For this occasion audience was greeted and bands were announced by Katran host and Shock Show Industry Association chairman Mario Petreković:

... and first ones up were Seine.

I have listened to them two times before and as every time before this time they were also great. It's funny - I'm actually the person that loves pieces of music fiercely but not for long periods of time; there is always so many things to listen to and so many performers to love so things "fall off my radar" quickly - but that is not so with Ivan and Tena. I listen to them often at home, in my car, go to their gigs and they are always great. When I see them perform Tin Augustin ide u Blato (Vina!) I'm just completely taken by the music and rhythm and lyric visions and it feels like a wormhole through which I see into Tin Ujević's soul. And then there is Valcer za Kraj and my heart gets stolen and fixed and put back into my chest immaculate and perfect every time I hear it. Go and download and listen to their songs from bandcamp.

Next ones up were Gatuzo:

This was my first time listening to Gatuzo live but I feel I heard them so many times on Radio Student I knew every one of the songs they played by heart. I loved how they are so intensely energetic that it is hard to believe just two guys - guitar and drums - can make that much music. They performed their current single Oni govore somewhere in the middle of their set and this was so profoundly great I hope it will surface on YouTube along with official version. They are playing on InMusic on 26th and 30th on Bundek so if you get the chance go and check them out.

As the gig only started at 23:15 by the time And The Kid started to play it was almost one AM. This was not so good because And The Kid are very gentle and acoustic and the audience was already liquered up and screaming over exceedingly pumped up volume of the speakers. You can sample their music in this video:

... while I moan in disappointment.

I'm in two minds about showcasing acoustic music this late and in bars. If artists would like people to really hear their music this definitely is not the way because the world is just adjusted to people self-medicating with alcohol so to stay awake, be more sociable and get laid. It that mindset I see no space for real listening of any kind, much less getting to know someone's art. On the other hand, people's satisfaction of successfully socializing and getting laid can just spill over to direct reasons of them being someplace, listening to someone, which then could lead to people choosing to listen more of that music in their un-intoxicated, awake time.

Last ones up were S3ngs, 4-piece indie rock band, that just released official video that is bound to be their summer 2013. hit:

Congratulations to Akustika on this great year and I'm absolutely certain I'll keep an eye on new gigs and discoveries in next season - and so should you!

See you in the fall on new Akustika gigs!

Trapula - Zagreb premiere

Official movie poster by diverzant.org

Last night at 8 o'clock in Tuškanac movie theater in Zagreb premiere screening of new Ramljak&Škobalj short film Trapula was held. Far from red carpets and usual movie-style shenanigans this was an intimate, friends-and-family celebration, that was so utterly satisfying it is not hard to imagine many authors would wish they could have.

I haven't been to Tuškanac for a decade or two and I was wondering about the condition of the venue itself but I was pleasantly surprised by functional and comfortable interior of the place. It has everything avid moviegoer would need and it was nicely cool from deep three shade surrounding the theater. I feel that it wouldn't take much to restore this place to complete beauty this building already has and I hope community consciousness will only grow in future decades and make sure we keep investing into community and this kind of places that we would surely love to preserve for our children.

After short settling in, the authors; Ivan Ramljak and Marko Škobalj got out and greeted us and told us a few words of the feature itself. They told us of their work, of timelines they had and scarcity of funds. They wished us happy watching and us eager observers were engulfed in pleasant darkness of suspense.


The movie started.


From the first few moments it was apparent that this feature is something special. It has everything; the tempo, the sound, stunning and captivating visuals, ambiance - e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g - utilized in a purpose of engaging the watcher. This is a movie that cannot be watched as a side show to smart phone indulgence, to ego-porn of social interaction, it leaves no space for shallowness and napping. Openness of the scenes engages the watcher in so many levels; you can clearly smell bitter saltiness of the sea, feel the warmth of the blistering heat, taste the mouthful of hollowness and despair, get aroused by beauty of the unshroud-ness. It is a great feature and a great tool of accessing your own inner world, by interpreting the seen and the unspoken through a fine (or coarse) mesh of your own referential frame sieve.

It went on for minutes and I was sorely shocked seeing it finish - I wanted more, and more and more! If only a scene more... but it was over and it was wonderful.

I clapped my hands as hard as I could (we all did!) and authors and cast and crew - whoever was there last night - came out and took a bow for us and we clapped and it was wonderful.

Later on we went for a drink and we chatted, exchanged opinions and we listened to makers and the actors and the crew. There was laughter and admiration and it was exceedingly enjoyable to be there as this is such a brilliant group of people, unpretentious and sociable and smart and beautiful and humble. To say I was impressed would be to underrate greatly.


Trapula is a movie made from creativity, persistence and love and it was funded exclusively by authors, cast and crew. Go and see it wherever and whenever you get the chance!