#014
Space, the final frontier
Rapida Nota Introdutória: Estou deveras perturbado por tudo o que tenho visto a acontecer no mundo nos últimos dias, algumas das imagens que nos chegam dos EUA não podiam ser mais indicativas que afinal tantas razões tivemos para pensar em partir daqui para um outro planeta.
Enquanto escrevo este preambulo estou a ouvir o Requiem de Mozart e deixo esfriar a minha fúria prometo que para a semana e já mais calmo poderei abordar, como cantava Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On…
Com a eminente re-abertura das fronteiras terrestres e com a recente missão da Space X achei que era apropriado este fim de semana abordar a aventura humana no espaço e a música que temos feito fascinados com tal situação e para “ilustrar musicalmente” esse esforço. Não me parece que seja por ser rapaz mas sinto que quando cresci nos anos 60 vivia-se num mundo de aventuras. Não a revista de banda desenhada que havia na altura, não é disso que estou a falar. A referencia é directa ao mundo que vivia num delírio aventureiro de conquistar essa ultima fronteira: o espaço. Os russos tinham conseguido deixar os americanos a ver estrelas por uns tempos mas o esforço da NASA (com ajuda de uns quantos cientistas alemães) traria dividendos quando chegaram às missões Apollo. Mas isso é uma história à qual já lá iremos chegar.
O cosmos “que nos rodeia” sempre foi uma fonte de inspiração musical. Na antiga Grécia Pitágoras defendia algo chamado a “harmonia das esferas”, acreditando que os corpos celestes se moviam de acordo com regras matemáticas, as quais podiam ser traduzidas para linguagem musical. Todas estas ideias são exploradas mais tarde no mundo Ocidental sob a alçada das teorias da Musica Universalis. Mas é só no século XX que a causa vence a força gravitacional e começa a ganhar propulsão. Os Planetas foram escritos por Gustav Holst em plena Primeira Grande Guerra, entre 1914 e 1916, já que o compositor havia sido recusado de ajudar no esforço bélico por questões de saúde. A suite era tão radical para a época que a primeira vez que foi tocada em publico Holst não estava presente e o maestro só apresentou cinco dos sete movimentos por achar que a audiência não estava preparada para a peça completa.
Por isso talvez a space age musical só iniciou a contagem regressiva já nos finais dos anos 50, com Sun Ra e o seu jazz cósmico (senão veja-se os títulos de alguns dos seus trabalhos dessa época: Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways e The Nubians of Plutonia) e com uma particular ópera intitulada Aniara. Escrita por Karl-Birger Blomdahl com libreto de Erik Lindegren, esta verdadeira space opera em dois actos estreou-se em Estocolmo em 1959 e usando fita electrónica, jazz e técnicas do Serialismo defendido por Shönberg passava em revista o lugar do Homem no Tempo e no Espaço. Poderia ainda mencionar Fantástica, um disco de 1958, editado por Russ Garcia na Capitol mas preferi deixar aqui o tema Venus.
Teríamos de esperar mais 10 anos, para que em 1969, mais concretamente cinco dias antes da Apollo 11 descolar para a viagem que levaria Armstrong e Aldrin a passearem na superfície lunar do Mar da Tranquilidade para ouvirmos Space Oddity por David Bowie. Verdadeiro hino da space music, só esta já faria do musico inglês o Yuri Gagarin do Rock mas Bowie voltou a revisitar o personagem Major Tom em Ashes to Ashes, Hallo Spaceboy e no seu video para Blackstar. Pelo meio fez ainda Life on Mars e Loving the Alien, inventou Ziggy Stardust e foi actor no filme The Man Who Fell to Earth de Nicolas Roeg. Decidi no entanto esta semana ir repescar uma outra canção “espaciótica”, I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship do album Heaten. Putting out fire… with rocket fuel. Relembro ainda que um bom acompanhamento visual (sem terem de ir até ao Planetário) para a playlist desta semana é o filme Moon, estelar primeira longa metragem de Duncan Jones, filho de David Bowie.
O cinema e a televisão está cheia de eye candy espacial de mãos dadas a sonorizações incríveis.
O theme do Spaço 1999, com as suas guitarras whaha-whaka ou o monumental tema de Star Trek, descendente das melhores invenções dos compositores da Exotica. Mas, como diz o cartaz de Alien: In Space no one can ear you scream. Porque onde não há ar, não pode haver som. No entanto esse facto cientifico nunca molestou ninguém, os lasers fazem “whuius”, as naves espaciais estão em perpétuo bulício e qualquer supernova acontece com pompa e fragor. Se quiséssemos ser minimamente credíveis a única coisa que se podia utilizar era o 4’33’’ de John Cage, o equivalente musical da Branca de Neve de João César Monteiro.
No entanto lembro-me de um dia ter ido à tarde até ao cinema Caleidoscópio no Campo Grande ver um double bill composto pelo 2001 do Kubrick e o Solaris do Tarkovsky. É efectivamente “no escurinho do cinema” que conseguimos apreciar as sonoridades que servem as imagens futuristas desses filmes, e no caso do filme russo a banda sonora composta por Edward Artemiev é digna da perturbada relação de Kris Kelvin, o personagem principal, com a sua própria consciência e o seu passado.
Satellite’s gone way up to Mars
Soon it’ll be filled with parkin’ cars
I watched it for a little while
I love to watch things on TV
Claro que Satellite of Love do Lou Reed ficou mas devido às limitações que imponho a estas selecções tive de deixar de lado algumas coisas fantásticas: Contact, a ultima faixa de Random Access Memories dos Daft Punk; Welcome to Lunar Industries da fantástica banda sonora criada por Clint Mansell para o filme Moon; Space Junk dos Devo, que no seu primeiro album estavam mais preocupados com o que nos fazia quer pirar deste nosso planeta do que propriamente fascinados com a conquista do espaço, SpaceLab, segunda faixa do seminal Die Mensch·Maschine editado pelos Kraftwerk em 1978 ou A Space Boy Dream dos Belle & Sebastian onde Stuart Murdoch relata um sonho no seu compacto acento de Glasgow. Consegui escolher uma dos Man or Astro-Man?, os netos do Sun Ra e como o surf-rock ficou assim representado pude não ter que verter uma lágrima ao não incluir o galáctico Telstar dos Tornados. Beam me up Joe Meek, de quem ainda consegui introduzir uma outra criação mas com os Blue Men.
Mas deixo lugar para algumas preciosidades e algumas coisas assim mais óbvias mas por boas razões. Uma delas é o clássico prog 10.000 Anos Depois Entre Venus e Marte de José Cid o que deu direito a combinar uma referencia aos Capitães da Areia. Outro incontornável é Fly me to the Moon, nem que seja porque já tocou na Lua. Não é do conhecimento geral mas a Sony havia criado o TC-50, um proto-Walkman (este leitor de cassetes portátil só seria comercializado 11 anos depois) para os astronautas das missões Apollo poderem usar como “bloco de notas” mas também para ouvirem música. Sabe-se que Armstrong gostava de Exotica e que tinha eleito Mist of the Moon, um disco editado por Les Baxter em 1947 com acompanhamento do Dr. Samuel Hoffman a tocar theremin e como o controlo em Houston suspirou de alívio quando este deixou de ouvir Moon Moods, faixa que incluo também. Mas o que poucos se lembram é que logo a seguir a Armstrong pisar a Lua Buzz Aldrin desceu a escada do módulo lunar ao som da interpretação do Ol’ Blue Eyes do standard escrito por Bart Howard em 1954 (e que ele sempre insistiu que se chama In Other Words).
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
Entro por fim na recta final desta Via Láctea com uma homenagem lusitana a Space is the Place do grande Sun Ra. Esta pequenez que nos vê assim meio parvos e mesquinhos mas que anseia em sermos grandes e aventureiros leva-nos nessa demanda pelo espaço sideral e é retratada logo de seguida na Galaxy Song pelos Monty Python no filme The Meaning of Life, mais concretamente por Eric Idle, de longe o melhor compositor dessa banda de pantomineiros.
No caso de não ser mais que óbvio relembro aos ouvintes destas selecções para verem no Mixcloud a lista completa das músicas de cada M4we e checarem as histórias por trás de cada uma dessas escolhas. Garanto-vos que cada uma delas está incluída por uma muito boa razão.
Para finalizar a narrativa desta semana: e então se, enquanto nós andávamos a disparar por essa galáxia fora, uns desenvergonhados ETs já tivessem vindo até ao nosso planeta e andassem por aí a misturar-se com a malta? É essa premissa da escolha da quadragésima que uma vez mais acaba por cair sobre os franzinos ombros de Donald Fagen, num trecho do seu segundo album pós Steely Dan, Kamakiriad.
They’re mixing with the population
A virus wearing pumps and pearls
Lord help the lonely guys
Hooked by those hungry eyes
Here come Tomorrow’s Girls
From Sheila’s to the reefs of Kizmar
From Stargate and the Outer Worlds
They’re speeding towards our sun
They’re on a party run
Here come Tomorrow’s Girls
E com este twist “tuailaitezoniano” despeço-me no desejo que tenham um fim de semana cósmico.
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
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Quick Introductory Note: I am very disturbed by everything that I have seen happening in the world in the last few days, some of the images that arrive from the USA could not be more indicative that after all we had so many reasons to think about leaving to another planet.
As I write this preamble I am listening to Mozart’s Requiem and letting my angst cool and I promise that next week already in a calmer state I will be able to speak about, as Marvin Gaye sang, What’s Going On…
With the imminent re-opening of terrestrial borders and the recent mission of Space X, I thought it was appropriate this weekend to approach the human adventure in space and the music that we have done amazeded by such situation and as to “musically illustrate” that effort. I don’t think it is because I’m male, but I feel that when I grew up in the 60s, I lived in a world of adventure, a direct reference to the world that lived then in an adventurous will to conquer that last frontier: space. The Russians had managed to let the Americans seeing stars for a while, but NASA’s effort (with the help of a few German scientists) would pay dividends when they got to the Apollo missions. Wait, we’ll get to that story.
The cosmos “around us” has always been a source of musical inspiration. In ancient Greece Pythagoras defended something called the “harmony of the spheres”, believing that the celestial bodies moved according to mathematical rules, which could be translated into musical language. All these ideas are explored later in the Western world under the theories of Musica Universalis. But it is only in the 20th century that the cause overcomes the gravitational pull and countsdown to lift-off. The Planets were written by Gustav Holst in the middle of the First World War, between 1914 and 1916, since the composer had been refused to help in the war effort due to health issues. The suite was so radical for the time that the first time it was played in public Holst was not present and the conductor only presented five of the seven movements because he thought the audience was not “ready” for the complete piece.
So maybe musical space age only started in the late 50s, with Sun Ra and his cosmic jazz (just see the titles of some of his works from that time: Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth, Interstellar Low Ways, Super-Sonic Jazz, We Travel the Space Ways and The Nubians of Plutonia) and with a particular opera entitled Aniara. Written by Karl-Birger Blomdahl with libretto by Erik Lindegren, this true space opera in two acts debuted in Stockholm in 1959 and using electronic tape, jazz and Serialism techniques defended by Shönberg reviewed the place of Man in Time and Space. I could also mention Fantastica, a 1958 album recorded by Russ Garcia, but I ended up mixing the theme Venus from that album.
We would have to wait another 10 years, so that in 1969, more specifically five days before Apollo 11 took off for the trip that would take Armstrong and Aldrin to stroll on the lunar surface of the Sea of Tranquility we heard for the first time Space Oddity by David Bowie. A true anthem of space music, this alone would make entitle the English musician as “the Yuri Gagarin of Rock” but Bowie returned to revisit the character Major Tom in Ashes to Ashes, Hallo Spaceboy and in his video for Blackstar. In the between he also wrote Life on Mars and Loving the Alien, invented Ziggy Stardust and was an actor in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth by Nicolas Roeg. However, this week I decided to pull another “spacey” song, I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship from the album Heaten. Like putting out fire… with rocket fuel. I also remember that a good visual accompaniment (without having to go to the Planetarium) for this week’s playlist is the movie Moon, stellar first feature film by Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie.
Cinema and television are full of spatial eye candy going hand in hand with incredible sounds.
The theme of Space 1999, with its whaha-whaka guitars or the monumental Star Trek theme, descendant of the best inventions by Exotica composers. But, as the Alien poster says: In Space no one can ear you scream. Because where there is no air, there can be no sound. However, this scientific fact has never harassed anyone wanting to dream about space, lasers make “whuius”, spaceships are in a perpetual and noisy rumble and any supernova happens with pomp and a fair share of loud circumstance. If we wanted to be minimally credible the only thing that could be used would be John Cage’s 4’33’’…
However, I remember one afternoon going to a theatre in Campo Grande to see a double bill composed by 2001 by Kubrick and Solaris by Tarkovsky. It is effectively “in the dark of the cinema” (a reference to a song by Rita Lee that gets lost in translation) that we can appreciate the sounds that serve the futuristic images of these films, and in the case of the Russian film the soundtrack composed by Edward Artemiev is worthy of the disturbed relationship of Kris Kelvin, the main character, with his own conscience and its past.
Satellite’s gone way up to Mars
Soon it’ll be filled with parkin’ cars
I watched it for a little while
I love to watch things on TV
Of course, Lou Reed’s Satellite of Love stayed but due to the limitations I impose on these selections I had to put aside some fantastic things: Contact, the last track from Random Access Memories by Daft Punk; Welcome to Lunar Industries from the fantastic soundtrack created by Clint Mansell for the aforementioned film Moon; Space Junk by Devo, who in their first album were more concerned with what made us want to freakin’ depart from this planet of ours than properly fascinated with the conquest of space; SpaceLab, second track of the seminal Die Mensch-Maschine edited by Kraftwerk in 1978 or Belle & Sebastian’s Space Boy Dream where Stuart Murdoch reports that dream in his compact, almost otherworldly, Glaswegian accent. I was able to choose a track by Man or Astro-Man?, the grandchildren of Sun Ra and as surf-rock was so represented, I did not have to shed a tear by not including the galactic Telstar of Tornados. Beam me up Joe Meek, because I still managed to introduce another of your creations but with the Blue Men.
I end up leaving space for some gems and a few other things that are more obvious but all for a good reason. One of them is the Portuguese classic prog 10.000 Anos Depois Entre Venus e Marte by José Cid which gave me the right to drop in a reference to Capitães da Areia. Another essential choice is Fly me to the Moon, if only because it was already “played” on the Moon. It is not common knowledge but Sony had created the TC-50, a proto-Walkman (this portable cassette player would only be publicly available 11 years later) for astronauts on the Apollo missions to use as a “notepads” as well as to listen to music. It is known that Armstrong liked Exotica and that he had chosen Mist of the Moon, an album made by Les Baxter in 1947 with accompaniment by Dr. Samuel Hoffman playing that “alien instrument” the theremin and how the control in Houston sighed with relief when he stopped listening to Moon Moods, track that I also include. But what few remember is that right after Armstrong stepped on the moon Buzz Aldrin went down the ladder of the lunar module to the sound of Ol ‘Blue Eyes’ interpretation of the standard written by Bart Howard in 1954 (and which he penned with the original name of In Other Words).
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!
I finally enter the final stretch of this Milky Way with a Portuguese tribute to Space is the Place by the great Sun Ra. This smallness that sees us as a little silly and obnoxious while yearning to make us big and adventurous takes us in this conquest of outer space and is portrayed spot on in the Galaxy Song by Monty Python in the movie The Meaning of Life, more specifically by Eric Idle , by far the best composer of this merry and lovely band of fools.
In case it’s not obvious, I remind all listeners of these selections to see on the Mixcloud page the complete list of songs for each M4we and check the stories behind each one of these choices. I assure you that each of them is included for a very good reason.
Just to complete this week’s narrative: what if, while we were shooting around the galaxy, some shameless ETs had already come to our planet and were walking among us, mixing and messing the gene pool? Because this is the premise of our fortieth and last song, responsability that once again ends up falling on the narrow boned shoulders of Donald Fagen, in an excerpt from his second post-Steely Dan album, Kamakiriad.
They’re mixing with the population
A virus wearing pumps and pearls
Lord help the lonely guys
Hooked by those hungry eyes
Here come Tomorrow’s Girls
From Sheila’s to the reefs of Kizmar
From Stargate and the Outer Worlds
They’re speeding towards our sun
They’re on a party run
Here come Tomorrow’s Girls
And with this “twilightzonian” twist, I bid farewell wishing you all a cosmic weekend.
#staysafe #musicfortheweekend
Flying Lotus – Intro A Cosmic Drama
The Orb – Afros, Afghans and Angels (Helgö Treasure Chest)
Public Service Broadcasting – Gagarin
Hase Casar – Wir Fliegen Weiter (Mondsong)
Brian Eno – No One Receiving
Jeff Mills – Strange Plants and Other Botanical Wonders
Sun Ra And His Myth Science Orchestra – Interplanetary Music
Komputer – Valentina
Les Baxter & His Orchestra – Moon Moods
Capitães da Areia – Algures Entre Vénus e Marte
José Cid – 10.000 Anos Depois Entre Venus e Marte
Russ Garcia And His Orchestra – Venus
Gil Scott-Heron – Whitey On the Moon
Sun Kil Moon – Space Travel Is Boring
Disco Re-Edit, Funk Re-Edit – Mysterious Planet
Brian Bennett – Solstice
George Benson – Here Comes The Sun
Rah Band – Clouds Across The Moon (12” Version)
Frank Sinatra with Count Basie and his Orchestra – Fly Me To The Moon
Hannah Peel – Archid Orange Dwarf
Lou Reed – Satellite of Love
Stevie Wonder – Saturn
Robert Hermel – Industrie Spatiale
The Tubes – Space Baby
Yellow Magic Orquestra – Cosmic Surfin’
Mood Mystics – The Winds of Mars
Suicide – Rocket USA
David Bowie – I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship
Tod Dockstader – Piece #1
Outer Space – Escape from Centaurus
Man Or Astro-Man? – As Estrelas Agora Elas Estão Mortas
DMX Krew – Galaxy Love (Brian Ellis Remix)
Chris Kenner – Rocket to the Moon
Flaming Lips – Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)
Prodigy – Out of Space (Breakbeat Remix)
Joe Meek & The Blue Men – Orbit Around the Moon
Elton John – Rocket Man
Spaceboys – Space Is The Place 2003
Monty Python – Galaxy Song
Donald Fagen – Tomorrow’s Girls