I notice on the down left corner “The Idiot” of Iggy Pop… I can’t avoid asking you: are you going to drink whiskey, watch “Stroszek”, listen to that album and hang yourself?
Jokes apart, I see also one entrac’t CD with his awesome minimal packaging and the historical Verbatim box for CD-Rs. Are you still duplicating CDs in this era of digital sharing, and how much value do you give to the artwork and physical presence of records? As far as I know, your webzine, Sodapop, still asks for ‘real’ records for reviews…
Sorry, I’m not a big drinker and no hanging plans at the moment! Iggy Pop’s “The Idiot” is a good example of a classic record that I’ve never listened to and… bang! they became my all time favourites at first listen: “The Idiot” is out of focus and brilliant at the same time, a record that mixes inspiration and chaos, something really special and rare.
I always liked the minimal layout of some electronic labels, and in the last months it happens to me to find some cheap Entr’acte records (I’m always digging for bargains), so i had the chance to enjoy some treasures that they’ve published in the last years (164, 157, 112…) .
At Sodapop we accept digital since the beginning, but artwork is really important for us and it’s a plus that helps you understand better the record and the music: I find digital music useful for a quick listen, but I’d prefer the physical format for a very focused listening.
Living in two cities is easier for me to travel with physical music: can be a paradox but I prefer to package some CD’s in an old CDr box than copy music in a folder and then forget that record lost in a USB pen together with a ton of other stuff… having less and less time I prefer to use my visual memory and a physical connection to music: I use my Chromecast audio and my squeezebox a lot but nothing compares to physical.
Yes, me too I like “The Idiot” and I agree with you that is out of focus and great at the same time. I remember the anecdote of Bowie wishing to sing “China Girl” as he loved the song but he found the way his mate Iggy sung it horrible!
I see also good Italian very underground material on your desk… At Sodapop you give a lot of space to that stuff but I can figure also the crap you receive. Can you tell me about the weirdest and the most unreviewable records you got?
In the last years Italian ambient/noise/electronic underground music scene has become really interesting, so we focused on the only fresh stuff we could find and it was nice to support it in some way: now that there is a wider exposition for that music who knows what will be going on at Sodapop in the future.
Since 1997 we received tons of stuff that is barely unlistenable… from Afterhours/Litfiba ripoffs to neo melodic stuff from southern Italy, from electro songs talking about having shit for lunch to crappy heavy metal videogames… there is a big box of these stuff in my house.
In the last years everyone releases music without doing demos before, so in general the quality of records lowered down a lot even if looks more professional: at least the positive effect is that most of the time they don’t send us that kind of physical records anymore.
In general I think that in the digital age it’s harder to find good music: I tend to follow friends advices, it’s always been my major source for good music. It may sounds odd but I rarely read magazines or webzines: I like to write my own things without being influenced in some way and also I don’t like trends and trendsetters… end of the year playlists are a brilliant example of that: sometimes good music needs time to be understood in a broader context, so the infinite lists of records carry 90% of trendy stuff that in a six month time no one will be listening to anymore.
Concrete Shelves 