Long Days, Long Months: 27 July

The contrast between listening to Stereolab's recent albums, Margerine Eclipse and Chemical Chords, earlier in the day and listening to Kenneth Gaburo later... let's just say that once again I'm reminded that so-called experimental, or avant-garde, music is often more accessible - the "content of the form" more obivous - and especially less demanding of one's sentient space. The Stereolab tracks don't fit the mold of "catchy" songs, though ostensibly they're more "pop" than the albums preceding them. Instead, Lætitia Sadier's songs and the densely-packed instrumental accompaniment interlock like a tangled bundle of electrical cords; you have to take the time to lay them out, think about where they're going before you begin to unravel them (and this is true of Chemical Chords more than Margerine Eclipse - surprisingly, given that the latter is presented in dual monophonic - that is, the extreme form of stereophonic separation). These records demand your attention, and they reward it too - when you have the required mental energy.

Listening to Gaburo's compositions on the compilation Tape Play, many of them realized in the early primitive years of electro-acoustic music, the spaciousness immediately relaxes you. Every single sound you follow, you get to know a little bit (just enough) regarding its limitless detail, like watching a cloud's morphing above the flat fields of Illinois and Iowa, where Gaburo once lived and worked. The notion that popular music's goal - and that of much folk music as well - amounts to possession of the listener... we often look with glee at the prospect, though it so rarely happens. But in the quiet moments, we find ourselves wanting to be with ourselves - and unless we have the likes of Gaburo to keep us company, the old demon Boredom shows its face: the money-making savior of consumer culture.