So, after all this time of trying to find this blog’s feet – including beginning and abandoning projects and ideas, interviews, reviews, etc. – this is going to be my last post. Since I’m a sucker for landmarks, I’m going to leave the blog up until my birthday next May. And then I’ll shutter the whole kit and kaboodle.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for your comments. And thanks.

Plaid

Again – don’t let’s talk about the fact that you listen to a podcast rather than read it when I tell you that I had a new edition of For The Ears out this week. The 9th episode featured interviews with Andy Turner of one of my favorite UK electronic acts, Plaid, and an interview with Bill Brewster, the curator of FAC DANCE: Factory Records 12″ Mixes & Rarities 1980 – 1987.

In the world of actual print, I continued with The Arts Department, my new arts column with Neighborhood Notes, with a preview of the 38th Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival and the upcoming show featuring Hungry Ghost and Ghostwriter.

Willamette Week’s blog had some work from me, including this interview with Dustin Hamman of Run-On Sentence who ended up performing a cover of “Material Girl” with Sean Lennon and Rufus Wainwright at the Occupy Wall Street protests; a Cut of the Day piece featuring a song from the new cassette by Zac Nelson, and one focused on a track from the new album by Ross Beach; and a republishing of my first Videosyncrasy interview with the great John Wesley Harding.

But when it comes to an artist with a history as deep and varied and amazing as Roedelius, I will take what I can get. Roedelius is one of the icons of what was dubbed the Krautrock movement that emerged from Germany in the ’70s. Alongside collaborators such as Conrad Schnitzler and Dieter Moebius, Roedelius formed the influential group Kluster, which expanded on the promise of psychedelia by adding airy textures and the sounds of early analog synthesizers. The self-trained musician further embraced electronics via his groups Cluster (Kluster minus Schnitzler), Harmonia (a group that featured Neu!’s Michael Rother and, at one point, Brian Eno), and his solo work.

Perhaps incredibly, the now 77 year old musician shows no signs of slowing down. With his new musical partner Onnen Bock, Roedelius has released a trio of albums under the name Qluster. These thematically linked records pay homage to the work of his past but push ever so gently forward into modernity.

How was your recent tour of the States?

A great success. The audiences liked it, almost everywhere standing ovations. In San Francisco, L.A. and at Moogfest, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” because I celebrated my 77th birthday with them.

I can only imagine that it has been sometime since you have done a tour like that…what inspired you do that?

My last solo tour was 1999. So it was time to do it again. Because I was invited to the ATP Festival in New Jersey beginning October and Moogfest end of, it was just reasonable to do that tour also to avoid that I should fly two times to the States within four weeks only. My friends and colleagues Vivek Chandra Shukla and Jason Scott Furr from the label Erototox Decodings in Asheville organized and arranged it very well and they came with me, driving me and playing as well with me, helping me to make it as easy as possible to drive about 10,000 kilometers by car.

As part of the tour you did a collaboration with Simeon from the Silver Apples. Was this an improvised performance? How did you feel the performance went?

Yes it was and the performance worked out very well, even so we didn’t rehearse for it at all before.

The most recent music I’ve heard from you was from the new project Qluster. Why did you choose to resurrect a version of that name for this collaboration?

To keep the attention to the principle/idea under which the project started with Schnitzler and Moebius as Kluster, followed by Cluster.

How did you meet and start working with your Qluster partner Onnen Bock?

We met a long time ago in the late seventies on the island of Corsica and then we toured in Spain as a group along with sax player Jurij Novoselic.

The three albums that you released this year with Qluster are connected by title and theme. Did you record those at the same time with that intention?

There was material already from a studio-live performance of the two of us in the Philharmony Berlin and tracks from live concerts in the past that we combined with material we did lately with analogue gear that is part of the trilogy named Fragen.

What drew you to start making music when you were younger – and what fueled your interest in electronic instruments?

When I became a physiotherapist masseur it was meant as first step to become a doctor of medicine, but after practicing it for about 10 years I found out in my genealogical tree that many of my ancestors were preachers, teachers, cantors, musicians and I decided at sudden to become an artist, composer, musician. Because I didn’t know much about music and had to learn everything myself so electronic gear was easy to work with.

What keeps you inspired and making music? You seem to release so much material…do you ever worry about repeating yourself along the way?

I’m head of a big family with three children and already two grandsons. I take care of the house, I’m cooking, shopping, cleaning. My life is in every minute fulfilled with work not only doing music. Because I’m always curious. I meet new friends, collaborators all over the globe with whom I’m doing artwork. That’s a great challenge, I like to cross borders and find new fields to elaborate and adapt.

What is next for you?

Concerts in Portugal, Germany, Brazil, France.

Black Star

One of the cooler things that I’ve been asked to do of late is to head up a weekly arts column for the good people at Neighborhood Notes. I have titled it The Art Department and my first two posts are up on the site right now. One featured a preview for a great show of electronic artists that went down last night at the Ella St. Social Club, and the other focused on one of Portland’s best visual artists Laurie Danial.

In the land of Local Cut, I put together a fun video roundup featuring work by Quiz Zilla and Courtney Taylor-Taylor and wrote up a Cut Of The Day on the ’80s loving duo known as Federer. And if you live in the Portland metro area, look for my review of the Sigur Ros concert film Inni in this week’s print edition.

For Christianity Today online, I gave my assessment of the pretty great new album by John Mark McMillan. I didn’t care for the new album by City Lights, which I reviewed for Alternative Press (be sure to read the snotty comments that readers left for this review…priceless stuff).

And, at long last, I was able to get something in the pages of one of my first freelance clients, The Oregonian, on the reunion of Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli, better known to you and me as Black Star.

“Leading up to “Junior Dad” are nine tracks…that feature Reed bleating like a dementia-stricken uncle over his nephews’ numbskull garage band.”

“Audacious to the extreme, but exhaustingly tedious as a result…”

“If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this. “Loutallica” makes SuperHeavy seem like Big Star.”

Yes, friends, it is the week that the Lou Reed/Metallica collaboration hits the shelves of what record stores are still left on this planet at the same time as it blinks to life in the servers of online retailers.

But before then—well before then—the folks that cared about music had already dismissed it. We joked about the positive reviews that it was likely going to get in old workhorse magazines like Rolling Stone and wondered aloud about the weird turns that Lou Reed is willing to take these days. 30 second clips appeared online and fomented some people’s worst fears about the project and gave them plenty to chuckle over. By all estimations, this had disaster written all over it.

I will fully admit that I joined in the chatter. I heard the bits of clips on SoundCloud and bristled before laughing. It sounded, in those short spurts, like a mess. And as I received the promo digital files from the e-ther, I steeled myself for a new entry into the pantheon of missteps by established artists. Both artists have certainly had their share up to this point.

I’ve spent a few days with Lulu now, taking it as a whole and checking out individual tracks. I’ve been weighing the criticisms leveled at it, as well as my own biases towards the latter day efforts of Reed, Hetfield, Ulrich, et. al., against this long, weird, and, yes, uncompromising album.

And after all of that, I’m willing to brave the slings and arrows of popular opinion and say this: I really like Lulu.

Let’s get this major point out of the way before I continue: I don’t think this is a perfect work by any stretch. It runs a little too long. When James Hetfield unleashes his unholy vocal chords into the mix, it often sounds disturbingly out of place. At times when Lou Reed is singing on this album, you want to give him a glass of water or at least encourage him to clear his throat.

Yet, in spite of its glaring flaws, I find myself drawn to this album. I hear the combination of two elements—Metallica’s sloshing metal and Lou Reed’s unmistakeable speak/singing and sometimes daring lyrical energy—that on their own sometimes work, but of late have felt lost and leaden. Together, against all odds, these pieces lock together in an absolutely compelling way, with each element sparking together to create plenty of fiery moments.

And I think each half of this collaboration pulls something new out of the other. Kirk Hammett pulls some daring sounds out of his guitar. Some of the noisiest and most experimental that I’ve ever heard him attempt. Too, Reed barks and groans out his lyrics spelling out the sordid tale of the titular character with more authority and bite than he’s exhibited in ages.

Don’t believe me? I can point you to particular songs (“Dragon”, “Iced Honey”, “Mistress Dread”) but for all its flaws, I do feel that this is a work that is meant to be taken in one solid chunk. Like the plays that inspired it, it has a flow to it. One that builds and recedes in varying degrees until it gives you over to its last two tracks that slide you roughly into a bed of long drones that take up the last six-plus minutes of the album.

So why the vitriol and disgust at this work? Frankly, I think people were ready to write it off before they heard the first note. As much as critics are willing to say that they are looking for music that challenges them or sounds different than what’s being snapped up by the masses, they love comfort as much as anyone. They want to hear the stuff that scratches an already well-chafed itch.

I can be as guilty of that as anyone. There are plenty of albums that I just couldn’t accept by bands that I normally loved because it didn’t sound like what I wanted from them. The best example I can remember is the last Sonic Youth album. My first couple of listens left me cold and confused. I stuck with it, gave it a few more listens, and it ended up being one of my favorite releases by the band.

The critical populace and many fans doesn’t want bands or artists pushing themselves in weird directions or contorting themselves and their music into unusual shapes. And that’s just what is happening here. There was a challenge that Metallica and Lou Reed put before themselves and they met it, and I think, succeeded with aplomb.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

Strictly a reading one today as my craaaaaaaaazy week kept me from being able to put the next episode of For The Ears together. Next week, my lovelies. Next week.

As for straight up reading material, let’s start with my take on the latest album by former American Idol Kelly Clarkson.

Then, let’s move over to my review of one of my favorite local releases of 2011: New Lands by Chrome Wings. While you’re there, stop by my blog work for Willamette Week including a Cut of the Day on Log Across The Washer and my review of Portishead’s stop in Seattle last weekend. Oh, and I forgot to post this last week, a primer on the German electronic great Hans-Joachim Roedelius.

Much, more is coming in the next week, as the week that has just passed kept running in circles to keep up with assignments and deadlines and other concerns. Brace yourselves.

I tend to see more live shows than your average music enthusiast, even at my advanced age of 36. So, frankly, it takes quite a bit to surprise me. When I attended this year’s Fall Into Darkness festival, I wasn’t anticipating much more than a loud bunch of metal bands scattering around chugging riffs and blast beats. Then, a wiry man got on stage and began setting up equipment that looked like he was going to do some sort of carpentry demonstration.

Turns out these were instruments and what the artist known as Author & Punisher (known as Tristan Shone on his driver’s license) was able to drive out of them was an amazing combination of desiccated industrial noise, heartbeat interrupting bass sounds, deep drones, and drum beats that set your feet all a-tingle. His right hand was busy moving a handle back and forth, slamming metal against itself and driving the rhythms while his left worked small pieces of metal and gigantic knobs to bring out the drones and guitar-like fury. When I got home that night, I immediately sought Shone out online. I found his expansive webpage that features pictures and technical explanations of the series of instruments that he plays much of which left me confused but so amazing intrigued that I had to track him down for an interview. Shone spoke to me via telephone soon after his Fall Into Darkness appearance, fighting off a nasty cough to tell me about the creation of these amazing machines and the music he brings out of them.

What is your background as far as playing music and how you got started doing that?

When I started listening to Godflesh, I got a little flavor for the electronic side of metal. I started a two-piece drum machine band, I think that was probably ’95. Just two guitars with an Alesis SR-16 drum machine. We were called Empathy Test. We released an album in New Hampshire but it wasn’t really that big. I went off to college at RPI, a peak engineering school in upstate NY. I started a band there called Falkirk, which was a little bit more in the faster Neurosis side of things. I played guitar and sang and wrote most of the stuff. That lasted for quite a while up until about 2000. I got an engineering job when I graduated and for some reason thought I needed to go to Boston to go cash in a little bit on my education and maybe get a better band situation going. I really liked all those bands from Boston: Cadence, Converge, that big hardcore thing happening out there. I moved there and I kind of had a band that started up, but it was too complicated. It was a full band kind of progressive style. The guys in the band liked Tool but I was much more into the heavy slow doom stuff. That fizzled and I basically started Author & Punisher at that point. What happened was I was working high tech engineering and go so frustrated with that lifestyle working in a cubicle. It really put a dent in my desire to make artwork. So, at night I really hustled to make some sculpture and some music that became the first Author & Punisher album and some sculptures to get me into art school which is what brought me to San Diego. I came out here with this open book. I had a bunch of songs written but they were for guitar playing along with a laptop. I have skills in engineering and I wanted to make sculpture so it kind of set me up to basically do what I’m doing now.

When you were making sculptures for this art class what sort of stuff were you creating?

While I was working in engineering, I was working for this artist who was a teacher at the MIT Media Lab who was a mentor of mine. He was doing these robotic installations at the time. I’d never seen anything like that before. It was inspiring to see somebody using technology in a critical, conceptual way that wasn’t just giant street monsters and things. I made a head-banging robot. I’m not saying that my first projects were good. They were visual robotics things or little tech things that would take liquids and deform them. Experiments that got me into grad school. But when i got to grad school, my starting sculptures were very much reminiscent of angst that I felt towards working in the high tech industry. It was recreating machines that I worked on in the lab or I had designed. One in particular that I made that was designed to destroy itself. It wasn’t as extreme as I had it in my head. It was much more subtle the way it came across. But it did it. It had a microchip in it and it was slowly destroying itself. It had a little camera in it that you could see how it was happening. That was before I was making sound stuff.

When did you start making the instruments that you’re using now?

At that point, that was my first couple years of art school…I was just exploring a bunch of different stuff. Some video stuff, strapping cameras to little robotic mechanisms on my head. Just having fun in art school. Really loving the freedom of having all day from nine in the morning until 10 at night to work and then until two in the morning to drink. It was the ideal situation for me. I started building speakers with a friend of mine. We just weren’t thinking about art. We were just having a good time. We built these big sound systems. And I realized, “Oh I don’t need to buy Marshall stacks anymore. I can just design and build these and simulate how they sound.” I started thinking “Wow, this is cool. I’m spending all my time writing music and using these speakers. Why don’t I come up with some really physical sculptural ways to control sound that are very much doom metal and have the extreme bass thing that I like.” So at that point I made my first sculpture, which was 2006 to play through my speakers which was just a two throttle mechanism to control bass sound. It had motors inside so as you were controlling this bass sound, the motor was also fighting you. It’s broken now because it really fought to the point where I just stripped the hell out of all the gears. It was very much a sculpture. It was a little bit more decorative than I think some of the stuff is now.

The stuff that I saw you playing up here looking at your site it looks like you were playing was it the Rails…

Yeah that was the drum controller.

Tell me how that one came about.

That is a second revision. There was an initial one called Linear Actuator, which was the much bigger one. That was an embodiment of what drum rhythms meant for me. It sounds kind of cheesy but this idea of a fist pump. I wanted to create the physical forms of these sounds as I saw them. Or how I feel at a show. The reason it’s only made for my right hand is I was trying to be a one-man band. I was trying to play guitar with my left hand tapping and do drums with my right hand. The Linear Actuator was a large version that just had two positions and one button. Very doom metal based and drone-y. It took a long time to get from one end to the other. I wanted to have it be really heavy but as you’re sliding it back and forth, physics was working to your advantage to make the sound. A natural increase in speed and decrease, some kind of linear inertia. The Rails, I wanted to make the same thing but with more options. There’s eight buttons on it. Instead of having one fixed long length I can move it in small motions very fast. I don’t really play the large one more. It’s over 200 pounds. I’m just trying to do one album for one set of instruments for now. Makes for a nice all encompassing project.

How does that work then? Do you write stuff with these ideas in mind and build the instruments around that? Or do you do it the other way around where you’re building these machines and then writing songs with them?

I’ll have an initial idea. For example, I really liked the idea of the initial drone machines to be slow; I was really into the drone thing but not having to really sync my motions too much together. I could set this big wheel that I had in motion and then it would stay at a certain pitch and I only had to hit it every five seconds to keep that pitch. So the songs i had in my head when I was building them. Though they’re much different when I wrote them. From there it was that I’d like to have it be a little bit more dynamic and also I had to make the next set of instruments light enough so I could travel by airplane because I was getting offered festivals in Europe and I couldn’t go because the shit’s too heavy. Okay I’ll make lighter faster things and I’ll be able to play faster beats. That was the thought for this album. The album I just recorded is a little bit quicker.

I want to understand the technical aspect of this…the sounds are being generated both with what you’re doing physically and they are coming out of the laptop that you have set up. Everything tied together. Right?

Right. They’re all controllers for laptop samples and synthesizers.

So what program are you using for all your sound files?

I’m using Ableton Live, Reason, and I just started using a programming language that helps you can do a little bit more ground level programming. Those are some of the stock programs. They just provide my sounds and my ability to adjust volumes and add effects. In each device, I use these linear and rotary encoders. The Rails don’t use contact mics or switches at the end. They have a continuous reading of the position over the length. From the back to the front there’s 0 to 3,000 positions. And it all feeds back to a microcontroller that takes that information and depending on which combination of buttons I press at what position along that length it sends out signals for triggering drum beats or controlling EQ or whatever you want really. Every device works on this premise. So really it’s always outputting this analog positional data. Just ’cause I programmed it this way, someone else might decide they want to do something much different with it.

When you’re playing is it very precise on your end or are you also improvising as you go along?

It took me a year and a half to really learn how to play them and get comfortable with hitting drum beats that I felt like were in rhythm so at the beginning I was improvising. Now it is precise I have a piece of tape and I sometimes write down markers. I can hit an octave just like you could on a fretless bass or a violin. There was nothing really improvised at the set that you saw.

Are there instruments that you envision now or that you’re working on now?

Right now I’ve got two sets of instruments. One of them is another set like the one you saw. Basically exploring different ideas of the drone and changing the dynamic. I’m exploring something having to do with textures this time. This is kind of a firm decision but it’s also after playing these for so long I’m really just trying to better the sound. The things about my music and the way it sounds. That the grittiness and the dirge of the guitar sound. This time I want to be able to feel that sound through feedback to myself. Then the drums doing something instead of having the smooth back and forth. I want to have something that’s snaps in, by having grids set up on a table where i’m running something across and I’m creating these industrial beats depending on what those grids are set up as. I’m envisioning something that’s much more industrial but it will still sound like Author & Punisher. I’m excited about that. The next set is something that I’m doing for a gallery show in March which is based around masks. Making about five to 10 microphone masks that will modify my physical voice. One example of that would be to have a mask that fits over my face machine that if I press a button it opens and closes my voice passage so I can just be singing and I would press that button and you’d all of the sudden not hear me anymore. I’m going to have 10 of my friends and choreograph some sort of performance where we’re all singing or growling with these things on. I’m kind of looking forward to using one of those on this set for example I can just wear one of those masks and sync up the muting of my voice with the drum beat.

How physically taxing is it to do a performance like I saw you do the other night?

I don’t think it’s more physically taxing than a guitar player who’s riffing and singing. It’s definitely gone through I feel like it’s to a point that I’m comfortable with it, but if i had brought the same set up six months into playing it to Fall Into Darkness, it would have been a mistake. Metal people aren’t as forgiving of the way things sound as compared to an art environment. I can go to a gallery with stuff that’s not really sounding right yet and they are like “Oh it’s art.” Whereas you go to a metal festival and it sounds like shit they’re gonna tell you it sounds like shit. I’m much more confident now.

Ministry

Why did it just dawn on me that I’ve been using “Additional Reading” in the subject line for these posts, yet I always start off with talk of my podcast? You can’t READ one of those, you technodummy.

Still, let’s start with what came out this week via For The Ears: a conversation with Paul Barker, Doug Freel, and Doug Kinart about Fix: The Ministry Movie. In case you didn’t know, Barker is the former bassist for Ministry, and helped co-write their peerless run of albums on Sire (The Land of Rape and Honey through to Filth Pig). Freel and Kinart are filmmakers who went on tour with the band during their 1996 Sphinctour capturing the insanity of the band both onstage and off. They are getting ready to release to film around the U.S. with some special screenings that feature Q&A sessions with Kinart and Freel, and sometimes with Barker. They did one such event here in Portland recently and I was able to sit down with them prior to the event for the podcast.

For the good people at Willamette Week, I reviewed the new album by Tony Ozier – a great collection of instrumental jams called Beats Galore Vol. 1. I also gave some Cut of the Day love to two of my favorite Portland bands: The Harvey Girls and Chrome Wings. I did the same for what could become my next favorite Portland act, Goldmund (and to respond to the commenter for that post, I maybe didn’t make my point clear enough, that Goldmund’s other work is very neo-classical…this new album is much more in the folk sphere).

I also gave a middling review to the middling modern Worship group Casting Crowns for Christianity Today’s music website.

The Seattle move did wonders for me, as a music fan. I found myself diving deep into the world of punk, metal, and heavy rock world, aided by my friend Nik Christofferson and his cadre of fellow headbangers. I found myself falling in love with music yet again, having the adrenalized state of a live show reinjected into my system and wanting hit after hit.

By the time, we moved back to Portland last year, I was geared up to dig into the darker and weirder corners that existed. As the months wore on, I crept back into the more mainstream waters. I allowed myself to be dazzled and charmed by the groups that had my attention before the move (Loch Lomond and Pancake Breakfast, to name just a few), and find some new diamonds in the rough that were producing thrills (Brainstorm, Archers, Ghost Animal, etc.).

13+ months later, that old malaise is beginning to cloud my vision more and more. The world of indie music here in Portland has become gloriously fractured, with so many different styles being represented and some groups working at the peak of their powers. But a laziness is settling in, too.

The “Portlandia effect” is creating some half-hearted bands and performers who think that just because they live here, they’re going to be forgiven and praised for trucking out carbon copies of their influences with a few bells and whistles thrown in for good measure. It’s the reason I looked through the WW Best New Band honorees this year and found myself thinking aloud, “This is the best we’ve got to offer?”

This all came back to me in heaping spoonfuls last night at Mississippi Studios. I had read a great deal of glowing praise for Houndstooth with folks nudging each other about the pedigree of the musicians involved (former members of Inside Voices and Swim Swam Swum, The Parson Red Heads’ drummer). “Washed out surf grunge” it was called by the Mercury. Sounded pretty alright to me.

And for two songs, they sounded just fine. Reminded me of Monarques in their blatant love of ’60s pop aesthetics. But, that’s all they had: those two songs or variations on them. They attempted to shake things up with some Laurel Canyon-style Neil Young-ism, but played with little of Young’s authority or wit.

And damn if everyone on stage didn’t look like they were bored out of their minds up there. Apart from their lead guitarist, no one in Houndstooth played with any verve at all. The drummer, especially, looked like she was still feeling her way around her chosen instrument. It was a sea of stiff armed unease.

Again, I ask: Is that the best we’ve got, Portland? Or maybe the question should be: Is that all you’re willing to accept, Portland?

Realizing that most bands are likely going to be putting out their music without the  and cashing in fully on the DIY ethos that the label espoused from the get go, they have slowed down their focus on new bands/new material and dipped into their considerably rich reserves of old school punk rock. They have gone through the process of re-mastering as many of the more important albums in their library and have set about bringing back some of the records from the earliest years of the label, including the recently released collection of work by the band Faith.

The pedigree of this group when they began back in 1981 was undeniable. The key members – guitarist Michael Hampton and drummer Ivor Hanson – came from Henry Rollins’ first band SOA, and vocalist Alec MacKaye was the younger brother of Dischord founder/Minor Threat vocalist Ian MacKaye and had already logged time as the singer for The Untouchables. And early on – as heard on the band’s 1981 demos collected and remastered for this collection – they stuck pretty closely to the formula that made their previous projects so brutal and vital. It was hardcore punk played with intense fury in short bursts.

That is what makes the Subject To Change EP so interesting. Just two years after those demos (and one year after they had re-recorded many of their first songs for the seminal Faith/Void split), they slowed down their attack considerably and added copious amounts of texture with the addition of second guitarist Eddie Janney. In that respect, they were essentially following the same path as Minor Threat who explored similar tonal ideas on their 1983 full length Out of Step. Hell, the last song on Subject is a call to their listeners to “Slowdown” (“You’ve been missing the point all around/before you listen you’ve got to slow down”).

But where that record came off sometimes as a reaction to the role that Minor Threat played as elder statesmen of punk, Faith never had to worry about that. They were just as important to their fans, but were able to stay outside of the spotlight’s glare. They ended up producing work just as lyrically potent and blessed with a looseness that Minor Threat would never allow themselves.

Considering where the members of Faith ended up going to after the band broke up – Eddie Janney played with Rites of Spring, Hanson and bassist Chris Bald joined up with the elder MacKaye in Embrace, and Alec went on to be a part of The Warmers and Ignition – this document is a must hear for anyone trying to dig into the history of American punk rock and its influence on the modern music world.