Listening from a different angle

You know you’re old when you remember this being played on TV.

Funny how turning ever so slightly makes all the difference.

For years I’ve had my PC monitor at the far left corner of my desk mainly because I had to share the space with my work PC and other things during my Work from Home years. It’s still there, but now there’s a second monitor that I’ve chosen to have as the primary. It’s slightly smaller, but it fits perfectly at rear center, flanked by my speakers.

And that’s where I’m suddenly realizing just how different things sound when you’re facing those speakers head-on rather than at a slight angle. I mean, I’d had the correct set-up for years elsewhere, including Arkham West, the Belfry, and most of my apartments in Boston, so it’s not as if I’ve been unaware of the proper placement of speakers for peak aural enjoyment…but sometimes peak wasn’t the easiest to achieve. Sometimes you make do with whatever setup you can get away with.

The wild thing, though, is just how different it sounds to me. I might have filtering issues when it comes to crowded white noise, but I’m also blessed with really good directional hearing. So now that I’m listening to my music correctly once more, I can really hear the mix, and it sounds heavenly. The music has depth and width now that I didn’t realize I’d missed all these years.

It’s almost as if this was the disconnect I’d been trying to figure out all this time…? Could it be that a simple error in placement kept me from truly connecting like I had in the past? Perhaps so.

Either way, this makes me want to explore more. Take more deep dives. Search for that connection with music I love so much.

Favorite New Discoveries: Pinkshinyultrablast

Intense walls of shredded guitar noise? Check.
So much reverb you could drown in it? Check.
Unconventional time signatures?  Check.
Otherworldly feminine vocals? Check.
Dream pop melodies for days? Check.
Pretty much everything that makes Jonc a blissfully happy listener? Check.

Pinkshinyultrablast comes from St Petersburg, Russia, and they’re absolutely amazing.

Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow

I’m finally getting around to reading George Clinton’s autobiography Brothers Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard On You? [BEST. TITLE. EVER.] and it occurs to me that I don’t own any Funkadelic (or Parliament, for that matter).

This really needs to be rectified.

I’ve known about them for years, of course.  I probably first heard of them in a few of those rock history books I used to take out from the library back when I was a preteen and already obsessing over music trivia.  I’m pretty sure I’d heard some of their jams in the background of some 70s movie or something.  I knew George Clinton had an extremely out-there stage persona.  They weren’t a band you’d find in the music bins at K-Mart or one of those mall stores, though, so they weren’t always on my radar.  It wasn’t until my freshman year roommate in college played me part of their 7th album Let’s Take It to the Stage that I got what they were about.  One listen to “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” and I knew what I was in for…  I liked it, but it didn’t quite gel with me at the time.

Reading his book, though, I finally figured out what they were about.  They weren’t merely a weird funk band from the 70s…they were much more than that.  Part soul, part psychedelic rock (I can definitely hear that now — the above track is reminiscent of those long-ass psych rock jams that early FM radio loved so much), part political, and part party.  There’s a lot going in this band’s music, and now I’m intrigued.

That said…given that their early work is available on eMusic, I’m going to download me some of this cosmic slop and do a bit of immersion.  Wish me luck!