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May 6, 2005
Friday Art

kONTRAdICTION plays unplugged, THC influenced, energetic reggaehiphoprock&roll on the roads of Europe. As they often perform at the local marketplace here to promote their Saturday night club gigs, some people changed their Saturday shopping time to the late afternoon – just in case the band might be there …

Princess (mp3) is one of the few studio pieces they ever did. Piece State (mp3) is a club recording of a song based on a local ‘chartbreaker’ written 1911 by Ludwig Wolf.
(Some may know Dan Wolf of the bay-area band Felonious who is the great-grandson of Ludwig and was part of a recent film and music project woven around the original song.)

Some background on kONTRAdICTION by Yeshua, the bands poet from Utah. Pictures and other stuff can be found on their (flash infested) website.

Posted by b on May 6, 2005 at 23:48 UTC | Permalink
Comments

WTF?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 7 2005 8:50 utc | 1

Well, in visiting the kontradiktion site,
at least we don’t have to
ponder Husserl’s influence on Benjamin, Strauss’s hermeneutics, or the
continuing relevance of Marx’s theory of alienation. But maybe one of our illuminati will provide a trenchant analysis of the Schoenbergian Sprachstimme antecedents to this rap version of Greensleeves and to analyze
kontradiktion‘s contradctions.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | May 7 2005 9:25 utc | 2

well…….

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 7 2005 13:31 utc | 3

Well, it’s interesting. Not entirely my cup of tea, but there you go.

Posted by: Colman | May 7 2005 16:38 utc | 4

It’s a good idea for a regular feature, b, keep it up.
Interesting music indeed!

Posted by: Jérôme | May 8 2005 11:06 utc | 5

Bernhard, from what I could hear on the website, I couldn’t get the mp3 for some reason, 🙁 I would like to hear more.
I always held the opinion that rap was just a manifestation of teenage angst and helplessness but as it has crept increasingly into much of my favorite world music I have responded. Maybe it’s a distillation of anger that we all feel, though some of it can be joyful too. I suppose if we continue on the present course one day it will be unlawful to play or perform rap. The arts seem to take the first hit when thugs take over.
Thanks for the introduction.

Posted by: beq | May 8 2005 13:25 utc | 6

though i’m speculating/as vico did/in the minutes
between those hours/we are toll/that’s arrived at
that can’t be/paid in full/though coins falling/from our hands
these monuments made/to be torn/down from height
forgetting fucking reason/i am developing/measurements of another
we are many/neruda had written/before flooded house
killed him september/in chile 1973/though that date
has become another/we don’t care/about those details
they frighten us/into using numerals/thinking of time
as forbidden fruit/we will keep/on eating feverishly
you’ve written memoir/i have read/very carefully calculating
lack & excess/two possible terms/we have scribbled
down the edge/of pages published/for an edition
shall be cherished/shall be sold/shall be burnt
in a flame/everything is one/bruno understood that
though inquisitors didn’t/know the time/of day reading
another calculation altogether/created in library/by a monk
who spread legs/under a table/feeling himself solid
as stone breaks/outside this apartment/i imagine devils
island country continent/the same thing/from where i
come to calculus/nice & slow/with hands up/as johnny garfield
goes through pockets/to find document/he’ll appropriate later
to imitate you/when boarding plane/he’ll wear disguise
from another film/we have watched/together some place
or other transgression/takes place precisely/when you think
it can’t happen/is prophetic phrase/i’d never say/because it doe
happen all time/indonesians knew that/in year 1965
when their heads/rolled on streets/& were put/at their feet
i remember photograph/from a magazine/father showed me
when he knew/i was old/enough at eleven/to understand matter
or a mother/who’d become concient/objector to battles
fought out furiously/over dinner table/whether siquiros shot
trotsky at desk/writing another essay/to divide what’s/left of left
dwindled to day/where marxism alive/only in peru
where shining path/annhilates everything before/them year zero
as australian journalist/describred pol pot’s/road to socialism
in one graveyard/all thinking thought/sorbonne or stanford
these creatures developed/a world view/without the world
being a part/or a fragment/is all i/know of knowledge
& that’s enough/more than enough/than circumstances demand
look at kandinsky/painting in beaubourg/when you’ve hour
to forget me/a simple task/& possibly lesson/that needs learning
that you won’t/get from times/newspaper or magazine
that brutalises moment/until none left/though i’m listening
farandouri singing theodorakis/as i did/when so young
i knew mauthausen/not only name/but a place/that kept on
spreading a virus/we’ve all caught/such sensible maladies
there’s no hope/finding a cure/& that optimistic
& necessary nihilism/takes you through/to a day/you can believe
in all this/i am writing/words so crudely/i am engraving
with a rock/on soft surface/that is yielding/only to gesture
that is created/that is creation/that is destruction/that maya knew
when playing games/toy with god/as with flies/to wanton boys
the bard wrote/something else altogether/but we know
read it before/on every page/that’s been written/in our texts
distributed after bombing/when everything collapsed/on some sound
doesn’t bear description/dresden only town/on a map
that is sufficient/information to have/in your hands
all else use/less you have/desire & longing/this absent commerce
on stock market/it’s all double/numbers & names
mean absolutely nothing/to that man/following a form
in a bar/café des sports/on rue stephenson/i make believe
greater than gielgud/less than laughton/satisfactory for method
acting come easily/because i’ve studied/under great athletes
who jumped hurdles/you walk over/& kiss me/hoping there’s return
in returning here/i put death/on notice i’m/coming i said
with this body/beautiful & broken/i had warned/it i was
before i broke/these blessed hands

Posted by: remembereringgiap | May 8 2005 15:32 utc | 7

r’giap: bravo (tosses fiver in hat)

Posted by: beq | May 8 2005 23:57 utc | 8

r’giap,
I, in a mischievous moment, had the conjunction– and– tattooed in lower case cursive on my right shoulder. Maybe that was’nt necessary after all.
Loved it , thanks

Posted by: anna missed | May 10 2005 5:33 utc | 9

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