For my selector I thought I'd make a “Long Playing” YouTube playlist. Every video is 10 minutes to an hour long with the longest video being a playlist that is 4 hours long. They range from concerts, records, documentaries, OST's and beyond. All of them are pretty seminal classic things, at least to me. I hope you enjoy.
Brian Eno-Thursday Afternoon(14 Video Paintings 1981-1984).
There are many Brian Eno ambient records. All of them are worth listening to, but this one I like in particular. I heard it for the first time a year ago when my roommate showed it to me. He had just gotten the record on cassette, so we smoked a J and listened to it on an old boom box stereo. We had a great ebb and flow to our conversation that would stop and be thoughtless to the music, and then continue on. I think we played it 2 or 3 times. The YouTube video is included because it features 14 video paintings made by Eno. The paintings have a slow dissolving quality, and are mostly of women in water. If you can sit through the whole thing it's really worth it.
BBC Krautrock Documentary
When I was 14 my friend's brother in law showed me Tago Mago by CAN, and it blew my mind. There always seemed to be something so cutting edge about German space rock of that time. They were doing the same thing as American and British bands like Hawkwind, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, just smarter-faster, and more calculated. They also paved the way for the coming era of electronic music with Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and Cluster. This documentary covers them all! And has Damo Suzuki's famous recollection of the CAN era:”I don't remember I was FUCKING HIGH”. He's a Jehovas Witness now. :*(
Robert Fripp: New York and Wimborne
This documentary follows Robert Fripp in his home; walking around being quiet, stoic, and just the coolest driest dude ever. Fripp saw rock music as more of a philosophical point of departure by using the electric guitar, and the techniques he developed for it to create ambient textures, and freely improvised melodies. He's most known for being in King Crimson, which I'm not really a fan of (sorry!). But he's made great ambient guitar records with Brian Eno, as well as solo. He's a rad dude.
Oxygene Live in Paris
Okay I'm going to lose some people here. I know this is kind of a point of no return. Also I don't really care, Oxygene fucking rules live and at the very least you could enjoy it for the novelty of being a performance that has no digital components(as in no sequenced audio loops, computers, midi controllers, etc). Every piece of equipment is really really old, and difficult to use and maintain. It's almost a miracle that they could pull this off. I'm not for or against automation as performance, some people make it work really well, but there is a real magic to analog signal flow. i guess it's just the magic of electricity. Whatever.
Yellow Magic Orchestra
This is a short film featuring Yellow Magic Orchestra working in the studio as well as expressing their views as pop artists, and innovators. It's rad, and they are very Japanese and wear suits in the studio, and have a lot of conviction in their role as pop musicians trying to modernize the Japanese public.
The Music Man – Mort Garson
Mort Garson was a Jewish arranger and composer who somehow got a deal with Bob Moog. Then he started making the weirdest niche electronic records, including Plantasia, an album dedicated to helping plants grow, Ataraxia a nightmare cosmic journey, and Black Mass (for which he changed his name to Lucifer). He has an incredible sense of melody, and he fucking RULES.
Bowie-Heroes 1978
I think this is my favorite Bowie band. Sober David looking healthy as ever and singing his fucking ass off (skip to 3:39 to raise your arm hairs). Adrian Belew plays guitar on this tour, and his playing has a lot of energy and expressive quality. I really love the way Bowie downplays the first half, seeming almost reluctant to sing, and then explodes on the second half. Also the dude in the white suit and sunglasses with the violin fucking ROCKS.
Final Fantasy VII OST
I'm probably going to lose some more people here(I don't care). But I'm a huge fan of VGOST's, especially those from the 16-32 bit era. To me, there's a certain allure to having the parameters of your musical ability limited to the amount of data that can be stored onto a cartridge or CD. There wasn't enough RAM memory to replay traditional instruments at a proper sample rate, so composers used synthesized instruments and waveforms to create their scores because there simply was no other way. These limitations were apparent to the listener in the same way pre-sampling synths didn't sound like real acoustic instruments. Now however, the sample rate is concurrent with recorded music, so there is no need for the little bleep bloops anymore…unless you're feeling nostalgic :-(. FFVII 4EVR
Laurie Anderson – Home of the Brave Live
Laurie Anderson begins this concert by giving a lecture on the problems of 0's and 1's in a modulated masculine voice mask. There are animated projections of imagery from the Mister Heartbreak album and beyond. The music is accompanied by an odd assortment of instrumentalists, including Adrian Belew on guitar, at one point playing with a knife and fork as if it's what's for dinner. Anderson plays sampled music on a violin, does a slow waltz with William S. Burroughs, meditates with a Zen Roshi, and sometimes has light emanating from the palms of her hands. It's THE BEST CONCERT FILM OF ALL TIME.
Inventor of the Synthesizer-Robert Moog Documentary
I never really understood the difference between analog and digital until watching this film, in which I understood it within the first 15 minutes. Moog likens the building of a signal path to a violin maker carving away the inside of a violin to get a specific resonant sound. He can look at the components of any of his synthesizers and tell how what they are going to sound like. He sees it as the music of a pure electric current as it passes through resistors, and capacitors etc. I think that's pretty chill.
The History of the Amen Break
The most important drum break in history is 6 seconds long, and was the catalyst for countless styles of hip-hop, jungle, drum and bass, and beyond(confounding numerous copyright laws in the process). The story is told from the perspective of a dub plate(trippy) My friend Jesse Hlebo showed me this video a few months ago. Coincidentally I was working on several songs using the Amen Break without even knowing I was doing it! DAMMIT@
Brian Eno-Imaginary Landscapes
I began with Eno, so shall I end with Eno. This documentary is mostly of him in the studio, making mad music, and being awesome. His studio is pristine, tranquil, and very sterile(insert canvas related art metaphor). I fucking hate wires, and I didn't see a single wire in that video, which really calms me down. The end has some of his video sculptures like the first video I showed. All and all a very relaxing experience. He really is the coolest guy in the world.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this very self indulgent Youtube playlist. If you watch all of these videos all the way through, then we can probably be really good friends. Or maybe not. Who knows!
