inspirations from aids wolf

AIDS Wolf – Please Hold the Line

Montreal’s AIDS Wolf has been touring behind their assaultive new album, Ma vie banale avant-garde, for about three weeks. They’re finishing this weekend with shows in DC, New York, and Boston. These are the dates.

After that,member Alexander Moskos continues touring as Drainolith, his disconcerting, cold, yet oddly inviting electronic noise project. That tour will hit LA for a few days, including a show at Dem Passwords on the 25th. You can RSVP on Facebook.

I asked Alexander and his fellow AIDS Wolfers, Yannick Desranleau and Chloe Lum, to share some video influences. Here they are!

Chloe and Yannick: 

Scottish artist Jim Lambie on his iconic floor installation, Zobop, and music’s influence on his work

I’ve been a huge fan of his work since our friend Emma took us to see his show in Glasgow in  2006. Him saying Zobop came from a desire to both fill space and leave it empty strikes me as especially poetic and kinda sums up what I feel about making music these days.

Chloe and Yannick: 

Fat Worm of Error, Part 2

One of my favourite bands, made more so because I often cannot understand what they are doing or how their music is put together. Sounds that make my brain do overtime  are my favourite; I like music to be a puzzle that I attempt to assemble at will. If there is a current band more abstract than these guys, I’d love to hear ‘em but I  doubt they exist. There is something so joyful and unselfconscious about this music/performance, and it’s super inspiring.

John Adams discusses his opera Dr. Atomic

Chloe and Yannick:

“It’s not really about physics, it’s really about corrupting the planet.” We love composer John Adams. His operas are weird, heavy, about historical events we all know about and best of all, in English. Here he is talking about his 2005 opera Doctor Atomic, about the Manhattan Project, and using declassified government documents as part of the source material for the libretto.

Hound Dog Taylor

Alexander:

Caffrey introduced me to Hound Dog Taylor on a wayback Unireverse tour. We used to play him before we hit the stage. Hound Dog was notoriously gregarious. Got so drunk once he cut off his extra digit (he had six on his left hand). His band was an OG two guitars and drums formation. Brewer Phillips was his rhythm (and as Hound Dog would say, bass) guitar player, Ted Harvey played traps. Brewer would just lay in the cut while Hound Dog played really spidery sparse lines or alternatively, screechy bottle neck slide. Also, Hound Dog’s killer between-song banter shows up on the Beautifuzz LP.

The Canadian Creative Music Collective (CCMC)

Alexander:

This is my ultimate Can Con jam. Renowned Canadian visual artist Michael Snow (who made the movie New York Ear and Eye Control as well as other structuralist masterpieces), Plunderphonist John Oswald on tenor sax and sound poet Paul Dutton on mouth. Snow is on synth here. Absolutely demolished, non-approach to the instrument. As a proud Canadian let me say that my tax dollars essentially finance this and for that I am stoked.