And then there were eight.

The World Cup has been like a wonderful Summer vacation that just flew by so fast. Only 8 games left. Can you believe it. Only 8! I'm already starting to feel like there's nothing to do. Ok, enough of that, today's entry is brought to you by the Library....again. For Germany......again, that play Argentina tomorrow. Karlheinz Stockhausen's: Stimmung, for 6 vocalists & 6 microphones. Songcircle. This one probably is in the top 10 weird things that I have. I figure if people don't care for the music I post, I'll just post more music that people don't like. I think there is also a 2 CD set version of this as well, but I don't know if it's any longer or what the difference is to this version because I couldn't find any info on it. This piece seems to be very open for interpretation so I could image a 24 hour performance of it. I'll let Mr. AMG describe it,

"One of Stockhausen's most accessible works, "Stimmung" ("Tuning") is based entirely on the overtones of a fundamental B-flat. It begins in a wordless vocalise suddenly interrupted by the appearance of language; the words "Gott nochmal", sung in a specific rhythmic and dynamic "model". Other models will follow, often on the names of various deities, or based around love poems written by Stockhausen. As each new "model" is introduced throughout the piece, the other singers slowly adapt their material to to include it, resulting in a constantly mutating fabric of rhythms and textures, not far removed from the work of Terry Riley or Philip Glass. In fact, one may say "Stimmung" is Stockhausen's answer to minimalism, though, as always with Stockhausen, the complexity of the intertwining rhythmic patterns and the density of the music are far from the simple repeating patterns of the minimalist school."

I mentioned a few days ago on The Raincoats post about them being called Avant-Garde. The Raincoats are not Avant-Garde, THIS is Avant-Garde. Keep in mind that not all of Stockhausen's music sounds like this. He was also a very early pioneer in the use of electronic music. You can listen to some of his other stuff here at his ugly website: http://www.stockhausen.org/stockhausen_multimedia.html
There's even a Bjork interview of him there too.
Wiki entry says, " Disparate musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Can, The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Coil, Björk, Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, and Herbie Hancock cite Stockhausen as an influence"

The Germany Vs.Argentina game is the hardest one so far to make a prediction on. They are both on top of their game and play such contrasting styles. I'm going to go with Germany on this one only because they are playing at home. 3-2. The Germans haven't seen anyone as slick and fast as Argentina, and Argentina hasn't seen anyone as big and skilled as the Germans.

Track List:
01 - Model 1
" "
" "
51 - Model 51
That's right. 51 tracks. Some sites tried to name them, but I don't see the point of it. It really should be just one long track. The cuts can be intrusive to the music at times, but that's just the way the CD was.

Quick Stats:
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Song Circle
96 MB
192 kbps
http://rapidshare.de/files/24519969/CrapCircle.rar.html
pw = Stimmung