"On the Other Side of the Mirror" (Prince Charming Interview)
by Laurent Diouf, WTM Paris
Musiques et Cultures Digitales (MCD .40, May-June 2007)
Translated by Robots
The thing reached us under discrete fold. At the interior of the envelope, posted fine bottom of the United States, a CD-R "promising" The Anatomy Of Prince Charming... And a word: you like the rates/rhythms futurists, struck well, which resound on environments dark, exotics, cinematographic or epic with an occult colouring? Knowing that the small pocket was drawn following a magic experiment... Trying, isn't it? We thus succumbed to this temptation and charged the disc in our platinum; or at least what it remains about it. Here, it is as that which that begins...
With 2/3 sentences enounced by the voice a la Burroughs informing us has that the music that follows is the result of sensory experiments. Or something like that... Then, of the quite Heavy breakbeats installment an atmosphere plombee. On this screen, don' T the tempo varies and develops gradually, are grafted the joinings, samples, melodies bizzaroides, perfumes come from the East and besides, sardonic laughter, field recordings, riffs of guitars, peels of magnet-acoustics and electronic bidouillages, harmonies of last and dark post-industrial textures... That is there, not doubt, we set out again for a "fantastic voyage " in the heart of the dub-hop and other deviant illbience loved by the WordSound label. [...]Joshua Darlington comes, to stay with Skiz Fernando for the new digital incarnation of WordSound. And make thus new a opus available, in fact, only on Internet. A concept album which consists of 46 tracks, plus three bonus tracks on MySpace (but especially make a turn its site, it is a universe). How? Why? By Which? In which rack? It is evident the kind of questions which we put to this personage enough fantasue, under the influence of movement Dada, of a corvophrasor of rising generation and astral voyages. Perhaps spirits of the pataphysicians and joined together Lee Perry?
My Style? Sexualization of consciousness: an inextricable fusion of ascetic renunciation and symbolic violation. My musical orientation is directly opposed to the teachings of the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Khan.
Apart from music? I am intelligent and hansom and a dilettante skilled in all forms of amusement. My accomplishments include lute, chess, calligraphy, painting, falconry, partridge fighting and Football. I'm also a good musician singer and dancer. I know how to use the eighteen weapons: lance, mallet, long bow, cross bow, jingal, jointed bludgeon, truncheon, sword, chain, hooks, hatchet, axe, trident, halberd, shield, staff, spear, and rake.
My new album? When Skiz abandoned Wordsound and went to Bagdad to bask in the warm tropical breeze of car bombs (or whatever he was doing), I began experimentations in miniaturization. I was able to distill the essence of an opera into 20seconds, and I was able to reduce an all night fancy dress ball (or warehouse party) into 20-40 seconds depending on the number of attendees. Also included in this body of work are field recordings (from Zanzibar rooftops, Ugandan Primate reserves, the Varanasi burning Ghatt, Ankor, etc.), a topographical map of Astral Pulse Island and various and sundry death threats transduced into melody.
Compared to the previous albums? Psychotropical Heatwave is a Faberge egg filled with TNT. Fantastic Voyage is a cock fight between Jules Verne and The Marquis De Sade. The Anatomy of Prince Charming is a self portrait of a master spelunker winning a Bikram championship at the gravitational center of the universe.
My connection to Wordsound & Skiz? When I sent out my demo of Psychotropical Heatwave, labels were calling every day begging to sign me. Dreamworks and Wordsound were both interested. Dreamworks had Weezer, Skiz/Wordsound had Prince Paul and Bill Laswell. I decided Wordsound was a better match. Much later I discovered that Skiz was Spectre, essentially what you would call a "Bass terrorist."
The "re-birth" of Wordsound? Skiz called me from Sri Lanka or the Caymen Islands and asked for my bank account information. He said that he had a million rupees that he needed to hide for a few months. That sounded Superb. One thing led to another. Later he promised to give me back my identity if I offered him 5 new albums in miniaturized form. Thank my lucky star, I had recently miniaturized about 5 albums worth of material… My new album is only available via MP3; CDs, player pianos and music boxes = laughable anachronisms.
My web site? I was taking the night train from Paris to Barcelona and some one cut open my leather attaché case and stole my dream journal, and two manuscripts for pornographic novels I was working on. About six months later, I receive an email from an Anarchist collective in Chefchaouen, and they've edited my work down to a few paragraphs. They said it was a tedious process and I owed them each a foot massage. I invited them back to my summer estate in … what was your question again?
The Anatomy of Prince Charming: Review from The Seattle Stranger
(available through digital download via itunes or www.wordsound.com)
obliquely refers to John Lyly's The Anatomy of Wit and Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. But you don't need to know that to enjoy the kaleidoscopic whirlwind of hard-to-pigeonhole music skittering by your struggling synapses. The disc appears to be a variation on the theme of soundtracks for imaginary films (Charming works at Paramount/DreamWorks and studies screenwriting at UCLA's Professional Program). Rhythmically advanced, melodically sophisticated, and texturally exotic, the 49 tracks here (clocking in at a mere 63 minutes) flit by like phantasmagorical snippets of ceremonial music from unexplored planets. One can imagine renowned world-music label Sublime Frequencies rejecting The Anatomy of Prince Charming for being too outlandish. Titles like "Female Rowing Team Eating Erotic Pastries" and "Sipping Secret Symphonies of Ultra Low Frequency Poetry" hint at his absurd sensibility. For those who dug Prince Charming's excellent Psychotropical Heatwave (1996) and Fantastic Voyage (1998), Anatomy reminds us of the man's weirdly libidinous and distinctively otherworldly take on electronic music. As George Harrison sang almost 40 years ago, it's all too muchand that's wonderful. - Dave Segal, Music Editor
The Anatomy of Prince Charming Track Listing:
1.The World Unmasked
2.Aurum Potabile
3.Mists Rise Over Still Pools
4.Waning Moon, I Tune the Lute
5.Dragon God
6.Zoolinction
7.Silent Meditation and Saber Fight
8.Pre-Zapotec Dance Floor
9.As Light as a Feather
10.Beyond Emerald Walls
11.Shall I Fly From This Impious City?
12.The Emperor's New Clothes (They're After Me Lucky Charms)
13.I Shall Tread Upon the Lion and the Cobra
14.10,000 Dreams Interpreted
15.Welcome to the Land of Happiness
16.Crown and Feathers
17.GoGo Dancer Apocalypso
18.Ambrosial Lake of Cognac
19.Noctelucent Concerto for Ant Hill Burial
20.City of Tigers
21.Experiment in Invisibility How it should be Performed
22.Spiral Citadel
23.Sea Urchin Venom (Dulce Venenum)
24.Female Rowing Team Eating Erotic Pastries
25.Aphrodesiac Nerve Gas
26.Following Comet Tail Scent Trails
27.Commanding the Sun to Stand Still
28.Stealing Sacred Truffles in Scuffles
29.Sipping Secret Symphonies of Ultra Low Frequency Poetry
30.Art Thou a Nymph?
31.Have You Ever Kissed a Nuclear Physicist?
32.Such is the Art of Warfare
33.How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction
34.The Purple Sapphire
35.Astromancy De La Coeur
36.Extraterrestrial Flower Festival
37.Addicted to Evil Accustomed to Vice
38.How to Make a Magic Carpet for Interrogating Intelligences
39.Concerning Baths and How They Are to Be Arranged
40.Xex Whychrye
41.Perfume Calligraphy Floating on a Summer Breeze
42.Butterfly Sanctuary
43.Cave Painting Trajectory of Spacecraft
44.The Offspring of an Ant and a Lion
45.Magical Formulae of the Heretical Magi
46.Jus Primae Noctis
( Myspace.com exclusive bonus tracks)
47.Dance of the Moon Pool
48.Good for Me, Bad for Demons
49. Dawn of Good Luck
