Top 100 2019-2: 81-90

90. Narantsogt – Mongolian Tsuur

89. Rudi Schneider – Trance Breathing, 1933

88. Inger Lorre & Jeff Buckley – Angel Mine

87. MonoNeon and Cardi B – I Believe the Children are Our Future

86. Mergen Mongush – Alash

85. Cat Power – Stay

84. Ogoue-Congo: Chant magique et partant

83. Carl Orff – Clap-Rondo

82. Aloisa Schinkenmaier – Prophezeiungen

81. Slava Egorovič Kemlil – The Tundra Wakes Up in the Spring 

81. Slava Egorovič Kemlil – The Tundra Wakes Up in the Spring

Slava Egorovič Kemlil, oil on canvas, 2019
Slava Kemlil (b. 1963) is a Chukchi shaman from Kolyma, a bit northwest from Kamchatka. Recordings made by Henri Lecomte appear on Sibérie 3, Kolyma: Songs of nature and animals. Kemlil's songs consist of imitations of animals, throat singing, and the 'jajar' (a big shaman's frame drum.) The tundra wakes up in the spring is the title given to the recording that made my list.

82. Aloisa Schinkenmaier – Prophezeiungen

Barbara Kraus (as Aloise Schinkenmaier), oil on canvas, 2019

The source image is a still taken from the video Out Demons Out, in which Austrian dancer and performance artist Barbara Kraus acts as the Austrian medium Aloise Schinkenmaier. In one of the most ridiculous videos I've ever seen Kraus, as Schinkenmaier, meets her old friend Satan, a man in a bear costume. It's not Kraus but Schinkenmaier who is featured in the top 100. I could not positively identify Schinkenmaier herself in any of the many photos associated with the German album Okkulte Stimmen – Mediale Musik: Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1907-2007. On the second of that 3CD-set Schinkenmaier is heard as a medium picking up an unknown language while being recorded in 1967. Later the language was identified as a dialect of a little known Polynesian language. Schinkenmaier herself could not possibly have been aware of that language let alone speak it as if it were native to her. The recording clocks a dramatic two minutes in which Schinkenmaier narrates an emotional scene in this Polynesian language.

83. Carl Orff – Clap-Rondo

Two young perfromers from the cover of the LP: Streetsong, oil on canvas, 2019

The LP Streetsong (Gassenhauer, BASF, 1975) I bought at a local thrift store purely for its cover. Two of the three performers on this cover are seen in the painting. I doubt these are actual performers on the disc. When I returned home, LP in hand, I realized I had not bought a German novelty record but one of serious classical importance. I saw the name Carl Orff as the songwriter before I even put the disc on the player. When it played I immediately recognized the melody of the opening and title tune which had been extensively used in Hollywood movies (Badlands, Finding Forrester, et al). The tune Clap-Rondo, a percussion work consisting of hand-clapping, is another short work by Orff from the series Schulwerke, a series of works to be performed by children.

I never posted the painting I did from the LP Streetsong at the time, so here it is:

Two young performers from the cover of the LP Streetsong

14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

84. Ogoue-Congo: Chant magique et partant

Babinga Ceremonial Dance, oil on canvas, 2020

The woman in the painting already appeared once behind Andre Didier in a painting I did not too long ago. Then I removed her. The photograph from which I pulled her image did not appear in the photo of Andre Didier but appeared on a separate photo that was also taken by Gilbert Rouget stemming from the same Ogooué-Congo Mission of 1946. Chant magique en partant pour la chasse au filet is unlike the work song that was illustrated in the Didier painting a recording of a ceremony. This was the reason the image was removed. For this track the image is more appropriate and may very well be depicting the actual person dancing in front of the chanting chorus of women that feature in Roget's photograph.

85. Cat Power – Stay

Rihanna, oil on canvas, 2019
Six songs from Cat Power's newest Wanderer LP made the list of 100. The year 2018-2019 (July 1st until July 1st) is now closed and a new one just began. I'll be painting several more months until all 100 are ready for exhibit for the grand opening of the Top 100 Studio and Archive space. Six songs, five originals (Wanderer, Horizon, In Your Face, Robbin Hood, and Nothing Really Matters) and one cover (Stay). Stay is an original from the Bahamian singer Rihanna. Her (original) version is quite beautiful too but didn't make the list of 100 songs.

86. Mergen Mongush – Alash

Mergen Mongush, oil on canvas, 2020

Mergen Mongush is represented in both books with cd insert that I own on the subject of Tuvan throat singing. In Overtone Singing by Mark van Tongeren three pages are dedicated to Mongush who was born in 1962 in Chadan, Tuva. The cd features an example of the 'chilangit' style of overtone singing that Mongush developed. Alash (named after a Tuvan river) appears on the cd that accompanies Where Rivers and Mountains Sing: Sound Music and Nomadism in Tuva and Beyond by Theodore Levin.

87. MonoNeon and Cardi B – I Believe the Children are Our Future

Cardy B, stencil print on paper, 2018

Twice a year I do a stencil print assignment wiyh my students. We make an edition and trade with one another. The stencil I make is always of a popular artist who is listed in the top 100. I picked Cardi B. I Believe the Children Are Our Future, a collaboration with MonoNeon was on the list. The lyrics to I Believe the Children Are Our Future shows Cardi B at her characteristic finest: "But not today tho, Today I'm Wilin', Today I'm Buggin' and Thuggin'." After a bit of searching I had to conclude that the song shouldn't be filed under Cardi B in my archive but rather under MonoNeon, the song is not even a collaboration (not voluntarily at least). MonoNeon is a kind of YouTube star who does mash-ups of existing content. MonoNeon is the bass player Dywane Thomas Jr. who really has quite some credentials. His discography is extensive and include work with Prince (he was one of the last musicians to work with Prince), his influences include Dada, conceptual art and John Cage, his instrument is a "ready-made bass" that uses duct tape and other mundane items and turn the instrument into a quarter note instrument. His style of playing is also unique and inventive and is lauded by numerous musicians. 

88. Inger Lorre & Jeff Buckley – Angel Mine

Inger Lorre, oil on canvas, 2018

I don't listen to popular much anymore. What I have been playing most are ethnographical field recordings, a bit of (modern) classical music, free jazz, and also a bit of word-jazz. The last category is directly related to two exhibitions at the Bob Rauschenberg Gallery celebrating the work of Jack Kerouac. I listened to a number of Kerouac cds, some spoken word and some with a jazz accompaniment. One cd in particular I've played several times; a tribute cd that features a host of well known (popular) musicians and (beat) poets. On it are the poets Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson, Kerouac himself, and William S. Burroughs. The musicians include expected names for a compilation on Kerouac such as members of Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, and Lydia Lunch and there are also REM's Michael Stype, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, Eddie Vedder, Juliana Hatfield, John Cale and other notables from the music scene. Inger Lorre (depicted above) teams up with Jeff Buckley for a performance of Kerouac's poem Angel Mine set to music. It's my favorite track. Inger Lorre, btw, is a singer and painter from San Francisco, she once led a band named The Nymphs.

89. Rudi Schneider – Trance Breathing, 1933

Rudy Schneider, oil on canvas, 2019

In a second recording from the German album Okkulte Stimmen – Mediale Musik: Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1907-2007 we hear the medium Rudi Schneider (1908-1957, Austrian like Eloise Schinkenmeier above). The recording is of Schneider's breathing while in a trance state. Schneider was extensively researched and some scientists believed he was a fraud while others could not find any evidence for such claims.

90. Narantsogt – Mongolian Tsuur

Narantsogt, oil on canvas, 2019

Narantsogt is the father of Gombojav who I painted earlier. (Narantsogt was recorded twice before (in 1982 and 1989) but when Theodore Levin did research in Mongolia for his book Where Rivers and Mountains Sing Narantsogt was too old and frail to be able to play. Several videos exist on YouTube that feature Narantsogt. In the video for this track you see Narantsogt ritually prepare for a tsuur performance. The tsuur is a simple three hole flute but difficult to play as it combines the techniques for throat singing (höömeii) and whistling. Narantsogt is quoted by Levin in the aforementioned book: "If I play for a long time, nature tells me what to do. I play for the mountains and the rivers, and the spirit masters take pleasure from this." The tsuur is typically performed alone without any audience (save for the spirit masters,) let alone recording equipment.