obscure JD influence (long ramble)

The thread about people who have ripped off NO got me thinking about who JD/NO were 'influenced' by, and I thought I would share some hard won information. Make of it what you will, I think it is an interesting example of how musical ideas travel around and I don't think any less of the band because of it, it's not a blatant, outright, literal ripoff or sample as you find in a lot of pop music. The last 2 tracks on Closer have long been favorites of mine, as with a lot of you folks I'm sure. Around the same time that I first got heavily into JD, I saw the film Nosferatu by Werner Herzog, this is the color 70s film with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, and Roland Topor as Renfield, not the silent classic by FW Murneau. It remains one of my all time favorites, particularly the scene where the vampire completes the journey on the ship and the plague is starting to spread in the town where it landed. It is a pretty amazing piece of work involving thousands of rats, and for the most part no audio except a certain piece of music. I always thought this scene was the most important part of the film and had a unique power. Later I got a VHS copy of it and watched it more often, and realized that I needed to know more about that piece of music. I bought the soundtrack album by Popol Vuh, and it was good, but the track wasn't on there. I then found out about another album by Popol Vuh of additional soundtrack material, and eventually found it too, but it wasn't there either. So, my girlfriend and I carefully studied the end credits on our video and got the names of a couple of other pieces that were used in the film, of which I figured a piece by Gounoud was most likely the one; after tracking them down, they too were not the piece I was looking for ! We were rather frustrated and baffled that the seemingly most important piece of music in the film was unidentified and unobtainable. I had eventually come to the conclusion that this piece sounds a lot like parts of 'The Eternal' and 'Decades', and was intrigued to read a quote from Barney in the JD days specifically praising Herzog's Nosferatu. IIRC he said that the movie had a remarkable atmosphere that seemed evil, yet you feel comfortable in it. Then, a few months ago we got the DVD of the film. After watching a few more times we decided to put on the extra DVD feature of an alternate audio track of Herzog himself talking about the film as it plays. When it got to that scene, Herzog went on about how crucial that music was to the whole film (I'm like, duh !), but he still didn't say what it was, only that it was a piece of Georgian folk music. With this bit of information, we did a bunch of web searches and listened to everything we could find that was traditional folk music from Georgia (former Soviet Union) until one day my girlfriend called me at work in tears and told me to check my email, where I found an MP3 that was none other than the same piece of music from the movie, but a different recording, by the Rustavi Choir. Since then we have been getting everything we can find by this group; there are several CDs around, but the best stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s when Hamlet Gonashvili was their featured soloist. I now consider him to be the best singer I have ever heard. As far as I'm concerned he makes almost everyone else on this planet sound like retarded incompetent hacks in comparison. But, anyway, decide for yourself; the following link has a real audio copy of the track. Unfortunatly the page has pop up ads that you'll have to dodge. It's the 6th one down, Tsintskaro (usually translated as 'In the spring'). It begins with a solo part by Gonashvili with the rest of the group coming in at about 0:19, starting there is the part that resembles the JD tracks and is used in Nosferatu.

http://members.tripod.com/ggdavid/georgia/music/tradit.htm

You'll hear that the music has clear ties to middle eastern music as well as older European religious music, especially Eastern Orthodox choral material, which makes perfect sense given where it is from. It might help if you imagine the reverb drenched drums from The Eternal over that part of the song. Actually the IV-i chords with the root - 2nd- 3rd (to the i chord) bass line with a droning root and/or fourth appear in many NO songs too, but Barney often adds a couple more chords to stretch it out (Subculture, Let's Go, Elegia, True Faith, and many others). These sort of chords started on Closer and have been used by NO a lot, but you won't find them on any earlier JD material, so my theory is that this movie and that piece of music made a pretty big impression on Barney too.

The Tsintskaro track you refer to is excellent - thanks very much for the link. I'll have to check out more of this stuff!

I can see why you thought it might be by Popul Vuh. I have been heavily into Popul Vuh for around 20 years now. The "Ultima Thule" shop in my hometown of Leicester (England) carries the entire Popul Vuh back catalogue on CD. The owners of the shop Steve and Alan Freeman are acknowledged world experts on Krautrock and have published the definitive work on the subject - the excellent "Crack in the Cosmic Egg".

My favourite Popul Vuh CD's are "In den garten Pharaos" and "Hosiana Mantra" which are both works of high genius. It is sad to reflect that last weekend was the first anniversary of the death of Florian Fricke (Mr Popul Vuh).

I have always felt there were strong parallels between the gothic aspects of Popul Vuh and Joy Division. When I say Gothic - I am NOT refering to the ridiculous stuff pedalled by traditional English Goth bands eg. Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus etc. True Gothic music occupies far higher ground.

On a different subject have you listened to "The Eternal - variations on Joy Division" by the Swedish chamber orchestra group The Nau Ensemble ? This CD also has much to commend it.

"by the Rustavi Choir. Since then we have been getting everything we can find by this group; there are several CDs around, but the best stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s when Hamlet Gonashvili was their featured soloist."

This is unbelieveably cool...and very beautiful. I've been listening to several tracks now over the past 1/2 hour with rapt attention. Can you send me a list of cd's that you recommend by these guys?

Barney once said that the Herzog Nosferatu was one of his favourite films and I think they even used part of the soundtrack at a gig. Perhaps someone else can remember the exact details.

Very interesting! :) You can definitely hear the melodic and atmospheric parallels to "The Eternal" and some of the other songs off of "Closer".

On a similar tangent, I noticed that "1963" (the original version that appeared on the CD versions of "Substance - 1987" as well as the original 12" LP single for "True Faith") has many musical similarities to the Kraftwerk song "The Telephone Call", specifically the melodic parts when the lyrics are sung. And of course, everyone knows that New Order are huge fans of Kraftwerk ("KW1 = Your Silent Face", as well as Electronic's "Raise The Pressure" was created with the input from Kraftwerk's own Karl Bartos).

It's always interesting to find out how bands are influenced musically.

BTW: Adam, where did you get that CD from Nau Ensemble? I've heard of them but haven't listened to anything they've done. I imagine the CD is import-only...any way you can post a link to some audio samples of that CD? :)

The Nau Ensemble is available online through :-

http://www.hmv.co.uk/

I have encoded the whole CD as a single MP3 track (52 minutes long) and put it in my Kazaa Shared Directory if you are interested. This is classical music so the album does not have separate tracks.

Originally posted by teleharmonium The thread about people who have ripped off NO got me thinking about who JD/NO were 'influenced' by, and I thought I would share some hard won information. Make of it what you will, I think it is an interesting example of how musical ideas travel around and I don't think any less of the band because of it, it's not a blatant, outright, literal ripoff or sample as you find in a lot of pop music.The last 2 tracks on Closer have long been favorites of mine, as with a lot of you folks I'm sure. Around the same time that I first got heavily into JD, I saw the film Nosferatu by Werner Herzog, this is the color 70s film with Klaus Kinski, Isabelle Adjani, Bruno Ganz, and Roland Topor as Renfield, not the silent classic by FW Murneau. It remains one of my all time favorites, particularly the scene where the vampire completes the journey on the ship and the plague is starting to spread in the town where it landed. It is a pretty amazing piece of work involving thousands of rats, and for the most part no audio except a certain piece of music. I always thought this scene was the most important part of the film and had a unique power. Later I got a VHS copy of it and watched it more often, and realized that I needed to know more about that piece of music. I bought the soundtrack album by Popol Vuh, and it was good, but the track wasn't on there. I then found out about another album by Popol Vuh of additional soundtrack material, and eventually found it too, but it wasn't there either. So, my girlfriend and I carefully studied the end credits on our video and got the names of a couple of other pieces that were used in the film, of which I figured a piece by Gounoud was most likely the one; after tracking them down, they too were not the piece I was looking for ! We were rather frustrated and baffled that the seemingly most important piece of music in the film was unidentified and unobtainable. I had eventually come to the conclusion that this piece sounds a lot like parts of 'The Eternal' and 'Decades', and was intrigued to read a quote from Barney in the JD days specifically praising Herzog's Nosferatu. IIRC he said that the movie had a remarkable atmosphere that seemed evil, yet you feel comfortable in it.Then, a few months ago we got the DVD of the film. After watching a few more times we decided to put on the extra DVD feature of an alternate audio track of Herzog himself talking about the film as it plays. When it got to that scene, Herzog went on about how crucial that music was to the whole film (I'm like, duh !), but he still didn't say what it was, only that it was a piece of Georgian folk music. With this bit of information, we did a bunch of web searches and listened to everything we could find that was traditional folk music from Georgia (former Soviet Union) until one day my girlfriend called me at work in tears and told me to check my email, where I found an MP3 that was none other than the same piece of music from the movie, but a different recording, by the Rustavi Choir. Since then we have been getting everything we can find by this group; there are several CDs around, but the best stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s when Hamlet Gonashvili was their featured soloist. I now consider him to be the best singer I have ever heard. As far as I'm concerned he makes almost everyone else on this planet sound like retarded incompetent hacks in comparison. But, anyway, decide for yourself; the following link has a real audio copy of the track. Unfortunatly the page has pop up ads that you'll have to dodge. It's the 6th one down, Tsintskaro (usually translated as 'In the spring'). It begins with a solo part by Gonashvili with the rest of the group coming in at about 0:19, starting there is the part that resembles the JD tracks and is used in Nosferatu.http://members.tripod.com/ggdavid/georgia/music/tradit.htmYou'll hear that the music has clear ties to middle eastern music as well as older European religious music, especially Eastern Orthodox choral material, which makes perfect sense given where it is from.It might help if you imagine the reverb drenched drums from The Eternal over that part of the song. Actually the IV-i chords with the root - 2nd- 3rd (to the i chord) bass line with a droning root and/or fourth appear in many NO songs too, but Barney often adds a couple more chords to stretch it out (Subculture, Let's Go, Elegia, True Faith, and many others). These sort of chords started on Closer and have been used by NO a lot, but you won't find them on any earlier JD material, so my theory is that this movie and that piece of music made a pretty big impression on Barney too.

i have Herzog's Nosferatu on tape, and i checked, it isen't the same peice of music that you mentioned. It does sound like "Tsintskaro" though.

i found some information, and it could be one of the following peices of music:

"Das Rheingold" (Prelude) by Richard Wagner Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Georg Solti

"Sanctus" by Charles Gounod (Caecilienmesse)

"Zinskaro" Performed by vocal ensemble Gordela

I'm glad you folks checked out the track. 'Zinskaro' is the same piece just with a different phonetic spelling, it's an old traditional song, that group is another Georgian vocal group, I didn't have that name though and I will now use it to try and find more recordings. I think I have seen CDs by that group listed in discographies. The Rustavi Choir is the best known group like that but certainly not the only one and I didn't mean to imply that they were definitely the performers on the piece used in the movie. The song as used in Nosferatu was either performed without the solo section, which is not likely as that is where the main text of the song is, or it was edited to only include the choir parts, if you listen to it that way (ie. by playing the movie on DVD or whatever) it is even more similar to the JD tracks. I don't have all that much so far but my highest recommendation goes to the cd 'Hamlet' by Hamlet Gonashvili (accompanied by members of Rustavi) on the German label Jaro, which is what that real audio file is from. I also have 'Alilo' on Sony Classical, 'Chakrulo' on Beaux, and 'Georgian Voices' on Elektra/Nonesuch, of which Alilo is my favorite. There are some other pieces that are similar to what is in the movie, but 'Tsinskaro' is the closest one and also happens to be one of the best known Georgian songs, so I think it is probably the one. Incidentally I was playing this stuff for a friend of mine who recognized the sound and later played for me a Kate Bush song from the 80s where she sampled some Georgian singers. Kind of a lame sample though, to me, she just inserted a big chunk of it in the middle of one of her songs, it didn't really fit well and I doubt she paid them or got permission.

I like Popol Vuh a lot too, especially 'Letze Tage Letze Nacht', 'Tantric Songs' and 'In den Garten Pharaos', there are a few I haven't yet heard though. I'd like to get everything of theirs up until at least the early 80s. I've heard of Ultima Thule and I think I mail ordered from them at one point, must be nice to have them nearby, they have a lot of cool stuff. I haven't heard that Nau Ensemble CD, I have been curious about it though.

Originally posted by Adam Tate The Tsintskaro track you refer to is excellent - thanks very much for the link. I'll have to check out more of this stuff!I can see why you thought it might be by Popul Vuh. I have been heavily into Popul Vuh for around 20 years now. The "Ultima Thule" shop in my hometown of Leicester (England) carries the entire Popul Vuh back catalogue on CD. The owners of the shop Steve and Alan Freeman are acknowledged world experts on Krautrock and have published the definitive work on the subject - the excellent "Crack in the Cosmic Egg".My favourite Popul Vuh CD's are "In den garten Pharaos" and "Hosiana Mantra" which are both works of high genius. It is sad to reflect that last weekend was the first anniversary of the death of Florian Fricke (Mr Popul Vuh).I have always felt there were strong parallels between the gothic aspects of Popul Vuh and Joy Division. When I say Gothic - I am NOT refering to the ridiculous stuff pedalled by traditional English Goth bands eg. Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus etc. True Gothic music occupies far higher ground.On a different subject have you listened to "The Eternal - variations on Joy Division" by the Swedish chamber orchestra group The Nau Ensemble ? This CD also has much to commend it.

have you read julian cope's book on krautrock? (I haven't) just wondering if it was worth reading.

Yeah Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler is a fantastic little book - I cannot recommend it highly enough. The book may not be 100% factually correct but it is a riot to read. Julian has a wonderfully enthusiastic style which just makes you want to dig out every album he writes about.

Even if you only think you might be interested in Krautrock get this book immediately - YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

cheers

have you read the new antiquarian as well?

Originally posted by Adam Tate The Tsintskaro track you refer to is excellent - thanks very much for the link. I'll have to check out more of this stuff!I can see why you thought it might be by Popul Vuh. I have been heavily into Popul Vuh for around 20 years now. The "Ultima Thule" shop in my hometown of Leicester (England) carries the entire Popul Vuh back catalogue on CD. The owners of the shop Steve and Alan Freeman are acknowledged world experts on Krautrock and have published the definitive work on the subject - the excellent "Crack in the Cosmic Egg".My favourite Popul Vuh CD's are "In den garten Pharaos" and "Hosiana Mantra" which are both works of high genius. It is sad to reflect that last weekend was the first anniversary of the death of Florian Fricke (Mr Popul Vuh).I have always felt there were strong parallels between the gothic aspects of Popul Vuh and Joy Division. When I say Gothic - I am NOT refering to the ridiculous stuff pedalled by traditional English Goth bands eg. Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus etc. True Gothic music occupies far higher ground.On a different subject have you listened to "The Eternal - variations on Joy Division" by the Swedish chamber orchestra group The Nau Ensemble ? This CD also has much to commend it.

"True gothic music.." please. I think you are going a little overboard here in giving "True Gothic Music" some pedastilic place in history ascribing it's qualities to only a couple of worthy bands. Sister's may have been a little fabricated, but Bauhaus should be in that category... if you are going to create a "True Gothic Music" category, which I think is odd at best. I wouldn't even consider JD as gothic, even though many other people do. And if they are allowed into your "true" group, then Bauhaus should easily make it ahead of them. Joy Division was pretty much straight British punk influenced music with moody vocals... moving from that to moody music with moodier vocals. I realize that this description is a little simple, but more accurate that creating some special subgroup for a couple of worthy bands. Who else would you put in (and exclude) from the designation "True Goth"?

Originally posted by Wolfmann "True gothic music.." please. I think you are going a little overboard here in giving "True Gothic Music" some pedastilic place in history ascribing it's qualities to only a couple of worthy bands. Sister's may have been a little fabricated, but Bauhaus should be in that category... if you are going to create a "True Gothic Music" category, which I think is odd at best. I wouldn't even consider JD as gothic, even though many other people do. And if they are allowed into your "true" group, then Bauhaus should easily make it ahead of them. Joy Division was pretty much straight British punk influenced music with moody vocals... moving from that to moody music with moodier vocals. I realize that this description is a little simple, but more accurate that creating some special subgroup for a couple of worthy bands. Who else would you put in (and exclude) from the designation "True Goth"?

I always felt there was a distinction to be made between "Gothic" and "Goth" - as a one-time darksider, I must leap to the defence of some of this stuff. OK, I agree with your assessment of Bauhaus, some Christian Death is cool (I'm thinking "Catastrophe Ballet"), and the Sisters were even mildly tolerable in 1983.

As for where I feel JD fit in here, I reckon they have a vaguely similar appeal (though not limited to that), and something like "Dead Souls" could easily fall into the Goth category if you looked at it a certain way. They certainly inspired a lot of the Goth crowd, and one of the sure signs of a Goth band is they they (or their fans) deny being one!!!

OK, I'm not saying they were Goths, no fishnets or anything, but we shouldn't let prejudices or stereotypes colour our judgements here. In the end, I feel that JD were walking it like they talked it (never any doubts on that one) whereas most Goth bands were just a load of sickos getting some cheap thrills. Or something.

Or maybe i'm just talking rubbish - it's been a long day and I'm tired.

Originally posted by mh > Originally posted by Wolfmann> "True gothic music.." please. I think you are going a little overboard here in giving "True Gothic Music" some pedastilic place in history ascribing it's qualities to only a couple of worthy bands. Sister's may have been a little fabricated, but Bauhaus should be in that category... if you are going to create a "True Gothic Music" category, which I think is odd at best. I wouldn't even consider JD as gothic, even though many other people do. And if they are allowed into your "true" group, then Bauhaus should easily make it ahead of them. Joy Division was pretty much straight British punk influenced music with moody vocals... moving from that to moody music with moodier vocals. I realize that this description is a little simple, but more accurate that creating some special subgroup for a couple of worthy bands. Who else would you put in (and exclude) from the designation "True Goth"?

In the end, I feel that JD were walking it like they talked it (never any doubts on that one) whereas most Goth bands were just a load of sickos getting some cheap thrills. Or something.

That's a good way to put it. There are "Goth" bands that are only that way on stage and in front of the public. And then there are bands that are exactly the same way in person that they were on stage.. a more real look. I am sure JD was that way. The Sex Pistols were that way. I guess you could distinguish between goth and gothic. If you are thinking of gothic as having medival influence with the dark pipe / horn thing, chant, and the like vs the goth lifestyle which is more visual than audible.

Joy Division were obviously not part of the Goth scene. However, their music has gothic aspects which while having nothing to do with Bauhaus or Sisters Mercy etc does relate in part to the Georgian music commented on at the top of this thread.

By the way I seem to remember one of the band, either Barney or Steve, quoting Popul Vuh as an influence back in the early 80's.

Originally posted by hibster cheershave you read the new antiquarian as well?

Yeah I tried - it's again well written - but I'm afraid I don't share Copey's fascination with prehistoric Britain. Your better off with Cope's autobiography "Head On".

this is an excellent thread, one of the best i have read; have no speakers here (at work), but will listen to the links tonight...thanks for the information

Originally posted by Adam Tate Joy Division were obviously not part of the Goth scene. However, their music has gothic aspects which while having nothing to do with Bauhaus or Sisters Mercy etc does relate in part to the Georgian music commented on at the top of this thread. By the way I seem to remember one of the band, either Barney or Steve, quoting Popul Vuh as an influence back in the early 80's.

There are a lot of people who would disagree with you. Many consider them the originator of Goth music, not the Goth look. I think the Goth look came from people who listened to music got really depressed and decided to look like the music sounded. Dark and Haunted

When I was at school in Leicester the Goth scene always seemed to be a different set of kids to the ones who appreciated stuff like Joy Division. May have just been a local thing but Goths seemed more concerned by having the right kind of eye shadow than the actual quality of the music they were listening to.

Originally posted by Adam Tate When I was at school in Leicester the Goth scene always seemed to be a different set of kids to the ones who appreciated stuff like Joy Division. May have just been a local thing but Goths seemed more concerned by having the right kind of eye shadow than the actual quality of the music they were listening to.

exactly, the Goth bands like Bauhaus and The Cure weren't serious, they were morons in make up...

Joy Division were Dark..so really, they were gothic, not goths. Over the years the term "goth" has changedso much, that it has fuck all to do with music. While Joy Division was all about serious, intence music, this is all pretty obvious really.

Originally posted by Adam Tate When I was at school in Leicester the Goth scene always seemed to be a different set of kids to the ones who appreciated stuff like Joy Division. May have just been a local thing but Goths seemed more concerned by having the right kind of eye shadow than the actual quality of the music they were listening to.

Yeah amazingly enough most of the people at the Oakland concert in '95 were "goth" and didn't get NO at all. Probably why Barney and Hooky got so fed up they stomped off...

crap, i'm unable to hear the sound sample...something about real player not being able to find the sound clip.

Why me?

I'm glad you had that problem, because it prompted me to go looking for more, I just found another page with a ton of stuff. They're 'windows media' files, I hope they will work for you. There are different recordings of Tsinskaro as numbers 251,409,510 and 563, also 468 and 469 may be the same piece with an English title, I'm checking this all out now. 563 is the same one that was on the other link.

http://www.georgian-music.com/index.php3?sc=6

can't hear these files either.:( and they open in winamp and do nothing!

if you have windows media player, maybe you can try saving the files to your hard drive and then opening that program and navigating to the files

Originally posted by Sean Komakino > Originally posted by Adam Tate> When I was at school in Leicester the Goth scene always seemed to be a different set of kids to the ones who appreciated stuff like Joy Division. May have just been a local thing but Goths seemed more concerned by having the right kind of eye shadow than the actual quality of the music they were listening to.

exactly, the Goth bands like Bauhaus and The Cure weren't serious, they were morons in make up...

Joy Division were Dark..so really, they were gothic, not goths. Over the years the term "goth" has changedso much, that it has fuck all to do with music. While Joy Division was all about serious, intence music, this is all pretty obvious really.

See, I agree with the Cure not being Goth in the sense of a really dark sound. I thought so back in the mid eighties, but now I don't think so at all. I agree, JD is dark - in any age, they're dark. I disagree with lumping in Bauhaus with the Cure. I think they were pretty dark all the time. Not so with the stuff after they split, like Love and Rockets etc...