Richard Strauss - Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896)

I, Todd Niefzsche, love music about Nietzsche, whether it be lo-fi basement black metal or high art tone poem. Guess which one this is. The music leave plenty of space for narrative, which my mind fills with tales of me hanging out with Bono, and then I ask him what he's doing later and if he wants to come over and watch Youtube videos. Then we do a youtube search for "funny dog."

The best section is Der Genesende (The Convalescent) which has a variation on the theme from the introduction as the musical driving force while fast tempos and flutes whirl around leading to one of the most crushing moments in music as the intro theme is restated. Actually, I'm going to rip off that first variation for future Like Rats material, so be on the lookout for that.

Also, if you weren't gonna download this, it's the 2001 theme, idiot. Come on now. Load it down.

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Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)

My last post on Ildjarn, my contribution to the endless war between trve and false metal, got me thinking of other discussions on this topic that I've had recently. Again, you've got a lot of bands out there playing in a similar aesthetic to Burzum, but they're actually playing Death Cab for Cutie or Jimmy Eat World songs. This is boring to me, and I don't want to listen to it. However, in that initial wave of Norwegian black metal, you had guys (particularly Burzum and Emperor) writing riffs that sounded like fucking Rachmaninoff and fucking Modest Mussorgsky. This rules to me, and helps me imagine myself as a real seed-spreading human, slowly evolving into a tree.

Mussorgsky originally composed this as a suite for piano, but it has been arranged for orchestra many times over. I'm not sure which arrangement this is, since I have a hard enough time keeping all of my digital music in order by artist and year; how dare you also expect me to keep track of arranger & performer, you bully?

The composition mirrors Mussorgsky's movement through a friend's posthumous art exhibition. This type of literal representation in composition is very interesting to me, as I tend to think of music in extremely abstract terms. I suppose this style of composition can push you to new realms of creatvity in an attempt to mirror a specific experience, but, for me, music is its own reality. Music is my only friend, because I can't relate to anyone. Papa Roach. But seriously, I just want to listen to The Ballet of Unhatched Chicks on repeat.

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PS: I played a guitar solo for some dads, and their songs are fucking heavy. You may know them as Weekend Nachos. Listen to new songs or download new songs.