WRITING SAMPLES

It all feels so important.

It is a collection of such direct, pipe-bursting immediacy that one cannot help but be moved by even a single listen.

The Author occasionally knows brilliance when he hears it. He definitely heard it on The Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings.

Buy this.

OHM: the early gurus of electronic music

42 original tracks | 1948-1980
Various Artists
Review By Guy Benoit

“If you’re under ninety, chances are that you’ve spent most of your life listening to electronic music. The experience that used to be called music up until about the 1920s -- listening to someone sing or play a musical instrument live and unamplified -- actually forms an increasingly minor percentage of our listening experience now. Instead we listen to records, or we listen to the radio, or we go to see musicians who transmit electronic signals through electronic PA systems.”

        -Brian Eno , taken from liner notes

Mr. Eno has made an outstanding point. Most modern music -- indeed most deliberately produced modern sound -- is ‘electronic.’ Top40 hits, static-style happy hardcore, automobile alarms, telephone discourse and cinematic explosions are all somehow artificial in origin or conveyance. Now, this is not to say that Every Sound Is Somehow, In Some Sense, Electronic Music. That idea’s much too blurry to serve as an X-Marks-The-Spot. However, pinpointing the differences between Electronic and Organic Music is becoming increasingly troublesome.

Times change, y’see.

Ellipsis Arts’ OHM: the early gurus of electronic music |
1948 – 1980 examines a period when it was a lot easier to define “electronic music.” Focusing on a vital phase of modern classical composition, OHM is a potent, well-informed document. Beyond that, it’s noisier and more fun than a Tin Barrel of Mechanical Monkeys. Loaded with all manner of beeps, boops, blats, honks, hisses, whistles and various and sundry bits of audio verite, these 42 Tracks are an unexpectedly vigorous listen. Not at all bloodless or academic, OHM is Proof Positive that The Machines Got Soul.

The Affair begins, dramatically enough, with a futuristic take on an antiquated theme. Clara Rockmore -- Internationally Renowned Theramin Heartbreaker -- conjures an ethereal rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Valse Sentimentale. Clad in a silk kimono and gesticulating like a Silent Movie Queen, Ms. Rockmore sets the proceedings off with a keening, lunar sigh.

From there, the hits just keep on coming!

John Cage’s Williams Mix, an infamous exercise in tape manipulation, is notable for the galvanizing effect it evidently had on a live audience. At the finale, a few listeners demand a curtain call while others seem more interested in a lynching. Olivier Messiaen’s Oraison -- subtle as mesmerism -- drops the volume beneath that of fog settling. Finally, Louis and Bebe Barron’s moody soundtrack to Forbidden Planet will jump start anyone’s Id Monster in 2 minutes and 19 seconds.

In addition to these fine selections, listeners can expect quality grooves from such E-Z Listening Favorites as Morton Subotnick, La Monte Young, Holgar Czukay, Alvin Lucier, Laurie Spiegel, Karlheinz Stockhausen, David Tudor, Steve Reich and, of course, Iannis Xenakis.

All kidding aside, this is a wondrous experience. Simultaneously anachronistic and totally forward thinking, Ohm is truly The Sound Of Future Past. Fans of Kid Koala, Devo, DJ Mr. David Holmes, Larry Levan, The Bomb Squad, Can, Roxy Music or Kraftwerk would do well to explore The Ground Zero Of Solid State.

We can’t recommend this highly enough.

Margo Guryan’s Take A Picture

Review By Guy Benoit

“She’s her own man. I refer to musical style only. When she sings, you know it’s Margo Guryan. When you hear her songs, you recognize them immediately. You get the feeling she likes what she is both personally and musically, that individuality and uniqueness are the only paths open to her. How nice for those of us fortunate enough to be touched by her music.

“Biographically, Margo Guryan is from New York City, where she now lives; attended Boston University and earned her Bachelor Of Music degree in composition; she played good (‘for a girl’) jazz piano after years of classical training; achieved her first recognition as a songwriter through jazz recordings of her music; always wrote what she liked rather than ‘for the market’ until she found that the difference no longer existed; is rapidly becoming one of today’s most respected and recorded songwriters; and – happily for us – was persuaded that her songs have an unusually warm and special quality when she sings them.”

                            David Rosner 1968, taken from liner notes

The Beach Boys changed Margo Guryan’s life.

A jazz zealot from way back in the fifties, Ms. Guryan studied composition alongside Max Roach, Ornette Coleman, Gary McFarland and Gunther Schuller at the prestigious Lenox School Of Jazz. However, on the fateful day she heard “God Only Knows,” she realized just how much could be accomplished within the parameters of pop music. With that in mind, Margo Guryan quietly accomplished a great deal, indeed.

Take A Picture, Ms. Guryan’s 1968 LP -- now reissued by Franklin Castle -- is an offbeat gem. For an artist inspired by The Wilsons’ Naive West Coast Melancholy, Margo works the Guarded Optimism Of A True New Yorker. For visual proof, the back cover of the CD features no hypnotized, overly coiffed Nancy Sinatra-type. In her stead is a relaxed, self-possessed woman pulling cigarettes between low-key laughs.

The original eleven songs (and four bonus tracks) on Take A Picture waft over largely unthreatening territory. A strange, inadvertent mix of breathy ye-ye and Dusty In Memphis hangs around The Left Banke like an autumnal fog patch. Margo Guryan was close to thirty years old when Take A Picture was released. Studying shoulder-to-shoulder with the most sophisticated musical minds in the East afforded her incredible confidence. The tunes on Take A Picture are hazy and relaxed, rushing to their ends for no man. Listeners are the better for it.

Ms. Guryan has the good fortune to unfurl Take A Picture with “Sunday Morning” an assuredly accidental nod to those other fractured Gotham Romantics, The Velvet Underground. Although not a VU cover, “Sunday Morning” evokes a similarly delicate mist, with Margo sprinkling her un-funky vocals over some powerfully groovy keys. “Sun” stretches out, unwinding around Chad And Jeremy’s “A Summer Song” to wonderful effect. It’s definitely the best song Lesley Gore never did. The crystalline, yet deeply unsettling, “Love Songs” might be the most inviting sonic evocation of mental illness since The Jaynettes’ “Sally Go ‘Round The Roses” wandered, bewildered, into the Top 40. The more ambitious numbers on Take A Picture, such as “Don’t Go Away” and “Someone I Know,” tinker with the asymmetrical time signatures of jazz and modern classical. As could be expected, Ms. Guryan displays an obvious facility with these forms and the results are always unforced and enjoyable.

Unexpectedly, Take A Picture’s closer digs some supremely exciting grooves. “Love” is a five-minute swan dive into a wash resembling Yellow Submarine’s “It’s All Too Much.” Margo Guryan’s talent, however, always proves more than

embarrassment of riches bypass her completely. Her old man, the legendary Joao Gilberto, single handedly coaxed bossa nova into existence. Mommy Miucha recorded a stunning album with Antonio Carlos Jobim. Hip uncle Chico Buarque remains a respected singer and composer on the South Of The Panama Canal Scene.

Fortuitously, tanto tempo is an exceptional listen – one of which any artist would be proud. Refusing to contentiously distance herself from family, Ms. Gilberto filters her perspective on history through The Now Sound. The results are soft, sexy and invigorating. Tanto tempo toys with The Mod Electro-nova Vibes projected by Impossible World-era Combustible Edison, Air and Beck and arrives at its own unforced sensuality. This mellow afternoon-delight essence is tanto tempo’s great advantage. Unfolding with a lazy ardor, it’s the best make out record since Moon Safari.

Like mist settled after a thundershower – tanto tempo virtually glows with electricity. “Samba de Bencao,” performed in collaboration with Amon Tobin, refracts hazy beams of light through green leaves, effortlessly projecting a Picnic At Hanging Rock aura. Arling and Cameron’s presence on “Sem Contencao” allows for a dense melodicism amid loose, sumptuous grooves. Meanwhile, “Lonely” simmers on a lo- flame generated by The Thievery Corporation.

Prior to tanto tempo Bebel Gilberto was known primarily for her proximity to famous relatives and friends. Tanto tempo reveals this judgment as unfair. Ms. Gilberto’s newest is a cool, affecting spin. Proving that cynicism is the last refuge of the uptight, aging hipster, tanto tempo is a delightful display of revenge.

For SETYM International (9/2010)

1. Over the past 20 years, SETYM International has emerged as a leading professional training and consultancy company. Based in Canada, with offices all over the world, SETYM provides the highest quality instruction to ambitious public sector professionals, civil servants and project managers.

SETYM offers comprehensive curriculums in project and program management, governance, public procurement and sustainable development. The company also supplies international-scale project management training solutions, institutional support, technical assistance and other consulting services.

In collaboration with the University of Quebec in Montreal, the company created the International Development Project Management (IDPM) Certification. This respected qualification series represents a standard by which agencies and contractors can effectively assess the professional skills of potential partners.

The consultants employed by SETYM have received the best management and engineering training available throughout Canada, the United States and Europe.

SETYM has also established productive relationships with several major universities and research centres.

SETYM operates on 3 continents, training over 1000 professionals and project managers each year. They hail from dozens of countries across North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Impressively, SETYM provides the equivalent of 12,000 person-days of management training every year.

In addition to the headquarters in Montreal, SETYM operates a network of four regional training centers in KualaLumpur (Malaysia), Nairobi (Kenya), Casablanca (Morocco) and Douala (Cameroon).

English-language seminars are available, as are seminars in French and Spanish. Customized on-site training seminars can be created for specific regions.

Truly an international company, SETYM provides the best project management training available.

2. SETYM International is known for training project managers.

When a major governmental job gets underway, the project managers are the public professionals and civil servants supervising a variety of tasks: hiring, financial transactions, procurement of goods and services, documentation of data and other duties. They can monitor many different types of assignments - everything from road maintenance efforts to health and nutrition evaluations. Project managers need to be versatile and sharp.

A project manager is an important member of any team, and earns respect by carefully tracking progress and ensuring success.

As a leader in professional and civil service training, specializing in project management, SETYM allows some of the smartest and most hard-working people transition into these rewarding jobs, easily and comfortably