Sorry gents, i'm working my way back through the past nine months worth of blogaterial so forgive me for commenting on oh so passe topics.

I've been giving the idea of self indulgence in art some thought. I recently heard it said that the moment you stop doing things that YOU want to do as an artist, that is the moment that your fans will turn from you and loose interest. I think it is an interesting comment and i believe it in part but i think it is a very complex question. What make you popular as an artist? ...or as an individual for that matter!

I think we would all agree that good art does not necessarily sell and pop commodity often far outstrips the "popularity" or commercialization of that is truly good, meaningful, provocative or exploratory in art, or, in this case music.

I started to muse about it in relation to the conversation about the trio. I am of the belief that a musician can be as much of a wanker if he is playing with two others, by themselves, or with a stage full of musicians.

The greater part of me feels that art (music) should be self indulgent and needs to be so in order to say something meaningful. If not self-indulgence (from the Latin: to give free rein to, hence giving free rein to oneself), what we are always asking of them? ...to express themselves fully and without abandon? ...to open themselves up and expose their soles to us? ...if they have one?

The problem with self-indulgence is that it can open up a can of ugly worms ...all of a sudden someone feels the confidence and love of a crowd and goes off the deep end, deluded into thinking what they are saying musically is in fact, well, deep.

The problem is not with self-indulgence but rather with vapidity, vacuous wanking and supercilious noodling.

Which brings me around to the new Neil Young album LeNoise which i, unlike Stuart, thinks might have some merit. Incidentally, also speaking of noodling, i had the pleasure of seeing Daniel Lanois on Nuit Blanche and thoroughly enjoyed his soundscape and would have stuck around and let it wash over me for hours if i had not had frozen noixsettes and having also been dragged away by someone more critical and sane than myself ...the dancing girls where a bit much though Danny!

But onto LeNoise ...one could argue a very self-indulgent work? I think it's art, frankly. Neil is showing his age and is bitter and crotchety but i'm glad he's willing to share. Rarely have i heard anything so honest. I feel as if Neil has opened up his little black sketch book picked up his guitar and played. Many or most of the songs are not fully formed but are rather sketches, ideas that are gestures in charcoal on pages of cheap, coarse tooth art paper in book who's pages are flipped in frustration, anger and bewilderment.

Neil sings about his life and i feel as if i am reading his thoughts he has scribbled in his diary ...thoughts i was not supposed to hear ...thoughts that only someone who doesn't give a flying-fuck about what you think anymore (as if he ever did) is willing to bare his sole ...self-indulgent? yes. Good? huhm? work listening to? yes.

I have always been a HUGE fan of Lanois' and this album is no exception. I love what he has done with this "solo", live off the floor album. Frankly this cannot be considered a solo project; Lanois plays too big a part in it. Apparently it was all produced in one or two takes live off the floor with no overdub. That having been said, Lanois has manipulated the sound of Neil's guitar and voice to, on occasions, create walls of sound that are so remarkably rich. All the layers that form the bombastic tapestry of the sonic soundstage are all created in post from any one given take of any one given song. Lanois uses reverb, effect and memory of bygone sound in a way that echos Neil's rambling of a bygone life. My only criticism of Lanois's production is that he introduces "memories of sounds" that have not yet come into existence, a sort of pre-echo ...pre-echo ...pre-echo ...pre-echo ...or, or, ... is it foreshadowing? never thought of that until now! ...oh, he's so brilliant!