US news

The Museum of Modern Art has announced it will present an exhibition of Björk’s music and art in 2015. The collection, simply titled Björk, will explore 20 years of Björk’s work — from her seven full-length albums Debut (1993) to Biophilia (2011) — as well as examining her captivating visuals, collaborations with video directors, photographers, fashion designers and other artists. Her work as a member of Sugarcubes which predates her solo career will not be included. The exhibition culminates with a newly commissioned, immersive music and film experience conceived and realized with director Andrew Huang and 3-D design leader Autodesk. Björk will be on view exclusively from March 7 through June 7, 2015.

Obligatory press release gush from Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at Large at MoMA and Director of MoMA PS1: “Björk is an extraordinarily innovative artist whose contributions to contemporary music, video, film, fashion, and art have had a major impact on her generation worldwide. This highly experimental exhibition offers visitors a direct experience of her hugely collaborative body of work.”

In unrelated news, Björk and artist husband Matthew Barney are said to have bought a cozy $2 million home in the Ft. Greene section of Brooklyn. Welcome to the neighborhood, guys.

In the wake of U.S. radio personality Casey Kasem’s death on Sunday, experimental American outfit Negativland have made their controversial 1991 track “U2” available for remixing. Though Kasem was known for his friendly, easygoing personality on his America’s Top 40 radio and TV show, “U2” contained embarrassing samples of outtakes of the DJ chastising his staff and essentially breaking character.

That’s the letter U, and the numeral 2. The four-man band features Adam Clayton on bass, Larry Mullen on drums, Dave Evans, nicknamed ‘The Edge’, on…” …this is bullshit, nobody cares…these guys are from England, and who gives a shit?!

The song’s melody played on kazoos borrowed from U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” which caused the Irish band’s label, Island Records, and music publisher, Warner/Chappell, to file a copyright infringement against the band and SST Records, resulting in the the song being withdrawn in less than two weeks after its release. (U2 guitarist The Edge said years later in an ambush interview with members of Negativland that he was troubled about how Island conducted themselves, claiming U2 were kept in the dark.)

Eager remixers looking to put their own spin on the classic track can download the song’s masters here and shouldn’t worry about Bono and his boys knocking down their door brandishing a cease-and-desist letter. Hopefully.

Back in 2012 we told you about hip-hop legend/turntablist/Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa’s appointment as a visiting scholar at Cornell University. The university’s library boasts the largest national archive on hip-hop culture including thousands of recordings, flyers, photographs and other artifacts. The school is also home to over 40,000 records from Bambaataa’s record collection. Bam will be the subject of a tribute tour presented this fall by turntablists DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist. Dubbed the Renegades of Rhythm tour, the idea for the tribute excursion was hatched by Johan Kugelberg, who established the Cornell Hip Hop Archive in 2007. The tour is intended to portray Bambaataa’s game-changing productions such as “Planet Rock” and show how he was a “peacemaker and force for social change”

Obligatory press release gush from DJ Shadow: “This has never been done before, definitely not on this scale. They’re HIS records, with his blessings. This isn’t just ANY copy of ‘X’ breakbeat, it’s THE copy, THE copy that started everything. Not just any records, the MASTER OF RECORDS’ records. His collection includes not just Soul and Rap, but also Soca, Calypso, Dub, Salsa…it’s obvious that this music was important to him, and it’s reflected in his own music. For example, when the Soulsonic Force is singing an African chant, it actually comes from a Manu Dibango record. That’s when being a crate-digger comes in handy – you have to be able to pick up on the references and reiterate them.”
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