About This Website

We’ve no deadlines, nothing to sell, no column length requirements, so we’re inclined to follow music anywhere it may lead us. Which is why, for instance, in exploring Chilean folk music we also explore copper mining, French filmmakers, assassins and the inhumanity of corporations. When we discuss Earth, Wind & Fire, we speak of blood and enterprise. When examining our sentimental attachment to songs, we invite Lacan along.

Generally, though, the more one engages with music the more analogous music is to daily life. And that, in the words of Wolfgang Tillmans, is everything.

Pulled from the mind’s furthest reaches and formed through the reasoning of creative intellect, then sent through sound into the world, music is a beautiful, inspiring, awesome expression that commands consideration from its audience. As fans of music (the audience), we find ruminating on and discussing music a rewarding activity in itself. That activity is where everything on this site begins.

In a word, the leitmotif of Rotate Stock for Freshness is exploring ideas conveyed through sound.

An Explanation of the Categories

Most everything contained on this site can be loosely filed under Reasoning, Recognition, and/or Abstraction. These categories work as follows:

REASONING
Hopefully a less pretentious way of saying “here’s my theory on….” Reasoning is for getting into shit. Anyone can say “Nirvana really meant a lot to me,” but we lift the heavy dialectical box labeled, “what does it mean to have meant a lot?” Reasoning isn’t solving problems; it’s redefining them. A musical philosophy, if you will (but that sounds pretty pretentious as well).

RECOGNITION
Also known as, “I fucking love this!” Could also be known as, “I fucking hate this!” See also, “I am overwhelmingly indifferent to this!” A category where all extremes get some shine. While we enjoy the insight from dialectics, and clarifying what it means to mean, we’re also quite comfortable working within the confines of common criteria, disputing the indisputable, acknowledging the over-acknowledged, handing out some humble hyperbole….

ABSTRACTION
This is the catchall for record-related musings. Think of it as creative writing at music instead of about music. We’ve taken a clue from the scientific community in establishing an organized testing ground for new ideas, aiming in the direction of new discovery, while waiting for the grant money to run out. With that, the incubation period of this category may be longer than the others, but we have hope in it hatching some whoppers.

Abstraction includes, but is not limited to:

• Albums we boffed to
• Game: Exquisite Corpse Album Covers
• Folk music’s woolliest beards
• Record-Related Recipes: Food and Wine Pairings for the Ultimate Musical Experience (e.g., Bobby Charles served with: Beer-Brined Oysters; Shrimp & Grits; Garlic Sautéed Mustard Greens; Hautes Côtes de Nuits Blanc; Doobie Optional, depending on your reading of Bobby’s, “I got a job in a nursery/ but they just didn’t like what I growed“)
• Notable Quotables (“Wearing a derby and farting” b/w  “Got me pissin’ on my socks”)
• Lacan Survey: A Zagat-like examination of the unconscious motives at work in our enjoyment of music
• Haiku Record Reviews:

  try to purify
  music in five, seven, five
  the shit ain’t easy

An Explanation of the Tags

While most blogs use the tag function to identify subjects that appear regularly in the blog (“cats,” “my lazy boyfriend,” “punk rock hairdo”), we use the tags, instead, as a way of identifying specific disputations that transcend our general categories. Case in point, a recurring tag, “the cost of non-conformity” (a postulate of Glenn Gould’s that we’ve found to possess a significant remaining raison d’être), can see action in any category, i.e., Reasoning: “An Exposé on Whether the Cold Reviews of Jean-François Laporte’s 22-Minute Opus, ‘Mantra,’ Have Anything to do With the Fact that the Piece is Actually a Zamboni Field Recording;” Recognition: “Vic Chesnutt: a doily over his death boner ‘til the bitter end;” Abstraction: “Photos of Personally Dedicated Albums … Still Sealed.”

Other recurring tags:

In The Key of Correlation: where we draw connections between music and other creative disciplines (L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics = Insane Clown Posse’s “Miracles”), with or without supporting footnotes (imbecilic twaddle [Hubbard: “engrams of the reactive mind”] proclaimed as divine fact [ISP: “Magic everywhere in this bitch”]).

Lists: Because music nerds love lists…

Top 10s: Because the only thing music nerds love more than lists is to quantify said lists in some limited, unquantifiable order. The self-designated limit will, no doubt, be exceeded with a snarky rejoinder, “how can I possibly be expected to pick only ten dub singles released on the Trojan label in 1976?”

Looking for mp3s?

While we may offer sound files as examples to points we’re making in print, this is not a download blog. We are not interested in helping you fill up your iPod or find that “mega rare mp3″ you’re looking for or whatever.

Contact

Bambouché of the Vanguard Squad undertakes Rotate Stock for Freshness. Any concerns should be directed thusly.