For weeks, as I’ve already complained, I’ve been kinda mulling over 2009’s finest for some end-year list fun. But the mailbox is still offering some items of interest, and I’ve been buying records, too (an armful of second hand vinyl over the weekend — Joan Baez, Benny Goodman, early Bee Gees — Thanksgiving, indeed). So check back here soon for my favorite “2009 electronic releases list,” and for now, have a look at what’s been scoring the (late November and) December commutes. A couple of links for legal downloads below.

The sophomore effort from The Swimmers is thrilling — a lively, explosive pop (and sometimes new wave) outing from an always entertaining Philly act. We caught the four-piece in their fair city recently, and they pretty much blew the front door off Kung Fu Necktie out into the street. I’d been wielding loads of tissues in a battle with what I thought was The Plague, but I was still able to enjoy The Swimmers’ boisterous set (Disclosure: they play from time to time with my brother’s excellent band, Missing Palmer West. Makes for a great night). People Are Soft (Mad Dragon, 2009) boasts the fruits of a meticulous studio session or two, as its micro-sized, post-recording nuances are as frequent as its classic arrangements and sturdy, sugary melodies. It’s also got a fair share of shambolic surprises — punker “Drug Party” cycles through a mere handful of fuzzbox-tweaked guitar chords while weary choruses during “What This World Is Coming To” quarter-off fizzing organ riffs and fluttering harp mimicry that sounds like a Disney movie. The whole album has been a reliable commute listen — ample instrumentation and gorgeous vocal harmonies (often from primary songwriter Steve Yutzy-Burkey and wife Krista, who lends lead pipes occasionally from behind her keyboard) are plentiful at the very start of People Are Soft, and I recommend it. Listen to the whole thing at the album microsite.

Along with disarmingly pleasant chord progressions, the electronic/organic hybrids from producer Scott “Tycho” Hansen are paired with a crinkly, analog aesthetic — think Bibio or, the unavoidable point of reference in Tycho discussions, Boards of Canada. While Hansen’s kaleidoscopic work as a graphic designer is also representative of an appreciation and celebration of vintage appeal, his ambient recordings reflect a comely showdown between nostalgia and foresight, where gently unfolding, glassy tones and looped acoustic guitars roll overtop a usually slumping beat. On his new Coastal Brake twelve inch (Ghostly International, 2009), Hansen blends just as gingerly-paced an arrangement with a soft house tempo. Its warm and hissing textures give way to an occasional flurry of chimes or tinty keys, but they’re entering and exiting against the percussion, which also proves elusive toward the middle. There are several remixes from Hatchback, Manual, and Lusine, but I keep returning to the original piece — it’s lush and summery enough to stir up retirement plans over here. I understand there’s a full-length on the way. Let’s hope so. Sample/buy the mp3s/pre-order the Coastal Brake vinyl. Download the title track at XLR8R.

London beatmaker/sound librarian (literally, by trade!) Paul White dropped his newest bundle of beat-driven psychedelia for free, on the Web this week. Sounds From the Skylight (One-Handed Music, 2009) is spastic and all over the place — it’s a mini-album that’s as hard to pin down as his mix for FACT Magazine is (expired on the site, but let me Google that for you). Side B of Sounds became available late Monday night, as far as I could tell, as I had an email about it in my inbox yesterday morning. So I’ve loaded that into my iPod, but I’m still getting my head around it. Side A is not for those interested in long-form, easily digested experiments. White’s stitched-up workouts mirror those cobbled together by the eccentrics wandering around the Stones Throw HQ. These are heady beats that fire into a number of directions, not unlike those dreamt up by labelmate Bullion. When you’re pretty sure you’ve got one of White’s trips down pat, new strings or brass bubble up into earshot, brightening a head-nodder that’s already of the most serene brand (see “Highlife” on Side A), so when he’s not carving out a danceable track that’s as much Michna as it is RJD2 (Deadringer era, the era we’d wholeheartedly welcome back), it’s tranquil and sunny. Sounds From the Skylight is also chock full of typical weirdo Cut Chemist/Kid Koala crate-digger stuff, too, so that crusty novelty tunes and canned laughter are strewn between tracks. I don’t yet have White’s well-received The Strange Dreams Of…, and it’s been on my hit list for months. Gotta get moving on that one. Download Side A of Sounds From the Skylight here for free, and Side B is now available here, also for free.

And don’t forget to subscribe to the Whisper Council feed or with your email address.

A somewhat experimental video I made for my ambient project, Murmur.  This is dedicated to someone, a place and a time that I miss very, very much…

Saturday is here in all its glory… gentle breeze, the old dog sleeping at my feet and a handful of quiet hours stretching out before me. And here are a few of the songs that will carry me through. Saturday morning come downs never sounded so sweet…

Sweet Come Down – The Black Ryder

The Black Ryder blend fuzzed out noise, hypnotic rhythms and a sweet country twang to create a sound all of their own. Sweet Come Down showcases the vocal interplay of Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper – Nash’s voice floating and ethereal, Ryper’s cracked and earthy. It burns slowly and then it is gone… crawling into a corner of your consciousness and asking to be played again. Don’t expect any hooks from this band… just settle in for the ride.

Soon It Will Be Fire – Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is one of those incredibly prolific talents, recording more than 50 albums as collaborator or solo artist. And there is no sign of slowing down, his latest release Under Stellar Stream released this week through Jagjaguwar. Youngs hyopnotic folk sits deep in your belly, his at times fragile voice, and deeply meditative playing draw you deeper into the silences so carefully left. This is music to slow time and drift toward vanishing point. Soon It Will Be Fire is from his 1998 release Sapphie.

Minor Careers – Spokane

Spokane create music that reflect the moments in between events. Each song exquisitely crafted, achingly subtle yet strangely brimming with emotion. Rick Alverson’s murmuring voice hovers in the at times barely there instrumentation and loving stretches of ambience. Nothing is rushed. Like a sparsely furnished room, Spokane provide the necessary space for you to enter into their soundscapes. A fine place to inhabit in those increasingly rare, quiet hours.

01. September Dawn (4:51) 02. Cassini – Live (14:04) 03. Walking with Ghosts – Live (11:59)
04. Beyond Paradise – Live (7:42) 05. Just an Illusion – Live (9:48) 06. Sines of Life (6:44)
07. State of Bliss – Live (11:54) 08. 3 a.m. – Live (3:04) 09. All Good Things………. (8:27)
(Total album time 78.40)

Release date: 7th December 2009

David Wright remains a popular figure in the electronic music scene and there has been increased interest in his music since New World Music took on the distribution of his extensive catalogue in 2009. “Sines of Life (Vol. 1) is David’s 20th solo CD release in a career that spans more than 20 years and the album has been something of a labour of love, as explained in the informative 16 page booklet that also includes lots of photos and details of additional music to be found on the download only “Volume 2″ album.

“Sines of Life – Volume 1″ contains new studio material alongside imaginative live re-workings of classic David Wright compositions from concerts during 2007 and 2009 featuring guest musicians, and it’s no understatement to say that it’s a majestic tour de force of instrumental music and new age electronica.

From the evocative opening “September Dawn” to the truly awesome closing epic “All Good things……….”, the music on offer here covers rhythmic to emotive, atmospheric to melodic and is mature instrumental electronic music with class and style that is nothing short of sensational.

The perennial favorite “Walking with Ghosts” is replayed as a brand new arrangement that is simply sublime and features another UK synth luminary Ian Boddy on keyboards and German guitar legend Klaus Hoffmann Hook, who also plays the Memotron.

Another beautiful reworking is “Beyond Paradise”, this time featuring Hoffmann-Hoock on electric sitar, while “Just an Illusion” and “State of Bliss” are again completely new imaginings of the original album tracks that here feature stunning cosmic guitar work from Hoffmann-Hoock.

The remaining songs include the atmospheric piano based title piece, a previously unreleased live track featuring Robert Fox & Nigel Turner-Heffer titled “3 a.m.” and a new interpretation of David’s popular epic “Cassini” recorded at his 2007 USA concert.

The production is superb and with a running time of over 78 minutes this fitting anniversary album provides both quality and quantity. If you’re already familiar with the work of David Wright, then this album really is a “must have” because the reworked live tracks are significantly different from the originals to differentiate this set from a traditional “Greatest Hits” compilation. If you’re not and you’re into good quality, melodic and emotive electronic music, then “Sines of Life” has more than enough quality to warrant your investigation and ensure your interest.

An album that’s destined to run and run and a terrific addition to an already impressive catalogue.

Deva: La Luna (2009)

Oftentimes, I find the best haiku possess something that Brian Eno aspires to in his ambient music: “I want to make things that put me in the position of innocence, that recreate the feeling of innocence in you.”  Both Eno and John Cage often deliberately de-contextualise (or re-contextualise) sound in order to highlight the newness and strangeness of sounds.  Haiku does this too, in its own way.

We too easily fall into human routines where the most beautiful and magical moments in this mysterious universe are ignored or taken for granted.  And it may not always be the obvious awe-inspiring sunset filling the sky, but the tiny, ordinary things close to us that we simply fail to notice: a dandelion, a mosquito, a dewdrop.  Haiku is about noticing the ordinary world of nature around you.  The reader, by extension, realises him or herself also as part of nature too:

a peasant child

stops hulling rice

gazes at the moon

In Bashō’s lovely poem, the normal routine of work is interrupted.  The child doesn’t even need to know exactly what it is that is happening in this moment.  It is simply a quiet moment of communion with the universe.   In this moment, the world and all the things in it cease to be a means to an end (see also this poem by Buson).  The world is seen in its is-ness.

Haiku simply puts a spotlight on scenes of ordinariness and reawaken the innocence of seeing the world anew.  Abstraction isn’t capable of doing this, and in fact leads one even further from the immediacy of the moment.  In haiku, there is no need for transcendence of the world itself—only our limited and limiting conceptual view of the world.  The world is not “fallen” as in the idea of “original sin” but rather it is seen in its pure state of what I like to call original innocence, or what the Dao De Jing calls “the uncarved block”:

The ten thousand things stir about;
I only watch for their going back.

Things grow and grow,
But each goes back to its root.
Going back to the root is stillness.
This means returning to what is.
Returning to what is
Means going back to the ordinary.

If we can talk about “meaning” at all, it ultimately has its source in what is unsayable.  And even though haiku use words, those words are used in such a way that the words are passed beyond, placing the reader squarely in the “haiku moment.”  Only the moment remains.  This is why the devices we normally associate with poetry are usually avoided within haiku, such as metaphor, simile, personification—this is just more abstraction.  In a certain sense, haiku is “artless.”

What I have noticed over the time I have spent studying haiku is that I tend to notice those “haiku moments” around me more easily.  This hardly means I am satisfied with every haiku I write, and sometimes I am content to not write a haiku at all, but instead I simply enjoy the moment (seeing every moment as nothing but an opportunity to write a haiku would be missing the point I think!).

More and more, I am understanding haiku not merely as a poetic form.  Haiku are always happening around us, wherever one looks.  I am finding that reading haiku helps me to “exercise” that more contemplative side of myself.  And writing haiku is something like a thanksgiving, giving back to the universe what I was given.  At least, this is what it seems to mean to me.

So here is a question to ask yourself: When was the last time you gazed at the moon?

~ ~ ~

Matsuo Bashō, Jane Reichhold (translator), Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2008, pg. 97.

Lao Tzu, Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo (translators), Tao Te Ching, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993, chapter 16.

]]> http://admusic.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/geigertek-the-timeless-mind-due-soon/ Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:11:30 +0000 admusic http://admusic.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/geigertek-the-timeless-mind-due-soon/

FINALLY…………

…………the second Geigertek album, “The Timeless Mind”, is finished and the masters are now with AD Music, ready for release sometime in early 2010. I’m very pleased with it and whilst I don’t want to sounded conceited, it’s sounding good with some strong moments and one track that really does stand out (“Spirit-Walking”) is going to be included on a forth-coming AD electronic music compilation CD. I find it interesting that the sound and the feel of “The Timeless Mind” is a long way off what I originally planned and a couple of tracks have altered radically since they were first recorded. It’s been a labour of love over an 18 month period, not least with two tracks needing to have their production stripped right back and re-done from the ground up which took a couple of months to sort out!!! Here’s a breakdown of the album:

01. The Stirring Of Echoes
02. Passing
03. What Dreams May Come
04. Until The End Of Time
05. In Another Light
06. The Embrace Of Eternity
07. The Timeless Mind
08. Spirit-Walking
09. The Gift Of Goodbye

As with “The Garden”, this instrumental music album twists and turns it’s moods and atmosphere’s, moving from out and out ambient to almost Berlinesque sequencing all within the same track in one instance. The opening track has an air of uncertainty about it, something waiting to happen played out over a wash of shifting filtered noise and small echoing bells. I’ve also indulged in another classically influenced piece (“Passing”), using the sounds of a quartet of piano, flute, cello and viola, bringing in a full orchestra before degrading the sound of a massive held chord through an array of processors (bitcrusher, harmonic filter, delay, granulator and lashings of deep and long reverb). The mood lightens with “What Dreams May Come” with it’s gentle sequenced harp and synthetic rhythms before a percussion section joins the build-up to the synth lead (courtesy of the freebie VST called Minimogue). Ambience returns with “Until The End Of Time”, an emotional piece that brings great washes of rumbling synth pads and swirling pseudo-percussion, before a delicately simple piano passage. “In Another Light” takes another step in a different direction as an abrupt start brings the listener back to reality with it’s piano intro leading into swirling synth pads and then settling down with an almost hypnotic rhythm playing against a wash of choirs, tinking piano, muted synth sections and a gritty overdriven synth lead – one listener claimed the pice gave them goose-bumps!!! “The Embrace Of Eternity” is a mixture of out and out ambience and pseudo-Berlinesque sequencing with a bunch of Radiophonic Workshop type sounds thrown in for good measure, finishing with an insanely cool flanged/filtered layered pad from the Alchemy synth. The title track has an up-tempo feel and is a kind of hybrid sound of trance and calypso with some lovely sounding synth leads from the Oddity (an ARP Odyssey emulation) and electronic effects – very Radiophonic Workshop in places!!! And the same can be said of the strongest and most commercial track, “Spirit-Walking” – bouncing sequences, persistant Giorgio Moroder style basslines and flanged hi-hats, guitar and a complete steal of the Billy Currie Odyssey synth lead sound – it works!!! The closing track is one that I’m pleased with. “The Gift Of Goodbye” closes the album in what I feel is a rather cool way – gorgeous lush choral sounds (my first foray into sampling using my own voice multi-sampled and pitch corrected using the Roland V-Vocal that came with Sonar 7 Producer), dramatic orchestral strings and a massive church organ – all before a quirky and unexpected finish – David Wright laughed like a drain when he heard it and couldn’t believe what I had done – I just hope people will get it

So now it’s done, what’s next? Sadly, because of time and work constrictions, I’ve had to shelve the Geigertek-Elektro project for now – gutted, as the singer Manda has a great voice and we could have put on a great set, but alas circumstances have dictated otherwise. That said, I’ve already started baseline work on the next Geigertek album, ideas are abounding and again a different approach will be taken as I want to explore other areas of electronic music, not least using more software emulations of classic vintage synths and devling further into sampling and sound processing. Work on a new Code Indigo album starts in the New Year with David Wright, Dave Massey and Nigel Turner-Heffer, something I’m very excited about, as well as preparing for more live Geigertek (awaiting confirmation of 2 or 3 gigs already) including the possiblity of doing web-streamed gigs from my front room – lol!!! I also want to look into doing an evening of music in Norwich with other local musos, I’ve bounced the idea off of one performer and he was very receptive to the idea – keep a watch on this space for that one. After the success of the Hampshire Jam, David Wright is keen to get Callisto playing more live sets next year and of course Code Indigo will be out playing live as well.

So all in all, 2010 looks set to be a busy year on the music front, and it’s nice to have things which will see the day of light rather than sit on back-burners. Involvement with Code Indigo and Callisto have really helped to move things forward and I’ve been quite lucky. It seems unreal that 2 years ago I was about to approach AD Music with “The Garden”, back then I would never have dreamt of playing alongside David Wright, being a member of Code Indigo, performing at events with Ian Boddy, Ron Boots, Brendan Pollard and Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock as well as sharing a dressing room with Radio Massacre International!!! And all these things are greatly appreciated as are the times before all this when the first pieces of music went up onto MySpace and I came into contact with a new group of like-minded people.

It’s all good

I don’t own an iPhone, but if I did, I would download this app.

http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/09/09/21/allows.visual.improvisation/

“Brian Eno — best known for work as a producer and ambient musician — has released a second iPhone application, developed with the help of designer and musician Peter Chilvers. Called Trope, the app lets users create their own ambient music by drawing patterns with their fingers. The shape of each pattern creates a different tone.

Unlike the first Eno app, Bloom, Trope is described as producing darker music that is ‘more introspective, more atmospheric.’ Particular moods can be selected from an accompanying palette. The software costs $4, and requires a device with iPhone 2.2 firmware or better. For the sake of fidelity it is recommended that people use either headphones or external speakers, instead of earbuds or built-in speakers.”

Perhaps the greatest thing about Jewish music is that it’s so well-traveled. In a sense, it could be said that it embodies the best of all worlds. The new collaboration between the “legendary trumpeter of the klezmer underground,” as one recent concert flyer described Frank London, and former Klezmatics accordionist/frontman Lorin Sklamberg certainly could be categorized as such. With contributions from ex-Psychedelic Fur Knox Chandler on guitar and effects, Ara Dinkjian adding gorgeously clanging, plinking and plunking textures on Middle Eastern lutes including the oud, saz and cumbus, and world music percussionist Deep Singh on tabla and dhol, the cd – recently out on Tzadik – alternates between boisterous and haunting reinterpretations of traditional Jewish liturgical music. Is this klezmer? Folk music? Jazz? Rock? Well, it’s all of the above: the melodies are as rustic as would be expected, but the playing, the arrangements and the production all draw deeply on what’s happened in the hundreds or maybe even thousand years since these tunes first saw the light of day. This is a beautiful and plaintive album and it also really rocks from time to time.

A couple of the tracks here turn worship into slinky, undulating Levantine dances, bouncing along on the beat of the tabla. Another couple have an upbeat dance feel and a Celtic tinge to the melodies. Still a couple more could be called shtetl ska, even if they go back long before ska was invented. The album’s twelfth track, a lament about being overrun by invaders, showcases London’s facility for channeling diverse moods both with and without a mute. After that, Sklamberg gets to breathlessly rattle off a Hasidic acrostic for a lyric while the band scrambles to keep up - and then Chandler throws in a big blazing arena rock solo where London then picks up the melody again, seamlessly  yet exhilaratingly as middle-period ELO would do. The ambient final cut nicks the intro from Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, an expansive showcase for the whole band and especially Sklamberg’s rapt, incantatory vocals.

London’s playing is characteristically soulful, whether swaying through a sly muted passage or with half-balmy, half-ecstatic clarity. It’s also particularly pleasant to see how well Sklamberg’s voice has aged: it’s lower than it was in his Klezmatics days, the petulance of that era replaced with an unaffected, very welcome gravitas. This album ought to appeal to a vastly wider audience than your typical collection of traditional Jewish ngunim, while providing a decisive answer to the age-old question, does Rabbi Saul of Mozditz really rock? Answer: an emphatic ja.

My first review for Blurt, a lively and diverse online (and sometimes print) magazine from the creators of Harp, ran earlier this week. I wrote about a new record from Syntaks on Ghostly International. You can download their Mistral Moon EP for free here. The surplus of featherweight guitar tones and gentle beats on Syntaks’ debut LP for Ghostly should garner Slowdive references by the truckload. Shoegazer talk fits this Danish duo well, and Ylajali’s long-lingering synths trail on for miles, never disturbing a soul. Read the rest of my Syntaks review at Blurt.

With the help of the tireless Anthony, a support staff member with WordPress, I’ve figured out how to add a special “Audio” page to my blog.

You’ll find it by looking to the right hand side, under the “Stories” widget.  Just click on “Audio” and you’ll discover a large selection of my stories, poems, commentaries, even an excerpt from my novel So Dark the Night. All available for free listening and downloading onto whatever device (iPod or cell phone) you currently favour.  Many of these pieces are accompanied by music, which provides dramatic highlights, a soundtrack that is either pleasing or provocative (or both).

The most recent offering is a six-minute chat about “indie” writing I recorded because I’ve received a host of questions, both here and in various forums where I hang out.  People want to know what it means to be an independent writer…and I want to do what I can to dispel this notion that one goes the indie/self-publishing route because your work can’t cut it with traditional publishers.  Hey, kids, I chose to go my own way because after 20+ years of dealing with inept, sociopathic, moronic editors, I’d had enough.  New technologies like blogs, podcasts and print-on-demand put more control into authors’ hands, a situation I welcome with open arms.

For the record, here’s what I said–

Indie Writer

–and after giving it a listen, I hope you’ll have a clearer understanding of what I’m trying to accomplish with this blog.  And please check out the rest of my audio releases, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the production values and the power and intensity of the work.

Theatre of and for the mind…

Here you will find a free download of some new S.E.T.I. material. I have been working on a lot of new material and hope to release something in the first quarter of 2010.

The Misconception: The low-key songs you hear in department stores are just cheap background music.

The Truth: Muzak is designed to manipulate the shopping habits of consumers.

You’ve heard it, maybe in an elevator, maybe in a grocery store, and maybe you’ve noticed it.

A crappy version of a crappy song is being piped in from somewhere unseen. It seems innocuous, but it isn’t.

You dismiss it as poor taste on the part of the owner, or perhaps it’s just another lowest common denominator attempt to please the most people.

No, it’s Musak, and it’s designed to change the way you act.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote a great book about coersion in the marketplace, and in it he says:

“Department-store customers exposed to Muzak shop 18% longer and make 17% more purchases. Grocery shoppers respond best to Muzak that has a slower tempo, making a whopping 38% more purchases when it is employed. Fast-food restaurants use Musak that has a higher number of beats per minute to increase the rate at which a person chews.”

Muzak has been around for over 70 years. It started out as a sort of private radio service which bypassed the airwaves and delivered music straight to businesses through wires, but that venture didn’t work out.

In the 193os, they switched to records, and sold their sounds to CEOs promising the tunes would increase worker productivity.

They has research to back this claim.

For the next 20 years, the company hired psychologists to craft the perfect music experience designed to shape the minds of diligent workers – bland, emotionless, almost subliminal.

The Musak plan was to have a specific set of songs for each part of the day. The mood would shift to match the shifts in the people – upbeat when they need to be working, down tempo when they need to be digesting.

Eventually, the White House and NASA began using it, and the explosion of hospital and skyscraper-based business adopters led to the modern idiom: elevator music.

Now, with 70 years of psychological study behind them, a customer can pick an astonishingly specific set of behaviors which Musak promises to influence.

Want people to find their shoes uncomfortable? Want people to think about children or pets? Want people to buy coffee and have a seat with a magazine? Musak says they can get you to do that.

Those nice reading areas aren’t for your comfort. They are based on intense research into what it takes to get you to buy a book.

No more records, tapes or CDs, the company now delivers its over 2.6 million songs through subscription-based satellite providers like XM and Sirius.

The unexpected antidote to all of this was the workplace-acceptable personal music device and headphones plugged into desktop computers. These have nearly destroyed the company. In 2009, they filed for bankruptcy.

You may have been saved from Musak’s brainwashing, but it wasn’t because you were smart, it was because Steve Jobs was.

Links:

Musak 2008 Case Study

Musak’s Influence on Shoppers

The Influence of Ambient Sound

Subliminal Ambient Messages for Shoppers

Their finest album. Over the past almost thirty years, Malian Tuareg desert rockers Tinariwen have pushed the envelope, taking their hypnotic, trance-inducing duskcore sounds around the world. This is their most diverse, their catchiest and most memorable cd yet, a triumph of determined, contemplative guitar, methodically swaying rhythms and vividly aphoristic lyricism (sung in Tamashek, their native tongue). All of the songs here share Tinariwen’s trademark resolute, sometimes mantra-like insistence, many of them inflected with an Ali Farka Toure-style bare-bones desert blues vibe. Yet this is also their most ambitious effort: it’s their most accessible, most straight-up rock-oriented album so far. The opening track, like most of the others written by the band’s often inscrutable leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, works a ridiculously catchy riff that would be perfectly at home on a Clash album. Except that it’s about half the speed the Clash would have played it at, Alhabib ruefully examining the state of a revolution whose leaders have run dry: they can’t keep the trees growing.

Another tune, a battle anthem, kicks off with echoes of Hendrix: but it’s the pensive, thoughtful Little Wing Hendrix, not the madman of Machine Gun. A traveling song slinks along with contrasting layers of male and female voices (there are ten fulltime members in the band, but as this album was recorded on the band’s home turf in Mali, they had plenty of friends available to join the fun). A rousing call for Tuareg unity gives bassist Eyadou Ag Leche, the band’s most overtly aggressive player, the chance to go up the scale and add some striking crescendos within the song’s characteristically static, resolute structure. There’s also a strikingly warm, almost pop song with a 60s soul feel, a haunting, pulsing number whose eerie descending progression evokes early Pink Floyd or even Bauhaus, and the fiery Ere Tasfata Adouna (He Who Values Life) that wraps up the songs, guitars finally cutting loose and ringing out in a hailstorm of overtones, jangle and clang. The album concludes with a somewhat tongue-in-cheek drone instrumental a la the early Grateful Dead, Alhabib playfully toying with his amp for as many subtle feedback effects as he can find. As psychedelic music goes, this is unsurpassed. It ought to win an even wider audience for the self-described “world’s most popular African band,” and for those who’ve already discovered them, it’s a must-own.

An especially valuable plus here is a complete lyric sheet with English translations. As another bonus, the cd includes a thirty-minute DVD film by Jessy Nottola, an understatedly shot mis-en-scene featuring clips of the band in their milieu along with songs from several of their recent albums. Which makes this one a considerable bargain.

Well. Funciona mais ou menos assim: há vento, há som. Há gravação e internet, há link.

Um grupo de hippies, nos anos 70, construiu e usufruiu. Humm.. vê lá se sopras com força : )

http://rapidshare.com/files/152567438/Windharp.rar.html

hasta

On the horizon?

I’m thinking about this seriously.  …  I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a very long time.  This was my original idea when I started a radio station. … I’m not sure they had “podcasts” then – but I know I had the idea for … well, essentially what a podcast is.  A prerecorded show that people could listen to as they fancy.

I’ve made a playlist of incredible 80’s synth-pop music (mostly).  Artists I’ve been listening to a lot in that respect are La Roux, Ladyhawke, Royksopp (Junior), Erlend Oye…  admittedly, some of it is not so strictly synth, but more pop.  I highly recommend checking the mentioned artists.  I may post the full list of tracks, etc. if I have time (which I won’t).

Tosa Mitsuoki: Autumn Maples with Poem Slips (c. 1675)

Below is a brief video I put together using seven Japanese haiku by Sōseki, Bashō, Shiki, Buson and Issa.

The artwork in the video is by Tosa Mitsuoki (1617-1691), “Autumn Maples with Poem Slips” (c. 1675). You can view the full screen at the Art Institute of Chicago’s website.

The music is by Harold Budd and Brian Eno, “Still Return” from the album The Pearl.

The sources for the haiku translations:

Matsuo Bashō, Jane Reichhold (translator), Bashō: The Complete Haiku, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2008.

Robert Hass (editor), The Essential Haiku: Versions of Bashō, Buson and Issa, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1994.

Lucien Stryk (translator), Cage of Fireflies: Modern Japanese Haiku, Athens: Swallow Press, 1993.

Be sure to click the full screen icon to get the full effect.

This is an ambient instrumental that takes you on a journey. As a friend of mine told me today “It took me on a journey 12 planets away through a worm hole.” Thank you Tony for listening and experiencing the music the way it was meant to be heard. Hear it here on the “Shatterproof” project.

New update and news in RE my release “Global EP” by The Lights Galaxia.  I am showing you the album front and back (before anyone else!) and will attach a song from it that can only be found here until midnight on Monday/Tuesday.  I will also include the little Facebook ad I did for the release party – which isn’t much.  I’ll include a link below to the Facebook page for the release party and for the actual TLG fan page.  Please click on the images to see the bigger versions.  Thanks!

The Lights Galaxia Facebook Release Party!

The Lights Galaxia Facebook Page!

The Last Lights in the City by Lights Galaxia

]]> http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/a-typical-beastly-monday/ Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:57:49 +0000 delarue http://lucidculture.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/a-typical-beastly-monday/

So good to be back at Small Beast after a few weeks’ absence. Nothing has changed – New York’s most unpredictably fun weekly musical event was as edgy as always. This time around, Pete Galub opened the night while Botanica keyboardist and Small Beast impresario Paul Wallfisch furiously wrote out charts for his show later in the evening with Sally Norvell. Most solo shows are boring to the extreme, but Galub had brought along a gorgeous hollowbody electric guitar and gave a clinic in powerpop songwriting – and when the time came, guitar solos, playing along methodically as if he had his usual band behind him. Galub gets props for his playing, and deservedly so, but his songs are every bit as clever as his work as a lead guitarist for a cavalcade of A-list writers: Amy Allison, Serena Jost and others. He opened with a sardonic, Big Star inflected number possibly titled Exclusive Guest, following that with a gorgeously poignant, minor-key, somewhat Neil Finn-esque tune, Crying Time. A cover of the late former LA Trash frontman Alan Andrews‘ big 6/8 ballad Undiscovered Life maintained the poignant tone while adding a tongue-in-cheek vibe, segueing into a nasty, noisy riff-rocker that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Kevin Salem catalog – complete with an offhandedly savage solo. And then a real surprise, a pensive and heartfelt version of Any Major Dude by Steely Dan. When Galub opened his set, he’d hinted that he might take a detour into the Dan catalog, and this was a typically counterintuitive choice. Most solo shows are a clinic in how to bore an audience: Galub reaffirmed that if you have the chops, the material and a sense of humor, you don’t necessarily need a band.

Guitarist Thomas Simon and his drummer cohort were next on the bill, with a long set of swirling, atmospheric, effects-laden numbers that took the shape of a suite as they segued into one another. “A Spacemen 3 kind of thing,” one of the cognoscenti in the crowd murmured – this set had remarkably more aggression than Simon’s previous appearance at the Beast in July (very favorably reviewed here).

For one reason or another the women who play Small Beast turn out to be the night’s biggest stars, and an Austin punk legend, former Gator Family and Norvells frontwoman Sally Norvell maintained the tradition, backed by Wallfisch and erstwhile Big Lazy bassist Paul Dugan on a few numbers. Norvell is best known as a menacing noir cabaret femme fatale, but this set was a showcase in stylistic diversity, masterful subtlety matched by wrenching, raw intensity. Norvell can belt with anyone, but it’s how she holds back, how she works whatever emotion the lyrics call for that makes her such a captivating presence – and one sorely missed, at least around these parts. A few years back, right around the time that her duo with Kid Congo Powers, Congo Norvell was pretty much finished, she put out an amazing, sparsely beautiful album, Choking Victim, backed just by Wallfisch and occasional minimalist percussion or guitar. They opened with one of the songs from that one, One Gentle Thing, replete with longing and regret, Wallfisch obviously in his element and relishing the moment from its first few stately chords. A creepy, swaying Congo Norvell song pulsed along with a steady, ominous eight-note pulse from the bass. And then noir cabaret personality Little Annie joined them for an understatedly anguished version of her big audience hit Because You’re Gone – the contrast of Annie’s bitter contralto and Norvell’s breathy soprano, and the counterpoint between the two, was absolutely transcendent and the two women made it seem effortless. And unaffectly intense – it brought Norvell to tears. The rest of the set could have been anticlimactic but it wasn’t – a brief, menacing Paul Bowles song (Wallfisch worked with him for a time), a sad minor ballad in 6/8, a gorgeously dark lament, and then Norvell finally cut loose with a soaring version of the old spiritual Trouble in the World, imbuing it with a nihilistic fury. “You can’t have an apocalypse without Jesus,” she grinned gleefully.

Keyboardist and Americana soul stylist Matt Kanelos and then another keyb guy, frequent Thalia Zedek collaborator M.G. Lederman were scheduled to follow, but there were places to go and things to do. Next week’s Beast is a beauty, with Julia Kent, Carol Lipnik and Rebecca Cherry in addition to Wallfisch doing his usual set solo at the piano – if you’re in New York this coming Monday you’d be crazy to miss it.

That’s how I refer to them.

My tunes have no shape, they flow and twist enigmatically, illogically.  Mood music for troubled minds.  Score for a science fiction film never made.   Shimmering in the air around you, disappearing without leaving behind so much as a sprinkle of fairy dust.

There’s a strange dichotomy at work here:  I’m using this advanced, amazing computer to simulate and record almost any instrument known to humankind…and flubbing and screwing up and patching and improvising…and ending up with some in-teresting stuff.

I’ve got over an hour of music stored in an iTunes folder.  Every note of it selected, struck, plucked, bowed, strummed or sampled by yours truly.  Using virtual instruments, of course, since I’d be virtually useless if you gave me a real one.  Sue me, I’m an eejit savant.

So far this one is our favorite.  Hand’s down.  A bit of spoken word but just about all instrumental.

I call it “The Departed” and dedicate it to absent friends.

And awayyyyy we go…

The Departed_ XIII (V.2)