motel de moka

“Texture No.2a. Feminine. Folks”

Innocence Mission - Today (Small Planes, 01)
Cat Power - (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (The Covers Record, 00)
Susanne Vega - My Favorite Plums (Nine objects of Desire, 96)
Vashti Bunyan - Brother (Lookaftering, 05)
Joni Mitchell - For The Roses (L.A. Burnout Compilation, 72)
Ani DiFranco - Back Back Back (To The Teeth, 99)

note: This is a study tracks, prepping a bigger ambient list. “Languid and slow“. And yes it is slow and “will make your heart complete” like favorite plum. The idea is to look for delicate voice structure and barebone accompanying instrumentals to see if I can find odd twist and texture for the big list. So here are my favorite songs by women, all of their albums are highly recommended btw.

image: IrenaS

photo: moderne.ecrandamour.org

Side M:

01 the gasman - imodium
02 pied de poule - les guepes
03 scott smallwood - electreat
04 feu thérèse - mademoiselle gentleman
05 kemialliset ystävät - echoing each other
06 tusia beridze - wound
07 hangedup - junk the clatter
08 zhou xuan (周璇) - flowers under a full moon (月圆花好)
09 afreet - natrium

Side W:

Pied de Poule: a French trio who are always included in my recommendations. I may say not many people have even heard of them at all, I also came across them quite by accident when a friend of mine got their CD quite by accident aussi. So far I’ve heard only two albums from them, one is “confection et articles diuers”(1998), another one “cafe noir”. (Somebody told me they have another one called music for children something ) The song I put here is from Cafe Noir, and is really something. Also the whole album might be something that’d scare the kids, while Confection et Articles Diuers is “milder”. Anyway, gonna upload another song by Pied de Poule some time later, well, a lovely one that I’m sure all of you will love.

Scott Smallwood, Feu Thérèse, Hangedup: only mentioning their labels then you know they good: Deep Listening, Constellation. And Scott Smallwood’s Electrotherapy is definitely one of my favorites from what I heard last year.

Tusia Beridze: credits to “4 Women No Cry, Vol.1″ published by Monika Enterprise in 2005

Zhou Xuan: “Zhou Xuan (周璇, Wades-Giles: Chow Hsuan) (1 August 1918 - 22 September 1957, Shanghai) was a popular Chinese singer and film actress. Zhou started acting 1935, but she achieved stardom in 1937 in Street Angel, when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl. She became known as “The Golden Voice” and…” blablabla… just a song for your amusement.

Afreet: from Articial Music Machine, which involves KiloWatts, the Aleph, etc.

Cover art: Birchville Cat Motel “Our Love Will Destroy the World” (Pseudo Arcana, 2006)

Creation and destruction are inseparable. Sometimes you have to break everything down to start something new. This play list is meant as a follow up on last week’s Late Night Bathtub List. However this week will be entirely different. Better yet. Entirely the opposite, but both share the same purpose. Both are meant to bring you at rest by taking away cluttered tension, thoughts and stress.

Last week’s play list aims to do this through soft and calming sounds. But sometimes it’s of no use trying to sooth your stress and restlessness. Sometimes there’s no way you can escape from it and trying to calm it will only make it worse. The adrenaline is racing through your veins and the last thing you need is soft tunes to irritate your restless feelings. You need to get it out of your system. To get rid of the stress you need to face it, look it straight in the eyes. This week’s play list will punch you in the face so hard, it will crumble every last part of stress inside your body. It will calibrate your brain, burn down everything bothering you and put everything in a new perspective. The energy sparks from these songs, like the crackling you get when using one of those sadistic electrical mosquito catchers.

How absurd it may sound at first, “Our Love Will Destroy the World” makes sense in some ways. This is maybe best portrayed by The Goslings, a husband and wife duo from Florida. Listen to their track and you’ll immediately understand how their love for each other is capable of destroying everything just through their music. It’s the heaviest and most distorted and gut wrenching chunk of noise you can imagine. But those who listen carefully will find something beautiful underneath even the most crunching guitar noise.

1. Birchville Cat Motel - Our Love Will Destroy the World
   Our Love Will Destroy the World (Pseudo Arcana, 2006)
2. Acid Mothers Temple - Woman From a Hell
   Starless and Bible Black Sabbath (Alien8, 2006)
3. Bardo Pond - Tantric Porno
   Amanita (Matador, 1996)
4. Scorch Trio - Kjøle Høle
   Luggumt (Rune Grammofon, 2004)
5. Sunroof! - Cortez tha Killa
   Crippled Rosebud Binding (Music Fellowship, 2006)
6. Boris - Ibitsu
   Akuma No Uta (Diwphalanx, 2003)
7. Raccoo-oo-oon - The Great Horn of the Wilderness
   Is Night People (Release the Bats, 2006)
8. The Goslings - Sanibel
   Grandeur of Hair (Archive, 2006)
9. Residual Echoes - A STARDT 3 & 3 1/2
   Residual Echoes (Holy Mountain, 2005)

When all is said and done, it’s a rhetorical question.

The Beach Boys - Let’s Go Away For Awhile

The Blue Nile - Downtown Lights

Sinead O’Connor - Curly Locks

Big Star - Watch The Sunrise

Mercury Rev - First-Time Mother’s Joy (Flying)

Primal Scream  - Damaged

Vangelis - Wait For Me

Mercury Rev - Moving On

Download

Here’s a mix by Grey Lagoons. Two tracks from the The Secret Migration by Mercury Rev made it onto the list, totally makes sense to me, as it was definately a highlight of 2005. Apparently they were going to go with Shine Like The Stars, originally, for the Primal Scream track, although the unintentional use of Damaged ended up highlighting the bittersweet nature of the collection, in my opinion. The  Sinead O’Conner track is from her 2005 album Throw Down Your Arms, which was produced by Sly and Robbie and is mindblowing in case you didn’t know that already. The Lagoons have been pretty busy over the last few days and two more of their mixes will be posted on www.anothernightonearth.blogspot.com/ . So check them out if you like this mix, or even if you don’t, ‘cos they are really different to this one. Good luck to Moka on her voyage to France, I’m sure The Lagoons would totally support me in dedicating this mix to you. 

small small small small small tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny
lovely lovely lovely lovely sweet sweet sweet
and those little ones. either flow or be taken away…

01 fossil - upper stream
02 state river widening - crown
03 modern mandolin quartet - chinese dance
04 the danubius (aka the danubians) - maros vize folyik csendesen
05 the high llamas - boing backwards
06 felt - ferdinand magellan
07 portrait of david - constant flow
08 the boats - nicola h
09 the trash can sinatras - the perfect reminder
10 eyeless in gaza - my last, lost melody

photo/art: Dale Chihuly

Lee Scratch Perry - bionic rats
Nina Simone - Baltimore
Junior Byles - fever
Dennis Brown - Black magic woman
Scientist - laser attack!
Marcia Griffiths - gypsy man
Marcia Aitken - I’m still in love
Cedric Im Brooks - lambs bread collie
Linvall Thompson - dread are the controller

I didn’t want to tell anyone until I was completely sure about it but now that’s it’s done and running it’s pretty safe to confess to you dear motel guests that I’ve been granted a scolarship to study on Montpellier, France for the next six months and that I’ll be leaving my so deared hometown in 4 days. Needless to say, my hands are tied up and I’m trying to update the motel when I get spare moments and those moments have been few and far between thus far. No need to worry as infrequent as my presence around the motel will continue for the following weeks while I seek for an apartment, once I’m settled for good and I mend my heart I’ll keep updating as much as I can. That said, wish me luck on my trip and I will hopefully see you all soon.

Just before I forget. Voting is now open for the 2007 Bloggies. The filling form rules have gotten more complex than past years and there’s a confirmation email to activate your ballot but if you have a minute and would like to vote for MdM or any other of your favorite blogs, head on over!

Photograph: Marcos Lopez.

01 david darling - dawn
02 alberto iglesias - hable con ella
03 steve eliovson - wanderer
04 jerry goodman & jan hammer - i remember me
05 capsule - phony phonic
06 philip glass - satyagraha (act.3)
07 harold budd - coyote
08 rachel’s - first self-protrait
09 keitil bjornstad - intimacy
10 malcolm fisher - the french impressionists