motel de moka

Still from Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’ (1969)

Probably one of my favourite scenes in a motion picture comes from Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’. The film – a true masterpiece in itself – ends with a shot of several horses in the rain, a beautiful symbolic image. This is what Andrei Tarkovsky himself had to say about this scene:

I’d like to point out the film ends with an image of horses in rain. It is a symbolic image as horse for me is a synonym of life. When I’m looking at a horse I have a feeling I’m in direct contact with the essence of life itself. Perhaps it’s because horse is a very beautiful animal, friendly to man, and is moreover so characteristic of the Russian landscape. There are many scenes with horses in Rublev. Take the scene in which a man dies after an unsuccessful attempt to fly. A sad-looking horse is a silent witness to the scene. The presence of horses in the last, final scene means that life itself was the source of all of Rublev’s art.
Interview L’artiste dans l’ancienne Russe et dans l’URSS nouvelle (Entretien avec Andrei Tarkovsky) with Michel Ciment and Luda & Jean Schnitzer in Positif Oct. 1969 (109), pp. 1–13 [Pol. trans. Zygmunt Kwiatkowski and Adam Horoszczak].

The first track of the playlist below comes from the beautiful album ‘Nostalghia’ by pianist Francois Couturier which is dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky and his groundbreaking art. Tarkovsky once defined the meaning of Nostalghia for his similar titled movie as `a global yearning for the wholeness of existence’, which seems very fitting for Couturier’s compositions on this album. Accompanying him are Jean-Louis Matinier on accordion, Jean-Marc Larché on soprano saxophone and Anja Lechner on cello.

With this, I decided to make a modest mix that deals with rain and the mysterious ambiance that’s captured in this particular scene. And to me, the most beautiful and thoughtfully written song about rain has to be ‘Rambunctious Cloud’ by Vic Chesnutt. It’s hard not to love a song with lyrics like these:

The same water that the dinosaurs drank
Is the same water that the Persian fleets sank in
The very water that moistened the primordial ooze
Is now hammering on my metal porch roof

~ Vic Chesnutt / Rambunctious Cloud ~

1. Francois Couturier - Andrei
   Nostalghia - Song For Tarkovsky (ECM, 2006)
2. Mountains - Hundred Acre
   Sewn (Apestaartje, 2006)
3. Dirty Three - Rain On
   Cinder (Touch & Go, 2005)
4. Vic Chesnutt - Rambunctious Cloud
   Ghetto Bells (New West, 2005)
5. Steffen Basho-Junghans - Inside the Rain
   Waters in Azure (Strange Attractors, 2002)
6. Slowdive - Country Rain
   5 EP (Creation, 1993)
7. Mark Lanegan - Kingdoms of Rain
   Whiskey For The Holy Ghost (Sub Pop, 1994)
8. Akron/Family - How Do I Know
   Akron/Family (Young God, 2005)
9. Andrey Dergatchev - Rain
   The Return (ECM, 2005)

Stream playlist

The list ends with a track that consists only of the sound of rain and comes from the soundtrack of another great Russian film, called Vozvrashcheniye (The Return). Please see this post for more information about that film.
Return to Sea: As the Waves Will Always Roll

Further reading
Andrei Tarkovsky on Andrei Rublev at Nostalghia.com

I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her–after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred–I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever–for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)–and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again–and “oh, no,” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure–all would be shattered.

- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita.

Spoon - don’t you evah
(Ga ga ga ga ga / 2007)
The Zutons - creepin’ an a crawlin’
(Creepin’ an a crawlin’ 7″ / 2003)
Bill Landford & The Landfordaires - run on for a long time
(okeh post war gospel story 47/62, 1998)
Junior Murvin - police + thieves
(police and thieves / 1977)
Violent femmes - blister in the sun
(Violent femmes / 1983)
Folk Implosion - natural one
(Kids OST / 1995)
Map of Africa - black skin blue eyed boys
(Map of Africa / 2007)

iMage: Kimberly Wlassak

Whereas, in the past, the point of disagreement has been between dissonance and consonance, it will be in immediate future, between noise and so called musical sounds. The present methods of writing music, principally those which employ harmony and its reference to particutar steps in the field of sound, will be inadequate for the composer who will be faced with the entire field of sound. New methods will be discovered, bearing relation to Schoenberg’s twelvetone system and present methods of writing percussion music and any other methods which are free from the cocncept of a fundamental tone.

The principle of form will be our only constant connection with the past. Although the great form of the future will not be as it was in the past, at one time fugue and at another the sonata, it will be related to these as they are to each other trough the principle of organization or man’s common ability to think.
(John Cage, “The Future of Music: Credo”, whole text here)

The One Ensemble - Shapes disguised as sizes
(Wayward the Fourth, Secret Eye, 2007)
Alessandro Bosetti - Mask
(Her Name, Crouton, 2007)
The Complainer feat. Urkuma & Usonia - Animulae
(& The Complainers, Mik.musik, 2007)
Durrty Goodz - Switching songs pt. 2 (good ol’ days)
(Axiom EP, Awkward, 2007)
Skream - Chest boxing
(Skreamizm vol. 3, Tempa, 2007)
Sub Version feat. Paul St. Hilaire - Rise up
(Box Of Dub (Dubstep & Future Dub), Soul Jazz Records, 2007)
Alles 3 - Oops i did it again
(I know how you frown, KwanYin Records, 2007)
KK Null - 0359
(Fertile, Touch, 2007)
Shining - Stalemate longan runner
(Grindstone, Rune Grammofon, 2007)
Cold Bleak Heat - To Understand All Is To Forgive All
(Simitu, Family Vineyard, 2007)
Pink Freud - Velvet
(Punk Freud, Universal, 2007)

[image: 1 - remixed]

The Dukes of Stratosphear - 25 O’Clock
(Chips from the Chocolate Fireball / Virgin / 1987)
The United States of America - Cloud Song
(The United States of America / Edsel / 1968)
Electric Light Orchestra - Can’t Get It Out Of My Head
(Eldorado / Jet / 1974)
Kaleidoscope - Keep Your Mind Open
(Side Trips / Epic / 1967)
Country Joe & The Fish - Section 43
(Electric Music for the Mind and Body / Vanguard / 1967)
Gong - Other Side of the Sky
(Angel’s Egg (Radio Gnome Invisible, Pt. 2) / Blue Plate / 1973)
Can - Spoon
(Ege Bamyasi / Mute / 1972)

Image: Still from E La Nave Va by Federico Fellini.

Osman Aktaş - Daldalar Barı
(Ana / Kalan Müzik / 1998)
Farid Farjad - Taghtam Deh
(An Roozhaa 4 / ? / ?)
Başar Dikici & Bülent Altınbaş - Huzur
(Buluşma / Turkuaz Müzik / 2005)
Turgay Özüfler - Magaya
(Made In Klarnet / AJS Yapım / 2006)
Mikis Theodorakis & Vassilis Saleas - The Violent-Coloures Mountains
(Litany / FM/Atlas / 1998)
Cahit Berkay - Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım
(Film Müzikleri Volüm 1 / Emre Plak / 1997)
Djivan Gasparyan - A Cool Wind Is Blowing
(I Will Not Be Sad In This World / Opal / 1989)

photo by Anastassia Zlatopolskaia.

Photo credit: Cole Rise

On a hot summer day (like today) I like to listen to some folk related music. A genre which also generally reminds me of horses. Horses roaming a stretched out countryside and where time still passes freely. It’s actually not just an image that forms inside my head (I couldn’t draw it for you if I wanted to), but more like an almost lifelike sensation of being in such surroundings. The sunlight burning my skin, the humid heat making the air heavy and almost difficult to breathe, the graceful sounds of hoofs galloping on the dry earth and the slow-paced, laid-back passing of time. Needless to say a rather welcome change to modern urban life. Here’s a playlist that pays tribute to that feeling. No fancy tricks, just a laid-back, casual, summer day list with some folk and non-folk music.

1. The Chesterfield Gorgeous - Chesterfield
   Labor Day Deadline (Feed and Seed, 2005)
2. Jack Rose - Kensington Blues
   Kensington Blues (VHF, 2005)
3. Micah Blue Smaldone - Coal Black Crepe
   Hither and Thither (North East Indie, 2005)
4. Paul Labrecque & Valerie Webb - Many Horses Ride
   Trees, Chants and Hollers (Eclipse, 2006)
5. Meg Baird - Do What You Gotta Do
   Dear Companion (Drag City, 2007)
6. Palace Music - Horses
   Lost Blues & Other Songs (Drag City, 1997)
7. Dirty Three - Horse
   Horse Stories (Touch & Go, 1996)
8. Elephant Micah - The Paranoia
   And The Palmyra Palm (Time-Lag, 2004)
9. Ray LaMontagne - All the Wild Horses
   Trouble (RCA, 2004)

Stream playlist

“The tricky thing is the arrangement, the trimming of all the unnecessary fat. Do you stop, or do you continue; or is this too crazy, or is this fun?,” says Stanier, “Those are all afterthoughts after everything is thrown into the pot. We have these giant charts on the wall where we name the parts, and they take on a life of their own.” - Battles, interview.

” Summer ‘07, best of ”

01. Venetian Snares - Electric Funeral
Black Sabbath 10″ (Planet Mu, 2007)
02. Fridge - Clocks
The Sun (Temporary Resident, 2007)
03. Shellac Of North America - Boycott
Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch and Go, 2007)
04. Battles - Leyendecker
Mirrored (Warp Records, 2007)
05. The Nels Cline Singers - Confection
Draw Breath (Cryptogramaphone, 2007)
06. Kieran Hebden And Steve Reid - Brain
Tongues (Domino, 2007)
07. The Tuss - Last Rushup 10
Rushup Edge (Rephlex, 2007)
08. Trolle Siebenhaar - Sweet Dogs
Sweet Dogs (2006)

Note: Best of ‘07 so far? I have no idea, but these songs are truely superb. They can’t possibly exist even 5 years ago. There are simply too many new ideas and instruments. Mostly IDM, math-rock and collisions of the two, there be no cute singing in it. No 60’s retro rock, no metal from the 70’s or danceable house. This is pure rhythm construction build like a a phd thesis on fluid dynamics modeling. (ie. it’s not pretty.) Please, the time signiture has to have at least an odd number bigger than 7 in it. The people’s metric! On serious side: you think this is the shape of music to come? Come on they are quite delicious and charming. Almost danceable even.

image: gas flow model [1]

Highly amusing write up from cannabisculture.com :

The Mecca for beautiful people during the Summer of Love was San Francisco – where you had to be sure to wear flowers in your hair – and the city’s most revered precinct was the Haight-Ashbury district, where flower power had first been fomented in the “happenings” chronicled by Tom Wolfe in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. LSD provided the inspiration for free-form events at which rock groups performed lengthy improvisations before back-projections of swirling colors while the audience would loon around wildly, or sit quietly on the floor, as the mood took them. However, as Harry Shapiro put it, “if LSD was the icing on the counter-cultural cake, marijuana was its basic ingredient.”

As the influence of flower power and of the bands that grew out of the San Francisco scene became more pervasive, so did pot smoking and, at the large outdoor rock festivals that superseded the acid tests, smoking pot became almost obligatory. During the hippie era, which was formally inaugurated at the Monterey festival in June 1967, climaxed at Woodstock, and came to an abrupt end at Altamont in December 1969, smoking pot ceased to be a minority activity. For a generation of young people, igniting a joint was a defiant, quasi-political act indicating dissatisfaction with conventional society, identification with the hippie values of peace and love, and a sure-fire way to worry your parents. (more)

“Shake Your Fa Fa”

01. Yerba Buena - Guajira (I Love U 2 Much)
President Alien (Razor & Tie, 2003)
02. Datarock - Fa-Fa-Fa
Datarock Datarock (Nettwerk Records, 2007)
03. Betty Davis - Walking Up The Road (wiki)
Betty Davis (Light in the Attic, 1973)
04. DraculaZombieUSA - Shake Your Fa Fa Fa (BF)
(Artist net property, 2007)
05. Sound Experience - Boogie Woogie
The Soulville Collection (Collectables, 1994)
06. De La Soul - Not Over Till The Fat Lady Plays The Demo
De La Soul Is Dead (1991)
07. The Yellow Ballon - Follow the Sunshine
Lazy Summer Afternoon (2007)

Note: San Francisco mix. A little bit of everything, but for some reason this list is very nostalgic, 70’s funk based hip-hop. Plus it’s really about Will’s latest computer noodling. He is the puppet master behind DraculaZombieUSA, btw. Check out his page for more treasures and SF gig. Have fun.

Image: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [1, 2, 3, 4], [1, 2]