motel de moka

Photo: Eames at 100: Evolving the legacy.

A single sneeze propels 100,000 droplets into the air at around 90 mph, landing on door knobs, ATM keypads, elevator buttons, escalator railings, and grocery cart handles. In a subway station at rush hour, according to British researchers, as many as 10 percent of all commuters can come in contact with the spray and residue from just one sneeze (or sternutation). That means as many as 150 commuters can be sickened by one uncovered achoo.

- Huffington Post: Swine Flu Survival.

1. Shuggie Otis - Strawberry Letter 23
   Inspiration Information (1974)
2. Mos Def - Quiet Dog
   The Ecstatic (Downtown / 2009)
3. Skalpel - 1958
   1958 (Ninjatune / 2003)
4. Peder - The Sour
   And He Just Pointed To The Sky (Ubiquity / 2007)
5. Parov Stelar -  Room Service
   Charleston Butterfly (Etage Noir / 2006)
6. Piers Fancini - If I
   Tearing Sky (Dust Devil / 2006)

These days have been both the most crazy and boring days of my life. Going outdoors has become a surreal and overall depressing activity, what with everybody engaging in some sort of game of social distancing and giving nasty glares at people who are not wearing their masks. I miss human contact. People without fear nor distrust in their eyes. All I ever see these days are the sick and the robots.

01. Mono- Ashes in the snow
(Hymn to the Inmortal Wind, 2009)
02. Souvenirs Young America -  Blood alone does not a father make
(An Ocean Without Water,2007)
03. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - This love is fucking right
(The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart,2009)
04. Vic Chestnutt - You are never alone
(North Star Deserter,2007)
05. Pg. Lost - Jonathan
(It’s Not Me, It’s You! , 2008)
06. Joker’s Daughter - Under the influence of jaffa cakes
(The Last Laugh, 2009)
07. Matryoshka - Ezekiel
(Zatracenie,2008)
08. Wooden Shjips - Start to dreaming
(Loose Lips, 2007)

So I guess this marks my return into familiar territory, into the comfort of the warm Motel bed, the smell of vintage furniture in the corner, that dreary yellow lamp that gives out a faint “welcome back” to my eyes. I see management has changed the sheets, but it still feels like that same place. The bed is a bit squeaky… I guess I’ve been gone for far too long.

So I guess a new introduction is due, to all, Greetings! I am LOW and I will be trying to please your tender musical hearts.

For this new night or return I’ve chosen soft and hypnotic.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Image: LOW

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” A smile in the Evening ”

01. Bill Laswell Sacred System - Bati
Book Of Exit (Dub Chamber 4) (Roir, 2002)
02. Harold Budd - the Plateaux of Mirror
Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (1980)
03. Ahmad Jamal - My latin
Picture Perfect (2000)
04. Jose James - Love
The Dreamer (Brownswood, 2007)
05. Aphex Twin - nanou2
DrukQs (2001)
06. telepopmusik - yesterday was a lie
genetic world (2001)
07. Junior Wells - Chitlin Con Carne
Hoodoo Man Blues (Delmark, 1965)
08. Ike Quebec - Favela
Bossa Nova Soul Samba [Bonus Tracks] (2007)

note: The aesthetic qualities of photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare the realities. It is not for me to separate off, in the complex fabric of the objective world, here a reflection on a damp sidewalk, there the gesture of child. Only the impassive lens, stripping its object of all those ways of seeing it, those piled-up preconceptions, that spiritual dust and grime with which my eyes have covered it, is able to present it in all its virginal purity to my attention and consequently to my love. By the power of photography, the natural image of a world that we neither know nor can see, nature at last does more than imitate art: she imitates the artist. - André Bazin

One of those evening. Letting my mind wanders and imagining if time moves in different loop. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What if they move in different order or overlap. What is the sound of tomorrow without wishing the yesterday go away or letting go the present. So here are some of my favorite sounds. They are all highly recommended albums. Bill Laswell’s Rior print, highly mutated jazz dub or Brian Eno/Harold Budd doing early ambient. Then the post bop jazz, sometimes before things turn free. Or Aphex Twin during its accoustic sampling phase. They are yesterday’s work, but not exactly yesterday either. Telepop on the other hand is pure nostalgia downtempo pop done today. The list ends with standard classics, but same beat texture as Jose James’s IDM drum. Standard MdM non rock selection. I tried to hold the mood the same, without falling into too much sentimentality. The soundtrack for flirting maybe?

image: ~Oryctes~

Photo: Camilla Akrans.

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don’t hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smokescreen. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.

- Harold Pinter,  The Guardian (31.12.08)

1. Maria Kliegel - Carnival of the Animals: XIII. Le Cygne
   Saint-Saens: Cello Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 (Naxos / 1997)
2. Little Dragon - Scribbled Paper
   Little Dragon (Peacefrog / 2007)
3. Nouvelle Vague - Dance with Me
   Bande à Parte (Peacefrog / 2006)
4. José James - Visions of Violet
   Park Bench People (Brownswood / 2008)
5. Shrift - Snow Samba
   Lost in a moment (Six Degrees / 2006)

Never mind the coffee we were drinking, whatever I said was not what I was thinking.

See also: Show Me Secret Sins.

It was one of those perfect autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.  - P.D. James
 
Nat Townsley - So Sweet
(I Fell in Love with God, ABC Records, 1975)
Darondo - Didn’t I
(Let my People go, Music City, 1972)
Benny Sings - Coconut
(Benny at Home, Sonar Kollektiv, 2006)
The Moments - To you with love
(Moments to Remember, Stang, 1974)
Pilooski - Love is Wet
(Love is Wet EP, Astro Lab, 2007)
Onra - Hope 
(Chinoiseries, Favourite Records, 2007)
Boomclap Batchelors - Combiner
(Brownswood Bubblers Two, Brownswood, 2007)

note: my first post for mdm, this is a list of sweet melancholia, for an autumn day dappled in light both warm and cold. Inspired by excessive chocolate and hot beverage consumption over Easter, these are songs to groove out to whilst sitting in a comfortable chair.
pic: author’s.

In this world where every object was thrown away at the slightest sign of breakage or aging, at the first dent or stain, and replaced with a new and perfect substitute, there was just one false note, one shadow: the moon. It wandered through the sky naked, corroded, and gray, more and more alien to the world down here, a hangover from a way of being that was now outdated. -The Daughters of the Moon

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” Delicate Texture Control Exercise ”

01. The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble -Adaptation of the Koto Song
The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (Planet Mu, 2006)
02. Sufjan Stevens - Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State (Asthmatic Kitty, 2003)
03. El Perro Del Mar - Inside the golden egg
From The Valley To The Stars (Control Group, 2008)
04. Au Revoir Simone - Take Me As I Am
Still Night, Still Light (TVT Records, 2009)
05. Tristeza - Casio
Mixed Signals (Tiger Style, 2001)
06. Beanfield - Planetary Deadlock
Compost Ambient Selection - Sleeping Beauty (Compost Germany, 2009)
07. Asobi Seksu - Thursday [Acoustic]
Acoustic at Olympic Studios (Asobi Seksu, 2009)

note: Wow, I am really rusty. It took me two days to get this list right, something that I could do in few minutes before. Hopeless. Anyway, this is a pure texture exercise, nothing mind blowing. But I like doing this exercise to do control check and to see what’s out there to describe defined mood. So here is my 5 seconds take, there was time when I thought a slower and simpler songs are harder to do. Simply because, to many are done, and only real artist can achieve certain earnest quality without adding too much composition and recording fluffy trick. Whats left is “song”, honest melody, and instrumental craftmanship. A song doesn’t need to scream to say what it wants to say. It draws. It emanates certain aesthetic point. Of course being MdM, a little explorative mix is a genetic urge. Blending post-everything on top of futuristic past style and see what comes out is the unwritten charter. ha. Anyway. it’s pretty out there. Genres upon genres that previously confined to narrow style can show incredible texture. Which means, I can back track each songs and get lost in myriads of secret unknown sounds.

image: [ r ♥ c e y t ♥ y ] {I brake for bokeh}