Drawing: by Marc Bell

Music is the second casting of the world.
- Nietzsche

1. Terry Hall & Mushtaq – A Gathering Storm
   The Hour of Two Lights (Astralwerks, 2003)
2. Staff Benda Billi – Avramandole
   Tres Tres Fort (Crammed, 2009)
3. Iva Bittová – Blazen
   Ne nehledej (BMG, 1994)
4. Group of men performing with charangos and guitars – Chimaycha
   Traditional Music of Peru Vol. 6. (Smithsonian Folkways, 2001)
5. Ayarkhaan (Айархаан) – Deybiir Yryata
   Dobun Duoraan (Sounds of ancient land of Olonkho) (2005)
6. Mali Music – Institut National Des Arts
   Mali Music (Honest Jon’s, 2002)
7. Young men – Kasa Odori (Young men)
   Traditional Folk Dances of Japan (Smithsonian Folkways, 1959)
8. Thao Vong and Thao Som – Melodies for Two Khenes
   Anthology of World Music: The Music of Laos (Rounder, 2000)
9. Unknown Artist – Tangara Rave Kue
   Kosmfonia Mbya Guarani by Guillermo Sequera (O morto q fabla /2006)
10. Henry Kaiser And David Lindley – The Exiled Men
    The Sweet Sunny North (Shanachie, 2000)

note:  Who makes the world run?  Do we need a watchmaker to oil the gears and replace the rusted parts?  What kind of shoes does the world wear?  Does the early bird really get the worm?  Are fungi and nematodes necessary?  How about a wheelbarrow?  It seems to be humming an odd tune.  Maybe there is something caught in it.  Is it dragging something behind?  Call to it.  Take it for a walk.  Make a dance with a wire.  Clear your throat.   Is anyone home?  Knock on the door and let yourself in.  I apologize for the mess.  The other people just left and didn’t pick up after themselves.  We know who they are.  Why pay people to tell us who made the mess when we already know.  Lets just clean it up and get on with things.

Can art be a vehicle for political change? Yes, I assume that a large part of Blair’s appeal (like Kennedy’s) is aesthetic, just as a large part of the Nazi appeal lay in its triumph of the will aesthetic. I suspect that many of the great cultural shifts that prepare the way for political change are largely aesthetic. A Buick radiator grille is as much a political statement as a Rolls Royce radiator grille, one enshrining a machine aesthetic driven by a populist optimism, the other enshrining a hierarchical and exclusive social order. The ocean liner art deco of the 1930s, used to sell everything from beach holidays to vacuum cleaners, may have helped the 1945 British electorate to vote out the Tories. -JG Ballard interview

What I don’t like about most pop albums is also what I don’t like about sugar. I feel elated for a while, but then the inevitable crash arrives and I swear it off for good. And though I always end up coming back for more, I can’t say that sugar sustains me. What I like about certain pop albums is when there’s something sickly at their core: Once the saccharine high wears off, I can still explore the muck and the sour, which do sustain me, and keep me intrigued. -Carrie Brownstein

.

” Jazzy Itteration ”

01. Eve Risser – Line
Around Robert Wyatt (Bee Jazz, 2009)
02. Dj Krush – Into The Water
Krush (Shadow Records, 1995)
03. New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble – Naima
Low Blow (Grover, 1997)
04. Pan•American – for ”aiming at the stars”
white bird release (Kranky, 2009)
05. Vidulgi OoyoO – Murmur’s Room
Aero (Fargo, 2008)
06. Jurassic 5 – If You Only Knew
Power In Numbers (2002)
07. Anita O’Day – Little Girl Blue
Anita O’Day and Billy May Swing Rodgers and Hart (1960)

note: One of those list. Choose several songs, put it inside mental blender and see what list comes out. I started with thinking, can I make some sweet pop list that doesn’t offend the “Lexus generation” listener of NPR (long story), but yet couldn’t possibly be aired on NPR. Not in this mix at least. But yet the list should make sense. What is something futuristic that is made out of known popular style. So, this is a straight forward jazz list, but in various recent pop manifestation. Almost holding up together. And I hope it’s pop yet not exactly mundane. I particularly like NY Ska rendition of John Coltrane’s Naima. The rest are standard MdM sound. cheers.

image: gonzalo_ar

Photo: Hamed Masoumi

Some folk music to unwind a bit and softly roll into a more reflective state of mind. But certainly no dreamy stuff either, there’s plenty of foot tapping and head nodding going on. Based on the photo, it was supposed to be much more ambient-folk oriented but once the list started to take its definite form, more and more traditional song-based pieces forced their way in. These songs did a good job in accompanying me into the countryside in the weekends over the last couple of weeks. Great for staring off into the distance.

It was this morning I led my horse through a field of sunken arrows
From a river to its source an open quarry aflood in crimson
And from a thicket I watched you there
Letting down your great rolls of golden
Your eyes were flashing and nostrils flared
As there before me you dove in deeply
And when upon the shore you swam
I was waiting with warm embracing

~ Micah Blue Smaldone / The Red River ~

1. Silent Land Time Machine – The Contours of Perfect Distance
   & Hope Still (Time-Lag, 2008)
2. Anne Briggs – Willie O’ Winsbury
   Anne Briggs (Topic, 1971)
3. Micah Blue Smaldone – The Red River
   The Red River (Immune, 2008)
4. Fire on Fire – Flight Song
   The Orchard (Young God, 2008)
5. Trembling Bells – Willows of Carbeth
   Carbeth (Honest Jon’s, 2009)
6. Head of Wantastiquet – Mortange
   Mortagne (Ecstatic Yod, 2008)
7. Karen Dalton – Katie Cruel
   Green Rocky Road (Delmore, 1962)
8. United Bible Studies – Hellical Rising
   The Shore That Fears The Sea (Deadslackstring, 2006)
9. Peter Delaney – If You Become Impossible
   Duck Egg Blue (Self released, 2007)

Stream playlist
Download playlist

Photo: Guy Sargent.

He remembers what the brown owl sounded like while he was sleeping.
The man wakes in the frigid morning thinking about women.
Not with desire so much as with a sense of what is not.

Many days in the woods he wonders what it is that he has for so long hunted down. We go hand in hand, he thinks, into the dark pleasure,
but we are rewarded alone, just as we are married into aloneness.

- Jack Gilbert, Not the Happiness but the Consequence of Happiness.

1. Tindersticks – Until the Morning Comes
   Waiting for the Moon (Beggars /2oo3)
2. Scott Matthew – Amputee
   Scott Matthew (Defend / 2008)
3. The Bony King Of Nowhere – Everything I Like
   Alas My Love (Helicopter / 2009)
4. Tord Gustavsen Trio – Curtains Aside
   The Ground (ECM / 2005)
5. Charlie Parker – Lover Man
   Ornitology (Naxos / 2006)
   

note:  A slight transition from mellow folk rock to jazz, I guess I’m trying to channel some sort of forlorn and romantic lullaby mode in here. Probably too much of a lysergic start for the weekend, but come Sunday I promise you’ll be grateful to find these ones in your collection.

“A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst’s couch. A breath of fresh air, a relationship with the outside world.”

- Deleuze & Guattari, Anti Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia, 1972

James Harpman – Moving Parts
(G-Spots: Music from the Studio Library, Trunk Records, 2008)
Sven Libaek – Inner Space Theme
(Ron & Val Taylor’s Inner Space OST, Festival Records, 1973)
Andras Fox - Silverbird
(Unreleased, 2007)
The Avalanches – Tonight
(Since I Left You, XL recordings, 2001)
Fred Weinberg – Electra-Loo
(Luke Vibert’s Nuggets, Lo Recordings, 2001)
Stro…from the Procussions – Play This Song
(Metro Sampler Line 2, Metro records, 2008)
Daedelus – Femme Fatal
(A Gent Agent, Laboratory Instinct, 2004)

note: Library music, a cut from a shark documentary soundtrack, reversing, crackle, wonky things occupying the parallax space between inside and out. That warm fuzzy feeling of being slightly detached from reality.

pic: author’s