“Goethe’s final words: ‘More light’. Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that’s been our unifying cry: ‘More light’. Sunlight. Torchlight. Candlelight. Neon. Incandescent. Lights that banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier’s field. Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we’re supposed to be asleep. Light is more than watts and candles. Light is metaphor.” Chris Stevens, Northern Exposure (1990)

1. Bibio – Lover’s Carvings (‘Ambivalence Avenue’, Warp Records, 2009)
2. Toquinho – Carolina Carol Bela (‘Toquinho’, 1987)
3. Controller 7 – Follow the Light (‘Left Handed Straw’, 6months, 2000)
4. Rotary Connection – I am the Black Gold of the Sun (‘Hey Love’, 1971)
5. Ellen Mcilwaine – Jimmy Jean (‘We the People’, 1973)
6. Maelstrom – Petrichor (Eskimo Recordings, 2008)
7. Tangoterje – Diamond’s Dub (G.A.M.M. 2007)
8. Leo’s Sunship – I’m Back for More (‘We need each other’, 1978)

Part one of a ‘Light versus Dark’ playlist. It’s winter in Melbourne, so this list is my sonic equivalent of sunshine – something to keep me warm. There are a few favorites here: Bibio’s new album is excellent, ‘Carolina Carol Bela’ is sublime, and Terje’s edit of Paul Simon is my ultimate hanging-off-a-balcony-at-sunset song. This list certainly geared toward summer.

Pic: Author’s.

“As I was hiking down the mountain with my pack, I turned and knelt on the trail and said ‘Thank you, shack’. Then I added ‘Blah,’ with a little grin, because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant, and turned and went on down the trail back to this world.” -  Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, Grafton Books, 1972

1. Yaw – Where Would You Be (Brownswood Bubblers, 2008)
2. Jose James - Visions of Violet (Brownswood Bubblers, 2008)
3. Dudley Perkins – Flowers (StonesThrow, 2007)
4. Suff Daddy – Drama Pts. 1 & 2 (MPM, 2006)
5. Daru & Rena – Lonely Night (Rusic, 2007)
6. VeeBeeO – No More (Rush Hour, 2009)
7. Paul White – The Composer’s Comeback (One Handed Music, 2009)
8. Hudson Mohawke – Polkadot Blues (Warp, 2009)

This is for that sublime mood of contended loneliness that only really happens in winter. These are all quite recent beat/wonky/soul things that i’ve been enjoying for a nighttime boogie. The electric glow of a radiant heater.

“We´ll always have Paris”
-Humprey Bogart in Casablanca.

“Pero el amor, esa palabra… Moralista Horacio, temeroso de pasiones sin una razón de aguas hondas, desconcertado y arisco en la ciudad donde el amor se llama con todos los nombres de todas las calles, de todas las casas, de todos los pisos, de todas las habitaciones, de todas las camas, de todos los sueños, de todos los olvidos o los recuerdos”.

- Julio Cortázar. Fragmento 93 de Rayuela.

Friendly Fires – Paris (Aeroplane Remix)
Paris Ep (XL / 2008)
Gotan Project - Last Tango In Paris
La Revancha del Tango (¡Ya Basta! Records / 2001)
Frou Frou – Breathe In
Let Go (Geffen / 2002)
Gonzalez – Dot
Solo Piano (Pony Canyon / 2005)
Yann Tiersen – Comptine d´un Autre été: L´Aprés Midi
Le Fabuleux Destin d´Amelie Poulain OST (2001)
Pierre Adenot – Carol
Paris, Je T’Aime (2007)

Por lo menos para mi, las tres entidades más hermosas de este mundo -o la suma de muchos otros- son: una mujer; por arriba de ellla, una mujer detrás de un instrumento musical e inclusive unas tornamesas y arriba de las anteriores: una amiga.  Este playlist va totalmente dedicado a mis amigas.  Si te consideras como tal, no delegues en pensar que esta selección musical es para ti.

Photo: Carmen Parra

Photo: Oliver Helbig.

Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene. It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty, and throwing it away, and making more.

- Tony Hoagland, A Color of the Sky.

1. Efdemin – Acid Bells (Martyn’s bittersweet mix)
   Métisse 2.5 (Curle, 2009)
2. Four Tet & Burial – Moth
   Moth/Wolf Cub (Text, 2009)
3. Jesse Somfay – Amo Alucinor
   A Catch in the Voice (Archipel, 2009)
4. Stimming – The Kiss
   Reflections (Diynamic, 2009)
5. Broker/Dealer – Every Other Sunday
   Initial Public Offering (Asphodel, 2003)
6. Closer Musik – Maria
   Total 4 (Kompakt, 2002)
7. Booka Shade – Mandarine Girl
   Movements (Get Physical, 2006)
8. Triola – Neuland
   Triola Im Fünftonraum (Kompakt, 2004)

Back by demand. Yet another fix of minimal rhythms and slowly shifting gauzy soundscapes. Fans of the first ‘Caleidoscopio Cromático’ will be particulary pleased with this one… I think it hits the same sort of nerve; whereas part 2 was a somewhat inconsistent experiment with more focus on rhythm, this one keeps the same sort of melodic vein and open atmosphere of the first offering. Hope you enjoy.

see also: Caleidoscopio Cromático, Otro Caleidoscopio Cromático, Travelling without Moving.

In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,
- True Love, Robert Penn Warren.

… and in so doing gives stability to the ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent and universal approval, for being followed by others, and for a continually progressive culture. And so, where the interests of both these qualities clash in a product, and there has to be a sacrifice of something, then it should rather be on the side of genius; and judgement, which in matters of fine art bases its decision on its own proper principles, will more readily endure an abatement of the freedom and wealth of the imagination than that the understanding should be compromised. The requisites for fine art are, therefore, imagination, understanding, soul, and taste.* – Critique of Judgement. SS 50

” Summer 2009. Neo-folk and post-punk. ”

01. Federico Aubele – Este Amor
Amatoria (Eighteenth Street, 2009)
02. Sonic Youth – Stones
Sonic Nurse (2004)
03. Dirty Projectors – Two Doves
Bitte Orca (Domino, 2009)
04. 90 day men – Saint Theresa In Ecstasy
To Everybody (Southern Records, 2002)
05. Grizzly Bear – Southern Point
Veckatimest (Warp, 2009)
06. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge Records, 1998)
07. Mi Ami – New Guitar
Watersports (Quarter Stick, 2009)
08. Shellac – Squirrel song
1000 Hurts (Touch & Go Records, 2000)
09. Battles – HI LO
EP C/B EP (Warp, 2007)
10. Peaches – Billionaire
I Feel Cream (2009)
11. Coltrane Motion – The Year Without A Summer (web)
The Year Without A Summer b/w Maya Blue 7″ (Datawaslost, 2007)
12. Freeland – Under Control
Cope™ (Ingrooves, 2009)
13. It Hugs Back - Now + Again
Inside Your Guitar (2008)
14. M. Ward – get to the table on time
Transfiguration of Vincent (Merge Records, 2003)

note: This is about ‘fucking indie’ a post by Existence Machine via BLCKDGRD. Several blogs discussion about Sonic Youth cultural position and its innovation in relationship to recent rock. “Sonic Youth is the fundamental (rockist) fantasy which feeds their allure” and “SY’s precise function for Restoration culture is to be a hypervisible simulation of an alternative within the mainstream”). They are primarily “men (and women) of good taste”

I have a soft spot for Sonic Youth, but I can’t help opining. Almost all musicians exist within context of other music works. SY comes from somewhere and has influenced a generation of musicians. Maybe several of their later albums are created consciously to maintained Sonic Youth ‘sound’, with similar direction no doubt, but I am not terribly picky with works confined under a band name. I can always find out SY members side projects, various work with other bands, etc. (see discogs.com) Their Sonic Youth Records releases are certainly nearly unlistenable to average rock fan (merzbow?), while their “starbuck entertainment” album is downright sugary. (accessible softer songs with narrow dynamic range.) But how a band suppose to bring unusual sound to the larger audience if not by trying several venues? But those are hardly my problem as a listener. All I need to do is asking if I am interested in the music at all. Addictive as it is, I don’t think tying words and cultural labels onto a music piece is as satisfying as actually listen then decide. Or in MdM style, is it interesting as a point of exploration? Does it “blend” and makes one goes hmmm…? In this case, can I create certain moody warmth somewhere between folks and new wave. Yes, I know I am pedestrian, but I like this approach better. All texture, color and form, not much interpretations in words. Anyway here is a little mix between recent folks, post punk, and sonic youth. Lovely in complicated way. I hope you like Sonic Youth if you are thinking they were this or that before.

image: Fabiana Zonca

see also: Sonic Youth, Critique of Judgment