Floorboards creak all night long in our house; the ghosts must go soon,
all night they tremble and fold their secrets in the growing heat of
the trees.

I remember again the night my roots exploded and mud sloshed in my guts.

How you resex the swinging trees and sing our trembling skins to sleep.

- Spencer Reece. Ghazals for Spring.

” Spring, in full swing. Part. 2″

• Antonio Carlos Jobim – Andorinha
  Stone Flower (ICT, 1970)
• Sora – Revans
  Re.sort (kk, 2004)
• Jurassic 5 – Canto de Ossanha
  Feedback (2006)
• Jackson Conti – Casa Forte
  Sujinho (Kindred Spirits, 2008)
• Perrey & Kingsley – One Note Samba / Spanish Flea
  Kaleidoscopic Vibrations (Vanguard, 1967)

+ Stone Flower is by miles my favorite Jobim album. Very subtle and sophisticated with some superb arrangement by Eumir Deodato. Today I’m picking Andorinha off of that album to start the playlist. It’s a very simple song fronted mainly by three musicians; Joao Palma providing a very delicate bossa beat, Jobim – absolutely brilliant – playing only the notes he needs to play on his Rhodes piano and Urbie Green, delivering a very smooth and laidback trombone performance.
+ Sora and Perrey and Kingsley give brazilian music the glitch treatment to produce some kind of retro-futuristic bossa, their approaches are wildly different though; Sora offers a polaroid, a nostalgic, detached fantasy while Perrey & Kingsley sound like a pair of crazy scientists using all sort of sounds they find in their studio library and exploding them apart just for fun.
+ Jurassic 5 and Jackson Conti provide the upbeat section this fine spring afternoon with some instrumental hip hop. Have a nice weekend!

In other things: I re-opened my twitter account. I’m still learning to use the thing, but I’ll try to log in as much as possible and post some music recommendations and motel updates as well as answering user messages and comments. So uhm…, I’ll just leave this thing here: twitter/moteldemoka

Image credits: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
See also: Spring 2010.

“In Philosophical Explanations, (Robert) Nozick says the question of life’s meaning is so important to us and leaves us feeling so vulnerable that,we camouflage our vulnerability with jokes about seeking for the meaning or purpose of life: A person travels for many days to the Himalayas to seek the word of an Indian holy man meditating in an isolated cave. Tired from his journey, but eager and expectant that his quest is about to reach fulfillment, he asks the sage, “What is the meaning of life?” After a long pause, the sage opens his eyes and says, “Life is a fountain.” “What do you mean life is a fountain?” barks the questioner. “I have just traveled thousands of miles to hear your words, and all you have to tell me is that? That’s ridiculous.” The sage then looks up from the floor of the cave and says, “You mean it’s not a fountain?”  The Meaning Of Life - David Schmidtz

” Muting the noise”

1. Dj Sprinkles – Grand Central, Pt. II
   Midtown 120 Blues (Mule Musiq, 2009)
2. The Advisory Circle- Erosion Of Time
   Other Channels (Ghost Box, 2008)
3. Intrusion-Angel Version
   The Seduction Of Silence (Echospace, 2009)
4. Manufacture-Swollen Car
   Putting The Morr Back In Morrissey (Morr Music, 2002)
5. Windy & Carl – Btwn You + Men
   Songs For The Broken Hearted (Kranky, 2008)
6. Belong- A Sunny Place For Shady People
   Tour Ep (Not On Label, 2006)
7. Terre Thaemlitz-Get In And Drive
   Muting The Noise (Innervisions, 2008)

[Non noise]

Image: Colin Jenkinson

Photo: Flypeterfly

“Spring, in full swing.”

1. Jens Lekman – Boisa-bis-o-boisa
   At the Department of Forgotten Songs (Secretly Canadian, 2005)
2. Yellow Magic Orchestra – Ongaku
   Naughty Boys (Alfa, 1983)
3. Mariah – Shinzo No Tobira
   Utakata No Hibi (Better Days, 1983)
4. Jj – My Way
   Let Go / My Way (Sincerely Yours, 2010)
5. Phil Cordell – Red Lady
   Red Lady 7″ (Janus, 1969)
6. Happy End – Kaze wo Atsumete
   Kazemachi Roman (URC, 1971)

Here’s my first try at a spring mix this year. I wanted to channel some sort of picopop japanese sound with some warm hues of psychedelic sound thrown in between to balance it out. Something I was trying… wanting  it to sound, innocent, green and sunny. It comes very close to what I had in mind but it’s still not perfect. Might need to make a few more attempts on the spring theme until I’m completely satisfied with it.

Play it on a lazy morning while having breakfast for maximum enjoyment.

” Beat and stuff ”

01. Slag Boom Van Loon – Sutjeda (Four Tet remix)
So soon (Phantom Sound & Vision, 2001)
02. Mo’Horizons – Cha Cha Cha
Remember Tomorrow (Stereo Deluxe, 2001)
03. Ursula 1000 – Boop (Skeewiff Remix)
Esl Remixed: The 100th Release of Esl Music (ESL, 2006)
04. Tosca – Honey
Suzuki (K7, 2000)
05. Chris Joss – Root Juice
sticks (ESL, 2009)

note: Standard downtempo ESL sound circa ’00. Old favorite, nothing mind blowing while I try to get back on the beat. Been a little busy. Btw, should check that Slag Boom Van Loon album, I think they are timeless. Say, what’s going on out there? Any crazy sound I should know? I’ve been living under the rock lately.

image: Seryo

A house constitutes a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability. We are constantly re-imagining its reality: to distinguish all these images would be to describe the soul of the house; it would mean developing a veritable psychology of the house… They give us back areas of being, houses in which the human being’s certainty of being is concentrated, and we have the impression that, by living in such images as these, in images that are as stabilizing as these are, we could start a new life, a life that would be our own, that would belong to us in our own very depths. – Gaston Bachelard, “The Poetics of Space”, pg. 17

1. Deodato – Univac loves you (Very Together, 1976)
2. Koushik – Be with you (Out my Window, 2008)
3. Andras Fox – Touchy feat. Amenta (Unreleased)
4. Andres – A new beginning / You can’t hide (Mahoghani Music, 2010)
5. Andras Fox – Body & Soul (Unreleased)
6. Ron Basejam – Into my Life (Brownswood Bubblers Five, 2010)
7. Hanna - Cottage (Sound Signature, 2005)

A long overdue return to the Motel. So much has happened, from the incredible experiences of The Red Bull Music Academy, a return home, changes in my own life, and finding a new rhythm and routine.

Like a child seeking stability in an image of a house, I’m finding stability in the regular heartbeat of an 808 kick drum. All of these songs explore a tension between a evolving fluid element and a regular organizing structure of drum programming. They are what I am drawn to playing right now – slow, swung, dilapidated house.

pic: author’s (taken in torokbalint, hungary)