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Loving tenderness abounds for all
from the darkest
to the most eminent one beyond the stars,
- Hildegard of Bingen

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” Afternoon Easter 2012 ”

01. Anouar Brahem – Eté andalous
Le Voyage De Sahar (ECM, 2006)
02. Art Tatum – Lover
Body and Soul (A Jazz Hour With, 1996)
03. Sarah Vaughan – Easy Living
How Long Has This Been Going On? (1978)
04. Blossom Dearie – Our Love Is Here to Stay
Once Upon a Summertime (1958)
05. Fridge – Drum Machines and Glockenspiel
Happiness (Temporary Residence, 2001)
06. Múm - Away
Summer Make Good (Fat Cat, 2004)
07. The Roots – The Return to Innocence Lost
The Roots (1999)
08. Explosions in the Sky – Greet Death
Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever (Temporary Residence, 2001)

note: Happy Easter everybody. First, is everybody still in one piece? earthquake and all a while back. second sorry for not posting anything lately, but what’s new. Anyway, a little lazy afternoon list. It doesn’t have new songs, but made it fresh, so it should actually be “lazy afternoon”. As for the theme, maybe easter-ish. Love, redemption and death. I personally find it odd right now that life has to be redeeemed with death, seems so dark. With war going on and stuff. Why can’t they create a religious holiday to remind people not to be so bloody and destructive. sort of “chill” day. Nobody shall die holiday. It may not be all that grand, but at least it won’t be so dark. And yeah, the list is a bit dark at closing in keeping with my “see what I mean” mood. Love, death and destruction.. where is the redemption here and now? … ok. I am shutting up now. :D happy holiday everybody.

image: Ed Yourdon

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feast day of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: “Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14.” The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Second Vatican Council calendar. February 14 is also celebrated as St Valentine’s Day in other Christian denominations; it has, for example, the rank of ‘commemoration’ in the calendar of the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion. – wiki

” Valentine day list. No.2. late ”

01. The Velvet Underground – Pale Blue Eyes
The Velvet Underground (1969)
02. The Lovin’ Spoonful – Coconut Grove
Greatest Hits (Buddha, 2000)
03. Bert Jansch – A Woman Like You
Birthday Blues (1969)
04. Moby Grape – Sitting By The Window
Moby Grape (1967)
05. Arlo Guthrie – My Creole Belle
Running Down The Road (Rising Son Records, 1970)
06. Richard Hell & the Voidoids – New Pleasure
Blank Generation (1977)
07. The KINKS – Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy
The Ultimate Collection (2003)

Note: A short list for lazy evening Valentine Day. Highland, british invasion rock. Definitely groovy 60′s.  I guess you can say this is MdM version of a box of chocolate. So don’t play the list too many times. Just enough. And happy V-day to everybody out there.

Image: trustypics

There are many blossoms of great beauty – many indeed. But they cannot compare with the beauty of the blossoms of blossom town, for these bossoms also have human feelings. – Sharebon. Books of Wits and Fashion. (Early Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1900)

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“Saturn Strobe. Recent Minimalist Extract. Moka’s Birthday.”

01. Goldmund - Gifts
The Malady Of Elegance (Type, 2008)
02. Brian Eno – Panic of Looking
Panic of Looking (Warp Records, 2011)
03. Hauschka - Mount Hood
Foreign Landscapes (Fat Cat, 2010)
04. Pantha du Prince – Saturn Strobe
This Bliss (Dial, 2007)
05. Helios - Convivium
Unleft (Unseen Music/Forced Exposure, 2010)
06. So Percussion – Aluminum
Treasure State (Cantaloupe, 2010)
07. Boxcutter - Panama
The Dissolve (Planet Mu, 2011)

Note: Everybody says Happy Birthday to Moka. (I am late again. But I think she will just grin this time.) I don’t have many albums in my head this year, so this one is not the usual edgy pop. Instead it’s a minimalism pushed all the way near pop sensibility. An old project, how to make less common music more accessible. Basically, it’s a pop music for 2 am. in the middle of cold winter. A little cold, somewhat alone, with a tinge of warm love. Imagine having a penthouse in Finland somewhere. 30th floor with a view of city and endless field of snow on the background. Late night. Put on a good headphone and watch the night float away… I’ve been watching a lot of japanese movie, this is my impression of minimalist mood and narrative links between songs. I think at least it’s functional and doesn’t wake up the neighbor.

Image: harold.lloyd

She had liked the young man’s looks, and his short-sighted eyes, and his odd way of speaking, that was abrupt yet soft, just as his hands were sun-burnt and sinewy, yet with smooth nails like a woman’s. His hair was sunburnt-looking too, or rather the colour of bracken after frost; his eyes grey, with the appealing look of the shortsighted, his smile shy yet confident, as if he knew lots of things she had never dreamed of, and yet wouldn’t for the world have had her feel his superiority. But she did feel it, and liked the feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and ignorant as she was, and knew herself to be—humblest of the humble even in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain was the worst disgrace—yet in her narrow world she had always ruled. It was partly, of course, owing to the fact that lawyer Royall was “the biggest man in North Dormer”; so much too big for it, in fact, that outsiders, who didn’t know, always wondered how it held him. In spite of everything—and in spite even of Miss Hatchard—lawyer Royall ruled in North Dormer; and Charity ruled in lawyer Royall’s house. She had never put it to herself in those terms; but she knew her power, knew what it was made of, and hated it. Confusedly, the young man in the library had made her feel for the first time what might be the sweetness of dependence. – Summer by Edith Wharton

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” 2011 Summer List No.1 ”

01. Caetano Veloso – Um Canto de Afoxé Para O Cloco de Ilę (Ilę Ayę)
Brazil Classics, Vol. 1: Beleza Tropical (Luaka Bop, 1989)
02. Kasai Allstars – Tshita Fula Mbuloba
In the 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of His Enemy By Magic (Crammed Disc Us, 2008)
03. Baden Powell – The Shadow Of Your Smile
Solitude On Guitar (1973)
04. Pizzicato Five – This Year’s Girl #2
Made in USA (1994)
05. Sun Ra – Love in Outer Space
The Night of the Purple Moon (atavistic, 1970)
06. Mouse On Mars – Catching Butterflies With Hands
Idiology (Thrill Jockey, 2001)
07. Dubmatix – Hashashin Dub
Dubmatix (self release. 2004)
08. Mouse On Mars – Schnick-schnack
Cache Coeur Naif (Thrill Jockey, 1997)
09. Gotan Project – La Gloria
Tango 3.0 (not released yet)

note: I am still alive, sort of. About this list. Well, since my brain is so detached from anything music right now, this is the most basic, as straight forward downtempo list as it can be. Standard MdM fare. Strictly swaying tempo and controlled phrasing. Completely imaginary, bordering synthetic atmosphere. You’ll miss the total impossibility of it all when you blink. Well, maybe in summer evening flavor. It is a list for humid evening, natural opening and crisp voice. Something about love, useale for dating probably, and partly an exploration for my next idea about pop music. (Which I assure you is so big, I will never actually post anything.) Btw, there is a big volume jump in Sun Ra’s track, but the list won’t fly without it, and I am too lazy to find another transition track. … if you are that annoyed, fill your own track or post something the comment about what track you imagine it should be.

image: toel-uru

” Blue Green Blues. ”

01. John Lee Hooker – Father Was A Jockey
Mr. Lucky (Charisma/ Pointblank, 1991)
02. Gregg Allman – Floating Bridge
Low Country Blues (Rounder, 2011)
03. John Lee Hooker – Highway 13
Mr. Lucky (Charisma/ Pointblank, 1991)
04. Lucinda Williams – Born To Be Loved
Blessed (Lost Highway, 2011)
05. John Lee Hooker – I Cover the Waterfront
Mr. Lucky (Charisma/ Pointblank, 1991)
06. The Innocence Mission – Mile-Marker
My Room in the Trees (Badman Recording Co., 2010)

note: Just as the title says. A early evening breeze clear blues. I am trying to be as crisp as possible, but it’s 1 am right now, so maybe a big pictures will help me focus a little. But if you are into mid week blues tunes with clean guitar line, this list probably will suit you. Soft, crisp and crossing the landscape. And John Lee Hooker rules.

John Lee Hooker’s guitar playing is closely aligned with piano boogie-woogie. He would play the walking bass pattern with his thumb, stopping to emphasize the end of a line with a series of trills, done by rapid hammer-ons and pull-offs. The songs that most epitomize his early sound are “Boogie Chillen”, about being 17 and wanting to go out to dance at the Boogie clubs, “Baby, Please Don’t Go”, a blues standard first recorded by Big Joe Williams, and “Tupelo Blues”, a stunningly sad song about the flooding of Tupelo, Mississippi in April 1936.

He maintained a solo career, popular with blues and folk music fans of the early 1960s and crossed over to white audiences, giving an early opportunity to the young Bob Dylan. As he got older, he added more and more people to his band, changing his live show from simply Hooker with his guitar to a large band, with Hooker singing.

His vocal phrasing was less closely tied to specific bars than most blues singers. This casual, rambling style had been gradually diminishing with the onset of electric blues bands from Chicago but, even when not playing solo, Hooker retained it in his sound.

Though Hooker lived in Detroit during most of his career, he is not associated with the Chicago-style blues prevalent in large northern cities, as much as he is with the southern rural blues styles, known as delta blues, country blues, folk blues, or “front porch blues”. His use of an electric guitar tied together the Delta blues with the emerging post-war electric blues. – wiki

image: Fey Ilyas, Marcus Vegas