Photo: Hotel Basico. Playa del Carmen.

Belated summer / continental nostalgia.

• Andrew Sisters – Rum & Coca Cola
  Rum & Coca Cola (1944)
• Cesaria Evora – Sodade
  Miss Perfumado (Lusafrica, 1992)
• Os Mutantes – Bat Macumba
  Os Mutantes (1968)
• Seu Jorge – Bem Querer
  Cru (Naïve, 2004)
• Vinícius Cantuária – India
  Silva (Hannibal, 2005)
• Arto Lindsay – Simply Beautiful
  Mundo Civilizado (Bar None, 1996)

I’ve gone missing for the best part of the summer. Not really doing anything meaningful, mostly hypnotized and reckless.  Love will do that to you. No excuses this time.
Right now the hurricane Jova is painting the Mexican coast with rain and it’s forcing me to stay indoors all week (good news for MdM) and since I’m all sorts of a rebellious escapist I’ll call in the hidden suns with some warm, sensuous – mostly – brazilian music. I owe you a whole summer after all. Please enjoy this playlist as an apology.

note: In the past few years we were using the playtagger script to stream mp3s. As some of you may know, Yahoo! has sold the delicious to Avos and playtagger has been axed by their development team. And so, we’re left with two options: Yahoo!’s webplayer or Aol’s streampad, the former is the most similar to the one we had before and the later is less invasive but it’s hard to notice if you don’t know it’s there (check the bottom of the page as it is the one we’re currently using). The good thing about both is that they allow a continuous stream of the playlist, a feat missing from playtagger. Comment away if you know about a third option or if you’d like us to switch to the yahoo! webplayer.

Photo: Llove exhibition via Yatzer.

Alice asked the Chesire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know”, Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”

- Lewis Carrol, Alice in Wonderland.

• Tape – Summa Afrique (Oren Ambarchi remix)
  Operette (Cubicfrabric, 2004)
• Iva Bittova & Vladimir Vaclavek – Sirka V Louzi
  Bílé Inferno (Indies, 1997)
• Choying Drolma & Steve Tibbetts – Tal
  Chö (Hannibal, 1997)
• Deux Filles – She Slides
  Silence and Wisdom (Papier Mâché, 1982)
• Sogar – Selkind
  Apikal.blend (12k, 2003)

My connection was in danger—that was all. Sometimes our connection is frayed, it is in danger, it seems almost lost. Views and streets deny knowledge of us, the air grows thin. Wouldn’t we rather have a destiny to submit to, then, something that claims us, anything, instead of such flimsy choices, arbitrary days?

- Alice Munro, The Albanian Virgin.

One of those days when I feel sabotaged from within. The world turning into a pale substance made of hubris and daydreams and obsessions. I’m trying to remain constructive by making a list of  practical things that help me breathe through these sort of days. So far the activities that have worked for me are: Running for miles until the pain and exhaustion overcomes circular thoughts. Taking a nice, thorough shower of angst. Listening to music that puts me in a halcyon frame of mind. Sleeping it over.
Tonight will be the night I kill all of my idols. It’s time to stop making excuses and move on.

.

” Very Late Night. One day after Moka’s Birthday. “

01. Ruben Gonzalez – Pa’ gozar
Chanchullo (2000)
02. Ø + Noto – Los
Wohltemperiert (Raster-Norton, 2001)
03. Ø + Noto – Hain
Wohltemperiert (Raster-Norton, 2001)
04. Gidon Kremer – Soledad
Hommage a Piazzolla (1996)
05. Tchaikovsky – The Seasons, Selection (Sviatoslav Richter In 1983), June, Barcarolle
Great Pianists of the Century – vol 4 (2002)
06. Chopin - Mazurka No.51 in F minor Op.68 No.4
Chopin Maria Joao Pires (2009)
07. Chopin – Mazurka No.40 in F minor Op.63 No.2 – Lento
Chopin Maria Joao Pires (2009)
08. Debussy – Préludes – Livre 1 – 11. La Danse De Puck
Claude Debussy: Préludes, Vol. 1; Images (1978)
09. Satie - Gymnopédies – 2. Lent Et Triste
The Magic Of Satie : Jean-Yves Thibaudet (2002)

.

.

Well, simple music becomes complicated very quickly when it comes to making a list for Moka. My brain turns right noodly, she does have her peculiar taste you know. So maybe this year I string up something delicate and extremely beautiful pieces instead of themes. It’s a Late night list, the kind one wants to hear the last thing before the day ends. Maybe she’ll be too tired to notice imperfect list and just enjoy the songs instead. heh. But they are some of the best interpreted pieces I found so far. (start from track 4. The first 3 is to annoys her. I can’t help it.) And Happy Birthday, Moka.

image: NIN, *nacnud*

Photo: Steven Beckly

The first cup moistens my lips and throat.  The second cup breaks my loneliness.  The third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some thousand volumes of odd ideographs.  The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration – all the wrongs of life pass out through my pores.  At the fifth cup I am purified.  The sixth cup calls me to the realms of the immortals.  The seventh cup – ah, but I could take no more!  I only feel the breath of the cool wind that raises in my sleeves.  Where is Elysium?  Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither.  ~Lu Tung, Tea-Drinking-

• Lizzy Parks-Take Care
  Raise The Roof  (2008)
• Space Invadas-Done It Again
  Soul:Fi (Invada, 2010)
• Electric Wire Hustle-They Don’t Want
  Electric Wire Huslte (BBE, 2010)
• Andreya Triana-Lost Where I Belong
  Lost Where I Belong (Ninja Tune, 2010)
• Julien Dyne-Increduluos
  Pins & Digits (BBE, 2009)
• Full Create & Mar-She Was Fly
  Conversations With Her (Melting Pot Music, 2010)

El verano ha muerto para mi. Dentro de unas horas me tocará levantarme para volver a la escuela. Es un trayecto largo y subsecuentemente tengo que empezar a armar las listas que serán mis compañeras de viaje por las madrugadas: Música que me mantenga más o menos despierto y a tono para ser testigo fugaz del amanecer.
Mi dia empieza a las 4:00 a.m. tomaré una taza de té y emprenderé el viaje por ese destino constante llamado “rutina”.

See also: Cottage & Better play the note you know

” Fun short pieces ”

01. Mozart - “L’ho perduta… me meschina!” Le nozze di Figaro, K.492 Act
Amoureuses / Patricia Petibon (2008)
02. J.S. Bach – Italian concerto in F major andante BWV 971
Bach: Italian Concerto; Partitas Nos. 1 & 2; etc. / Glenn Gould (2006)
03. Tomaso Albinoni – Oboe Concerto in D minor Op.9 No.2 – 3 Allegro
Albinoni: Oboe and Violin Concertos (Apex, 2002)
04. Bohuslav Martinu – Písnicky na dve stránky (Songs on two pages, seven songs an Moravian folk poetry) – 2. Súsedova stajna (The Neighbour’s Stable)
Songs My Mother Taught Me / Magdalena Kozena (2009)
05. Animal Collective & Vashti Bunyan – I Remember Learning How To Dive
Prospect Hummer EP (2005)
06. Bela Bartok – No.9 Round Dance II: Andante/No.10 Funeral Song: Largo
Bartók for Children / Jeno Jando (2006)

note: Shot evening pieces. Animal Collective request plus light melodic classics. Remember when you were a kid most of the time music never make any big thematic sense? The things they make you play. And later on you find out, they are all some kind of basic exercise to fit your limited attention span and fingering skill? Well, this is a tongue and cheek version of that. Short phrases and melody to barely fit attention span of a gnat. ha.. But I hope you enjoy them with a big smile, they are all very well executed too. cheers.

image: zandwacht