motel de moka

Having lived my entire life on the east coast of the U.S. and briefly in Europe, the concept of California and the west coast was always an imagined, distant place for me. Eventually I’d like to make it out there, maybe spend a few years in San Francisco, experience some of that laid back attitude you hear so much about.

Anyway, these artists and songs, all from the Golden state, represent collectively the California consciousness. For me, as an outsider to this culture, it gives me an idea of the range and energy inherent in all the different genres of music that emanate from Cali. I can’t include some of the more popular choices such as Dr. Dre, Snoop, Sublime, and the Chili Peppers, but I’m sure you’ll recognize a couple of these artists. Enjoy and chillllllllllll…..

P.S. Gotta give props to the Mamas & the Papas too…bunch of characters, those guys.

Souls of Mischief- Let ‘em Know
on 93 ‘Til Infinity (1993, Jive)
Murs- Brotherly Love
on The End of the Beginning (2003, Def Jux)
Madlib- Sickfit
on Madvillainy (2004, Stones Throw Records)
Ugly Duckling- Rio De Janeiro
on Taste the Secret (2003, Emperor Norton Records)
The Nonce- Mix Tapes
on World Ultimate (1995, American Recordings)
Long Beach Dub All Stars ft. Barrington Levy - Saw Red
on Right Back (1999, Dreamworks Records)
The Crystal Method- Wild, Sweet and Cool
on Tweekend (2001, Outpost)

Image: Brandon Cayaban

There was a man in our village who never in his life had a pet of any kind until his wife died. By my calculation, Gerard Loomis was in his mid-fifties when Marietta was taken from him, but at the ceremony in the chapel he looked so scorched and stricken that people mistook him for a man ten or twenty years older. He sat collapsed in the front pew, his clothes mismatched and his limbs splayed in the extremity of his grief, looking as if he’d been dropped there from a great height, like a bird stripped of its feathers in some aerial catastrophe. Once the funeral was over and we’d all offered up our condolences and gone back to our respective homes, rumors began to circulate. Gerard wasn’t eating. He wouldn’t leave the house or change his clothes. He’d been seen bent over a trash barrel in the front yard, burning patent-leather pumps, brassieres, skirts, wigs, even the mink stole with its head and feet still attached that his late wife had worn with pride on Christmas, Easter, and Columbus Day. … - Thirteen Hundred Rats

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” Sunday, Under the Sun ”

01. Ben Kamen - Clouds & Snow
Dreams (anonymous monk, 2008)
02. Devendra Banhart - Santa Maria Da Feira
Cripple Crow (2005)
03. Nina Violet and the Invisible orchestra - The Dog Tomorrow
Nina Violet and the Invisible orchestra (2006)
04. Albert Hammond, Jr. - Gfc
Como Te Llama (2008)
05. e.s.l. - Prove Me Wrong
eye contact (2008)
06. qr5 - Revisited Gone
Pharmakon (2006)

note: Folksy Weekend/Sunday post with. I just want something to hear something nice while doing absolutely nothing under the sun. (and reading short stories) uhh…there is nothing like increasing the chance of skin cancer while zipping ice tea … (I definitely need to check what’s on the mailbox and recent release. gah…so lazy. ok. off tweaking MdM theme now. watch out for falling debris.)

image: Yives

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Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like
his.
- Ted Kooser , Flying at Night

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” Small Late Night List with Favorites ”

01. Castanets - Three Day Four Nights (web)
Cathedral (Asthmatic Kitty, 2004)
02. Paavoharju - Puhuri (web)
Yhä Hämärää (Fonal, 2005)
03. Francoiz Breut - Si Tu Disais
Vingt A Trente Milles Jours (2001)
04. My Brightest Diamond - Inside a Boy (web)
A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (Asthmatic Kitty, 2008)
05. Tara Angell - you can’t say no to hell (web)
(Radio 4 Holland Jan.05)

Note: A short list but sweet. I don’t think I have done a lot of blogging material lately since my head is all over the place. Hopefully I can put a little more time weekend. In the meantime, here is a list with favorite tracks. Most have been posted before, but still sweet. enjoy.

PS. Any opinion about the theme?

image: bec parsons

I have vocal tunes but I don’t really feel ready yet to do them fully,” he says with typical modesty and diffidence. “I did one ’pon the album ‘Earth Rightful Ruler’ but I’m not really ready to go into vocal — I want to catch certain practices and vibes first. - Augustus Pablo

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” ‘08 Summer Texture exercise No.1 ”

01. Augustus Pablo - Cassava Piece
Original Rockers (Greensleeves, 1979)
02. Luiz Bonfá - Manha De Carnaval (Morning Of Carnaval)
Orfeu Negro (1959)
03. The Ramsey Lewis Trio - Song For My Father
The ‘In’ Crowd [Live] (The Entertainers, ?)
04. Gilberto gil - Procissao
Tropicália Essentials (Hip-O Records, 1999)
05. Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective - Weyu Lárigi Weyu (Day by Day)
Wátina (Cumbancha, 2007)
06. Lotek Hi-Fi - Ram Dancehall Featuring Earl J
Mixed Blessings (Big Dada Records, 2005)

note: Various mix of dub and Brazilian rhythm, mainly about downtempo and beatmatch exercise. Something lite, with hip-hop and weekend in mind. It comes with limited dynamic but happy toe tapping tempo. An odd blues mix but fun. Enjoy. I’ll do electronic next.

see also : The Rise and Demise of the Oil epoch, As American As It Gets
image: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [1 - 4]

Photo: haimtov

LE BEAU: The eldest of the three brothers wrestled with Charles, the duke’s wrestler. Immediately, Charles threw the brother, breaking three of his ribs; it’s not likely he will survive. Chares did the same to the second brother, and the third. They’re lying over there, and the poor old man, their father, weeps so piteously over them that the whole audience has joined him in grieving.
ROSALIND: Oh, dear!
TOUCHSTONE: But tell me, monsieur-what sport are the ladies missing?
LE BEAU: Why, the one I just told you about.
TOUCHSTONE: Men must be getting wiser every day; that’s the first time I’ve heard that rib-breaking was appropriate entertainment for ladies.
CELIA: Me too, I swear.
ROSALIND: Doesn’t anyone else want to see this, and hear breath wheezing out from broken ribs? Does anyone else love rib breaking? Shall we go watch this wrestling, cousin?

William Shakespeare - As You Like It

01. Ane Brun - To Let Myself Go
A Temporary Dive (V2 North America / 2006)
02. Ani Di Franco - Swim
Educated Guess (Righteous Babe / 2004)
03. Damien Rice - Cannonball
O (Vector Recordings / 2003)
04. Emiliana Torrini - Sunny Road
Fisherman’s Woman (Rough Trade Us / 2006)
05. Emiliana Torrini - Sunny Road Manasseh Mix
Luftkastellet, Vol. 3 (Music for Dreams / 2006)

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Photo: Elpidro

The Traitè introduced the famous explanatory fiction of the sentient statue was later highly vulnerable to the physiologists, but it well served Condillac as a paradigm to demonstrate how an individual organism might acquire faculties. The statue itself represents man’s perfect organic structure; were it depicted, it would doubtless appear with the regular and harmonious proportions and the generalized physiognomy characteristic of neoclassical beauty. It signified in Condillac’s exposition the universal organic substratum and sensorium, which was the endowment of all men and which provided the foundation and seat of all mental powers. As the exposition opens, the senses of the statue are described as “asleep”, and hence the “soul” which later animates the statue is conceived as totally lacking in “ideas”. It has by definition never been penetrated by any sense impression. In its course the text proceeds to awaken and unlock the sleeping senses one by one, beginning with smell as the sense which contributes least to human knowledge. Progressively step by step tries to demonstrate how from simple sense experiences alone (like the smell of a rose), the soul in the statue would acquire its full complement of desire and passions, and the faculties of memory, association, judgement, etc.

Michael Donnelly - Managing the Mind

01. Wynton Marsalis - Canon In D
(Portrait of Wynton Marsalis)

02. Bach - Aria De La Suite N°3
(Classical chillout lounge / 2006)

03. Ennio Morricone - Piano Piano
(The legend of 1900 / 1999)

04. Michael Nyman - The Heart Asks Pleasure First
(The piano / 2004)

05. Jethro Tull - Bourée
(A little light music / 2006)

06. Giovanni Allevi - Come Sei Veramente
(No concept / 2005)

07. Yann Tiersen - Le Matin
(Amelie / 2001)

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Image: Untitled by Teun Hocks. Prints available here.

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“I tried to make an image about desire and about the strange feeling that something is missing, although everything seems so peaceful and romantic.”

~ Teun Hocks ~

It is probably no secret by now that I am often attracted to art – whether it’s music, film, photography or any other form of art – that in some way tries to express the feeling that Hocks describes in the quote above. Artists who are looking for that strange ambiguous sentiment that both our memories and expectations can often give us. Maybe a certain longing for something we don’t know or fully understand yet. In this particular image Dutch photographer, painter and performer Teun Hocks subtly creates this feeling with a combination of surrealistic colours and a carefully composed scenery showing a man sitting with his loyal dog and staring into the distance while playing on what appears to be a flute. To create these images Hocks sketches often absurd one-man stories and uses those as a blueprint to further complete the image by photographing himself against a painted backdrop and painting in oil on top of the resulting print. With this technique he creates a world completely his own, with the distinctive aesthetics and absurdist humour of his painted photographs also often reminding me of Swedish film director Roy Andersson.

What I particularly like about this image is that unlike most of his other work its surrealistic nature doesn’t alienate us but instead creates a peaceful and familiar scenery. An environment that despite of its surrealistic colours and strange formation of clouds instantly feels comfortable and trusted. I’ve tried to translate this sentiment and the feeling that Teun Hocks describes in the quote above into the playlist. Although not featured in this playlist I have taken its title from Vikki Jackman’s breathtaking debut album on Faraway Press as it fits so well with the theme of this image. The playlist is based on a selection of mostly strings and piano oriented tracks. Most notably the centrepiece of the list provided here by Hungarian composer Mihály Víg - a long-time collaborator of filmmaker Béla Tarr – creates the mood that I was looking for. The rest of the list further explores that theme with Sala-Arhimo’s saxophone adding some variation and a surrealistic touch and our daydream abruptly ending with Morita Doji’s enticingly lush composition.

1. Okkyung Lee - Sky
   Nihm (Tzadik, 2005)
2. The Valerie Project - Tree of Life
   The Valerie Project (Drag City, 2007)
3. Mihály Víg - Werckmeister Harmóniák - Öreg
   Filmzenék Tarr Béla Filmjeihez (Bahia, 2001)
4. Norma Winstone - Distance
   Distances (ECM, 2008)
5. Eluvium - After Nature
   Copia (Temporary Residence, 2007)
6. Sala-Arhimo - Ilmestys
   Pelko Pois (Time-Lag, 2006)
7. Cloaks - Improvisation for Guitar and Piano
   Serene (Students of Decay, 2008)
8. Bleeding Heart Narrative - As If Yearning Was All and More Than Enough
   All That Was Missing We Never Had in the World (Tartaruga, 2008)
9. Morita Doji - You are Trembling
   A Boy (Polydor, 1977)

Stream playlist
Download playlist

Previously featured in this series:
- Is There a Way Out to Paradise?