Photo:Emile Barret

• Roland Appel - Dark Soldier
  Dark Soldier (Sonar Kollektiv, 2004)
• These New Puritans - We Want War
  Hidden (Domino, 2010)
• Forest Swords - Rattling Cage
  Dagger Paths (No Pain In Pop, 2010)
• Lone - The Birds Don’t Fly High
  Emeral Fantasy Tracks (Magic Wire Recordings, 2010)
• Andrea Parker - The Rocking Chair (The DR 55 Mix)
  The Rocking Chair (Mo Wax, 1996)

We began by nodding our heads in time to the drumming, then our feet. Soon we were dancing round and around the pond, waving our arms and generally behaving in a very strange manner. (…) Never before had I experienced the joy of rhythmic dance, even in the days of foxtrot in the arms of some eligible young man. We seemed inspired by some marvelous power, which poured energy into our decrepit carcasses.- Leonora Carrington. The Hearing Trumpet.

The European Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, Springtime of the Peoples or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe. Described by some historians as a revolutionary wave, the period of unrest began in France, with the French Revolution of 1848, and soon spread to the rest of Europe.

Although most of the revolutions were quickly put down, there was a significant amount of violence in many areas, with tens of thousands of people tortured and/or killed. While the immediate political effects of the revolutions were largely reversed, the long-term reverberations of the events were far-reaching. - wiki

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” Groove for Double Dip and Arab Spring Revolution ”

01. Brian Auger & the Trinity/Julie Driscoll – Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)
A Kind of Love in 1967-1971 (Raven, 2004)
02. Constantines – Life or Death
Kensington Heights (Arts & Crafts, 2008)
03. Mogwai - San Pedro
Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Sub Pop, 2011)
04. Sonic Youth – Schizophrenia
Sister (DGC, 1994)
05. Bellini - Numbers
The Precious Prize of Gravity (Temporary Residence, 2009)
06. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band – Sure ‘Nuff ‘N Yes I Do
Safe As Milk (1967)
07. Lionel Richie – running with the night
Can’t Slow Down (1990)

note: I don’t know where everybody is. Probably too busy having a live or having sex. I need those too. hah. OK, here is a proper list finally. Something restless, inspired by everybody who is struggling to have their voice heard in the middle east. Little warning, this is a mode play, opening with soul slowly turning mathrock, full of fuzz and dissonance. Very dark, but I like it. It’s a proper list, I put some thought in arranging it in term of mode transition. The seemingly random move actually are mish mash of same titles inside the album or lyrics. Mogwai’s last album has the word Lionel Richie in it.

I hope you enjoy it. And everybody in the arab world, we are behind you.

image: Barricade on the rue Soufflot, an 1848 painting by Horace Vernet.

On September 24, 1969, thirteen months after the riots that shocked America, the trial of the so-called “Chicago Eight” began in the oak-panelled, twenty-third-floor courtroom of Judge Julius Hoffman. The 300 members of the panel of potential jurors were overwhelmingly white, middle-class and middle-aged. They reminded author and trial observer J. Anthony Lukas of “the Rolling Meadows Bowling League lost on their way to the lanes.” Defense attorneys William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass submitted to Judge Hoffman a list of fifty-four proposed questions for potential jurors. They believed that the questions might aid them in their use of juror challenges by revealing cultural biases. Among the questions the defense attorneys wanted to ask jurors were: “Do you know who Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix are?”, “Would you let your son or daughter marry a Yippie?”, and “If your children are female, do they wear brassieres all the time?” Judge Hoffman rejected all but one of the proposed questions, asking the jurors only “Are you, or do you have any close friends or relatives who are employed by any law enforcement agencies?” (Later, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals would cite the judge’s refusal to allow inquiry into the potential cultural biases of jurors as a ground for reversing all convictions.) Three hours after voir dire began, a jury of two white men and ten women, two black and eight white, was seated. It was clearly not a good jury for the defense. (After the trial, one female juror commented that the defendants “should be convicted for their appearance, their language and their lifestyle.” Edward Kratzke, the jury foreman, also was angered by the defendants’ courtroom behavior: “These defendants wouldn’t even stand up when the judge walked in; when there is no more respect we might as well give up the United States.” A third juror expressed the view that the demonstrators “should have been shot down by the police.”) - The Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial

” Short Soul List ”

01. Janis Joplin – Ball and Chain [Live]
18 Essential Songs (1995)
02. Irma Thomas – Take A Look
Straight From The Soul (Stateside, 2004)
03. Amy Winehouse – Some Unholy War
Back to Black [Deluxe Edition] (2006)
04. Michael Jackson – Ain’t no sunshine
Got to be there (1972)
05. Irma Thomas – Long After Tonight Is All Over
Straight From The Soul (Stateside, 2004)
06. Janis Joplin – Summertime
18 Essential Songs (1995)
07. Amy Winehouse – You Know I’m No Good
Back to Black [Deluxe Edition] (2006)

Note: I am not sure what’s going on out there right now, so I’ll do my own thing until I have time sorting out recent releases. In the meantime, the world is definitely having one of its fit. Unhappy people all over, protests, government going crazy, and economy going straight to the ditch. I want full throat soul to go with it. This is a short list with songs from three different eras doing exactly same style singing about same subject matter. One from golden age of soul, another from the height of psychelic rock, and two from recent hits doing retake of soul era. Maybe by listening to these, I can be assured that somehow now is just a re-imagining of before. There is nothing to worry, it’s all rehash. Like a good explosive rock, hearing voice so near the mic, one can feel the heat of amplifier transmitting the scream of burning soul. It’s desiring. Articulation of soul in sound.

image: Venus Oak
see also: Chicago Seven

Photo: Carl W. Heindl.

Troubled by wild fire and your heartless, raging music.

• Scritti Politti – Doubt Beat
  Early (Rough Trade, 2005)
• Maximum Joy – Silent Street/Silent Dub
  Disco Not Disco (Strut, 2008)
• Anika – Yang Yang
  Anika (Stones Throw, 2010)
• Clinic – Evil Bill
  Monkey On Your Back (Golf, 1998)
• Suuns – Up Past the Nursery
  Zeroes QC. (Secretly Canadian, 2010)
• The Kills – Pale Blue Eyes
  Levi’s Pioneer Sessions (2010)
  

Nothing can touch me now. I’m thirty feet tall and made of diamond. I’ve traded confidence for warmth. I am an engine running on cool water. A tungsten pyramid floating in the sky. I am the ruler of this land. I sit down in my throne and watch the ground below me. I realize I should probably clip my toenails and it’s been weeks since I last cleaned my room.

Photo: Platonov Pavel.

The time and place and manner of my death are three facts that don’t exist yet.
Facts exist for whole centuries and then suddenly cease.
Pluto used to be a planet and now it is a chunk of debris, number 1341340.
My grandmother’s house stands on the hill above the sea where she left it.
When I come back to visit I discover a crater in its place.
This room is full of facts.
All day I let the cat out, let it in, then let it back out again.
I mean this metaphorically.
Some facts never exist.
It is winter. It is summer.
All night the branches tap at the glass.
- Trans-Neptunian Object by Suzanne Buffam.

• The Black Angels -River Of Blood
  Phosphene Dream (Rykodisc)
• The Duke Spirit – The Step & The Walk
  Neptune (La Music)
• Black Mountain – Old Fangs
  Wilderness Heart  (Jagjaguwar, 2010)
• Sleepy Sun – White Dove
  Embrace (Atp, 2009)
• The Besnard Lakes – Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent Pt.1: The Innocent
  Are The Roaring Night (Jagjaguwar, 2010)
• The Warlocks - Red Camera
  The Mirror Explodes (Tee Pee, 2009)

“El infierno de la calle, en Placeres, tenía sus trastiendas, sus hornos con boca a la luz. El aire de los hornos sofocaba hasta la muerte el alma; sabía a lodo seco. De ese lado del fuego, el aire, en cuanto tocaba el cuerpo, costras, camisa ingrata. La luz y la sombra, abismos afuera, adentro, por oficios del bochornoso, se habían amistado en una sola neblina, parto de una llama. De los rincones del horno, desde la raíz del humo, venía el tufo del polvo devorado por el incendio de los veranos. ”
-Los Músicos y el Fuego de Jesús Gardea.