The old rabbit is temporarily done with hurrying from place to place along deserts, mountains and sea coasts.
See here for all words and etceteras about the travel and music-slash-culture project, if you hadn't peeked at it before already.
More dazed than anything else to be back in western spheres. Its reality goes past me, which I now find even more difficult to grasp than before. So it shall be, live and learn with these acquired tainted glasses, hazy as they are. No job to look forward backward to. Nor wanting to for a few weeks more or longer. It's all a matter of when the cash does start burning through the pockets and back to making scraping ends meet. There still is springtime to enjoy until the flowers start rotting.
I have been a lot in the city scapes of Brussels in the last month, the cultural meltpot where Flemish, Wallons, Northern Africans, Central and Western Africans thread the same cobblestones and avenues, piercing through invisible language barriers. Anglophnish, immigrant patois, dress code phonetics and text message ebonics make up the cultural code. I used to hate Brussels for a long time. Not because I'm from Antwerp -since I never lived there anyway except being born in it-, nor that I was Flemishminded, but rather through the false glimpses that couldn't reveal its true spirit to me, on every short urban visit I ever did. Times change and stubborn perceptions too, as well as through people who are close to you. My localhood is near the Rue du Midi/Zuidstraat. Very near to the Recyclart nitespot, a serene spot that is located under a bridge in an old train station! And more cultural addition brought by lots of immigrant shops in the shape of import products, polarised music cultures and take away cuisine. Life in these streets and its hidden corners is not dictated by tourist trawlers but by all folks that make up the real Brussels as said above. A city's spirit thus revealed.
On the streets around though, cheapo Cara pils is the delight of the bench dwellers. In India one would be considered rich to be able to buy alcopop since the price of it is way too inflated for locals. Hence the lack of alcoholics, bar a few states/regions. Here, you don't need much money to buy beer. stock up at your peril. Cara pils must be the beer company with no commercial marketing or PR whatsoever. It will sell itself, word of mouth, from mouth to mouth, livid, tasted and shared. Alcopop advertising has never been easier, never so truthful either.
The many Indian tourists of high caste families that come to Brussels for their first touch of Free Europe are sure to be shocked when they'll encounter such sight, hah. Their mental mirror of the west will instantly have cracks on the perfect surface.
In India misery comes after one has been impoverished. Here in the west it seems that misery has a way to precede it, given that folks here still are able to live poorly and get luxury items they really shouldn't get (such as alcohol). That's first my notion on the relativity of western poverty upon returning.
Les Marolles, street art. All found in one corner.
There is music in this post too, words and free dowloads. Sneak peek thievery continued.
Adem (of Fridge) has a new album out, 'Takes', consisting of cover songs only.
His tasty take on Aphex Twin in songwriter mode.
Adem - To Cure a Weakling Chile (Girl/Boy Song)
Another one. Caribou's new album Andorra. It resembles Grizzly Bear gone psyche and flowerpoppy (and yeah very much Animal Collectively too -sigh-). Not a one-man project anymore and Snaith has gotten himself a proper band it seems. Though the album has a good feel, I'm still a sucker for his older pastures of sweet electronica from his Manitoba years. This song, more electronic than the rest of the album, reminds me of those times. Watch out for BoC inspired nostalgia. Warm fuzzy sounds, hmmmmm.
Caribou - Irene
And see attached clip. Bugs and mammals going peekaboo, aww.
The new Portishead. I just can't say anything bad about it. I wish I could out of habit just for being different, special and therefore utterly mundane. Perhaps that ambivalent line as some people have told me; 'It's quite the dance record'. Years ago, it would have had a negative connotation, whereas now... everybody has been fooled into it. Kinda like the magnificent trick that was Radiohead's Kid A. Third is its new sister; the Warp designer sound is more than apparent and bands like Broadcast must be wondering how they've suddenly turned into Portishead's idols. Trip hop is finally dead, let it be mourned and celebrated at the same time. Intoxicated shall we dance to staccato beats and indiefied techno while Beth Gibbons wails her inner confusion and emotional misery aloud to all. There goes intimacy. Pain comes more alive with rhythm. In a few days I'll see them in Barcelona spheres. In the rain surely.
Portishead - The Rip
Another amazing find of the past weeks has been Eric Copeland's 'Hermaphrodite' trip.
Actually released late last year, if one cares. But I do, after missing out on it back in India. Black Dice is done and gone for. No more. Such pity. Copeland has taken a slightly different route from the rattle and rumble and created psychedelica instead. Tapeloop psychedelica that fucks your brain into believing some unassumed drugs are running wild within you. A few go's on the Hermaphrodite headfuck and your loopy high from the feedback echo turns into a frenzy. Think of Panda Bear's 'Person Pitch', take out the whimsical vocals, twiddle obsessively with all levels and reloop all sounds into the cranial cortex. In 'La Looly Boo' for instance, Copeland morphs African folk scrap sounds into a happy cartoon march while wild animals are growling in the background. Insanity? No, blame it on Hermaphrodite. The title rings like a bell, over and over. Evil stuff that gets you addicted to transformed repetition. Black Dice is still alive, just circumsized and more twisted than before. To link it to Animals and Panda's; no surprise it has been released on Paw Tracks. Here, try an acid tab, take three even. One Mary-go-round experience for the nauseously impaired!Eric Copeland - Green Burrito
Eric Copeland - Scumpipe
Eric Copeland - Dinca
zee end, off to Barcelona. soon back. quack quack
