Old Style Rabbit Tales of Furry Fury

Diagonal blog spheres ~Belgian cracks~

2009-03-25T23:48:00.008+01:00

Ahoy,

My Belgian-Dutch homestead of the 100% volunteer-run Gonzo magazine has also been blogging since a few months. About concerts/festivals, to keep the live thoughts flowing.

I did a writeup in 5(!) parts about the experimental K-RAA-K festival in Brussels a few weeks back. Yup, in Dutch though. To go along with my festival review, I even recorded a few excerpts of live sets that moreless contain a complete pattern, composition or song. Gonzo didn't want to put these recordings on the blog, not because they are sour folks or that K-RAA-K would object to it, but only because of Belgian copyright organisation SABAM. Apparently even blogs affiliated to media websites are not safe anymore for streaming/handing out music, whether it be unreleased, undefined or fixed recordings. Quite bizarre. How live excerpts can be used as a financial lever (or rather drain) by an organisation who have no intention to distribute the funds to said artists! Only 1 of the artists at the festival was Belgian and perhaps could be a memeber of SABAM, yet all the other +10 (international) artists surely aren't! How would these funds that would have to be paid by the magazine ever find their way to those artists? The mind boggles and I smell a scam. Bah.

Anyhow, for those who can read Dutch, take a peek at the review at the Gonzo blog.
Or else, read the blog road trip review which Kek, one half of noise duo Ice Cream Spiral, wrote at 9th of march.
To accompany both his and my writings in soundbites, here's the downloadable zip with live excerpts. -recorded on simple minidisc (since my recorder has been stolen about 2 months ago), so don't expect A+ quality....-

Up in old flames

2009-03-17T13:30:00.008+01:00

Bzzzzzzz, the buzzer goes.

Last night I had about 3 hrs sleep which, considering the other nights of 5 hrs sleep each, totals up to a lacking habit. With internal glands injecting new adrenaline, you can't just feel anything other but your own monkeyshouldering junkie. It's a lovely high though, pity that most people are afraid of reaching this inspiring edge. It always propels me into an active, creative mode and things do get done. Better than in situations with plenty of free time. I really should feel myself submerged into articles that need be finished by tomorrow evening, but the fear of stress is somewhere behind me, sunken of anguish.

Instead the sun is out in bright white and spring has -momentarily- arrived in Utrecht. I just cycled back from work, the busy beehive of wooddust, screeching sawing sounds and old timey blues, where I did some spider webbing. Passing through the city centre I came accross an old girlfriend from my home town, 15 miles south of here. Actually my first girlfriend from when I was about 10 years old, when we still had to steal kisses and hide notes. Not that such things in the current age should change if you don't want to.... I reconized her, unchanged as she was and she might have thought the same beyond the beard and curly waves. There was no incentive to stop and pick up a communication gone dim about 16 years ago, more than half our lives. Would it matter? With instincts on cue, I have to say there would be nothing to revive except the reference to a distant past, a past that most people rather want to forget than to be reminded of. I do remember that the breakup had a ventriloquistic nature, however vague that might seem as a piece of puzzle magic. She always aspired to be a writer since I knew her from kindergarten and I expected her to become one, yet google doesn't turn anything up in the form of publications, poems or blogs. Also aspirations seem to cower a reference to a distant and perhaps forgotten past.

Below some sounds n blurbs, try to locate the common denominator if there is any.

Two songs by my current Belgian subject for said articles. He is sincere and severely soft spoken.
Thus it's low and drowned with feedback. Both taken of his latest 'III' album @ K-RAA-K3
Ignatz - Two Nights & a Day
Ignatz - Dead By Noon

...and during the reign of the monkey on the shoulder, with the last good bulk of Pepper spray left behind. Would you rather stay with the monkey or take another full shot of pepper spray? Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a Tshirt will tell you.
John Frusciante - Curtains
....sincerely speaking and on artistic terms? tough one, really.
John Frusciante - Running Away Into You
especially when dubbed down, see, no songwriters followed that hunch....
John Frusciante - Untitled #3
and after many clicks he becomes embazzled into a digital loop.
the law of repetition, repetition, repetition, repet.......
John Frusciante - Untold titled (SebCatLitter looped cutup)
but in the end, pop solved it all....

the eyeballs just stiffled from dryness and brought some much needed fluids in.
That's the turkey kicking in and me signing off until the next post.

El Abranis....or les Abranis for stubborn Francophones

2009-02-26T23:53:00.009+01:00

I recently found some mp3's of an obscure band from the late 60's. I somehow thought they were Iranian, naively mistaking an LP titled *Waking up Scheherazade* as a hint. They're Algerian/Amazigh in fact, -doesn't all ear-tickling Maghreb music lately seem to come from those regions?- Karim Abranis is the founding member and vocalist, so hence the band name. Turn your surname into the band, easy does it.

The edgy thing about Abranis music is that he tends to play western music, though in some way it doesn't sound western -ofcourse the vocals are done in Tamazight, a southern desert Berber language. It's more like a smooth fingered take through Northern African guitar/lute riff techniques and hidden background cultures.

Here some early 70's style pyschedelic rock from the *Waking up Scheherazade* LP, which is somehow described as an Arabian Psyche Nuggets compilation, resisting to push the Tamazight culture. Dig that lushly coloured artwork though!

El Abranis - Athedjaladde

El Abranis - Ayetheri a l'afjare

Both are songs that could have easily been put on Sublime Frequencies' recent & excellent Algerian Proto-Rai Underground LP. Perhaps an idea for a dusted Amazigh release?

Here's some more info on the band, on what seem to be a fine French sound blog. Plus a lofi blues song done Algerian style. Those funky background guitar beeps hit the spot.
http://radiodiffusion.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/les-abranis/

Fired Up

2009-02-18T23:21:00.005+01:00

The Gang Gang Dance show on Friday apparently was a real blast out, so I've heard -I didn't go-. So much that their instruments catched fire in the attic storage room @ Paradiso, A'dam. Seriously bad luck there, hopefully the insurance can sort out the done damages. But how does one go about replacing vintage synths? ouch. The band wrote a statement on their MS blog, some snippets;

"we had a blast, but unfortunately our morning was a bit tragic. We stored our gear in the club last night and when we arrived there today to pick it up and head off to Brussels for tonights show, we were informed that an electrical fire had occurred in the very room where our stuff was stashed. We didnt really know the scope of how bad the fire was until we arrived on the scene to find every piece of equipment we own scattered out in the parking lot...melted, charred, and still smoldering. Most of our gear is way beyond repair and the small amount of stuff that looks as if it wasnt physically destroyed by the fire itself has all been doused by the firehoses. So we have been left with synths that are melted, a charred guitar, cases full of wet pedals and cables, drums that are nothing but the metal rims, amps that look as if they've been doused in tar...the list goes on.".....

"On top of that we are stuck here in Amsterdam until we are able to meet with the insurance company that is dealing with the fire, if we were to leave then we would risk losing out on the compensation that will be necessary for us to build our equipment back up."

Here a track from their nice 2008 rekkid 'Saint Dymphna'
Gang Gang Dance - Bebey

And one from the 2007 'Rawwar' EP
Gang Gang Dance - The Earthquake That Frees Prisoners

It seems more and more like they're stepping up to fill the void between the now defunct outfit Out Hud and some dubby-delica/step spheres. So there.

BZzzZzzzzzzzzzzzt.

Awakening on friday the 13th

2009-02-13T01:51:00.007+01:00

*****yawn******

awakening from blog neglected sleep.
*sniffing at new paint*

this for now:
Okkervil River - Listening to Otis Redding at Home during Christmas
Thanks to Nilo for his swell selected mix tape

Vosbikian Band - Yar Muneyi
Thanks to El Rikko for his excellently diasporic 'soft guide to Armenia' compilation.

An animist & animalist ode to friday the 13th, as well on Nesske's
365nights blog. Meet my adopted stray beach daughter of Portugese descent. The Africans downstairs are seriously wary of her. Just like most Africans tend to be scared of cats, I've noticed. She approaches them anyhow, rubbing her whiskers and fur against their legs while they try to hurry past her. Fledermaus love.

Hiatus lapsed back into the recycling loop, 50th jubilee post & return of the old styled rabbitey!

2008-05-28T11:46:00.004+02:00

Back from 6 months India. and Pakistan. and Nepal.
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

Csardistic goodbye

2007-10-18T10:21:00.000+02:00

I don't watch much footie games anymore -none in all fairness- , but I do love to hear underdogged countries beating established national teams, especially idf it's east against west. Such as last week; Russia beating Engand so that the ever arrogant lions might be cut out of the cup. Then Romania - Holland 1-0 to the Romanians, yay. Most dutch people always expect their team to win as if it's business as usual and therefore I'm happy for the Romanian people they got something to cheer about. Let's hope they'll fare well at the euro cup, better than the western euro teams, hah. In Honour to Romania (errr and partly Hungary) some csarda and szokos songs, nearly all by a multiple array of violins only, bar a cimbalum in the Taraf de Haidouks song.

Unknown Artists - Dechirant (OST Transylvania)

Taraf de Cimpie de Sopurul - Danse de Frata (Transylvania)

Taraf de Haidouks - Banda Conducatoroliu

Day before yesterday, an interesting conversation with a certain Kees, who knew a lot about the early start of immigrant integration in the early 70's and the then government's stance to it which he could explain to me by his own experiences. In those days, it was a very socialist government, so the dutch like to say and believe. Guess again. In some cities, developers built new *cheap* flats that the immigrant workers could buy through the government. Instead of selling them at the the low cost that the flats were worth, they were sold for the double amount and immigrants not knowing about the price-quality value, got suckered into buying them. Those flats are now in quite a bad state compared to other builings built during that period. Yeah sociaist government. I reckon for the builders it was all well and socialist. Even in Holland, socialism and moneygrabbing go and in hand;

Oh and then the upcoming law against the mushroom, which will make it illegal to sell fresh schrooms soon enough. Even liberal liberties are not free anymore nowadays. Thanks to all the shithead drugtourists that cause unhealthy usage in Amsterdam as some novice junkies feel mushrooms should always be used together with alcohol, pills or cocaine so they can occasionally die when jumping off a builing or in front on tra,s. No, surely mushrooms on their own are not enlighting enough to them. Idiots.
Back to the forests to forage it is then. Yipee kayee. In support to friends who hopefully can keep the mushrooms safe from this politcal witch hunt, I hope that they can win their battle in the next 6 months when I'm gone. See Paddoverbod Nee!

And so it comes to this, the last post on old style rabbit for a while. I'll be in India for the next 6 months, leaving in a few days.

But but but, I'll blog elsewhere on the newly created India blog; Ek, do, tin, accha! 1,2,3, ok! in hindi ;)
http://ek-do-tin-accha.blogspot.com/

Ok, bye for a while, see you at ek do tin!

Smoking frogs forget to explode

2007-10-12T11:08:00.000+02:00

Little one from the temporary hiding place.

Mum has a new album, which I'm told is sweetly bizarre and special. Some will throw it into the pile of generic freakfolk or shape it in whatever categorised name but Mum have always had their own fair share of unique sounds that can be described as heartwarming icelandic snowcaps.
Put it any way that you like it, as normal analogies fail with the best.

I've only heard/seen the song They Made Frogs Smoke 'til They Exploded and I like it. Kiddie voices, fluffy beats, clinging melodies, it's all there to tickle the fantasy and innocent nostalgia. See the clip below and draw yourself a picture......

Ok, off to busy bee practices of running around and arranging stuff.

Male, 27, seeks closure to commute to freedom

2007-10-01T16:09:00.000+02:00

It's been a while.

To speak with the Ladysmith':

*Homeless, homeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
Homeless, homeless*

Since today I am out on the streets, officialy. and by my own signature. The stone heavy responsibility has fallen of me with its shackles cut.

Not much to say except that in about three weeks I'm on my way to India for 6 months. So it seems. With various projects in mind, so it hopes. With numerous vague possibilities ahead, so it relishes. Still lots to arrange, plan and improvise. Surely that's enough work for a 9 to 5 day job for the next few weeks. yay. But at least the boss doing the thinking upstairs is capable of doing, so one believes. Shackled to my own body and inerd processes that is.

Jessica Baillif's set saturday at the ambient festival in the Kikker theatre was deeply serene and shoegazer-polishing beautiful. check out song below.

Here some great songs, raps and instrumentals that I have been enjoying over the last year, yet never shared up till now. taste!

Jessica Baillif - Shadow (album to be found at the friendly good people of Morc Tapes label!)
Bird to Be - Shallow (in its lo-fi glory. chirpy birds sing nice songs)
Sandro Perri - Circles (from 'Sandro Perri plays Polmo Polpo' EP at Constellation)
Haruki - In The Garden (to get for free at the Rain Music weblabel. go forth and check)

Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou - Tenkou! Why Feel Sorry? (Ethiopiques#21, piano africadirium!)
Artur Adriano - Kalunga (1960's angola) (off some 4 disc compilation that has a 50 yoyo tag)

Bleubird - Blackhawk Down feat. Sole (from the album RIP USA/The Birdfleu on Endemik recs.)

Wooden Wand - Vengence, Part2 (off Harem of the Sundrum & the Witness Figg, is it doomblues, freakfolk, rock? just Wooden Wand)

nighty night.

In the next weeks till country kick-out I'll beep here from time to time with a letter or two, but always failing promises, promiscuously.

Bony kings and queens in improvised handwriting

2007-07-10T00:34:00.000+02:00

And alas my loves, so the weekend surpasses its own current of constant backtracking on train tracks. From the Brabandian fields surrounding Eindhoven to the metropolitan bustle of Brussels, guided by warm wings :)

In a tucked away village field, the Broermoats festival took place from friday till saturday with a lineup of allsorts alternative music, put together by spiderthreadmaster Maarten, or better know under his nom de plume Flip met de hoed.
You could camp there and the idea was basicly to put your tent anywhere around the stages. Courtesy of free relocation and temporary bed placement. I was asked to put on some music inbetween some acts in the chillout area and with pillows aplenty, well, it easily turned into nest of comfyness as I pressed play buttons in relax mode while lying down of soft textures. Certainly way more enjoyable that way, dj-ing (or the attempt to) should always be that simple and lazy.
Saw some various electro and improv-like acts, having bits and bobs of food, watching visuals from a couch. Dead easy relaxed so the evening went and turned into night. The guys had made a shack into a cosy and arty lighted mini club, with the dj booth crafted like a cage. Me and Hank Long were locked into there from midnight till the bright morning, playing mashy stews of electro, rock, techno, jungle, computergame scores, hiphop, breakcore and world beats... you can play a lot in, say, 8 hours pfeww. Getting woken up by a soft daze of hazy saxphone and dubby sounds was a sleepy eyed pleasure. The festival picked up its pace at lunchtime and Benjamin's friendly Utrecht band Moi, Le Voisin did their folky set which was a bit too short, pity. Though I got real sunny and nice, we soon afterwards left the festival since we planned to go to Brussels, homestead of the bird. Together with the voisins on their way back to Utrecht for videoclip privilages, we got a lift by tractor on our way out.The last view was seeing some mad raver fella falling into one of the watery irrigation ditches. fun fun. The festival was great, such relaxed atmosphere, nice people, good music, booze n food. Plus all very well organised in a sincerely enjoyable amateuristic way. Oh, and the voisins running with their cello, accordeon and guitar was a fun sight to see.

The road to Brussels was all about lying down in the sun, whether in trains or on green pastures.
It was quite a while ago that I had been in Brussels and in the sun it all looked so different, hence I've mostly been there when it was raining. Me as the turtle, Ness as the snail, both shaped like backpacked animals. It's an analogy that made the burdened walk more funny.
Brussels has a lot of free festivals, there's always one of more going on it seems. The Klinkende Munt festival took place in the Beursschouwburg theatre with Jeremy Warmsley (UK) and Gary Lucas (USA) on the bill. Jeremy Warmsley was described as a songwriting Aphex Twin or Arcade Fire in a box. Kinda odd and you wonder why this spin is given to him, as to us, he sounded more like a Rufus Wainwright or Andrew Bird in younger years. The pianoplayer was the most entertaining character on stage. Not that he did so much, except just being the token eccentric type who performed like a skilled madman. Fun for the eyes and ears. Breaktime meant time for stairsitting with belgo beer at hand. It's always a bonus. It's funny to bump into someone you know in a place you've never been before, so it goes. After that gitarist Gary Lucas came on, famous from his escapades within the mighty Magic Band of the ole' Captain Beefheart that we treasure so dearly. He played improv guitar noise over classic cult horror movies. Fun for the eyes, fun for the ears. Next day we lazied around markets, parks and city views in a sunday manner. And ofcourse, another free festival, the Plazey festival in the open air surroundings of a park. We especially came for The Bony King of Nowhere, a young folky revelation from Gent, spearheaded by the 20 year old Bram van Parijs. Ness told me that Devendra Banhart praised this fella highly and since they played the Domino festival they are quickly rising to fame. Even without a proper album. Reason enough to catch them and yup, it was good. Good enough to put up some unreleased tracks here, taken from the Alas My Love demo ep that Bram was selling out of a shoebox. Earnest indeed. :)

The Bony King of Nowhere - Alas My Love
The Bony KIng of Nowhere - Jack Tar

We saw some other band playing, Donkey Diesel, though the rain and our hunger took the attention span off the stage. An Pierle was supposed to play after, but not to be seen as I had to get my train back to the rainy hollandonian landscapes. But soon to return to La Belgique, yay! Actually every weekend up to the beginning of August will be spend in the homelands, as there are just too many good festivals, gigs and sweet people to visit. One can't deny the roots under that joyfull suspicion.

this coming weekend.....Dour! starting thursday...Wu Tang Clan, Skatalites, Israel Vibration, Amon Tobin, Wilco, Les Ogres de Barback, A Hawk and a Hacksaw and whatnot... fun will continue! And perhaps Animal Collective too, playing in the open air next to a Brusselian railway station? Or the option of a monday evening, BBQing with Wolf Eyes? Overdose guaranteed.

I'm in by going out, out of it while staying in. Loophole roundabouts...merrily, merrily, merrily.
enjoy your week, ending into weekend.

Jackfruit in sweetened coconut milk

2007-06-19T23:44:00.000+02:00

yeah, been awhile again. Though I had intended to post a lot...which never accumulated.

Myumm, it's kinda hot here now and I'm overloading on Foco's Jackfruit/Coconut ice cream, thanks to the Chinese supermarket. Brainfreeze and frostbite dazzle.

Last weekend included an old skool rave party (SL2, Neil Landstrumm), a Kimya Dawson concert, a reggae bash of the good elephant crew and a sunday afternoon of world music in the park shaped into a festival. In a nutshell.

To make the shell smaller, I'll just add a petite thing for now on Kimya Dawson. Since she has had her baby Panda Bear (hmm, a spurr of Animal Collective fame) she has gotten u-turn cleaned-up motherly and even sweeter in her songs, crafting them like kiddie songs. Sesame street turned all bizarre and emo for the adults. I got her funny handcrafted ep filled with kid songs with pictures to colour in yourself. Happy times to be suckered into feeling like a kid allover again, guilty pleasures do me no harm :) No more songs about broken love, suicide and alcoholism for once, so mother Dawson..please stand up.

Kimya Dawson - Little Monster Babies
Kimya Dawson - Alpha Butt
Kimya Dawson - Seven Hungry Tigers

I will soon post something about that gypsy csarda violin style I was rambling on about before, which has been taunting my brain deliciously for the past few weeks. violins and drones; a perfect combo of acoustic lull.

Ethiopiquette

2007-06-08T12:52:00.000+02:00

Quickie. quack quack.

The Dutch cultural VPRO organisation always does very well to produce special docu's about lost and new music.....

A recent broadcast featured Terrie of legendary Dutch punk band The Ex and Tsehaytu Beraki. Terrie has his own world music label Terp, on which he mostly releases music of older Ethiopian artists. He discovered Tsehaytu Beraki living anonymously in Rotterdam, she's an old Ethiopian star singer from Eritrea who had been in the Eritrean rebel forces during the late 60's and in the mid 70's she fled to Holland as applied for political asylum. You can see the show streamed! she's one spicy granny.
http://www.vpro.nl/programma/vrijegeluiden/afleveringen/?programs=29601959
-only to be viewed in WMP though, and yup..mostly in dutch.-

This weekend, they will broadcast a documentary about Jimmy Mohammed Jimmy which should be online after the weekend at the same website as above.

On the subject of the recently deceased Jimmy Mohammed Jimmy:
-I sadly have slacked to post a memorian that I planned to do so at the start of this year -sigh-

Tonight the good people of the Ex are organising an Ethiopian fundraiser night in the OT301 for Jimmy's family. See below all information, so come! These concerts and Ethiopian disco sound too special to pass and good causes deserve good attention. Life is sweet with all this sun and sticky heat. thanks for the feed Rik!

TRIBUTE TO MOHAMMED JIMMY MOHAMMED

A special benefit night to pay tribute to Mohammed JimmyMohammed, the amazing blind Ethiopian singer who died onDecember 17, 2006 in Addis Ababa. Jimmy played with histrio 3 times at OT301 and is greatly missed by all of ushere as well as by the many friends and fans he made onhis Dutch tours. All proceeds from this night will go tohelp Jimmy's wife and 2 young children.

ETENESH WASSIE [Ethiopia] + LE TIGRE DE PLATANES [France]
Etenesh Wassie - vocals
Marc Demereau - saxophones, melodica + gueulophone
Piero Pepin - trumpet, bugle, trombone + melodica
Mathieu Sourisseau - bass
Fabien Duscombs - drums
http://www.myspace.com/tigredesplatanes

ANDY MOOR + TERRIE EX - guitarshttp://www.theex.nl

Film premiere; "THE JIMMY" by Stephane Jourdain
CD Release; "HULGIZEY" by Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed Trio

Plus....
Photo and video gallery
Ethiopian food
Ethiopian disco with DJs Terrie + Andy

Entrance 8 euro

Burst of the dam, music pours out and drowns us.

2007-05-29T16:32:00.000+02:00

Suddenly you get whirlwindsucked into a weekend of diasporic world music and *whack*, inspiration fish-slaps you in the face and words dribble out. loooooong read ahead.

Friday.

We had our 3rd Rebel Up! Soundclash party but despite our effort we got about 20 people in. Whether the lack of people was due to the heath or that no one could be bothered remains unclear. But at least we had fun playing our mishmash of foreign spiced sounds for the swaying international folks on the dancefloor, with Rik and Friso joining our audio couscous feast with good ingredients. Surely our next party with Maga Bo (live!) on the 29th of June should be an earopener and floorfiller, hoping we can raise way more funds for the Rwandan charity.

Saturday.

I sometimes get quite quickly bored with abstract electronic music for a while, so I gave Francisco Lopez performance a wide berth and last-minute decided to go and see an Indian raga performance in Amsterdam. Last week, my Hindi teacher Darshan Kumari had quietly told me that she would play at a small concert, to accompany the main performer. What she didn't say was that it was for the famous sitar talent Purbayan Chatterjee in the grand hall of the Tropentheater! Purbayan comes from a line of respected musicians and he followed his father's footsteps when taking up the sitar at the crisp tender age of 5 and the famous raga legend Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan is his longtime master for teaching him the lifetime improvisations and variations of the raga. Purbayan has even played alongside the famous musicians Partho Sarathy and Shashank, which tidely sums up his already jawdropping resume, wow. At the age of 30, he can still be considered a young talent as learning classical Indian music takes a lifetime to achieve, let alone play virtuously. The level that Purbayan finds himself standing on, is one that already touches the same ground of sitar raga legends Nikhil Banerjee and Ravi Shankhar. Entering the Tropenmuseum building, you find yourself in a huge marble hall, decorated into grandeur with nicely laid out patterns. People walked around in evening dress as if it was the reception to some ambassador, so I nearly thought having entered the wrong hall, yet it indeed was ment fora special ambassador -one of Indian music!- :) The performance took place in the big room, which was decorated by amazingly carved wooden pillars with each a wooden sculpture resting on top of it. Back to Darshan, my modest teacher. She herself is one of the most gifted Indian female sitar players around and has been living here in Holland for over 25 years now, teaching classical Indian improvisations to musicians and being their master. At this performance, she played small repetitive raga drone scales on the 4-snared tanpura to accompany the sound of Purbayan's sitar and the tabla of another young talent named Anubrata Chatterjee (son of tabla legend Anindo Chatterjee, not to confuse with Purbayan's family). Purbayan started the show by saying that he would play 2 long raga's of 50 minutes each. Now that is a real musician.. giving himself enough time to build, develop and unwind an improvisation....and for the seated guests to enjoy, yay. My experience in raga's to explain them as insightfully as such really does not go very deep..but I'll try.

The first raga was a northern Indian one and started softly using the 'alapa' raga variation which means it went without a rhythm, just the melody as a lead. It slowly turned into wild sitarpicking crescendo's, slightly waved to flamenco, with fast bouncy tabla rhythms to go with. Amazing stuff. The 2nd raga was a carnatic raga from the south of India and the rhythm turned down a notch. There was more space for snare twisting but at the same time, the were uneven intermissions between the sitar and tabla which made it an interesting piece. Halfway, Purbayan's fingers got into a gliding mood and in quick procession double scales were resonating against one another which was one of the many moments he exhibited his skills. The end of this raga was magnificiently hefty; while the sitar melody went faster and faster, the thumping of the tabla's became louder and louder, endig with a bang. The audience clapped, once, twice, thrice. Purbayan, Anubrata and Darshan folder their hands, bowed their hands. It indeed would have been too cheeky to demand an encore in westernised stylee, since it wouldn't have done justice to the flow of the raga. You can't open an Indian music box in just a few minutes. I recorded the 2nd (carnatic) raga on my minidisc so it will eventually finds its way here later this week -or at least a big part of it-.

Sunday.

The Dunya festival in Rotterdam, a free world music festival sponsored by the city government with an amazing lineup of various international acts spread over 4 music stages.
So many choices as always, had to pick sometimes, so I missed the Malinese chanteuse Salimata Diabaté while Watcha Clan was on. Such is the festival spirit, high and low. Watcha Clan were great, despite their early scheduling (grrr). They hail from the melting pot that is Marseille and brought a intermeshing array of mestiza, gypsy, dub and northern african styles in one go. What amazed me is that for just 3 people playing instruments and electronics they have a very full sound. Me and Pascal met the threesome clan afterwards and it's very likely we will pull them to Utrecht to play in early September if all goes ahead. A Rebel Up! nite with a live band? hmmm who knows. Moroccan foursome Tarwa N Cheikh Mohand was up next and they brought on acoustic Amazigh music from the north. The dancing and the singing of these elderly gents had a heavy trancedental feel like Berber music always has in some way and took the crowd with their swooning sound. Brazilian singer Beatriz Azevedo was pretty dull in a lazy sunday afternoon jazz way so we scurried off to Gypsy.cz at the other stage. They are 4 young gypsy men from the Czech Republic but not made out of an average composition. The singer is also a hiphop mc and mixed funky rap rhymes over gypsy guitar ballad, accompanied with digital laptop beats. It was good. His speech *Where I come from in Czechia, we gypsies are seen as black and discriminated against* was right on in a hiphop manner, though the black kids around us didn't really warm for his message it seemed. But then again, what defines one being marked as black? Skin colour or inner spirit, or culture? French punky reggae band Babylon Circus were expected to rock it and they did so in jump out fashion. They were good, got the crowd friendly moshing though their sound was bit too much on the side of punk this time instead of their earlier ska and reggae style. Plus their songs are now shapened into English instead of French or Spanish. It's good to see this band on the uprise. We also missed the Seckou Keita Quartet. shucks. Ramesh Shotham's Madras Special was a nice enough session of drumming and peddling on itself, but it was no match to the blissful Indian concert overdose of the previous night. Monkomarok came on afterwards and were pretty good. In some ways they really compared to Watcha Clan, yet more aimed at an older audience. Also hailing from the south of France (Toulouse), they as well mesh northern african, eastern european and the iberic sounds into a special worldly jazz concept. Where Watcha Clan takes a better aim at making people dance and have a more rebellious profile, Monkomarok is more delicate and has a deeper trancedental near-sufi sound that makes you sway.
Had we not hopped as much in the rain to the funky New Orleans gypsy fusion of Tony Kitanovski & Cherkezi Orchestra, we could have catched much more of Cherifa whom we had forgotten about(!). Alas and gutted, we just catched the tail of her *berberific* show. Cherifa Kersit is one of the most famous Berber chanteuses and she had 3 musicians with her who played the handdrum, lute and rattling percussion. I just always love the Berber music, its rhythms, the pulse of the Bendir, the resonating snare drone of the Ginbri lute, the clanging of the Qarqaba and the chanting and here it was no different. I could just record a piece of the last song, the loud feedback you hear at the end is the Ginbri lute player unplugging his instrument harshly. Rock on :)

Cherifa - Live tail excerpt Dunya (enjoy it Jace, pity it's way too short...)

The general theme throughout the festival was to ban out racism, by programming many acts that mesh world music styles together in unifying sound manner, which was a great idea. One thing that annoyed though me was that a big yet young part of the immigrant crowd did not embrace this sound message. There especially were vast numbers of biased Antillian and Moroccan teens there who only seemed to come for *their* thing, -as in music styles from their region of origin- and they were not being very positive and receptive to the other music styles being played live throughout the day since they didn't match their *own* local sound. Highly hypocritical? perhaps. -What I mean to point out, would I jeer more for a band just cos they're from Belgium...Holland....Europe? fuck that shit- Music does not need to match an identity, but playfully juggling with the idea of it, so should people. But alas, everyone has their perefered bias whether one wants to admit it or not. In times where immigrant youths are inbetween identities and can not find a balance between their ancestral identity and current identity, this is a given flaw in human adaptation. At least to those who care/crave too much for having a fixed identity instead of a freefloating identity, nervepicked by your own braincells. This slant is only ment on a cultural/musical note, not on integration or anything. The word 'immigrants' here could for instance just as well be replaced with 'squatters', seeing how their scene is more concentrated on punk and same old rallies with a good social message, yet this message is not often carried into a global unifying musical context either that *should* be better fit for it. (in a *oh wishfull thinking, thou robs me* stupor). And many more examples can be made if wanted, for any other scene, movement and so on. Ah, this endless introduction to a smoldering social culture debate better dies a slow death under a brusque wave of water. woosh.

Afterwards we went to our friend Jigo's place around the corner, who is a percussionist student from Slovenia. Imagine the amount of percussion tools lying about, with his room shaped as a small recording studio.

And after the Rotterdam daytrip, I ventured to the dubstep nite that Ingmar, Martin and the good men of the new Planet K organisation had put on in my city. Dubstep does exactly what it says. I just wobbled and staggered to the uneven beats and echoes. Here some nice photos of Derek Djons. I recorded an excerpt of Youngsta's set, though the quality of bass lack on my mic . People can even be heard talking on the background, so it probably wasn't loud enough, heh ;)

DJ Youngsta - Live at Helling excerpt

Monday.

The Gipsy festival in Tilburg. It was a gathering of many gypsy and tzigani families from allover Europe in the garden of a big insurance company, sponsored by the same company. You will probably find this factoid ironic in numerous ways considering the context. Imagination, such is life. The festival was programmed with traditional music only and (thankfully) not with hybrid styles that often miss the point entirely and degrade this music to a westernised caricature (acts such as Oi Va Voi, Miss Platinum etc. spring to mind). Many grey clouds circled our heads and rain was sure to arrive in sleeting showers, but to me it fitted the musical context perfectly.
The festival was kicked off by Čilágos, a big group of artists formed out of various eastern Slovakian Roma families, combining their skills to bring authentic folklore songs. They directly had an impact on the crowd as they paced slow blues rhythms into faster dances during every acoustic song. 4 female singers of various ages in folklore dress carried the vocal torch, while the men were on accordeons, guitars and drums. We were in front of the stage and suddenly you could smell the old air being squeezed out of the accordeons, releasing a smell of instrumental nostalgia. At one point one of the men sung a beautifully sad blues song in a smokey tzigani voice which prompted tears from the oldest female vocalist who wept with pride, not hiding it. If a festival already starts going so deep early on, you realise that you're part of a special event. Pascal, Jiga and me walked around for a bit and we came upon a stall selling handmade and truly antique gypsy swing guitars. The elderly owner was a member of the travelling Limberger family, cousin of Tcha Limberger and also closely connected with the famous Reinhardt and Schmitt manouche jazz families. After a bit of talking, he picked up one of the crafted guitars made us enjoy a sudden swing improvisation which was pretty amazing. He tried to lure Pascal into buying a bunch of old broken Belgian trumpets for 100 euro's, after Pascal had showed interest in a bashed and barely functioning trumpet. Some tricks don't die young. We saw some gypsy swing on the other stage but we yearned for blues to match the wet drizzle instead of sunny swing tunes. Gadjo Joe was a funny Belgian storyteller who had a corner to himself and his original made and painted gipsytrailer, to entertain the kids with all kinda gypsy legends about fairy's, ogres, princesses and granted wishes. He did it really well, so we joined the kids for a while under the protective wings of a pine tree and could only smile. Walking back to the stage we encountered a scene of unreal anger in the middle of the park, as several gypsy women started screaming to each other at an unnerving pitch. Something was eerily wrong and quickly a crowd of family members emerged, running from all angles to this spot. 2 Gypsy families, (which even consisted of several Čilágos affecionados) stood eye to eye with each other and tensions rose invisibly to the rest of the festival audience. From the back, a man in his 30's in a black suit angrily walked up and shouted abuse at one of the women and it soon made clear why. His neck showed a gaping big cut, with blood pouring from it onto his shoulders. The family elders of each family quickly stepped in, eyed each other and muttered a few words which prompted the family of the wounded man to run away, out of the festival grounds, young and old alike. Bizarre, as quickly as the scene had started, as quickly it was dismissed again without any aggression or retaliation. According to Pascal through his Romanian life experience, gypsies do not apply their laws around non-gypsies. Though that does not mean it's over by a far stretch, as blood feuds can run deep and long. As a non- gypsy (gadjo) you will never find out what exactly happened and why, since we are not part of their world other than that we're seen by them as gullible sheep placed outside of their society. To us westeners, this other society is a concept beyond our own law abiding imagination of authority and registered citizenship, but it's not to those who live freely on the fringes of society, in a society with its own rules and laws.

Back to music and happy yet sorrowfull spirits. We started bumping into more and more friends and aquintances who had also made their way to Tilburg and the atmosphere was brilliant all around. Tony Lakatos and his Gypsy Colours somewhat disappointed and every song was too much the same. They played a few Tchavalo Schmitt takes, which were really great but the rest sounded a bit samey. Romeny Jag on the other hand was really good. They're a Dutch gypsy family, spearheaded by a big blonde Frisian guy from up north and darkly skinned storyteller Bluma Schattevoet. With violin, accordeon, djarbouka and even a diggeridoo(!) they gave a vivid and jumping performance while a teenage boy and girl danced along in folklore outfits. They only played already famous eastern european songs and sometimes made some mistakes, but that was actually the charm of their on stage presence and energy and made us bounce. Yaa! Lincon Rumanian Gypsy Ensemble was much anticipated as they brought some excellent cimbalom tunes, making Rik smile from ear to ear. They had a terrific good female singer of good oaked age, which one of the musicians sweetly introduced as his talented mama. Crowds began dancing more and more since the alcohol intake of some started to have effects, from bubble and grape magic. After that the famous French stylemelangeur Thierry *titi* Robin took over and the pace slightly slowed down and took us on a Northern African trip meeting flamenco and gypsy swing along the way. Like a Tony Gatlif soundtrack brought live onto stage. Hungry times knocked into the belly and the sole veggie option among all the chicken spiced bits and onionsprinkled beef patties, was falafel. But they naturally had sold out since my festival eating pattern is always belated. Instead some cornbread sandwiches with lettuce and garlic sauce, but it was a luxuruous jail meal though ;)

Headliner and Romanian favorites Fanfare Ciocarlia would close off the festival and prepared themselves in relaxed manner next to the main stage. Upclose we watched and heard them practising their wide and shiny horn section. Tuba thumps, trumpet struts and so on; a sure party in the making. The volupteous Bulgarian Lilliana Buttler -rightly nicknamed the queen mother of the gypsy soul- prepared herself with a platter of fries and mayonaise, while already dressed up in her special red evening gown. Finally they went on stage, our wine came out of the bag and the fest was about to drag us by the feet into the air. One famous classic came after the other with trumpets, drums and tuba's in orchestrated grist and splendour, before Buttler delivered her baritone voiced songs and had the audience in her control. We were at the side of the stage, dancing our socks off together with many other likeminded folks with whom we created a gentle gypsy dance moshpit. The fanfare went on and on and we all wished it would not end. They did do an encore on stage and everyone thought it was over by then...but me and Pascal knew they would come back into the crowd to play acousticly as they do at nearly every show. So they did. Moneybills were stuck to their sweaty foreheads, the crowd cleared a path for them so that everyone could dance right next to them, rubbing the drum and shouldering the tuba....all shouting 'Mult'umesc!' What a great end. And that's that.

Here some songs of the Čilágos family group. I bought their cd off their roundbodied dancer who sold albums through the crowd during Lincon. Pascal reckoned she had seen us upfront dancing at the start, making us an easy target. yup.

Čilágos - Sar Me Mamo
Čilágos - Kána Phares
Čilágos - Duj Chavore
Čilágos - Dzelem

Soon I'll put up photo's here as Jet catched the atmosphere in some pretty good images.

Pfew. I'm done.
Close off bit with muzak overdose. So it goes (ey zjofie?).

Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice - Hey Pig He Stole My Sound
(from the appropriately titled album 'Gypsy Freedom')
This sounds like Konono No.1 fighting gamelan style with the No Neck Blues Band. Say wha'?
When putting this song on, my cat started freaking; scratching the carpet, the bed and psycho tailed high jumps. Yessa, freakfolk goes bestial, roaaaarr!

keep well.

Brosseau, the Dakota troubadour

2007-05-17T12:36:00.000+02:00

Short post before trainsitting my way to the Ardennes for a few days, where a patch with a clean natural river running through will wait. bliss. Just need to get away from this concrete jungle, quickly.

Meet Tom Brosseau from the plains of North Dakota, a sweet gentleman fella I met last year when he was touring with folkies Vetiver. In a smooth high pitched voice he sings his alternative country and in the same soft manner he releases hushed words when speaking.

You can see and hear him doing his styled thing, walking around on the streets on New York and in a N.Y. barber shop. He remains composed, smiling to people as if it's his natural place to be there. It's a recorded and video'd here. Take a peek.

Plus, some free tracks were to be found elsewhere. Find them uploaded below.

Tom Brosseau - Amory
Tom Brosseau - Corina, Corina
Tom Brosseau & Angela Correa - The World is Waiting For the Sunrise

That's all for now. Gotta run.

Battled the block

2007-04-25T09:39:00.000+02:00

hummmm. block; writer and crash alike.

Battles just released Mirrored, which takes their music a step further beyond the thick patches of krautrock and into a labyrinth of eclecticity. Wow. Rock is exciting again. Review time. Life literaly gives you a bruised context that fits, rough and toughed up. This one also goes out to Henk and Yann, our clumsy minds in unison.

Begin nightly bike race; fresh, lean and swiftly. You speed past traffic lights, deserted crossings and a mild sunday wind brushes the skin. Freedom at 30 kms per hour.
Battles - Race In

Sounds wooze past and the speed goes up a notch, pedal the iron horse into the moonrise!
Without braking you face an unexpected roadblock. Too little too late. Screech and stop and the iron horse throws you off. Airborn as it goes.
Battles - Atlas

There's a loafy tumbling and in a sedated daze, your bodily conscience is consumed for a marginal moment in time, untill sound switches itself back on and you feel your head and limbs thumping. Louder, harder and heartbeat-like, it aches. Yeah, that's definately the feeling of ugliness coming on. The iron horse; well, it's front legs are broken...the poor sweet thing.
Battles - Race Out

rattle....rattle.....rattle......*clang*

Vonnegutted & droney clouds in canyons

2007-04-12T10:48:00.000+02:00

Hi bookworm club,

Sad news; another visionair master bites the dust, at the oaked age of 84 though. Vonnegut's legacy will hopefully continue to inspire future generations long after us, as to not make people step into the same reality pothole that he made himself escape from. Slaughterhouse-Five was the first eyeopener for me through a socio-political writing style that breathed sarcastic splendour. In the same sharp vein as Céline, Vonnegut portrayed and analysed humans in certain social environments and say, their reaction to war and doom-like situations, for the best and for the worst. All done in a sci-fi anorak made out of unfiltered black comedy.

Some Vonnegutian quotes, as impromptu cited by an irish friend:

"everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt"
"How nice to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive"

a sway back to reality, away from the printed paper and its poetical truth.

Last Tuesday evening, those 2 seperate livingroom concerts were a world apart. One room, filled with cosy matrasses and pillows, provided folk and songwriter jibes. The other, wooden benches and a wall of meditative noise to crush yourself on. Both settings confined of beautiful tones nonetheless, at least in my ears:

Dutch outfit This Leo Sunrise did their folk set before a home crowd. Hailing from Utrecht, they somewhat linger inbetween the folk-tastic Dirty Three and frickle songwriter folk in the footsteps of name-one. It's just an estimation. I do find their live sound better than on record, guess it had to do with the comfy livingroom.

This Leo Sunrise - This Is Our Glorious Time

Switch.
A marriage in noise; German-American duo Cloudland Canyon. They are a Hamburg-Memphis connection, which is indeed a non average team-up locationwisely seen. Praise the internet for data back-and-forth tuggles, which kept this project alive through the static hemispheres.
Their live set was one steady drone of heavy thumping and subsonic tremblings. As I said earlier; it was pretty meditative and eye-closing. Near the end, fuzzy organ sounds overwhelmed the atmosphere to give it a psychedelic shine. Great stuff, please come again to play guys...anywhere...anytime!

A bunch of empee's from their "Requiems der Natur 2002-2004" album, which actually isn't so noisy, but spiked with freakfolked drones instead. Lovely all the same.

Cloudland Canyon - Opening/ Ice of Rift
Cloudland Canyon - Clearlight Intry (for full enjoyment; play it queued straight after Ice of Rift as they belong together)
Cloudland Canyon - Field Ghosts
Cloudland Canyon - Holy Canyon (Vanquish)

beep n scratch. astronaut out.

Enter Easter coma modus. On

2007-04-10T13:28:00.000+02:00

A 5 day Easter weekend would normally give people some deserved rest, precious laziness or other timewasting nonesuch activities. It kinda should. Yet when one is tightly bound to the own addiction of gighopping and social outings, there's nothing left than to sully surrender to the swirl of self imposed demise.

One goes to a concert of a friend, enjoys beautifully sculptured minimalism, voice and guitar alike in this tonal shape;
Soccer Committee - Stripping The Nude
Later on, one sees and hears more minimilised forms; an imaginary soundtrack to snowpaved roads by Austrian duo Lokai. Mwoah, Easter starts easy. So one thinks. The night that blends into a late late session at the local squat bar disco tells another story alltogether.

Next day, you just need to go to that gypsy extravanza. You have gotten urged to, promised to expell the laziness that the body is craving. There are trumpets waiting, accordions with shiny teethed smiles and grins above them welcome you and the fest continues from that first nervy step on. Can one be blamed? You go deep and bow down, get your hat robbed by some urban cheeky eyed nightingale and you bow again. Some gent puts down a tray of shot glasses in front of oyu while he's juggling with records, pops the vodka open, you bow and grasp, taking it all in.
The haze leads you into a blissfull stupor, you bounce. Up, sideways, down. Drinks are spilled on you from all angles and the sharp fragrance of eau d'alcool washes over you to complete your effort in drowned Tom Waits impressions. Mumble, stumble and grunt, hardstomping and blunt...it ends.

With limp legs, one slides into bed, knowing that a few hours of snooze will not be a trustworthy preparation to the Rhaaa Lovely festival, down in Belgolandia onto the green wavy Wallonian patches just above Namur. It means picking up hitchhikers along the way and getting lost in side road belgium, as always. You do reach your destination among the indie people; bespecled, beardy, pale, darkly clothed, glum. You fit in, somehow, or try to. You notice that the band Bracken sounds like Hood, in fact IS Hood in a certain percentage way of speaking. Narky singer moans at crowd, making them more glum, apologises for doing so. It's an indie story of shoegazing, you see. Yndi Halda is late and last seen near Spa, informs one clever eagle. Another victim of the Belgian side roads, the curse of pitoresque lostness strikes again. They are postrock anno 2007, looking to the telltale past of other outfits, takes what it likes and repaints it with the same colors. The token duplicate is not of bad quality on this greyish afternoon. It actually fits sincerely. But sincerety does not equal originality. Rothko. One of those versatile bands with a sound that touches many styles at once. Call it your European degree of Tortoise and the nail has nearly been hit into the wood, barely missing your finger. They beam of enthousiasm and pride, since they hardly ever play for more than just a small room, let alone a few hundred people in a bigger hall like today. Great set. Onto Audrey, a 4pack of Swedish lo-fi rock girls that makes the male indie contingent go upfront to drool. Their solemn focus is put to noir songwriting while the cello is one of the better parts of their total sound. Weirdly enough, every one of them sounds like Björk on a weary comedown. Decide yourself whether that's good or bad. Please something heavy to wake up with. The tiredness of the day before is fighting you from within. Arnaud Michniak is formerly of the amazing french improv punk/postrock band Diabologum, now disbanded. -ooow a long time favorite, this one confesses- He drops a dirtbomb on cue. With ferocious poetry he lunges for the crowd. Smudgy guitar sounds and harsh background noises accompany the scene, while from time to time a movie plays on screen in which a manifest is being presented through action and reaction. The adaptation of him putting an announcer on the roof of his mini peugeot car and driving while ranting away over a handheld speechbox, makes me think of that rowdy character in Richard Linklater's Slackers and Waking Life movies. It ends in minutes of improvised punk noise that trickle into a steady noise drone. Yessa. You wander around the festival grounds, look at the drawings that children made in these schoolbuildings, visit the standard unlit portaloo's and there are some sounds from the mini camping. You wander over and find 3 germans dancing around an iPod connected to a ghettoblaster; hi & low-tech celebrate their sudden unity. Air's "Sexy Boy" plays on the improv soundsystem and you find yourself dancing too, because this sweetness makes you smile and shiver, chickenskinny in the cold breezy Wallonian evening air. You stay for more and electroclashmashes of Le Tigre and whatnot pass by in playfull tones, untill the soundsystem goes silent. Batteries empty. Long live the iPod indeed.
Part Chimp continues the loudness, but in a punkrockish manner. It's fun for the moshpitgoers, but nothing more than that. A Whisper In The Noise means, ''you can sit down and relax". People are even sleeping, so your eyes make you believe. One friend keeps reminding you that his voice sounds like Bono, which is a nasty trick to pull on one's enjoyment. You manage to detour it with a ''Tom Barman with a clear voice'' tactic, breaking the curse. Hmmm, the biological syrup juice was yumyum, making you relive childlike memories of hot summer days. But better to snap out of these nostalgic delusions and flashbacks, in order to get back to the festival mindset. The next band does live up to the name; Crippled Black Phoenix. You want to see this noir phoenix rise but it's crippled, which at the same time is its beauty. See, some bands do want to BE freakfolk, or act it. Or steal it. It's hard to place the finger on what they aim for. The tiredfaced leadsinger is stuffed up with a heavy flu, yet he is up there as a pristine folklore schoolboy performing his final play. Alongside him, the band is an usual mix of long beardy rockers, a freaky bespecled keyplayer and other folks who make a funny mix. You get the feeling that they are some mishmash of social outcasts thrown together. They are. In short, their live sound is like Arcade Fire with heavy bouts of stonerrock thrown in, making it more rock than folk, with a hint of post. Like a Bob Dylan who listened to 65 Days of Static, but that's crippled. Though on record, they sound well-behaved and overly polished. Go and figure, but the most entertaining band of the day; especially to end a set with an endless loop of annoying high-pitched noises for a few minutes, causing the crowd to flee, is brave and bold. Just untill the soundengineer screamed "guys, stop!" in pure anger. Clap clap.
The crafty roughness of Pelican closed off the festival giving some instrumental sludgecore that intervened with postrock, therefore; postsludge...or pedalsludge, as counting the pedals exceeded 2 hands. Good stuff, soon to be Gonzonised.
Past midnight, Matt Elliott was about to do a dj set, no songwriter set, arse. No reason to stay. But but but, the festival was worth it, even while carrying a hapless spirit in lucid coma modus.
With a friend of our posse needing to catch a flight to Naples at 9 am some hours away, it was better to go and roll back straight. A 3 hour drive surely feels nice when you deservedly spend it in dreamyland.

You could go on...explaining how Sunday was a day with gypsy and corporate food producing filmviewing...how Monday was a late nite working in the voluntary cafe, doing an piano improv and how Tuesday, after a tiresome working day, ended at 2 different livingroom concerts...one of freakfolk and one of noise drones. More about the noise drones later this week. Make a promise to keep, finder's keeper's the rule.

Coming Sunday at the Desmet Studio, the 5th Dwars festival will be held. As always, good acts and it is free in. If you had not reserved your own bodily attendance for this yet, please do so, quickly at dwarsfestival_at_vpro.nl. See a lot more about it here.
Not so ideal situation: you have your magazine to care for, to fester and pack, to talk and to write so it feels right. So you can't make it to this excellent fest. Darn pity it is, really it just is. It's pretty useless to talk belligerently when it's only addressed to yourself. Idiot moi.

The 2 acts for a wide-eyed discovery will surely be Nalle and James Blackshaw. The trio Nalle seems to consist of 2 singing Finnish pixies and a Scotsman. Yeah, these pixie voices surely sound like a certain American freakfolk singer...let's not drift into vagueness and just listen below and solve the proposed puzzle.
Nalle - Sunne Song
Nalle - Iron's Oath

James Blackshaw is a young fingerpicker and is one of those talented nailpolishers who has suddenly joined the ranks of Jack Rose, Glenn Jones and Steffen Basho-Junghans. Below a long composition of raga streams flowing off a sunglinstering cascade. Blinding and vivid.
James Blackshaw - The Elk With Jade Eyes

Greetings from somewhere, darkroomed and chained to my own 8ball.

Rhaaa Lovely Countdown

2007-04-07T11:30:00.000+02:00

......lovely :)

I especially like the explanation about the booze, only belgians can give such focus to it.
Good food and drink for charity...I'm so in :)

Sun prowess, baroque no less

2007-04-04T10:09:00.000+02:00

Since this weekend the sun is out in full glory, affecting every living organism positively. Especially humans over here in Hollandia. And today again, sun!

Where I work on the academy grounds, there is an elementary school courtyard right behind my office. I'm one of those sicko's who doesn't really mind the vivid and screeching screams of playing children 'cos at least it means life which one doesn't hear often during work. If you have ever worked in sterile business parks, where concrete strangles an silences any natural form of life, you will know that youthfull sounds are eerily absent. I once again embrace something as a given.

On hearing reptitive sounds from outside, I curiously gaze out and see 4 little girls in a playhut, taunting 2 boys below them by singing at them in a nagging she-devilish chior of squeeky nah-nah's. One boy tries to get into the playhut by climbing up the smooth metal slide, but one girl kicks him readily in the face and he warily slides down to ground level. 1-0 to girls. The boy, euphoric from the adrenaline that the kick gave him, tries again with a cheeky smile yet fails over and over as he slips and trips. He hasn't found out yet that the metal slide has secretely teamed up with the girls. Iron-y.

After a lousy day at work yesterday and a seriously narky mood (plus it wasn't sunny), I found Colleen's new album 'Les Ondes Silencieuses' on my doormat. I felt joy rising upwards instantly, endorphins flowing back to life. wah, vraiment merci b'coup pour cette joie Cecile!!

Quick words on first impression; The sound of this album is immensly and intensely baroque and the sleevenotes reveal the sincere sources; various ancient instruments have been used such as the Viola da gamba and the Spinet harpsichord. Colleen still makes it loop with perfect splendour, but does not let the loops take over control as much as they did on her previous albums. She has created new patterns of repetition which are maze-like intricate, swooning and reveal themselves in the shape of subtle sounds, like the distant buzzing of dragonflies and bumblebees that comes closer. Oh yes insect talk, isn't that something precious, alike any figural elaboration that I'm likely to follow. Sometimes a cat comes around, tipoeing in the high grass in search of little animals to chase untill a rain of melancholic confetti sprinkles down. And that's when I feel it softly creeping into my nerves, soothing them to inner peace. Instant meditation prepackaged for audioplay, one press away from bliss. This is in fact a certain vague vow to take this with me everywhere I go, relieving me from my moving unrest. Joana; this is a perfect soundtrack to nightly walks of no end, for clearing up thoughts and rearranging others.

As release date is only halfway May, here a few gems for her fans out there to enjoy...7 days only tho'...

Colleen - Blue Sands
Colleen - Le Bateau
Colleen - Echoes and Coral (crystal glasses used as minimal sounds, such beauty)

Aside; the gorgeous black&white comic artwork is again made by Ikers Pozio, in the same vein as his artwork for the 'The Golden Morning Breaks' album. It kinda reminds me of Charles Burns' and Cire's art, but with a sweeter fantasy outline inserted. Testified below. Wow.

and another, used for a gig;

be well.

Bugbearing hugs on zithered tones

2007-04-03T10:15:00.000+02:00

Busy bee weekend.
....One of those that started on Friday by lurking on a few hefty bouts of tripel before heading out for some Russian disko and Balkanized folk dances till 5ish. This all in the knowledge that only 3 hours of sleep were left to snooze, before a workday of say, 14 hours, would unleash its fricky sting on me. Not that I bothered. I had the initial victorious feeling of tripel in me. It came without solid warranty though.

Saturday the Day of the individual happened in Utrecht, initiated by some friends and I took part from early on. It does sound scary ey? Our idea was just to focus positive attention on the social status of *the individual* as a way of life. This is mostly seen as a taboo in society nowadays yet this lifestyle is very much on the rise, especially in western societies and governments to not react to it with solutions, but treat it like a stowaway subject. Yeah, hide and seek in world of tight ass bureaucracy, with no free-place in sight.

Plus by having this day, we were kinda giving the newly elected *christian* minded dutch government (with conservative CDA topping it) the up-yours finger...though in a positive manner, hah :) They have outlined in their 4 year rule message that they will promote family values as the sole cornerstone of Dutch society, instead of accepting and adapting to changes in society. Conservatives surely are forward thinkers, n'est pas?
Though to stress; this idea is/was not ment to support sob themes such as ''oh how sad is it to be alone'' or give attention to *egocentric* souls, but rather to positively stress the fact that individualism simply IS becoming a way of life within current society as any other, instead of casting it off as some ill social effect.

our blog... all in dutch though.. http://clubvan1.web-log.nl/

There was quite some national media attention for this through national TV, Radio and a few newspapers all morning on. I kinda had to arrange all things musical/poetry in a central cafe that we had at our total disposal (super!). Rigged up the equipment together with Michiel (thanx bro) as my brain hadn't woken up yet and it was a hectic mess. Things evened out during the day and the many poets and songwriters did a great job, even more so since they all played for free in light of our day to support us. I especially enjoyed the globehopping Lake from Texas with her serene blues and her trembling soulful voice. The occasional John Henry reference did it for me. See the splendid video rendition of a JH song on her myspace page, it soothes and sways. (yup, I promise we'll do those old timey swaps and blues cuts in A'dam soon! done deal).
Another American expat living in Amsterdam who gave a special set was Jerry Spurlock, playing only an ole' zither and singing folk songs. By that and given his older age, he was not the token songwriter among all the youngsters, which earned him the freakfolk king title . His raspy fingerpick style (with 10 malty brown grown nails) and his folky words of fantasy yonder made me cuddle name him Grandpa Newsom, hah ;) I would have liked to put up a few songs of him here, but it seems impossible to track anything down from him...images and sound alike. grumble.
Great day all in all...afterwards we had a big party for all volunteers and anyone who wanted to join us. The bands Mono, Titmachine and songwriter Eva-Louise Williamson. Afterwards some idiots played dance muzak with a route of rockabilly, eastern european folk, post punk and breakcore ;)

Oh, during the day I unexpectedly found myself running around for a while in a special hugsuit, with which you errr, could hug people. Giving out free hugs to people passing by alone on the street..but what was the catch? That seemed to be on most people's minds who objected the offer while other more freely folks accepted my gesture. It was a bizarre situation but I can be optimistic now, as it did work to make people feel joyous and smiling, plus myself too. Lord, the idea that such bodily contact can create sudden happiness so easily, is kinda freaky, but I'll embrace that thought from now on ;)
Check out here for more info. The *spirituele fitness* section is even better, with self-fabricated gadgets to connect yourself to nature...from the treehugger to pre-birth bag to the atmosphere amplifier (woah!),...great stuff for the urban hippie surely.

Now, resting time mood. For as long as it gets.

Ghosthorse tales; Raphael you know just how to take me in the swimming pool like a child (!@#$%^&*?)

2007-03-28T10:44:00.000+02:00

ey there,

While the press always hypes things up on the presumption that unhinged artistic images need to be pushed onwards -like Joanna Newsom last year-, Coco Rosie is likely to get this year's cuddle trophy from the associated alternatives, hence the new album is being overdosed with praise. Adorable indeed for the folks who have yet to discover their crafty child's play, but a tedious repetition for those with the initial attention span.
In short, the new Coco Rosie album 'The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn' has kind of lost the sincere innocence as portrayed in earlier lullabyes, my inner demon/angel tells me. I guess this youthfull and intimate innocence quality turned me onto their music from the first moment, made me share it and experience it with others at special times. Sweet loving thoughts eventually turned into sour feelings, lost in the ugly bliss. You kinda get that with musical memories attached to emotions, making you leap into highs and lows....

While the album disappoints in full play, there are a few amazing gems on it that can still capture their playfull essence at its best. Karen Dalton, Nina Simone and Maria Callas remain in artistic unison here:

Coco Rosie - Black Poppies
Coco Rosie - Animals
Coco Rosie - Raphael

no pics no pics no pics. let the press machine run their own operation ;)

Crooked links n 'fings.

2007-03-21T09:46:00.000+01:00

quickie; noticed that most of the friendly blog links and other links where all crooked, wrongly formatted by me. Oops. Fixed now! Stop hitting me.

*It's got spam in it, I don't like spam!* classic Monty Python

Rarararareviews

2007-03-20T23:07:00.000+01:00

Some reviews which will go into print around next month. They're neurotic sleepdeprived fodder, but I'll share them anyway.

Ok, I won't make the effort to translate them, sorry for that. In Dutch they remain. But you could however follow the exciting Rory way and use the untrustworthy yet hilarious Babelfish to do the trick for ya in your preferred language, though I rather call it crippled Babyfish brabble. Perhaps all reviews should be made that way from now on....would make it more exciting, hah!

Jack Rose
s/t
(ARCHIVE)
Greg Malcolm & Tetuzi Akiyama
Brombron 12: Six Strings
(KORM PLASTICS)

Men neme een gitaar, leert erop spelen, echter zonder onnozele Bob Marley of Nirvana covers, maar als een meerkoppige band. Hoe? Fingerpicking is het antwoord op de religie die dit mysterie verhult. Jack Rose is een lid van de band Pelt maar in de vrije tijd brengt hij ook solo platen uit die zijn adoratie van John Fahey in geheel eigen stijl neerlegt. Dit album is een speciale tour editie die niet snel in een winkel te vinden zal zijn, maar daardoor extra speciaal de moeite waard is na te jagen via het internet. In 'St. Louis Blues' zorgt een slide meldoie voor mooie blues melancholie die puur door het hart stroomt. Je kunt er van op aan dat zulke vngervlugge tonen de gitaarfanaat intens doen genieten terwijl de electrofantast vies de andere kant opkijkt. Keuzes vervangen het wikken en wegen. De meeste composities volgen de lijn van ouderwetse blues en slide blues, behalve in 'Spirits in the House' waar in 12 minuten een hypnotiserende raga compositie wordt neergezet in Indiase drone traditie. Echter zonder sitar maar met een speciaal afgestemde western gitaar. De fata morgana van dit geluid had u bijna beetgenomen en de illusie ploft weg maar de droom blijft, zwevend en zwervend. Deze fraai ontworpen hoes in kaartvorm, met een quasi authentieke sepia foto uit omstreeks 1930, is al een waar kunstwerk op zich. Om over de extra waarde van deze schone muziek maar te zwijgen voordat de extase omslaat in geestdriftige kronkels. Greg Malcolm en Tetuzi Akiyama kunnen gezien worden als fingerpickers, maar dan van een zeer improvisatorische discipline die niet strookt met blues. Het geluid is steriel en breekbaar, doch meevoerend. Met 2 gitaren spelen de Kiwi en de Jap driftig door elkaar heen om ook tokkelpauzes in te lassen indien nodig. De composities klinken vooral vals, echter daarin ligt precies de schoonheid die niet 1-2-3 te vertalen is naar een simpele context. Een impressie; grootmoeders klok bij het slaan van het uur, de koekoek heeft opwinding nodig want zijn noten zingt hij niet zo scherp meer, tegelijkertijd piept de deur en klappert de deurknop. Het is de verbuiging van het moment, juist dat ene moment met die ene speciale toon. Of men het nu wilt of niet, deze kabbelende rust brengt de gedachten intuïtief op een ander niveau, ver van de normale wereld en de dagelijkse beslommeringen. Een meditatief gitaarhoorspel waarbij geen verwachting nodig is, is wellicht de beste omschrijving voor deze akoestieke ervaring. Niet te missen voor de drone liefhebber. Tja, en laten we er nog bij zeggen dat Machinefabriek de cover heeft ontworpen op basis van gitaarsnaarverpakkingen. (www.archivecd.com , www.kormplastics.nl)

Greg Malcolm & Tetuzi Akiyama - So We Go
Greg Malcolm & Tetuzi Akiyama - Life On Its Way

Machinefabriek
Zink mcd-r
(CUT HANDS)
Aaron Martin & Machinefabriek
Cello Recycling mcd-r
(MACHINEFABRIEK)

Het is niet te stoppen. Nieuwe 3" cd-r releases rollen namelijk maandelijks van de machinale productieband zonder enige afbraak van de kwaliteit. Rutger Zuydervelt kan met recht geclassificeerd worden als een muzikale ADHD’er, een diagnose om trots op te zijn. Ditmaal presenteert hij een release op het Nederlandse label Cut Hands, een vers label dat andermaal door een Gonzoïst is gestart. ‘Zink’ is de naam van het 15 minuten durende kindje en doet de vormgeving recht aan door middel van een grof zinken plaatje als hoes, chapeau. Het geluid is een bewerking van een live improvisatie in een ondergrondse parkeergarage te Utrecht, een zeer passende context. Beholpen met een opwellende echo, ijzige tonen en uitrek van de aangeslagen gitaar bouwt een minimaal stuk zich op als een constructie in niemandsland. Het is een omgeving met vele wendingen die wij volledig willen begrijpen, om het mysterie te kunnen doorgronden dat ons slapeloze nachten bezorgt daar op die eenzame plek. Het is een spannende zoektocht waarbij de beloning de ervaring zelve is. Op ‘Cello Recycling’wordt het over een andere boeg gegooid. Zuydervelt staat niet alleen en de Amerikaan Aaron Martin is de helper op de cello. De cello wordt in de eerste en langste compositie gebruikt als een dreigend wapenfeit in minimale geluidskunst, waarbij het instrument zwoegt en kreunt onder druk van de drones van Zuydervelt. De volgende 3 tracks zijn solo composities van Martin die een sfeer van tragiek en melancholie uit de doeken doen. Het doet denken aan Rachel’s, echter worden de composities gevormd door pedaalloops en een reeks uitgestrekte tonen die de term "klassieke drones" waardig zijn. Wij wenen mee, de tranen rollen van de wangen in deze momenten van verstilde sereniteit. Wat is het zalig om zo geraakt te worden, midden in de roos van het gevoel. ''Please listen to this record with eyes closed. Thank you''. Deze oprechte boodschap verklapt de meeslepende pracht van dit kleine schijfje. (www.machinefabriek.nu , www.freewebs.com/cuthands , http://www.myspace.com/prisonwine)

Lackluster
Repulsine EP
(SLSK RECORDS)

De stille Fin Esa Ruoho alias Lackluster, blijft ongestoord zijn uiteenlopende electronica stappen in de aangekoekte sneeuw zetten. Soulseek is niet enkel een gletsjer van gratis downloads, maar heeft ook een eigen label en als "Slsk" oudgediende mag Esa daarom zijn digitale bytes laten weerklinken. Onder zijn voeten kraakt en kreunt de vrieskou, knispererende stukjes ijs breken en glijden uit elkaar. De synthesizer tonen herbergen een mooi winterlandsschap dat aan de rand van de lente staat, klaar om van natuurlijke plunje te wisselen. Sneeuwklokjes tingelen mee op de maat van de muziek, want de lente is nu eenmaal een lief en aandoenlijk jaargetijde en het Lackluster geluid gaat daar heel goed in mee. In 'LL060205' wordt dit gevoel tot in de puntjes uitgevoerd, goed voor een kop warme choco, knus met een sprookjesboek op schoot. Denk aan de electronica uit IJsland en Schotland, beiden zijn het plekken waar de tijd stilstaat en de tonen zachtaardig en melancholisch zijn. Als extra noot is te vertellen dat deze collectie deuntjes zijn gemaakt in volks Dublin, het trendy Shoreditch in Londen en de afgelegen prairiestreek Saskatchewan in Canada. Dat Esa op zulke uiteenlopende plekken toch een sterk samenhangende sfeer heeft kunnen grijpen, getuigt van een geest vol verwondering en speelse magie. Dit is betoverend leuke laptopmuziek die de warmte terug in huis heeft gehaald. (www.slskrecords.com)

Lackluster - LL060205

Sickboy
Musical Therapy EP
Cardopusher
I Need Someone I Can Imitate EP
(WOOD RECORDINGS)

De sprinkplank op, hup! En het Wood Recordings label duikt dieper in het wildwaterbad van de Lage Landse electronica. Het label uit Gent en Antwerp van de Vlaamse breakcore trotsen Droon en Sickboy weet wat het wilt; u vastpakken en bijten opdat het virus zich goed mag verspreiden en uw ziel zal innemen. De muzikale ziekte heeft geen onverwachte symptonen want breakcore heeft inmiddels al de plaats tussen de stijlen gewonnen door de geen-stijl attitude. Sickboy, voor zijn kleuterklasjuffrouw nog altijd Jurgen DeSmet, maakt op zijn eerste Vlaamse ep allerlei knutselwerkjes. Ja, muzikale therapie met een dosis humor en een deugnietblik toe en de juffrouw laat hem als beloning buiten spelen. Daar in de zandbak zitten Evi Hanssen, en warempel, Mauro Pawlowski op hem te wachten en zingen ze over ontmoetingen op de maan. Zo simpel is het leven, zittend tussen het verloren speeldgoed en de halfbegraven kattendrollen. Het geluid van deze plaat is meer richting de rave getrokken dan oorverdovende breakcore die we normaal gewend zijn en deze afwisseling toont een nieuwe richting aan die Sickboy hier bewandeld heeft. 'The Riddler' brengt ons even bij een oude mooie boom en tevreden lopen we door. Cardopusher is een nieuw aanstormend talent uit het verre Caracas, Venezuela, waar El Chavez koning, keizer en admiraal is. Breakcore uit Zuid-Amerika, waar moet men daarbij aan denken? verknipte baile funk, verzopen reggaeton? Niets is gelukkig minder waar, want Cardopusher stookt zijn brouwsel met vele ingrediënten die buiten de populaire latino omgeving liggen, echter ligt er wel een sterke nadruk op het geluid van de Caribische eilanden. Tel daarbij de hardrock gitaren en enkele synthesizer deuntjes op en de ketel krijgt een hevige walm van karakter die men ter plekke vloert, want het tempo is moordend. Als de roes is verdwenen, de kater uitgeslapen, dan vragen wij ons verbaasd af wat er schuilgaat achter dit producerende fenomeen. Van goed hout zaagt men hier dubbeldikke planken! (http://wood.widerstand.org/)

Sickboy - The Drifter

Various Artists
Polyphonal
(DELIRIOUS RIOT)

Wie denkt er nog aan de cassettes? Het vertrouwde geluid van gruizige mono, de herinerring aan oude krakkemikkige opnames van de radio, van jezelf schreeuwend met poging tot zingen en kopie op kopie collecties van al je vrienden. Juist, het fenomeen zou ooit terugkomen en wel door de opgegroeide generatie van twintigers en dertigers die hun jeugd nu op volwassen wijze willen onderdompelen. Zo is dat ook bij Delirious Riot. Het obscure cassettelabel uit Utrecht wordt gerund door een zeer opgewekte en geïnspireerde Duitse biologie studente die graag toffe concepten bedenkt en daar zoveel mogelijk vrienden in meesleurt. Het gegoten concept is Polyphonal in de zin van telefoons en hun communicatie eigenschappen waarbij vriendelijke bijdragen van allerlei artiesten de minimale lijn vormen. En dat zijn niet de minsten; onder meer Machinefabriek, Nilo (Wixel), Wouter van Veldhoven, Haruki, Sinebag, Vollmar, Pequeña Fieral , Manipulator Alligator en anderen uit Europese windhoeken. Een speeltuin van geruis, gerinkel en geroezemoes opent zich en de kinderen laten zich meeslepen. Mooie drones, ambient, flarden noise en improvisatorische stukjes wisselen elkaar af in uitgestrekte composities die elk een eigen sfeer bewaren en tegelijk overdragen. Het is een telefoonketting die niet doorbroken wordt en goed in elkaar overloopt. De Twee kanten; A en B, tellen tot 22 minuten, wie niet weg is, is gezien. Want deze cassette moet vooral in eenzame rust gehoord worden. Voor de mensen met cassettevrees; vrees niet, er wordt ook een klein ceedeeke meegegeven. En een button toe, hoera! (www.deliriousriot.com)

Caged around the ghett0))), ID please!

2007-03-19T09:17:00.000+01:00

Pre-scriptum:

University, 9 am. It's Monday and it feels a few hours too early. Downstairs in the marble hallway a student is waiting for an appointment with his music teacher and practises his classically trained baritone voice to kill time, as they say. A perfect swooning echo of angelic proportions bounces off the walls up into my confined space, with background noises of office rumble giving it a surreal context. Everything freezes and I listen, it kills my time.

It has just snowed for an hour, thick white shards of fuzzy frost out of nowhere. Now, all clouds are gone, the snow dissapeared and full-on spring sunshine. One weird Monday I tell ya.

Now playing on the compressed office soundsystem: Musique du Nordeste, Brasil, 1928 - 1946 (Buda Musique). Grammophone cracks and dusty recordings in mono give this musical antiquity a touching personal quality. It softly makes this Monday morning swing.

How come this feels like an ancient Tom Zé song?
Luis Gonzaga & Humberto Texeira - Briao

and here Tom.
Tom Zé - Medo de Mulher

Luis Gonzaga was one of the main predecessors of Bossa Nova and it's also his voice that nearly resembles Tom Zé's smooth dark voice, shaped from the Brazilian local patois perhaps, since Tom Zé is also from up north. Carolina, if you read this; is this a typical quality of the singers of the Nordeste or am I shooting at mosquito's?

Here another classic pearl.
Joao Pernambuco - Meu Noivado

To come back on Wednesday, when I visited my friend in the Ondiep area. Ondiep literally means shallow, though emotions that rose up during early last last week were far from that. The main streets towards the riot hotspot were casted off with fences put up by police, which at the time of my entry were still open. I came up to the school building where my friends live and saw a bed of flowers lying in front of one of their doors. 54 year old Rinie Muller was in fact shot dead right on their doorstep and this spot had become the pinnacle of the eruption. I came in the building and my friends were still shaken from the past nights of rioting, not knowing what to expect tonight. I naievely hadn't realised the curfew was still on and would come up at 18.00 sharp. With a friend I had to pick up some equipment elsewhere and we were told we could come back in if we just carried our ID with us. I'm not receptive to ID verifications, stubborn as I normally am while supporting the cause of these people (sorry, no english option). Buuut, hypocrisy is a standard given rule and I surrendered for a night. When we came back, all the entries were closed off, with fences locked and riot police in full helment and stick garment guarding these gates. We weren't allowed in, 'residents only' and could see the building only hundred metres away. Talking with your friends through a fence is well weird, with them ghettonized into a human zoo as police looks on. The situation does create a lot of impulsive jokes to lighten up the spirits, though it seemed that only we were able to create an effort for a happy mood on this border control, unlike the rest of the people on the street. The police did lose their suspicion for us so we could get our stuff back from the building. All in all, no riots happened anymore. The atmosphere was a tad grimm and people -many of them teenagers to twenty somethings- were just gathering in circles as if to expect a theatre spectacle from the stickmen in blue n black. In other words, this free show was a no show, thankfully. Since Friday the curfew has been lifted, gates erased and disappeared. It will take much longer to bring the social mood back in balance. Perhaps the city council should focus to organise festivities in the area, as a perfect way to counter an otherwise downward spiral.

Ok, on a positive weekend note... Saturday there was a night in Amsterdam of mashed up world music, rusty with sharp edges, intwined with a fundraising motivation; the Rebel Up! Soundclash. See it blogged here. I am extremely biased ofcourse, since I started this idea with the help of a few friends so we could throw this gig in the OCCII squat bar. We kinda expected 30-50 people at most,-like friends and company-, but in the end over 100 people came, creating a superb atmosphere on the crammed dancefloor. Plus even better, we raised a few hundred euro's for the grassroots project in Chiapas. Truckload of Gracias indeed! To be continued in future months, for sure! I'll restrain from spamming my own blog too much and will put all info bits on the Rebel Up! blog instead.

Pity that because of these preparations, I missed DJ/Rupture and Andy Moor (The Ex) playing at the OT301 the night before, impov guitar meeting rough cuts from vinyl. Were any of you Amsterdam readers there? Please fill me in at the rabbit hole. Instead I went to the Bonte Koe Records night, just around the corner of my Utrecht den, which was a mixed night of indie, big band jazz, songwriter moods and electropop...though I didn't catch all. Good to see some friends and new faces (hi there!). Another time pity I had to leave early, pity for various reasons... vaguely I reside.

About that upcoming Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan record that was blogged about here, Joana freshly informed me in our pseudo journo manner that the distributor isn't too happy with the backward play of this album. Backward? Yup, it can only be heard backwards apparently. Music turned into a crafty concept, though what is the sharing use for it in fairness? The backlash surely will soon happen in various alternative media, offset by encouraging and opposing crusaders. I wonder who will win the flame war.

ta-doo-do-do-doo-ta-do-doo-do-do-do-doo!

Utrecht goes deep in Ondiep, even after a 'Prince' sings softly

2007-03-14T10:26:00.000+01:00

Notes from last night disturbances and woeful wailing......

The last few nights there have been a series of evening clashes in the northern Utrecht area Ondiep, right on the Thorbeckelaan street where friends of mine are living in a defunct school building. The scenario is of a grimm nature that sees groups of local dutch residents oppossing kickabout youths of Northern African immigrant descent, who accordingly are said to cause troubles in the area. In a nutshell, the Ondiep area is predominantly white and working class, whereas the youths come from the neighbouring stretch of the mulitculturalised Amsterdamsestraatweg, which bustles with foreign food markets and phonebooth shops.

It started Sunday night when the Dutch residents took a collective stand against the youths by crowding the square they normally meet up. As everyone can imagine, neither group backed down and gained in size as people joined either group. A Dutch resident named Rinie Mulder, angered beyond extent, took his vigilante act too far and treathened a policeman with a butcher's knife. It is unclear in which manner this happened, but it prompted this policeman to shoot Mulder who died on the spot near his doorstep. In impromptu graffitti, the place of his death has been marked with the words "Rinie, rest peacefully", flowers and (uncanningly) beercans as a solemn ode to his unnecessary death. As expected, the fire was readily put in the hole to create 3 straight nights of riots.

Supposedly, rioteering youths did not come from the nearby area, but from allover Utrecht and surround..mobile phones used as tools of gathering for destruction indeed. The media mentions these rioteers without defining them. In this case, it simply means it are white youths since any allochtoon rioteer would have been defined as such. For instance you will hardly ever read if *white local folks* kick up a riot, whereas the tag dropping of Moroccan, Turkish or any other ethnical minority in Holland will always be given on a silver plate to the feeble reader. Disinformation does not matter when it concerns the marking of nationals, one could nearly think.

135 people were arrested yesterday, and it's even said that some were football hooligans coming in for a piece of the mayhem from allover the country, probably part of their riot tourism travel scheme chartered by oh so friendly agitators. On my way home near to the area, all the roads were blocked off by police and riot police alike, with vans driving along, squad cars parked to obstruct and cut off the 3 mile Amsterdamsestraatweg from the centre. Along came a towtruck on the road beside me, pulling a burnt out car behind him, crispy fresh I reckon. Paris is still very far though.

With sporadic tensions erupting in Holland now and then, it is autochtoon (ie, someone with dutch nationality) against allochtoon (someone holding a foreign identity). Perhaps white against non-white, thought that might prove a notion too strong since this stand off is in fact not racial but rather cultural. Images of suburbian France burning can not be compared here.

On a brighter note, I went to see Bonnie "Prince" Billy (otherwise known as Will Oldham) last night in the grand Vredenburg concert hall. Just a little man with a guitar on a too big stage and far away audience, same for the support act. Odd experience for such intimate music. Sir Richard Bishop played fingerpicking support to Oldham in a fitting warm up show on a solo guitar, tuned up to high pitched levels. Sir Richard is actually the older brother of Alan Bishop, whom I posted about recently, see here. Coincidence does not deal in time shares. Richard has a full mop of curly long hair, Alan is bald as ever. Both Sun City Girls. I like this bloodline contradiction.

Bishop plays a mix of various fingerpicking styles such as classical, flamenco and indian raga and he indeed did so during his +30 minute set. Especially his last composition was a 15 minute long raga trip to the max with self-shaped drones from his lower snares, looped in regurging patterns. Amazing stuff, though most people did not think so and were either busy chatting (say, blabbing) loudly to each other or quietly snoozing off (eh Carlos!) ;) The chatter was very annoying to say the least, with fans of Oldham not giving Sir Richard any creative credit, perhaps not acknowledging or understanding the righteous awe that Oldham himself has for Bishop, which I can dig but my fingerpick nerdist opinion wasn't to be shared as joyously, shucks. -later a Sir Richard track here, yours to decide on-

Oldham came on and did the tricks with a variety of his famous songs from over the years with trademark lyrics on how he can not have kids to grow, the topic he touches upon a lot. He's a quirky beardy-cultivated man though, who likes to make funny moves and gestures, either facial or with his rubbery legs. Hard to explain all his moves, though he seemed to have a preferance for put his leg up behind the other and standing on one leg whenever he pleased. 'Crane bird Oldham', that's how I'll always see him from now on, hah :) His performance was kinda unbalanced though, as in some songs he sung every word as perfectly lisped in tune, sweetened with sorrow, while in other songs his voice could not reach the same great heights as on his albums. Someone said; 'that's perhaps the brilliance of his singing; it's so human and incomplete.' Oldham also played 2 songs in which he used fingerpick patterns of Sir Richard, which the fans didn't spoil, rather not realizing the underlying truth I'm sure. Irony does not strike twice depending on the context that it is given in and by who it's given.

Here something that was given on a 4 track sampler last nite; a project of Will Oldham and Mark Lanegan under the name Soulsavers:

Soulsavers - Kingdom of Rain
Soulsavers - Through My Sails

Tonight, I actually have to be in the Ondiep area to eat at a friend's place...which is in the exact street where that man was shot dead. Strange feelings will be felt. The police is again gonna seal off the area so I wonder if we'll be able to leave...or to enter.

Animals in the Rabbit den

2007-03-11T23:55:00.000+01:00

It probably has become quite clear that the Animal Collective ranks pretty high on the soundsystem down the Old Style Rabbit hole. Yup. But can anyone name another band that has brought such a special sound these past few years? Perhaps the way they push themselves deeper with every album is scary to most people, who instead rather dwell on old favorite bands that do not hit the innovation bar as severely. Expectation is a silent killer folks.

I don't want to turn this into a writeup lesson about the band or anything, Wikipedia can do that trick. Just providing some footage and audio is the theme I carry around on this late sunday. In this case, wrapped in a paper bag, sprinkled with crayola colors. It's the give-away kinda bag.

Below a clip of a live session with members Avey Tare and Doctess did at a French radio station, covering The Purple Bottle song in stripped vein. Doctess is in fact Kria Brekkan, or better known as Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir -remember her from the Icelandic group Múm?- and who has recently become Avey's wife. European and American freakfolk married in unity. Soon an album of the couple too, see here.

Avey Tare & Doctess - The Purple Bottle
(the audio version of above clip, I like the way that for once it's possible to clearly hear their lyrics, which otherwise is kinda...errrr, impossible.)

Avey Tare & Doctess - I've Got Mine
(me thinking pre web search; where do I know this female voice from?)

Animal Collective - People
Animal Collective - My Favorite Colors
(both released in 2006 as an EP on an obscure Australian label, this is wholly shamanistic stuff!)

Ok, time to snooze off.

Thriftstore gifts, handpicked for your hunger

2007-03-07T12:36:00.000+01:00

Oy oy, Jo spilled the beans in her peculiar surprising demeanor, Instant dose of warmth and a blushing glow! :)

Another year, none the wiser. Inflation does strike the age trough gaining scratches, lacerations and whatnot scars of experience. So says the inner advisor. Scary. But I smore him deep down.

Pixeled cake, it tastes empty so don't bite it. but instead click and listen. Here some b-day treats in audio from me....for you all!!!!!!

Animal Collective vs. Koçani Orkestar - Oi Bori Sujie (from 'Electric Gypsyland #2')
(the virtuous Animal fella's doing a gypsy remix for this auld Macedonian brass band, ofcourse! So obviously well-suited, plus perfectly warped and psychedelic too! THE remix of the year so far!)

Mudboy - Starlight (from This Is Folk Music)
(keywords: psychedelic, drones, organ. All is good)

Haruki - Ants Qualify for Tree (from 'Birds And Other Machines')
(yessa, soft Belgo electronics from a friend...it turns so sweet after 1:20, I can almost feel it hugging me)

Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain (from Parallelogram)
(this is freak folk from way back, such droney sounds, we're talking 1970 here!)

Tommy Johnson - Slidin' Delta Blues (from 'The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of')
(that voice, the ragged guitar picks. 1928, bliss and awe)

Is it too much cake???? There's the bonafide bucket in the corner to throw up in if needed....

Oh, this saturday me and 2 other friends organise a co-op birthday party in a fairly inhabited warehouse in the nothern side of Utrecht. With DJ's, alcopop drink, vegan grub and the usual nightly wares on offer, providing for this all-nighter gig. Yay. Totally DIY though. Expect disorder and mingling, in a friendly neighbourhood punk-ass way. Errr, you folks around Utrecht, if you didn't get any invitation (by accident), do mail me and just show up! Forgetfulness comes with anxiety. To you internationals out there, you are openly invited indeed, whether you can make it is another thing alltogether ;)

chi-owwwwww!

!

2007-03-04T22:28:00.000+01:00

The Ghiwane aftermath haze

2007-02-27T00:20:00.000+01:00

Quick notes from transient thoughts.
Such a great memorable evening! -sigh-, why the fun does not last till dawn.

Polarisation was my cue though, as I funnily experienced being the only young white person in the audience especially for this gig, with a few sparse middleaged Dutch folks loafing around amongst the huddled mass of Moroccans. I got puzzled looks from many, interested gazes from others. The 3 girls at the merchandise stand were genuinely sweet to me when I bought a few Nass albums (including their just-released-wet-from-press Ennehla Chama album and an older La Legende volume, yay!) They didn't know much about Nass other than *they're great, I guess* and were baffled with my explanation of my liking of the band into a mouthwatering rendition. Pfff, nerdism knows no break, sees wall nor obstacle.

Despite I expected a lot of middleaged fans of Nass el Ghiwane, it were nearly all youngsters of my age or even younger, 2nd & 3rd generation Dutch-Moroccans, who decided the audience demography. I asked my Moroccan colleague earlier today (You went to see Nass el Ghiwane?) why this was the case and basicly it came down to the fact that the middleaged Moroccans just do not run out for concerts, by old fashioned principle. Aside from that, Ismael explained that this target group is very unlikely to be reached through flyers or any other means of promotion, the community not endorsing a full view into cultural activities either. Sure their kids wouldn't tell mom and pops about the idols from their youth playing town, hell no, to be sure they have the space and freedom for themselves.

Thus so the dancefloor was controlled by the youths. To be an observing spectator was never easier whether I wanted it or not. There was a clear divide; groups of girls dancing in circles, seperated from the guys who danced in their own circles, all too shy to make direct contact except through peeks. Or even eyeing each other from a safe distance on the fringes of the pit. This charming and reserved ethic was interesting to witness, since on a normal dutch disco dancefloor both sexes mingle far more easily with each other or the Dutch.

Ok, enough of observant chitchat. What about the magic?

Support act Orchestra Al-Atlal gave a hipshakingly energetic performance, using double violins as the instigators while keyboards turned it into a Maghreb disco frenzy with people hustling for armlength spots. As a collective they sticked and were way better than the following famous acts of croonerstyled singers Abdelmoula and Jedwane. Sure, the slick suits and sugarsmoothed looks logically came with their on-stage appearance, but it was kinda bleak and sounded like any ordinary Chaabi to be heard blaring in your local Northern African music shop. I guess the recognition of quality famed disco folk is a missing link in my genes.
Finally Nass el Ghiwane came on and played their whole set acoustic. I especially got tight goosebumps on moments when Hamid Batma on sentir (a sort of lute) and Allal Yaala on snitra (a fretless banjo) did dual improvisations, where the heavy sound of the sentir pounced as a heartthrob while the snitra picked intricate melodies. I found myself swaying into a state of soft trance as the music got more grip on me, the longer a song lasted which could go on up to 15 minutes per composition. It's a comfort to know that earnest tribalism can still salvage the body and mind in a pure, sincere way, for it may not be taken out of context and repackaged as a rubbery bubblegum dream for the sake of product placement. Nope, it was savgely raw and real.

Oh yup, I promised some personal insight bits about Nass from Jace's unmissable Mudd Up! blog; see here, here, and here......

Mucho thanks to Joost for covering my opening shift at the cafe, so I could catch all of Nas el Ghiwane's magical set! :)

Spot the Ghiwane!

2007-02-25T13:56:00.000+01:00

Today, in a few hours, the obscurely famed moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane plays Utrecht!....very much out of the blue.

Yesterday I visited the local indie shop after a spell of not setting foot in it at all...quickly browsed their long list of upcoming gigs and somehow my eye fell on the name Nass el Chiwane, misspelled by one letter, and indicating a next day live show. -Awe!- Could it be? I've to work my voluntary shift tonight at the cafe, so I was nearly cursing myself for missing them. But nope! Sweet luck has destined it to be an afternoon concert.

I reckon the afternoon was chosen to draw the older immigrant crowd to the gig at a reasonable hour. They're playing together with Jedwane, who is supposed to be the king of the Chaabi music, which is an Arabic & Berber style from Morocco linked to the Algerian Raï style. *Lila Maghrebia* is the name given to this varied Moroccan afternoon. I like it when such afternoons happen; good Moroccan cuisine, fresh mint tea, relaxed atmosphere and amazing music. Plus it is a nice change to the unjust Dutch racist view on Moroccan culture. Why not experience it in this earnest way instead of holding onto false presumptions?

So, "who is Nass el Ghiwane?" most of you will think with a plussed questionmark stretched across the face. Their fame is so hidden or that you either need to have Northern African roots or be turned onto them by someone else. Let's see if I can.
Nass el Ghiwane formed in Morocco in the late 60's and play Gnawa music along with many other styles (see comments below), thus creating a modernised folk style made up of intricate rhythms, taqsims ,deep trancedental flows and socially applied poetry. The effect to me, is near hypnotising with a build up to a louder climax. They are nationally seen as the Moroccan equivalent Rolling Stones, since they had a big impact on the new Moroccan music styles. I dare even say they might better musicians than the western Rollings Stones since they master their instruments in peculiar jawdropping ways, outside of the 4/4 mindset. They could easily play after western styles...but could western bands imitate their style? The odds are not even. Moroccan psychelic folk; this is the real thing, going on for over 30 years now.

I learnt about the band years ago through Jace aka DJ/ Rupture, eclectic as ever in his musical style and knowledge, who was always bigging them up for mighty good reasons stated above. Plus he has even toured with them! His outfit Nettle being the superb occasion for it. The multi-intrumentalist Abdel Hak and Jenny Jones are the other members of the Nettle project where northern african diasporic sounds get mashed up with western noise static. Nomadic roughness. I shall refer to some insight posts Jace made about Nass' at his excellent Mudd Up! blog, More on that later.

On an ending note, it should be real special to be among an immigrant crowd of middleaged to older people since this isn't a more stylish band that the younger immigrants and their dutch-borns would go to see....or would they? Tradition is the keyword and downright virtue is all it embodies. If I can make some bootleg recordings of the gig, I will put them on here at some point.

wowza, my first youtube embed..one's gotta learn. Nass el Ghiwane video clip, streetwise moroccanly! I wonder if this is a western travel viddy or genuinely local.

To continue, here a live registration from around the early 80's. It's hypnotising at its essence.

And some audio candy! >>>

This is a composition of their *safer* Musique Du Monde album of Moroccan Gnawa.
Nass el Ghiwane - Hamdouchia

This recording sounds way older, I guess it's 60's or 70's material sensing the hiss & crackle, as I got this album downloaded without any info. In 8 minutes it slowly builds up to a psychedelic wall. Awesome.
Nass el Ghiwane - Untitled track 1

Goeiemiddag livingroom concert!

2007-02-15T16:25:00.000+01:00

yep, join us! if...you....want....to

see our fluffy blog, nicely created by Iris.

yippee ya yo ka yay, don't give it all away.

Aye, t'wis kinda dreich in Embra, cannae be better

2007-02-12T21:28:00.000+01:00

('dreich' is scottish slang for grey and shitty wet weather, so ya know)

....but at least there was no snow as in Holland and Southern UK! Quite miraculous so as one must think, since Edinburgh is very much up north at nearly the same latitude as Scandinavia. Only the mountains had snow on it.

My previous blogpost hinted that guitarist Malcolm Middleton, who played Amsterdam the night before, was going to take the same flight as me and indeed he did as we met each other in the waiting lounge and it rejoiced us both by hoping the delayed plane would still come while the snow was pummeling down from the skies. It's a weird fate of coincidence to spend time travelling with a musician of one of your favorite bands -the recently disbanded group Arab Strap-. I put on the handcuffs, yes, guilty of craving Scottish melancholia blues since 2000. Malcolm, soft spoken and modest, had just done a 2 week solo tour in Germany and was now going home to Glasgow, though he first had to do a live sessionthere for the BBC One radio. Our plane did arrive and from the whitelands we flew into the wetlands. The end of his adventure, the beginning of mine and hasty goodbyes were said after he told me that he should be in Utrecht for a solo show in April.

So, Edinburgh busride into town. For some reason the whole ride really reminded me of the the Dublin route from the airport...I guess it's because the Scottish infrastructure is so much alike the Irish, such the architecture and general road atmosphere. Dejavuland was passing through the eyes, finding its way in quasi recognizable patterns from the brain and it all felt familiar, home style familiar!

Edinburgh centre is splittingly devided in 2 halves by a giant rock with a castle on top of it -Edinburgh castle, which still has an army up there funnily enough-, and the view is amazing. Not many cities can boast having such a landmark decorating the scenery and when you add the other 2 hills running from the centre, (one is a monumental green hill just past the castle rock and the other even a small nature mountain park right next to side of the centre), one feels that the city has achieved a perfect symbiose with a rougher side of nature.

Oops, back to thursday afternoon, Nessa picked me up and we did a small tour of the city for having a supernice veggie lunch at the Forest organic cafeteria, run by volunteers and which much reminded me of Utrecht's squatcafe ACU. Good to know that good places exist in any city that has a good cultural mindset to it. Soon afterwards, a pub was the next stop where I tasted the local blonde Innis & Gunn ale which had a slight whisky flavour to it, wow! This kinda marked the start of a weekend with many ales and whiskies; both alcopop liquids I normally don't drink. There always has to be a one time for everything. Back to Nessa's after a bout of pear cider and Swedish modernised bars. Cabbage and Ribs, the Hibs! Now there's some slang rhyming you'll have to crack to get the nut.

On Friday we took it kinda lazy, walked through the special Dean Village which contained streets and alleys of mews, which are old stables that are now used as pittoresque residences. After that we went to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art where they had modernist paintings of Picasso, Miro, Ernst, Margritte and statues of Paolozzi. Eduardo Paolozzi was actually born in the Leith area where Nessa lives. Though his name comes from his Italian father, he was a born and bred Edinburgh resident and started the British pop art scene. These pics show some work, such as the huge and tall metal Vulcan statue that we saw! A pity we came kinda late into the gallery and were kicked out at closing time.

There were many Welsh up and about on the streets, as Scotland was playing Wales for the European 6 Nations Rugby Cup, The good thing about such rugby games is that it makes the atmosphere on the streets and in the pubs an amazing experience, where good behaviour is always the rule and not the exception....which can't be said about football fans very often. The Welsh were quite uppity in the days before the game and we either catched them in funny moods or singing deeply from their choir chests. Friday night Gavin -Nessa's boyfriend- joined us for a few good ones in a nice auld ale pub (20 taps on offer!), when some elderly Welsh gents started singing canon chants out of the blue, surely gave us goosebumps! I recorded a few of their songs and hope to put something up here later. Just after we left the pub, we saw an elderly Welsh man and his son staggering around drunk with pizza. The man suddenly fell flat on his face causing a huge cut of his eyebrow, blood pouring out, and we gave some support till the ambulance arrived (in less than 5mins, bravo). A few stitches should have sorted it, though I reckon waking up from his hangover the next morning wasn't too rosey, ouch.

Saturday we catched end of the organic farmers market and bought some fresh smoked kipper fish, gorgeous Scottish triple cream brie and even some lamb & mint sausages. It was a pity that Gavin had twitched his back earlier on and had to stay in all day, so me and Nessa wandered about, had some nice carrot-orange soup & goat cheesed panini's after a wet walking session in the creepy Greyfriars Kirkyard cemetary. The cemetary is supposedly haunted at night by the misty ghost of a woman and this is turned into a midnightly tourist attraction. Also there's the grave and momument of Greyfriars Bobby, a *westies dug* (ie Yorkshire dog) who for nearly 16 years stood and lived at his owner's grave and got fed by the locals. Loyalty is a bitter dreg, even for animals eh? We later strolled into the Natural Museum of Scotland. As we came a bit late again, we only saw bits of Scottish historical pieces, such as swords, celtic patterns on stones and some possessions of the royal Bonnie 'Prince' Charlie (hmmm confused with Bonnie 'Prince' Billy ;)), plus also seen some steam engines and other machinery of the industrial period. Oh what one can learn; golf, curling and bowling are all Scottish sports. Such usefull information indeed hah! The museum was really nice and we only saw 1 floor of it, guess I'll just have to go back once and see the other 4 floors.
Later at dinner I made the exception of tasting these nice minty things, yes meat I know, but it was worth it for one time..plus you can't get these over here, luckily ;) We went again to the Forest cafe as they had a Balkan music night on there (wow, that makes 2 weekends in row for me) with live bands. The last band was a young band with trumpets in the brass band style of things and altough they sounded messy, it was a good way of messiness which got people dancing and shouting. There was a song done by a Greek singer while she played the guitar in fingerpick style, which was breathtakingly amazing, but I'm just a sucker for this old Rebetika style from Greece, especially presented live. After that more of the brass' n 'booty sounds which kept us swaying. Just there was this one female singer who was pretty annoying as she was one of those self-absorbed attention seekers and many times she pushed Nessa aside when doing something. Really weird, and Nessa thus gifting her a personally twisted Larry David Curbed' momentum hah ;)

Oh yeah, earlier in the afternoon we also visited the special 2nd hand bookshop that has inspired the Irish-but-Edinburghbased actor Dylan Moran to create the excellent UK comedy show Black Books, as the owner of the real life bookshop seems to be just as strange as the one Moran plays in the show. We didn't get to see the owner, but saw many bizarre warning signs put up allover the shop, like *watch out for the floor*. Sense, no(n)sense, who decides? Paul, an fellow Irish friend of Nessa, works part-time in the shop by quirky coincidence and he invited us to his birthday party later that night, swell. So after the gypsy music we walked to the bday party while Nessa talked about slasher murders of young women that happen from time to time in Edinburgh parks and meadows, oy. Edinburgh has this Jekyll and Hyde feature looming over the city, safe and friendly by daytime, dark and twisted by night if you are at the wrong spot at the wrong time. No wonder author Robert Louis Stevenson is one of Embra's celebrated writers, portraying the dual sides of the city. Over to Paul's do, who is a funny character himself to boot as well where in one room bad trance and urban tunes were being played and in the other room some old style blues. One takes no hard thinking to know where we sat down. We were surrounded by film art students and their sport was to outwit each other with personal concepts. I was riling up London boy Gabriel for fun, fed him fuel for his words, since his manifesto was way too intricatie to be conceived by anyone. It can be fun talking about certain art concepts when in the right mood, but not when you're relaxing with some nice beer at 3am and just want to have fun. Someone put Gremlins on since a killer orca movie did not work, pity ah. Fine choice I must say, so that I could be dumbed down and untangled from the discussions while Paul was loading us up with chocolate cake and veggie pizza. Generously sound dude btw! Nessa actually works for the art section of Edinburgh university and she suddenly realised to her own shock that she knew most of the people at the party *by their student file*, haha....how about dragging your work into the weekend nights? Mad indeed. It kinda summed up the night.

Sunday was quite easygoing. We went up the 2 other mountains near the city centre of which the vaster and higher Salisbury Crags are really phenomenal for the view...in the Jojo phenomenological way, hah. As ye can see on the wikipedia link; just 5 minutes walking outside the eastern part of the centre you have this natural mountain park as if you are in the countryside.
Mad I tell ya! But it felt great as it was the first day it did not rain, no cold wind and even some sun, yay!

Below the ridged side that we walked on, such a grand view!

After that we had a long drinking session in the New Town area and discovered that the Dark Island black ale was most of my liking, coming from the Orkney islands. Also of all the whiskies I tried, the ones from the islands stood out the best. I must like those western islands for some reason. The night and my stay ended with watching a few episodes of Spaced by Simon Pegg (Shaun of the dead). British comedy shows always do things better it seems.

So it ended and had to get an early flight into Amsterdam, back to hell for having to work a horrible half day. Came home with a bag full of books of Tom Hodgkinson, Anthony Bourdain, Michael Palin and some classic Hunter S. Thompson's that were still missing in my collection, at last. I always enjoy shopping for books on the isles, as the choice and prices are excellent compared to books in English here, unless you want to get the same old overpriced bestseller's shite.

I'll defo enjoy the Tom Hodgkinson one of 'How To Be Free' which expands on his sincerely justified Idler philosophy. Let's see if life and use of time can be improved, it just has to give.

But yeah, having my eyes glimmering of the fact I'll be working 3 days a week for just slightly less money than my slave wage now, is almost reality! Just 3 weeks to go ho-ho! It adds up; a better yet more relaxed job, nicer colleagues, central location, good union and loads of holidays. There's no wrong, only right. I reckon the road to my own perdition will be without bumps, except goosebumps of excitement, Inshallah.

Thanks to Belgian friend (va)Ness I finally got my ears around the 'Gulag Orkestar' album by Beirut and it's steamy steady cut quality with freshly cooped trumpets and songwriter tricks. Gypsy meets indie halfway, bridging the gap between global trendy and western alternativism minus the unneccesary hype stance to it. It builds itself anyway. hur-rah. Share the joy and tears!

Beirut - Bratislava
Beirut - Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar

The roundup spreads into Edimburgo

2007-02-08T01:29:00.000+01:00

first, weekend roundup.

Friday, Jason Molina. You take one gubby dwarf playing singer-songwriting tunes, give him a capo so that he will play the same chords *a lot*. Despite this demeaning tone, his voice was crisp clear amazing to listen to. One of a kind sort of stuff. Pity about the fact that most songs sounded much alike and he didn't peek into his better stuff. No miss nor win. Just was.

Saturday, We vs. Death & Sennen, at the livingroom concert in the Ondiep artist breeding place. So there we go, postrock galore. blissful thinking and uncut nostalgiarama. The whole of arrangement of the livingroom was amazing, one white wall had old dia's projected from exotic holidays taken in the 70's whereas the other wall had movies projected onto them *The Birds*, *Coffee & Cigarettes* & *Dr. Strangelove*. You couldn't go wrong with that selection. Danielle Liebeskind did her non-amplified singing with the guitar aside, followed by the postrock blasts by We vs. Death. Sennen sealed it off perfectly, accompanied by Dr. Strangelove on screen, and it seemed as if every scene was made for the 40 minute sountrack of Sennen. The closing scene with all the a-bombs going off also created a climax in the form of exploding live sound. It was unplanned by the band, yet everything fell in the right place. Coincidence was not an oddity, rather the status quo.
After that me, Rory and Alison biked our way to the Rasa for some hustle n jumping Balkan music. Utrecht's gypsy punko DJ Tommi held up the night in a firm grip, entertaining us with classic and unheard gems. Sparkling bright, shiney of glitter..the sounds took many away....like that eastern european guy who kept on falling on the wet floor with every special move, time after time. Or that bunch of students that leapt on each other or were climbing the walls. Playtime mayhem, but it was all earnest and sincere spirited. Many smiles kept on going around and around and around.

Sunday, bar-work time. voluntary yup yup. After a night of not-so-good/much-sleep, the motivation sinks away, but it was defo nice to see loyal friends and family (Hi mom!) coming along as supporting clientele. Apple crumble, mmmmmmmmmmhhh I dream of cinnamon fairytales.

sooooooooooo secondly, what else?

Earlier today friend Peter asked me to come for a brainstorming session, mysteriously spoken. it was about a project he and Danielle (Liebeskind) are having for the *Club van 100*, which is a running tv show on the public broadcasting channel about how people can help other people, by using creative idea's with no personal/commercial gain. Right, the pinnacle idea of their project is how to get people to interact with special moments and share these with others, strangers or not, with the goal to create a common awareness that is not easy to be found nowadays. Tough cookie to bite, the raisins are dried out and the chocolate stale. So what can be done? Enter brainstorming session. I unsuspectedly sat at the table, ate some tofu curry, but when I had to speak my mind about what a *personal special moment*signifies and means to me, I had a camera glaring into my eyes. yikes. Apparently our talks will be used in the next episode coming Monday the 12th. Double the yikes. Haven't decided yet whether I will watch or not.
See more about it here

Just (read: 1 hour ago) came back from the Club 3voor12 session in Studio Desmet, A'dam
Me and Floor the only ones of our troop who wanted to catch the Scottish songwriter Malcolm Middleton (ex-Arab Strap guitarist) play tonight, so off we went! Malcolm did about 5 songs on his guitar, roughly voiced sung in a demeanor that was Arab Strap worthy. Scottish colleague Stevie D was abliss, so was I. It's a kinda funny start to my long weekend as in about 10 hours I will be off to Edinburgh (or locally known as Embra) for a few days. It will be nice to visit my friend Nessa there for the first time, taste some auld whiskey, do some hiking in nature and visit galleries. I'm sure more will come across our path.
So it's Scottish all the way these days. I talked a bit to Mr Middleton and he revealed that he might be on the 12.30 flight same as me, which adds even more coincidental batter to my short travel roll, ''Perhap' see ya lae'er den'', he outted. Let's see.

2:30am now, first thing in the morning before Schiphol airport looms, a short visit to the Utrecht university has to be made... future oh future of negotations, vague huh?

some Scottish pieces before I sign off....

Women waulking - Ho Na Filibig Chunnacas Bata
Arab Strap - Loch leven intro

Eastern recordist jibes and crammed meditations

2007-01-31T00:39:00.000+01:00

update on the Sublime Frequencies night last friday:
Neung Phak didn't play as most of the band were elswhere scattered over Euroland.

Although the night itself in OCCII wasn't busy, it proved a great opportunity to meet Alan Bishop and Mark Gergis and talk over some idea's for my project, plus you don't get many chances to share a cab with them Sun City Girls either, so why not? We kinda came up with a new blackspot for a possible future SF release: The Philippines! The street and media culture of this hidden pearl definitely has to get some attention, let's hope they will shine some light on it, perhaps bring back some forgotten artist...but seeing their enthousiast reaction, I reckon they will. Sweet!
That was one thing but the other idea that popped up from Alan's head was the recording of music in the Punjab area, which is the troubled borderstretch between India and Pakistan, surrounded by the Kashmir and Rajasthani states. Like, exactly where I am heading after the summer, plus matching my own musical documentation project. It's all too early to tell, but an idea is certainly brewing now, more and more clearly. Soon oh soon, more will be known.

The other night, I went to the OT301 to especially see the illustre Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M play moozak in their intricate Japanese ways. That is, if it's music what you can call it as I'd rather go with *making playfull sounds*, just to annoy the arty fartsies who all tried too hard to look interested without getting the context. I mean, audio art is for enjoying and feeling, yet one's outgoing enjoyment is the norm-non-grata somehow, bar the few people who go along ion it...... anybooooo they played together with Axel Dorner on heavily amplified trumpet and Martin Brandlmayer on drums. Imagine a steady hissle with sinetones, breathing and occasional drumstrokes....a nice recipy for meditational listening....if you're sitting that is. While standing up, closely surrounded by others...the meditational value loses itself rapidly. Pity, it was a good set. At least it was fun looking at the arty farty people trying too hard to understand the music instead of enjoying it. I especially digged Otomo's playfull sounds on empty decks, using tin wire, a tourist card and any other unusual pieces for in a concert. Kindergarten time for the artistic inept. After this lull, Morten J. Olsen (also part of improv outfit Moha!) did a slamming drum session with Nicolas Field taking up the other drum kit. Drumming in duality, the duel not being fought but celebrated into an orchestrated mess. 3rd person in this session was Bjoernar Habbestad, who had his brazen flute linked up to electronics for playing in a frantic manner, which he did. Amazing stuff, such a set-up not being the norm and all, but these walls of chaos and added jiggery sounds surely were a nice bonus....You do get to realise that if by the end of a monday nite you are still holding a beer in your hand, you'll get another monday morning feeling the day after. Post mortum morning mood that gave thought for food.

Did some live recordings on the nite, will put em up here soon enough -but don't I always say that?-

***

Frizzle waves from tropic radio's, cult snippets from crooked television sets

2007-01-25T23:27:00.000+01:00

has.....it....been...more....than......3....weeks?
*blogs do not respect time, same goes for me in my crummy lazy manner* How else are you supposed to deal with the dark dreadful winter days -warm and cold-? a supposedly low point indeed.

Tomorrow the worldthrawling Sublime Frequencies label of Alan Bishop & Mark Gergis is coming to town in the form of an audiovisual circus. Amsterdam that is. Place it into the context of a squat , the grand ole' O-C-C-I-I near the end of the Vondelpark. Yay, on the double!
21:30 sharp. Expect a super collaged documentary of the Indonesian Sumatra island, filled with super kitsch commercials, movies and soap snippets and ofcourse taking up a helluva lot of music too, either streetwise or staged. All of it conscious folk in it's own bizarre way, with a wink to the West.

I'm hoping the excellent Neung Phak band will be performing too as they did last week in Rotterdam, though hope seems slim for now. Neung Phak are not Asian, but a bunch of Americans who play retro South East Asian muzak in the footsteps of Isan, Molam and retro influenced psychedelica rock. All of it sung in Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodjian and so on!

The SF label has been releasing numerous albums (up to release 29 at the moment!) where the raw material is taken from exotic radio stations and sudden street performances on their travels, ranging from the Northern Africa's through mystical Arabia onto the psychedelic peripheries of South East Asia. The fieldrecordist's and etnomusicologist's dreams morphed into one idea, interfered by political bulletins and radio jingles on the go. The titles given to their collages all portray a nice knack of (in)sanity to the provided context, it's unsorted creativity.

One big pity though is that most of their albums do not list any artists references so that good tune snippets are too hard to track down in the shape of decent full-on recordings and opening it to a wider -and western- audience. Perhaps it could even lead to total output by an unknown artist being opened as a pandora yumyum goodie box. Giddy boys do thrive on discovering lost and unpolished gems, count me in.

buuuuuuuut, I'm wandering off as ever.

I got the recently released Radio Thailand -Transmissions from the exotic kingdom- album last week and haven't been able to stop listening to it at work -to keep me sane-. 2 discs of deepfried soundcollages that keep your ears filled with joy and amazement, recorded off the air between the era 1989 to 2004. The absurd side of the southern orient will be far away no more after this experience, Thai a go go.

here some clips from this release:

Rubber Of High Quality
(just hear that kid wither, sing and laugh in this fine song... and then the report on rubber that follows...owwwww!)

543 Years Ahead Of YOU
(psychedelic organ pop, muffled jazz and some Molam tunes thrown into a collage of warm wavelengths)

21st Century Perspiration
(madcap pop, quicky rockabilly and post 2000 Thai hiphop! Who cares about sense, it's great fun!)

Torrential Nostalgia
(pure Molam to enjoy, beware at the end... those zombie kids at 5:36 are freaky!)

** over
**** out

2007, a new blaze into oblivion

2007-01-03T09:59:00.000+01:00

and a slap-happy new year to all of ye!

been awhile, yessa.

my new year kicked off by losing my phone in the early morning glory...... and actually it's not being missed, at all. I've always kinda hated having a mobile in general, bar the emergency/last minute meet up calls, so what's bliss to miss?
My pet hate are text msgs, when folks do not take time to express themselves through their vocal chords or send a decent e-mail. Yeah indeed, we're living in the communication degradation era of disinformation. With all extorsed media available to us nowadays, our technological *western* advancement has been ironicly reduced to strings of unattached words and signs in shortened patterns, only understood by those who speak the dial button lingo. It's a mad world; the more communication methods a civlisation creates, the less sense they ultimately make.
So, odds on me getting a new mobile soon? Slim, what me worry? !syke!

Busy man Derek Holzer is still up and about world travelling with his artistic audio set up of splendid field recordings. Last year the awesome Soundtransit travel engine was set up by Derek, Sara Kolzer and Marc Boon set up, as in travelling through sound! It;'s kinda like booking a flight online except you get free sounds back and anyway you want it. It's the rabbit's bollocks.
I got some field recordings up there too as Sebcatlitter if anyone cares, ~and more to come, yes blatant self promo muck yadda yadda.. ~
Anyway, also Derek has been dragged into the depths of Bloggerhell by the evil gnomes and his writings can be found here. Good thoughts on the better music around, an improvised Rafael Toral interview and his own touring meanderings and international shenanigans, plus some moustached Texas pics. Score.
He and Sara will be playing Amsterdam on February 17th. See and check.

Musica.......
Me and some friends organised a concert last saturday for a first time, in an underground parking garage in an exposition centre . Under the influence from flu, stressed out for arranging everything and getting it all right just on time...we did pull it off.
The lineup consisted of locals Wouter Van Veldhoven and Jan Schellink, Soccer Committee, Machinefabriek, Orphan Fairytale (Bel) and Mudboy (USA). The music was dead awesome and was all we hoped for. We had expected about 40 guest, but to our amazement it doubled to 80! It was nice to get such support from friends, friends from friends and aquintances so we better continue this stretch. Sadly, the parking garage spot won't be possible anymore as the exposition centre will close down. Damn, no more melancholia and pysche folked noise with such a great garage echo we had..bah. Here's the spiffy promo video we had made for this occassion:
Hortus Chaoticus event
Just want to give a heartfelt shout out to Rikkert, Boudewijn, Jet, Iris, Niels, Maarten and many more folks for helping us out in any possible way.

Strange music rules, strange meaning exoticly foreign in this case, especially if it's world music meshed with a local culture law. Truth is all a matter of context. Here's the earnest Pymgy analogy to the set context, that poor man.

"I feed you so today you become big fat woman, very good woman for me"
How can one not dig that casio melody?
Francis Bebey - Pygmy Divorce

....
...
..
.

Mice Inc and Youth'ful expectations

2006-12-14T13:36:00.000+01:00

A few mornings ago, with my work cabinet opened where clothes, book, herbal tea, bread and whatnot are stored (it seems my office cabinet is my 2nd home after all, shock horror), I discovered a deep hole carved into my bread, like a warm comfy nest imbedded into the wheat. Yeah, it's known our office at the reknown Rembrandtplein has mice, like any auld city centre. I just love the little rascals for their cleverness, sometimes we see them running around too, like on the first day of my training, aeons ago. -gawk!-. Instead of cleaning up my cabinet of the crumbs and pieces like my supervisor told me, I've been a bad boy and dissobeyed. Tough luck, little bellies got to be fed, so I left some pieces of cashew nuts around. They haven't been eaten, I reckon these mice truly have a picky connosseuristic choice of food. Nuts I say!

The day mice enjoyed my bread was followed by a monday night out to the grand OCCII squat venue where there was a breakcore night of some sorts with Otto Von Schirach ending his European stay. What can you say about a man who put bikini-clad lizards on his artwork? His sickly onstage persona creates all these beautifully ugly sounds, yet offstage he's the kind fella who talks with a charming lisp, Miami style. 3rd time seeing him in the space or mere months, you kinda get to mingle and know someone. Click-click-click; faux-pas gangsta glitch rap gets submerged with bodily spams sounds, the kinda sounds from bowels and throats if ye catch his driftwind. Beforehand, a funny dude by the name of Tony Blitzkrieg started the night, claimed to be Henk Westbroek (dutch radio personality who makes shitty light songs) while wearing a zombie mask and started rolling over the floor, priceless entertainment. He ran into the audience and like a dog attacking the leg of my friend Wouter. Imagine some psycho down on the floor clamping onto your leg and trying to bite it while you kick him away. It was a fun sight to see. Soon enough, Tony's shenanigans caused his midi music box to

Tomorrow nite, Sonic Youth are playing a 1,5 hour *supposed* improv set at the experimental State-X festival in The Hague. I'm saying *supposed*, because the organiser just loves a good noisy improvisation which he might just request from these auld ones. Then again, expectations are the pure pinnacle of disappointment. Instead to counter this too-good feeling, I'll just bear in mind that they will re-do all of Goo and Sister again and again like any puristic saddo fan will probably expect. Having experienced the Youth superbly improvising with sweeping guitars last year at a Barcelona festival and none of the same old songs, I was left gutted with the amount of moany saddo fans who voiced their anger of not getting to hear their favorite album hits. Yean, new raw material really feels like a punishment, doesn't? Poor people, who are all popcharties deep down inside should better realize for once that special does not equal repetition. So yeah, the question I'll raise is, will the same kind of people, who call themselves fans, still enjoy a set of improvised guitarslashing by Thurston and Kim or Lee destructively fooling with the pedals? Let's hope what comes around, goes around. Later that night, Thurston will join Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty, Matt Heyner and Spencer Yeh, which could turn out to be a hefty mouthwatering improv affair. The No-Neck Bluesband will do their freaky holistic folk thing and I'm wondering if this time they won't get into a fight with each other as it happened at a Rotterdam gig last spring, ouch.

The saturday nite will be a very grimey and electronical affair with Plastician, MarkOne, Chris Clark and Jamie Lidell taking over. Even classic Finnish psychefolk act Circle will be playing wha-wha-what??...in a smaller room though. Glamcore buddy Jason Forrest will be presenting the night as PA of the night. I smell a perfect cut-out. At least it will look more sane than him running around with his face and upper body covered in ketchup like 2 years back...ohhhhhmm.
I'm looking forward to see the Magick Markers, with guitar amps screeching at irritating rates.

Some tunes, unfortunately in iTunes M4A format for now....

(from Murray Street, 2002)
Sonic Youth - Sympathy For The Strawberry
Sonic Youth - Karen Revisited (in light of friday, it gets more interesting after 3 mins ;)

(from Maxipad Detention, 2006)
Otto Von Schirach - Trick Snitch
Otto Von Schirach - Cantaloupe Syphilis Gravy
Otto Von Schirach - Maxipad Vegetation

The livingroom dove and Vientane charity drink

2006-12-11T16:20:00.000+01:00

Last sunday afternoon a livingroom concert was organised with American songwriters Viking Moses and Ramona Cordova and local Dutch songwriters Danielle Liebeskind and Machinefabriek. Such events surely are more enjoyable than any kind of normal concert. Matrasses, pillows and carpets were laid down and soup, bread and cheese exchanged hungry stomachs. Danielle started the afternoon with heartfelt songs stirring her emotions and she played a superb Kimya Dawson tribute song. Ramona (named his artist persona in honour of his grandmother) kinda stole the show with his energetic guitar playing style and his poetic pitched singing. Perhaps some would lazily compare him to Devendra Banhart, but Cordova doesn't have the smarmy fantasy feel to it, rather little life stories twisted into a colourful wrapper. If you can make a whole room dangle their keys and sing along with your spiritual chants, there's something special worth feeling and touching upon. Viking Moses was pretty good too, loud alternative blues and rock alongside raw poetry from the heart. Spoken word even, in the sense that he roughly pulled it off as a emotional standup comedian. I liked the way he had one of his shoes taped in, as the sole was loose. real. Rutger, otherwise known as Machinefabriek closed the evening with his expected noodling and looping his guitar tones, but with added vocals on top of his grittycoustics. In the end, we kinda left like spoilt children, livingroom concerts will surely kick off a new era of Utrecht improvisation sessions organised by true enthousiasts.

Taken from Ramon's album The Boy Who Floated Freely on Parisian label Clapping Music.

Ramona Cordova - Introduction
Ramona Cordova - Heavy On My Head
Ramona Cordova - Non Title

Big big thanks to Iris for organising this sweet evening of special songwriters and good atmosphere, also kudos to Danielle for offering her spaceous livingroom to 30 odd people.

Oh btw! This Wednesday (13th) I'll be volunteering behind the bar at the Averechts cafe again, so dear Utrecht readers...please come and have a drink for charity! All money this month goes to the Vientane Youth Centre in Laos, an independent project for a free health and information centre for inner city youths. They could really use some generous funding to keep the centre up and running. Hope to see some of ye!...

Shona Mbira music, minimalised spirits alive!

2006-12-08T08:50:00.000+01:00

Finally a world music entry, I know. It was about time too, as the world keeps turning and turning, the non western music cultures ever evolving, wrapped in their acoustic beauty. Last weekend I picked up the amazing Shona Mbira Music of Zimbabwe album by the ethnic Nonesuch Explorer label. Performed in 1977 mostly by Cosmas Magaya and relatives, all profoundly skilled with the mbira, which is the Zimbabwian version of a thumb piano (otherwise known as a likembe, kalimbe and so on depending of the local connoctation).

The Shona mbira music comes straight out of the Zimbabwe heartland of the Zezeuru people, induced by ancient religious and cultural ceremonies. During the 1970's Independance War when fighting against the unjust British colonial system, the mbira music was specificly used in ceremonies where spiritual mediums (as in african shamans) gave advise to the local population and the freedom fighting guerrilla's, to aid their spirits in these hard times.

As the Mugabe regime became fiercely violent and totalitarian in the 80's, it was not allowed anymore to use music for political messages due to the Mugabe propaganda rule. Also the mbira music was heavily restrained and had to be stripped from its cultural and social message, whether it was a traditional one or not. Voiced expression through the mbira became near impossible and it transported itself into intense emotional participations, body and spirit-wise. The inner voice translated to body language.

The style of the mbira as practised in the Shona tradition is one of a relaxed repetitive melody loop. Trancedental qualities become clearly audible, thus revealing the ceremonial aspects to these spiritual tones. African minimalism at its best. There's even a non-profit organisation to maintain the Shona mbira music Wow, respect goes out to those keeping it alive!

pictured ltr; recordist Paul Berliner, Justin Magaya & Cosmas Magaya

Below some tunes from the Nonesuch album, taken from the Shona album, enjoy! ;)

Cosmas, Alexio & Simon Magaya Magaya - Nhemamusasa: Instrumental Excerpt I
Hakurotwi Mude, Cosmas Magaya & Justin Magaya - Shumba
Hakurotwi Mude, Cosmas Magaya, Luken Pasipamire & Ephat Mujuru - Chaminuka We

lo-fi ambient night in Utrecht this saturday

2006-12-06T22:31:00.000+01:00

Hmm, since I'm part of the InterZone crew nowadays... why not spam my own space? Spam as in deliciously experimental packaged, not the cheap flaky kind ;)
Spread the word, fellow folks of Hollandia!

Together with Bastiaan and Carlos, I'll should be spinning some music between and after the performances.

There's even a promotional video with the music of tapeloop buddy Wouter van Veldhoven...youtubed and made by Carlos and Ellen through a dia projection, sweet!
check it below.....

InterZone promo clip & music!

Saturday Dec. 9th
InterZone is proud to present a lo-fi ambient evening with live:

BODUF SONGS (US) [Kranky]
THE DEAD TEXAN (US) [Kranky]
ANNELIES MONSERE (B)[Bluesanct]
WOUTER VAN VELDHOVEN (NL) [Mechanizedmind]

Some tracks for your pleasure....

Boduf Songs - Great Wolf Of No Tracks

Boduf Songs - Lord Of The Flies

Annelies Monsere - You Were On My Side (Melodica)

Annelies Monsere - Cold Night

The Dead Texan - Glen's Goo

Wouter van Veldhoven - D

More info at:
www.interzone-festival.com
www.theaterkikker.nl

Where: Theater Kikker, Ganzenmarkt 14
Start 21:00 Entrance 12/9 Euro
Presale:
Theater Kikker, Ganzenmarkt 14
Plato Utrecht, Steenweg 13
Reservations:
www.theaterkikker.nl, (0031) (0)30 2319666

==========================================
InterZone @ MySpace
==========================================
InterZone can also be found at Myspace. We are trying to create a
network
of visitors and artists. Go to
http://www.myspace.com/interzone_festival
and add yourself to our list!
==========================================

have a lovely day,
InterZone

Manics and devils

2006-12-06T15:18:00.000+01:00

That 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' docu is amazingly well done, showing the demise of a teenage songwriting genius while being transformed into a manic depressed christian obsessed person. I liked the part in the late 80's where he quite freaked out the Sonic Youth folks, who was really punk there now? ;)
To me, the docu really showed how people from early on took advantage of his kind personality and creativity for their own purposes, whether it were his ex-lovers, other musicians or his own family. Only his manager/friend remained loyal to him and is also the person who revived his career from obscurity. I could go on giving some useless analysis on the whole film but naaaah, just go and watch it yourselves.

Here some old songs taken from his teenage tapes, such grand lyrics!
"Respect love of the heart over lust of the flesh,
do yourself a favour and become your own savior"

Daniel Johnston - Story Of An Artist (here he sings about how his own family treated him)
Daniel Johnston - The Sun Shines Down On Me
Daniel Johnston - Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Your Grievience

And a superb cover version by TV On The Radio (one of the better live bands during the summer festivals), followed by the original.
TV On The Radio - Walking The Cow
Daniel Johnston - Walking The Cow

then.....

and now...........

Unfinished, unfulfilled,

2006-11-30T22:36:00.000+01:00

.

..

...

....

.....It's about time for some 'The Devil And Daniel Johnston' docu viewing (thanx Mark!)

The country rambler

2006-11-28T10:06:00.000+01:00

Once seen on graffiti, ‘Listening to the blues turns being in pain into a beautiful feeling’, spray of right on it is.

Since I started the blog I've been putting up lots of blues, one might notice. I reckon it says enough about my emotional posture at this moment in time, the year 2006 notwithstanding the things that have happened on a level of hurt and shame all year around. Such is life, would a friend always say. I do promise to include more world music, roots and experimental stuff in the near future when clouds clear up in a hopefull hurry.

Talk talk talk.... Townes van Zandt in the blogged ode grinder. I've never been fond of white country music like the modern trash pulp it is today since the bad musicians outnumber the special ones like Gillian Welch and such. I guess I'm more of the pre 60's wave of Guthrie, Cash, (Hank) Williams and mostly the old timey stuff of the pre 40's. So then, what's up with Townes? To sum it up in a bizarre stretch; Dutch ancestry and raised in a Texas hotbed through oil, being pushed for governorship by his wealthy family, but starting a career in songwriting instead, brilliant lyrics during manic depressions and shock therapies, living as a hermit in a trashy cabin yet being member of the high-intelligence MENSA organisation. You wha'? It's one opposite revelation after the other, the context telling the story of his life in turnaround paths.
In a time that blues became smudgy electric and dirty, Townes' kept things acoustic and followed old blues paths merged with country styles. He noticably was influenced by many black blues musicians such as Lightnin' Hopkins who also hailed from Texas and imbedded their style his own way. One could even say that Townes has inspired an early alt-country movement since he was more focussed on fingerpicking than the simple playing styles of those days. His music has inspired the likes of Sonic Youth, Beck, The White Stripes, Tindersticks and even Norah Jones to name a few. I'm still trying to track down 'Heartworn Highways' and 'Be Here To Love Me', both being lauded movies about his life and music; the genius, the alcohol, the demise. Taking a drive on the internet highway needed.

While his intense lyrics contained a lot of smart dry humour, there is also a lot of mention of alcohol abuse by other people, while he himself was a notorious alcoholic all his life as his only grip on reality. He died of a heart attack in 1997 from a bad bloodclot after a hip surgery. This was on the same day as the death of his idol Hank Williams, weirdly enough.

Here some songs taken from the infamous Live At The Quarter House session performed in Houston, 1977. These 3 are all blues covers from artists before the 60's

Townes van Zandt - If I Needed You (Doc Watson cover)
Townes van Zandt - Nine Pound Hammer (Merle Travis cover)
Townes van Zandt - Cocaine Blues (from the original by Luke Jordan, no Clapton ruining it here)

This one is another little gem of that session, the way he makes fun of fraternity houses and the upper class jock-style social life is priceless:
Townes van Zandt - Fraternity Blues

One for trawler John

2006-11-27T17:00:00.000+01:00

Typical Friday night at the smoky brown café; the table layered with many backgammon games, blonde beers and soul searching talks. How humans long for communication with the inner or outer self, while thoughts fast forward and rewind themselves at the same time. This is philosophy happy hour in the booze palooza, every round of wisdom is one’s shared kingdom of the mind. A lone person had difficulties finding a table to join and a group to cling onto, for he was lavishly ignored by the dignified bobo’s, ah bless such everexisting cuntism pssssh. Open spot at our table; no rules, no judgements, just mindspeak and the visitor accepted the offer. John introduced himself as a 61 year old homeless person and living with the salvation army since the early 90’s. There lay no shame in the details of his storytelling, his life had followed certain paths down to his own near destruction and his calm acceptance of this was comforting to listen to. Painful tales went on about friends who died of overdoses and AIDS, even those who were not in his same junkie-realm. The burned skidmarks on his face and the disfigured nature of his flesh revealed his heroin addiction and the multiple times that it caught fire. The topic moved onto a movie in Dutch cinema’s about the life of Herman Brood, a dutch drugged rockstar who perhaps could be vaguely compared to Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol into one body minus the intellect. John was muttering about the movie, it not portraying Herman’s life as the non-fairytale junkie lifestyle it was. John said he knew Herman personally quite well back in the 80’s when they both were each other’s junkie buddies and went on car radio hunt together night after night to feed the monkey and boy was the monkey hungry, always. He did however express that they never used violence in their theft thrifts, with no hesitation is his voice audible. He got off the heroin by himself when he was in a hospital 15 years ago and he has been clean ever since ''It's all between the ears boys", he proudly proclaimed, with a minor contempt for junkies who could not kick off themselves. We had to leave John in the sullen agreement that we would meet another same time, same place in a week. Continued?

Songs for John, weeping oldie beauties...........

Frank Hutchison - Worried Blues
Fa So La Singers - I'll Stay On The Right Road Now
McGee Brothers - The Tramp

Engerland, or should we say Angerland

2006-11-16T16:16:00.001+01:00

some nighty night out, said the owl.

Don't we just love the crass fat bellied men that England exports whenever there's a football game or any sporting event? Last night, the scenario was Holland vs England here in Amsterdam, in the form of a friendly footie game which was a pure waste of everyone's time. So ofcourse droves of semi-hooligans and other supposely nice folks flooded the centre. After a serious pub session last night, which basicly was all about playing endless games of backgammon in a silly stupor and chugging many Bruges Blondes all night long , me and buddy Yann ended up walking through the red light district with unclear heads. Imagine yourself amidst an english flock of sickly boozed and coked-up cattle, who are looking for a dame to pound 'n punch upon. It was hubba hubba in loose monekyland, their rotten bananas stiff from filthy stenches. How in a perfect equal world it would be desired for the dames to retake their honour Sin City stylee. Kick it up. Especially when the loose beefmonkeys seem to think they have the right of laying abuse and mockery onto the windowed ladies. Not a pretty sight thus we quickly needed to get out of this evocative negative spiral leading downward. It got weirder when sitting crouched in front of a hateful burger king joint, listening to tunes on the earphones and suddenly getting change thrown into your lap you as people presumed you needed it. Why thank you. Muscles aching, legs wobbly, vision blurry and the mind way too unstable since thr 7:30 wake-up call....I'm in my self created inferno, I must really thank myself this time.

To add bandages to the misery, some salvaging gospel blues from the 1950's......

Reverend Gary Davis - If The Lord Be For You (woah that female voice! the cocorosie gals sure ripped it off) ;)
Limmy's page full of fart art for which you need to put your streetwise Scottish hat on. It's dried humour and he does it well, I like the pissy video's best.
Requiem!!! Requiem!!! :)

Zizou post-rocked at your disposal, shall we?

2006-11-15T12:34:00.000+01:00

Aaaaaaaaaaah noooooooooo Grizzly Bear cancelled their European tour thus also the Utrecht show for this saturday 'cos all their equipment got stolen in Belgium off all places (in Brussels ofcourse)!!. Yeah, Belgolandia being an indie country and all apparently doesn't matter when it comes to nicking vintage instruments, so it goes. Hmmm, the black markets in the Brussel suburbs might be the spot where these will turn up. Covered in rain, scratches and other sacrileged treatments endured I duly suppose. Blind Ethiopian singer Jimmy Mohammed Jimmy is replacing the grizzlies which is a different but still smart move as his music/voice is amazing.

songs of GB's latest album 'Yellow House' (spot on Joana, it's great yeah!)
Grizzly Bear - Knife
Grizzly Bear - Plans
Grizzly Bear - Easier

The new Mogwai tribute soundtrack to Zidane (some froggie football player, if you had no clue) has just arrived and quickly slammed into the player because why wait if the food is still warm and smells so tasty? Oh oh oh! Warm melancholic feelings of inner nostalgia engulf the body and soul and we're thrown back to those peak days of the ever classic 'Come On Die Young' and the 'Stanley Kubrick EP', at last! Yeah I am being overly ecstatic here and unable to hide it, the goosebumps pop up constantly and reflections to one's early post-rocky influenced past appear in forms by flashbacks of ex-lovers, special moments and shit occurances in life. Bless these fuzzylectric Celtic saints, who inspired by their footie addiction deliver their best work since a long long time.

Mogwai - Black Spider
Mogwai -7:25

chugga chugga! ~no chuggie~

Pouring from above, weeping here below

2006-11-13T09:03:00.000+01:00

musica da dia:

Dirty Three - Last Horse on the Sand
'cos it's one of those mondays; ugly, grey, torrid, cold, wet....should one go on tormenting the spirits? What better way to counter it with -ahem- some pure sullen melancholia........

Dorit Chrysler - Spring Breeze
Dorit Chrysler - Chlorophyll
Dorit Chrysler - My Sweet Chimera
(All taken from that superb No Woman No Cry Vol.2 compilation received as a promo)
Some nice lo-fi electro pop tunes for when the rain keeps pouring down and the winds sweeps the streets. Hmmm who's trying to be Stereolab or Broadcast here? British melancholia transfered to New York.

ps: these files are all in m4a format, as my crappy office PC only allowed iTunes ripping which is solved now. If you desire mp3 format, lemme know.

Last nite, walking past a coffeeshop appropriately called Hugo de Groot (dutch humanist theorist from the late 1500's) and catched the bizarre sight of a free parrot sitting on a branch near the window bathing in blue neon light. Bird must be stoned all day, perhaps that's his best realm of reality under such circumstances. poor one/lucky one* (*select your prefered feeling)

Melancholia wrapped in digits, packed for your pleasure

2006-11-09T15:12:00.000+01:00

Promo album and mp3 robbery time, hosanna!!!!
short post, I promise to soon write a piece about a Spanish goat shepherd named Salvador and about a weekend I spent in arty calm Vienna.

Joanna Newsom - YS
What's with that title? What gives, we all have heard Newsom's childlike tongtwisting technique by now and you'll either hate or love it. Neutrality dies a lonely death indeed. The album is just counting 5 tracks all between 7 and 16 mins and it has less harp in it, which is probably the only bad thing to comment as the full-on producution is sublime! It has been produced by the Albini-O'Rourke tandem and they have implented some orchestral effects in vein of the Sufjan Stevens sound; violins, banjo's, piano's, flutes... but no electronics though -pfew!-
It's like a magical fairytale soundtrack, unique to any other folk album I've ever heard and definately one of the best 2006 albums

Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds

V/A - 4 Women No Cry Vol.2 (on Monika Enterprises, the minimal feminist label)
One of the 4 ladies on this compilation, Mico is living in London and probably Japanese when her lyrics reveal it all too well. Note; must ask Japanese housemate to translate all the gibberish and she'll probably say it's *strange* music, as she likes to say. The best thing about Mico is that she's like MIA, but without the marketable image, sound and cultural jinx behind her. No fancy trumpets or stolen baile funk electro, instead she gives us dark minimal grime, her wretched digitalised voice without any compromise to sounding smooth. Gritty rules!

Mico - Signal Sound

Nina Nastasia - On Leaving
-no poking about Anastacia here- Nina isn't really a happy person one must think, it shines out through the music. it's still nice music for lonely moments though.

Nina Nastasia - Settling Song

Ode to the Arabs.......
'It was the biggest cock you'd ever seen', opening line of the best Arab Strap album Philophobia. Ah Martijn, thanks for reminding me that sight, can't lose it now. The mighty noir Arab Strap are doing their supposedly last ever tour at the moment. Playing here on Friday, the perfect moment to salvage a dark mood to glorious depths. They always seem to come and go in the personal moments in life thus I'll admit craving a big love for the ol' Strap ever since their beginnings. There, I said it. One thing is that their lyrics are always from a male viewpoint, touching the borders of the male emotional interior in a way that women will find hard to relate to. These lyrics reveal the soft yet harsh side of masculine feelings, not compromising with the female viewpoint and deeply going into sullen moods of endless melancholy. In that way, the appeal of the band to lots of indie males is very much explained, though as to understand the band's appeal to the slimmer female fanbase is quite mystifying, at least to me. Before ending up doing a grand analysis on this which could result in nothingness, it's better to let it rest and simmer. Their last album *The Last Romance* however, is dire and empty, void of any subtle slurs and fuzzy acoustic play exchanged for more speeded electric play. People are spot on when they claim that *Monday At The Hug and Pint* should have been their true peak end, pity. A shit ending is perhaps the exact pinnacle that suits their musical path into oblivion. If they truly are happy people now, no reason in carrying the soul burden around anymore. I truly thank them that they're not gonna bring us new cheerful wishy-washy songs that B&S are already bringing us, lord forbid. Let's dampen and drown the spirits in beautiful melancholy with some IMHO best moments:

Arab Strap - Amor Veneris (The Red Thread, 2002) That sad sweet piano roll, woah!
Arab Strap - Loch Leven (Monday At the Hug and Pint, 2003)
Arab Strap - New Birds (Philophobia, 1998)
Arab Strap - I Would Have Like Me a Lot Last Night (Philophobia, 1998)
Arab Strap - Aries The Ram (Elephant Shoe, 2000)

To seal off, Scorcese remakes sesame street, it's kinda lame yet everyone will still want to watch it, tap in on the synchronisation and be amused. so be it.
http://gorillamask.net/sesamestreets.shtml
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.
..
...
.... sigh

Balls in the open, spirits to be cured

2006-10-17T11:54:00.000+02:00

Faust on friday were truly psychedelic, droney and dadaistic. trademark guitar riffs on the other hands missed, but not for the worse. The sound in the lower deck of the steel boat it was held in, added a great deal to the atmosphere, albeit there weren't much people at it. At the encore, singer Jean-Herve Peron put on a robe while wearing nothing underneath, his balls swinging visibly with every move he made, surely a bonus you couldn't expect before from elderly avantgardist though he seems to be have been eccentric enough at past shows.

Larkin Grimm did a nice set in a candle-lit darkened upstairs room of the Paradiso. She freed each member of the audience of bad spirits by blowing sparks on them using an indian incense bundle. She closed it with a ritual of thanking the wind and water forces before starting her intricate folk melodies and singing her sincerely spirited words which deeply impressed the 20-headed audience. An afternoon of music and backroom talks kinda became a night of exploring the Amsterdam streets, vegan mexican food and salt-rimmed margarita's, thanks for the nice evening Larkin. She's playing tonight (17th yes) in Amsterdam's cafe Sappho after 21h, if anyone interested still catches this on time. Maybe another home improvisation session will happen this week out of the blue, with a special person joining our the folk cirle?

From the same Appalachian environments as Larkin Grimm, hails her indian spirited friend Lara Polangco, a young singer songwriter who plays the dulcimer too and did a lauded duo set with Larkin at the recent Terrastock 6 festival. Debut album should arrive soon I hope, after hearing this sweet-voiced folky song below.

Lara Polangco - Orphan Girl

Krautrock in oblivion while a Grimm reaper appears as a shaman

2006-10-12T11:02:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow, Faust live! A German free-travelling squatter boat on the northern Amsterdam docks serves as the ultimate fitting industrial setting. Stubnitz is the keyword.
Faust in depth; 50 year old krautrockers from a lost German improvisational era of the late 60's up to the 70's, where new boundaries were created and set the blueprint for a lot of the current experimental music, either electronic or acoustic driven. One could perhaps even go as far as saying that they might have inspired some early punk bands, but intangible webs better be left alone in fear getting into a sticky mess. The band is notorious for sticking it to 'the man', in most cases the audience gets their favourable disrespect in ways of verbal abuse or being spat upon by the band. How hardcore indeed. Don't let the below tracks fool you into false conclusions, diversity ages slow and fruitful.

Faust - Flashback Caruso (1973)
Faust & Dälek - Imagine What We Started (2004)

Back to current times, to the current flow of folk.
Larking Grimm plays this sunday afternoon, upstairs in the church-like Paradiso. Some say she is like the Cocorosie sisters, Joanna Newsom or Björk. Such talk is all a matter of shallow subjectivity since Larkin Grimm shapes music as spiritual energy and emotions. Those are her sincere words to speak out loud. It's lucid dreams out in the open, examined and rewrapped for your inner being. If all goes well, I'm having talk with her with the motivation to turn it into an article, though I'm getting more curious to know her outlook beyond the music, especially after reading a choice she made -or rather a path she took- last summer, found on her personal blog, July 2006:

"BECOMING A SHAMAN - yeah, those "freak folk" junkies are all talking about shamanic stuff, but I'm actually going to take my powers to another level by apprenticing under two shamans in upstate New York this August. In light of the coming need for a mass leap of consciousness (we're shooting for the year 2012), I've decided to help to facilitate the process of change by becoming a traveling shaman. I have been practicing many methods of dreaming recently, and trying to enable other peoples' dreamsduring my musical performances. I think that if we can just get people to imagine a better world, and to see their dreams as potential future rather than fantasy, we can really change things for the better. Personally, Iwant to see folks retiring their SUV's and riding their bikes to work, limiting unnecessary travel, and focusing on improving their local communities. After I get my certificate in "advanced shapeshifting", I'll be taking off on another tour, going out to California."

An onverview of songs, all unique in their spiritual buzz, healing those wounded:

Larkin Grimm - Pigeon Food (cd: Harpoon, 2005)
Larkin Grimm - I'm Just Saying Yes (unreleased, on blog, 2006)
Larkin Grimm - The Waterfall (cd: The Last Tree, 10 oct. 2006)
Larkin Grimm - Little Weeper (cd: The Last Tree, 10 oct. 2006)

Electional currents of neo's and socio's

2006-10-11T09:17:00.000+02:00

I feel should elaborate a bit on the Belgian/Flemish city council elections which were held last sunday, being an expat Belgo and whatnot, the ups and the downs clear cut out for ya! -oh I didn't vote, cos I'm not registered as living in Belgium, thus no vote for me, grumble-

All the controversy circulates around the Vlaams Belang party, the neo-conservatives of the Flemish part. As the wikipedia article shows, the neutrality is a serious topic so take a look at the talk page to get a better insight into the party's current views on resolutions.

Over the past few months there have been numerous manifests carried out through alternative media and musical manifestations, with oddly enough even Microsoft sponsoring this recent political concert in the Antwerp centre. All of lefty and socialist Flanders combined their creative forces to put a stop to the doom-politics of the neo-cons, something which is rarely seen in Western Europe these. For example in Holland when the politician Pim Fortuyn was in his prime rise of power before he got assasinated, there was hardly any strong fist made by the left. Therefore the vile neo-con crusade did not stuggle much with public blocks, which was a shame really though this says all about the unpassionate Dutch civil behaviour (this civil obedient grey mouse behaviour has always been present in Holland and is one of the things I truly, deeply hate about this country)

The outcome is that Vlaams Belang didn't gain much in the big cities, but they did climb 5% in overall in the Flemish part which is grim news. This happened mostly in the oh-so cultural countryside which is no sudden surprise. They heroicly call it a landslide win to fuel their own propaganda parade, whatever pleases them but the voting results in overall showed no real big wins or losses for any party. Locally, the scenario is different, especially concerning my fair birth city Antwerp, where the party has it's dirty roots. Antwerp had a 33%(!!!) Vlaams Belang city council over the past 4 years, while a socialist mayor kept his role. Sunday, the (well, cigar smoking) SPA-Spirit socialist party of the mayor, somehow managed to go up from 20% to 35% and now holds the majority of the Antwerp city council again. This came as a surprise since lefty people were fearing the worst for Antwerp this time. Still, the whitened suburbs showed an increase of VB votes and it's tough to swallow that there are stats of around 60% VB voters in those parts. Ignorance is bliss to those in their villa's, yuppie condo's and posh retirement homes and praise them who apparently think it's better to create a enthnical society gap, the empty humans they are.

VB's conclusion statement on the night of results was that it was the *newly achieved* immigrant vote that halted their march in the centre and the poorer parts of the city. ''Oh yes, it indeed is not fair to let decent, honest immigrants vote, ofcourse they work to clean your toilets, pick up your garbage, produce your products in unhealthy chemical factories and so on, but that doesn't make them people" Sarcastic indeed. According to these flemish fascists, immigrants who have recently become belgian nationals, should not be able to vote, purely based on the fact that they don't vote in the neo-con favour. I wonder how quickly their pignecks would turn if immigrants would vote for them, by godspeed I tell ye. Every time a member of VB was interviewed sunday night, they kept on referring to the immigrant/new national vote. Over and over again dragging this cat into the same alley. What gives; in fact there were just over 2000 new immigrants granted Belgian citizenship, thus 2000 votes they probably did not get. In a city of nearly 500.000 inhabitants, 1.000.000 for the whole Antwerp agglomeration, you can understand how ridiculous their moaning for the ignorant sounds. But yes, the ethic of this wonderful party goes deep...''we're not racists'' you can hear them scream, ''but we're fatherland culture loving nationalists" is what they chant, contineously, filling the air with their verbal poison.

Does that bascily mean that as an expat EU person, I normally should not be able to vote for the Dutch city council elections here either, which I did? Or should I be no problem, just cos I'm white and carry a EU identity? Welcome to the world of Flemish neo-cons. they are so so right.

In the end, the VB haven't lost much ground..in fact they slightly gained nearly everywhere or stayed equal. It's a dangerous stigma to be taken serious. Even at times where they have fucked up, they have not lost much support which is even more worrying which indicated the sheer stupidity of the voters following them. Scray shit has gotta give sometime.

Rant over and gutted.

Whaddaday-hey, the days reposed personally

2006-10-09T10:58:00.000+02:00

all summerised.

Thursday 05-10:
At the Dutch Film Festival there was a screening of student films and Samatha invited me to see the foreign documentaty her friend Deniz. Though I liked some of the ironic animation films, the rest kinda left me cold. The only piece that really stood out for me sincerely was the short documentary Following The Fish made by the Turkish student Deniz Baser. Then again I'm always very positively biased to cultural/foreign documentaires, my arty flaw therefore exposed. The story was based around old fisherman Mr Gokhan in modern day Istanbul, who talked about his current and past fishing days and the cosmopolitan change of the city. There were sublime sceneries of Istanbul's hustle & bustle and the general cinematography was well composed. I really hope she can submit this film to the cultural NPS network, the VPRO or perhaps even foreign networks like the French-German ARTE, as it would totally fit there for it to air on TV.

Straight after I made my way through the rain (oh joy!) to DB Studio near my gaf, where friend Peter had his graduation party (see link for story n pic), plus also leaving the alternative media organisation 3voor12 which he set up years ago. Usual suspect friends Pim, Iris, Jurriaan, Klazien and Michel were already there (hey guys!), so I joined in to catch his goodbye speech, the kiddie apple champagne and soon enough Plunk! did a bonus set with Danibal on mouth harp, creating some sort of throat singing and beatboxing over breakbeats. I got talking to Danibal for his nice cd's he gave to me through Sama, plus he might join our livingroom folk session next time, another soul welcomed. To finish the night Der Tante Renate, a small German fella from Hamburg, played a nice set of electroey beats with a gamepad and his electric guitar. I got pulled on stage by crazy bouncy ball woman Klazien, not able to pull away and the stage got stormed after that. Got home way too late. what's new. Klazien & Michel from Rotterdam stayed at my place, which was kinda last-minute late night style of decision making. Waking up again at 6:30, as the story goes....

Friday 06-10
Night in Waterfront with Jet, Klazien and Michel, with local Rotterdam rock bands playing, lots of teenagers present with some old rockers. Most of the music was lame, except for Sanne en Ik, a angsty punk band by some crazy dude with seriously weird lyrics about biting bulldogs, how to train your daughter to be a heroin hooker and whatever nonsense. right. His girlfriend Sanne had become his ex a week ago, so the band name is freshly outdated. The guy should consider doing stand-up comedy if ever needing a new direction. In the bar a rock karaoke started with the usual 60's to 90's rock songs....it was fun till it got painfully quickly so we had to walk off. Some guys started doing improvisation samba drumming in the hallway and thankfully weren't ripping off the same old rhythms but keeping it sincerely spirited. A ride through riverside Rotterdam to the north side was an eyeopener to experiencing the city's scapes I never explored before by bike.

saturday 07-10
day 3 of the not-much-sleep parade, Belgium the setting for this scenario. Had an editorial meeting with the magazine, packing the zines and eating all sorts of belgo waffles n pastries fueled by beers afterwards. At Night, a Breakcore Gives Me Wood rave at the Hof ter Lo, where Serge of Gonzo is the coordinator. Artists Sickboy from Antwerp and Droon from Ghent are the driving forces behind the Wood parties which are getting bigger numbers of people in with every rave, which is nice for them since they push the sound of a small scene. I got in well past midnight as by pure coincidence I ran into 2 friends in Antwerp's centre and went for a drink instead. Finally arrived at the venue after taking a wrong bus to the outskirts too, smart move, and found the rave a steaming pit of dancing bodies, junglists alongisde squatters, gabbers and metalheads, a nice snapshot of the breakcore scene alive. Bigshot honcho Venetian Snares gave a fierce set and although being manic driven and all, it was nearly the same set he did in The Hague a few weeks earlier, but freaks dance to anything so why moan. DJ Floorclearer was more interesting; meddling between punk, metal and breakcore. Droon's set was fun to watch too as he was wearing his trademark airplane suit and helmet, playing his keytar (a pc keyboard glued to a guitar body).The cheesiness of his sudden trance and pop outbursts into the hefty core sound was good for comical dance relief. I somehow ended at the Antwerp station at 6.30 and fell asleep on a cold bench for a while, sleep everwhere when in need, why worry.

It cricks, crackles 'n' rattles!

2006-10-05T13:33:00.000+02:00

Playing time, double contextual scraps.

Wednesday night with a bunch friends, we organised a grouphug freakfolk session at casa Sebcatlitter, which went on waaaay deep into the night. Waking up hours later at 6.30am for another day of corporate slavery with the damocles realm of sleep deprivation; not recommended must say. Rewind, the livingroom was turned into an instrument mine field with chunks & pieces loitered everywhere. It was nearly like a Fonal concert setting, errr except that we made more mess with drinks n food. What to pick, what to play of this scattered array; we had music boxes, xylophones, melodica's, african lamellaphones (or better known as thumb piano's), kiddie keyboards, cheapo accordeons, various guitar shapes, shakers, drumming pads, bird & frog sound tools and an amazing sounding Botswana bush bow-slash-violin, was that all? -pfew-
Fair play to Wouter for bringing most bags of instruments including his old mechanical tape recorder for making grainy looping drones, which really coloured the acoustic sound.
We played a few hours and recorded most of it, will put mp3's links of some session pieces on here soon after filtering the grit from the chissle. Thank Mark, Gijs, Ellen, Wouter, Maarten, Iris, Merel and Daniel for coming out to play. Below some pics taken by Mark and Iris, thx too!

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Just heard about a pretty nifty electronical instrument; the *Cracklebox* (ta, Rory!)
"The Cracklebox was probably the first commercialy available portable selfpowered alternative 'keyboard' analog audio synthesizer with inbuilt loudspeaker" Old skool glitch, wowza! :)

Apparently this device was created in the 70's and has been recently revived by the good people at Amsterdam based Steim and the German Sonig label. It's really no surprise that Jan Werner (part of electrofrizzy outfit Mouse on Mars) is the connection here, being the programmer at Steim and owner of Sonig at the same time. Various artists are using this device nowadays and had seen it used before at a MoM show which tickled my curiosity. And curiousity indeed kills this cat slowly, especially when this device can be purchased for next to nothing* (*only applies ro addicst of musical gadgets I reckon) at Steim's online shop. Just play kids, play!

Talking in NY synchronicity equals stupidity & Icelandic hangaround soundtrack for rainy day

2006-10-02T13:04:00.000+02:00

Last nite, cafe & bok liquid enjoyment in Averechts. Minimalistic melancholia and dubby tunes provided by Bastiaan and some by me. Mixing bits for a few old chaps and affiliated people, a sunday night out the easy way. Must check out more of the Microcosm Music label, soothing melange! Wixel's nightly discovered stuff is good to, released on the Utrecht Mechanized Mind label of ehmm.. Bastiaan!

Monday morning feedback buzzing through the head, lacking thalamus adrenaline from a poor night's sleep indeed.
How to amuse yourself in this scenario; a dull grey day, office space dismay, creating the flutter for ample action and keep the employees at bay. hurray!

Then there always is New York small talk to cheer you up, it does the trick. We really need a Randstad version of this, I tell ye (fyi the triangle area of Amsterdam/Rotterdam/Utrecht/The Hague). Enlightenment through glum minds works a-treat indeed.

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Woman: You know how those animal people are, though. I mean, I speak to them, though! I've done pigeon rescues and stuff before. I love animals.

Man: Did you ever bury your rats?

Woman: No... I just can't bring myself to do it.Man: How long has it been? Three years?

Woman: Yeah. They're still in my freezer.

Man: Just bury them already!Woman: I can't bring myself to do it! They were my favorite!

Man: But they're IN YOUR FREEZER! Why not have them stuffed, then?

Woman: What? No! That would be wacky!

--A train, 207th St
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Blind date boy: So how long was your ex on the job?

Blind date girl: Well, he's been a cop for three years, but he still lives with his parents because of how little cops get paid.

Blind date boy: Cops get paid shit in the beginning.

Blind date girl: Well, he was making a lot more before, you know...

Blind date boy: Oh yeah, being a drug dealer.

--Austin St & 72nd Ave, Queens
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On this windy & rainy day, to mark the start of the oh-so new autumn, some drowsy Icelandic tunes by Sigur Ros.

Sigur Ros - Josep Tekur Fimmuna i Vinnuna
Sigur Ros - Hlemmur #1
Sigur Ros - Hvalir i Utrymingarhaettu

The music is part of a soundtrack which they fully composed for the urban vagabondic documentary 'Hlemmur' by Olaf Sveinsson: ''Hlemmur is a film which revolves around the lives of some unfortunate destitute men who spend most of their time in and around reykjavík's main bus station, hlemmur'' Alcopop happiness in Icelandic slurs; short clip bit

O-pun-ing

2006-09-22T12:34:00.000+02:00

ok..this opens it. gates without a lock nor key, so looters, bums and whatnot; welcome to the palindrome dome! to the dutchies/flemishco's; I'll keep this all in English... linguistic globalization 1 vs local lingo 0. sorry.

backlog 22/09:

A sunny canal side sit-in with Castaneda at hand, interuptions come as they go, yet leaving while they slumber. A true satanist cycles by; in full black garment while holding a gigantic black umbrella, cowering from the rays. Nylon sun block for the wishfully sallow skinned. He is followed, rather haunted, by laughter from ordinaries, clerks, faculty yupsters and such. Self-expression is merely a comfort for those who follow the status quo model of acceptance, just as others just dwell in spheres of quirckiness, obscurity and rejection all the same, the other end of the spectre.

Just to keep it light at this very start, here some retro-synthastic muzak at your disposal. library headbanging rave galore!!! roaaaaaar.

Jean Jacques Perrey & Gershon Kingsley - Swan's Splashdown