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 :)
Good food and drink for charity...I'm so in :)
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Sun prowess, baroque no less
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.
be well.
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.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Bugbearing hugs on zithered tones
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.
....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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Ghosthorse tales; Raphael you know just how to take me in the swimming pool like a child (!@#$%^&*?)
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 ;)
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 ;)
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Crooked links n 'fings.
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
*It's got spam in it, I don't like spam!* classic Monty Python
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Rarararareviews
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)
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)
Monday, March 19, 2007
Caged around the ghett0))), ID please!
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!
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!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Utrecht goes deep in Ondiep, even after a 'Prince' sings softly
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.
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.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Animals in the Rabbit den
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Thriftstore gifts, handpicked for your hunger
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!
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!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Ghiwane aftermath haze
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! :)
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! :)
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Spot the Ghiwane!
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
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
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Goeiemiddag livingroom concert!
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.
see our fluffy blog, nicely created by Iris.
yippee ya yo ka yay, don't give it all away.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Aye, t'wis kinda dreich in Embra, cannae be better
('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
....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
Thursday, February 08, 2007
The roundup spreads into Edimburgo
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
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
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Eastern recordist jibes and crammed meditations
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?-
***
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?-
***
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Frizzle waves from tropic radio's, cult snippets from crooked television sets
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
*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
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
2007, a new blaze into oblivion
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
....
...
..
.
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
....
...
..
.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Mice Inc and Youth'ful expectations
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
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