Music today

i just looked at the music today thing on the right of this blog page, and glanced at what CDs are lying around the room.

• Crooked Still - Some Strange Country
• My Brightest Diamond
• Yo Yo Ma
• Sufjan Stevens - Adz
• Aimee Mann - Dodo
• Zum
• Grayfolded

i think i'll leave the list as it was..

Thelonious Monk Off Minor

Ive been swapping over to a new laptop. All mod cons and tons of disk space, so one of the jobs has been to move across all the music ive got elsewhere. As you can guess, theres always a challenge to get rid of duplicate files, so for the last couple of days ive been through the entire library. Found a load of Jazz!
ive switched to media monkey rather than itunes. seems ok at present, though it has one annoying habit of linking to a webpage for the song track if it gets a chance. And thats how i found out aboiut Off Minor by Thelonious Monk. on an album called the Black Box of Jazz..

Its not a show off track. but its a classic line-up. Left me speechless, so for more words...

Heres a page of appreciation from the Daily Guru.

The Daily Guru: February 17: Thelonious Monk & John Coltrane, "Off Minor"

so dredging among the gigabytes im going to find a lot more tracks ive never listened to. looking forward to it... Thanks Black box of Jazz for a splendid potted jazzography

The Age of Adz

The new Sufjan Stevens record - The Age of Adz is out and its consuming me. Its not something to put on in the background and ignore: yet another acquired CD to make up the set and graze on while wandering round the house. And its certainly not your standard americana,

Theres electronic drums, bass and vocoder filling up the space around the songs and far removed from Seven Swans. Theres a much more raw emotion in the songs, such as a i want to be well. SS's heavenly harmonies contrasting against the electronic maze and false reality of synthesized sound.

So listening through the first time, it swallows me up, more and more snatches of songs and refrains, repeating phrases, what am i thinking? what am i thinking? And we get to the last track "Impossible Soul" and glide through 25 minutes of introspection and beseeching, more, more immersed in SS's vision, to its diminuendo end.

I'll play it through again soon, but next came a day of web searches to find live recordings of the songs on You Tube from concerts SS gave last year. Not really disappointing to see the music played to an audience, more understanding of the way the songs are made up and improvised. You get to see what sort of musicians SS is working with, the instruments they are using and how they can cut up the songs afresh. But the record itself, very different. bleak, seems more .. final.

So its a record thats impossible to just upload to ipod and wait to appear on random playlists, its also a record that shouldnt just be treated as another mediafire grab to fill up the Gigabytes. The CD packaging was a bit shocking too, illustrations by Royal Robertson, an artist ive not heard of but compulsive and apparently schizophrenic. No lyric sheets, no cluees to who played on the record. Nothing to clasp to but the CD music itself

So my resolve is - leave it off my itunes, listen to it alone, all the way through, study it and enjoy the ownership of something unique. I recommend it, of course, but not as an introduction to Sufjan Stevens, but perhaps as an example to musicians who think too much about explaining their music and less about reaching inside

Stina Nordenstam

I bought a Stina Nordenstam EP Called Something Nice about 8 years ago on a whim in a second hand CD shop in Epsom. Apart from knowing it would probably be Scandinavian and a bit etherial, and I thought not very well known . Since then, I only played one track, but the CD was so scratched i never got it to hear the rest. Now miraculously, the CD has been i-tuned and i can hear every song without a stutter. Very whispery. and etherial and strange. And now i hear about her again in other places. So i will probably go searching for more of Stina.

Newcastle upon Tyne

More work this week in Newcastle - after visit one i know what to expect. I can plan better for the long train journey. This time i'm planning to stay in a B&B away from the city centre. Curious to think that that 6 weeks ago i had no idea where i would work, and that i cant predict where i'll be going in 6 months time. Impermanence of my way of life needn't be a stress. Someway i can trust to the next change, adapt again.

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

found this article – considering its about something that would completely tranform the planet its surprising it hasnt had enormous publicity.

Sign of the times, but currently the focus of the world seems to be on the short term economics of BP oil spill rather than long term initiatives 

BBC News - Push for 'Great Green Wall of Africa' to halt Sahara

April

Finished my contract in North London and now at home. seems every day has been clear sky and peace and quiet. plenty of time to reflect and look ahead. Spending some time each day in the garden, chopping and clipping, removing weeds. I'm reading more everymorning , usually till about 7.30am. Seems the pace of life can be much slower and less rushed. Less opinions, less food, less load. less driving, less travelling,
Went up to London yesterday, prospecting. Not really satisfying, although RB suggests i work on a book. I can feel the pressure to involve and start things. But for now, i'm declining the opportunity to be in the race. lets leave it behind for a few more days..