Friday round-up #2

Some things I've enjoyed around the net this week... and yes, I know it's actually Saturday, but I'm less late than I was last week :P

My dear friend Sam has started blogging - go Sam!! Sam and I bonded when we performed together in a freezing cold church in Daylesford back in 2005, and have been friends ever since. He moved to London last year and sends me enticing emails with details of all the fabulous concerts he's attending - trying to convince me to move, too. Maybe next year...

Thanks to galadarling I have discovered Songza - this will prove to be very handy for me I think. Now I can share my music finds with the world! Current faves include L'Arpeggiata and Anouar Brahem.

There are some great photographs around - check out the Sartorialist's shoemaker and Stil in Berlin's fantastic tiled walls as backgrounds for Henri and Antje.

Late as usual - last week's links

So I wanted to start a regular "Friday round-up" post - but somehow didn't quite manage it last week. Lots of things I want to do, so little time!

Here's a couple of links I enjoyed last week... stay tuned to see if I can get it out on time this week...

Dutch bicycle action - I am loving Brent's photos.

Four Foolproof Ways to Create Unimaginable Wealth In This World - I came across Robert Bruce's poetry this week and it is definitely worth a read!

Music in Exile

Since I first heard it a year or so ago I have been fascinated by the music of Esteban Salas. Born in Cuba in 1725, he lived in Havana as a musician until 1762 when the English invaded. He was then transferred to a position as choir-master in the little cathedral in Santiago de Cuba, where he remained until his death in 1803.


From the CD liner notes:

"The image of Salas is one of angelic purity. The little troubles and tribulations which he experienced in his life enable us to envisage a simple, trusting soul, who since his youth had observed strict chastity, living like an ecclesiastic, in no way undeserving the tonsure. A true mystic, he had taken the vow of living in poverty, and he always dressed in black."
The compositions on this recording are carols for a small choir accompanied by a simple string orchestra. Heartfelt, simple, genuine and poignant, for me they summon up a sense of great distance and exile. The music seems less sophisticated, less polished, less worldly than European music of the time. There are no obvious "Cuban" influences, but elements of "that distant and isolated" country surrounded by sea have managed to creep in nonetheless.

There is something beautifully unpolished and genuine about the recording as well. Recorded in Cuba in the Dominican church of San Juan de Letran by a Cuban choir, there is a very particular quality about the voices - sometimes a little breathy, not quite together, but always honest and with conviction and integrity. Sometimes the sound of crickets can be heard in the background through the unglazed windows of the church.

Quite Possibly My Favourite Record Label

... currently is ECM, especially their New Series. Recently Readings had a sale on ECM albums and I indulged in


Anouar Brahem's Le Pas Du Chat Noir

Tord Gustavsen's Changing Places

and The Dowland Project's Care Charming Sleep.

Other albums that I love from this label include Rolf Lislevand's Nuove Musiche

... and of course Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert.

It's all about Bernard

I am made very happy that the ABC is screening Black Books on Wednesday nights. Love it. That's all I have to say today.

Drops

I woke up to the beautiful sound of rain on my roof - rain that we haven't had since Christmas. There are big drops, little drips, pattering on the leaves and plants and drumming on the tin roof. I can almost feel the happiness of the plants, soaking it all up into their parched and yellowing stems.

I am reminded of the wonderful Score for a Hole in the Ground, which uses dripping water to create an incredible musical installation. I am completely in love with the concept of this piece - the gramaphone-like amplifier just sitting there in the woods, the way that people can just come across the piece unexpectedly, the fact that nature (the great creator?) is actually playing the piece now that it is out of human control.

L'Arpeggiata

I was pleased to read today (even though it is old news) that L'Arpeggiata will be releasing a new CD later this year - a collaboration with a flamenco guitarist. One of my all-time favourite records is their All'Improvviso - a fresh, beautifully-crafted, inspired and inspiring CD.

When I first heard this music, driving with a friend of mine to a gig in the country with my harpsichord bundled in the back of the station wagon, I realised how close many of the baroque musical forms are to folk music. Gigues, chaconnes, sarabandes - they all stated off as dances, that real people danced to. And they weren't the sedate affairs we have come to know from BBC period dramas. They would have worked up a sweat, the women's hair would have come loose, they would have drunk beer to refresh them and give them spirit for more dancing. Before I encountered All'Improvviso I had never thought that "classical" music could be this alive. These people play 16th and 17th century music with the same energy and vibrancy as the best folk musicians. In their hands this music is not dead, despite the fact that it originated 400 years ago. And they are not afraid to put their own stamp on the music - in fact, a lot of this CD is work composed and improvised by the group themselves. The very first track is a song by Lucilla Galeazzi about the house that she wants to have one day - full of music and friends. You can listen to it here

One of the most amazing things about this CD is the way they have worked with jazz clarinettist Gianluigi Trovesi. Let alone the fact that he is a jazz musician and the rest of the ensemble are trained in early music, the clarinet wasn't even invented until much later on. So it is a completely "foreign" sound for this music, or so one would think. Actually it doesn't stand out at all as out of place, but it certainly does stand out for it's amazingness!!

Anyway, I think this CD is ace :)

Cool words

Scott Ginsberg's post about cool words has reminded me that there are a couple other words that I really like (apart from "angst" which I use at least 5 times a day!). Here they are:

liminal: this word I first came across in at uni in a lecture about the Bertolucci film Il Conformista, where it was used to describe the protagonist - on the threshold of society, not quite belonging, but not an outcast. Originally, I think it is a medical term. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it:

• adjective technical 1 relating to a transitional or initial stage. 2 at a boundary or threshold.
— DERIVATIVES liminality noun.
— ORIGIN from Latin limen ‘threshold’.

crepuscular: this word I found in Antonio Melechi's Fugitive Minds: On Madness, Sleep and Other Twilight Afflictions. When I saw that title in the bookshop, I couldn't not buy it! Crepuscular describes things to do with twilight - semi-nocturnal animals, shadows and all sorts of cool things. This is definitely a word that should be used more often!

Poetry Thursday: Jumping on the Bandwagon late, as usual

This week, at Poetry Thursday the prompt was to "get lost in the poetry section" of a bookshop or library. Being a total newcomer to poetry I had never even looked in the poetry section of a bookshop before. I didn't even know where to find it.

Thursday night, I had an hour to kill between a coffee appointment and dinner at a friend's house. I was in the city, so I went to visit Borders. I quickly found the small poetry section, between "black fiction" and "drama". It was interesting to be confronted by shelves of books about whose relative merit I had no idea. I don't know what makes poetry "good" or even what it is, really.

I picked up a few books at random, and read through some writing. I noticed that I was drawn to the smaller books. A little brown spine, with "The Learning Curve" in white letters caught my eye. I liked the picture on the front, and I opened to one of the first poems "The PE Teacher on the Day Before School Begins". Then I read another, and another. I walked out of Borders $22 poorer. That was the first book of poetry I had ever bought: John Foulcher's "The Learning Curve".

One of my favourite poems from this book is "The Art Teacher".

Bubble Baths!

I don't have a bath at my current place. Most of the time I don't mind not having a bath - I'm generally a shower type person - but sometimes it would be nice to run a hot bath with mountains of fluffy bubbles.

Back in 2003, the last time I lived in a place with a bath, I used to like eating ice-cream in the bath. It is a fantastic sensation - warm on the outside, but coldness slipping down the throat. Ice-cold vodka works well too!