The opener was Shilf from Switzerland. I listened to the first song and was 100% convinced that they were American. Then the singer, a brunette with short-cut hair who reminded me of Ryan Adams from the outlooks for some strange reason spoke German. With a tiny Schwyzerdütsch accent. And they continued their slow Americana guitar rock somewhere between Lambchop, Low and the Cowboy Junkies. The smell of a fat joint was intruding my nostrils. The bassist looked like a human version of Michel Houellebecq. And the singer spoke again. This time in her dialect, a very broad one with lots of vowels and "sch's" which made me think she and the band were Austrian. Some hypnotic songs followed. If I had to choose between Fink (from Hamburg) and Shilf I think I would opt for Shilf. At least for two or three songs that night.

Jay Farrar started his set on his own, a one man band with guitar, voice and mouth-harp. Very loud for one person. Like a Vic Chesnutt without the passion. A low-key affair. Don't get me wrong, Jay Farrar has a great voice, but I was happy when Mark Spencer joined him on his lap steel. And he played like a guitar god. Jimi Hendrix's spirit was in the air. They finished the set with a phantastic instrumental encore, I think it was a very extended version of Fish Fingers Norway from Terroir Blues. It sounded like a raga. Intense improvised guitar freakout (fuck I never got my Eleventh Dream Day album). On the liner notes of the album an electric slide sitar is mentioned for one song. That is such a great idea that it doesn't matter that the realization is a little bit disappointing.

Do you know this setting? You hear a song for the first time and it clicks immediately. But it is still more an intuitive grasp than anything else. You have to listen to the song again and again and again. To discover every tiny detail. Till every little distortion makes sense. But then because of exterior circumstances you have to stop listening. The song is still in your head when you do some profane everyday conversation. You feel deprivation. You have to listen to the song again. Now. You cannot go on with normal business. There is a hole in you which has to be filled. You have to play the song to death (which I fortunately haven't yet after about ten listens). Here is the song and here is the review which made me discover it. Think shoegazing in the Midwest or something.

2,565 words on the two new albums by the unclassifiable 16 member chamber orchestra from Nashville due for release February next year by Marcello Carlin from The Naked Maja. Two excerpts:

(bold accentuation by me)

(metafilter thread)

From here. This was the first maths joke after having read more than a hundred which made me smile.

How would you describe Miles Davis trumpet sound?

Somehow none of the adjectives/descriptions used by the contributors to this ILM thread I started last night convince me. Some more words I can think of: poignant, glacial, piercing, lucid, like burning ice (that sounds more appropriate than frozen lava), like a roaring lion kitten exposed on the moon.

Like a lot of music I love Miles Davis trumpet sound makes me completely defenseless. It opens me up.

Wittgenstein variation: Wovon man nicht reden kann, das muss man hören (what you cannot talk about you have to listen to).

I mean albums which are great from start to finish. Without filler. Just things coming to my mind now. Sometimes I am not too sure. This is indicated by a question mark in brackets.

• neil young - after the gold rush, harvest, time fades away, live rust, ragged glory
• joni mitchell - blue, court and spark, hejira
• velvet underground - vu & nico, vu, loaded
• nick drake - five leaves left, pink moon
• joy division - preston warehouse, les bains douches
• montgolfier brothers - seventeen stars, the world is flat
• smiths - hatful of hollow, the world won't listen
• swell - well?, 41
• yo la tengo - electropura, summer sun
• cat power - what would the community think?, moon pix(?)
• giant sand - center of the universe(?), chore of enchantment
• belle & sebastian - if you're feeling sinister
• blue aeroplanes - swagger
• cocteau twins - heaven or las vegas
• cowboy junkies - lay it down
• cure - seventeen seconds
• mark eitzel - west
• brian eno - another green world
• field mice - where'd you learn to kiss that way
• serge gainsbourg - l'homme à tête de chou
• gun club - lucky jim
• house of love - "butterfly"
• idaho - year after year
• tom liwa - ich reite auf einem pferd auf dem sonst nur frauen reiten
• modern lovers - the modern lovers
• my bloody valentine - loveless
• new order - movement
• nirvana - mtv unplugged
• mary margaret o'hara - miss america
• jeffrey lee pierce - wildweed
• pinback - this is pinback
• pink floyd - dark side of the moon
• pixies - bossanova
• red house painters - down colourful hill
• sonic youth - dirty
• talk talk - spirit of eden
• teenage fanclub - bandwagonesque
• tindersticks - the first tindersticks album
• wedding present - seamonsters
• wipers - youth of america
• arab strap - philophobia(?)
• beatles - revolver(?)
• robert wyatt - old rottenhat(?)

p.s. johnny cash - solitary man, primal scream - screamadelica, jesus lizard - goat, lambchop - is a woman, tom waits - nighthawks at the diner, robert wyatt - cuckooland

p.p.s radiohead - amnesiac, hail to the thief


 
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November 23, 2003 at 9:18:00 PM CET

[music, albums] November 23, 2003 at 9:18:00 PM CET


Cuckooland is devastating.


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[journal] November 23, 2003 at 9:05:00 PM CET


Kinderweisheit




Wir waren dieses Wochenende bei meiner Schwester. Einen großen Teil der Zeit verbrachte ich mit meiner sechsjährigen Nichte. Nachdem sie anfangs ganz schüchtern nicht mal "hallo" gesagt hatte, sprang sie mir später dauernd auf die Schultern, kletterte an mir hoch, rutschte an mir herab, saß auf meinem Schoß, hing mit ihren Beinen an meinen Händen mit dem Kopf nach unten, einmal stemmte ich sie sogar auf ihren Füßen auf meinen Händen und sie stand fast in der Luft.

Sie ist dieses Jahr in die Schule gekommen und kann jetzt lesen. Wenn sie allerdings das Wort "lieb" sieht, dann liest sie es zwar langsam "l-i-e-b" und leise vor sich hin, spricht es aber nicht aus. Anschließend sagt sie, dass sie dieses Wort nicht lesen kann. Weil es blöd ist.


 
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[politics] November 23, 2003 at 8:37:00 PM CET


The silence before the apocalypse or Lot's wife



Hiroshima/Nagasaki August 6th 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. On August 9th, a more powerful weapon was dropped on Nagasaki. Needless to say, they caused Mass Destruction.

Survivors accounts describe scenes from hell, no surprise to those that know about atomic weapons and what they do. But none of the victims had any idea of what it was that had hit them. One survivor wondered 'how such extensive damage could have been dealt out of a silent sky'. Almost no-one heard the bomb. They experienced a silent flash, 'a sheet of sun'. And those who were looking in the direction of this 'sheet of sun' saw nothing else again. 'Their melted eyes had run down their cheeks'. Pumpkins were roasted on the vine, potatoes baked under the earth. The extraordinary testimonies of six survivors were recorded by John Hersey in 'Hiroshima', published by Penguin in 1946.

From the liner notes to Foreign Accents from Robert Wyatt's new album Cuckooland


 
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