einen blogeintrag schreiben, durch den eine frau sich verliebt in einen. wäre nur wirklich interessant, wenn man ihn nicht aus diesem grunde geschrieben hätte. die verlogenheit von programmarbeiten. das tagebuch des verführers hat mich ja damals schon mindestens genauso gelangweilt wie enttäuscht. absolut unvorstellbar, dass der verführer aus dem buch (kierkegaard selber?) jemals einen hard-on gehabt hat. ich sollte sowas nicht schreiben. aber es muss einfach raus.

and how i love the way in which revolution (see a couple of posts below) sweeps all that sweet-smelling rubbish away.

god how i hate jason pierce's music. and his obsession with words like lord and jesus.

i can't put into words how much i hate the first two sugary, marshmellow songs on playing with fire. they must be by mr. spiritualized.

starts the album for me.

Da ist viel Geld geflossen in den letzten 15 Jahren von West nach Ost, aber außer dem grünen Rechtsabbieger-Pfeil ist mir nichts bekannt, was von der alten DDR in die neue BRD übernommen wurde. Und da gab es bestimmt einiges, was man aus dem "sozialistischen deutschen Staat" hätte annehmen können. Ich denke nur an die Kinderkrippen for everyone. Womit natürlich der größere Anteil von berfufstätigen Frauen in der DDR einherging. Emanzipatorisch hat die Wiedervereinigung wenig gebracht. Außer dass, glaube ich, fast mehr Frauen als Männer aus dem Osten sich in den Westen getraut haben und dort in ihrem oft beschränkten Rahmen, aber immerhin doch, reüssiert haben. Wenn die alte DDR eine Seele gehabt haben sollte (woran ich nicht zweifle), so wurde die bestimmt verscherbelt. Schade, aber ich glaube kaum, dass Frau Merkel das ändern wird.

A short one as this is more or less all I have from that year.

Erroneously I put John Coltrane's A Love Supreme into the 1964 poll. That so often lauded record never left any impression on me. Probably it has to do with disappointed expectations. I always thought there would be something highly spiritual going on in that music. Maybe there is but it has not yet reached me. Tony Scott's Music for Zen Meditation on the other hand I discovered on my own without having read anything about it beforehand. It became one of my favourite records to calm down and concentrate.

Around 1960 the clarinettist Tony Scott was the ambassador of jazz in the Far East. He spread jazz to Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Tokyo he collaborated with the koto (a zither) player Shinichi Yuize and the shakuhachi (bamboo flute) player Hozan Yamamoto to create one of the first and most original albums of world music, Music for Zen Meditation. It is extraordinary as it is totally improvisational (this could be seen as its underlying jazz vibe which you actually can't hear) on one hand and traditional sounding on the other hand. In the Japanese classical music everything is composed, there is hardly any room for the performer to express himself. The result of this liberation is a naturally flowing peaceful record which to me almost sounds more classic and universal than the classical Japanese music itself. Which I am not very familiar with, I must admit though.

The album can be broken up in three parts. The first piece called Is Not All One? is the only track where the full trio of koto, shakuhachi and clarinet is featured. Which makes it the fullest sounding piece.

The other titles of the first side of the album all conjure up nature scenes.

On The Murmuring Sound of the Mountain Stream the dominating koto is responsible for the sound of the flowing water whereas the clarinet mumbles in the background.

Adequately A Quivering Leaf, Ask the Winds is a wonderful flute solo. In the shakuhachi I hear the musicality of the wind which arises when it touches the leaf.

After the Snow, the Fragrance is a duet of koto and clarinet. The waterdrops of the melting snow can be heard in the strings of the koto, the more profound clarinet provides the scent.

The koto and shakuhachi duet To Drift Like Clouds finishes the first side. A short and light piece.

All titles on the second side are linked to zen meditation. This makes them more abstract, there are no direct connections to natural phenomena. There is another reason why this side is more challenging to listen to, I think. The last three pieces are all koto-clarinet duos. Therefore there is less variation in sound. Which makes sense for meditation purposes, I guess, but I find my aural attention sometimes wandering away especially during the last two pieces Sanzen and Satori.

The first track Za-Zen though is a phantastic albeit much too short duet of shakuhachi and clarinet. It is quite amazing how Tony Scott on the left channel succeeds in mimicking the leading shakuhachi on the right channel. If you turn off the right speaker so that you don't have a reference the clarinet could be taken for a flute in places.

On the second piece, the instrumental chant Prajna-Paramita-Hridaya Sutra Tony Scott mainly plays in the lower registers and the clarinet has its typical soft and brumous sound.

The greatest thing about this album to me is that I never get bored by it. There are no melodies which can ever get used up. Every listen purifies the mind of the mundane distractions like a cup of clear green tea.

Here is the overview of the series 40 years, 40 albums of which part XXXVIII was this post.

naumann hat es in der zeit angesprochen. die einzige befriedigende lösung der politischen kalamität, in der wir uns jetzt gerade befinden, wäre eine kanzlerin merkel und ein vizekanzler und außenminister schröder. er hätte die größe ins zweite glied zu treten, da bin ich sicher. mal sehen, ob seine partei mitmacht. im grunde hat er ja in den letzten jahren nur an der außenpolitischen front bonuspoints eingeheimst. das wäre fast schon ein dream team, zumindest in der jetzigen verfahrenen situation. sein englisch ist zwar mau und mit blair und bush wird die kommunikation sowieso nicht easy sein, aber wer weiß wie lange diese beiden dieweltindenabgrundstoßer noch da sein werden. ein bisschen hoffnung muss sein.

Revolution. By those drone kids from Rugby I mentioned in the last post. This one is by Peter Kember aka Sonic Boom. Like all the great obsessive tracks by Spacemen 3. Which were somewhere in between Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Only straighter (not what you think) and more to the point. A later album was called Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs to. Those kind of stimulants don't do any harm in appreciating his music. That's for sure.

That's good to know but somebody has to mention Spacemen 3 in that competent article. The author does not seem to be very familiar with rock music. I had always thought drones were the apotheosis of rock.