Country? Folk? Not a problem! So officially my favourite genre. Listening to Steve Earle's El Corazón is about the equivalent of being read a bedtime story. See, there's something about the poetry of folk music which remains unparalleled (except maybe in rap). Are you jonesing for a straight run of Illmatic now? Yes I am. Yes. I. am.
Two points. The Wrights's album In The Summertime = harmonies glorified. And Two Hours Traffic = perfect summertime music (= rockin' sounds & "not that great" lyrics). You said it (they did).
It's because school begins just about now (but until then it's barbecues, systematically scanning the local movie store's selection, and watching tedious semi-final swim heats).
Your daughter Lorca lead me upstairs for coffee where I saw you naked except for underwear bent over the stove boiling soba noodles. You chewed small pieces of sausages and fed them to a sick bird now nesting in your sink. For all this perhaps I was more nervous. Detesting nostalgia you perfected the art of receiving only what may be discarded. Throwing away longings and ghosts to glimpse your masterpiece to leave you with a loneliness all your own. Like a classic songwriter your poetry was great but your voice tattered from the first wearing. Like a classic poet your words still managed to crawl into hotel beds of unhappy women and afterwards you would sing their tragedies. I could never distinguish temples from laughter. Either way by the end you will have brought me down to my knees.
If there was such a thing as perfect metro music - this would be it. Chairlift's sound conjures memories of ambling through crowds of commuters on cold Monday mornings. Thick, dreamy & secret.
Nigel Lythgoe once said, “What I dislike are dance snobs, and those are people who think you need a formal training with years and years of experience before you can be called a dancer...You don’t just need a formal training. It’s because you have a great feel for dance.” So I suppose this season's So You Think You Can Dance winner Joshua Allen fits the bill pretty well.
Although I believe SYTYCD to be the best competitive/reality television show out there - & by far my favourite summer indulgence - I have to admit its campyness ultimately distracts from America choosing the "best" dancer. My favourite dancer of season three was Danny Tidwell, but I can see how his elitist air could have jarred with the pop culture of the show (he placed runner-up).
Despite all the cheese & politics, the finale did relive my favourite dance of the season: Chelsea & Mark's hip-hop routine to Bleeding Love. & everything about it is catered to my unsophisticated senses, my hoi polloi heart.
I really like when senses blur. Here someone has synchedGyorgy Ligeti'sArtikulation with Rainer Wehinger visual listening score. I remember visiting Hermann's Jazz Club some cloudless winter afternoon and following the band with a master orchestratral score & briskly keeping up by following distinct melody lines. Instead, here are written notes transmogrified into something slightly more subjective. Wehinger combines splashes/splots of sounds with swerving shapes and colours, bringing us (somehow) closer to Ligeti's idiosyncratic instrumentals.
The animation is beautiful. John Lennon is beautiful. It's all beautiful (& so are you).
"In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message."
I can't get over him (I really can't). I was ready to get on that plane to Montreal just to see him. What was I supposed to do? Stand in line to profess my love? Where is that line? I can't see it over here for the sunset. From the sunset(?) I will see him.
I find it slightly nauseating that we've come upon August (but this softens the blow). Nick Thorburn & Jim Guthrie are Human Highway & their debut album is Moody Motorcycle. That sentence itself gives you a little thrill, doesn't it?
Thorburn describes the duo as possessing an Everly Brothers/Simon & Garfunkel "lullaby-type stuff" sound. As one who advocates free love to all musical genres, I have always maintained a tremendous soft spot for folk harmonies. It sounds like a marriage between early jazz & later rock rooted from when "a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom."
I have fierce anticipation for an album which (even now) feels like a triumph of tenderness, lost & found.
