Manafonistas

Poems vs. song lyrics?
 
Ian wrote today about his interest in art. Let me add that I agree and apart from the odd exhibition in some museums I never quite came to understand art. Modern art that is, like Damien Hirst for example is usually above me.

I can also admit that apart from the odd poem I had to learn and analize (= write about!) in school I never had an interest in poems … but just now, having turned fifty some month ago (ha!) I must admit that now I find an almost serene comfort in poems by Hilde Domin, Nelly Sachs and so on. – Having read books about Hilde Domin and Nelly Sachs and the life they lead it’s quite interesting to see how they developed a way to overcome their personal fate (Hilde Domin had to flee from Germany during the second world war) and express the unsayable.

Having said this, instead of having an interest in poems I always had an interest in song lyrics, which since my youth on seemed sometimes to reflect certain thoughts I had and couldn’t quite articulate in my own words. I vividly remember hearing Leonard Cohen singing „The Night Comes On“ for the first time (and recently on his new live album which was released some weeks ago made me think about it again) and I perfectly understood how it was for the person he sung about, the mother lying in her grave „under the marble and the snow“ and her advice for him to just go on (in life, that is I guess), „my shawl wrapped around you / my hands on your head when you go“. My personal life was in disarray at the time and I remember now that I suddenly understood that song lyrics (or, speaking in general terms music) can comfort me much more than any spoken words of condolence.

Some years ago many artists decided to collect their song lyrics in books. Perhaps it would be too easy (and sarcastic) to just suggest that they want to cash in on the money of their die-hard fans who want to collect everything from their favourite artists even though they already own all the lyrics in the booklet of the CD or the dustjacket in which the vinyl is safely stored. Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohens have already offered their lyrics to buy in book form.

I cannot count the times Bob Dylan was nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature …, so there must be a point in reading and enjoying song lyrics as I do.

Norwegian poet Nils Christian Moe-Repstad in a duo performance at 46th Poetry International festival in Rotterdam with pianist Fulco Ottervanger of famous trio De Beren Gieren (the bears are shrieking) reading „Poisoning 16“
 
 
 

 
 
 
V I D E O
 
 
 

 
 
 
The duo was a spontaneous decision. Moe-Repstad appeared for his soundcheck at the moment that pianist Fulco Ottervanger from Ghent was finishing his soundcheck. Ottervanger was supposed to open Moe-Repstad’s recitation as a separate performance. When Moe-Repstad heard him playing during the soundcheck, he proposed to do the opening totally improvised together. It came out like this. And, it became the talk of the festival then.
 
More about De Beren Gieren (the bears are shrieking) from Ghent HERE
 
The concert of the live-review has now been released on CLEAN FEED, entitled The Detour Fish (Live In Ljubljana)
 
 
RADIO, june 28, later ON DEMAND
 
BIJdeTIJDS: „wordsasmusic“ – Nils Christian Moe-Repstad en Scardanelli
 
 
PLAYLIST
 
Christian Moe-Repstad – Theory of the Singular. Jazzland Rec. (w/Nils Petter Molvær, Eivind Aarset, Jan Bang, Erik Honoré)
 
1 De biologische undergangene
2 År deponert I koder
3 Døden I alveolene
4 Enfoldige kongers hender
5 Det fortelles om traner
6 Hjertets vener faller sammen som elvemunninger
7 Avblomstring av kjønnet
 
 
Harald Bergman – Scardanelli. ECM New Series
 
8 Ich heisse Scardanelli
9 Der Frühling (Wenn neu das Licht …)
10 Die Aussicht (Der offene Tag …)
 
 
Heinz Holliger – Scardanelli-Zyklus. ECM New Series
 
11 Glocken-Alphabet
12 Der ferne Klang
13 (t)air(e)
 
 
 

 
 

Foto Fulco Ottervangern ©FoBo_

Never had any interest (at all!) in art as a kid. Was only interested in sound. The sound of electric light, TV static, shortwave radio scans, people’s accents, the cadences in the lines of Dr Seuss books, theme tunes, advertising jingles, ice cream van chimes, rain on pavements and windscreens and Dutch elm leaves, diesel car engines, the railway, disembodied tannoy voices, silence’s unsilence (mild tinnitus or a faded imprint of the creation of the universe?), TDK D90 experiments, echoes, etc.

Having zero art knowledge/interest of art until about the age of 24 was a good art education. These days I’m fascinated by art. It doesn’t need to be any good: it just needs to be honest. There is commercial artwork on breakfast cereal packets that will travel through centuries, while there are things hanging in your local city’s Kunst-cathedral that are basically just fucking tat and that will be forgotten about.

Today, I spent about 20 minutes staring at Sepolcro di Cecilia Metella, the Piranesi etching. One of the most interesting things about Piranesi is that you sometimes recognise things in the work that you have already seen in a dream. The same thing happens with de Chirico (and sometimes even Frits Thaulow). This isn’t oneiro-semiotics though, or science or criticism. We are just chimps after all, space chimps with access to a shared/shareable (collective) dream brain/consciousness. Piranesi may well have been a time traveller – the Sepolcro is full of broken circles, portals. The sepulchre looks like it’s about to revolve. In typical piranesi style, there is weird shit in the sky – a Rorschach-blot clown-phantom wearing the devil’s trilby. Fucking hell, did Piranesi watch Tarkovski’s Sacrifice? Or read Dr Seuss? No semiotics please – this is better than that. Even for them what knows fuck-all about art. Piranesi = fucking genius.

„This is not 2018 and Germany are (probably) not about to crash out of their own party. But many of the underlying flaws from Russia have been left unaddressed: a slightly chewy centre, weird lapses of concentration at the back, a coach who seems increasingly unsure of himself. Equally, this is a team more likeable, more enterprising and more purely enjoyable than any recent predecessors. It could crash and burn, or it could fill the sky with flame. Either way, you suspect it’s going to be terrific fun finding out.“*

(The Guardian)

Lässt man unseren Rest der Fussballromantik mal aussen vor (und nichts spricht gegen die Lust auf grosse Spiele), entpuppt sich die UEFA als kaum weniger korrupte und intrigante Vereinigung wie die FIFA. „11 Freunde“ meistert diese Gratwanderung seit Jahren. Was die  Politik dieses Landes betrifft, wäre es allerdings ein folgenreicherer Kurzschluss, aus reiner Nostalgie die Augen zu verschliessen (was beim Fussball ein eingeübter Reflex ist), angesichts der gesammelten Phrasendrescherei der CDU und ihres Wahlkampfprogramms. Wie sagt es Anna Clauß so trefflich in einem Kommentar: „Das Wahlprogramm der Union grenzt an Arbeitsverweigerung. Derart ideenlos kann man kein Land regieren – die Bundestagswahl gewinnen aber schon.“ (spiegel-online) (m.e.)

Kann mich noch sehr gut erinnern, wie ich in den 1990igern den Film Awakenings mit Robert De Niro und Robin Williams gesehen habe, und wie sehr mich die Handlung und die schauspielerischen Leistungen (nicht nur) der beiden Hauptdarsteller berührt haben. (Randy Newman schrieb zu diesem Film einen ganz exzellenten, behutsam orchestrierten Soundtrack!).

Dem Film lag das gleichnamige Buch von Oliver Sacks (auf deutsch als „Zeit des Erwachens“ erschienen) zu Grunde; zahlreiche weitere in einem nicht nur für Mediziner (trotz oder wegen der Fussnoten) verständlichen Art geschrieben, folgten: Der Tag an dem mein Bein fortging oder Stumme Stimmen – Reise in die Welt der Gehörlosen, zum Beispiel.

In seinem Buch Onkel Wolfram hat Sacks bereits aus seinem Leben und seine in der Kindheit geweckte Begeisterung für den Chemiekasten und häusliche Experimente damit erzählt; nun legt er mit On The Move seine Biographie vor.

Er erzählt sehr hier freimütig über sein Aufwachsen in den 1950iger Jahren, seine frühe Begeisterung für das Motorradfahren und Gewichtheben, Freundschaften die er an Universitäten (W.H. Auden!) schloss und, natürlich, seinem beruflichen Werdegang.

Ein ehrlicher und unpathetischer Rückblick. Lesenswert!

„I want to listen more than I want to be listened to. This is my moment to sing, and I will sing to you all that I have heard. Here are my feelings carved through the images and sounds of trains and rivers, how they speak to one another all night long when we who live near them can hear them clearly. The crow and the mockingbird, hard to tell that mockingbird sounds like the crow, the light through my old windows, my determination, my despair, my love of humans.“ So there she is again, and her words speak volumes. It all starts with a woman throwing bottles from the rooftop. The New Orleans-vibes can easily be revealed. The second and the third song are clearly related to genre & geography. A bit too obvious, was my first thought. But, not much later, a stranger would have seen a smile on my face. She’s playing tricks, leads you on a wrong track. Like Hitchcock in The Birds – we are in a bird’s shop (pet store, however you call them), and everything’s cozy and comforting. Pure deception. From song no. 4 onwards things start getting more and more creepy. One by one the ghosts appear. The lyrics are written in a conversational mode (Karl Hyde should like them), but the words are performed with a thrilling voice between shadowy whispering, falling apart, speaking mode, and unbearably beautiful moments. Merry-go-round-magic. It doesn’t take long, and you are trapped, and you’ll love being trapped that way. You don’t have to go nostalgic, or remember the first time you had heared this voice deep in the last century. With fuckin‘ Chuck E’s being in love. This is not from the „Classic Rock Department“, this is not for the shopping mall. This is the other side of desire. No doubts about it, it’s a very oblique voice, as strange as Robert Wyatt’s one. Voices that can hit rock bottom within seconds. Lessons in fragility and strength. Rickie Lee Jones has made one of the best albums of her life. Just stay a little bit longer. We’re sitting in Cafe Heaven in Provincetown. We’re talking about everyday life and favourite records. No interview. We’re talking about the sounds of roaring locomotives in our childhood. How they appeared in the distance with a howl.

 

 
 
 
NEULAND
 
Desasterpeace: Old Maid, aus IT FOLLOWS, O.S.T.

David Torn: At Least There Was Nothing, aus ONLY SKY

Paul De Jong: Golden Gate, aus IF

Paul De Jong: Baxter @73, aus IF

Warren Ellis & Nick Cave: The March, aus LOIN DES HOMMES

Stephan Micus: Everywhere, Nowhere, aus NOMAD SONGS

Gustavo Leguizamón: Zamba del carneval, aus EL CUCHI BIEN TEMPERADO

Rickie Lee Jones: Haunted, aus THE OTHER SIDE OF DESIRE

John Potter: Al son de los arroyuelas, aus AMORES PASADOS

Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury: Hacking / Cutting, aus EX MACHINA (O.S.T.)
 
 
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ZEITREISE
 
Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s Middle Eastern Music: Ya Annas, aus JAZZ SAHARA

Don Drummond & Roland Alphonso: Heaven and Earth / Owen Gray: Walk All Over / David Brown: Pretty Baby / The Maytals: He Will Provide, aus: V.A. – Studio One Jump-Up, The Birth Of A Sound: Jump-Up Jamaican R&B, Jazz & Early Ska

Hawkwind: The Reason Is? / Be Yourself / Paranoia Pt. 1 aus HAWKWIND

Jordan de la Sierra: Song of the Rose, aus GYMNOSPHERE
 
 
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NAHAUFNAHME
 

Keith Jarrett: BELONGING

Keith Jarrett: SUN BEAR CONCERTS

Keith Jarrett: LUMINESSENCE

Keith Jarrett: STAIRCASE

Keith Jarrett: THE SURVIVORS SUITE
 
 
 

 
 

I was walking through the streets with my violin. Flares around my legs. Those days they hunted the terrorists. I looked at their faces on the posters at the post office and at the advertising pillars. I considered what it would be like to be the little daughter of a terrorist. I thought what it would be like to be the daughter of my friend´s parents who were much younger than mine. Would there be anyone whose daughter I wanted to be?

One day one of these war veterans saw me walking in the street and asked, if there was a machine gun in my violin case. I had never seen a machine gun. I told it to my father as he knew about weapons. He said, sometimes someone askes something, but in reality he wants to know something else. (Sometimes I really liked what my father said.)

I recognized the veterans at first sight. I saw the war in their eyes, the war lived in their face and I could see it in the way they moved. It was like an illness they would never get rid of. I hated the war. Everything else was less important.

Playing a violin means trying to be perfect. You have to create every single tone. You have to use the violin bow in the correct way. You have to think so much about it for years that you cannot enjoy. The world is full of possible mistakes. But making mistakes means vividness and adventure. It bores me to be perfect. I only fall in love with guys who were bad at school. I always loved the objectors.

If you are an early violinist you can force your brother to listen, even if he lies on his bed behind the wall between your rooms and tries to read an adventure novel for boys over 15. You can force your neighbours to listen. You listened to the girl from the third floor exercising on the piano, too. Every afternoon. There was no space for a piano in my room. This is not a story about playing the violin.

Is this a poem? Who cares? Who defines what a poem would be like? If it inspires you, it´s good. No? I couldn´t have written this text in German. In German it never could be a poem. Is it a true story? Who cares? You just want to listen to a story, campfire friend. Of course this is not a poem.

I was walking through the streets with my violin, the other day. I wanted to sell it. I showed it to the violin maker himself. He held the violin in his hands, looked at it from various angles. I told him about my teachers who were famous violinists. He knew them. Mr. H sat at the piano and he would play two tones. I should carefully listen and distinguish which one was higher. Mrs. A would always chew chewing gums which should help her stop smoking. In a way I was proud of walking through the streets with this violin even I had not played it for so many years. There aren´t so many people with their instruments in town these days.