Manafonistas

dumping Entsorgung / dumping Unterbietung / dumping Verschleudern / dumping Schleuderverkauf / dumping Verkippung  / dumping Versenken / dumping [at sea] Versenkung

I was living in the Bavarian Wood when this album came out. In some areas they might have still brought the mail on horses. REMAIN IN LIGHT partly soundtracked my life in the hinterland. Drug therapy with adults at the end of the world.  At least that I’ve told before. I’m a looper. I knew from the two earlier Eno-produced Talking Heads albums that David Byrne was a specialist in dream-inspired imagery that easily suggests lost souls, neurotic townies. But when they produced the album, they were in a studio on the Bahamas with no deadlines and a lot of heat around.

Skilled in undermining any linear story-bound logic, you never know exactly what it’s all about. In that time they, too, studied African polyrhythms and African music theory. They read books. And they learned quickly. One of the mysteries of masterpieces of the pop history: you don’t have to study years and years on a conservatory, to make inspirations work. In this case Jon Hassell was a helping hand, and the „mad scientist“ in the background, the magician with a big bag of living knowledge.

In all the years I have listened to that record, and this song, it was always a song about ego-dumping. Disssolving the routines of defining your own ego. May happen in mental illness, in meditation, in deep listening, in the Outer Hebrides. (Listen to the sounds & words of „A Man Wakes Up“ of the Eno/Hyde-collaboration „Someday World“, it covers similar territory of alienation and fulfilment!) 

In „Born Under Punches“ this kind of ego-dumping is wrapped in motives that suggest fever, paranoia, danger, tropical heat, unrelentless yearning, inner peace, kind of mini-satoris. Hope. Love of life. How’s that? Another trick of the magicians involved. The Known/Unknown territory. A weird mix of strongly contrasting emotions (states of mind) that inspires any form of stop making sense immediately. Liberating. The Bahamas, Africa, come to Europe. It happens every day now. Just go outside. And let the song creep under your skin.

 
Bucureşti noapte umbră, Piata George Enescu
 
 
 

 
 
©FoBo_
 

Manafonistas Head Quarter: Here is much talk about lost classics in music, is there a great lost book in your life?
 

Michael: Funny, you’re asking this question. I’m a specialist in losing books, records, clocks, scarfs, umbrellas. Radio scripts, DAT’s with some of my best interviews. Should visit a neurologist.  Have had these symptoms since young age. You know that great Eno song „Tutti forgetti“ from „My Squelchy Life“? Forgetting can be pure fun, too. But yesterday, hurrah, I found a lost book by strolling through my archives: „Der Fünfte im Spiel“, by Robbertson Davies.

MHQ: What’s it about?

Michael: I forgot, too (laughs). Seriously, I only remember a few things. It’s about an old man who taught at university and decides to look back on his life. I read it when I was about twenty, and remember that it has then been absolutely captivating. Thrilling. A bit gothic. Good amount of deep psychology, too. And great stories.

MHQ: You wanna read it again?

Michael: Not a bad idea to rediscover a book you once loved, and forgot a lot of the scenes. But I would have to make some researches. Cause the book was the first one in a series of three. I lost the other two ones that had been published by Goldmann Taschenbücher. The whole thing is called, originally, „The Deptford Trilogy“.

MHQ: An autobiographical book?

Michael: Dunno. And I don’t care looking at Wikipedia. It belonged to those books I read between 16 and 26 years that totally sucked me in, page-turners, soul-twisters, existential stuff, that kind. In my case: some Highsmith novels covered the same area of deepness, some early Handke and Gustafsson, one Rühmkorff, about four Dostojevski novels, one Guntram Vesper, one Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Steinbeck, Twain, Calvino, Cortazar. That league of gentlemen and lesbians. I loved two Kundera novels, too. But don’t know if these more cultish novels would stand the test of „my“ time. Of course, I forgot some other stuff.

MHQ: Were there „in-books“ that you didn’t like at all?

Michael: Ha, one comes to mind immediately: Marlen Haushofer’s „Die Wand“. Boring. Boring like hell. As boring as nearly 90 % of Fassbinder movies. Might win some new friends here (laughs). And, honestly, I never found any inspiration in reading Kafka. Though one of my best friends directly comes out of one of his books.

MHQ: Is there another lost book you remember?

Michael: Yes, „Obduktionsprotokoll“ – the best book I ever read about the inner connections of jazz, sex and everyday life. Written by Hartmut Geerken around the late 70s. A lost masterpiece. He once told me I may have been one of five readers (laughs). Should do some web search for the other four. Might be soulmates. I even prefer it to Geoff Dyer’s „But Beautiful“.

MHQ: Michael, let us come back to the here and now. I know you’re a big fan of TV series like True Detective, Missing, The Fall, Hinterland, Ray Donovan. What did you see lately that has had  a similar emotional impact?

Michael: Upss, you’re an attentive reader of this blog … well I have to name two: the first season of „The Red Road“. Comes close to the „abyss factor“ of True Detective. Not many people here have ever heared about this series. I only see the originals. And, the other one, not for the faint of heart, too, with dark humour, brilliant story lines, and an U.S. Marshall you might love from the start, i’m just at the end of the third season, three are yet waiting for me. „Justified“, based on a story by Elmore Leonard, and surely inspired by the special vibes and moods of his novels. And may I tell you one thing: this is not stuff for stealing time. It goes down to the bottom of  life’s essentials. You learn a lot about your own life here. Not kidding.

MHQ: For example?

Michael: Survival techniques in the Outer Hebrides.

MHQ: Thanks for talking, Michael.

Michael: Pleasure. You pay the coffees (laughs).

Jazz Mentalities: Perceptions and Potentials from the Periphery
 
 
Turbulent change, consolidation and erosion
Reconstruction
 
 
Cases of Good Practice
 
  Ljubljana
  Wroclaw
  Dublin
  London/Warsaw
  Berlin/Strasbourg
 
 
Essential components
 
 
A musicians’ perspective
 
  European clusters
  Natural allies/alliences
 
 
Music in perspective
 
  Dynamics‘ quality
  The Known-Unknown relationship
 
 

Brief sketch of developments/circumstances
 
 
 • Emergence of regional European jazz variants

 • New approaches, new forms of making music

 • (Profiling) national funding-/subsidy systems

 • Digital production, distribution, consuming of music

 • Digital communication

 • Emergence of collectives, networks, grass root organization

 • Diversification, stratification (delta formation)

 • Breakdown, erosion, reconstruction
 
 
Against this backdrop, the following question arises: How can scenes from the Eastern part of Europe carve out striking profiles and strong and characteristic identities within the dynamics of European exchange and collaboration on so many different levels?

Characteristics
 
  • strong interregional cooperation/intensive interregional exchange of musicians

  • a focus on young up-and-coming talent/groups

  • offering residential space for musicians to meet and collaborate
 
 
Festivals
 
  • Ljubljana Jazz Festival in Slovenia – [2012], [2014]

  • Wroclaw’s Jazztopad Festival in Poland – [2014a], [2014b]

  • 12 Points Festival in Dublin, Ireland – [2014], [2015]

  • Match & Fuse (London/Warsaw) – [2013], [2015]

  • French festival Jazzdor in Berlin, Germany – [2013], [2015]
 
 
Wroclaw Jazztopad commissions
 
  • 2008 Piotr Damasiewicz

  • 2009 Terje Rypdal, Kenny Wheeler

  • 2010 John Surman. Nikola Kołodziejczyk

  • 2011 Fred Hersch, Uri Caine

  • 2012 Heo Yoon-Jeong/Aram Lee/ Oleś Brothers, Benoit Delbecq

  • 2013 William Parker, Tony Malaby, Charles Lloyd

  • 2014 Wadada Leo Smith, Erik Friedlander, Nate Wooley
 
 
12 Points participants
 
When we look at the participants of 12 Points throughout the years, we notice the earlier mentioned, well-known names of Susana Santos Silva, De Beren Gieren, and Kaja Draksler, as well as meanwhile well-known and (highly) successful musicians and groups such as

  • Albatrosh, Nikolas Anadilis, Donkey Monkey, Giovanni Guidi, Pablo Held, Hildegard Lernt
  Fliegen, Puma, Maciej Obara, Emile Parisien, Phronesis, Pixel, Aki Rissanen, Colin Vallon,
  World Service Project
 
 
Essential components: ten characteristics that can reinforce each other
 
  • 1. Co-programming

  • 2. Interregional collaboration/exchange

  • 3. Commissions

  • 4. Residencies

  • 5. Laboratories/young generation focus

  • 6. Showcasing

  • 7. Audience participation/urban immersion

  • 8. Education/media work

  • 9. Cultural contextualization

  • 10.Interdisciplinarity
 

A MUSICIAN’S PERSPECTIVE
 
 
European clusters
 
 • the Scandinavian cluster

 • the Baltic cluster

 • the German-Dutch-Swiss cluster

 • the British-Scottish-Irish cluster

 • the French-Belgian cluster

 • the Portuguese-Italian-Spanish cluster

 • the Slovenian-Austrian-Hungarian cluster

 • the Moldavian-Romanian-Bulgarian-Greek-Turkish cluster
 
 
Natural allies/alliances
 
 
MUSIC IN PERSPECTIVE
 
 
Dynamics’ quality
 
 
 – noise
 – rough energy
 – power of repetition
 – sophisticated elaboration
 – digging deep
 – celebrational/ritualistic
 – dreamy
 – quiet sound layering
 
 
The Known/Unknown relationship
 

another classic, never lost … „Location is everything. When Willie Nelson and album producer Daniel Lanois set out to create a cinematic-sounding album, Teatro, they took over  disused movie theatre in Oxnard, California, and pictured its dusty glory On the LP sleeve. Recorded as-live in situ amid the red velvet seats, Teatro sees Nelson working extensively with his frequent collaborator Emmylou Harris, who joins him for duets and on backing vocals on 11 of the 14 tracks. The other major player is Lanois who produces the album, plays guitar and bass, took the cover photo and wrote one of the album’s songs, ‚The Maker,‘ a stunning performance with glacier-thick vibe. Reinvention is key on Teatro, with Nelson revisiting a number of songs he first wrote in the 1960s, including 1968’s ‚I Just Can’t Let You Say Goodbye‘ and 1962’s ‚I’ve Just Destroyed the World‘ and ‚Three Days.‘ Though the songs are familiar, the sounds aren’t: Teatro found Nelson experimenting with rhythms and flavors as never before, from the Spanish-influenced ‚Darkness on the Face of the Earth‘ to the double-drum-kit percussive groove of ‚My Own Peculiar Way.‘ Accompanied by a nine-piece band that included Nelson’s sister, Bobbie Nelson, and Brad Mehldau on piano, the group conjure up an atmosphere informed by the howling harmonicas and distant mariachi bands of spaghetti western soundtracks, the end result being a Willie Nelson album quite unlike any other in his career, and one that reveals it widescreen vision through arresting sonic imagery. Originally released by Island Record in 1998, Teatro is issued here as it’s never been seen before — on vinyl. Pressed on gold vinyl with a deluxe, gatefold, ‚tip-on‘ uncoated jacket, this is a chance to own this unique album in its most beautifully presented form.“

 
 

 
 
(seen at Macy’s, Downtown Pittsburgh)