Manafonistas

Guy Sigsworth talking: „I played at Punkt two years earlier and …“ (Audio-Clip)

All our communication, external and internal, travels along intangible “roads” or “systems” that are made up of an odd collection of parts. These parts may be something external, like the internet, or internal, like a memory or an image. Some are ancient and some are modern, but they all carry messages back and forth between us and the world. Sound particularly evokes vivid associations aside from and including the musician’s intent. Often we aren’t conscious of the system and its role and therefore each system part can form both a liberation and a restriction. We find ourselves in a time when even gathering daily information — newspapers, message boards, emails — has become an ordeal, as we scramble for tastes of every pie our abundant access has made available. In the grab for cultural experience, the time spent with functions, institutions and settings in the infrastructure of culture has afforded us the appearance of a freedom whose credibility is seriously overdrawn. It takes a twist of perspective to breathe fresh life into any system and its parts.

It is in this domain that Thomas Köner performs his rather magical form of art. The throbbing heart at the pulse of Köner’s cathartic sound is an alternate encounter with the world through the mediation of a kind of auditory viewfinder, programmed in different ways by the abovementioned systems. In true minimalist style, this involves removals and absences, and a challenge to our experience of the ultimate system, Time.

Novaya Zemlya literally means “new land” and is the name of a cluster of remote islands in the Arctic Ocean in the north of Russia. From the outset, one is metaphysically thrown into the landscape as early sounds reflect an image of melting ice tumbling into a heated ocean. Initially the sounds are an exhortation on the dangers of global warming. Soon the silent spaces evoke feeling as well as landscape. It is easy to make a match between the depleted cold, polluted morass of the most remote place on earth and its corresponding vibration in our soul. Through the ghost of a melody, the mood slides from barren wasteland to dystopian anxiety. Later in the piece, Köner revisits the theme of time with haunting radio dialogue suggesting an older military presence on the islands. This sound still carries an ominous message despite its subterranean ambiguity.

This listening experience is more than distorted field recordings of a potential catastrophe. Köner gives us an opportunity to notice our bustling fluster of a life and reminds us that our many and varied systems of interaction with the world have material impact. We are brought to a remote part of the planet in an involved systematic intimacy. We are that remote part of the planet, it is inside us, we build and create it each day in the circulatory adherence to the circuitry revolving around our immediate interests. These systems are feeding back and we would do well to take heed.
(source: dustedreviews)

Zu finden: in einem Eintrag am 26. August

Regarded as one of his more obscure albums, this is the soundtrack to one of the many television movies Hazlewood made as a recluse in early-’70s Sweden. Directed by his friend Torbjörn Axelman, A House Safe for Tigers is accompanied by some of his strongest material. Filmed in documentary style, the movie finds Hazlewood and Axelman embarking on a nostalgic trip through their childhood days and contemplating the meaning of life. True, most viewers with a general education might be hard-pressed figuring out any meaning whatsoever, since considerable parts of A House Safe for Tigers are spoken in Swedish and sometimes even recited in Latin. Hazlewood makes up for this by offering some marvelous anecdotes, completely in line with his songwriting skills. The story about the bum who one day visited his parents‘ house and helped a youthful Hazlewood to get rid of his stutter is especially insightful. The movie derives its title from Swedish folklore, wherein everyday life is kept safe from „tigers“ (problems, misfortune) by the peculiar practice of throwing flowers around the house. Cultish pretensions left alone, the accompanying soundtrack to A House Safe for Tigers could be viewed as the mirror image of 1973’s sublime Poet, Fool or Bum. While the latter partly dealt with Hazlewood’s hectic experiences touring the Las Vegas circuit in the early ’70s, the former focuses on enjoying his laid-back, newly found life in Sweden. There’s a beautiful ode to Gotland, the island Hazlewood fell in love with during the shooting of the television movie Cowboy in Sweden. Its breathtaking orchestral arrangements and never-ending fade-out lends „Souls Island“ an epic quality. Axelman’s words to a second version even add further fuel to the myth of the „cowboy in Sweden.“ Next to it there’s a mixture of old songs (curiously, a version of the Shacklefords‘ „Our Little Boy Blue“ is included here) and a couple of new ones of which the bravado of „Lars Gunnar and Me“ and the moving title song are worth mentioning. The music and images of Hazlewood singing to Axelman’s family, running the Gotland marathon, and convincing Swedish children to take sides against Nixon turn both movie and album into a celebration of the enduring friendship between artist and director. – stolen text, lost the source, but this record is so beautiful, and the author of these lines offers some valuable insights about the man who, among other achievements, made Nancy Sinatra famous.

(source: unidentified, probably: Uncut)

„Wolkenatlas Vorschau“

Eine feine, zum Glück nicht typisch sonnendurchflutete, vielmehr überraschend raue Reggaeplatte ist Jimmy Cliff mit REBIRTH gelungen. Mindestens zwei Songs weisen direkt auf alte Zeiten von Clash und dem viel zu früh gestorbenen Joe Strummer, dessen Radiosendungen bei der BBC heute noch ihre Zeitlosigkeit im Netz beweisen. In eInem Interview wurde der unverwüstliche Jimmy Cliff zu seinem alten Freund befragt:

It seems like a part of this new record is a tribute to your old friend Joe Strummer.

The last song that he recorded in the studio was a song called „Over the Border,“ with me. He just walked into the studio and said „I have some lyrics, and I hear Jimmy Cliff singing these lyrics.“ I was doing the album with Dave Stewart and Dave said, „Well, how does the melody go?“ And he said, „I don’t have a melody. I just hear Jimmy Cliff singing these lyrics.“ So Dave took up his guitar and started playing some chords, and I came up with the melody and we put the lyrics together. Joe was one of the stalwarts of social justice expression in his music, so I felt like I really had to lift my hat to him this time.

Dear friends – hope you are all well? Some news – I have a new web site and address – on it you will find a page dedicated to my latest project „Walking In Ubin“ which i recently completed as a response to a month as ‚artist in residence‘ on Pulau Ubin – a small island close to Singapore as guest of The Artists Village group based in Singapore.

You will find a free audio download / a video and copious notes and links to other relevant sites and information.

Hope you have time to spend there and find it enjoyable and informative. I welcome feedback of any kind.

Mike Cooper

„Walking In Ubin“

Free Download mp3 „Sound Files“

Vimeo Video

www.cooparia.com

… ”Not quite Delta and not entirely free, he mines a sort of netherworld of sampled loops and hypnotic rhythms to create a garage sale of music. Let’s call it post space-age folk music.” – Radio Paradise Review – Is It Jazz?

Raise me high, raise me high,
That I may see my fallen kindred seated.
Who met with death upon the battlefield,
Who, in the end, fell and were defeated.

And the way they were tricked by death,
Betrayed, betrayed, leveled and mistreated.
I’ve stuck a knife in a man for less,
But Death is not so easily defeated.

And you can pray, pray and pray for Life.
But know my friend, my dearest friend, please know this,
That Life is but Death’s own right-hand man.
In every piece of his own left-hand business.

So, arm in arm, we’ll run toward that pair
And, we as they, join them double-threaded
And, arms flung wide, we’ll run towards that pair
And never fear that which once we dreaded.

„Farewell Sorrow“ (Video) – performed by Alasdair Roberts

Zum Beispiel die Neue von James Yorkston. Die wurde hier nicht zum ersten Mal erwähnt, und doch hat sie noch kein Manafonista gehört, vielleicht Ian in Glasgow, aufgrund seiner möglichen Kontakte zu schottischen Zirkeln oder den Nachfahren von Nick Drake, Bert Jansch und John Martyn. Manche Folkies, und James gehört gewiss dazu, bewegen sich in dieser alten Tradition, ohne bloss das Erinnerungsselige in uns zum Klingen zu bringen wie etwa, sagen wir mal, das lang zurückliegende, erste Hören einer Platte von Fairport Convention.

Nein, neue Werke solcher Cracks wie James Y., King Creosote, Alasdair Roberts, The Unthanks (manche Cracks sind weiblich), Sam Lee usw bringen die Schwingung des Uralten in eine seltsam drängende Gegenwärtigkeit. So singt James Yorkston auf seiner neuen Platte (ich lese das in ersten Rezensionen auf anydecentmusic.com, solche „reviews“ wecken die Neugier, wenn sie gut sind, die eigenen Vertrautheit mit einem Künstler mischt sich mit der Fremdwahrnehmung des einem selbst noch Unbekannten!) von den Problemen einer Langzeitbeziehung (was schon sehr lebendig rüberkommen muss, um nicht im Einerlei des Problemalltags zu versinken), oder von der Zeit einer ernsten Erkrankung seiner Tochter: nachts traf er sie in der Küche vor dem Kühlschrank, und sie erzählte Daddy, dass sie geträumt habe, sie sei eine Katze aus einem Buch (sic, der Titel!).

Ganz gewiss mischt sich bei Yorkston dann auch das Private mit dem Mythologischen, die Fragmente der eigenen Historie münden in eine grössere Erzählung, in der Menschen wie du und ich vorkommen, und einige dieser Menschen (der Lauf der Zeit, ein zentraler topos der Folkmusik: einst noch bedrohliches Hier und Jetzt, ein paar (gefühlte oder wahrhaftige) Jahrhunderte später nur durch ein Lied am Leben gehalten) verschwinden auf einmal einfach so und für immer: sie mischen sich in die Figuren eines Kinderbuches, und werden von einem Zauber ins Nirgendwoland verbannt, sie werden von einem Lied der Beatles aufgesogen und verschwinden mit Lucy in einer Himmel aus Diamanten, sie sterben bei einem Autounfall in Madrid, weil sie zum falschen Augenblick Lust auf einen Soft Drink hatten.

James‘ Tochter ist meines Wissens wieder gesund geworden, und die Gesänge im Haus mögen ihre heilsame Wirkung getan haben. Aber nun wird es wirklich Zeit, dass die CD am 10. August erscheint (Domino Records). Es kann nicht sein, dass Sie, sofern Sie diesen Text mit Lust gelesen (und einen grundsätzlich positiven Draht zur schottischen, irischen, englischen Folk Music haben) nun nicht, fast fiebrig, einen zügigen Blindkauf ins Auge fassen!