It's the Hendrix episode, looking at the Soft Machine/Jimi Hendrix Experience alliance of 1967—68, including studio jams involving Robert Wyatt playing drums for Hendrix and Hendrix playing bass for Wyatt, memories of Jimi from Ayers, Hopper and Wyatt, and a staggeringly wonderful (although rather hissy) live set from the Soft Machine's support tour of the USA with the Experience. A lot more Wyatt vocals elsewhere too (to make up for the relative lack last time): impersonating John Lennon (successfully), singing anagrams and palindromes for John Greaves' Kew. Rhone. project, adding to an intriguing mix of Annie Whitehead's trombone and electronics, and rabble-rousing with 80's politico-jazzband The Happy End. Also, National Health's only TV appearance, Hatfield's only New York appearance, Steve Miller's only Caravan album, Kevin Ayers back in Hyde Park making more joyful noise (summer 1974 this time) and a very squelchy, (Tim) Blakean slice of live Gong from 1973.
I missed the second in the Free Range series, but made it to the third, which featured (along with Sam Bailey playing his usual free improv piano set) Robert Stillman accompanying a series of specially made short abstract films in "one-man band" style, playing Fender Rhodes plus pedal-triggered snare, bass drum and hi-hat.
Robert's an American music lecturer at Christchurch (one of Adam B's tutors — that's Adam from Lapis Lazuli, Delta Sleep and Wheels, and who I've been jamming with lately...he was also present for this). Seems a lovely bloke, very creative and good-humoured. The most memorable piece was something he called "Looking Glass Music", based on an early example of a "hack" from the golden age of the player piano, when someone discovered that feeding the rolls in upside down and backwards leads to a very interesting musical output! He'd attempted to compose and then learn to play a piece in this style. "I'm determined to play this correctly once before I die!" he announced before launching into one of the oddest bits of keyboard playing I've ever heard (this then brought to mind Conlon Nancarrow's insane player piano compositions which John Dieterich brought to my attention...do check them out on Youtube if you get a chance, you won't believe your ears!)
At the end, Sam thanked not just Robert and the film-makers, but also the audience for our "quality of listening". It was only then that I realised that throughout the evening, EVERYONE had been listening to the music — I couldn't even remember any whispered conversation. This makes a wonderful change from my usual experience of going out to hear live music and then grumbling on this blog about how no one knows how to listen anymore!
I won't attempt to describe the music, as you can listen to it here:
Saturday 21st January, 2012, MJC, Croix, near Lille
This was a spontaneous continental excursion encouraged by Sven in Gent. Having heard that Syd Arthur had arranged gigs in Lille and Amsterdam, he did his best to find them one in Belgium. It turned out to be a bit too last-minute, but he got some excellent responses taking their Moving World EP around the venues and squats, and then managed to talk me into coming over for the second Lille show.
I had a bit of a complicated journey. The cancelled train to Dover was replaced by a bus, which wound through all the little villages on the way down there... beautiful, but it meant having to run most of the way from Dover Priory station to the ferry terminal. I just made it in time for the last check-in, but then before boarding, we were told that the "Pride of Calais" would be delayed due to "technical problems". In the end we had to wait for the next ferry, but I was happy to see that it was the "Pride of Canterbury", quite appropriately. Katrijn and Sven were waiting for me on the other side, and we were soon whizzing along French roads to the outskirts of Lille. All of this meant that we missed the other two bands (apart from the last few notes of Le Duc's last song). But it was OK, since Syd played another mind-stretching, life-affirming set, worth a trip across the channel in itself.
The main feature of this was the presence of Joel and Liam's brother Josh on drums, filling in for Fred (sadly still out of action with tinnitus/eardrum problems). Not an easy set to learn, but they'd got it together in four days. Apparently the first night in Lille wasn't so great, the second night (up at a political "no borders" event in Amsterdam) was better, and by the Saturday evening they were on fire. The drumming situation meant that everyone had to be even more attentive and attuned, which gave the set an extra edge. Understandably, it was roughly the same material that I saw them play at Smugglers Festival and LOTF this summer (old favourites soon to be unveiled on the imminent album, Moving World material and some of the extremely promising newer pieces like "Edge of the Earth" and "Dorothy"). But as I've said before, these songs seem to have lives of their own, ever-changing internal structures, so it's not like listening to the same old stuff — there's a continuous process of reinvention at work here. Raven's wild violin work on "Exit Domino" was a particular highlight, momentarily turning the band into a thrashier version of Mahavishnu Orchestra, before (with their characteristically perfect dynamical control) they dropped back down to whisper-volume.
Excellent sound, no technical hitches. Sven pointed out that Liam had a bit more reverb on his vocals than usual, not sure if that was the band's choice or whoever was doing the sound, but it worked. I surprised Raven by appearing at the front just before they encored with "Ode to the Summer" (followed by its wonderful B-side "Black Wave" as second encore). The Lille crowd loved them, seemingly were familiar with some of the songs (possibly via the Le Duc connection). It was heartening to witness them so ecstatically received by a crowd that wasn't largely made up of friends and associates (the usual situation when they play in East Kent).
I noticed that Raven was using a "Face Lift" fuzz pedal. I'm not really up on my music technology, but I'd not come across one of these until a few days earlier, when Margate-based guitarist Mark Hewins showed me an interview he'd filmed with his collaborator Hugh Hopper, wherein Hugh discussed the various pedals he used. He starts off with the older models, and then moves on to the various innovations. "I'd like to think this was named after a tune I once wrote", he said modestly when introducing the Face Lift:
I mentioned this to Raven afterwards, and it turns out that they're the same pedal! Hugh's widow Christine has not only entrusted his famous Fender Jazz bass (and tape archive) with Joel, she's said that she's more than happy for the band to use any of Hugh's pedals.
Some kind of glossy "classic rock" magazine recently gave the band an enthusiastic full-page feature under the strapline "On the Threshold". I assume this is a feature for bands seen as being on the threshold of commercial success and recognition. This may be the case (time will tell), but personally I think Syd Arthur are "on the threshold" of something far more important than that. Rob Young's Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music which I've recently finished, identifies a certain quality of longing for some lost unknown something (Eden, a Golden Age, the "Garden" which Joni M told us we had to get back to) which runs through a lot of the music he writes about (Nick Drake and the classic Fairport material being particularly good examples). I think if he were familiar with Syd's music (and Liam's songwriting in particular), he'd pick up on the same current of feeling running through it.
We headed back to Gent for a lazy Sunday. Sven and I were tempted to head up to Amsterdam for the Sunday night gig at the massive ADM squat from which the Bucket Boyz (who Sven turns out to know) operate... but it looked like it was going to involve a lot of rushing around the next day, so we let that go. We attempted some guitar/saz jamming, but got distracted and ended up talking about various weirdnesses in the Old Testament until it was rather late! I did almost learn a new tune of his — he's written a song about waiting outside a squat with his friend Eunis for a taxi that never came. Out in the old city that night, we stepped outside the cafe where we were having coffee so that Sven could smoke, heard some live music from the cafe next door: a guitarist who seemingly wanted to play like Django, with a saxophonist who wanted to play like Pharaoh Sanders, creating a rather curious, ramshackle musical friction. But Gent just keeps on being Gent... I really must spend more time there.
The Black Griffin down in Canterbury High Street (having now returned to its venerable name after an unfortunate stint as "The Hobgoblin", thanks to a temporary takeover by Wychwood Brewery) has been putting on local bands on Monday night, I've just discovered. Last Monday it was Famous James and the Monsters (now a seven-piece with Phil Holmes on sax/accordion/chalumeau, Phil Self on mandolin and John on additional percussion). I missed Rob Gambell supporting, apparently an incredible set from him — I thought he'd moved to Bath to study stonemasonry, perhaps just back for the gig? "The Fruit Group" were playing when I arrived, sounded very competent, but I was immediately dismayed by the whole crowded, noisy pub environment. Hardly anyone really engaging with the music, the whole space set up wrong for live bands, the usual problems. So I got onto a bit of a negative one about it all, but was happy to see quite a few familiar faces, so I stuck around.
But FJ&TM rose above this. They surfed on it... A noisy crowded pub energy somehow got pulled in, channeled and redirected, and it was as if they were carrying us all along with them. The material helps: instantly catchy tunes (although often with quite intricate structures), warm, uplifting harmonies, lyrics that you don't need to fully hear in order to "get" where the band are coming from.... some of the time the whole place seemed to be singing along with songs they didn't know. Recent recruit Josh Magill's drumming was a huge part of the equation, but everyone was contributing (just a shame Jamie's vocal harmonies and Phil's mandolin were a bit lost in the mix, but overall the sound was remarkably clean). There was a timeless wildness about it all — the people of Canterbury have no doubt been drinking ale and getting merry to lively music in public houses for many centuries, and this slotted very comfortably into that tradition.
Will, Billy and Dave from Cocos Lovers were there to check out Phil's latest musical involvement (and signing to Smugglers Records), I had a good chat with Will outside afterwards about their latest direction, plans for a third album and how they intend to record it.
Three fashionable young Californians were standing near me, clearly amazed by what they were hearing and seeing around them. One of them asked me the name of the band, noted it down on his iPhone, and then said "This is a really cool country you've got here!". I suspect they were touring Europe and this was their first night in England, which they assumed was like this everywhere, all the time. If only!
More of this stuff, mostly sessions featuring Phil (and sometimes Adam) from Lapis Lazuli during the last couple of months of last year. A couple of tracks are just Miriam and Phil, from when I was away in Wales.
The weekly sessions thus far in 2012 (including an excellent one last night) have all involved our Canadian friend Paul Clifford playing percussion, bells, whistles, mbira, ukelele, harmonica, singing, and generally livening the sound up. We just need to sort Tom out with a decent battery-powered bass amp (playing off-grid, the best we've got right now is a "Honeytone" ukelele amp — my saz sounds rather tinny through it, but acceptable... it's just not a bass amp though!)
This is "The Anvil", an Irish tune. I can be heard bashing out rhythm on the saz, with Inge on mandolin, Ruth on fiddle and Jo on wooden flute.
Someone on a similar wavelength in Austin, Texas has been using Children of the Drone music for their website promoting a cultural community food-drive (collecting food for the poor and homeless). If you load this page it just starts playing — took me a while to recognise...stuff from one of the early compilations, I think, hadn't heard it in ages. One of the nice things about making our music available via a Creative Commons license is that like-minded people end up using it for creative purposes without necessarily asking, so these things turn up as pleasant surprises every now and again.
Local jazz pianist Sam Bailey (I've seen him around, playing with the-quartet, also sitting in with local Afrobeat band Mr. Lovebucket) has started hosting a series of sixteen weekly avant-garde nights up at the Veg Box Cafe (above Canterbury Wholefoods) under the banner "Free Range". It's good to see the space being used in the evenings like this (they've just got an alcohol license up there, which makes it economically viable).
Each of these nights is going to feature Sam playing a brief set of improvised piano pieces. This first time we got three miniatures and one slightly longer one. I feel like I lack the necessary vocabularly to describe free solo piano improv, but I remember being grateful to be there and grateful that everyone there was actually listening (the place was full, and everyone gave the music their attention, a welcome change from usual gig experiences).
The main act was Evan Parker with Matt Wright, part of the Trance Map project which involves sound artists manipulating Parker's free soprano sax improv to create new works.
Matt Wright's based at the music department here at Christchurch, and along with the ubiquitous silver Mac laptop and tableful of electronics, I notice a single turntable. My initial reaction, I must admit, was one of cynical suspicion. Ever since Babu from Dilated Peoples introduced the word "turntablism" (to give appropriate artistic status recognition to what were previously seen as merely subspecies of DJs), sound artists with no grounding in hiphop culture and no "skills" (the American pluralisation is acceptable in this usage!) have been making horrible noises using turntables and then calling it "turntablism". I saw a particularly bad example of this at The Phoenix in Exeter back in 2002, an event quite accurately billed as "Turntable Hell" (about a dozen different "artists", each abusing their own deck(s)). But from the moment MW put his hand to the vinyl my prejudices went out the window. The man has skills! I have no idea if he grew up as a hiphop kid and then got into sound art (he was born in '77, so quite plausible) or studied independently, but it had all the charge and excitement of seeing a cutting edge hiphop DJ in action, his hand on the crossfader was a blur... AND with the added feature of one of the world's great free improvisers sitting next to him, pouring forth a soup of what sounded like musical machine code interspliced with alien birdsong. There was nothing remotely funky about what was going on, no obvious jazzy breaks or anything particularly 'hiphop' sounding, and when I peered over after they'd finished to see what vinyl he'd actually been working with, discovered some ancient looking test discs with single frequency tones as tracks.
I noticed later on that Matt Wright was sort of twitching with one hand in the air while he was engrossed with something on his laptop, engaging the use of his other hand. At first I thought that this was just him "getting into it", but gradually realised that he was interacting with some kind of theremin-like device. He was also occasionally creating acoustic sounds with bells and rattles, then processing these. To be honest, it wasn't that easy to work out where any of the sounds were coming from (apart from the obvious sounds from Parker's pre-amplified sax), but this was easily one of the most successful examples I've seen of a human-machine interface making music that couldn't otherwise be made (the other end of the spectrum from the keyboard player in some early 90's indie-dance crossover band spasming around to create the impression that he was actually doing something, when everything was clearly sequenced). The only thing comparable I can think of having seen was Leafcutter John with Polar Bear (the first time I saw them, in particular). And some of the footage of Venetian snares I've seen suggested a similar level of organicity.
I have no idea how long their set lasted. We were told to expect about 45 minutes, but it felt like it went on for hours, so the "trance" part obviously worked (or at least like me). There were so many textures and sonic spaces they moved through that I can no longer remember (being entranced, as I was), but I do remember parts of it reminding me of a more edgy, urban reworking of Jon Hassell and Brian Eno's overlooked 1980 classic Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics.
[Postscript:] Well now I know that the set was indeed just 45 minutes, as Sam's uploaded a recording to Soundcloud:
His solo piano set seemingly went unrecorded, but the next week's (which I was unable to attend has surfaced):
Finally got around to editing a few months of Random Article weekly improv jams. This stuff's largely just me (saz) and Miriam (voice, violin, percussion) as Tom (bass) was down in Thanet and generally skint during this time. (He's now employed and regularly jamming with us again, we're glad to say.)
Musical brother Sven over in Gent brought me a copy of his band Sidi Caravan's new album Congé Payé when he was over in the autumn, and I've been meaning to write something about it ever since. Waiting to get into the right unhurried headspace to give it a really good, attentive listen. Volume 2 of my trilogy is finally out (phew!), so now is the time.
Anyway, I'm now very familiar with this record. At least musically. There's a dimension to it which I feel rather on the outside of — as a Belgian, Sven's happily switching between numerous languages (Flemish, French, Spanish, Italian, English, various dialects of these, and even some Arabic I think). As a hopeless English person, most of this is lost on me. And there's clearly a lot of humour going on, a central part of the work, which I'm unable to get (unless explained to me). Knowing Sven, who was once in a band along similar lines to Ween, with the ability to parody just about any style of music/lyrics, I'm guessing that the sophistication of the humour here is on a par with The Simpsons or South Park (you'd not get a lot out of these if you didn't understand more than a few words of English). So I'm only getting a partial view here.
This is the first Sidi Caravan album, a long time coming, after numerous studio/mixing issues came up along the way. So they're primarily a live band (who I've not yet seen, although I'm in no doubt that they're hugely entertaining). But this means that some of the more repetitive passages, which I can imagine working really well in a live context, seem just a bit too repetitive on record. But if I got the jokes, perhaps not...
They weave in and out of reggae/dub vives, accordion-led Parisian cafe sounds, West African-style guitar music, Hammond-driven funk, raï, flamenco, drum'n'bass, ragga, with Sven singing, speaking sedutive lines in a presumed parody of bad 70's soul records, rapping remarkably well (for someone who generally dislikes hiphop), toasting, deliving Indian tabla rhythms vocally (as tabla players traditionally do), crooning, and at one point (on the title track) impersonating a priest delivering a Latin mass incantation.
That title track is nine minutes, consisting of numerous tableau-like sections, some rapping in Spanish, heavy funk, a percussion break, some weird noise, house-like beats...intriguing, but as I said, as a linguistically-challenged Englishman, I feel rather left out of the joke. Fortunately, Sven has explained (by text message): "The song is about the remarkable and strong duality in Italian society. At one side a tendency towards an easy going sometimes very romantic veiw of life and on the other a strong tendency twoards uniformity and norm (here personififed by the most popular black sheep: the Old Bill (Italian state police, properly named 'questura' = 'the questioners') and the Catholic Church." The title means "paid holiday" in a dialect of French spoken by Flemish people (or something).
There are a couple of songs that I'm familiar with from having played them with Sven a few times in recent years: "Fatima", and "De Plong" (you can hear rough campfire versions here and here)...the latter I knew as "When Diamanda Galas Sang 'My World Is Empty Without You Babe'". These are easily two of Sven's best compositions, and "Fatima" in particular deserves to be heard far and wide (yes even farther and wider than the open mic night at The Smack in Whitstable...) "De Plong" involves some effective accordion, a lot of thought has cleary gone into the production of this...big full clean sound, nice separation... and some weird, almost Moog-y, stuff going on in places.
"Tout Seul" starts off with an flamenco-like contemplative flourish, Sven managing to make his guitar sound quite oud-like before a D'n'B beat kicks in. The bass playing is super-solid throughout the album. This tracks's got a bit of a darker urgency about it than the rest, and a nice dub section with occasional returns to the oud-like flamenco bit.
"Fumeur" start with a bit of ragga chant, then a bhangra beat...sounds like a celebration of Sven's favourite herb. I have no idea what's going on lyrically, but Various kinds of chanting gradually give way to some kind of (no doubt intentionally) cheesy house beats supplemented by some awesome electric guitar (with a Tinariwen-like abrasive African lo-fi tone). Then a kind of "planetary disco" vibe takes over (sounds like the whole world is present), Sven toasting repeatedly over another dub riddim into the closing seconds.
The album packaging features some 50's B-movie comic-style art involving the band members, further evidence that they don't take themselves terribly seriously. This mix of silliness and seriousness is arguably both a strength and a weakness on this album (only a weakness to the language-ignorant such as myself, though). I'll have to get Sven to explain the rest of the tracks to me (or else learn a load of languages).
Mainly this just makes me want to spend more time playing music with Sven, and engaging with the creative multicultural energies bubbling away in Gent which, if I think about it, really isn't that much farther from Canterbury than London is.
On returning from the West, apart from a winter solstice sunrise ramble out to the little known neolithic long barrow known as "Julliberrie's Grave" a few miles west of Canterbury, I was completely immersed in finishing Volume 2 of the trilogy of maths books I've been working on for quite a while now. Matt T was due to visit after Christmas for the final push, and I had a lot to prepare in those few days before he came, so I worked right through Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day... Actually, Christmas Eve I did briefly stop by The Unicorn in St. Dunstans to catch up with a cluster of Furthur/Dawn Chorus/Sondryfolk friends. I'd just been given a copy of Rob Young's Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music, a truly wonderful present, by Miriam, so I had that with me... everyone very interested, as would be expected — Dawson spotted the Simon Reynolds quote on the cover and so we ended up discussing his "Hardcore Continuum" essays and recently 'created' genre which he's calling "hypnagogic pop".
Josh Magill was down there too, along with most of the rest of the family, and mentioned a joint birthday party with Lapis/Delta drummer Adam to be held at The Bungalow on the Old Dover Road on the 27th, so I allowed myself to get out to that too. When I arrived, there was a thunderous two-drumkit jam going on in the rehearsal room, Adam and Josh drumming (naturally) with Cameron, Phil and Neil from Lapis respectively on bass, sax and guitar. I stuck my head in to listen and Neil (as always) immediately suggested plugging my saz in. So I did. I didn't realise this was being recorded, but Phil later sent me some MP3s, so I've made a little edit of the better stuff where I can be heard:
Matt was down the next evening, and we worked flat out to finish the book...which we did, achieving our end-of-2011 deadline with a few hours to spare! So we still got to enjoy New Year's Eve. Miriam and her friend Mark (who once came along and jammed with us during one of our Random Article sessions) were performing as a duo for a feast being held in the cafe part of the Goods Shed, the farmers' market near Canterbury West station, where Miriam sometimes works. So we dropped in to listen to the second set and furtively sip local ales in the shadows. They played a mix of jazz standards, Django, klezmer, a little bit of rebetika (Mark plays bouzouki as well as guitar), Miriam singing and playing violin. The highlight came right at the end, when Miriam made a little announcement and then suddenly they were singing an a cappella version of the revolutionary 17th century Diggers' anthem "The World Turned Upside Down" to the (presumably mostly well-off) diners. Ha! Wonderful... I know she learned that one from Chumbawamba's English Rebel Songs while working on a theatre piece about the Luddites some years ago. Then it was back up to the woods for a big fire, more ale and general merriment. Matt disappeared briefly at one point and reappeared with his bouzouki (Mark didn't join us)...at one point I (blurrily) remember him jumping over the fire while playing it. At some point both Miriam and I must have disappeared and reappeared with our instruments, 'cos at one point we were all playing together. I remember thinking "This seems in tune, in time, generally rather together, but I doubt that it actually is..." I'm glad some music got played anyway, regardless of what the wildlife made of it.
Matt and I also paid a visit to Muskie Studio, the little twinkly, padded caravan space our Canadian friend Paul Clifford has put together on a farm in the bleak, flat, cabbage-growing area near Ash. He and his wife Anne are always a joy to be around. Paul played us some of his recent solo recordings, he and Matt discussed studio technique and technology... I can't even begin to describe what his stuff sounds like, as it has a Beefheart-like refusal (or inability?) to conform to any sort of convention or expectation (without sounding like Beefheart). He also told us about his friend Michael J. Ward-Bergeman who he plays with in Groanbox who's just finished up a self-imposed project called "Gig 365" (yes, that's a whole year of gigging every day, without fail, a "gig" being defined as a public performance of at least half an hour to at least two people...and he succeeded, while travelling around the planet, playing in chip shops in Thanet, airports in Latin America...)
Paul also made it to a recent Random Article improv session for the first time in a while (we've switched our weekly night from Thursdays to Wednesdays so we can check out Sam Bailey and Evan Parker's new "Free Range" nights up at the Veg Box Cafe on Thursdays). That one was him, Miriam, Tom and I. Still haven't listened back. In fact, I've a huge backlog of RA jams I really must get around to editing. Sigh...
And even more recently, last Sunday, Andy R and I met up as usual to play Go at his house in Wincheap. Fellow resident Ash's newish band Famous James and the Monsters were rehearsing in the cellar, now with Phil Self from Cocos Lovers (also living in the house) on mandolin, Josh Magill from Zoo For You on drums, and a couple of other people borrowed from other bands filling out the sound. We were directly above them, in the front room, contemplatively placing black and white stones on a grid while Helen painted and collaged and told us about her experiences with the "Occupy" movement in London. From below came the sound of an incredible band, on top form, blasting through their set, punctuated by whoops and hollers and the usual ridiculous banter...but it felt like being at our own private gig (with the band, bizarrely playing from under the floor) than overhearing a rehearsal. Superb. They're more of a "good time" band than the various prog-psych-math-post-rock bands that have come out Canterbury in recent times, but there's nothing wrong with that. And I could sense some complex shifting polyrhythmic something creeping in there via Josh's excellent beats, so they may become far more than just a good time band. They've a gig soon at The Black Griffin — I expect I shall be there...
No particular theme this time, but a lot of tracks featuring the wind playing of Pye Hastings' brother Jimmy (so a lot of Caravan, but also some Hatfield and National Health, as well as something entriely unexpected from 2001). Also, Ollie Halsal at his finest, Hugh Hopper and Robert Wyatt (still) experimenting with tape loops in the late 90's, a Malian woman singing Wyatt's "Alifib", obscure hiphop beats based on loops of Canterbury material, and a drunk-but-functioning Whole World playing up a storm in London's Hyde Park, summer 1970.
I just got my sister Kate and her family a copy of the Soundwayscumbia compilation Cartagena! for Christmas. She's adopted a couple of Columbian kids and wants to expose them to their native culture so I thought this might be a good contribution! It's compiled by someone who Joel and Sarah know from their village of Batcombe in Somerset, along with Quantic. That's Will Holland, formerly of Quantic Soul Orchestra, now living in Columbia leading a mighty cumbia band. They played one of the most incredible sets I've ever seen on the Furthur stage at LOTF in 2010, that wonderful sunny weekend of musical amazingness I was involved in helping out with.
Here they are in Paris the previous autumn (skip ahead to about 0:35):
Ail Fionn live in Alan's mum's front room, Ballincollig, December 2003
Alan's mum dug out a videotape when I was visiting just before summer solstice this year, Tim helped transfer it onto DVD, and I've finally worked out how to extract and edit the files. I'd completely forgotten about this session — Inge and I were visiting Alan in West Cork shortly before his move to Aotearoa (New Zealand), and we all turned up at his mum's in Ballincollig just outside Cork City one evening (she filmed this very enthusiastically).
There must be other bits of Ail Fionn footage floating about out there (I can remember a Swiss cameraman filming us atop Silbury Hill in summer 1995, for example). Hopefully more of it will come our way. At the moment there's just this, and the little clip of us playing at Pixies Hall.
Joel was playing his hurdy-gurdy with a violin bow in order to keep the volume down (it was past midnight, and we didn't want to disturb the neighbours). Lots of modal jamming in the key of G. He's not been getting enough sleep (studying osteopathy full time and bringing up a high-energy kid), so this wasn't us at our most energetic...in fact, the "clunk" you can hear at the end of the last track is the sound of his bow hitting the floor (he'd fallen asleep while playing)! An enjoyable session though. We always conclude that we should get together and play more, but life, you know...
I spent a couple of days in Batcombe between Bristol and West Wales (where I am now). The last night in Bristol was spent in Easton with Sophie (from Sondryfolk) and her sister Laura who've recently moved into a house there. When S and I came in out of the torrential rain, Laura was in the middle of learning some raags from Oshan of The Turbans (she on harmonium, he on open-tuned guitar). He had to leave shortly thereafter, was hoping to return with his bouzouki for a jam, but that didn't work out. As a result of this, I learned that Sophie's studied violin in Varanasi, where Joel once studied tabla, and Matt Spacegoat learned to play sitar. We spent the evening by the fireplace, listening to my selections from the stack of vinyl that the previous tenants had abandoned: Nic Jones, who I'd previously heard about but never heard, Tim Buckley's Starsailor, Jah Shaka, Astral Weeks and Captain Beefheart's Doc at the Radar Station. I'd always assumed that the latter was one of Beefheart's lesser works, but had been chatting to Simon, the husband of Maddie's friend Lucy, in a pub a couple of days earlier about music (he let slip that he'd agitated to have Wire's "I Am the Fly" as the first dance at their weddding reception (!), so I immediately liked him), and he surprised me by saying that he thought this was his best album. It was quite odd finding it so soon after (the first time I've ever had access to a physical copy I'm quite sure). He described having recently seen The Magic Band live (Keith from COTD had told me about seeing them in Falmouth when we were Droning a week or so earlier), also turned out to know Angelo Bruschini (who I saw numerous times in the Blue Aeroplanes between '88 and '92, now doing very well for himself as Massive Attack's guitarist) and spoke enthusiastically about Robert Wyatt's "Born Again Cretin". In the course of this conversation, we discovered that we were born five days apart! (and this wasn't so long after Maddie and I discovered that we were born ten years apart to the day.) Note to self: stop using so many parentheses!
Sue Cross over in Normandy was just in touch again about another of her "animated recipes" involving music from the Dongas' Rainy Night in the Bell Tent collection. This time it's a marmalade recipe, using the Armenian tune "Ambee Dagez" (featuring my saz a bit more prominently than most of the tracks on that tape). She says:
"...it is perfect because it conveys what I am trying to do with the recipe to show that organic food, cooking and traditional recipes know no boundaries, they all 'feed' into each other. As the Moors brought the bitter orange to Andalucia for perfume and medicinal use and then, as legend has it, a ship laden with fruit was forced into Dundee...marmalade is a true mixture of cultures. I think the music fits really well although I hope you don't mind I snipped off a little at the start to get it to time in with my dancing, whirling fruit. I also put a short piece of Chinese music in the middle when I make the ginger root part of the recipe — I used Chinese organic ginger."
If you've not seen them, her animations for courgette cake and Christmas pudding are here and here, respectively.
Weirdly though, in between her contacting me the first time, and then sending me the Youtube link, I did a quick "Ambee Dagez" search to see if I could find it myself, and I found this, using a different version of the tune, this time played by me with Ryan Biesack (amazing percussionist) and possibly Vincent Miresse at an open mic somewhere in Wisconsin years ago:
It's a bit weird hearing your music and seeing swastikas, to say the least (especially when there are fez's involved) but this seems to have been uploaded by someone genuinely interested in historical film documents rather than some kind of Nazi enthusiast.
In fact I just found another clip whose soundtrack is 32 seconds of me playing saz, and this is the allies rather than the Nazis, so I feel better now...
Thursday night Random Article improv sessions have been continuing with me (saz), Miriam (violin/voice/percussion), occasionally Tom (bass, now living down near Ramsgate), and guest involvement from Phil, Neil and Adam of Lapis Lazuli, in various configurations. It feels like it's expanding into a bit of a collective. Almost all of this gets recorded and I'll get round to posting some edits when things settle down a bit with the new book, etc.
A couple of Thursdays ago, Phil from Cocos Lovers (living in Canterbury for a while doing a music course) came up, and it was just the two of us playing saz/mandolin jams. Rather nice — hopefully more of this to come...
Phil with Natasha (left) and Nicola (right) from Cocos Lovers
I made a point of integrating a flying visit to Exeter into my current trip to Bristol/Somerset/Wales, timed with the December COTD session. It was worth it — a good one. A nicely mellow, soundscapey kind of session, not much bass (I played some acoustic bass rather badly for a bit before returning to saz) or sustained rhythm. James S did his thing mangling samples of radio evangelists and swallows in his farmhouse with his Kaoss Pad, as well as playing some rather lovely harmonica. Particularly good to see everyone again this time. James T did a couple of bits of poetry, a powerful one about the River Exe (a request from Lucy, who's working on a multimedia piece about the river with Vicky), and another poignant one about aging.
At one point a young woman came in during the middle of one of the three long pieces, whispered something to Keith, then went and unlocked the pipe organ, retrieved some sheet music and departed. He later told us that he'd told her she should join in with us &mdash if only! We've been tempted in the past, but the organ is always locked.
Lucy — alto sax, vocals Annie — alto sax, flute, clarinet, vocals Keith — electric guitar, acoustic bass guitar(?) Brian — keyboard James T — keyboard, percussion, water, poetry James S — Kaoss Pad, khamak, glockenspiel, harmonica, acoustic guitar me — saz, acoustic bass guitar
me (cold in there that night, hence the wooly hat!) and James S — photo by Keith
Annie and Brian — photo by Keith
Lucy and James T— photo by Keith
...then it was on to Bristol for Sondryfolk time, staying with Elise and co. at her new place in St. Werburghs (bringing back mad memories of mad times in the early to mid-90's, getting to know some of the Mina Road squatters). One of her housemates, Felicia (from Eigg!) also plays guitar, and another, Sara from La Rioja has been getting into didg playing, so we've been filling the front room with late night jamming sounds. Elise's guitar playing is all her own, really original, but still quite easy for me to follow. Felicia is more sing/song oriented, got into singing "Cocaine Lil" (a daft old song learned from a John Martyn record, one I know via The Mekons, although existing in numerous forms, this acoustic Grateful Dead version being my favourite, a barely recognisable version of the same thing), which then slipped into the old standard "Hit the Road Jack", one that can just go on and on and on...
And then Saturday night, Melski suggested coming along to the Full Moon Orchestra at the Arnolfini Arts Centre. This is a monthly (well, lunar) open improv session, facilitated by Jesse Morningstar (who comes over from Paris every month for it) and various guest "conductors". Some of the "conductions" worked, some were farcical, but the whole experience was entertaining. Musical coughing, musical pingpong, a "score" based on the timings of coloured balls being potted in a snooker video, etc. Mel got up and took us through a four-part minimalist thing in the Aeolian mode which she called "Steve Reich Eclipses the Moon with His Great Big Cape" or something (there had been a lunar eclipse that afternoon, but unfortunately not one visible from Bristol).
Afterwards, in the cafe/bar, Melski wanted to introduce me to Jesse, in a slightly forced (but hilarious) kind of "psychedelic man, meet psychedelic man" way, but he's lovely and we had a great chat about what he's doing with his wife (a.k.a. This Is The Kit), potential Kentish connections, a Krautrock-obsessed friend of his in Canterbury who I've never met, and Jesse's days back in The Moonflowers (late 80's/early 90's psych band who I'd completely forgotten, but then suddenly remembered — John Peel sessions, controversial opposition to the Poll Tax and 1991 Gulf War, tours with The Levellers, etc.)
Then home to sit up pouring over some number theory literature at 3a.m. listening to Pharaoh Sanders ("Astral Travelling", etc.) with Felicia, Sara and friends, in late from a party...Sarah's boyfriend Jack is deep into his late-period Coltrane and delighted me by putting Thembi on. Oh, and a really good robotics/neural nets/parapsychology/philosophy-of-science conversation with the German roboticist next-door neighbour that afternoon, too — I like Bristol.
...in which I explore Canterbury connections with Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd (mostly Soft Machine related, but not all), including some remarkable Floyd recordings you've probably never heard. Also, some very free jazz from Lol and Didier, more incredible autumn '67 Soft Machine from French telly, Kev and Daev reunited, Matching Mole live, a beautiful two-part cover of "O Caroline"... and Caravan playing with an orchestra and getting away with it (arguably).
This was another excellent event brought to us by the Smugglers Records crew from the nearby town of Deal. The church was entirely unknown to me, despite being enormous on the inside (you'd never know from the outside), and really quite beautiful. Will Greenham from Smugglers had only found out about it a few weeks earlier, but by the end of the night was describing it as "Kent's best venue". I could almost agree — the acoustics were just slightly soupy, but this was made up for by just about everything else about the place.
Canterbury's Arlet collective, who play in a kind of 'chamber-folk' style and are one of my very favourite things in the world these days, started things off with a 45-minute set of utter gorgeousness. The first piece was perhaps a little tenuous, but Rosie (violin) explained that they'd played it for the first time that afternoon in Owen's kitchen, so fair enough. They performed as the full six-piece (Cameron Dawson having recenly got involved on double bass, despite being in two other Canterbury bands and studying music in Brighton!), with some pieces played as a five-, four- or three-piece. Aidan Shepherd, who plays accordion and writes all the material, seems to be moving more in the chamber direction than the folk direction with pieces like the superb new "Para Lucia" (a demo version of which I played on Episode 14 of my Canterbury Soundwaves podcast recently). Something about the use of reed instruments in his compositions really reminds me of Lindsay Cooper's work, both within Henry Cow (e.g., Western Culture) as well as her solo compositions (e.g., The Golddiggers soundtrack). I have no idea how familiar Aidan is with Lindsay Cooper, but if he isn't, I'll make sure he gets to hear some of her stuff before too long!
I may have had Canterbury music on the brain, having just been working on the podcast, but during one piece (the name of which I missed), Aidan took a brief but imaginative accordion solo over a colourfully pulsing minimalist backdrop and I could hear (indirectly, filtered through my particular neural pathways) Dave Sinclair tearing into another wonderful organ solo over the classic-era Caravan groove. Interestingly, Libby leaned over afterwards and mentioned that she could hear Vaughan Williams. "Very English music," added Dave (meaning that in the best possible sense). And that's something you often hear said about Caravan's best stuff ("pastoral", "quintessentially English")... so arguably there is a line through all of these points.
Ben (acoustic guitar) was subtly amplified (the others played unamplified), which meant you could hear him a bit better than usual, Thom played the whole set on euphonium (he usually plays trombone in the Zoo For You horn section, but was switching between the two last time I saw Arlet). Owen (clarinet) and Rosie just soared throughout.
I got a very nice recording of this on my Zoom H2, some of which may make it onto my next podcast. Unfortunately (for us, not for him), Owen's off travelling in South America for a few months soon, but Aidan assured me that Arlet will be continuing is some adapted form until he's back.
There's been a very welcome development in my non-musical life in Canterbury connected to Arlet: Andy Renshaw, who plays bodrhán in the Irish/Breton folk trio Triskele with Ben, was looking for someone to teach him how to play the ancient Chinese board game Go, so I did. He's really taken to it, so we now find ourselves at the centre of a regular Sunday evening Go circle involving Ben and Owen (both of whom we taught to play, and took to it rapidly) as well as Kirby from the now-defunct Furthur collective (who already played, I discovered accidentally) and Chris Banks, an excellent 12-string guitarist I've seen around at open mics, etc. over the years (turns out he studied classical Chinese at university years ago). Others have expressed an interest in learning, so this is likely to expand. I'd forgotten how enjoyable it is to spend an evening contemplatively placing black and white stones on a grid, listening to music with a group of like-minded people. And Andy's always got an excellent choice of music playing. When I used to play Go down in Penzance in the 90's with the West Cornwall Go Club, it was almost always Eno's ambient stuff, whereas this is a lot more varied: Miles, Coltrane, Fela Kuti, Mulatu Astatke, Dr. John, Roy Ayers, Spirit of Eden — it's almost worth going along just for his playlists.
Will Varley was up next, playing pretty much the entirety of his new album Advert Soundtracks. I've been meaning to write something about this for a while, so now is probably the time. I'd heard all of these songs live before, some quite a few times. The exception was "Zetlands", the dreamy, almost Springsteen-like (in a very un-American way) "let's get out of this town" kind of escapist fantasy song. Apart from that one, and the sureally amusing "Monkey on a Rock" (the perfect encapsulation in absurd popsong format of just how confusing it is to be a young person in early 21st century Britain), Will's songs to date are eloquently angry dissections of modern British social reality and global injustice (and the odd bitter song of lost love). He's well aware of his Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan/Billy Bragg lineage (I've seen his CD collection!). "Sound of the Markets Crashing" strongly parallel's BB's "Ideologies" ("...the sound of ideologies clashing"), just dragged up to date to address a looming global economic crisis, while Bragg was writing about the stagnancy of status quo politics in 80's Britain. "I Still Think of You Sometimes", a kind of hate/love song, has always reminded me of Dylan's "Idiot Wind" in its sustained lyrical bitterness. He's got a powerful voice, a real way with words (songs like "Newborn" are pure poetry), and if you haven't heard him yet, then Advert Soundtracks is the perfect introduction. It was recorded very quickly (as intended) by Dave Hatton from Cocos Lovers, with just a tiny bit of backing vocal from Nicola and violin from Natasha — this minimal approach suits what he's doing perfectly.
Listening to a Will Varley set (and this was a particularly good example, a strong performance, extremely well received) is a bit like reading an issue of Adbusters magazine — impressive, thought provoking, hard to find fault with...and yet ultimately a bit depressing. You need a bit of hope along with all the critical analysis of the forces relentlessly polluting our mental environment. But at least Will's got a sense of humour. I'm more interested in what he's going to do next than in what he's achieved thus far. He's particularly good at writing about what he doesn't like about the world, but I'd like to hear what kind of world he does want to see. He's escaped London (from where a lot of these angry songs stem), found a like-minded community of friends and musicians on the Kent coast, and has clearly been much inspired by recent progressive and community-building events like Smugglers Festival in early September and the Sondryfolk gathering in late October. So I'm already waiting for the second album to see how all of this is going to affect what he's got to say.
Cocos completed a near-perfect evening of music. Not so many of the obvious stompy favourites — I was very pleased to hear "Awake You Loon" (played for the first time in a couple of years) and "Van Rogue" (recently revived, with Natasha playing some musical saw and harmonica). Billy again swapped his bass for Will's acoustic guitar and sung an impressive "Barcelona" (you'd never have guessed he's only just started singing lead vocals). I spent a lot of the set thinking about "Oh Rosa (The Drowned Sailor)", a song I've not heard them do for over a year — wondering if I'd ever hear it live again...so I was particularly happy when they encored with that. They played it because it was Ash's birthday, and it's his favourite. He ended up on stage, a huge grin beneath a ridiculous blob of tinsel and tied-up dreadlocks, singing backing vocals alongside Nicola and Natasha. This is Ash who was once (still?) in the Ukelele Gangstas, now leads Famous James & the Monsters, a band who rehearse in the Wincheap house where Andy's hosting the Sunday Go sessions...Phil from Cocos recently moved in (he's doing a music course at Christchurch), bringing the banjo-playing population of the house up to a staggering three, and he's now playing some mandolin with the Monsters, whose new drummer is Josh Magill from Zoo For You, so suddenly quite a band!
