Monthly Revelations (June)
ALBUM – in the preparation of my penultimate edition of KLANGHORIZONTE on July 31, I came across a little masterpiece from the genre of „where-am-i-music“. „Different Rooms“ ist the third International Anthem Release from the duo Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer following their beatiful collaboration with Monsieur Kalma. The photo here is from that awesome solo album by Amina Claudine Myers, titled (for good reasons) „Solace of the Mind“ that was another hot contender for the „album of June“! (On the fine „Zen Sounds“-blog, Stephan Kunze just reviewed three albums from jazz and beyond, and one of them is the terrific „Different Rooms“. The other two are Mary Halverson‘s „About Ghosts“ and, well, „Solace of the Mind“!)
FILM – A few days ago, Richard Williams wrote a review about a movie that every flowworker will, I think, love, or, at least, like very much. The good thing is: it will soon arrive in German cinemas. So i know what some of you will be doing on a nice midsummer evening. Don‘t hesistate to spread word and set the exepectations high in regards to „The Ballad Of Wallis Island“. A film about a „corporate“, a well-paid private gig for rich people. Dear all, please rememeber, on a legendary meeting of Manafonistas years and years back on the island of Sylt, I planned such a „corporate“ with „The Sheriffs of Nothingness“ on Rantum Beach, the deal was nearly realized when the project stopped because two or three Manas simply didn‘t like that great duo as much as I did. In fact It was the only summer of my life I could call myself rich for a while. Maybe I should have asked Roedelius…
PROSE – You‘ll find there my great and deep reading pleasuree of the last two years in the wide field of great crime novels. Literally literary crime novels, beautifully written, with a sense for excellent plotting, suspense, and three dimensional figures. Among these books is one of the deepest Swedish crime novels since the days of Stig Larsson, „Wenn die Nacht endet“ by Christoffer Carlsson!
TALK – Remember the conversation with Jan Bang and Erik Honoré on their collaboration with David Sylvian, especially the one that led to his later days masterpiece „Manafon Variations“. You can atill read it on the blog diary, and for two months, it was placed in our TALK column. And, here we go, for a second month, with Beatie Wolfe‘s „solo talk“ from Brian Eno‘s studio in Notting Hill. She recorded it top-notch, and it is even a joy to listen to her, if you haven‘t been falling in love with „Luminal“ as I did from first listen onwards.
- BY THE WAY, LAJLA, DID LUMINAL ARRIVE IN EL HIERRO FINALLY?)
- Estoy muy contendo. Gracias!
RADIO – My evening hour of KLANGHORIZONTE will be aired on July 31, 9.05 p.m., and, no surprise, I am still looking for the perfect sequencing of the most beautiful albums. Thus, it can look different every day. And the best sequence means: not every fine album fits that hour – Amina‘s „Solace of the Mind“ still hasn‘t found its place, nor has Fred Hersch‘s forthcoming trio album on ECM with Joey Baron and Drew Grass.
BINGE – Just a quiet praise for two new NETFLIX series, „Sirenen“, and „The Survivors“. To quote Lucy Mangan from the Guardian: „Without ever losing its wit or bounce, Sirens becomes a study in family, class and all sorts of other power struggles, the endless possibilities for good and ill that wealth brings, and the legacies of childhood trauma.“
ARCHIVE – Die drei Neil Young-Alben, die den Soundtrack meiner Jahre und Jahre am intensivsten und dauerhaftesten mitgeschrieben haben, heissen „After The Goldrush“, „Tonight‘s The Night“, und „Zuma“. ZUMA wird im November ein halbes Jahrhundert alt.
Private Notice: Of course reading all the reflections
about Neil Young‘s ZUMA,
with its blue notes and silver shimmering,
this album always comes back to you: easy moments,
the fairytale diary, the blues, weightless strolling
under night skies, time standing still,
or time running fast, confusion as
a gateway to the new (and all).
Zuma is a statement, love going full circle.
3 Kommentare
flowworker
In the words of Stephan Kunze aka Zen Sounds (a blog I can only recommend highly, though it costs a little bit of well invested money):
On these calm summer mornings, I sit outside with my coffee and watch the bumblebees as the poppy flowers wake up.
Watching the bumblebees do their work, my mind wanders to Gaza and Tehran, to Kyiv and Los Angeles.
The Buddhist nun and teacher Pema Chödrön urged us to “learn how to relate sanely with difficult times”, instead of adding “more depression, more discouragement, or more anger to what’s already there.”
It’s difficult not to get depressed, discouraged or furious by what’s happening in the world these days.
I’ve asked myself whether I should actually be dealing with issues of music and culture at all right now. The world’s on fire, so how can I spend my time and energy with some new record, book or film?
That type of thinking is tempting, but ultimately destructive.
In fact, I believe it’s more important than ever to speak up for the arts. There’s a reason why fascist regimes go after academics and artists first, and why they suppress free expression through music, literature and cinema.
The arts feel dangerous to them. They’re about beauty and truth, and fascists hate both. Music can bring people together instead of deepening the divisions. It can provide catharsis, but also an escape, if just for a moment in time. The arts have the power to transcend matters of politics and history.
In this newsletter, I am writing mostly about instrumental music which is, to quote Tunisian oudist Anouar Brahem, “by nature an abstract language that does not convey specific ideas. It is aimed more at emotions, sensations, and how it’s perceived varies from one person to another.”
Even without a concrete, political message, this music’s profound humanity can create an antipole to the darkness and despair around us, lending us a slight glimmer of hope, a rush of empathy and compassion – which might be more than any actual protest music could achieve.
The purpose of today’s note is to make you aware of some outstanding instrumental music released over the last weeks.
These three albums below might be filed into jazz, but they explore the genre’s fringes rather than keep to the limits of the classic frameworks. What unites them is that they’re all shaped by improvisational music practice – a tradition rooted in free expression and mindful awareness. Most of all, it requires truly listening to each other.
I think the world could use a little more of this right now.
And then the reviews follow of three wonderful albums: Mary Halverson, Amina Claudine Myers, and „Different Rooms“…
ijb
Das neue Album von Amina Claudine Myers bekomt tatsächlich berauschende Resonanz. Sogar das sehr, sehr mainstreamige Jazzmagazin JazzThing hat Amina gerade auf dem Titel und schreibt, es sei „ein Album für die Ewigkeit“.
Da ich selbst beteiligt war, kann ich verraten, dass daren ganz wesentlich Sun Chungs Arbeit als Produzent und auch als Editor beteiligt ist. Es waren insgesamt vier Recording-Sessions, und Sun hat über Monate die Stücke daraus editiert.
Auf dem YouTube-Kanal von Red Hook Records gibt es seit wenigen Tagen ein kurzes Video mit Einblick ins Studio (war nicht einfach, das zu schneiden, da die endgültigen Stücke so enorm editiert sind … daher passte das Video oft nur sehr kurz… Amina hat viele der Stücke sehr häufig gespielt):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9h5xVOXy8&t=2s
Und ein noch kürzeres Bonus-Video, in dem Amina ein paar Worte über ihren Produzenten sagt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7w9GC44bs
Vor weinigen Wochen waren wir übrigens wieder alle gemeinsam im Studio, um ein Duo-Album mit Wadada aufzunehmen. Diesmal ist Aminas nicht an der Orgel, sondern am Flügel, und ihre Mitwirkung ist etwas umfassender als beim ersten Duoalbum. Ich weiß allerdings nicht, wie zufrieden Sun mit den Aufnahmen ist. Ich kann mir gut vorstellen, dass im Januar noch einmal eine zweite Session angesetzt wird.
flowworker
@ Ingo: von Zen Sounds bis Blue Moment … „What you won’t find here is anything remotely resembling a display of virtuosity. What you might discover, amid an increasingly maddened world, is a welcome point of stillness. Highly recommended.“ (Richard Williams)… in diese Ausgabe von KH passt es bis jetzt nocht rein….mhmmm… ECM feieete da als ihre kleinen Jubiläen der Frühzeit auch auf spezielle Weise, etwa mit ECM 1050 (BELONGING) …. 😉
Vielleicht sitzen einige von uns im Kino zum parallel watching, wenn The Ballad Of Wallis Island in Berlin, Aachen, Frankfurt und sonst überall im April anläuft 😅
Und ob irgendjemand sonst, der hier vorbeikommt, ein so enges Verhältnis zu Zuma oder Agharta hat, finde ich auch sehr interessant.