Monthly Revelations (October)

Curating a month of revelations, is playful, easy, and pure flowwork. You don‘t take it too serious, do it en passant, and with the fun of watching fireworks!

Slight changes, so here is take 2. October’s „flowworker“ albums nearly all by women, Laurie Anderson, Patricia Brennan, Nala Sinephro, Esperanza Spaulding (with Milton Nascimento) – as well as Joni Mitchell‘s adventures in the second half of the 70‘s, in the realm of archival discoveries. Zigzaging through decades amd centuries. Yesterday someone sent me the latest work by Laura Cannell, and listening deeper and deeper – I was bewitched and entranced: „The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined“ are brought to life by a bass recorder, a knee-harp and the fantastic acoustics of an English church. We will return to Laura later!

The movie section includes Martina‘s long text on Wim Wenders‚ “Perfect Days”, and in the „Binge Department“, you’ll find my kind advice to let yourself fall into a ten-part “cop series” set in Mexico in the early 70‘s . The main characters are all women who deal with a serial killer, misogynistic and fascist power structures. What may appear slightly over-staged, with women on the verge of a nervous breakdown and a kind of theatrical decoration overkill, gains depth from minute to minute. Surely more soap opera with an edge than mexican neo-realism, but it works with all its beating hearts! „Women in Blue“ (Apple+) is deeply touching, highly suspenseful and brilliantly acted!

For the “Poetry” section I planned to finally place a long poem on the early years of The American Analog Set. But instead of putting down my words in stream-of-consciousness-style, i was trapped again by the beauty of their music from the 90’s, beautifully packaged in the all-vinyl „New Drifters“- boxset. So, a poem by Peter Rühmkorf did the job. Not out of nowhere. In this year I more than once ai returned to the two ECM albums Peter Rühmkorf made for ECM, with Eberhard Weber, Michael Naura and other fellow travellers. So good. Do yourself a favour and go hunting for a vinyl copy of „Kein Apolloprogramm für Lyrik“.

The conversation with Paul Newland, “The Forests Of Our Mind”, about his album “Muntjac” will remain with us in October. Some more listeners should discover this. From Epping Forest to some other „roots work“ Joe Boyd may have written, after “White Bicycles”, another essential book called „And The Rhythm Will Remain”. With its 900+ pages it may be a challenge – an „e-reader“ is highly recommended.