Manafonistas

„Keigo Higashino’s Journey Under the Midnight Sun is a subversive treasure. One reviewer dubbed him the Japanese Stieg Larsson, and he definitely deserves to be ranked with the titans of the crime genre. And even more so: if David Foster Wallace had written a thriller, it would probably read something like a novel by Keigo Higashino. Compulsion, games, systems within systems, cultural bewitchment, politics: these two writers would have had a lot to discuss.“  

(MTFP HQ)

Irgendwann stand der Philosoph, der auch Kriminalliteratur rezensiert, auf, blickte in die Runde, und sagte, Glut und Asche von James Lee Burke sei einer der zwanzig besten Kriminalromane, die er je gelesen habe. Der Amerikaner ist ein grossartiger Schriftsteller, keine Frage, und jeder, der ihn liest, wird seinen „Liebling-Burke“ haben. Oder mehrere. Was überragende Bücher des Genres angeht, geht kein Weg an Die Tage der Toten von Don Winslow vorbei, oder an Stig Larssons Trilogie. Es gibt private Lieblingsthriller, die hierzulande kaum wahrgenommen werden, wie The Long And Far Away Gone von Lou Berney, oder Endangered von C. J. Box, und es gibt jene raren Meisterwerke, die einen dunklen Sog entfalten, alle Genredefinitionen vergessen machen, zugleich Gesellschaftsroman, Psychothriller, Zeitreisen und sonstwas sind – Unter der Mitternachtssonne von Keigo Higashino gehört sicher in diesen letzten Kreis episch-mäandernder „Schmöker“, in den man sich auf wundersame Weise verlieren kann. Ich würde diesen Weltklasseroman allein deshalb keinem der anderen erwähnten Bücher vorziehen, aber eine Sonderstellung hat dieses Opus schon, was das Verschwimmen der literarischen Zonen angeht (als literarischer Urvater ist es viel näher an Dostojewski als an Twain dran). Auch was die Namen angeht. Jeder, der mal den wilden alten Russen gelesen hat, weiss, dass einem Mitteleuropäer bei den Namen ein regelrechter Schwindel  (incl. Namensgedächtnisverluste) erfassen kann, und das ist bei diesen japanischen Protagonisten kaum anders. Es gibt gleich eine ganze Heerschar, und gute Gründe, sich beim Lesen ein kleines Namensverzeichnis anzulegen, mit kurzen Stichwörtern zu den handelnden Personen. Es funktioniert aber auch ohne eine akribische Notizsammlung: jede Figur wird unverkennbar eingefangen in ihrer ganz eigenen Art, das Lebens zu meistern, oder an ihm zu scheitern (das letzere ist der Normalfall), und so werden die Klänge der anfangs exotischen, kaum erinnerbaren, Namen wie wiederkehrende Motive einer Symphonie von Großstadtstimmen wahrgenommen, die ihre einsamen Totentänze unter der Mitternachtssonne aufführen. In seltsamer Schwerelosigkeit. Was für ein Buch! Und, wenn ich noch eine weitere Allerweltsaussage hinzufügen darf: es ist unendlich spannend – und einer der zehn besten „Kriminalromane“, die ich je gelesen habe.

 
 
vor wenigen tagen ist mir jemand mit den initialen M.E. über den weg gelaufen
ein bunter vogel
 
ich hätte auch gleich schreiben können
noch so ein bunter vogel
 
 

London time travel report, mid-90’s. During that week we (Olaf Saddeler, the photographer, and me) made a lot of interviews for three 90-minute episodes for Michael Naura’s „Jazzlaboratorium“ including meetings and tea time with David Toop, Max Eastley, Robert Hampson (Main) a.o., at their homes or record companies. As these names may tell some of you, Naura let freedom rule and allowed us to leave well-defined jazz fields and dive into the experimental London „underground scene“ (not exclusively, we also talked to a street musician playing, well, „Heart of Gold“, which I think, is the no. 1 evergreen in London tubes and railway stations). Olaf says it was 1995, in my memory it was 1997. I’ve always loved long dark coats, and had been wearing one seven days – it was nearly always raining. When we came to David Toop’s place, there were thousand records, uncountable book shelves. Discreet sadness lingered in the living space – not long before his wife had died, and I’m quite sure writing and listening and making music were essentials in his survival kit – we talked about „Ocean of Sound“ which broke so many frontiers between the ancient and the avantgarde. It was the time when coffee shops in big numbers seemed like being built over night. We had a knack for Indian restaurants, and finally, for the rain. We loved wet clothes, wet hair, wet microphones. We loved walking through Hampsted Heath in the rain. Though it was London, we felt like living in two fucking genius John Fogerty rain songs. P.S. David Toop is in Kristiansand giving a lecture these days at the Punktfestival. Normally I would be there, too, sitting at Mother India with my old friend Christoph Giese sipping Mango Lassi and eating Tandoori chicken. (m.e.)

 

 

„This book was extremely important to me, like finding the key to a puzzle that had eluded me all my life. Basically, how to write up weird ideas without losing readers in the first page and how to make connections that had been deliberately disconnected. It was written in a half-mad state during impossible personal circumstances but the response gave me a confidence I’d never had before. This week it’s re-published – new cover, new subtitle, new author’s note from me and a new forward by novelist Michel Faber. Plus, those typos that have been driving me crazy since 1995 are now corrected.”

 

David Toop

2010 – 2019

first half:

anouar brahem souvenance

jakob bro

oton jon bang

paul bley

second half:

jon balke: siwan

mod

steve tibbetts: life of

OTON ARENI

areni agbabian: bloom

mod

björn meyer: provenance

„Life Of“ is an album that despite the relatively infrequent music making of Steve Tibbetts is well worth the wait for long time fans. For those just entering his singular sound world, it’s an appealing gateway– with the ECM catalog now on Spotify, listeners can check out his previous work with ease. For audiophiles, this album is a treat as Tibbetts mixed the album in the concert hall in Macalester College near his Minnesota home by placing 2 sets of microphones in the hall during playback to capture the rich ambiance. With one set in the center of the hall and one in the rear, it really captures a sonically rich and broad domain. Tibbetts’ guitar tone with its massive depth, fretboard squeaks and fretless like character are enough to captivate the listener for the entire duration of the album along with its meditative mood.

„Life Of“ is an album that despite the relatively infrequent music making of Steve Tibbetts is well worth the wait for long time fans. For those just entering his singular sound world, it’s an appealing gateway– with the ECM catalog now on Spotify, listeners can check out his previous work with ease. For audiophiles, this album is a treat as Tibbetts mixed the album in the concert hall in Macalester College near his Minnesota home by placing 2 sets of microphones in the hall during playback to capture the rich ambiance. With one set in the center of the hall and one in the rear, it really captures a sonically rich and broad domain. Tibbetts’ guitar tone with its massive depth, fretboard squeaks and fretless like character are enough to captivate the listener for the entire duration of the album along with its meditative mood.

CJ Shearn

hilflos
hilflos
better hilflos

hilflos
hilflos
Die wahre Cigarette hilflos
hilflos

hilflos heuer
hilflos sonst ungeheuer
hilfe los
hilflos

HILFLOS JA
hilflos!!!
TOD DEN BONZEN hilflos

hilflos hi
hilflos
hilflos Glücklich

(Anonymus: „hilflos“, um 1980, Sprühdose auf Zürich)

1) Brian Eno: Foreverandevernomore

2) Lambchop: The Bible

3) Father John Misty: Chloé and the next Twentieth Century

Ad 1) Perhaps the reason I was never a real fan of Roxy Music was they had the wrong singer. This, of course being an offense for Roxy Music die-hards, may raise eyebrows. In hindsight I would have preferred Eno taking center age on the first two albums, but then again, with a voice not perfectly suited for stadium rock, the band might only have gained underground status, who the fuck knows, you can‘t rewrite history. So, when „For Your Pleasure“ was circling our tables in school, I only became mildly interested. (Ferry did a great job, no doubt, but I was looking for something else. Paradoxically, my favourite Roxy album, one I really liked, was „Stranded“, the first without Eno.) This all changed on a rainy December day 1975 in Würzburg, when my first copy of an Eno album blocked my record player for weeks, „Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)“. The songs, their sonic textures, their singing voice, their lyrics had an entrancing quality, and I knew from the start, I had found another favourite musician – and singer.

As time goes by. Now, after those other, quite rare song- or song-related albums (all a class of their own), Here Come The Warm Jets“, „Another Green World“, „Before and After Science“ (close the 70‘s at this point), „Wrong Way Up“ (with Cale), „Drawn From Life“ (with Schwalm), „Another Day On Earth“, „Someday World“ (with Hyde), and „The Ship“ (close the next four decades at this point), here we will have another song cycle, to be released on October 14, „Foreverandeevernomore“ – no catchy songs, no singalongs, no fairytale searches of parallel worlds, no hooks, no future evergreens, oh, hold on, in their own peculiar way these songs which could be coined as modern day lamentations, may contain a collection of future „everblues“ at least, striking quite a special, different note, corner, space, in Brian Eno‘s song life. The album is a challenge, haunting, uncanny, ethereal, anti-nostalgic, lost in space, beautiful in a dark way, and a fantastic melting of ambient and song worlds. Even Scott Walker, I guess, would love it in his tower of song, Leonard anyway. 

Ad 2) These endless twists and turns that Wagner keeps making musically – that in many ways have come to define Lambchop’s late career – may feel disorientating for some early-day adopters used to that more classically Americana sound. However, despite being born from a period of deep questioning and self-reflection, The Bible doesn’t feel like a confused or lost musician chasing the zeitgeist or wandering aimlessly. Instead, it’s the work of a focused artist who is consistently attempting to stretch out the parameters of their own ever-expanding sonic world. Last year, City Slang label boss Christof Ellinghaus told Uncut, “Kurt doesn’t have a single nostalgic bone in his body”, and that’s no more evident than here. Everything about The Bible suggests a fierce, steely gaze locked onto the horizon, proving that maybe more artists should stop for a moment and ask, “What the fuck am I doing?” In this instance, it has resulted in yet another late-career highlight. (Mickie Winters, Uncut)

ad 3) Those two main strengths of “Chloë”—the expanded instrumentation, complete with a full orchestra, and a new propensity to tell stories with vivid detail, absent any hint of that trademark snark—are what makes the whole of Chloë and the Next 20th Century such a songwriting triumph that continues to reveal more about itself upon each listen. Fans of Father John Misty’s past, more straightforward tracks, from the heavier “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” to the catchy folk-rock of “Total Entertainment Forever,” might be disappointed at first to hear a full album that takes after Randy Newman, or the kind of songs that would’ve soundtracked a Gene Kelly dance routine. But let its full beauty sink in, and there’s just so much to love here. (Steven Edelstone, Paiste)

One of the magic tricks of Jon Balke‘s „Hafla“ is the handling of time. I mean, come on, poems, thousand years old, and translated in modern day English, they sound like simple gestures from everyday life, open for a look to the stars, daydreaming included. Simple as that. These songs all have the length of singles, and, like following an unwritten rule, Jon Balke and his collaborators just ignore any kind of ornamentation or excursion. By just sticking to a song‘s essence, they achieve a beautiful paradox: each track is packed with ideas, nevertheless transparent in every second. How can something overflowing and passionate be so up to the point, so crystalline, so calm? Longing and loss in equal measure, and lyrics from eternities ago that could easily have been written, in certain moods by, well, Leonard Cohen or Robert Burns.

Ich war lange nicht mehr abends ausgegangen, die 20er Jahre boten dafür ja auch eher wenig Gelegenheit. Ohne je dort gewesen zu sein, war der Ort mir seltsam vertraut: niedrige Decken im Keller einer ehemaligen Grundschule, ausrangierte Sofas und Sessel, ein zu einer Bar umfunktionierter Konditoreitresen, ein kleines DJ Pult in einer Ecke, gegenüber einer winzigen Bühne. Der LSD Barde begann um halb zehn (als Michael gerade mitten in den JazzFacts war) gemeinsam mit seinen drei Musikern zu spielen. Die Musik war lässig, die Songs wurden nur notbedürftig an den Fugen zusammen gehalten, das Saxophon steckte im Mundwinkel, die Bassistin kauerte auf ihrem Verstärker. Geboten wurde eine beglückende Mischung aus Mantren und DIY Jazz, mit Alabaster DePlume als überaus sympathischen, kommunikativen und humorvollen Frontmann. Sein ohnehin schon gutes Album macht seit dem Konzert noch mehr Spaß.  (geschrieben von Olaf Westfeld, irgendwann 2022)

Die Basis der allermeisten Songs hier ist von einem ebenmässigen Schleichtempo, die Gesänge von Alabaster trauen sich was, und wir könnten freiweg von einem herzfrischenden Update des „spirituellen Jazz“ reden, wenn man so frei ist, jenseitige und andere religiöse Wallungen beiseite zu lassen,  und den hier wirksamen Humanismus als tiefe Klangmassage in sich eindringen zu lassen. Tatächlich sind die „vibes“ näher an Dadwah und Nyabingji dran als an Pharoah Sanders „Karma“. Schlurfen vor der Erleuchtung! Es ist ein Doppelalbum  wie geschaffen für die gute alte Tante Doppel-Lp. In vier Einheiten zu verkosten, nicht am Stück. Let‘s sing and whisper of love, with a twist. (hingehuscht von M. E. an einem der letzten heissen Sommernachnittage, und gewiss eines der drei Alben meines Jazzjahresrückblicks im DLF)

Now, after nearly 30 years, Wilco are still a major force in their Americana landscape (and outside). Far away from becoming as cozy as R.E.M. in their later years or an alias for pure Classic Rock nostalgia like The Eagles, they cannot do bad albums. Jeff Tweedy takes care of his restlessness, his hunger for melodies (that stick in mind) and lyrics (biting and seducing at the same time). But where is the fucking „vinyl“ (or cd) of this excellent and rough collection of new songs? Streaming will never do it for me. „Cruel Country“ is Wilco caught in the moment, and it suits the music that nothing is worked over and streamlined. The most country thing about this body of work is the hard-lived wisdom it offers up. The love songs are very grown-up, they range from the arresting storytelling  through to the cognitive dissonance of the closing tune, The Plains, and the title rocker: “I love my country, stupid and cruel.”