New and forthcoming albums (1): Michel Benita Quartet / Mohammad Reza Mortazavi & Burnt Friedman / Jon Hassell / Mino Cinelu & Nils Petter Molvaer / Jon Hassell / Laraaji / Mino Cinelu & Nils Petter Molvaer / Nat Birchall & Al Breadwinner / Nat Birchall & Al Breadwinner / Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit (Steve Lake is the producer of the forthcoming ECM quartet album by Michel Benita, titled „Looking At Sounds“, excellent chamber jazz with a subtle palette of folk and electronics. La Buissone, the studio on Southern France, a real power spot. Like, speaking of Birchall / Breadwinner, The Bakery is in or near Manchester.)
New and forthcoming albums (2): Michel Benita Quartet / Shirley Collins / Shirley Collins / Neil Young / Darren Hayman / Darren Hayman / The Jayhawks / Fiona Apple / Fiona Apple / Fiona Apple / Hedvig Mollestad (in spite of a period of silence because of a muted cd-player, this might be, in retrospect, my favourite sequencing of tracks, for this night.)
Close-up – („Into the British hinterland“): Will Burns and Hannah Peel / Shirley Collins / Richard Skelton / Ann Margaret Hogan / The Unthanks / Will Burns and Hannah Peel / Erland Cooper / Darren Hayman / Anne Briggs / Green Gartside / Trains In The Night / Roger Eno and Brian Eno (Luminous – only, if the vinyl arrives on time)
„So abseitig, so gut, Darren Haymans Trilogie „Thankful Villages Vol. 1, 2 & 3“! Der ferne Erste Weltkrieg ist zwar hier und da Thema, doch nicht das zentrale – und was für eine Bandbreite: Schließung örtlicher Schulen, Liebesaffären, Nazi-Vikare, Badeunfälle, stillgelegte Eisenbahnen, eine Explosion, mit Leichenteilen überall. „Oral history“ und Song-Vignetten. Statt einer musikalischen Parade mit Liedern über den Krieg hat sich Hayman also dafür entschieden, nachdenkliche Meditationen über das Landleben, den Wandel und verlorene Lebensweisen zu schaffen. Und er hat ein Händchen dafür, die Freigeister überall ausfindig zu machen. Dass ich nur einen Song seiner Trilogie gespielt habe, lag daran, dass die Sendung übervoll war, und am Ende noch eine Dampflokomotive mit schrillem Pfeifen durch eine Nacht des Jahres 1961 stampfte, aber kein Platz mehr war, im Finale, für die „Elderly Brothers“, und ihren kleinen Nachschlag zu „Mixing Colours“ in Vinyl, namens „Luminous“. Darren Hayman ist übrgens im Blogroll der Manafonisten angekommen.“
Time Travel (1) – („The Tokyo-Montana Express and other surfing guides“): Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita / Hiroshi Yashamura / The Beach Boys / Hiroshi Yashamura / Pacific Breeze 2 / Nina Simone / Pacific Breeze 2 / Nina Simone / Pacific Breeze 2 / Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita / The Beach Boys / Shigeru Suzuki, Harry Hosono & Tatsuro Yamashita (the last track of this hour was a bit of a stranger on the „Pacific“ album, with hints to the electro sounds of Yellow Magic Orchesta, and Hiroshi Yashamura‘s perhaps finest ambient music, „Green“ got a great remastering. The title song of Nina Simone’s „Fodder On My Wings“ is one of my most beloved Simone songs, and not really well-known. Thanks to Uli for his insightful words on Hiroshi Yashamura’s „Green“ which I was ruthlessly quoting without asking.)
Time Travel (2) – („From Rock Bottom to The Bakery“): Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt / Robert Wyatt /// Vin Gordon / Vin Gordon / Birchall & Breadwinner / Birchall & Breadwinner / Birchall & Breadwinner (the two records from The Bakery are Vin Gordon‘s „African Shores“, and „Tradition Disc in Dub“, and I do very much hope there were people out there who listened to Robert Wyatt‘s „Rock Bottom“ for the first time in their lives. At least for some that might have been a very special experience. I have been listening to this album all my life.)
Postscriptum:
„As for nostalgia: isn’t that ‘the pleasure in re-experiencing something in our minds that is no longer available to us’? Isn’t that a way of digesting past experience, of returning to it in your mind and finding what it was that you liked and wanted and still need from it? We are all living in fast-changing worlds that we have to keep adapting to, and it’s natural that we scan our past experience for clues as to what might be the best ways of living. When I lived in New York for five years I became increasingly aware that I wanted to make a kind of art that gave me a place to get lost, to be alone in a wilder, less populated place which was not controllable. I made the album On Land to be able to access that place.“(Brian Eno, 2020)