A Quiet Power

This morning after rising I spun some of the disks I purchased back in Real Groovy, on my first visit. The Richard Thompson material, which was a dominant voice in the musical choices for our many journeys on the highways of NZ, sounded even better in the comfort of our living room than it did back in December. It's amazing to think that he's still capable (pun intended) of putting out stuff like Still and Electric. Actually I have a slight preference for the latter, despite the sense in some critical quarters that the more recent Still represents some kind of return to form. The fact is he's never lost any form, ever, so there's nothing to get back to. He continues to occupy a stellar zone of his own. 

Playing Sufjan Stevens's Carrie & Lowell evoked a different response in me. As I remarked back in December, this is not music to drive to. It's far, far too subdued for that. I suppose I was mildly disappointed on a first listen, even though I suspected there were riches involved, since every song seemed to occupy the same hushed territory, with nary a shift of mood. Listening to it close up - the only possible way to listen to these songs - you realise that there are shifts of mood and texture, but all within an extraordinarily, intensely narrow set of preoccupations concerning death and grief and hopelessness. This has got to be the most intimate album I've ever heard, to the point that you feel you're almost intruding on the songs. Many references are obviously painfully personal, yet the strange thing is that a shared ground of understanding seems to emerge.

As far as I understand it, these are songs mourning the deaths of the singer's parents with whom he had difficult relationships, especially with the mother. It's genuinely heart-breaking stuff, which somehow entirely avoids the sentimental and doesn't seem at all self-indulgent. Just painfully intense. This is one to come back to; it doesn't allow you to escape.

The Social Whirl

Just back from a very jolly currified nosh-up with Mei & Boon, the first time we've seen them for quite a while. Lots of catching-up completed, but that still leaves plenty to discuss. We're hoping to continue where we left off in KL next weekend, over a very timely break for Chinese New Year.

Noi and I were also able to show off our new quarters, now almost in working order. The boxes all unpacked, the carpets down, the various ornaments looking suitably ornamental. It's a relief, I can tell you, to get it all done.

An Interesting Life

There's something to be said for never being bored at work. The thing is, though, I'm not entirely sure what that something is.

Happy Reading

The last of the boxes of books for the living shelves have now been unpacked and I've been reunited with all my old friends, most particularly Michael Kennedy's The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The special mention is on account of the fact that this is the impending work of non-fiction on my reading list and I've been itching to get going on it. Actually I dipped into Kennedy's magisterial account extensively when I first became enamoured of the works of the greatest English composer of all, but that was a library edition. Only now do I find myself in the fortunate position of possessing a copy (bought from amazon.com on my last foray to that virtual emporium.)

This is teamed with Eleanor Catton's brilliant Booker-winning The Luminaries as my current reading. I've been making slow but steady progress through the opening segment thereof, and enjoying pretty much every sentence. It's only being super-busy that's prevented me devouring the tome at high speed.

So I'm a very happy reader indeed. Just wish I had a spare few hours here and there to wallow, but even just a bit of paddle is refreshing.

Gaps

One of the CDs I bought from Real Groovy in Auckland last December was a second hand copy of Bowie's Outside (in excellent condition, and less than seven bucks.) It's been receiving substantial play since then, mainly because it's excellent, and partly because Bowie's death has made me focus on the great man more than somewhat since the sad news.
 
Yesterday I managed to find time to listen to the full CD without interruption and it was one of those occasions when everything about the piece came together for me, building on the earlier listening I had done. I'd regard it as up there with the absolute best of Bowie - which, believe me, is high praise. And yet, somehow I'd completely missed out on it at the time of release and was playing catch-up some twenty-odd years late.

And now I come to the point. I find these gaps in my knowledge of the works of musicians and writers I admire exciting and useful. I don't necessarily want to have been exposed to the full range of what they've done all at once, as it were, because it leaves nothing to look forward to. There're only two bands I can think of with regard to whom I own all the studio albums: The Beatles and King Crimson, and it's only very recently I managed the full set of the fab four. Think of it: someone who regards himself as a fairly major Dylan fan, but falls far short of completism.

Anyway, no prizes for guessing what I've lined up for my late-night listening, which begins now. Bye!

Wired

Building on yesterday's minor triumph of the techie guy fixing our telly and various boxes and recording units together in a way that almost made sense to me, I got stuck in behind the cabinet on which everything sits and made the whole shebang neater. And it stills works! What's more, it garnered the appreciation of the Missus on the aesthetic front. We're now in the process of moving other bits and pieces of furniture around and, once completed, we'll be unpacking the last of our cardboard boxes of stuff - which has all got to fit somewhere, somehow.

But not tonight. I am officially cream-crackered. Over and out.

A Step Forward

It's so complicated these days to wire up the television to all the boxes that feed into it, and run the wiring needed to make it all work from one side of the room to another, that we are dependent on a technician guy that Siew knows to do it all for us. He fixed everything in our previous place some four years ago when we arrived in Hall, and finally came round to do the honours in our new quarters. We're getting rid of our little Sony tv set that friends tell us looks like it's from prehistoric times, and giving away a DVD player that we used in conjunction with it, but there are still plenty of wires to confuse us and look untidy, and accumulate dust.

Despite the techie chap having done the necessary, and very efficiently too, there's still a lot of tidying-up to do before we unpack the final boxes left from the big move. We've been waiting for order to be restored to the living room before gracing it with the books and crockery lurking therein. Years ago I would have been very keen to get going and set all to rights as quickly as possible, but I've learnt an awful lot of patience since then. We're hoping to be around our current location for a fair while, so there should be plenty of time to enjoy the good order we're hoping to achieve. The secret is to enjoy the process of getting there.

I'm actually looking forward to getting each bit of the forthcoming work done slowly, in a deliberately lingering fashion - quite the opposite of getting it over with as quickly as possible. Is this a kind of wisdom, or am I just lazy?

Odd People In NZ - South Island Retrospective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems like only yesterday, and years away, all at the same time.

Prog On!

I can't remember when I resolved not to buy any magazine, no matter how attractive, unless I'd completely finished the issue of the particular publication I might have previously purchased, but I'm very glad indeed I had the good sense to do so. The result has been a reduction in the number of said publications about the place (or, rather, places, counting Maison KL) and, more significantly, the annihilation of the debilitating guilt I used to experience at not having read what I should and accumulating impossible amounts to have to read in the future. I felt no pressure at all to read the October 2015 issue of Prog magazine (the one with the image of Peter Gabriel's 'melted' face on the cover, from the third solo album) despite having it lying around since the November of last year, and found myself thoroughly enjoying a very relaxed perusal yesterday and today, which took in the whole thing, cover to cover.

Prog is the only magazine devoted to music I read with any regularity these days. There's an abundance of music related material available on-line covering all sorts of genres such that it's really unnecessary to buy anything in hard copy at all, but I feel a curious kind of loyalty to the much-abused genre covered in the pages of Prog, and it's fascinating to pick up on the remarkable range of current practitioners amongst a younger demographic than one might have thought likely. It also hosts one two good writers, such as the estimable Sid Smith of Crimso-related fame, and ex-snooker luminary Steve Davis (believe it or not!.)

But having said that, most of the writing featured manifests the usual faults of music-related journalism. Almost every writer is keen to sound clever; almost every writer employs over-inflated language and imagery; almost every writer seems to think it obligatory to make comparisons to other bands you've never heard of, or place music within genres that don't mean much to the likes of me. What is 'post-rock' anyway? The curious thing is that I don't find this as irritating as I once used to, but have come almost to relish the niceties of it all. As long as some real enthusiasm shines through and you get at least a sense of the sort of thing that someone's busy creating (for precious little reward, as far as I can see) what does it matter?

A Good Man

Today's the anniversary of Dad's death so I've been thinking about him more than I usually might. And Mum, too. It was during prayers at the masjid that it suddenly struck me that I couldn't think of anything he ever did that was in any way less than fundamentally well-intentioned. This was certainly true within the family and even though I never knew him outside of that in any real way, I do know that no one I spoke to who might have been aware of that life ever had a bad word to say about him. Not that he was in any way saintly. Just a very nondescript kind of bloke, slightly baffled by the world around him, muddling along with an innate sense of decency.

Nothing like me. That puzzled me then and still does. And I'm sure I puzzled him.

I suppose at some level everyone is a mystery waiting to be solved. And we never really get the solution.