#mattie barbier

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

STFD Vintage Poster/Ad Art

1- L'HIPPODROME by Manuel Orazi, 1905 (Lillian's office)

2- In Agra (cover art for 'Asia' Magazine) by Frank McIntosh, 1930 (Lillian's office)

3- Lidia by Jules Cheret, 1895 (Lillian's office)

4- Job Paper Cigarettes by Jules Chéret, 1896 (Lillian's office)*

5- Flamenco Dancer by Henry J. Soulen, c.1930 (Lillian's office)**

6- Le Sillon by Fernand Toussaint, 1895 (Lillian's office)

7- Original Program for Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience by Clement-Smith & Co., 1882 (Prop room)

8- The Empire Theatre Program by George Barbier, 1928 (Mattie's dressing room)

9- Le Mage by Alfredo Edel, 1891 (Prop room)

*HeR changed the text on the in-game artwork - can't have an ad for cigarettes in a game for youths after all. 'Fete des menteurs' roughly translates to 'Liars' Ball'

**this is one of those irritating cases where the only source I can track down is the Mary Evans/Pictures Now image collection. Soulen's signature is visible on the piece - here it is side-by-side with an illustration he did for the Saturday Evening Post in 1932.

[princesssarisa]

Where do you watch operas?

There are plenty of complete filmed opera performances available on YouTube, which you can watch for free. Unfortunately, not all of them have English subtitles, but if necessary, you can always find a translation of the libretto online to follow along with.

In fact, just for fun, as an example, I'll provide some links to complete filmed performances of the world's top 10 most popular operas, with English subtitles.

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

Studio film, 1971 (Nicolai Gedda, Edith Mathis, William Workman, Christina Deutekom, Hans Sotin; directed by Sir Peter Ustinov; conducted by Horst Stein)

La Traviata

Studio film, 1968 (Anna Moffo, Franco Bonisolli, Gino Bechi; directed by Mario Lanfranchi; conducted by Giuseppe Patané)

Carmen

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2006 (Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann, Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Norah Ansellem; staged by Francesca Zambello; conducted by Antonio Pappano)

La Bohéme

Studio film, 1965 (Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi, Rolando Panerai, Adriana Martino; directed by Franco Zeffirelli; conducted by Herbert von Karajan)

Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

Teatro alla Scala, 2006 (Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, Diana Damrau, Marcella Orsatti Talamanca, Pietro Spagnoli, Monica Bacelli; staged by Giorgio Strehler; conducted by Gérard Korsten)

Tosca

Teatro Real de Madrid, 2004 (Daniela Dessí, Fabio Armiliato, Ruggero Raimondi; staged by Nuria Espert; conducted by Maurizio Benini)

Madama Butterfly

Theatrical film, 1995 (Ying Huang, Richard Troxell, Ning Liang, Richard Cowan; directed by Frédéric Mitterand; conducted by James Conlon)

Don Giovanni

Zurich Opera, 2001 (Rodney Gilfry, László Polgár, Isabel Rey, Cecilia Bartoli, Liliana Nikiteanu, Roberto Saccá, Oliver Wimer, Matti Salminen; staged by Jürgen Flimm; conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt)

Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)

Metropolitan Opera, 2007 (Peter Mattei, Juan Diego Florez, Joyce diDonato, John Del Carlo, John Relyea; staged by Bartlett Sher; conducted by Maurizio Benini)

Act I, Act II

Rigoletto

Studio film, 1982 (Ingvar Wixell, Luciano Pavarotti, Edita Gruberova; directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle; conducted by Riccardo Chailly)

[crazy-so-na-sega]

Un giorno d'ottobre si misero in cammino nel fiume, lungo i sentieri di sabbia, dietro quelle linguette d'acqua che saltano tra i sassi. Del mare i due avevano scorto soprattutto una pescivendola che fino al millenovecentoquaranta arrivava lassù da loro in bicicletta; poi s'era fatta il sideçar e portava le cassette piene di ghiaccio e pesci e raccontava che vi erano bestie dentro l'acqua, più grandi delle vacche e che a volte si arenavano balene che erano montagne di carne sulla sabbia. Rico e la Zaira non avevano mai visto il mare che in linea d'aria, passando per i sentieri del fiume, distava sì e no trenta chilometri. Adesso che avevano quasi ottant'anni s'erano decisi a fare a piedi quel viaggio di nozze che avevano rimandato d'anno in anno. Abitavano a Petrella Guidi, un ghetto di vecchie case ove ogni tanto c'era qualche cavallo che scappava dalle mani del maniscalco e faceva le lucciole sotto gli zoccoli matti e di notte l'odore del pane che cuoceva nel forno, te lo sentivi fin da dentro il letto, rannicchiato nei buchi del materasso di foglie. Rico aveva fatto il barbiere quasi settant'anni per gli uomini e per le donne e poi tosava i somari e le pecore; la Zaira sbrigava le faccende di casa e a volte teneva il catino d'acqua in cui l'artista lavava il pennello.

-Il viaggio

[theskyisglue]

AUTOMATA invites you all to a free OPEN HOUSE this Saturday, featuring live puppet performances, projected films, and installations.  Stop by any time between 2 pm and 5 pm for this walk-through event.  There will be short looped performances, videos, and installations and performances in our main gallery, storefront windows, and and outside on the plaza in front of the space. We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Having mostly closed our space for public events for over two years,  we began to open up in Fall 2022.  Now, we want to celebrate being together again, and to highlight our love of experimental puppet and object performance, film, sound/music, and installation.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 5

Sarah Louise

A week or two before this Dust’s deadline, we got our first tour announcement by email in more than a year. It was the first of deluge, as live music looks to be coming back with a vengeance starting this summer and really picking up steam around September. Meanwhile, we celebrate our newly vaxxed (or for our Canadian correspondents half-vaxxed) status with tentative steps outside. Your editor had her first beer at a brew pub in mid-May, and it was stupendous. Also stupendous, the onslaught of new music, which has, if anything, accelerated. This month, contributors include all the regulars plus a few new people: Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Patrick Masterson, Ray Garraty, Tim Clarke, Andrew Forell, Ian Mathers, Bryon Hayes, Jonathan Shaw and Chris Liberato. Happy spring, happy normal and happy listening!

Amulets — Blooming (The Flenser)

Blooming by AMULETS

Like a lot of us, Portland-based noise artist Randall Taylor discovered the solace of long walks during the pandemic. His work, which has always used tape degradation to explore the intersection of time, loss and technology, shifted to incorporate another source of decay: the natural world. So, in opening salvo, “Blooming,” alongside blistering onslaughts of eroded guitar sound, it is possible to hear the sounds of a fertile garden — birds, insects, air movement. You can nearly smell the flowers and feel the sunshine on your skin. “The New Normal” explores sounds of creaking, friction-y word and metal, alongside pristine chimes of synthetic tone. It is uneasy, with skittering string-like squeaks and swoops, but also deeply meditative; it shifts from moment to moment from anxiety to provisional acceptance, much as we all did last year, staring out our windows. Overall, the tone is elegiac, gorgeous, but Randall does not hesitate to introduce dissonance. “Heaviest Weight” thunders with frayed bass tones, a weight and a threat in their subliminal pulse. The contrast between that ominous sound and purer, clearer layers of melody, makes for unsettling listening—are we at war or peace, happy or sad, agitated or calm? And yet, perhaps that’s the point, that the past year has been swirl of feelings, boredom alongside anxiety, hope lighting the corners of our listlessness, the smell of flowers pleasing but faintly reminiscent of funerals. Blooming decocts this mix into sound.

Jennifer Kelly

 Astute Palate — S-T (Petty Bunco)

Astute Palate by Astute Palate

Astute Palate is a hastily assembled group of rockers summoned to support David Nance in Philly on a date when he couldn’t bring the David Nance Band. Participants included Richie Records proprietor Richie Charles, Lantern’s Emily Robb, Writhing Squares/Purling Hiss/all around Philadelphia regular Daniel Provenzano on bass and, of course, Nance himself, all huddled together in Robb’s recording studio for a weekend together. None of this origin story does justice, however, to the pure liquid fire of this one-off musical collaboration, dominated by Nance’s viscous, distorted blues-inflected guitar wail, but knocked sideways by brute force drumming, wild hypnotic bass lines and the ritual incantation of Nance (and later Robb) singing. The long “Stall Out” does anything but, rampaging free-range in unbridled Crazy Horse/Allmans-style abandon for close to ten minutes without a single sputter. “A Little Proof” is somehow simultaneously heavier and more country, spinning out the soul-blues jams like a younger, unrulier cousin to MC5. “Treadin’ Schuylkill” gives Provenzano the spotlight, opening with a growling bass solo soon joined by heavy psych guitars (a nod, perhaps, to the illustrious locals in Bardo Pond). If Nance et. al. can pull stuff this fine out in a stray road warrior weekend, what are the rest of you doing with your lives?

Jennifer Kelly

 Axis: Sova — Fractal (God?)

Fractal - EP by Axis: Sova

Axis: Sova is a combo of three Chicago guys plus one drum machine, which had already been inactive for two or three seasons before the initial COVID lockdown. This digital EP is their way of clearing up some business that could no longer remain undone. The title tune, “Fractal USA,” is a remake of a song from the early days, when the “band” was Brett Sova’s solo project, to full-on, no your pants aren’t tight enough rock band. They just needed you to know about the evolution, you see, so go ahead, do some scissor kicks and gurn while they windmill away; you have enough money saved up from not seeing live music to pay the inevitable chiropractor bill. “Caramel” hypothesizes that a Cluster song that’s played twice as loud and twice as long is twice as good; not sure if I agree, but it’s still not bad at all. Maybe you got a little weird after a few months of putting on your best mask for your daily trip to see if the stimulus check was in the mailbox? The Brenda Ray-meets-Old Black mash up, “(Don’t Wanna Have That) Dream,” is proof that while you were alone, you weren’t alone. If you’ve made it this far, you don’t need to have the fourth track described, so let’s just say that it’s longer.

Bill Meyer

Mattie Barbier — Three Spaces (self-released)

three spaces by mattie barbier

While perhaps best known as half of the trombone-centric new music duo RAGE Thormbones, Mattie Barbier is a member of several other combos and a sonic researcher under their own name. Three Spaces, which is a single, album-length sound file, has the air of experimentation about it. “What do I do,” one can imagine Barbier asking themself, “when I can’t play with other people?” Make music at home, and out of what’s at home, is the obvious answer. But doing isn’t the only point here; the outcome also matters, and while what Barbier has accomplished with Three Spaces sounds quite different from the RAGE Thormbones live experience, it registers quite strongly. Barbier has combined long tones and melodic fragments played on euphonium, trombone and reed organ, that were recorded both inside and outside of their home. Carefully layered, the source material combines into a sound rather like a bell’s toll, which over the course of nearly 39 minutes swells and recedes, but never quite decays; it ends with an imposed rather than natural fade-out. The sound is as deep as it is expansive, inviting the listener to let themselves fall ever father into its realm.

Bill Meyer

 Beneath — On Tilt EP (Hemlock Recordings)

On Tilt EP by Beneath

One of the more pleasant surprises this year is the resuscitation of Untold’s Hemlock Recordings imprint. A vital voice in the post-dubstep fracas at the turn of the ‘10s thanks to releases from Hessle Audio’s Pearson Sound (when he was still Ramadanman) and Pangaea, James Blake, FaltyDL and Hodge to name but a handful, the label went dormant following a Ploy 12” in 2017 before the surprise announcement of Londoner Beneath’s On Tilt, which sounds every bit the sensible alliance in practice it looks on paper: These are low-end rumblers with irregular rhythms and spare melodic tics that worm their way into your brain in the best bone-humming fashion (see “Shambling” or “Lesser Circulation” for a good example). Who knows how long the return will last, but for a certain stripe of DMZ-damaged devotee and pretty much no one else, it’ll feel good to have some Hemlock in your life again. Tilt back, pour in.

Patrick Masterson

 Black Spirit— El Sueño De La Razón Produce Monstruos (Infinite Night Records)

More metal comes from South America than Spain, but these Europeans clear the high bar set by Latin America scenesters. The album’s title states that it was inspired by “El Sueño De La Razón Produce Monstruos.” That can testify both to lasting influence of Goya’s art and to the laziness of the current culture which seeks inspiration only from the most popular pictorial art of the past. The track “Ignorance and The Grotesque” perfectly captures the whole mood of the disc: it balances ignorant speeds, undecipherable vocals and grotesque parts with piano interludes and doom-ish atmosphere. It would be better without the grotesque, but that’s probably part of the baggage.

Ray Garraty

 Burial + Blackdown — Shock Power of Love EP (Keysound Recordings)

Shock Power of Love EP by Burial

You might worry, occasionally, that Burial was becoming a victim of diminishing returns. Here, as ever, he uses a narrow palette to create tracks that few can emulate. However, even though the music has its rewards, it doesn’t clear the very high bar that his previous work has set. Thus “Dark Gethsemane” rides a 4/4 beat, angelic murmurs, vinyl crackle and a tightly ratcheted build that morphs into a sermon led by the repeated invocation “We must shock this nation with the power of love.” As his vocal samples become more explicit, the mystery of his music fades. This is all promise and no real resolution. “Space Cadet’ likewise sounds both gorgeous and minor with its soul gospel refrain “Take Me Higher” over an old-school jungle beat. At six plus minutes it would have been enough. It continues another three with an almost cartoonish second movement that lacks the subtlety that characterizes Burial’s best work.

Andrew Forell 

  Colleen — The Tunnel and the Clearing (Thrill Jockey)

The Tunnel and the Clearing by Colleen

While COVID messed with most people’s lives, it was both an endgame and an opportunity for Cécile Schott, the Frenchwoman who records under the name Colleen. She was just coming out of a series of health and personal dislocations, which resulted in her being newly healthy but alone in a new town just as the lockdown came down. Clearly, this was not a time for half measures, so she selected an entirely new instrumental set-up and settled in to make a record that reflected what she’d been through. Out went the viola da gamba and melodica that have figured prominently on her last few albums; in came a Moog synthesizer, a Yamaha organ, a tape echo and a drum machine.  

Colleen’s voice, of course, remains the same. Airy and precise, her delivery doesn’t match the gravity of the experiences her songs describe. But that sense of remove is, perhaps, a reflection of one of adversity’s lessons; if you don’t stay stuck, you can wind up somewhere quite different. Between the keyboards’ cycling melodies and the drum machine’s fizzy beats, the music on The Tunnel and the Clearing imparts a sense of motion that carries her light voice along for the ride, dropping painful sentiments and letting them fall behind.

Bill Meyer  

 Current Joys — Voyager (Secretly Canadian)

Nick Rattigan has been releasing music under the name Current Joys since 2013, and Voyager is his latest offering. It’s a dramatic and often brilliant collection of songs, bringing to mind the urgent rhythmic drive of Spoon, the dour grandeur of The Cure and the unapologetic emotional heft of Bright Eyes or early Arcade Fire. On Voyager’s standout, “American Honey,” a simple strummed backing and Rattigan’s vocal delivery are potent enough, but it’s the string section that proves devastating, cycling around for multiple punches to the gut. While more stripped-back songs such as “Big Star” and “The Spirit or the Curse” offer some respite along the way, Voyager does prove a little unwieldy. With 16 tracks clocking in at nearly an hour, the album’s execution doesn’t quite live up to its ambition. The wonky tom-tom rhythms of “Breaking the Waves” are more distracting than interesting; a serviceable cover of Rowland S. Howard’s “Shivers” feels more like an acknowledgment of influence than a striking interpretation; and the combined six minutes of the two-part instrumental title track may have worked better as shorter interludes. Nevertheless, plenty of Voyager’s tracks demonstrate Rattigan’s knack for a raw, emotive indie-rock tune.

Tim Clarke

 Ducks Ltd — Get Bleak EP (Carpark Records)

Toronto duo Ducks Ltd celebrates signing to Carpark with an expanded re-release of their 2018 debut EP Get Bleak. The pair — Tom Mcgreevy on vocals, rhythm and bass guitars and Evan Lewis on lead guitar — bonded over a shared love of 1980s indie bands. Their intricately constructed guitar interplay carries the DNA of Postcard and C86 over meaty bass lines that evoke Mighty Mighty as much as Orange Juice and McCarthy. The sprightly music belies the miserablism of the lyrics that focus on FOMO, poor decisions, screen induced isolation, the corrosive impact of gentrification and gig economies. Mcgreevy and Lewis don’t wallow, however. Their jaunty jangle is a paean to the joys of jumping about and singing along with those new favorite songs that suddenly mean everything and will stick with you long after the world’s shit slopes your shoulders.

Andrew Forell

 Field Music — Flat White Moon (Memphis Industries)

It’s easy to take Field Music for granted. Since 2005, the Brewis brothers have been making smartly composed and tightly executed guitar pop with obvious debts to The Beatles and XTC, and all their albums have fallen somewhere along the continuum from good to great (my personal favorites are 2010’s Measure and 2012’s Plumb). Album number eight, Flat White Moon, features the usual balance between Peter’s more pensive, bittersweet numbers with greater focus on piano and strings, such as “Orion From the Street” and “When You Last Heard From Linda,” and David’s funkier, more staccato cuts, such as “No Pressure” and “I’m the One Who Wants to Be With You.” Twelve songs, 40 minutes, tunes for days — what’s not to love? If you’ve yet to get acquainted with Field Music, Flat White Moon is as good an introduction as any.

Tim Clarke 

 Gabby Fluke-Mogul/Jacob Felix Heule/Kanoko Nishi-Smith — Non-Dweller (Humbler)

non-dweller by gabby fluke-mogul, Jacob Felix Heule, & Kanoko Nishi-Smith

With Non-Dweller, we have a trio of Bay-Area improvisers who certainly do not reside in one place for very long. There is an agitated freneticism about their interactions here, the performers acting like electrons seeking to release energy and break out of orbit. Each player brings a unique collection of timbres to the party with their implement of choice. Heule is a percussionist by trade yet focuses on extended techniques — mainly friction-based — as he wrests an unholy wail from the maw of his bass drum. Fluke-Mogul’s violin sways between tone generator and noise source. Nishi-Smith is a classically trained pianist who here is bowing and plucking the koto, or Japanese zither. The trio spend most of their time in sparring mode, their energies unleashed with synchrony as if in an elaborate dance. It is clear they have collaborated before. Heule and Nishi-Smith have been at it for over a decade; Fluke-Mogul joined the party in 2019. The most gorgeous moments happen when all three players are focused on friction: Heule slides across his drum, Fluke-Mogul soars with their violin and Nishi-Smith gracefully bows her koto. The energy is focused and particles collide, creating waves of tone. The players wrestle intensity into submission, and the ensuing sonorities are unmissable.

Bryon Hayes

 FMB DZ — War Zone (Fast Money Boyz \ EMPIRE)

Ever since FMB DZ got shot and moved out of Detroit, he has continued to release angry music. (He may not be more productive after the assault, but he’s certainly not less so.) War Zone is his latest effort, along with The Gift 3 and Ape Season, and DZ is back in his paranoiac mode and ready for vengeance. That’s hardly unusual in this type of music but DZ stands out because he’s a bit angrier, a bit more pressing and a bit more gifted than the next man. He doesn’t outdo himself in this tape, but rather mostly follows the blueprint of Ape Season. The standout track is “Spin Again.”

Ray Garraty

 Ian M Fraser — Berserk (Superpang)

Berserk by Ian M Fraser

Ian M Fraser is kind enough to provide details about how he created and edited Berserk, although relatively few listeners are going to really know what “nonlinear feedback systems and waveset synthesis” are, let alone “sensormonitor primitives auditory perception software”. And fewer still will be able to focus on what that might mean while Berserk is actually playing, because the output of those programs and systems is immediately, viscerally clear. If a computer were actually capable of going rabid, feral, well, berserk, the human mind might imagine it sounds something like this. Over four shorter tracks and the relatively epic 8:26 of “The Cannibal,” Fraser either coaxes or allows (or both) his tools into the equivalent of something like what someone who knew very little about both genres might imagine is like a power electronics act playing free jazz or vice versa. It is absolutely viscerally thrilling (albeit probably easier to repeat at this length of 16 minutes than, say, 50) and will do the track the next time you feel like your brain needs a good hard scrub.

Ian Mathers 

  Human Failure — Crown on the Head of a King of Mud (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Crown on the Head of a King of Mud by Human Failure

It’s tough to figure out if the band’s name is meant specifically to apply to D. Cornejo (sole member of Human Failure) or to the general field of human failure, which grows ever more capacious. Whatever the intent, Human Failure makes thoroughly unlovable music, pitched somewhere on the continuum that runs from the primitivist death metal to stenchcore to harsh noise. This reviewer is especially fond (yep, somehow that’s the only word for it) of the title track of this 10” record: “Crown on the Head of a King of Mud” sloughs and slogs along for two minutes, sort of like one of the ripest zombies in Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), wandering about and slowly falling to pieces in Florida’s tumid heat. Just as that last bit of flesh is poised to slide from bone, the song unexpectedly breaks into a run. Where is it going? What’s the rush? No one knows. Things eventually bottom out into “Disassembling Morality,” a static-and-distortion laden electronic interlude that might squeak and spark for a bit too long — but then “Your Hope Is a Noose” shambles into the frame. That zombie seems to have found some equally noisome and truculent friends. They djent and pogo around for a while, and the song has a lot more fun than seems called for by the band name. Cornejo might be pissed off by the myriad manmade disasters and outright catastrophes that burden the earthball (he’s sure angry as heck about something…). But the record ends up being sort of successful, if deafening, grinding, growling stench is on the agenda. All things considered, why wouldn’t it be?

Jonathan Shaw

 Insub Meta Orchestra — Ten / Sync (Insub)

Ten / Sync by INSUB META ORCHESTRA

Ten / Sync was recorded in September, 2020; not exactly lockdown time, but certainly not out of the pandemic woods. It’s no small task to keep any 50-strong orchestra going, let alone one devoted to experimental music. So, if you already have one, then having it perform during a pandemic is just another challenge among many. So, the Swiss-based orchestra assembled three groups of musicians, numbering 31 in all, and assembled their contributions during post-production. While this did not provide the social experience that IMO’s gatherings usually impart to participants, an outcome that just isn’t the same seems awfully representative of the time, right? And since one Insub Meta Orchestra subspeciality is making music that sounds like it was performed by many fewer players than were actually present, this collection of sustained chords concealing tiny actions and apparently disassembled passages is actually very representative of the ensemble’s music.

Bill Meyer

Amirtha Kidambi & Matteo Liberatore — Neutral Love (Astral Editions)

Neutral Love by Amirtha Kidambi & Matteo Liberatore

With her own group, the Elder Ones, and in Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, singer Amirtha Kidambi shows how far you can take a song while still giving the meanings of words and the boundaries of form their dues. But Neutral Love, like her two tapes with Lea Bertucci, explores the territory outside the tower of song. The main structures for this improvised encounter with electric guitarist Matteo Liberatore seem to be a shared agreement to exclude certain options. Song form and overt displays of chops are right out; the patient manipulation of sounds is where it’s at. Liberatore opts mostly for swelling and subsiding resonations, while Kidambi spends a lot of time finding out what’s hiding at the back of her throat, drawing it out, and then tying it into elaborate shapes. Patient and eerie, these four tracks find a place adjacent to Charalambides at their most abstract, and make it their own.

Bill Meyer

 Kosmodemonic — Liminal Light (Transylvanian Recordings)

KOSMODEMONIC - LIMINAL LIGHT by KOSMODEMONIC

NYC outfit Kosmodemonic is among the recent wave of metal bands attempting to effect an organic-sounding synthesis of numerous subgenres: a slurry of sludge, a bit of black metal, a dose of doom, and a hit or two of the lysergic. When it works — as it does on a number of tracks on the band’s long new cassette Liminal Light — it’s an exciting sound. Songs like “Moirai” and “Broken Crown” manage to couple tuneful riffs, dirty tone and a muscular bottom end in ways that feel thumping, groovy and pretty weird. You’ll want to bump your butt around even as you’re looking for something to break. But the tape is pretty long, and the further afield Kosmodemonic gets from that mid-tempo groove, the more middling (and sometimes muddled) the material sounds. “With Majesty” can’t quite find its rhythmic footing in its more technical passages, and the song’s sludgier sections feel like compromises, rather than interesting maneuvers. But the record begins and finishes with really strong songs. Both “Drown in Drone” and “Unnaming Unlearning” embrace scale, letting their big riffs rip. When “Unnaming Unlearning” slips into complex sections of blackened and distorted dissonance, the drama surges. Formal experiment and manipulation of mood fold into each other. The song gets interesting, even as it’s reaching for a peak. And then it ends, suddenly, violently. It’s pretty good. Your impulse is to flip the tape and hear it again, which is just what Kosmodemonic wants you to do. Well played, dudes.

Jonathan Shaw

 Sarah Louise — Earth Bow (Self-Released)

Earth Bow by Sarah Louise

Asheville-based songwriter Sarah Louise wants to be your personal nature interpreter. The titles of her recordings, from her debut Field Guide through Deeper Woods and Nighttime Birds and Morning Stars are like planetary signposts pointing to a more intimate relationship with our planet as a living organism. With each successive release, her music has also become more and more organic sounding, culminating with Earth Bow, in which Louise herself is arms deep in humus, communing with birds and insects. Recordings of creation feature prominently; katydids, spring peeper frogs, a creek and various birds are credited as providing additional singing, augmenting the artist’s own mellifluous voice. For a recording in which the track titles and lyrics are focused on nature and Louise’s experiences therein, there are a lot of digital elements. Her 12-string guitar is prominent in places, but synths are everywhere: in the background, bouncing around like shooting stars, and mimicking the various fauna that they accompany. Yet the earthly and the machine-made are not juxtaposed, they are blended. The vocals, which center the recordings, tie both elements together nicely. Earth Bow is a tasty concoction, in which a variety of ingredients are married in botanical bliss.

Bryon Hayes

 Le Mav — “Supersonic (Feat. Tay Iwar)” (Immaculate Taste)

Nigeria’s alté scene has been bubbling for a couple of years now on the backs of guys like Odunsi (The Engine) and Santi, and Gabriel Obi bka Le Mav is no stranger to the fray, having produced Santi’s “Sparky,” Aylø and a recurring favorite of his, singer Tay Iwar. The two have already collaborated at length (for songs off Iwar’s debut album Gemini in 2019, as well as the entirety of last year’s Gold EP), so the comfort level here is established. It shows: Iwar’s smooth-as vocals match Le Mav’s breezy piano descent and gentle rhythmic shuffle in an easygoing song that matches anything you might hear coming from Miguel, Frank Ocean or the Sun-El Musician orbit. “If it feels right, touch the sky,” Iwar suggests early on. Well, don’t mind if I do.

Patrick Masterson

 Sugar Minott — “I Remember Mama” (Emotional Rescue)

I Remember Mama by Sugar Minott

At some point after Lincoln Barrington Minott had left Kingston and his early dancehall and lovers rock legacy with Studio One and Black Roots behind for cooler climates and the old world of London, he ran into producer Steve Parr at the Wackies offices. Story goes that the two decided to start up Sound Design Studio with the intent to record and mix for ads, film and music — but scant evidence of this idea exists beyond “I Remember Mama,” released on 7” and 12” in 1985 and reissued for the first time since via Stuart Leath and his long-trusted Emotional Rescue imprint. Parr does most of the work on the recording (Andy MacDonald shines on tenor sax and Paul Uden guitar in the original credits), but it’s all about the sweetness Sugar brings to the table: With backing from two accomplished performers in their own right, Janette Sewell and Shola Phillips, Minott’s naturally relaxed delivery shines through on this. “Sound Design” is a dubbier instrumental version that retains Sewell’s and Phillips’ vocals, and Dan Tyler (half of Idjut Boys) provides an even spacier, handclap-laden 11-minute remix, but while both variants are excellent, the boogie of the original is unassailable. Look for the vinyl to hit in July.

Patrick Masterson

 Jessica Ackerley — Morning/mourning (Cacophonous Revival)

Morning/mourning by Jessica Ackerley

It makes sense that Wendy Eisenberg wrote the liner notes to Morning/mourning, since they and Jessica Ackerley are bound by a shared commitment to string-craft. Both have a deep idiomatic foundation in jazz guitar, but neither is willing to be confined by what they’ve learned. In the case of Morning/mourning, that means that patiently paced ruminations upon Derek Bailey-like harmonics sit side by side with frantic but rigorously scripted forays that sound a bit like Jim Hall might if he input the contents of his French press intravenously. This album’s nine tracks observe passings and new beginnings, since Ackerley pulled the recording together while in quarantine, shortly before leaving Manhattan for Honolulu, and titled some of them in tribute to a pair of guitar teachers who were taken by 2020. But in their attention to tone, harmony, velocity and structure, these pieces, like Eisenberg’s records, speak as much to intellect as to emotion.

Bill Meyer

 Nadja & Disrotted — Split (Roman Numeral Records)

It makes a certain kind of sense for Nadja and Disrotted to tackle a split together; although both bands traffic in a particularly foreboding strain of doom metal, they also share a weird sort of comfort. There’s a sense more of horrible things happening around you than to you, like you’re in the eye of the storm or maybe in a bathysphere plunged to crushing depths. There is a precision to the menace, a measured quality to the noise. And they get there when they get there; as Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw pointed out in his review of Disrotted’s Cryongenics, “Pace seems to be the point.” This excellent split doesn’t shy away from these commonalities while still highlighting the distinct timbres of each act, with Nadja settling into and then returning to one of their indelibly titanic bass riffs throughout the 19-minute “From the Lips of a Ghost in the Shadow of a Unicorn's Dream” and Disrotted somehow conjuring the feeling of a massive structure corroding and collapsing on the 15-minute “Pastures for the Benighted”. When the latter slams to a half, one last hit echoing away, the listener may find themselves feeling equally relieved the onslaught is over and kind of missing both sides’ pulverizing embrace.

Ian Mathers 

 Nasimiyu — POTIONS (Figureight)

P O T I O N S by nasimiYu

Nasimiyu’s songs bounce and shimmy with complex rhythms, her background as a dancer and percussionist for Kabells and Sharkmuffin coming through in the intricate interplay of handclaps, breathy beat-boxing, rattling metal implements, all manner of drums and, not least, her lithe, twining vocal lines. “Watercolor” blossoms out of a burst of choral “la”s, each note allowed to flower briefly before behind cut off with a knife-edge; these are organic sounds shaped with mechanical precision. Against this background, Nasimiyu herself enters, her voice fluttery and syncopated, a bit like Neneh Cherry. The mix is full of separate elements, the backing vocals, a synthesizer working as a bass, handclaps, Nasimiyu’s singing, but the song remains light and translucent. “Feelings,” sings Nasimiyu, “I am in my feelings,” and so, for a moment, are we. Nasimiyu is half Kenyan and half Scandinavian-American, and you can hear a bit of East Africa in the surging sweetness of choral singing on “Immigrant Hustle.” But there’s a post-modern gloss over everything, as the singer brings in sonic elements from jazz, electronica, dance, pop and afro-beat. Yet however many layers are added, the sound remains bright and clear, a bead curtain of musical sensation whose elements click faintly as they brush together, but remain essentially separate.

Jennifer Kelly

 Carlos Niño & Friends — More Energy Fields, Current (International Anthem)

More Energy Fields, Current by Carlos Niño & Friends

Multi-instrumentalist and producer Carlos Niño latest album which straddles and largely crosses the line between spiritual jazz and new age ambience features friends from both worlds including Shabaka Hutchings, Jamael Dean, Dntel and Laraaji. Niño, who plays percussion and synthesizer, edited, mixed and produced the album from recordings made in 2019 and 2020 in a variety of settings. The results are largely low-key soundscapes designed to assist meditation on the fields and current of the title. Much evocation of the natural world, chiming eastern influenced percussion and layers of acoustic and synthetic keys that are lovely but tend to lull. It is the slightly disruptive reeds that prick the ears here, Aaron Hall’s plangent tenor on “Now the background is foreground,” Devin Daniels’ alto phrasing on “Together” and Hutchings’ expressive duet with Dean on “Please, wake up.”

Andrew Forell 

 Shane Parish — Disintegrated Satellites (Bandcamp subscription)

Disintegrated Satellites EP by Shane Parish

The normally ultra-productive Shane Parish didn’t put out a lot of music in 2020, and none of what did come out was recorded that year. It turns out that he was busy giving guitar lessons via zoom and moving from North Carolina to Georgia, but we’re well into a new year and he’s back in Bandcamp. This three tune EP doesn’t declare a new direction, of which Parish has had many, so much as an integration of his interests in American folk music and far Eastern tonalities. Simultaneously familiar and alien, but above all propulsive, it serves notice that the time for reflection has passed.

Bill Meyer 

 Séketxe — “Caixão de Luxo” (Chasing Dreams)

The thing that gets your attention about Séketxe is… well, everything: how many of them there are (i.e., how you can’t really tell who’s in the group and who isn’t), how they’re all propellant, a musical bottle rocket bursting out of your speakers, confrontationally in your face on camera — and how much fun it looks like they’re having. Somewhere out there beyond the reaches of kuduro and Mystikal lie the Angolan barks and rasps of this youthful sextet, who trade verses (and a soothing harmony drizzled right across the madness at around 1:40) among one another over an Eddy Tussa sample on a beat by producer about town Smash Midas. What are they on about? My Portuguese is nonexistent, let alone my Luandan slang, but even I can tell that title translates to “luxury casket.” Anyway, it’s bonkers and if you’re looking for a jolt your morning joe doesn’t deliver anymore, Séketxe oughta do it. You’ll never catch me thanking an algorithm, but I guess it’s true the maths can serve it up right every once in a while. Séketxe is the proof.

Patrick Masterson 

 Tōth — You and Me and Everything (Northern Spy)

You And Me And Everything by Tōth

The title of Alex Toth’s solo debut, Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary, alludes to his belief in music as therapy — that there’s an alchemy in the process, yet one that can’t necessarily be depended on to pull you out of an emotional hole when that hole gets too deep. On his new album, You and Me and Everything, all of his recent personal struggles are out in the open. There’s the tale of when he was so fucked up he couldn’t play trumpet at a family funeral (“Turnaround (Cocaine Song)”); there’s leaning on songwriting as a means to process the pain of heartbreak (“Guitars are Better Than Synthesizers for Writing Through Hard Times”); and there’s his ongoing battle with anxiety (“Butterflies”). While such heavy emotional terrain could prove hard-going, Toth approaches everything with a playfulness, a lightness of touch and a gentle haze to the production. Plus, he gets a helping hand from Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes), who lends backing vocals to standout “Daffadowndilly,” which taps into the woozy gorgeousness of prime Robert Wyatt.

Tim Clarke 

 Mara Winter — Rise, follow (Discreet Editions)

Rise, follow by Mara Winter

For people with busy performance schedules, 2020 posed a problem; how do you stay busy and creative when you can’t do what you usually do? Mara Winter, an American-born, Swiss-based flute player who specializes in Renaissance-era repertoire and instruments, used it to forge a new creative identity. In partnership with experimental composer and multi-instrumentalist Clara de Asís, she began exploring the commonalities between early, composed music and contemporary approaches and developed a platform to disseminate documents of that research into the world. Rise, follow, the inaugural release of Discreet Editions, is an hour-long piece for two Renaissance-style bass flutes played by Winter and Johanna Bartz. The two musicians played long, overlapping tones with contrast attacks, pushing on until they grew so tired from hefting those woodwinds that they just couldn’t play anymore. Effectively the performance unit is a trio, since the two musicians had to accommodate or collaborate with the reverberant acoustics of Basel’s Kartäuserkirche. The church’s echo threw sounds back at the player, turning pure tones into blurred timbres. While the instrumentation is antique, the ideas about sound combination and endurance have more to do with Morton Feldman, Phill Niblock and Aíne O’Dwyer. The result is music that is simultaneously meditative and as heavy as a bench-pressing competition.

Bill Meyer

 Wurld Series — What’s Growing (Melted Ice Cream)

What's Growing by Wurld Series

Some reviewers of What’s Growing, the second album by New Zealand’s Wurld Series, have managed to avoid making Pavement comparisons, but it’s hard to fathom their restraint. Brief opener “Harvester” feels like you’re being dropped mid-solo into a random Wowee Zowee track; the guitar tone on lead single “Nap Gate,” on the other hand, sounds like it's nicked straight from Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. And while singer/guitarist Luke Towart doesn’t attempt to match Malkmus’ flamboyance in the vocal delivery department, their voices and wry lyrical observations bear a distinct resemblance to one another. “Caught beneath a dull blade / What a mess that would make” he sings on “Distant Business” before the song reaches its finale where guitar solos blast off from atop other guitar solos in an array of complementary textures. But besides being a ridiculously fun guitar pop record, What’s Growing is also threaded through with a British psych folk vibe replete with Mellotron flute — and the two styles blend seamlessly together thanks to Towart’s partner in crime, producer/drummer Brian Feary (Salad Boys, Dance Asthmatics). So, whether you're looking for a great summer indie rock record or you’ve ever wondered what the Fab Five from Stockton might’ve sounded like if they’d stuck to short songs and had more flutes, this one’s for you.

Chris Liberato

[monotonous-minutia]

@opera-my-beloved

Day 7

A singer that pleasantly surprised you in a role?

Hmm probably Iestyn Davies as Unulfo in Rodelinda bc I usually don't like countertenors but he was great and just so cute.

Any costume(s) that you would want to have? (+pictures if you have them!)

Mattie's Figaro costume from the Sher Barbiere (no pic, all my screenshots of him are in the laptop that broke) and Lindsey's Nicklausse costume from the Sher Hoffmann (which I actually replicated for myself, sans jacket bc I couldn't find one that fit)

Opera characters that are meant for each other and you will not hear otherwise?

I think you all know what my answer is for this one

Opera singer that you can't dissociate from a certain role?

For me it's usually the other way around; I love seeing my faves in a lot of roles, but sometimes I get really fixed on a character played by a certain performer. For example I can't think about Cherubino without thinking about Susanne Mentzer or Tatyana without thinking about Renée Fleming (haha finally got a Carsen EO reference in there)

Opera you think is a complete masterpiece from first to last note? (or an opera that you know by heart?)

I'm getting a little self conscious over how many times Hoffmann is my answer but yeah Hoffmann is my answer

Favorite conductors/conducting moments?

Marcooooo and my favorite moment is probably when The Duchess of Crakentorp yells at him to stop the music in La fille and he just looks all sheepish and folds his hands and is his adorable self. Also not a conducting moment but during the curtain call for the 2015 Il Trovatore when he pushes Dima towards the orchestra pit so all the musicians can throw flowers at him ❤💔

A unique acting choice that you cannot stop thinking about?

Kathleen Kim's Oscar dancing around with angel wings.

Battle of the productions: for an opera that was streamed in many different productions, which production do you think is the best (or do you like them all equally)?

I used to like the 2015 Hoffmann more, but after seeing a bunch of other tenors in the role I realized that Calleja is probably my second-favorite interpretation of the character (first being Shicoff in the La Scala one), and there's a few little staging/camera choices in the 2009 one I like better. I love them both to pieces though and it's a close call.

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

10-piece morning mix, September 28, 2021:

[barberboss]

The Canadians, Farzad and Matty! 🇨🇦 💈 🇾🇪 #projectx #videoday #reuzel #schorem #rotterdam #canadianbarbers #barbersaroundtheworld #friendsaroundtheworld (at Schorem Haarsnijder En Barbier)

[joaquimblog]

En Jordi P és el segon i no l’últim dels oblidats en aquesta recta final de l’exitòs qüestionari de IFL, ja que després de Xavier Jaimejuan, va ser ell qui em va recordar que l’havia oblidat i per tant em reclamava justament la seva publicació ja que el qüestionari va ser enviat en els terminis establerts, però vet-ho-aquí que després ha estat Elio qui m’ha dit “Ep! que també falta el meu”. Renoi! quin daltabaix!

En Jordi P va escriure per primera vegada a IFL el 16 de setembre de 2014 arran d’un barbiere més aviat oblidava. Ença d’aquell comentrai de presentació que ja marcava tendència, en Jordi ha esdevingut un dels infernemlandaires més participatius i enriquidors, amb aportacions sempre interesants desacomplexadas, fresques i lliures. M’agrada que a l’illa deserta opti per la radicalitat i posi contra les cordes als que s’emportarien uina tetralogia sencera, ell només una ària. Fort! Se suposa que a una illa deserta les prioritats deuen canviar de manera radical i la gestió del temps res deu tenir a veure a la qwue podem idelaitzar, sigui com sigui, obre tard però l’obre, un debat interessant.

Amb en Jordi varem trigar a identificar-nos, però ara que ja ens hem reconegut, és un plaer compartir cada vegada que coincidim, una estona de d’apassionada passió.

Aquest és el seu qüestionari

La primera vegada que vas anar a l’òpera quin any va ser? Març 2004. Agggh!!! Va ser en aquest segle!!! Sóc tot un nouvingut!

A quin teatre? Al Liceu

Quina òpera vas veure? Macbeth, i encara la recordo, especialment la Lady Macbeth de la Maria Guleghina. Unes entrades de platea que em van regalar.

Els teus pares anaven o van a l’òpera? No, ningú de la família, però a la meva iaia Francisca li agradava d’escoltar-ne, i quan la vaig veure emocionant-se amb aquell primer concert dels tres tenors per la tele, em va picar la curiositat i vés per on, aquí estic…

Quin compositor operístic t’estimes més? Mmmmm… difícil escollir-ne només un. Triaria Wagner, té una música bellíssima, veritable gimnàstica per a l’ànima, com deia Plató.

Quina és l’aspecte que valores més d’una representació operística? Sens dubte la implicació dels artistes, músics, director. Sense aquesta condició és impossible que et creguis els personatges i que puguin fer que t’aparegui aquell calfred a l’espinada o emocionar-te de debò!!

Quin és el teu tenor predilecte? Buuffff!! Jo crec que aquí hi posaré Luciano Pavarotti. Tot i que no és un geni de la interpretació, però la veu, la trobo excepcional. El seu Canio amb el “Vesti la giubba” realment em posa la pell de gallina!

Quina és la teva soprano predilecta? Maria Callas, sens dubte. Només amb el seu àudio enregistrat ha estat capaç de fer-me plorar amb el  “vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore”

Quin és el teu baríton predilecte? Piero Capuccilli. El tinc present en una gravació d’un Simon Boccanegra!

Quina és la teva mezzosoprano predilecta? Cecilia Bartoli. Espectacular control vocal.

Quin és el teu baix predilecte? Matti Salminen. En el meu primer abonament el vaig veure fent de Boris Godunov i encara el tinc ben present. Una de les vegades que més he vist aplaudir al Liceu.

Quin és el teatre dels que has visita que més t’ha impressionat? La Scala. Per la mistificació que té.

Podries viure en una ciutat sense teatre d’òpera? Ara ja no. Em sortirien cars els desplaçaments!!

Quina és la teva òpera predilecte? Amb molta dificultat per a escurçar la llista a una, em quedo amb la Norma. Mira que se com acaba, però la tensió dramàtica del final sempre em fa contenir la respiració!

Quina òpera detestes? No n’hi ha cap que detesti i jo ho sàpiga. Si alguna no m’ha agradat, la he esborrat de la meva memòria i és com si no hagués existit.

Valora de 1 a 10 la importància del director d’escena en una representació operística. 5 Si la resta és bo, tampoc hi fa tant. I si la resta és dolent, no salva la representació.

A quina ciutat del món que no sigui la teva i amb teatre d’òpera, t’agradaria viure? A les tres que tinc en ment hi plou i hi fa fred però crec que Londres la posaria la primera.

Quin és el llibretista operístic preferit? No hi he parat mai massa interès. Però triaria Francesco Maria Piave, bon tàndem amb Verdi.

Quin és el teu heroi de ficció operística? Scarpia!! Sense dolents dolentíssims, els bons no serien res!

Quina és la teva heroïna de ficció operística? Les puccinianes, lliurant-se totes a l’amor! La més brava Floria Tosca!

La gravació operística que t’enduries a l’illa deserta? Jajaja!! Juntament amb el reproductor, si no no serviria de res! La Caballé amb “Depuis le jour” de la Louise de Charpentier. Ni tots els “Oooommmmmm…” del món poden aconseguir-te una pau d’esperit com aquesta interpretació.

El director d’orquestra operístic preferit? Victor de Sabata

El director d’escena preferit? Tampoc hi tinc gran detall en aquest àmbit, però en Robert Carsen m’ha semblat molt encertat amb el Ring…

La representació operística que t’hagués agradatassistir? Mmmmm…Una Tosca de Callas a la ROH, crec que de l’any 1964, amb Gobbi fent d’Scarpia. Només en van enregistrar un acte segon en el que he pogut veure Callas interpretant aquella ària que em va impactar quan la vaig escoltar per primer cop…

L’òpera barroca que més t’agrada? La meva cultura en aquest àmbit és molt minsa. Mai m’havia cridat l’atenció, però poc a poc vaig descobrint que hi ha coses bellíssimes. Del poc que conec trio Serse de Handel.

L’òpera clàssica que més t’agrada? Norma (Bellini)

L’òpera romàtica que més t’agrada? Tosca (Puccini)

L’òpera del segle XX que més t’agrada? Adriana Lecouvrer (Cilea)

L’òpera del segle XXI que més t’agrada? Em passa igual que amb l’òpera barroca, però aquí tinc clar que el que més m’ha impactat és el “Written on Skin” de Benjamin

Si poguessis escollir una vocalitat lírica, què t’agradaria ser: soprano, mezzosoprano, contralt, tenor, baríton o baix?Mezzo, sempre contrapesant…

Us deixo la versió de “Depuis le jour” de Louise de Gustave Charpentier que Montserrat Caballé va gravar l’any 1965 per la RCA sota la direcció de Carlo Felice Cillario i que en Jordi s’enduria a la seva illa deserta.

Gràcies Jordi P

I el qüestionari de Glòria Moreno que ha de tancar aquest llarg periple haurà d’esperar una setmana més ja que diumenge vinent tindrem, com ja us he dit el de l’amic Elio.

EL QÜESTIONARI IFL DE JORDI P En Jordi P és el segon i no l'últim dels oblidats en aquesta recta final de l'exitòs…

[pangeanews]

“Ero disperato e mi sono messo a pitturare”. Ode ad Alfredo Gianolio, l’aedo dei ‘naïfs’. Se ne è andato e nessuno lo sa (tranne Camurri). Un tenero omaggio

Uno dei miei libri segreti si intitola Primitivi contemporanei, lo ha scritto, con raffinata delicatezza, Oto Bihalij-Merin, slavo che ha fatto fortuna in Germania, nel 1959. Il libro fu tradotto l’anno dopo da ‘Il Saggiatore’. In quel repertorio “di ingenua arte popolare”, intesa, eroicamente, come una rivolta all’arte ‘meccanica’ – e già preda del mercato – del Novecento, puramente tecnica e poco espressiva (“nella generale svalutazione di quanto è organico e vivo, riusciranno forse, con le metafore della loro puerilità e la loro ingenua insistenza, a far fondere la gelida cintura dell’alienazione”), la parte dell’arcangelo la fa Rousseau ‘il Doganiere’. Bihalij-Merin, tuttavia, percorre l’Europa alla ricerca degli ‘ingenui’, dei ‘pittori della domenica’. Atterra anche in Italia. Rintraccia “il maestro calzolaio di Terni Orneore Metelli”, che trascorreva “le notti chino sul tavolo di cucina per formulare con i colori che mescolava nelle tazzine da caffè le tappe quotidiane o più solenni della sua esistenza”, “il farmacista Bernardo Pasotti, di origine milanese” e “la napoletana Rosina Viva”, sbarcata in Svizzera e trafitta da nostalgie meridiane. Manca, nel repertorio, il ‘primitivo’ più noto, Antonio Ligabue. Ovvio. A scoprirlo, in modo definitivo, fu Cesare Zavattini, soprattutto con la biografia lirica del 1967. Bene. Alfiere di Zavattini nell’opera di recupero e narrazione degli ‘ingenui’ fu Alfredo Gianolio, redattore de Il Bollettino dei Naïfs, “periodico trimestrale di modestissimo aspetto, la cui stampa non richiedeva la tipografia, ma un semplice ciclostile”, che era, come scritto nel sottopancia, l’‘Organo del Premio Nazionale e del Museo dei Naïfs di Luzzara ideati da Cesare Zavattini’. Gianolio, nativo di Suzzara, classe 1927, avvocato a Reggio Emilia, che ci ha lasciato, ieri, nella casa di Rivalta e nel silenzio tombale della stampa patria – si salva l’eccentrico Camurri, che ne ha parlato diffusamente a ‘Pagina 3’, la rassegna delle pagine culturali di Radio Rai 3 – ha compiuto, attraverso quell’antico lavoro, uno dei libri più autentici e spregiudicati di questo lasso di secolo. Il libro si chiama Vite sbobinate e altre vite, è stato stampato da Quodlibet nel 2013, e raduna le esistente private, provate, di magnifica quotidianità – raccolte dalla loro voce – di quei pittori ‘ingenui’ che hanno alimentato miti, quadri e immagini lungo le sponde del Po. In memoria di Gianolio – e per gentile concessione Quodlibet – ricalchiamo una di quelle esistenze folli. Perché l’arte, appunto, arriva da lì, improvvisa, senza nobiltà, mica coi galloni, sporca, vasta, come una zampata. Sta a noi ascoltarla, afferrare il grido in sonetto. (d.b.)

  *

Dino Daolio (Durìn) Come diventai pittore

Dino Daolio (Luzzara 1914-1983) dopo aver fatto il pescatore di professione per 40 anni, quando non ha più avuto la forza di levare le reti e di spingere il palo della barca, si è messo e dipingere. Così si è detto di lui nel film ‘Ballata per una terra magica’, diretto da J. J. Lafrange per la televisione di Ginevra. Il passaggio dalla pesca nel Po alla pittura è avvenuto senza soluzione di continuità. Negli ultimi anni della sua vita ha avuto un sorprendente successo in Svizzera e in Germania.

  Dopo di aver fatto per otto anni il soldato in vari fronti, tartassato per tutta la vita, sono andato a Po con la nostalgia della barca e mi sono messo a pescare e sono diventato pescatore di mestiere. Con Mario da Scardova partivo alla notte e tornavo al mattino. Le notti che ho passato sulle sabbie erano spaventose, non si sentiva nessuno parlare e il pesce saltava, prendevo anche quintali di pesce, cose dell’altro mondo. Sono andato per anni all’isola Macallè, nella lanca e nel pennello. Ho preso dei gobbi di dieci-dodici chili e il battello era così carico che non si riusciva a tenerlo dritto. Quando tornavo a casa, la Dorina (mia moglie), una donna che le piacciono molto i soldi, diventava matta. Ma è arrivato il momento che hanno cominciato a farmi degli oltraggi; per gelosia mi hanno bucato la barca tre o quattro volte, non volevano che andassi a pescare. Ero nei piedi a qualcuno, va bene? Ma ho sempre insistito. Fate quello che volete, io pesco lo stesso dicevo perché è il mio mestiere. La gente mi capiva e mi dicevano:

Robe da matti! Non si può! Fa il pescatore di mestiere, perché andare a sfondargli la barca!

Ma dopo quarant’anni la salute mi aveva abbandonato e non potevo più andare a pescare. Ogni giorno facevo un giretto al Po, mi portavo sull’argine a guardare l’acqua scorrere, ma improvvisamente sentivo un peso sugli occhi, non potevo più fare il mestiere. Ero disperato e mi sono messo a pitturare. Ho sempre avuto una certa inclinazione. Ricordo che quando andavo alle elementari alla maestra invece del compito portavo un disegno, ma ho fatto due anni la prima e due la terza. Potevo cominciare anche prima a dipingere quando ero con Mario sulle sabbie, perché già da otto o dieci anni mi era venuta l’ispirazione. Ero nella bottega del barbiere, c’era anche il maestro Vincenzo che mi disse:

Ma perché non ti metti a pitturare?

Perché ho la passione del pesce che è quella che mi dà da mangiare.

So che se avessi cominciato prima, mi sarei fatto la mia casetta, come hanno fatto tanti naif.

È andata così, ma non è mai tardi, ho già capito com’è la faccenda.

Adesso pitturo tutti i giorni, tutto il tempo dell’anno. Faccio il Po perché l’acqua è stata la mia vita. Il Po mi piace tutto e mi piace vederlo da lontano con dei cieli bellissimi. Quando vado al Po non mi piace andarvi e poi tornare subito; mi piace sedermi e guardare gli alberi, guardare il cielo, guardare l’acqua; do occhiate dappertutto. Faccio il Po non solo di Luzzara, ma anche di altre posizioni come a Borgoforte e a Boccadiganda e voglio farlo anche in Piemonte in mezzo alle montagne. I naif il Po non lo vedono. Solo due lo vedono: uno sono io e l’altro è Bruno Maestri, anche lui di Luzzara. Mi metto a pitturare alla mattina; mi alzo alle 8 e non mi lavo nemmeno perché vedo davanti agli occhi il quadro e sono costretto a prendere in mano il pennello. Ecco, tutti i giorni pitturo e sono arrivato a prendermi un salotto, che me lo sono guadagnato. Si vede che sono molto tranquillo. Qualcuno mi ha detto: Ma come mai una volta scattavi così tanto e adesso sei diventato così calmo; sembri una rondinella. Cosa volete che ci faccia, avevo dei disturbi e non potevo fare a meno di pitturare, è andata così e basta. Una volta c’era un tramonto così bello da far paura e Scardova mi disse: Pensi che con la pittura si possa fare una cosa così bella? Gli risposi di no, che era impossibile.

L'articolo “Ero disperato e mi sono messo a pitturare”. Ode ad Alfredo Gianolio, l’aedo dei ‘naïfs’. Se ne è andato e nessuno lo sa (tranne Camurri). Un tenero omaggio proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news http://ift.tt/2ElC9Yy

[revistaridebike-blog]

Paris Roubaix 2017 - Start List

Vai rolar nesse domingo, 9 de abril, em Compiègne, na França a 115ª edição da prova mais clássica do ciclismo de estrada, a Paris-Roubaix 2017. Começando em Compiègne e terminando 257km depois no icônico velódromo Roubaix.

Todos os olhos estarão voltados para o atleta belga Tom Boonen que já venceu quatro vezes a Paris Roubaix e busca fechar sua carreira como profissional com o quinto título. Tom Boonen vai correr com a nova Specialized Roubaix 2017 com o amortecedor Future Shock abaixo da mesa, bike que o atleta ajudou a desenvolver e que disse que só vai correr mais essa edição porque vê reais chances de vitória com a nova bike! Confira abaixo o start list da Paris-Roubaix 2017 AG2R La Mondiale Atletas Gediminas Bagdonas (Ltu) Rudy Barbier (Fra) Nico Denz (Ger) Julien Duval (Fra) Alexis Gougeard (Fra) Hugo Houle (Can) Oliver Naesen (Bel) Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel)   Astana Pro Team Atletas Matti Breschel (Den) Laurens De Vreese (Bel) Oscar Gatto (Ita) Dmitriy Gruzdev (Kaz) Arman Kamyshev (Kaz) Truls Korsaeth (Nor) Riccardo Minali (Ita) Ruslan Tleubayev (Kaz)   Bahrain-Merida Atletas Niccolo Bonifazio (Ita) Borut Bozic (Slo) Chun Kai Feng (Tpe) Ivan Garcia (Spa) Jon Ander Insausti Irastorza (Spa) David Per (Slo) Luka Pibernik (Slo) Meiyin Wang (Chn)   BMC Racing Atletas Jean-Pierre Drucker (Lux) Martin Elmiger (Swi) Stefan Kung (Swi) Daniel Oss (Ita) Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Miles Scotson (Aus) Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) Francisco Ventoso (Spa)   Bora-Hansgrohe Atletas Maciej Bodnar (Pol) Marcus Burghardt (Ger) Michal Kolar (Svk) Juraj Sagan (Svk) Peter Sagan (Svk) Aleksejs Saramotins (Lat) Andreas Schillinger (Ger) RŸdiger Selig (Ger)   Cannondale-Drapac Atletas Patrick Bevin (NZl) Sebastian Langeveld (Ned) Ryan Mullen (Irl) Taylor Phinney (USA) Thomas Scully (NZl) Tom Van Asbroeck (Bel) Dylan Van Baarle (Ned) Sep Vanmarcke (Bel)   Cofidis, Solutions Credits Atletas Loic Chetout (Fra) Dimitri Claeys (Bel) Hugo Hofstetter (Fra) Christophe Laporte (Fra) Cyril Lemoine (Fra) Florian Senechal (Fra) Kenneth Vanbilsen (Bel) Jonas Van Genechten (Bel)   Delko Marseille Provence KTM Atletas Asbj¿rn Kragh Andersen (Den) Mikel Aristi (Spa) Benjamin Giraud (Fra) Martin Laas (Est) Romain Lemarchand (Fra) Yannick Martinez (Fra) Evaldas Siskevicius (Ltu) Gatis Smukulis (Lat)   Direct Energie Atletas Ryan Anderson (Can) Romain Cardis (Fra) Antoine Duchesne (Can) Yohann Gene (Fra) Tony Hurel (Fra) Julien Morice (Fra) Adrien Petit (Fra) Alexandre Pichot (Fra)   FDJ Atletas Mickael Delage (Fra) Arnaud Demare (Fra) Jacopo Guarnieri (Ita) Daniel Hoelgaard (Nor) Ignatas Konovalovas (Ltu) Matthieu Ladagnous (Fra) Olivier Le Gac (Fra) Marc Sarreau (Fra)   Fortuneo-Vital Concept Atletas Franck Bonnamour (Fra) Maxime Daniel (Fra) Benoit Jarrier (Fra) Daniel McLay (GBr) Francis Mourey (Fra) Pierre Luc Perichon (Fra) Florian Vachon (Fra) Boris Vallee (Bel)   Lotto Soudal Atletas Lars Ytting Bak (Den) Jens Debusschere (Bel) Tony Gallopin (Fra) Andre Greipel (Ger) Nikolas Maes (Bel) Jurgen Roelandts (Bel) Marcel Sieberg (Ger) Jelle Wallays (Bel)   Movistar Team Atletas Jorge Arcas Pe–a (Spa) Daniele Bennati (Ita) Nuno Bico (Por) Hector Carretero (Spa) Alex Dowsett (GBr) Imanol Erviti (Spa) Nelson Oliveira (Por) Jasha Sutterlin (Ger)   Orica-Scott Atletas Sam Bewley (NZl) Luke Durbridge (Aus) Mathew Hayman (Aus) Michael Hepburn (Aus) Jens Keukeleire (Bel) Roger Kluge (Ger) Luka Mezgec (Slo) Magnus Cort Nielsen (Den)   Quick-Step Floors Atletas Tom Boonen (Bel) Iljo Keisse (Bel) Yves Lampaert (Bel) Davide Martinelli (Ita) Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Niki Terpstra (Ned) Matteo Trentin (Ita)   Roompot Nederlandse Loterij Atletas Jesper Asselman (Ned) Pim Ligthart (Ned) Jens Mouris (Ned) Elmar Reinders (Ned) Taco Van Der Hoorn (Ned) Sjoerd Van Ginneken (Ned) Brian Van Goethem (Ned) Coen Vermeltfoort (Ned)   Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise Atletas Amaury Capiot (Bel) Maxime Farazijn (Bel) Edward Planckaert (Bel) Jonas Rickaert (Bel) Jarl Salomein (Bel) Stijn Steels (Bel) Preben Van Hecke (Bel) Bert Van Lerberghe (Bel)   Dimension Data Atletas Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Mark Cavendish (GBr) Nicolas Dougall (RSA) Bernhard Eisel (Aut) Tyler Farrar (USA) Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (RSA) Jay Robert Thomson (RSA) Scott Thwaites (GBr)   Katusha-Alpecin Atletas Jenthe Biermans (Bel) Marco Haller (Aut) Reto Hollenstein (Swi) Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Tony Martin (Ger) Michael Morkov (Den) Nils Politt (Ger) Mads Wurtz Schmidt (Den)   Team LottoNL-Jumbo Atletas Lars Boom (Ned) Amund Grondahl Jansen (Nor) Thomas Leezer (Ned) Timo Roosen (Ned) Jos Van Emden (Ned) Gijs Van Hoecke (Bel) Robert Wagner (Ger) Maarten Wynants (Bel)   Team Sky Atletas Jonathan Dibben (GBr) Owain Doull (GBr) Christian Knees (Ger) Gianni Moscon (Ita) Luke Rowe (GBr) Ian Stannard (GBr) Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Lukasz Wisniowski (Pol)   Team Sunweb Atletas Søren Kragh Andersen (Den) Nikias Arndt (Ger) Bert De Backer (Bel) Ramon Sinkeldam (Ned) Tom Stamsnijder (Ned) Mike Teunissen (Ned) Zico Waeytens (Bel) Max Walscheid (Ger)   Trek-Segafredo Atletas Matthias Brandle (Aut) Marco Coledan (Ita) Koen De Kort (Ned) John Degenkolb (Ger) Mads Pedersen (Den) Gregory Rast (Swi) Jasper Stuyven (Bel) Edward Theuns (Bel)   UAE Team Emirates Atletas Matteo Bono (Ita) Roberto Ferrari (Ita) Andrea Guardini (Ita) Marko Kump (Slo) Vegard Stake Laengen (Nor) Marco Marcato (Ita) Oliviero Troia (Ita) Federico Zurlo (Ita)   Wanty-Groupe Gobert Atletas Simone Antonini (Ita) Frederik Backaert (Bel) Wesley Kreder (Ned) Mark McNally (GBr) Yoann Offredo (Fra) Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Bel) Kevin Van Melsen (Bel) Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Bel) Click to Post

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 8, No. 10

Wesli

Dust drifts down like spent leaves onto our lawns, smelling faintly of maple syrup but sounding of, well, all kinds of things. Here we present solo trombone music, ethereal remixes, minimalist manga tributes, a surprisingly bombastic punk album and much more. Contributors include Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Ian Mathers, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Jim Marks and (just barely) Jennifer Kelly. Happy fall!

Mattie Barbier — Threads (Sofa)

threads by Mattie Barbier

When isn’t a solo album a solo album? In the case of Threads, when the solitary musician consciously duets with their surroundings. The CD documents trombone and euphonium player Mattie Barbier’s encounter with the Tank Center for Sonic Arts, which is a repurposed water tank parked in the gravel near the high desert town of Rangely, CO. Its seven-story height and bowed floor contribute to an extraordinarily nuanced acoustic quality, whose combination of lengthy delay and ribcage-rumbling resonance amplify the grain and growl of the performer’s long tones. Barbier proves a worthy respondent to their environment, patiently placing their sounds and varying their volume to make each of the albums tracks a discreet, thought-zapping trip. You’re never alone with your own echo.

Bill Meyer

 Circuit Des Yeux & Claire Rousay — Sunset Poem (Matador)

Circuit Des Yeux’s album, -io, is such an elaborate production that more simply isn’t an option. So, it’s not the fact that Claire Rousay’s remixes cut things back that is startling, but just how far she goes. This digital-only EP lasts just ten minutes, and most of the three songs Rousay has chosen to reimagine aren’t there. Orchestral passages are reduced to blurs of sound, and epic, densely scripted songs to nearly wordless fragments of cirrhus melody. Each track feels like a memory, with structure and narrative stripped away, leaving only essential impressions.

Bill Meyer 

 Katelyn Clark & Isaiah Ceccarelli — Landmarks (Another Timbre)

Landmarks by Katelyn Clark & Isaiah Ceccarelli

Montreal-based organist Katelyn Clark and percussionist Isaiah Ceccarelli play early and contemporary classical music. But when they sit down to play together, they filter their professional disciplines through an experimental spirit that has little to do with what’s generally labeled as experimental music these days. The eight pieces on Landmarks, their second album, are either fairly long or very short, but they all center on investigations of a continuous, looming sound world that is rooted in the sounds of bygone centuries, but enacts processes that may be informed by contemporary compositional approaches, but aren’t governed by them. Clark’s melodies are patient and economical, drawing you into a stillness that is shielded from distraction by Ceccarelli’s ceremonially rung bells and subliminal synth drones. Like Kali Malone and Áine O’Dwyer, the duo links the music of past centuries to the present; given that we’ve spent the last few years in another time of plague, showing that we haven’t learned how to handle things any better, it’s comforting to feel like the better angels of antiquity and the present are also connected.

Bill Meyer  

 crys cole — Other Meetings (Black Truffle)

Other Meetings by crys cole

The pandemic and its ensuing lockdowns put many people’s lives on hold, but it was especially devastating to sound artists and experimental musicians, who were used to globetrotting between festivals and events around the world. Many people, labels and organizations responded with the intention of keeping the creative flame burning, using whatever means at their disposal. British label and distribution house Boomkat started the Documenting Sound series, encouraging artists to experiment with what they had on hand in the vicinity of their homes or nearby surroundings. Canadian sound artist crys cole’s input to the series was Other Meetings, a collision of field recordings, contact microphoned objects and unexpected mellifluousness. It’s a travelogue in miniature, an intimate look at cole’s recent sojourns folded into each other. Domesticity and adventure become one and the same as she weaves the sounds of her immediate surroundings with those of the outside world. Now, years removed from enforced isolation, Black Truffle presents cole’s compositions remastered, with new liner notes, allowing the music to tell a new story. Other Meetings initially reflected specific circumstances, but its reverberations emanate far beyond the original singularity. This might just be cole’s Big Bang.

Bryon Hayes

  Lawrence English — Approach (Room40)

Approach by Lawrence English

Yoshihisa Tagami’s manga Grey paints a bleak image of a dystopian future riddled with warring towns surrounded by wastelands and controlled by a distributed network of computers. It was one of the first manga to make its way into Western hands, and it reached an adolescent Lawrence English at a particularly challenging moment in his life. With Approach, English reflects on his early memories of youth and of how seemingly banal events in our lives have drastic ripple effects, creating who we are. It is an homage to that formative manga that set English on course for personal discovery. At first listen, the record is as desolate as its subject matter, a swarm of dark tones and monochromatic vistas. Upon deeper examination, faint splinters of light become distinguishable. What could be bursts of faint radio chatter or cleverly combined frequencies claw their way to the surface of English’s miasmic tone clouds. This faint ray of hope goes against the ultimately tragic tone of Grey but proves that courage breeds the potential for positive momentum.

Bryon Hayes

  Esmerine — Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More (Constellation)

The title Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More might seem to fit our current moment neatly, but the first record in five years from the experimental, all-embracing post-classical quartet Esmerine is actually named after a book about the “last Soviet generation.” Fittingly to both that moment and our own, the music here (first started during a French residency in 2019) seems to deal with loss and maybe even grief in ways that are too nuanced and complicated for simple answers. Recording sessions at cellist Rebecca Foon’s converted barn featured the piano that all four members sprinkle throughout these tracks, weaving around the strings (from Foon and multi-instrumentalist Brian Sanderson), Bruce Cawdron’s marimba and other percussion, and most recent addition Phillippe Charbonneau’s bass. Whether it’s the changing moods of the multi-part “Entropy,” the way “Imaginary Pasts” evokes the electric mainline pulse of Spiritualized by very different means and with a very different feeling, or even the relatively straightforward plangency of “Hymn For Rob,” these songs’ structural and melodic restlessness and slowly blooming moments of beauty honour equally the “forever” and “no more” parts of the equation. 

Ian Mathers 

 Fucked Up — Oberon (Tankcrimes)

Oberon by Fucked Up

It’s at least a little ironic that, for a band as maximalist and massive as Fucked Up, an EP ends up being the record on which those instincts to GO BIG issue in too much hyperbole and unendurable pretension. Some of their recent records (Dose Your Dreams, Year of the Horse) worked precisely because of their audaciousness and scale. Oberon is a relatively scant 22 minutes long, but it’s hard to sit through. The title track, replete with brownies and other trappings of fairytale lore, is among the silliest things the band has ever recorded, and it doesn’t help that they hammer, crunch and howl away with apparent deadly seriousness. Perhaps there’s a wink that this reviewer just isn’t catching. Fucked Up seems to want to make boiling sludge on Oberon, but at best, this is a simmering cup of Campbell’s soup, warmed on a hotplate. The record closes with an arrangement of Saint-Saens’ “The Aquarium,” for hardcore instruments. It’s a fun idea, but unfortunately it ends up feeling as bloviated as the rest of the record, and the whole thing is just a bummer. It might be really nice if Fucked Up would write some punk songs again.

Jonathan Shaw

 Gift — Momentary Presence (Dedstrange)

Brooklyn based quintet Gift’s debut album is out on Oliver Ackerman’s label Dedstrange and you can hear the affinities been Gift and Ackerman’s A Place To Bury Strangers although Gift tend toward an airy euphoria rather the brutal noisemaking of the former. Not that T J Freda, Jessica Gurewitz, Kallan Campbell, Justin Hrabovsky and Cooper Naess are averse to a little propulsive thrash, but they are most effective when their combination of neo-psychedelica and shoegaze evokes a gravity-free feeling of timeless drift. The swirl and shimmer of sustained guitar chords, arpeggiated keyboards, vocals that bob around in the mix with an insinuating whisper, outbreaks of eastern influenced solos and the kind of maximalist comfort that the evokes The Moody Blues’ search for the lost chord in a garage in early 90s Manchester. With pristine production and a meticulous mix Gift magpie their influences into a warm nest of sound that demands and deserves to played loud and often.

Andrew Forell

 Homeskin — Itch Ecstasy (Self-released)

Itch Ecstasy by Homeskin

Homeskin is the weirdo, creepy-crawly solo project of Garry Brents, who puts out tons of music. He records much of it with Chris Francis in the always-interesting blackened skramz outfit Cara Neir, and even more as Gonemage, a black metal-chiptune project that’s as bonkers as that combination sounds. Homeskin is bonkers, too, but in a deeply paranoid, twitchy mode. Songs are called “Tiny Bodies Burrowed in the Ear,” “Raw to the Touch” and “Back of the Closet You Thrive Painfully.” Yikes. Guitars warble and tangle, voices groan and babble, rhythms quicken and skew. If scabies or roundworm had a musical complement, this would be it. Too much doom-scrolling, too much crack, maybe too much time to make music — it’s hard to say what moves a human to compose songs like these. It's also pretty great that Brents has done so. Against the odds, Itch Ecstasy ends up being a lot more pleasurable than not. For sure, there are extended periods during which the record sounds like the inside of someone else’s nightmare, but because it’s not your nightmare, it’s sort of fun to walk around in there. Just don’t forget the anti-fungal cream.

Jonathan Shaw

 loscil — The Sails p.1 and p.2 (Frond)

The Sails p.1 by loscil

loscil has been relatively quiet since last year’s stellar Clara LP, putting out a genuinely deluxe edition involving a photo book and some new extended songs from the same source material but otherwise lying low. Even this two-part project isn’t so much what loscil does next as a summing up of some of what Scott Morgan has been doing this whole time. These 18 tracks were all composed to accompany various dance projects over the last eight years. Listening to them with human movement in mind does make all of the varied efforts here even more evocative, particularly when they showcase something less typical of loscil’s established palette. “Container,” on The Sails p.1, is maybe the closest Morgan has come to the dancefloor in some time, at least initially, and the way the track settles into a kind of pulsing, ambivalent menace is spellbinding. Even the more typical songs here for loscil (the hypnotically submarine, the beautifully becalmed drone, the austere soundscapes) stand up to anything he’s put out more formally. Even without the intended context (one of them never performed, several others unlikely to be repeated), the result is almost an alternate universe greatest hits of Morgan’s gorgeously calibrated ambient/drone works.

Ian Mathers  

  Who Remembers Light by More Klementines

More Klementines — Who Remembers Light (Twin Lakes/Feeding Tube)

Notice the absence of a question mark at the end of this album’s name. This isn’t some Led Zeppelin-like, “do you remember laughter?”-style question; this is a decisive statement, whose specificity is in keeping with the fact that there are twice as many tracks on this LP as there were on its eponymous predecessor. The members of this New England-based trio declare themselves to be keepers of the light, the ones who remember what those of us lost in the current murk have forgotten or cannot perceive. The torch they hold aloft is one of psychedelic enlightenment, accessed by fearless, forward-motion jamming, and since this is a four-track album, there’s still plenty of room for sprawl. But each cut points at a different point on the lysergic compass, and only the shortest, the solitary vocal track, goes off course. By turns turbulent and patient, these jams stand ready to take you where you need to go.

Bill Meyer

 Fredrik Rasten & Léo Dupleix — Delve II (Insub)

Delve II by FREDRIK RASTEN & LÉO DUPLEIX

If you asked Fredrik Rasten to sit down and play you a tune, he surely could; he picks some sturdy ones on Alasdair Roberts’ latest LP. But if you asked him to play what’s on his mind, he’d strum a chord. Then he’d do it again. After a spell, you might notice an accumulation of varied tones rising from the chord, instigated either by subtle variations in attack, or simply by the overtones stirred by twelve strings vibrating in close proximity. That’s pretty much what happens on Delve II, with one added variable — the spinet (a sort of parlor harpsichord) of Léo Dupleix. Dupleix’s brittle, quicker-decaying sounds are the barely submerged rocks that make Rasten’s oceanic strums by turns shallower and more turbulent. This is minimalism boiled down to its essence — one idea, tested from every angle, with every weaker aspect steamed away.

Bill Meyer

  Laika Sakini – Paloma (Modern Love)

Laila Sakini seems always at the edge of disappearing, of losing the threads that hold us to the earth, to each other and that compel us to make stories. The music on Paloma is like snatches barely heard through walls. Wisps of melody, a voice barely singing what are barely words, tentative piano notes, scrapes of violin, breathe through a recorder. Fragments of a mystery you need to define before it can be explained. Her titles like “The Light that Flickers in the Mirror” and “The Missing Page” tell part of the story but even when the music becomes more direct, more assertive, the enigma remains. On “That Wave, That Line” a voice exhausted from explaining, a simple drumbeat, swelling strings, droning synths and a recorder build to an enervated crescendo, a tone poem on the battle against erasure, the strings you cannot grasp, fine webs you cannot discern that nonetheless entrap you. It is otherworldly but there is a tensile strength at the core of Sakini’s music that makes it compelling.

Andrew Forell 

 Vazio e o Octaedro —Vazio e o Octaedro (Porta Jazz)

Vazio e o Octaedro by Vazio e o Octaedro

Following up a fine debut on Porta Jazz earlier this year (Dharma Bums), Italian but Basel-based double bassist and composer Gianni Narduzzi joins forces with tenor player and composer Josué Santos, who, like the rest of the musicians, is Portuguese, for a not-quite-big-band set under the name Vazio e o Octaedro that includes a string quartet. The front line of two more saxophones in addition to Santos’ is supported by a rhythm section consisting of Narduzzi and a drummer. The strings to some extent take the place of a chordal instrument, so the sound is full but not cluttered with plenty of room for solos.

The six tracks include four apparently new compositions, a reworking of “Big Sur” from Narduzzi’s earlier recording, and a beautiful rendering of Portuguese songwriter José Afonso’s “Balada de Otono” (with the presumably significant line “Meu sono vazio” = “my empty sleep”) sung by Santos that is the only vocal here. Indeed, a kind of autumnal feeling pervades the recording, from the Halloween colors of the cover art to the strings suggestive of rustling leaves on tracks such as ���Lieu Commun.” Gentle but not sleepy, this album is the perfect soundtrack for a trip to the pumpkin patch or a romp through the fall leaves.

Jim Marks

Will Veeder — Exit Interview (Carbon)

Exit Interview by Will Veeder

If you happen to be a scholar of the Rochester, NY music scene, you should be able to frame Exit Interview within the context of Will Veeder’s nearly 30 years of recording with Muler, Hinkley, the Fox Sisters and Entente Cordiale. But if you share this correspondent’s ignorance of happenings in that segment of upstate New York, you might find it helpful that this sounds like some great, lost Six Organs Of Admittance from the late 1990s, or more maybe some private press LP made much earlier that exchanges hands for mortgage-sized prices, rather than the newly recorded, eminently affordable CDR at hand. Veeder’s acoustic picking has an indefinably “eastern” quality that’s got more to do with psychedelic rock music than any music made by people who live beyond the farthest edge of the Mediterranean, and his reverb-wrapped electric leads shine a focused light on a hitherto unknown corner of the Anatolian surf music cosmos. But Veeder’s a man with something to say, so his thin but sure-pitched voice threads through these pithy tunes, uttering sentiments that occasionally vanish into the fx-ed fog that settles around them, only to materialize harmonizing with itself on the porch outside. Good stuff.

Bill Meyer 

 Wesli — Tradisyon (Disques Nuits d'Afrique)

Tradisyon by Wesli

If you didn’t know better, you might assume that “Fè Yo W�� Kongo Banda” hails from West Africa. Its long, rough-edged declamation fades out amid an antic dance of cowbells and hand drums, a surge of glorious choral vocals, its relentless push a joy and a trance and a celebration. For this album, Wesli Louissaint plumbed the depths of traditional Haitian music, which meant, in some ways, plunging all the way through to the music’s African foundations. Louissaint is a Montrealean, but for this album he learned to play all manner of traditional Haitian instruments—and for those he couldn’t immediately master, he brought in local players versed in the kata, the segon, the boula, the manman and a modified banjo (you can hear that best on the swoony, syncopated “Kay Koulé Trouba). The result is a rich, multilayered tapestry of Afro-Latin sounds, from the polyrhythmic, gym-whistle pierced rumble of “Samba (Hommage à Azor Rasin Mapou)” to the swaying accordion romance of “Ay Lina.” Lovely stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

[joaquimblog]

Renée Fleming (Armida) MET

Matti Salminen

Juan Diego Flórez

Marilyn Horne (Tancredi)

Samuel Ramey (Scarpia)

Avui coneixerem el qüestionari de Salvador, un rossinià convençut, militant i entusiasta de les òperes del geni pesarès, però no només, ja que per fortuna no es tanca en un únic repertori i gaudeix, si el deixen, de quasi tot.

La primera vegada que ens va deixar un comentari a IFL va ser al 2012 arran d’un concert de Juan Diego Flórez, ja us anticipo que el seu tenor, a Salzburg,

Hi ha alguna cosa sorprenent però crec que fonamentada en la resposta del seu baríton i per sobre de tot hi ha una coherència “majúscula” quan contesta quin és el seu compositor, no deixa cap mena de dubtes.

La primera vegada que vas anar a l’òpera quin any va ser?  1979

A quin teatre? Principal d’Alacant

Quina òpera vas veure? Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Els teus pares anaven o van a l’òpera? No

Quin compositor operístic t’estimes més? ROSSINI

Quina és l’aspecte que valores més d’una representació operística? La música

Quin és el teu tenor predilecte? Juan Diego Flórez

Quina és la teva soprano predilecta? Renée Fleming

Quin és ell teu baríton predilecte? Samuel Ramey

Quina és la teva mezzosoprano predilecta? Marilyn Horne

Quin és el teu baix predilecte? Matti Salminen

Quin és el teatre dels que has visita que més t’ha impressionat? San Carlo di Napoli

Podries viure en una ciutat sense teatre d’òpera? Ja ho faig. Quin remei!

Quina és la teva òpera predilecte? La Cenerentola

Quina òpera detestes? Cap

Valora de 1 a 10 la importància del director d’escena en una representació operística 4

A quina ciutat del món que no sigui la teva i amb teatre d’òpera, t’agradaria viure? Berlín

Quin és el llibretista operístic preferit? Da Ponte

Quin és el teu heroi de ficció operística? Scarpia

Quina és la teva heroïna de ficció operística? Norma

La gravació operística que t’enduries a l’illa deserta? Qualsevol Rossini

El director d’orquestra operístic preferit? Claudio Abbado

El director d’escena preferit? Pizzi

La representació operística que t’hagués agradat assistir? Qualsevol bon Anell de Bayreuth

L’òpera barroca que més t’agrada? Alcina

L’òpera clàssica que més t’agrada? Mitridate

L’òpera romàtica que més t’agrada? Armida

L’òpera del segle XX que més t’agrada? Der Rosenkavalier

L’òpera del segle XXI que més t’agrada? De moment, cap dels que he escoltat

Si poguessis escollir una vocalitat lírica, què t’agradaria ser: soprano, mezzosoprano, contralt, tenor, baríton o baix? Tenor

En Salvador no m’ho posa gens fàcil o molt, depèn de com es miri, alhora d’escollir una música que il·lustri el seu qüestionari, perquè aquest qualsevol òpera de Rossini per endur-se’n a l’illa deserta, o qualsevol representació d’un Ring a Bayreuth com a representació enyorada és una resposta massa oberta i poc concreta, però  intentant ajuntar vàries de les seves preferències crec que La Cerentola al Liceu, amb Flórez i DiDonato, pot ser una bona il·lustració a aquest qüestionari. El Liceu es va tornar boig

Gràcies <b><em>Salvador!</em></b>

La setmana vinent publicaré el qüestionari d’una infernemlandaire transalpina <b>Adriana Steconi</b>

EL QÜESTIONARI IFL DE: SALVADOR Avui coneixerem el qüestionari de Salvador, un rossinià convençut, militant i entusiasta de les òperes del geni pesarès, però no només, ja que per fortuna no es tanca en un únic repertori i gaudeix, si el deixen, de quasi tot.