Favourite Albums of 2011 #1: "The Fallen By Watch Bird"

I decided to compile a list of my favourite records of 2011 – the albums that came my way in 2011 that I most liked, regardless of the year in which the music was recorded. I also decided to reject base-ten numbering and have ended up listing 12 records – nine albums and three CD-Rs. Over the next two weeks my end of year reconsiderations of these records will appear, starting with this one:

Jane Weaver
The Fallen By Watch Bird [2010]

In late 2010 I went to the Belle & Sebastian curated Nightmare Before Christmas. Jane Weaver was on the bill, but I did not go and see her, largely because I had never heard of her (and she might also have been on at an inconvenient time). I did later see a copy of her album being sold at the merchandise stall and noticed that it was a co-release between Bird Records and the interesting Finders Keepers label. Thinking that it looked intriguing I took a punt on it. Thus it was that I acquired what became my favourite album of the 2011.

In broad outline terms one might class this as belonging to the world of the singer-songwriter. That summons up the image of some insipid character strumming away on an acoustic guitar, inflicting adolescent poetry on the listener. This record is not like that.

The first couple of tracks segue into each other, presenting us with an almost psychedelic piece complete with semi-occult stream of consciousness narration from Susan Christie (one of those people who keep guest-starring on Finders Keepers records), before leading into the record's title track, a piece relying on a variety of instruments with nary an acoustic guitar in sight. I gather this is meant to tell some kind of story about loved ones across the sea and birds flying back to bring good tidings, but frankly it is a bit oblique and I treasure more the strange sense of longing it communicates. This is all helped by Jane Weaver's voice, somewhat understated but capable of communicating real emotional depth in a subtle manner. After those tracks we are in acoustic guitar territory, but the sound stays away from the bland singer-songwriter clichés and draws more from a neo-folk spring of creativity. It is all very beautiful and I am still listening to this record over and over.

my original review

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"Get that shit off my blog"

Kerry Packer was a media tycoon in Australia. He had his own TV channel. One evening he was watching his own channel and was so appalled by the low quality of the programme* that he rang in to say "Get that shit of the air". The programme went to a commercial break and than an announcer revealed that for "technical reasons" they could not continue with the programme and were going to show an episode of Cheers instead.

I am taking a similar iron broom to Inuit Panda. One thing I am rather dissatisfied with is the appearance of my 2011 and 2009 NaNoWriMo attempts here. They do not fit in and I really should have posted them somewhere else, or not at all. So, I have deleted almost all of 2009's Furry Folk and will shortly do the same for Organisation Man.

Of course, if anyone for some unknown reason wants to read either of these, contact me and ask for a PDF copy.

*Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos

image source

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War and Peace 2012

War and Peace is the famously porky novel by Leo Tolstoy. It concerns Russian society in the time of the Napoleonic Wars. This year I am reading it a chapter a day. Why? Well, it is one of those books that I have always meant to read sometime, but its size has previously proved off-putting. However, a chapter a day is a very manageable way of digesting such a big book in bite-sized portions. This is also an ideal year in which to read a chapter of War and Peace each day. The book has 366 chapters (in some editions; others combine them in such a way that it has less), and this is a leap year, so the fit is perfect. Also, 2012 is the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the central event of War and Peace.

So, I encourage you to join me in reading Tolstoy's classic a chapter a day. Now, I know what you are thinking. Given that we are now well into February, you are thinking that it is too late to start on War and Peace, that you will not be able to catch up. Well, you would be wrong. The chapters in War and Peace are pretty short, so much so that it would be no great hardship to read two or one-and-a-half a day until you have caught up. I urge you, therefore, to seize this once in a lifetime chance to read this great novel that people are always meaning to read sometime.

If you are reading the book, then why not check out the awesome Facebook group for those of us reading it this year? Words cannot describe how amazing this group is.

Image source

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Manchester After Man

James Chadderton presents these photographs taken of Manchester in the future, after the coming apocalypse has left it empty of people.

The pictures can be inspected in detail at the Incognito Gallery, in the city's northern quarter. After seeing them you should flee for your very life.

errrr, that exhibition has closed now… I wrote the above post ages ago, but then forgot to post it. Life is hard.

Source

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Birds Learn to Cooperate

In an astonishing development, scientists report that in Italy there exist mixed colonies of lesser kestrels and jackdaws. On the face of it, this is unusual. Lesser kestrels are birds of prey and would be known to take down smaller birds like the jackdaw. Jackdaws, meanwhile, are opportunistic foragers who would not normally be averse to raiding the nests of other birds like the lesser kestrel. It seems, however, to be the case that the two species have formed a working arrangement. The presence of the lesser kestrels deters other predators from going near the jackdaws, while the kestrels seem to have subcontracted the work of watching out for larger and more dangerous enemies to the raucous jackdaws.

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Man Eats 64 Year Old Lard

A man in Germany has eaten a 64 year old tin of lard. Hans Feldmeier had originally received the tin as part of an American aid programme in 1948, but put it away for emergency use and forgot about it. When he found the lard again he tested its suitability for human consumption and then ate it all up with some black bread. "I just didn't want to throw it away," said Mr Feldmeier.

Readers may be interested to learn that that the tin in question is of Swift's Bland Lard, the same type of animal fat that appears in the popular Orphanage of Cast-Off Mascots.

Hans Feldmeier Image Source

Terrifying humanoid lard tin image source

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Ancient Prophesy

I have uncovered a terrifying prophesy of the ancient ones concerning the last days.


And there shall come a monster with two heads and two bodies.


And though they shall be two, they shall have one name.


They shall invoke the name of God, yet they shall not be of God.


Wheresoever they shall go, there shall be heard the wailing of maidens.




image source

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France salutes Shakira

France has made the Colombian singer Shakira a Chevalier de L'Order des Arts et des Lettres, an honour previously bestowed on TS Eliot, Clint Eastwood, and George Clooney. Shakira reports that she is honoured to have had this award bestowed on her by a country like France that has contributed so much to world culture.

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Guest Star Irene talks about Kaleidoscope

Kaleidoscope Night, Dublin, 2nd November

And now we have a special treat for all readers – a guest post from the mysterious lady who goes only by the name "Irene", talking about an event back in November that I also attended but failed to write about.

"Transformation, musical alchemy – this is my theme, as Kaleidoscope dips in and out of time commemorating and celebrating all the living and the dead, the new and the old, old-new and new-old-invoked, empowered, charged: a kind of sonorous hexing. Yes, hex: to bewitch. German and Swiss immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania in the late 17th century spoke a dialect of German known as Pennsylvania Dutch. In this dialect hexe was the equivalent of the German verb hexen, "to practice sorcery." The English verb hex, first recorded in the sense "to practice witchcraft" is borrowed from Pennsylvania Dutch, as is the noun…."

Thus spake Bernard Clarke, presenter of Nova on RTE Lyric FM and general modern music guru. Yes, he does go off on one occasionally, God bless him. But we let him rattle on, knowing that eventually he'd shut his yap and let the musicians do their thing. 2nd of November is All Souls' Day and has spooky pre-Christian roots, hence Bernard's shiteing on about witchery.

Kaleidoscope Night has been going for nearly two years, and seems to be based more or less on the old salon idea where people gather in a small, informal group to dig some live performances of new music. It also echoes a sort of 1960s beatnik "happening", only with classically-trained musicians. The people involved are from the classical avant-gardey end of Dublin's music scene – there's a big overlap with the Crash Ensemble (Ireland's Bang On A Can or Kronos) and the Ergodos lot. We went along with our friend Tim, who plays some music but is more from the trad/bluegrass end of things. The venue is a rather plush upstairs room with bar, low lights, groovy 70s décor etc. Nice.

First up was guitarist/composer Enda Bates and his hexaphonic guitar, or as I like to call it his Fucking Hexaphonic Guitar. I don't know why I'm so exasperated by the idea – it might just be that for me it is indistinguishable in appearance and sound from any ordinary electric guitar. So I don't see why the "hexaphonic" element merits any mention. Enda Bates would probably differ. In his own words, the hexaphonic guitar "provides six discrete audio outputs, one for each string. This multi-channel output can then be processed and spatialised to a loudspeaker array, transforming a standard electric guitar into a new instrument for the performance of spatial music." Which sounds great, but srsly, it sounded just like a normal guitar to me. He did two pieces, one of which was slightly ambient and pedaltastic and the other of which was picky and John Faheyesque. Maybe he needs to do a double-header with some guitarist with a normal guitar so we can tell the difference.

Next we had clarinettist Paul Roe, performing Stravinsky's Three Pieces for Solo Clarinet, which were composed in 1919 (i.e. post-Rite of Spring). They were all quite short and varied, two out of three using a low clarinet (one slow and haunting, one a bit more improvvy and jazzy) and the last one pitched higher and sounding a lot more up for it and vivacious and complicated. I don't know if Stravinsky was listening to jazz at this time – I think Paul Roe said one of the pieces was a follow-up to his Russian Songs), but there was a lot of jazz there to my ears. I liked these.

Then the Ergodos Musicians, largely composed of familiar faces from various modern music collectives (boy, do these fellows love to collaborate), did some rather beautiful and appropriate-for-the-encroaching-winter vocal liturgical music. The first selection was from Léonin, called Viderunt Omnes Part 1, from 12th-century Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The second was the "Kyrie" from the Messe de Nostre Dame by 14th-century composer Guillaume de Machaut, which is apparently very famous if you know about such things. The two lady singers Michelle O'Rourke and Nora Ryan did that glacial medieval counterpoint thing, and the cello and clarinet accompaniment was suitably understated. The pieces were in some way arranged by Garrett Sholdice, another composer who pops up a lot on this scene. Why don't I listen to more of this kind of music?

After the interval, the beatnik-happening quotient was upped by a performance by poet Dave Lordan. I approve of this mixing up of artistic endeavours and didn't find the poetry completely fatuous or annoying. This is surely a result. Matters were helped by the fact that I know Dave slightly from my political-activism days, and he's a top fellow.

Finally, well almost finally, we had the Quiet Music Ensemble. As their name suggests, they specialise in … quiet stuff. There is probably a very elastic definition of what constitutes "quiet", because surely you can't just play Morton Feldman all day. Or maybe you can. Anyway, they did two pieces, one an improvisation and the other by Susan Geaney called Vacuum. I found both pieces quite similar in that they both reminded me of Salt Marie Celeste by Nurse With Wound. Maybe amplified creaky cello noises and minimalist electric guitar and saxophone will do that. Anyway, a nice spooky finish …. Except that then all the various musicians (or those that weren't occupied at the bar) got up on stage for a bit of a jam. It pretty much followed the template of all jams, in that the musicians probably got much more out of it than the audience.

And that was it. Not bad for a dank, dark Wednesday night in November.

bye bye Irene

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flyer image source (which is actually the Kaleidoscope website... watch as they trace the link back and then send Enda Bates to get hexaphonic on my ass)

Bernard Clarke image source

When Wake The Morlocks

The pictures are from a website put together by people who have been exploring the closed off spaces underneath London, from abandoned Tube stations to the now shut-down Royal Mail line for transporting post. I urge you to have a look at their website, where there are more pictures and accounts of the most amazing urban adventures. There is also a certain amount of blah blah situationist stuff, but I suppose you can get away with that if you are travelling down the forbidden paths of the Under City.

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