inner city blues (make me wanna holler)

this one goes out to everyone occupying spaces and places and voicing their desire for a fair shot at life.

i had a dream about an exchange programme where little palestinian kiddos would go live with isreali families for the summer and israeli kiddos spent summer with palestinian families. within a few generations we'd start to see a peaceful shift between the two. idealistic utopian dream? perhaps.

what about the 1% and the 99% of the occupy movements? suit: take a single mother's spot for a couple of months... take on her jobs. take care of her kids, her sick mother and pay her bills. woman, put on a power tie, get used to that smartphone, and spend those big bucks responsibly. spend your evenings alone in an empty apartment or constantly entertaining clients and making sure your grass is as green as envy. let's see how you both feel in a month. i know, i know. far flung dream?

the reality is, to our fearful egos, poverty and joblessness are a hop and skip away from homelessness and homelessness is a stone's throw from death. there is no way we will give up what we got to see how other people feel. because we're afraid we'll die!

so what can we do? in any power struggle, you self-preserve when you stop feeding the machine. choose the mom and pop shops. stop buying oil one day each week. then two days, then three. how about giving up blackberries and iphones? home phones for a while? do we need so much electricity? and water? if the average african uses 10 litres of water a day, surely we north americans can do with less than 400. every day there are lineups at starbucks, at the apple store. shopping malls are full in the middle of the day. the supermarket even has self checkout. how about visiting a proper market vegetable stand? you know, the one with the owners working the cash?

sure we can cause an economic collapse. isn't that the goal?
it' about time, because this misery ain't new. right, marvin?

marvin gaye - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):


maybe what we didn't do in the 70s was make our revolution a bit more fun. perhaps revolve with a little rump shake?

sly & robbie - inner city blues (makes me wanna holler):

and then:

• nostalgia 77 feat. alice russell - seven nation army (grant phabao mix)
• stevie wonder - free
• ted taylor - houston town
• finley quaye - even after all

thank you, sly

it's thanksgiving again in canada and all weekend i've been counting my blessings:

- beach walking and forest hiking-time in indian summer heat.
- silliness and antics with my adorable baby niece.
- hanging with family and friends at indulgent (and yummy) international thanksgiving dinners...

but that doesn't mean that life is all sunshine and stuffing...

i just found out i have rotoscoliosis which despite my chiropractor's frown, i am determined to reverse, along with bunions, fallen arches, dislocated knee, loose kneecaps and inverted hips. i should also have massive headaches, but i haven't gotten around to them yet as i've been busy working my spine into a corkscrew.

and yet, i feel fine. i'm actually thankful. a friend got me into her gym (lemme tell you even trainers i've been with weren't successful at it). another fitness consultant friend recommended chiro before working out (who woulda thought?). i have an amazing chiropractor in the family. and... i've got gwenyth paltrow's personal trainer's supa dupa exercise video so i can have some ballet-style fun.

all this to say: true thankfulness means being thankful for everything. not just the good but also the bad and ugly. the foundation of thankfulness is acceptance. accept it all. be grateful for it, all of it steers you forward. even if on fallen arches.

so carrying on the tradition of sly on thanksgiving, tonight's musical thank you gets a little funky. this is going on my gym rotation.

sly & the family stone - thank you (fallettinme be mice elf agin):

more thanks:

• sly & the family stone - thankful & thoughtful
  
• marie queenie lyons - see and don't see
  
• ted taylor - houston town
  
• finley quaye - even after all

get this at amazon

namaste

"...then a voice spoke in my head, and she said:
dark is not the opposite of light, it's the absence of light...."

just coming off a 10 day silent mediation retreat and i feel a little changed, but surprisingly not much.

having a blog tributed to sound, it may seem a little odd to seek silence. but it feels like it was the most natural thing to do. in music each note makes one appreciate its complement. and each sound ultimately pays respect to its parent, the sound of silence.

what i've come to know is silence is the foundation of all sound. it's always there. even when we forget, it's there: patient, calm, waiting, full of grace. and when we recognize this, we recognize ourself as the silence. the highest resonance of all...

i remembered this track (yes those nutty buddhist beastie boys) while walking in the gardens on my retreat... watching the butterflies play in the shade of the tall trees all around, the countryside painted a lush green.

like colour on canvas
all the mind's thought and feeling
painted on our being.

beastie boys - namaste:


more magic:

• stevie wonder - free
  
• finley quaye - even after all
  
• diego stocco - music from a tree
  
• yonderboi - riders on the storm / pink solidism

get this at amazon

pop roches

it's the holidays and i've decided to catch up on the quirky and arty and underrated films i haven't had a chance to watch yet....

one such film is "please give", the opening of which is a montage of several women's breasts - in all manner of shapes, sizes, colours, and volumes - all being plopped and squished down by a glass plate for mammograms. the funny thing is, the best part of the montage isn't the breasts. nope! not at all. it's the song they play over this mammary montage: a quirky tune called 'no shoes' by the roches.

the band is comprised of three sisters who started their musical journey by singing christmas carols in their new jersey neighbourhood while in high school back in the 1960s. 'no shoes' is taken from a recent release called "moonswept".

with about 15 records under their belt (more if you count them individually or in duos), along with their lovely harmonies, quirky lyrics, immense stage and recorded presence, the roches managed to somehow fly under my radar. until i watched 'please give' the other day. i literally had to pause the film and shazam the thing.

so here's my christmas carol to you this year! hope you like.

the roches - no shoes:


related:

• nneka - africans
  
• bonobo - walk in the sky
  
• derek vincent smith / pretty lights - finally moving remix
  
• nostalgia 77 - seven nation army

get this at theroches.com

lhasa on the living road

a little something for my travels....

lhasa de sela is a montreal-based wandering soul who grew up traveling with her family between the us and mexico in a converted schoolbus, listening to everything from eastern european folk tunes to traditional arabic odes and old mexican standards.

anything but ordinary, lhasa sings in no less than three languages: english, spanish and french. she took time from her music to tour with her sisters and perform circus acts. and then there's her music... everything from marimbas to ukulele and accordion.

her voice and style are anything but typical too. long, drawn out syllables, a unique lyrical poetry and throaty, breathless crooning make for an interesting combination.

just when you think everything has already been done, along comes lhasa.

the living road is a beautiful album to soundtrack the more reflective moments of driving through the mexican countryside... perfect for a train through las barrancas del cobre - mexico`s deepest and most striking canyon system.

lhasa - con toda palabra:


lhasa - para el fin del mundo o el ano nuevo:


related or unrelated to this:

• up, bustle and out - all out king
  
• andre désilets - mission apollo
  
• amadou + miriam feat manu chao - senegal fast food

get this at amazon

footnote on my return from mexico - i was saddened to hear while in was in the yucatan that the beautiful lhasa lost her battle with breast cancer. she lives on in our heads and hearts...

thankful n thoughtful

today i give thanks and thoughts...

a little while ago k and i were indulging in a chocoholics' dream at SOMA, when suddenly i heard this. too funky. no doubt sly. the sultry basslines and horns backed up against sly's soulful voice floating over chocolate almost took me over the edge. when i got home the backup singers were still beckoning so i put it on and listened again. and again.

and when i listen, ev-ery-thing-in-side-me-is-mov-ing-to-this.
ev-ery-thing. jangling bones held together by happy ligaments connected to those involuntarily twitching muscles and corpuscles... the jelly in my eyes, even.

so on the brink of american thanksgiving i present to you a funk track about being saved from the perils of addiction. and no! this does not mean i'm giving up chocolate, so please... keep it coming! i'd be ever so thankful for you being so thoughtful...

sly + the family stone - thankful n thoughtful:


related to this:

• ted taylor - houston town
  
• nina simone - sinnerman
  
• marie queenie lyons - see and don't see
  
• derek vincent smith/etta james - finally moving

happy thanksgiving to my american amigos!! get this at amazon

magic sound fabric

in my waking life i found i've started to appreciate the tonal, the nonverbal and the silences in between conversations - finding that most conversation is a means-to-an-end rather than the end. 'talk is cheap,' i say, 'show me some action!'

enter magic sound fabric. cameron akhunaton (the name self-styled after the ancient egyptian sun-worshipping pharaoh) is a veritable empresario of formless mind-expanding ambient music. on uplift drift, however, he goes out on a limb, picking up percussion and rhythm, and blending the electronic with the acoustic, the profound with the carefree. what he's created is utterly clean, gently disciplined, undeniably infectious.

electronic voice-over, sultry basslines, surprise waves of wah-peddling electric guitar, trumpeting horns, poignant piano riffs, hints of celebratory hand-claps and a pensive tabla solo give 'my thoughts have become visible' its delicious and unexpected flavours.

expertly sequenced, the tracks on this album flow effortlessly with a perpetuum that exudes the very motion, the very relentlessness of life, the drama of nature unraveling with birth, death and everything that happens in between. without words. expect the unexpected.

but i digress. yes talk is cheap, let me listen-you the music.

magic sound fabric - my thoughts have become visible:


magic sound fabric - galaxy rise:


magic sound fabric - space traffic control:


can't wait to lay my hands on this year's release, observer. listen to this or get the release at www.magicsoundfabric.com or amazon.com

related to this:

• four tet - as serious as your life
  
• yonderboi - riders on the storm
  
• bruknahm project - siba dub plate
  
• heliocentrics - once upon a time

see and don't see

i'd recently spent several consecutive days studying with my reiki master. what seemed like magic was happening in real life.

one tough lesson was coming face to face with hard truth. tough.

and this woman knew how tough. marie "queenie" lyons - the lady who covered try me and fever knew that even fevers eventually break... as do hearts. it's all in that voice.

there are two things that make a voice penetrate our skin, tear through muscle, infiltrate our veins and reverberate deep inside our bones. one is sheer unadulterated joy. the other is soul-shattering pain. lyons sang both like a true blues-funk-soul-sister. she turned the pain of knowing even the darkest truths into something sublime.

my reiki master knows i try to move beyond highs and lows, but sometimes my bones ache for them. my veins need a hit. and that's when i listen to the lyons.

marie "queenie" lyons - see and don't see:


related to this:

• ted taylor - houston town
  
• nina simone - sinnerman
  
• derek vincent smith/etta james - finally moving

derek... thanks for taking me back with your track, my other love.

music from a tree

a friend sent this to me last week and i just couldn't help sharing it. diego stocco is a composer and music designer (pretty great filmmaker i might add) who lives in california and makes surreal music from objects in nature, self-styled instruments or traditional instruments in distress.

i embedded the video for this one because it explains so much about what has gone into planning and laying down the track. i was shocked to read that it was not sampled, but played live. the whole arrangement is pretty impressive...

diego stocco - tree music:


i couldn't stop there. in one of his videos, diego uses light to control music, in another he actually makes music from sand... yeah. my thought exactly. what the heck does sand sound like? take a listen, it's pretty tropical and the video is cool too.

diego stocco - music from sand:


so if i were banished to a desert island, i'd definitely ask this guy to come along for some fun!

check out more at diegostocco.com.

thanks to dd for the introduction!

somewhat related:

• perpetuum jazzile - africa
• uakti - minimal 13 m1
• heliocentrics - once upon a time