Month: January 2013

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Stage Wisper – CD Experience

On By cjx07sterIn MusicLeave a comment

Borrowed a CD from the Library.. It’s a rather old CD.  Old liner notes, played often.  Sight unseen.  Let’s see what it sounds like.

Terrible Angels:

Dreamlike the sounds of the buzzing electronica to a march.  Just looking for a protest of song.  Lyrical colors of protest change.

Sounds a bit like Icehouse, don’t know why, probably the 2/4 beat with an offbeat guitar against a rather sweet voice on the Paradisco track.

All the rain:

how very appropriate after all the rain we’ve had here on the East Coast of Australia in the past weekend.  Try to stay.. what ? anyway sounds like 2 bars one of 2/4 then a 4/4 follow up bar, repeated, again Charlotte seems to like having the voice against the basic drum beat, once again with synth in the background.  Simple and colorful, nice like the way if the rain is soft it could cover you, providing not too cold, heavy or torrential.  Somehow I think thats not the way it happens here in Australia these days.  We had about 210 millimeters of rain in one day filling up the Otto recycling bin.

White Telephone:

Well its a nice calm introduction in a slow trudge lazy style of thinking.  Waiting as usual for someone to talk on the phone.  Just like what happens when the robots call you up for telemarketing efficiency, though I doubt that is what Charlotte has in mind.  More actively, how do you feel ? Feel when someone actually never picks up the phone.  Like they somehow don’t understand or don’t actually want to talk to you right now. Gone just like a ghost. Just in the dark end of the empty phone right there.  These days you don’t need a white telephone, although that is somewhat evocative of telephones in hotels.  White phones in white rooms with no real pictures on the walls.

Anna :

Nice name – a bit quicker, happier with Anna of course.  This one has a slightly difficult to follow chorus.  I’ve often wondered re – chorus lines – in songs.  Yes, I believe the strongest chorus or refrains are those that state and re-state the conclusion of the argument. Examples of proof abound in the actual verses, then the chorus comes through sung by multitudes of disciples who actually agree.  Still – not too sure what Anna really thinks.

Got to let go :

Like the idea of the lyrical argument in this one.  It’s about letting go… knowing when to give up.  Of course my own feeling about giving up is … never give up… but we know that is pretty unrealistic… love is a wrecking ball, and I guess if it hits the solid edifice of life you have around you… bits and pieces are going to crash down around you after all.  Go on … do it !!!!  No … no… not the gun… you don’t need any revolver to help let go.  Not sure about this song really .. the argument fails… oh well… never mind.

Out of Touch :

Sounds like a letter… dear friend… plaintive sounds of being out of touch… do you call, text, skype, or write a letter.. what kind of paper would you use.  Lined and fat with thick paper from wallmart.  Sensitive thin paper, the kind you might use sitting on a yacht somewhere ? O I think the paper is important, since when getting back in touch it’s the paper that the reader feels the writer sent.  Yes the paper is what is about.  Could though you send a blank piece ? Probably not, the reader’s mind would get interested, then curious [where is the missing piece] — being out of touch – – got to start somewhere.  Who are you out of touch with ? try getting a nice piece of paper and write something on it — perhaps print an email out and send it… since you may have forgotten how to write neatly.

Memoir:

Interesting analogy where we have a nice boat sailing into memory .. delivering the body for memory — the body is memory –.. I like it in a kind of unknowing way.  So why give yourself to anyone here… why keep replacing relationships with anyone — will anyone at all really do ? Could you really be anyone ?  Not too sure about that..

IRM (Live) :

Love the synth getting a real 3D feel to the song.  Like musical poetry, scans a bit like RAP way before it’s time.  Like the electronic semi-dance feel to it.  The drummer gets a bit carried away with the mechanical torture of the rythm and tries hard to break out momentarily, but the synth cuts him off in the end. I guess a sojourn in an MRI machine is noisy but brief.

Set yourself on fire [live] :

So polite Charlotte – I don’t think these days people would be so polite in the way they ask to set on fire.. Still I like this one.  Sounds kind of progressive, leaning into a reasonable synth backing with some nice rythms.  Kind of pre-punk – anything would be about setting oneself on fire live.  I think bands should try hard to avoid singing about matches and fire and stuff, particularly after the disastrous fires we have recently in nightclubs.  Nightclubs on the other hand really need to think about having emergency exits that automatically OPEN when a fire breaks out. [Re Kiss night club fire in Santa Maria Brazil Jan 2013].

Jamais[live]:

Jamais is French for NEVER – and I love the word Jamais.  I nice 8/8 rythm with the 3rd/7th beat in charge of a kind of question statement. A dialog about a story.  What’s that interesting synth solo in the middle.  What I like is the music is very uncomplicated and allows you to think over other things while you listen.

O Charlotte, your tracks got me wondering about a few things.  Travel, music, wondering, memory, identity. Childlike simplicity.  I think all in all, the sparse music is just enough to highlight a beautiful voice with interesting stuff to think about.

Thanks for a pleasant half an hour Charlotte. Will listen again on big speakers soon !.

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A dark Terrestrial Vibe – Subconscious Data Cloud

On By cjx07sterIn Existentialism, Poetry, PrivacyLeave a comment

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Cool, but not cold to the touch it was. The damp darkness of it. The rough readiness of it being hard on the skin and bones of his skull which suddenly felt even heavier on it. Sleeping on the carpet of sharp rocks and dust of years all trudged and worn away by small animals scampering by in a past time of shelter.

It takes time to make that kind of black. The black of a cave out of sight of the world.  So black that your eyes can only see nothing real, only see what they imagine to see. There is no light further back, but there is sound.

There is a vibe in a cave, if only you could hear it.

be quiet enough, and still your breathing…

solid until the vibe sound came through it.

Came through your chest instead of oxygen to hear it.

the solid sounds of the earth below it.

and the struggling sound of water trickling kindly in it.

through the cracks of stone above it.

He woke up thinking..

” Yes it’s quiet, but I keep all my data down here, my memories my private ‘cloud’ my stuff that I did in the past. No disk drives, no wires, no access, no one can actually get at the data except me.  On the off chance that in a million year, way past my lifetime, I need it.  It might be found. Found down here in the dark recesses of my terrestrial mind, down in the dark where the terrestrial vibe sounds.”

“Yes it is quiet, but why do I need to keep it ? Why keep it when I sleep to forget it, why keep it longer, than my own mind would need it.  Emails, Data gone by, links once useful, now dissappeared and irretrievable. Why keep it, if no one can get it or use it or understand it or need it.”

Minnamurra Call Unexpected Fall

On By cjx07sterIn Australia, Sunday Posts, TravelLeave a comment
Photo 2013-01-11 14.00.23
The sound of birds and water falling

The bird – I don’t know what bird – maybe a lyrebird mimic was there. In the gully just down by the falls. A bush rat ran past in a hurry. Old cold blocks of rock hemmed us in between the west cold mountain and the sea. We’d climbed 400 metres up along the elevated walkways and rope bridges straddling the rivulet. Past giant strangler figs and stinging trees. Past ancient red cedars, the survivors of past logging trails. A native rainforest in a sandstone slot gorge carved out of the old dividing range with a view of the pacific ocean to the east over Kiama.  Now we had arrived, a long walk up to the top where the falls are found. Here though the long curtains of lighted water falling are thin and scarce into the pool below.

I just wanted to see it, having heard it. With no cautionary thought, I had jumped over the railing and landed heavily in the bush below the viewing platform.  Jane cried out, “What are you doing !!!”.. but too late, as I started sliding down into the gorge, trying to grab something but moving down fast. Rocks and sandy bits came raining down on me as I clung onto a gum tree branch overhanging the falls gorge below.

“It’s nothing” – I called back, listening to the sound of my voice bouncing off the rock walls.

Jane muttered something about stupid and moronic – how I could have killed myself.  The wind was up, and I carefully thought through the sudden kind of stuck predicament I was in. I’d shoved my phone in my pocket before clambering over the fence, so I should be ok.  My clothes were kind of ripped up and I worried about how dishevelled I would appear  once I got back the platform.  How exactly since I had only a grip on a branch hanging down with the slippery rain forest ground cover between me and the platform.

I was hanging on this branch, I was ok. No clue now how to get back up to the platform.

“Jane, can you see if someone has a rope ?? and throw it down ?? . I can’t get up.” – I called again… loudly…  More echoes.

“Why can’t you just pull up on that branch, and get up here that way ?”, she said.

“Look, just go get one from somewhere quick.:” – I said, and then with that the branch broke.  No need for a rope anymore I thought tumbling down through space and straight down into the slot – basically free fall, until I hit the side of the  gorge and bounced all the way down into the water below…  which hurt  and suddenly the noise of the birds was replaced by the frigid cold murk of the rock pool at the bottom.

COLD COLD WET COLD LONELY COLD WET SLIME COLD WET BUBBLES GREEN AND ROCKS AND THINGS

PAIN PAIN AHHHH – blood coming out — my knee hip and elbow seem to have got hit on the way down into the pool.  I clambered onto the rocks and lay there for a bit.  Coudn’t hear anything – too preoccupied with the body signals coming from all over me.

After I bit I tried to get up – Jane was way up there, about 100 feet or more up calling frantically.

“You ok, Where are you ?, Where are you ? John ! : “where are you “. she called.

I had landed below a ledge somehow and could not see directly up to the platform.

“I’m down here below .. I’m ok but I don’t know how to get out of here.” – I yelled again.

It went quiet , quiet like the birds wanted to know what just happened. Quiet like I did as well and Jane must have run off to get a rope [finally] or help of some kind.

Rust Wreaks

On By cjx07sterIn Art, Australia, DreamingLeave a comment

IMG_5375Love the feel of iron to the touch. It’s genetic for sure.  You touch it’s cool metal and watch it shine or glow. You feel the temperature, so slow to rise and catch your own. Heft the weight of it and understand it’s hardness for something mind bending and banging down wrought your Imagination. When it comes to rust though, it’s the weather and age that starts it’s decline.  A red mirage of it’s strength remains.

Remember machine how you art rust and unto rust you must return. Long forgotten machinery. Sitting there, with no oil, no attention, and no care.  The machine’s work is gone.  It’s lonely there, rusting slowly to a death of red.

Red rust is the outback of Australia, how the oceans rusted bad back before it all began, where the watery iron ions sat waiting and came out as red dirt for the land to occupy. A land occupied by iron tools on a red horizon full of flakes of past imaginings, past hopes, past dreams.

How my mind feels like that steel trap, which one day will lose it’s sparkle and spring. Which one day will be there rusting in spots and flaking off into the dirt of the past, for others to tread all over.

How my mind is a field of red rusty dirt just waiting for outback rain ready to bring sparkle and surprise to an ancient wandering.

— cjs – jan – 2013