SOUNDTRACK: MADAME GANDHI-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #38 (June 24, 2020).
I have never heard of Madame Gandhi. That’s a constant theme with these Home Tiny Desks–they seem even more geared toward introducing lesser known artists to the world.
Madame Gandhi’s is surrounded by her yellow bongos and congas, a yellow desk from her youth and a yellow nightstand, her Tiny Desk (home) concert lighting nods to the lavender-lemon artwork of her 2019 Visions EP.
Her music is mostly prerecorded. The live elements are her vocals (soft and gentle with a lot of nonsense syllables amid the good vibe lyrics) and her wonderful hand drums.
Her music is inspired by her South Indian heritage and she lights a stick of palo santo.
For the first two songs she plays the damaru (I think). “Waiting For Me” is about returning to the earth–returning to nature. I enjoyed the way it began:
Wake up in the morning / hit space bar and start recording
She plays cool-sounding drums–she has wonderfully diverse sounds from that tiny hand drum. And they seem to be modified in some way, too.
Before “Moon in the Sky,” she says “I don’t want our identities defined according to how oppressed we are.”
She’s intentional with everything she does, including activism that focuses primarily on gender liberation. She uses music to help elevate and celebrate female voices, from working with primarily queer women BIPOC on tour and video sets, to writing socially-conscious lyrics that challenge the white male-dominated music industry.
She continues, “if we are not brave enough to tell our stories end to end, somebody else will. And they will get it wrong.
on tour and video sets, to writing socially-conscious lyrics that challenge the white male-dominated music industry.. Madame Gandhi’s clear, soft voice and swells of percussion give you the necessary space to meditate on her message of inclusion and equality.
She says her music is Indian trap. The music has fun beats and a downplayed vocal delivery. I rather like it.
For the final song, “Bad Habits,” she stands up and plays the bongos: “put your phone down and stand with me.” The catchy chorus of the song is “all my bad habits have got to got to go.”
Her parting words are that each person’s contribution is unique and valuable and can be of service to my community and my family.
This has been a great introduction to a new form of music for me.
[READ: June 28, 2020] “The Rescue Will Begin In Its Own Time”
I really don’t understand what was going on with these previously unpublished stories by Kafka (translated by Michael Hofmann). There are four flash fiction pieces and they seem much more like story ideas than stories.
In the first section he talks about the four ways the Prometheus legend can be viewed. After the fourth, it ends, “The real riddle was the mountains.”
In the second part, there is a large load of bread which the Father of the family cannot cut. The Father is not surprised, “Isn’t it more surprising if something succeeds than if it fails?” When the children woke the next morning he had been up all night but had not managed to cut it.
The third is the longest one. A farmer stopped the narrator on the road and begged him to come back home and help with his marital problem. The farmer and his wife had had an argument and it was wrecking his life. Not to mention his children were useless troublemakers.
But the narrator was a stranger, how could he help in any way. He actually guesses that the problem was problem with him the farmer rather than his wife.
The farmer said if the stranger came and helped he could have anything he wanted. The stranger said he didn’t want that vague idea as payment. He wanted a monthly wage. Monthly? Yes, did the farmer think he could fix things in a couple of hours.
Also, the stranger wants meat every day and as much beer and spirits as the farmer drinks. Also a lamp with oil burning all night. And on August 24th, his name day, he would like 2 gallons of rum.
The farmer balks at this and says that he had been beating his wife and kids a lot lately so maybe if he lightens up things will get better.
In the final one, the narrator is in a cell and his cellmate believes that he will be rescued. The fact that he will be rescued is beyond doubt. So should he wish for it to happen or not? Of course the man may have been driven mad by captivity.
I know that Kafka’s stories directly address craziness, but it seems likely that we don;t need new works from him anymore.
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