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Archive for the ‘Magazines’ Category

Bryan Washington–Waugh” (New Yorker, October 29, 2018)

Posted in Bill Callahan, Bryan Washington, Death, Field Recordings, Houston Astros, LGBTQ, New York City, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Sex, Short Story, Smog on October 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: BILL CALLAHAN-“Small Plane” (Field Recordings, November 11, 2013).

Many episodes in the Field Recordings series travel far and wide to exotic locations.  For this Field Recording [Bill Callahan Sings ‘Small Plane’ In A Serene City] Bill Callahan travel to exotic downtown New York City.

When we first approached Bill Callahan to do a Field Recording in New York City, we asked him if he had any special place in mind. His reply surprised me: “A community garden.” I guess I’d stereotyped him in my head, because after all those years of dark, thoughtful songwriting — first as Smog and then on the pensive records he’s made under his own name — I’d imagined a library, someplace quiet and dark.

The video starts with the hustle and bustle of the city and then slowly moves into a quiet, peaceful garden, complete with a pond (and turtles jumping into it), birds, tomatoes, and a microphone.

As it turned out, the brightly lit 6th & B Community Garden, with its lush greenery and mellow wildlife, provided just the right setting. The noise of cabs, buses, trucks and the occasional siren wound up punctuating Callahan’s calm, deep baritone, but he makes it easy to ignore.

He sings about being a lucky man flying this small plane.  And he setting compliments his contentment.  It’s just him and his quiet electric guitar and all is well.

[READ: October 26, 2018] “Waugh”

Last week’s New Yorker story was called “Flaubert Again.”  This week’s is called “Waugh.”  The last one was tangentially about Flaubert but this one is (as far as I can tell) not about Evelyn Waugh at all.

This was one of those fascinating stories that was very simple but in which all of the details about the story were so vague that I couldn’t figure anything about it for many many pages.

This is a story of five unrelated boys who live together–they all pull tricks to make rent.  Rod was their defacto leader–not their pimp exactly, because he tricked too, but more like an elder watchmen.  He was tough and very strict.  You could be kicked out of the house for many infractions, and at the first sign of Sickness.

I assumed that this story was set in the 1970s in San Francisco.

Then one of the boys is named Google, so clearly it can’t be set in the 70s. (more…)

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José Saramago–“A New Paradise, or a New Hell” (Harper’s, September 2008)

Posted in Death, Excerpt, Field Recordings, Harper's, Immortality, José Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa, NPR/PRI/PBS, Religion, Translation, Wild Belle on October 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WILD BELLE-“Love Like This” (Field Recordings, June 26, 2013).

This Field Recording [Wild Belle: Reggae-Tinged Romance Amid The Big Bikes] is set in the El Segundo-based South Bay Customs motorcycle shop.

It doesn’t seem totally appropriate for the keyboard driven pop of Wild Belle, but there’s something about singer Natalie Bergman’s voice–a little gravelly, a hushed kind of whisper that seems apt.

Wild Belle singer Natalie Bergman seemed a bit confused upon the band’s arrival. … But once we walked past the front doors, we quickly realized that this wasn’t your everyday L.A. bike shop. South Bay’s walls are lined with eccentric oddities, and the facility also houses an art gallery and a performance space for local musicians.

So it was fitting that in a coincidental twist, she told us that she’d be embarking on a motorcycle ride across the Midwest with a close friend in the next month.

“Love Like This” certainly has a reggae-tinged vibe.  I especially like the interesting echoing guitar sounds.  It’s got a catchy chorus, but the whole song seems to have such a relaxed vibe that it makes me laugh to here her nonchalantly sing

My heart’s on fire
You light me up, and I can’t cool down
Your love is wild
You’re dangerous

The song picks up and is certainly catchy.  And while I do actually like her voice, I can’t imagine more than one song from them.

[READ: February 6, 2018] “A New Paradise, or a New Hell”

This is an excerpt from the novel Death with Interruptions. It was translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa.

It is a fascinating story with existential implications. Although I cannot imagine how this could be stretched into a novel.

On the first day of the new year, no one died.  In the whole country, not a single person died the whole day.  It was unprecedented.  There were many accidents, several life-threatening, bit no one actually died.  It was especially noticeable because the venerable queen mother who was known to be on the verge of her last breathe also did not die. (more…)

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Lesley Nneka Arimah–“Who Will Greet You at Home” (New Yorker, October 26, 2015)

Posted in Babies, Field Recordings, Huh?, Lesley Nneka Arimah, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Short Story, Supernatural, Superstitions, Surreal, Wild Nothing on October 26, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: WILD NOTHING-“This Chain Won’t Break” (Field Recordings, May 31, 2013).

I cannot get over how disconcerting the opening of this Field Recording [Wild Nothing: Nuanced Pop At 8,500 Feet] is.

The band Wild Nothing, whom I do not know, is shown climbing a mountain, with the caption that they are climbing to more than 8,500 feet above sea level (on a tram).

The band is out in the middle (well actually on top) of nowhere.  They are in a beautiful location on top of a mountain.  And the first thing you hear is a cheesy electronic drumbeat.  How disappointing!  Especially since you see they have a makeshift shaker on hand.

But lets enjoy the view.

When most people think of Palm Springs, visions of softly baked desert landscapes come to mind. However, upon arriving at the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, we were warned that the temperature differential between the desert and the top cliff of the Chino Canyon was about 30 degrees — cold enough that it would require warm clothing and an adventurous spirit. But Wild Nothing singer-songwriter Jack Tatum and his tour players were game to load onto the rotating tram car and ascend to more than 8,500 feet above sea level.

Abandoning extraneous gear at the Tramway landing, both the band and our crew hiked down into the San Bernardino National Forest and then up onto a side of the Mount San Jacinto peak. With rapidly freezing hands, the band performed its song “This Chain Won’t Break” for this Field Recording with a stripped-down assortment of instruments (two guitars, an amplified iPad, a bunch of dried tree pods turned into a makeshift shaker), giving this ode to a challenged relationship a much more nuanced, somber feel.

Despite the electronic percussion, the song itself is quite lovely.  The chord changes are nice and the their vocals meld nicely.

Once our feet were solidly back on the desert floor, the members of Wild Nothing were surprised to come across a group of fans who’d recognized the band from its recent Coachella performance. We toasted the chance meeting with some local wine and a random piece of sheet cake — and took the requisite Instagram pictures — before setting out for warmer climes.

[READ: January 7, 2017] “Who Will Greet You at Home”

I have no idea what the cultural significance of this story is.  I don’t know if some people could relate tho this, but I certainly couldn’t.

Ogechi is a woman who works a lousy job in a hair salon.  She had a fight with her mother and has not seen her in about a year.

And she has just made a baby out of yarn.

The yarn baby made cooing gurgles and other sounds until Ogechi caught it on a nail and it unraveled.

She knew that a yarn baby was risky, but she made one out of yarn anyway,

When she got to work, Mama, the owner of the hair salon demanded payment.  For it was Mama who blessed the yarn baby into existence.  But they both knew that Ogechi couldn’t pay her with money, so instead, Mama took some of Ogechi’s joy. (more…)

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Jonathan Franzen–“Scared of the City” (New Yorker, October 23, 2017)

Posted in Essays, Field Recordings, Gregory Heisler, Gregory Porter, Jonathan Franzen, Museums, New York City, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Racism on October 25, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GREGORY PORTER-“Be Good (Lion’s Song)” (Field Recordings, May 14, 2013).

The still from this Field Recording [Gregory Porter: A Lion In The Subway] certainly led me to think that Porter would be singing on an actual moving train car (the ambient noise would be IMPOSSIBLE to filter out).

Of course, it wasn’t the most practical (or legal–bands and other musical acts need to audition to even set up underground. And those are just the “official” performers) thing to actually get Gregory Porter to perform on an operational MTA train. So we asked him if he’d perform for us at the New York Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn, a collection of vintage memorabilia and reconditioned cars housed in a former subway station. All the better: Porter has a way with vintage suits, and there was a fortunate coincidence about the way it all felt right among the period-specific ads which flanked him. Accompanied by pianist Chip Crawford — who perfectly punches and beds the gaps here — Porter sang his original “Be Good (Lion’s Song),” a parable of unrequited affection.

The only thing I know about Gregory Porter comes from his Tiny Desk Concert.  I marveled that he wore a hat with ear flaps the whole time.  Well, he does the same thing during this song.

Gregory Porter has the frame of a football linebacker — maybe because he once was one, for a Division I college — and the rich, booming voice you might expect from a guy with such lungs. It cuts through a crowd with its strength, in the manner of an old-school soul singer; it demands attention with its sensitivity. If Porter weren’t winning over the international jazz club and festival circuit, he’d rise above the din wherever he went.

This is a sweet, quiet song, befitting him and the location.  The lyrics are a clever metaphor about lions and love.

[READ: October 22, 2017] “Scared of the City”

This is an essay about being white in New York City.

Franzen says that in 1981 he and his girlfriend were finishing college and decided to spend a summer in New York City– a three-month lease on the apartment of a Columbia student on the comer of 110th and Amsterdam.  It had two small bedrooms and was irremediable filthy.

The city seemed starkly black and white “when a young Harlem humorist on the uptown 3 train performed the ‘magic’ act of making every white passenger disappear at Ninety-Sixth street, I felt tried and found guilty of my whiteness.”

A friend of theirs was mugged at Grant’s Tomb (where he shouldn’t have been) and now Franzen was morbidly afraid of being shot.  The impression of menace was compounded by the heavy light-blocking security gates on the windows and the police lock on the door.

Franzen made some money when his brother Tom came into the city to do some work for hot shot photographer Gregory Heisler at Broadway and Houston.  Franzen was a gopher and made trips around the Bowery and Canal Street but he knew not to go to Alphabet City. (more…)

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Denis Johnson–“Strangler Bob” (New Yorker, October 23, 2017)

Posted in Denis Johnson, Drugs, Felix Mendelssohn, Field Recordings, Funny (ha ha), Murder, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Prison, Short Story, The Ebene Quartet, Violence on October 23, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE EBENE QUARTET-“Felix Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor Allegro assai” (Field Recordings, January 25, 2013).

I don’t quite understand why this Field Recording [The Ebene Quartet Powers Through Mendelssohn] sounds so great–it is rich and full with resonant bass notes.  Is it the recording or the quartet itself?

The title suggests it is the players.

The Paris-based Quatuor Ebene — the “Ebony Quartet” — has risen fast in the musical world with two separate artistic identities. In recent years, audiences have gotten to know the “other” Ebenes — the sophisticated cover band that plays everything from “Miserlou” (the Pulp Fiction theme) to jazz to “Someday My Prince Will Come” (yes, the one from Disney’s Snow White).

But when violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Mathieu Herzog and cellist Raphaël Merlin play classical music — whether Beethoven’s transcendent Op. 131 quartet or, as on their latest recording, works by brother-and-sister composers Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn — you realize the depth and beauty of vibrantly intense performances.

Felix Mendelssohn completed his String Quartet No. 6 in F Minor just two months before his own death, and very shortly after the death of his beloved sister Fanny. Even though this second movement, marked Allegro assai, is architecturally the “light” section in this piece, it’s full of dark colors, tense and moody and shaded with grey and black. The music provides rich counterpoint to the setting, the bright and spacious powerHouse Arena, a bookstore, gallery and performance space in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood.

We thought that the setting would appeal to the quartet’s double identities, given powerHouse’s signature mix of art titles and whimsical children’s selections, including a board book with a cute little piglet that clearly fascinated Raphaël to no end. And our idea worked: The shoot was bookended, so to speak, by the quartet browsing and buying. Maybe our idea worked a little too well? No matter — once the quartet got down to playing, the results were magical.

I have enjoyed Felix Mendelssohn’s music before, but this recording is outstanding.

[READ: October 20, 2017] “Strangler Bob”

I don’t enjoy prison stories.

This one is a little different, I suppose.  It concerns a guy remembering his days in prison.  He was eighteen and hadn’t been in too much trouble when his malicious mischief landed him a sentence of forty-one days.

His cellmate was an older guy, late forties, who was in the cell for doing “something juicy.”  The narrator would eventually learn that his roommate is Strangler Bob, and that his own nickname is Dink.

He befriended a guy his own age named Donald Dundun, who liked to stroll the catwalks and climb the bars spreadeagling himself against the jambs .suspended in the air. (more…)

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Anne Carson–“Flaubert Again” (New Yorker, October 22, 2018)

Posted in Anne Carson, Books about writers, Field Recordings, Gustav Flaubert, Huh?, Library Related, Mount Eerie, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Roland Barthes, Samuel Beckett on October 22, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: MOUNT EERIE-“Ocean Roar” (Field Recordings, January 3, 2013).

For reasons I’m unclear about, I had been posting about these Field Recordings in reverse order.  So I decided to mix it up for the 2013 releases and do them in proper order–it feels better that way.

This particular one makes you wonder how much work they went to in order to record less than 3 minutes of music.  This Field Recording [Mount Eerie Plays ‘An Absurd Concert To Nobody‘] was taped in the Folger Shakespeare Library’s gorgeous Elizabethan-style theatre in Washington, D.C., just across the way from the Supreme Court.

Mount Eerie is a band I’ve heard of but don’t really know.  I don’t know if this stripped down song is in any way representative.  The band is the brain child of Phil Elverum who sings songs of “life-affirming, death-obsessed mysticism.”

“Ocean Roar” is a smart tangle of words; its alternate stories oddly complement and complicate each other, while telling of lost thoughts and wandering souls. On record, the song chimes with guitars and drums that subdivide the dreaminess, but at the theatre, it’s just Elverum, a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar and touring band members Allyson Foster and Paul Benson singing soft harmonies at his side.

The song starts with them singing some lovely harmonies, they add lovely notes to flesh out the brief song throughout.

“We just played an absurd concert to nobody,” Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum says, as he faces a sea of empty red seats.

[READ: October 20, 2018] “Flaubert Again”

I have not enjoyed much by Anne Carson–she’s just not my type of writer.

This story also left me flustered.

This is about a writer who seeks to write less and less, not more. Other writers have tried, Barthes, Flaubert, but she hopes to go further.

To be a different kind of novel it would have to abolish things–plot, consequence.  And fully abolish, not just renounce, which is a weak and egoistic attitude.  She felt the pleasure of reading derived from answers withheld. (more…)

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Daniel Mason–“The Ecstasy of Alfred Russel Wallace” (Harper’s, March 2008)

Posted in Alfred Russel Wallace, Alfred Russel Wallace., Charles Darwin, Daniel Mason, Evolution, Field Recordings, Harper's, History, Nature, NPR/PRI/PBS, Research, Short Story, Silk Road Ensemble on October 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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SOUNDTRACK: SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE-“Saidi Swing” (Field Recordings, March 26, 2014).

I really enjoyed the Silk Road Ensemble’s Field Recording, so I was delighted to see that they did a second recording from the same session [A Field Recording Bonus Track: The Silk Road Swings].  I have no idea how they cleared everyone out and cleaned up the place for this video (how long did these four guys have to hang around?), but it was worth it.

What I find so magical about this piece is that it is four percussionists and yet they make such beautiful music.

They’re playing a piece written by Shane Shanahan called Saidi Swing. While it’s inspired by a traditional rhythm from Upper Egypt called saidi (which goes “dum tek dum dum tek” in its simplest incarnation, for those of you who want to find its seeds sprinkled through this piece), Shanahan uses that pattern just as a launching point. And with such fantastic collaborators — from left to right, Sandeep Das playing the Indian tabla, Shanahan playing the riq, or tambourine, Mark Suter on daff frame drum and Joseph Gramley playing the goblet-shaped dumbek — Shanahan can really let his imagination take flight.

The piece begins with the four drummers playing together.  Then comes the individual moments

First comes a solo by Sandeep Das playing the Indian tabla. I love that it’s mostly finger tapping–the tabla is a fascinating instrument.

Up next is Joseph Gramley playing the goblet-shaped dumbek.  To start his solo, he plays the side of the drum which rings out almost like a tambourine before returning to the proper method of playing.

The third solo comes from Mark Suter on daff frame drum (I assumed it was a bodhran, I wonder what the difference is…ah, the daf has metal rings inside of it and can be made of fish skin (!)).  Suter bangs it for a big open sound but then he rubs his fingers along the skin to create even more fascinating sounds.  It’s awesome.

Then they return to the main rhythm.  All four play loud then quiet and then it’s time for each of them to get a very brief (2 seconds, maybe) solo in order left to right.

Then it’s time for Shane Shanahan playing the riq, or tambourine, to get a solo.  It’s the most conventional instrument except it seems quite different from the one that we see in folk bands.  He does some pretty nifty tricks with it too.

In the last part they each play a solo that’s about a second.  Again, left to right, which sounds cool and probably sounds even better in person.

World music percussion is really fascinating and I’m glad it gets showcased in this way here.

[READ: February 7, 2018] “The Ecstasy of Alfred Russel Wallace”

I never understand why people write fictionalized accounts of true stories.  There must be a reason for doing it–maybe you can’t write a five-page biography and have it get published anywhere?  I don’t know.

This is the true (I assume) account of Alfred Russel Wallace.

Wallace was a student of nature–it filled whim with an ecstasy that sometimes felt like lust.  He was not one for theory–he was all about the search.

He collected specimens and he wrote letters home to his mother about his joyful expeditions.  He traveled endlessly, exhaustively.  Even when wracked with malaria he continued. (more…)

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Ben Marcus–“Cold Little Bird” (New Yorker, October 19, 2015)

Posted in Ben Marcus, Doctors, Field Recordings, Funny (ha ha), Humiliation, New Yorker, NPR/PRI/PBS, Parenting, Religion, Short Story, Yuja Wang on October 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: YUJA WANG-“Toccata in D minor, Op. 11” (Field Recordings, February 19, 2014).

I have never given much thought to the physical creation of a piano.  This Field Recording [On A Chilly Factory Floor, Yuja Wang’s Piano Sizzles] is set on the factory floor of Steinway & Sons.  As it opens you can see the craftsmen putting some touches on a piano, which really makes you think about how these machines are created.

This episode also introduced me to Chinese-born pianist Yuja Wang.

She is a [at the time] “27-year-old ultra-glam artist” who came to the factory in

one of her trademark dresses, significant stiletto booties and a Gucci fur stole, as well as some wrist warmers as a concession to the temperature.

The piece she played was also one I was unfamiliar with, played a piece that would chop shrinking violets to mulch: Prokofiev’s “Toccata in D minor, Op. 11.”

The blurb calls the piece “blisteringly difficult” and I totally agree.  It is nonstop notes for nearly five minutes.  Wang is up and down the keyboard, banging out notes in a nearly atonal piece (how she even remembered it much less played it is amazing).  And to see her pressing pedals in stilettos is pretty amusing too.

On a third listen, it’s not so much atonal as just very busy.  The melody is in there, it is just surrounded by so much else.  And watching the blurs that are Wang’s hands is jaw-dropping.

[READ: January 6, 2017] “Cold Little Bird”

I feel like Ben Marcus stories resist me, somewhat.  But this one was fantastic.

Martin and Rachel have two boys: a ten-year old-and a six-year-old.  As the story opens, Jonah, the ten-year-old says he doesn’t want to big hugged anymore. That he doesn’t like it.  He hopes that they will respect his decision about this.  He tells them that they can always cuddle with Lester, the six-year-old.

The parents shrug this off and think it is a phase.  Even when Jonah flatly says “I don’t love you.”

His parents tried to respect his wishes even as it went on for several weeks.  Martin was getting more and more exasperated, but Rachel seemed to be okay with it–telling him to back off and give the boy some space.

Soon enough, Jonah started playing with Lester–being very chummy and lovely with him.  And yet he did not warm up to his parents. (more…)

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Teddy Wayne–Loner (2016)

Posted in College, Cristina Pato, Field Recordings, John Zorn, Kayhan Kalhor, Liars, NPR/PRI/PBS, Salon.com, Set at School, Sex, Sexism, Short Books, Silk Road Ensemble, Unlikable main character, Unreliable narrator, Wu Man, Yo-Yo Ma, Yuck! on October 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE–“Briel” (Field Recordings, March 26, 2014).

There have been many fun Field Recordings, but this one [Welcome to Yo-Yo’s Playhouse] is surely the most fun. The countless members of Silk Road Ensemble were taken to ACME Studio, a theatrical props warehouse in Brooklyn.  They were given pretty much free reign to put on costumes, to bring out mannequins, to do whatever they wanted and that makes this session seem even bigger than it already is (and it’s already pretty big).

That’s all not to mention that the Silk Road Ensemble is a pretty amazing group of musicians:

cellist Yo-Yo Ma and some of the world’s premiere instrumentalists and composers, including members of Brooklyn Rider, Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man, Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, Spanish bagpiper Cristina Pato, American percussionist Shane Shanahan and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh from Syria.

As we’ve had the opportunity to forge those bonds over time [many of these performers have done Tiny Desk Concerts], we’ve gotten to know the warm, generous-spirited personalities that come along with these immense talents. We thought that setting them loose in a props house, where they could pick and choose among the curiosities for little elements to bring into the camera frame, would bring those aspects of their personalities into sharper focus. What we wound up with was a magical afternoon of play in all senses of the word — not just having the chance to record these virtuosos and their instruments in a spirited performance of John Zorn’s Briel, here arranged by Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, but also to capture them (and us) having an immense amount of fun.

I had no idea this was a John Zorn piece.  It sounded like a Hebrew composition and now I understand why.  But in the best world music tradition, this piece is arranged for musicians from all over the world–percussion, strings, brass and reed.  There’s a bagpipe solo, a kamancheh solo and a field of percussion.  The song is just way too short.

But to watch Yo-Yo Ma play the cello while holding a mannequin that looks like George Harrison is just one of the many highlights.

[READ: April 2018] Loner

Everything about the look of this book appealed to me.  The title, the crappy cover, the backwards type, the size, it all just seemed like a light, funny story.

Perhaps something about it should have read “creepy” too.

David Federman is a New Jersey native.  He went to Garret Hobart High School (named for New Jersey’s only vice president) He’s smart (he was accepted in to Harvard) but dull and, as we get to know him, pretty unlikable.  He imagines that Harvard will be a place where he (and other geeks like him) will flourish and kick ass.

He’s not wrong in thinking that–everyone he meets  seems to want to change.  But no one wants to change by hanging out with David.

David winds up in a freshman group that he hates–the Matthews Marauders (who are anything but).  In fact, nothing is going very well until he sees Veronica Wells.  She is everything he desires–a sophisticated New Yorker with money, intelligence and beauty. (more…)

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Cynan Jones–“The Edge of the Shoal” (New Yorker, October 17, 2016)

Posted in Boats, Cynan Jones, Death, Fishing, Gruff Rhys, New Yorker, Short Story, Storms, Wales on October 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: GRUFF RHYS-Yr Atal Genhedlaeth (2005).

In honor of the author being from Wales and of me recently seeing Gruff Rhys in concert, this is a post about his debut solo album, Yr Atal Genhedlaeth.  The title is in Welsh, as id everything else.

If you don’t understand Welsh, as I don’t, Wikipedia gives us a guide line for the album which I’m going to trust.  There are 11 songs in just under a half an hour

  • Yr Atal Genhedlaeth [‘The Stuttering Generation’, but ‘atalgenhedlu’ is Welsh for a contraceptive] is 8 seconds of stuttering voices.  I feared the disc was broken when I put it on.
  • Gwn Mi Wn [‘I Know [that] I Know’, could also mean ‘a gun I know’, a reference to the battle in the song].  Gruff played this song live with two members on drums.  It’s a cacthy near-a capella song with just the drums and his voice.  He loops his voice here (and live) to make more and more harmonies of himself.
  • Epynt [named after a mountain in Mid Wales, but about money, with the ‘E’ standing for the Euro, and ‘pynt’ sounding similar to the Welsh word for Pound].  This song has a DIY punk feel–two chords, loud drums and chanted chorus Eh-pint, eh-pint.
  • Rhagluniaeth Ysgafn  [‘Light programming’, but ‘lluniaeth ysgafn’ means a light snack].  This song has an electronic drums and simple guitar chords.  Once again, it’s Gruff’s voice that carries the melody.  As with most of these songs, he makes a big song with very few elements.
  • Pwdin Ŵy 1 & 2 [literally ‘egg pudding’, means ‘”egg custard’, two love songs]  The first part is under 2 minutes with a slinky guitar and bass.  It’s fleshed out with all kinds of weird sound effects.  The second part (all of 3 minutes) is quieter, with just his guitar and voice and some quiet percussion.  The solo is either a melodica or harmonica, I can’t quite tell.
  • Y Gwybodusion [‘The Experts’] is a simple garage rocker.
  • Caerffosiaeth [literally ‘sewage fortress’. ‘Caer’ is a common part of Welsh place-names (for example, Caergybi), used to indicate that there was originally a castle or fortress in the town/city]  This is the strangest song on the disc–full of all manner of weird sound effects.  These effects accompany the simple (cowbell and drumbeat) electronic percussion that sets the tone for Rhys’ overlapping vocals.  This song sound the most like one you might try to insert English words into the Welsh that he is singing like maybe: “Blue-eyed fork, blue-eyed fork, I love your bag and your power torch.”
  • Ambell Waith [‘Sometimes’] opens with a pretty acoustic guitar melody as all manner of quiet sound effects skitter around in the background.
  • Ni Yw Y Byd – [‘We Are The World’] is not a cover of the charity song, it is an incredibly catchy folk song with a flute (piccolo?) solo.
  • Chwarae’n Troi’n Chwerw [‘When Play Turns Bitter’, from a Welsh proverb. A Welsh language standard originally written and sung by Caryl Parry-Jones].  This six-minute song starts quietly with just an acoustic guitar,  It starts to build and go a little faster when the drums come in. By four minutes, there’s cymbals and what feels like a full accompaniment.  The last minute or so is Gruff playing the banjo.

It’s a pretty album with pretty melodies and a splash of Gruff’s wackiness strewn about.

I don’t think you’ll learn any Welsh from this records but it is neat to think you can sing along with it without knowing what any of it means.

[READ: January 4, 2017] “The Edge of the Shoal”

I thought that this was going to be yet another story about a guy fishing–and how he and his father had bonded over fishing.  Because that is how it started.

He didn’t tell his wife where he was going–just left a note to make salad.  He assumed he would catch a fish, but his real reason for going out in the kayak was to disperse his father’s ashes into the water.  (I’m not exactly sure where this is set, but I assumed Europe–okay Cynan Jones is Welsh).

The narrator was still hearing his father’s voice as he cast out for the fish.  Frankly I was worried that this story was far too long if that’s all it was going to be about.

But then things take a very different turn. (more…)

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