TO WHERE I AM NOW

The picturesque splendour of Mount’s Bay, an expansive body of deep blue and shaded green translucent water full of life, incessantly driving towards a semi-circle of land that hosts Penzance, a deserted town that looks out in awe towards the horizon. Today whilst seagazing, a seagull, red legs stretched backwards tucked into its body behind the belly, streamlined and floating on the air current, swooped down onto the surface of the water and took a small unsuspecting silver fish straight up into the air and swallowed it whole. The brutality of nature in a backdrop of absolute beauty. (I was reading somewhere that in the present crisis, a zoo is contemplating feeding the animals to each other.) Is every beautiful thing at the expense of some violent action? The magnificent mountains exploding out of the Earth spitting lava and stone, the rivers cutting through the land, flooding the valleys, the gradual erosion of weather shaping the landscape, destructive storms creating desolation until life comes bouncing back. Beyond natural things, the pyramids that cost the lives of thousands, palaces, aqueducts, temples and fortresses, churches, bridges, railway lines, all these things built through toil and hardship. Sometimes slave labour, sometimes low paid workers, all for awe-inspiring beauteous edifices or magnificent feats of engineering, that conveniently connect people to each other across gorges and through the mountains.

I wonder if those workers that were still alive when the pyramids were completed were proud of the results? Did they look on the Taj Mahal, The Vatican, The Houses Of Parliament and think, good job! Ha ha. And when they were finished were they suddenly unemployed? Or were they on the ‘palace workers list’ for the next monuments project?

But although the digging of the ditches and the carrying of the stones and the removing of the rubble might be executed by the low paid workers, the craftsmen, those that decorate and design must always have been treated better by the planners, the architects, the foremen and the team leaders. How do you coordinate all those hands? Who even has a vision of building a structure that’s completion isn’t even feasible in multiple life times? How could their work be so successfully completed. I wonder what do we not know about the mentality of people in history? Ingenious skills and the commitment to see their visions through to the end, across centuries. Who were these sophisticated and learned superhumans from a time before industrialization or before the Renaissance. People who could dream and create the fantastic whilst coldly disregarding the human cost. I also wonder what other superstitions there were that were not handed down, simply because times passed and people began to understand what was true. And also what knowledge has been lost over the centuries, knowledge that we would benefit from now?

On this crazy planet with too many people I wonder about the future, a hundred years from now. It will surely be a bigger dilemma unless some huge wake up call makes us change our ways, maybe a destructive war or a plague beyond the virus, something much worse. Or simple slow destruction at our own hand through pollution or the general collapse of society. I always thought that I lived in an amazing era. Born in the fifties, the revolution of the sixties, the luxury of growing up in the seventies, being able to choose to make music to a willing audience throughout the eighties and into the nineties. But now we’re in the computer age and something has changed. With all the convenience there is, there is the loss of a personal touch, with all the ease of communication something is lost. With all the availability of information, there’s the mire of distraction. My goal is to focus.

Music today started with an exploration with that incredible and terrible tool Spotify. The beast that leads me to artists that I may never have discovered. In my case when I can afford it, I use Spotify to seek out the artists whose records I would like to buy. So today I explored Danish singer Agnes Obel and listened to her latest album Myopia. It was beautiful and I put in some bids on eBay for two of her albums on CD. She has four albums, how can I buy them all, especially on vinyl? This led me to my own collection and I realized I was craving Juana Molina. If you don’t know her she comes from Argentina and started as a successful actress before changing paths and making, to date, six captivating albums. I have four of them on CD, one rather tragically warped and damaged on one track on Side 1. It’s called Segundo and I found it very cheap somewhere with its water damaged buckled cover, but overall it plays ok. What kind of music is it? I’m not sure, that’s why you have Spotify, go see.

How do you follow Agnes Obel and Juana Molina? Easy, listen to Yasmine Hamdan. One of my great more recent finds. She was born in Beirut and lives in Paris. She was part of the influential Soapkills (first release 1999) and is an important voice in introducing contemporary Arabic music to the world, but also with references to the past, a forgotten Arab world. One of her favourite singers is Syrian vocalist Asmahan. I have Ya Nass (2013) (“Hey People”), which includes the song Hal which was featured in Jim Jarmusch’s film Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). In 2017 she released Al Jamilat (“The Beautiful Ones”). There’s a selection below to see her intoxicating performances. The first is Beirut from Ya Nass, then Live At KEXP on her Al Jamilat tour. Next is the Jarmusch film scene and then an amazing video from what I presume is the thirties with Asmahan. Don’t get too picky about lip-syncing. Listen to the voice, look at her clothes, check out the people, hear the song.

Song Of The Day today is the moody Watching Us from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000):

Watching Us

On this walk
Interlocking fingers
On this day
The devil cringes

Death is crying
He can’t have us
Pity him
Angels gather
Watching us

The bride of the light
Trailing petals and passion
This gigantic bite
Of peace and compassion
Delirious beckoning
The soft and bejeweled
The breeze in the heat
First cooled then fueled
A necklace of grace
‘Round the heart of your face
All commotion and fuss
And they’re watching us

Up in heaven
Silhouettes of gods
In butterflies wings
Delicate nods

As we touch
Near the jaws of envy
As we sway
To the dance you send me
Watching us

In a goblet of wine
Sipping mutual pleasure
And the gold of the rim
Frames our endeavor
At the foot of the throne
With its flowers and fruits
Like a pack of cards
That only has suits
A tremor of tears
From a satisfied heart
All commotion and fuss
And they’re watching us

(Willson-Piper)
Hanging Out In Heaven (2000)