Music Lessons

On June 12th I'll be joining Jesse Pires, program curator at International House, for a conversation about children's music education, among other things, at the ICA in Philadelphia. I'll be toting lots of strange books and records and things to hear and peruse -- really looking forward to it. Also really excited to check out what Primary Information have been doing in their ICA Excursus residency. The event will be at 6:30. Come on out Philly folks, would love to meet you!

The Elektrik Karousel

Well, friends, the new Focus Group album has arrived and it's a belter. I reckon it's Julian's best yet. Read my review of it here.

Edna O'Brien

I've been reading Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, which is great if you're looking for a new book. It's fun and smart and slightly tawdry, which is how I imagine O'Brien. Sort of if Nell Dunn or Shelagh Delaney were from the Irish countryside.

O'Brien has just released a new memoir that recounts dropping acid with R.D. Laing and generally entrancing the likes of Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery and Paul McCartney in 60s London. I can see them all wrapped around her finger at some boozy gathering. McCartney wrote a song about her. I've only leafed through the memoir but on the very first page I fell upon O'Brien tells of her son being one of the child stars of Our Mother's House, so the good karma abounds. She also makes an appearance in this great Peter Whitehead movie.

"Swish lunch in Mayfair..."

Pramod Pati

Thanks so much to Catherine for sharing these Pramod Pati vids with me. I love them! I've been reading an Indian novel this week so the stars are definitely in alignment. I don't know much about Pati but apparently he studied in Czechoslovakia with Jiri Trnka. The music alone is just gorgeous. Like Satyajit Ray on acid!

Catherine is from Birmingham and had been good friends with Trish and James before losing Trish. This is hard to say, so I'll try to say it for her, but she's sharing these with Trish very much on her mind and in her heart, and in the spirit of Trish's generosity with the things she discovered and shared with her friends. The spirit of Trish is the spirit of sharing, she says.

Thanks for this, Catherine. Means a lot to me, to us.

Alighiero Boetti

Maison Rouge

Crazy telescoping of style and history on this record -- from XVème France and Italy all the way up to the present, possibly even the future judging by the music. I think this is the soundtrack to either a ballet or a film about a ballet. Lovely, Broadcast-y shapes and scapes by Jean Schwarz of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. This is from 1980, but again it really could have dropped out of the sky 30 years before or after that. My wife gave me the gist of the liner notes, but it's probably best if I just type them out in French here. You are welcome for the typos.

La France ou l'Italie au XVème siècle, ou aujourd'hui. Ou encore les quatre, la France, l'Italie, le XVème siècle, aujourd'hui, en surimpression. 

La Province. Un gros bourg. Un couvent. 

Et cet adolescent, orphelin bien sûr, adopté de ce couvent. Un verger aussi, ou peut-être seulement un arbre fruitier au milieu de la cour, avec ses fruits. Un pêcher. 

Et cette terrible sensation des choses crues, comme cette forte odeur de pain cuit que l'on trouve dans le centre de la ville, le dimanche surtout. 

Ou comme ces pages blanches dans ce collège ou dans ce couvent plutôt. Et le cartable aussi, épais, rugueux, presque vide. Juste un cartable presque vide.

listen here

Luigi Ghirri