musical exploration (listening to and creating it), art (seeing and making it), nature, hiking, reading, writing, communication, good friends, good food, cooking, traveling, independent and foreign cinema, photography, DJ'ing, dancing, meditation, yoga...
fun, interesting, creative people from all around the world... down to earth, genuine, kind-hearted souls... artists... musicians... music lovers... fellow instrument-builders and sound sculptors... the future of music... those who are present... ancient tree spirits... people to help me learn new languages, explore new dimensions, and discover new perspectives about the universe and myself... anyone who really wants to change the world and actually has a plan...
Mid-June, 2007: Lately, I've been listening to a lot of Brazilian stuff from the 60's and 70's including some mainstays such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, and Jorge Ben, but also a few names which are new to me: Jards Macale, Ednardo, Arnaud Rodrigues, and the rather unusual and highly excellent Walter Franco! As usual, I've ingested a liberal dose of jazz, with some recent highlights coming from William Parker and Hamid Drake, the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Idris Ackamoor, Sun Ra, and Duke Ellington. I revisited several gems from the late 60's/early 70's including albums by The Band, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Kinks, Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and even made a couple of wonderful new psych-rock discoveries: Snow and Euphoria... I've also been grooving to the sounds of Curtis Mayfield, King Sunny Ade, Bembeya Jazz, and some weird Chinese surf-guitar tunes, got my raga on with Nikhil Bannerjee, and puzzled at the composerly brilliance of Harry Partch, Josef Matthias Hauer, Lou Harrison, and Bernard Parmegiani. I even enjoyed a little bit of classic country from George Jones, Buck Owens, and the Country Gentlemen. Also in the last few weeks, I've downloaded several classic reggae and dub albums and have really enjoyed hearing them on the wonderful sunny days we've had recently. The new jams from Panda Bear and Dr. Dog have also hit the spot lately, along with some of the Boredoms Super Roots series reissues. On the electronic wavelength, I really like the new albums from Amon Tobin and Tied + Tickled Trio, and highly recommend both of the two recent reissues by Qua (especially "Painting Monsters on Clouds"), and also one from Seefeel ("Quique"). Thanks to a generous blogger, I finally got to hear the previously elusive and totally gorgeous "Treedrums" album by Fibreforms (an incarnation of Kiln before they became Kiln). I satisfied my perpetual Krautrock craving with mostly Harmonia, Neu!, and Faust, though I'm sure there was some Can in there too. As always, Brian Eno provided lovely ambience when I needed that sort of thing, along with Hildegard Westerkamp, Mountains and Tim Hecker. The sounds of the birds outside during the day and the trains going by in the distance at night were nice too...
Fellini's '8 1/2', most Godard, especially 'Alphaville', any Hal Hartley, David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar, or Wong Kar Wai films, the colors trilogy (Blue, White, Red) by Kieslowski, 'Schizopolis!', 'Office Space', 'Space is the Place' featuring Sun Ra and his Astrogalactic Infinity Arkestra, Kurosawa's 'Dreams', 'Baraka', 'Tampopo', Miyazaki, Maya Derren, Stan Brakhage, and lots of other foreign and indie stuff...
haven't owned one in years... but I still love The Simpsons and Twin Peaks.
italo calvino, richard brautigan, haruki murakami, paul bowles, jorge borges, vladimir nabokov, aldous huxley, alan watts, noam chomsky, marshall mcluhan, david berman, arthur rimbaud, stephane mallarme... and in the music book section: david toop 'ocean of sound' and 'haunted weather', john cage 'silence'... henry cowell 'new musical resources'... morton feldman 'give my regards to eighth street'... caetano veloso 'verdade tropical'... julian cope 'head on' and 'krautrocksampler'... 'how bluegrass music destroyed my life' by john fahey... and magazines: WIRE, Signal To Noise, Kitchen Sink, The New Yorker.