fully reborn (again!)

- see, in the the end that previous photo just doesn't do it justice... if there is not quite the same sense of (thc-fuelled) unfettered exuberance as before - and in all probability there never will be again - still, the sheer sense of relief is extraordinarily welcome.

now, when i talked (in a comment) of "fifty hours or so" of re-immersion in the waters of braxton, i did not (of course) mean that i was listening solidly for two days. hell, even when i was stoned off my face i never went more than one night without sleep... no, i just meant that during that time, whenever i listened to music (a lot of the time, at present) it was to b's music; and it was indeed pretty intensive. anyone who was curious enough to click on all the hyperlinks will have noted the preponderance of official tcf downloads in there: to a large extent this was just a matter of convenience, these having been lumped together in one mega-playlist in my music library, but that worked out pretty well, allowing me to feed on a lot of pretty recent, fresh material and hence get very close to the source(s) of the composer's inspiration. it did lead to a lasting change, and one which has left me feeling a lot better all round: since the evening of that last post, i actually haven't got to braxton yet at all, but this is not for any reason other than the fact that i just found a particularly good online source for current albums that i can't afford to buy at the moment and would otherwise not be able to hear; all of a sudden i find myself in the aftermath of a complete u-turn, listening almost exclusively to jazz-based and/or improvised music. so, right now i am so busy listening to the likes of steve lehman, roscoe mitchell, george lewis, henry threadgill and (especially) mary halvorson that i haven't found time for any braxton... but this is just a matter of there not being enough hours in the day. (it's half-term, and that free time i was talking about before is gone, for a week... next monday, normal service shd be resumed!)

i have been really enjoying everything i've heard, and mary halvorson's albums have really got me thinking. can i back up what i said (in several places online) last year, and before: that her initial writing for quintet still sounds like trio-plus-bolted-on-horns, and that it's not till the third album that her charts for the quintet begin to sound like proper, fully-contemporary five-piece arrangements? what do i make of the latest development, the expansion into a septet? and what of the latest latest development, the release of a live album stripped back down to the faithful core trio..? it may be that i will have something concrete to say about all this fairly soon...

... meanwhile, one thing that did keep smacking me over the head during the aforementioned re-immersion is the near-omnipresence of good old comp. 23c, which i did to death at the beginning of this year, and swore i wouldn't write about again, or not for a good long while... well, apparently i don't have any choice in the matter, cos it just keeps cropping up, seemingly at every turn. thus, inevitably, i will be heading back there in my next post to try and make sense of all that. some of the treatments are very recent, and some rather less so, but how many times can life nudge me before i have to admit defeat?

***

this came out within the last month or so. looks interesting...

reborn (again) (gradually, by degrees)

now, you see, this could be what i was waiting for.

when i said "just around the corner" - i actually wasn't far off. but it's not quite that simple (when is it ever, with me?)... within minutes of posting last time, i was warming up the ipod with a choice bit of zooid, then plunging headlong into the willisau '91 transmission, studio half: regular readers - if there are any left, after i've so shamefully neglected the blog over the last few months - will doubtless remember my singling out this crucial set before, and earlier this year i had used it as the constant background to several days (or was it weeks?) of enthusiastic (re)discovery; ah, but let's not forget that i was pretty much high as a kite at the time. and as i've confessed since, my biggest problem recently is that with ganja no longer playing a part in my life (*1), i've been worried about no longer having "full access" to the music.

- so, back to where we were recently: i played the whole thing (well, the studio half like i say) and enjoyed it, and found i had no trouble penetrating it, really; indeed, i even noticed a couple of things i hadn't picked up on before. for example: the long and (to my ASD-inflected mind) rather oddly-titled comp. 23c + 32 + 105b (+30) features quite a lot of improvising around cells from the 23c superstructure (as we might term it)... i had previously allowed myself to state that this piece was always played as written, which is to say: through-composed, no room for interpretation, making it an extreme rarity in the braxton catalogue. well, so much for another easily-grasped assumption... but listen, the point is that although i enjoyed the music, there was no rapture as such. and this, of course, is what's really been missing lately, and why i haven't had anything to post on here.

... in the days and weeks that followed, i made several more efforts towards easing myself back in. now, several things have changed on the domestic front recently, and the upshot of all this is that i now find myself with an awful lot more free time on my hands: having had so precious little of it for the last year, i now have - literally - more than i know what to do with. during the day, once i've put my daughter on the school bus, i am free for anything up to seven hours at a time; and obviously there are mundane things to be done in that time, such as clearing up, folding laundry, walking dogs etc etc - but let's note that all those tasks can be done to the accompaniment of music. perfect opportunity to get back on it, yes? no..? well... not for the first few weeks, at any rate. and the week beginning 7th oct saw my daughter turn five, which means that the blog turned six at roughly the same time; i had had in mind to celebrate that by spending as much of the week as possible listening to b's music, and making a concerted effort to get back inside it, and it inside me; but for various reasons (none of them interesting or significant, even to an obsessive like me), it just never happened.

there was always plenty of music, mind you, and this state of affairs helped avert the depressive periods i've slipped into at times over the last few years; but, as i said last post, the vast majority of that music was guitar-based and none of it bore any resemblance to braxton. there a few choice items, slipped in there amidst everything else: a pinch of this to fill the room with positive vibrations, a spot of that to caress my ears; i even made sure i caught up at last with the "final" monthly tcf download (before the monthly memberships were cancelled, and i slid back into outsider status) - i had of course downloaded the file during august, but for the first time all year (probably discouraged by what had happened when july's recording had drifted past my ears without leaving a trace in the memory), i found that i had no enthusiasm for actually listening to it. well, that did change more recently and i even found that i could hear the shape of the music, without much trouble; as with the willisau discs, i enjoyed it while i was listening to it. in the case of the heidelberg loppem duo, there was even a brief moment where i found myself suddenly wondering "why don't i just listen to this sort of stuff all the time?" - but, as before... it just didn't last.

ok, but last week something slightly odd took place, and that in turn led me to a much-desired, but by-now-unexpected development within the last few days. typically (both in general, for me, and specifically recently) i have been finding it terribly hard to make good use of my new-found free time; but last friday, with no warning at all (having woken up most unwillingly, as usual, and struggled through the first part of the morning rather irritably - wanting nothing more than to get my daughter on the bus so i could traipse back home and collapse on the sofa) i found myself possessed with lots of energy, and did far more than i usually do. that in turn proved to be a bit of a weird false dawn, as within a few hours i had succumbed to a filthy cold that i'd previously been fighting off with no difficulty; and a frustrating and tiring weekend ensued; this week began with dreadful weather and the promise of plenty more to follow, and i battled to retain the sense of energetic movement which has seized me a few days before; and then, again with no warning, this wednesday saw me casually decide to start the day with another spot of room-filling, and -

- that kickstarted a process which has yet to finish. in more than forty-eight hours since, i have listened to practically nothing other than b's music, and this time, to say i've been enjoying it really would be a gross understatement. the pivotal moment seemed to occur just a few minutes into my second spin of the day - a recording which i acquired at some point over the last eighteen months, and had played a number of times with a notable lack of impact, finding it unusually hard to penetrate for some reason; but this time, like i say, with less than ten minutes on the clock i was really feeling the music, and - crucial indicator, i always take this to be - completely distracted away from what i was doing by the music itself. by the time i'd moved onto the live willisau discs, out with the dogs by this point, i was enrapt and could barely keep my excitement under control. (the version of comp. 34 on there (*2) had me thrashing around all over the place, confusing the poor dogs no end - if there had been anyone around i'm sure i would have looked like an escapee from some secure institution or other!) yes, fellow experiencers - there is no longer any doubt about it: this is what i have been waiting for.

... and here's the kicker: after all these years of only being able to immerse myself in the music when in a state of intoxication, this so-much-desired rebirth took place on my one hundredth day straight. no more, no less and i didn't even know it until i sat down and worked it out. it was only really quite recently that i discovered my petty obsessiveness over numbers is simply a typical indicator of asperger's syndrome, and says nothing personal about me at all; but what is a guy to do, when life keeps throwing such numerical coincidences his way? :)

more to come! c x

* see comments

i disappeared again. what happened?

tsk... promises, promises.

so what did happen? just the usual - ? well, yes and no... it is true that after my (all too brief) burst of energy back in june, i totally lost the momentum, in a manner which is by now entirely (tediously) predictable; but even i never dreamed it would take this long for me to get back to the blog - and in this first instance, just to explain why i haven't been active here. i first started this particular post back in july, and quickly abandoned it... other posts, with actual content in them, are as inchoate as they are numerous.

yes, and no... late last year, i had given up smoking ganja - and bemoaned the complete lack of mental and spiritual direction which bedevilled me as a result. and then, of course, i fell off the wagon rather spectacularly, fell back in love with everything, and started posting again. what's happened this summer has been similar, yet compeltely different. last year i gave up not because i really wanted to, but because i had been convinced that it was necessary; it left me feeling terrible, and although i stuck to my resolution for some time, underneath it all i had changed my mind: i still wanted to smoke, to be high. i detested being constantly "straight" and feared that it would see my life become purely dull and grey, with no interest in anything. for a while, that's exactly what it felt like.

this year, having got myself diagnosed with asperger's syndrome (for work-related reasons; let's face it, at my age i didn't really need a diagnosis), i allowed myself to get talked into taking SSRIs as well, in a minimal does prescribed not to counter depression, but as an anxiolytic, and to take the edge of my notorious mood swings. i had no intention of stopping smoking at this point, and didn't try to do so. but... over (not much) time, it just happened: by the end of june, i found i no longer had any desire to smoke, and was coping just fine without it. an unusually hot july came, and my birthday with it; old habit saw me scoring ganja for the occasion - though it turned out to be far from straightforward, and took several days of uncertainty, as if the very universe were trying to keep me from recidivism - and i spent an entire week in a pleasant green haze, not having to work, not really bothering about very much...

... but what i thought would happen, simply didn't. you see, as i've complained (or confessed) before, my journey of discovery with avant-garde music, and with anthony braxton in particular, has been very much tied up with my use of psychoactive drugs, and without them, i seem to have no ready access to the realms opened up by, within, the music. those few weeks before my birthday, i was feeling perfectly level and content, and i was listening to plenty of music; but i hadn't listened to any jazz-based or (semi-)improvised music at all, and (so i told myself) by indulging my old habits and altering my mental state, i would give myself the chance to get posting again, reclaim the momentum which had suddenly faltered.

...

- didn't happen, this time. i carried on listening to the music i had been exploring for the previous few weeks (lots of hardcore punk and grindcore, some experimental rock), thinking initially that this would merely confirm what was lacking in such musics, and send me in search of deeper and richer materials; but that just didn't quite take place. in fact - and this scared me a little - when i pushed myself to listen to july's tcf download, it passed in an hour-long blur and left no impressions behind at all. straight, stoned, whatever, i seemed to have lost the thread completely now.

- and i am yet to pick it back up. hence the total lack of engagement with this project; hence my continued silence. for weeks now i have been intending to write at least this post, and tell such occasional readers as may be left that i will be back at some point, i just don't know when; and for weeks i have been prevaricating. finally i am forcing myself to do it, ever so belatedly, and at the time (and here's where the sunshine peeps through again) when i am close to re-engaging with the music.

there are doubtless a few other reasons which underpin all this lack of braxton in my recent life, in no special order:

1. that last post posited a preponderance of duets-with-bass which i ahd just presumed was there, without really bothering to check beforehand. when i actually went through the discography to list them, i was surprised to discover a lot fewer than i thought there were, and this left me feeling a bit silly. (i still think there is something especially personal and apposite about the maestro's meetings with the contrabass - but there's no denying that they don't stand out in the discography nearly as much as i thought.) so, i will get back to that thread and finish it off at some point - even if various other posts never get completed now, having passed the stage where they can be picked up again - but it doesn't surprise me that i felt a bit sheepish about doing so, for a while back there...

2. as most if not all of you will know, tcf have discontinued the monthly membership scheme. they have replaced it with an annual subscription, which i can't curently afford (having found myself with rather less disposable income than i thought i had, at the beginning of the year); hence, for the time being at least, i am back to feeling cut off from that organisation and all it entails...

3. i have long since identified in myself a strong tendency to recoil from deep and lasting commitment. ok, so i have been married more than seventeen years and a father since 2008, and i have not turned my back on my family; but in most other aspects of my life, i still seem to be terrified of committing to anything in particular. hence, i created this monster in part to distract myself from my studies in oriental medicine, at a time when i was "supposed" to be getting myself fully qualified as a shiatsu practitioner, then branching out in my own therapeutic direction (never happened, despite my completing the actual course); and a year or two on from then, i allowed myself to be distracted away from even this blog by a renewed interest in tai chi chuan (and comics) which took up most of my attention for a good long while. the last two years have seen a complete change in my professional life, and that itself has entailed a veritable rollercoaster of excitable, hopeful highs and gloomy, miserable lows; at a time when all the forward-moving parts of me are trying to cut ties to the entrenched and anchored parts, it's (again) no surprise that i have been led away from the one thing in which i was trying to do my best.

- and, you know, let's be clear about this: i've built the braxtothon up into something i can't quite seem to live up to, because time goes by and i never seem to get back there. will i ever actually continue it, now? i still intend to; but what are my intentions worth?

still... lest this all sound terminally pessimistic... i am basically not doing too badly, and here's the major difference from this time last year: i still don't have any urge to get high. i am doing just fine without it, and as enjoyable as that week in july was, it really didn't do for me many of the things for which i had come to rely on it: in particular, i found no increase in insight or mental clarity, never mind resolve and inspiration. if it can't do that for me, what use is it? better that i try and achieve what others have had to do: build it up natually, over time, without taking shortcuts to it. and as for the music, i know that that will come, as day follows night: psychedelic it may have been, but there was never anything illusory about what i found in those realms. and, you know, my ears have always needed change from time to time and i can't keep sandpapering them with hardcore punk forever (as much as that does satsify them, to an eyebrow-raising extent). where this post, so long deferred, would previously have ended with a big ??? - in terms of when the return was likely to come - i now feel that it's probably just around the corner.

keep checking back... and you will find out if i am right :)

next-level studies, inst. 2: the reed(s) and the bass (pt. 1)

- or, the duets with mark dresser are on permanent hold -

... and when it comes to duo encounters with bassists specifically, our man really comes into his natural element. he has explored this one over and over again...which is why the omission, at time of writing, of dresser's name from the list of contrabass collocutors seems striking, egregious even. i mean... still not ready yet? well, it only took twenty-four years, give or take, to get hemingway in there... so far we are up to twenty-eight with m.d. ... and counting.

but bassists - and their prevalence among these myriad, multifarious duet meetings: a significant major trend and/or preference, or just a freak statistic to be noted and not built around? see, it could so very easily be the latter, but i keep coming back to the former and here's why:

- b's reed already reveals itself (over/over) as the mass of compressed strings it is;

- hence a chordophone is an ideal counterpart and collocutor;

- and the lower frequencies are themselves an endless source of fascination for our intrepid explorer

&c.

- that's pretty much it really, i think it's no statistical anomaly at all: i think b. very possibly above all gets genuinely excited at the chance to dance with (yet) a(nother) contrabass, and one could hardly blame him. and besides - goddamn but there have been some amazing players of that instrument. b's own (extensive) cv is in this regard putatively deficient only in terms of transatlantic meetings, logistics and total lack of funding etc, but altena (*1), guy, kowald, and yes even texier and tommaso, are all names "missing". well, but europe is not entirely unrepresented after all, as we will discover in due course -

now let's just run through all those damn bass duos in chronologorder, and make a few pertinent observations about each in turn:

a) the earliest (as-yet) documented duet with a bassist is - i believe i am right in saying - with a brit, and a long-serving (and possibly much-maligned, perhaps not for me to say... at any further length) one at that: david holland, as he was wont to be billed later that same year ('72) ... but it's only a fragment; and in any case it's a ringer, holland was playing 'cello on this'n. ok, so moving on to the list proper, then, and leaving fragments much as they were before i rudely disturbed them...

b) to (base/bass) business: we actually don't get started, amazingly, until 1982 (after all that build-up), to wit

i)  with john lindberg, six duets (1982) 

- starting the (as yet) faithful student. it's not necessarily widely known, but lindberg was actually named as a member of the new working group as early as maybe even 1977, if the dates given for the interviews in the appendices to the collected writings are to be taken as strictly correct (dubious... but, ) - '77, ground zero for british punk and the year david murray finally "made the scene", was a mystery year for me for ages as it happens, in that the personnel of b's working group at this point becomes immediately far from clear, since the various quintet appearances with muhal cannot really be taken as "working group" workouts as such, mra participating always on the euro festival circuit and ever the special guest, i would hazard a guess (?); so who was in the band? well, according to that interview (*2), john lindberg certainly was, before the year was out. hence, by now he is in his fifth or sixth year of tenure and no greenhorn at all. 

so, the programme is suitably academic-oriented - as regards the six core compositions themselves, all from the songbooks, but including what are ostensibly some odd choices, such as comp. 23j which is normally used a tension-vehicle for group interplay and development, but which works here just fine, albeit still sounding a little underweight. suitably academic, because wherever the leader found lindberg, it wasn't just in some club or whatever, he came from a background which i'm sure (not checked) must include plenty of time behind  and among the cloistered and closeted confines of some conservatory or other... he learned fast, thrown in with very fast company in a band including clarence "bobo" shaw and (g. lewis' crosstown twin) ray anderson... anyway, it's lovely to see comp. 6a given the treatment on this one as well, since dave holland had played so well on the '71 version and all that. right, well, there is also a standard(ish) in there tacked on the end, "four" by miles davis (who rarely bothered to flex his muscles much as a writer), and included in two takes. ok, so moving swiftly(ish) on:

ii) with buell neidlinger, 2x2 as discussed previously
- two sets of high-end, frequently high-octane mutual encountering and coexploration of territories both esoteric and familiar, captured on an april evening at mccabe's guitar shop in santa monica, CA back in 1989. (and seven years further up the continuum from the previous entry - i know, i know, my thesis is looking pretty weak at this point...). understand that i am not (usually) relistening to any of these recordings as i type, just trying to allow the information to flow and drawing on absorbed memory... but i was sufficiently impressed by this double cd (despite its decidedly unappealing cover) to consider that all the krystallhype regarding the actual release (a high-point even among braxton's career as a duettist, etc) is pretty fully justified, there is something extra-special about what took place here - and the only reason they (neidlinger and marty k) sat on the material for as long as they did is cos they just could never decide which pieces to include and which to leave out, finally deciding once and for all that the only viable option was, indeed, to release both sets in toto and just allow the listener to wallow and drink deep. sufficiently impressed to attract the attention of buell himself, who sounded me out about whether i was the right guy maybe to undertake his life story (clearly he had never heard of me before mr krystall showed him my emails and pointed him to the blog, otherwise he would know what a space cadet / notorious lunch artist i am when it comes to following through on my stated intentions, &c, and as you can imagine nothing ultimately came of it, which is probably only fair since although i am an admirer of mr neidlinger and his playing, i have little or no experience of much of the music/s in which he has chosen to involve himself, and i'm sure a better ghost can be found, not to mention about 100000 more reliable ones as i say - still time for me to change all this mind, i will still only be 43 when the summer is out and my daughter not yet five..!).

- but yes, this recording pretty much answers any and all questions about why the experience of duetting with a contrabass would be so appealing to the maestro in the first place. 'nuff said, go lissen...

iii) with peter niklas wilson, 8 duets hamburg 1991
- haha, and this one is a bit good as well, indeed i got all hot under the collar when i finally strapped it on back in february (another story as-yet begun but not completed...), could barely sit still for the fidgets. the opus numbers on this - and btw i really know nothing about the late herr wilson, but whoever he was this is (funnily enough) another case where the label (in this case the well-established music and arts of san francisco) proclaims the release to be special even among b's career as a duettist, stop me if you have heard this one before and so on, but bugger me if they don't have a point there also, since as it turns out wilson, whoever he was, really throws himself into this incredibly challenging set of totally fucking new music fresh and quivering and still bleeding from the tender minstrations of the cutting edge - just go back and look at those opus numbers, the only thing missing from that fever-inducing list are comps. 158 & 159, explicitly to be unveiled as pieces for the reactivated working quartet, just round the corner, four months up the line to be precise, in willisau - comp. 159 in particular will obsess this band for several years to come, no doubt at the cost of many a night's sleep but yielding so much in terms of richly layered understanding of what it means to play group music in the first place (free-sliding tectonic plates underpinning, if that's the word, the potentially-maddening repetitive line which carries and defines this number) - wilson, i say, properly commits himself to the material (also including the mighty old warhorse comp. 40a for good measure, amidst the flurry of totally new music remember - as if i am about to let you forget) and these explorations are just thrillingly exciting to witness.

- woah, dear... [slap} thanks, i needed that... too much coffee (...) - i'm off for some fresh air and a shower and we'll reconvene.

***

(in keeping with my current - enforced - policy of shorter posts without cutting back on the barely-controlled rambling and playing-with-punctuation, all in the interests of helping it flow ..., i am cutting this one short for the time being. the entire thing would be a bit indigestible in one sitting anyway, even for me... but i am on it, this one will almost certainly be continued in the immediate future...)

* see third comment

... yep, still back (and counting)

first keystroke, 46.53 at 2348 my time (the blog and i sort of keep different time, though not exactly *) - we were at the point of experiencing comp. 363c - an early (as yet) appearance for the beauteous creation that is falling river music, as previously mentioned tonight. nowhere near as early as this release, admittedly - which i neglected to hyperlink when last i mentioned it, soz - which was (if all is as it shd be) recorded in july 2003 (*1), released in 2006... but as things stand, we are only just now getting to know frm properly, or indeed at all, as far as that goes.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh it's so fucken amazing

something about the circumstances turns at least two of b's three (female) (*2) collocutors/coexplorers into (g.) "robairs" so to speak, achieving such incredible degrees of precision over the manifold means of their expressions and utterances that they - well, match the maestro himself to all intents and purposes, certainly on the night, and just leave me continually marvelling - these two are violinist erica dicker and pianist sally norris - if i haven't retroactively included bassoon-charmer katie (formerly credited as katherine) young in this brisk sweep, it's because i didn't notice the same of her playing (while i treated this as semi-b/g music, inevitably under the circ's) - and, well, because that is one difficult instrument to master i should think, and apparently the range of tonal/timbral variation available on it is relatively limited for a reed instrument (*3). - to some small extent, there may even be a familiarity-bred contempt as it were, since i have heard ms young's voice on several recordings previously, usually making a fourth at a hand (or so) of dcw. sally norris is a new name to me altogether, i think, whilst erica dicker only recently elbowed her way (ever so elegantly) into my consciousness as the smiling one, whenever there is a pair of violins (*4); evidently she was on the (braxtonian!) scene somewhat earlier than that (bearing in mind that the first time i was clearly aware of her was in last year's italian gtm reinterpretation)...

... but getting back to my point: something about the music, or the occasion, or the leadership, or all three and (potentially, as ever) more, elevates the musical expressiveness of b's sidewomen to a really extraordinarily level. - yes, i repeat, that of the maestro, the master, of the masters themselves. (pause.) (*5) not voices come forth at times, but choirs. b. himself launches his singing voice through the sopranino such that both are separately audible in concert (fully in the case of the voice, less so the saxophone *6). just - just stop reading me, and whatever else, until you have these sounds in your ears, in your head. it's that good. in fact -



* first comment

* second comment

baaaaackkkkk...ish...

(...again)

after weeks of resolutely not listening to that music which promises to do me the most good (whyyyyyyyyyyyyy??? mrmrmrmrngngngnghhhhhh), i am back again - for the time being breaking loose from a tidal spiral of near-sanity which has accompanied the recent process of officially getting myself diagnosed (reasons would make a long story but can be condensed down to one word: work) and surfacing, allowing myself all of a sudden to partake, drink from some of the deepest waters the muses have to offer, and -

- and at once benefit therefrom, quelle choc  {{doh}}

what light from yonder window breaks

('tis... the sun)



programme thus far for tonight goes like this:

1. comp. 220 (+23c) (*1)  (first half of this beautiful release *2)

2. comps. 153 & 155 & 154 (bites four-six from this slice of gorgeousness)  (*3)

3. comp. 363c (hot off the m-f'ing press) [well... ten days late actually! (told you i've been denying myself)]

ok, so... cut to the chase: when i can find the receptive state for listening, i am so much nicer a person and feel so much better; whether or not i communicate better is a moot point ;-)  (*4) - but in any case, i speak, i arrange my thoughts and for whatever reason/s, some people out there still read them whether i post regularly or not. this is encouraging, though not in any ego-massaging way since a) i have rendered myself (almost) completely unapproachable over the years, in all sorts of ways - so i seldom get comments; and b) by internet terms, the page hits are still laughably minuscule (though steady and appreciable (with all the obvious riders and codicils that qualification entails!, regarding limited-interest subject matter, aforementioned (auto-)alienation (*5) and all that)). but yes, when i allow it to be, - it is encouraging.

and yet -

yes, but this is neither the time nor place for those (ever) darker reflections... this is a time for light and clarity and joy and above all, in this case, for listening since the new release, the 2007 falling river music, is now underway. i'll get back to you later -


* first comments

birthday card (on time for once!)

- it won't have escaped the regular reader's notice that i failed to follow up the previous "duet" post as i promised; actually, there have been any number of posts recently which i started but haven't finished. (i have all sorts of interesting challenges going on both at work and at home right now.)

in the meantime, today is our man's birthday and i just wanted to mark the occasion. this musician continues to be committed to pushing back boundaries and exploring new territories, to developing the role of women in creative music (previously very much a male-dominated province), and to helping younger players and composers to work out their own systems which incorporate their complete range of influences. there are not many like him and let's all just be grateful that he's still here!

***happy birthday sir***

i wish you good health, and many happy returns of the day :))