Wednesday 9 April 2008

Donkey With A Chair

A bright sunny morning to herald a job interview. Not a 'proper' job, but one to fill the gap until my training course starts later in the year.

Thus, for the first time for a while, a commute. I've recently recorded (HiQ, while painting the bathroom yesterday) Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone and the Orb's Headline Mix (both BBC 6Music). The FreakZone is, now I remember to listen to it, becoming more and more a regular listen. Great Triumvirat track and very interesting piece on Peter Hammill's The Future Now.

The Orb Mix was not what I expected, being interspersed with an interview with Alex Paterson, but still very enjoyable. The 'Lighthouse Keeper' track was fabulous. His revelation of not being a Doctor made me, as a PhD, feel a bit like Frasier in this episode. I didn't like his crack about David Sylvian's singing, either. Ho hum.

So the music today. Lots of free downloads of legal albums from FreeAlbumsGalore and BigO together with other surprising stuff:

Halcyon - Canon Blue, from Halcyon EP
Spirits Up Above - Osibisa, Live in London 1972
the trees they do grow high - Edwin Morris, The Heart Bowed Down. Excellent ambient textures over skittering drum patterns,
Numbers - Mark.Nine, Artificial Horizon
Go up baldy - Hathaway Family Plot, Mystic Moods
Wash - Pagans, from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,
Dog With a Bra - Pagans, ditto,
the kingdom comes - Tom Hanson, Wake of The Moon
far leys house - Edwin Morris, The Heart Bowed Down
Benoit B. Mandelbrot - Mandelbrot Set, All Our Actions Are Constantly Repeated
I Will Survive - Billie Jo Spears. This caught me completely by surprise. I forgot I'd downloaded some stuff for my computer-illiterate father. Awful. Karaoke. A shining example of where we are now in commercial music,
Rubber 12 - Alfredo Costa Monteiro, Rubber Album
Dead Head - Pagans,
Seven Piano Improvisations - Gapless Mix - Phillip Wilkerson,
Rondo - Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Live in Karlsruhe 1972 (Disc 2),
The Thousand Light Year Stare - Drunken Gunmen, Deep Space, Distant Future,
Living Without You - Randy Newman, Live In San Francisco, 1972.

A lot of the journey back was taken up with the Piano Improvisations by Philip Wilkerson, played just above the noise of the Tube train. Ambient in Brian Eno's original meaning, although probably not what the composer had in mind...

T - 3; M - 4; D - 1. I had forgotten just what a shitty, dreary place the rush hour Northern Line can be. Just dreadful.

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