Prunella Vulgaris's compendium, or: A companion for the ingenious of either sex. The newest experiments in japanning, to imitate the Indian way, plain and in speckles, rockwork, figures, &c. The art of persuming and beautifying. Divers receipts in physick and surgery, with many other useful things. To make enamel of divers colours for gold, silver, or other metals. To which are added, many curiosities, and rare secrets, known to few, but very profitable and pleasant.
Was antisocial in the art studio, working out my frustration of the day into a hunk of stoneware clay, cutting away at the excess, wrapping it up for the night. It's a good refuge, enough of a friendly hum, a good place to be introverted among others. Still feeling melancholic, checked email, indulged in retail therapy at the Best Record Store in Clevelandia and shot the breeze about sundry bands and was outed on my cinematic wussitude. Some people hang out at the bar when they need to be out somewhere, I hang out here because it's inevitable that I'll hear some good tunes and run into someone I know.
Tunes acquired:
Zambian psych lo-fi as heck, but the songs are there and so is the heart. Some homies diss on the whole kitsch of non-westerners playing western music, but there's something I totally love about this.
The new record didn't even have the sticker on it yet, and comes with a hearty endorsement from Phil Anselmo but this sounds like a band my dad would like in the best way. It's a little less heavy than some of the old stuff, but it's been spinning in my car all weekend and probably will continue to.
the first song has lyrics about flowers in our hair which is kind of cornball but it's Dead Can Dance so it's completely different. A little more synth-heavy than previous outings, but it's fabulous for those introverted nights when I want to burn incense, light candles, read books and paint and hang out with the cat. Lisa Gerrard's voice is incredible and Brendan's has grown on me too.
Next morning, me and one of the gardeners drove a pickup truck out to the burbs to pick up humus and the fall colors were gorgeous even in the rain. I actually like driving a truck, go figure, maybe it's that Appalachian blood or something. Stopped by an estate sale two streets over where there was lots of stained glass and funeral home stuff (those glass sconces and the velveteen kneeler), lots of statues of angels and Virgin Marys and crucifixes and the Infant of Prague and then, since it's my neighborhood, kitschy Christmas decor, arty photos of male nudes and Klimt posters. Everything's half off so I walk home with a silky crazy quilt, a candelabra heavy enough to kill someone and a small stained glass window for the kitchen before heading over to the college radio meeting and so Randal can hook me up with tunes for the fill-in slot I do that night. To be continued.
When I first started in Radioland, I was told there were already enough people playing permutations of rock and/or roll so I would have to play other stuff. Since I was on early in the morning it didn't matter too much what the format was so I kept it freeform and chilled out for the first couple years, segueing from the hip-hop show before me with the more world, arty neo-soul/trip-hop kind of stuff that one of my college roommates turned me onto, beat-heavy, organic, and chilled out.
There are certain strains of sound that have always intrigued me but as I've said before in other corners of the Internets, "world music" has been unfairly haunted by the twin specters of grainy and incomprehensible field recordings or overly slick PaulSimoned pop with synthesizers and drum machines killing any kind of soul-baring.
Lakewood and Cleveland Public Library's fantastic collection was my first jumping-off point, with its reissues and shelves of obscurities to be unearthed. While there were some that weren't very good, or just too weird (the Chinese self-healing new age CDs that supposedly cure cancer and menstrual cramps), I stumbled across the polyglot Clashness of Manu Chao, the sparkling guitar work of Amadou and Mariam, Tinariwen's blues, and the incredible Dengue Fever, resurrecting long-gone Khmer rock that all but disappeared under Pol Pot.
One of my fellow DJs also introduced me to Holy Warbles, which allowed me to take my curiosity about sundry parts of the world and discover obscurities that I may never have stumbled across on my own and offered a window into the cultural history of these countries that the powers that be in my own land label as backwards or uncultured or just a place of carnage and crazies.
The obscurity of much of this esoterica, of backwoods gospel, apocalyptic roots reggae far removed from fratparty bro-ness, monkish chants from Armenia, spooky noochies soundtracks, Angolan rumba, raga performed on piano and slide guitar, and sundry psychedelique funkenfuzz from brighter climes brightened up my Tuesday mornings and my mix CDs for sundry folk considerably and also made me sound like a terribly pretentious person waxing rhapsodic about Pakistani playback singers and Moroccan gnawa trance even though I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers as much as any 20-something Clevelandian.
Just like others shouldn't judge the Great Satan by certain powers that be and pop stars, we really shouldn't be doing the same to other nations too, even if their heads of state constantly act a fool or global events transpired as such that when we think of certain places, we think only of starving children or genocide or people who kill other people. I suppose this screws up the narrative that's easy, but when the framework doesn't show the entire picture, that framework needs to be adjusted.
The constant thread that winds through many of these acts are how much vibrant culture was cut off by dictatorship and general awfulness of people in power with their own religious or ideological agendas or languishing in obscurity. Selda went to prison for this song, Nahid Akhtar's career was cut short by marriage and some of her songs were banned for reasons of "obscenity," the jazz scene in Ethiopia vanished with the advent of the Mengistu dictatorship in 1974, Ros Sereysothea died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, and Witch, with their love of Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones, never got too far outside their hometown.
