And Their Souls Wander With The City Crows.

Sarajevo Blues by Semezdin Mehmedinović

Finished reading 'Sarajevo Blues' by Semezdin Mehmedinović a couple weeks back. I rather enjoyed it and I get the impression that I'll be giving it a few more reads over the years. I'm not exactly sure when I became fascinated with the Balkans, though I've been taken by folk music from the region for a number of years now. Recently, I'd been trying to learn more about the history of the Balkans and while I've read 'Balkan Ghosts' by Robert D. Kaplan, 'Sarajevo Blues' is now the most current book I've digested and the first by a native of the region. Unlike 'Balkan Ghosts', 'Sarajevo Blues' is a mixture of poetry, prose & short essays as opposed to a historical travelogue which I think helps my understanding of the region beyond perceptions culled from foreign reportage. Foreign reportage, seeming to be 90% of what is available when I check the sadly limited selection for the region in bookstores (but that's a separate tangent and a sore point). All that said, 'Sarajevo Blues' was fascinating and provoking & after the jump I've posted two of the pieces that I've reread numerous times.

Waked By The Trumpet Sound.

(AND AM I BORN TO DIE?) - Various Artists

Just wrapped this mix up today. The title and part of the structure comes from the hymn, Idumea (47b). A few different versions are scattered from start to finish and provide a loose overall theme that ties into most of the songs. I think it flows pretty well for the most part though it's a bit front loaded with a kind of claustrophobic energy and then tends to chill out and feel more spacious from the middle to the end. Anyway, below you'll find the lyrics for Idumea and then the tracklisting & download link for the mix itself. Enjoy!

Idumea (47b)

Tune: Ananias Davisson, 1816
Words: Charles Wesley, 1763
Meter: Short Meter (6,6,8,6)

And am I born to die?
To lay this body down!
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?

A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought;
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot!

Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be!

Waked by the trumpet sound,
I from my grave shall rise;
And see the Judge with glory crowned,
And see the flaming skies!

(AND AM I BORN TO DIE?) - VARIOUS ARTISTS

01 - Idumea, 47b - Ivey Memorial Singing
02 - Nux Vomica - The Veils
03 - Melting Away - Absolute Body Control
04 - Mr. Ray - Suicide
05 - United - Throbbing Gristle
06 - The Naked And The Death - Siglo XX
07 - Stop Breathing - Blessure Grave
08 - The Poison For Me - Mark Lane
09 - Maikäfer Flieg - Grauzone
10 - Black Ships Were Sinking-Idumæa - Current 93 feat. Cosey Fanni Tutti
11 - Opium Song - Michael Gira
12 - Dream Of A Butterfly Inside The Skull Of A Horse - Nurse With Wound
13 - A Prayer - Madeleine Peyroux
14 - Ember - Dirty Three
15 - Rebel Grave - Nikki Sudden & Rowland S. Howard
16 - The Bells Belong To The Ashes - Die Haut feat. Anita Lane
17 - Black Death-Life Is Knife - Crispy Ambulance
18 - And Am I Born To Die? (Idumea, 47b) - Doc Watson & Gaither Carlton

Download it: HERE.

I Didn't Waste No Time, Time Wasted Me.

For Stephen, Best Regards - Various Artists

Another quick update with a mix. It was made not too long ago (November '09, I believe) for my friend Stephen who used a few playlists made by friends for a film festival in NYC that he curates. I think it flows pretty well considering it hits a few contrasting genres that I tend to jump between in regards to my listening habits.

You can download it here: Disc 01, Disc 02

For Stephen, Best Regards - Various Artists

Disc 01:

01 - Smoke - Fatherland
02 - Dirty Three - Authentic Celestial Music
03 - Patti Smith Group - Ain’t It Strange
04 - Jonathan Kane - Super T-Bone
05 - Pell Mell - Cinecitta
06 - Link Wray - Fire And Brimstone
07 - Leonard Cohen - There Is A War
08 - William Elliott Whitmore - The Chariot
09 - Steve Earle - Rivers Of Babylon
10 - The Chamber Strings - Telegram
11 - The Bats - Western Isles
12 - The Feelies - Raised Eyebrows
13 - The Mekons - Club Mekon
14 - Atom Cristal - Nieuwe Nieuwstraat 27

Disc 02:

01 - Trisomie 21 - La Fete Triste
02 - PTV 3 - Boys Are Girls And Girls Are Boys
03 - Death In June - Forever Loves Decay
04 - Swans - Power And Sacrifice
05 - Einsturzende Neubauten - Sand
06 - Crime + The City Solution - All Must Be Love
07 - Fatal Shore - Morning Dew
08 - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds - Baby, I Got You Bad
09 - Doris Duke - I Don’t Care Anymore
10 - Alton Ellis - Cry Tough
11 - Lee Fields And The Expressions - Love Comes And Goes
12 - Clydie King - One Part, Two Part
13 - Aretha Franklin - Spirit In The Dark
14 - Aretha Franklin - Spirit In The Dark (Reprise)

The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore.

(Sound Of Music) - Various Artists

So I've been pretty lazy about updating despite having a few posts ready to be whipped up and submitted. Mostly, I've been distracted by working on a new mix. This isn't it but I still like it a lot. It was made a couple months ago and originally posted on my tumblr. It got reblogged on FuckYeahGoths which gave me a crap ton of hits, so who knows where this has floated off to. Anyway, feel free to...

Download it: HERE.

(Sound Of Music) - Various Artists

01 - Jesus Christ - Patti Smith
02 - Tod (Death) - Malaria!
03 - Track 7 [Rectitude CASS] - Le Syndicat
04 - Vier Personen [Live]- Laibach
05 - Channeling The Power Of Souls Into A New God - Burzum
06 - The Path Of The Cross - Scorpion Wind
07 - Magic - Moisten Before Use
08 - Shower Scene - Zahgurim
09 - Dum Dum Boys - Iggy Pop
10 - Paris - Psychic TV
11 - Logical Animals - Trisomie 21
12 - Triumph (Of The Good City) - J.J. Burnel
13 - Embryo [Instrumental] - Black Sabbath
14 - The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore - The Walker Brothers
15 - Oskopistentraum - Gerechtigkeits Liga
16 - To The Floor! - Cult Of Youth
17 - Embers - ИОИ
18 - Avé Maria - Rowland S. Howard
19 - No More Stalins, No More Hitlers - William S. Burroughs

And If Love Is All You Hope To Find, Then...

Love Will Ruin Your Mind - Various Artists

Over the next few days I'm going to try and post some mixes I made in the recent & not so recent past. This one in particular I made as a Valentine's Day mix in '06 and while it's a bit cynical, it's meant to be tongue in cheek as well. A couple of the tracks don't speak to love or relationships directly, but in those cases the track title or chorus makes the leap to the theme. I had actually lost this mix along with a large percent of my music as a result of an external hard drive crash but thankfully a friend still had a copy and was able to get it to me. Now if only I could get back the Halloween mix, 'Married To The Macabre', that I made a few years ago. Oh well. Anyway, here's the tracklisting:

Love Will Ruin Your Mind - Various Artists

01 - Yayahoni - True Love Is Not Nice (Jonathan Richman)
02 - Y Pants - Love's A Disease
03 - Delta 5 - Now That You've Gone
04 - Magic De Spell - Brainwash
05 - Kas Product - Never Come Back
06 - Rowland S. Howard - She Cried (Jay & the Americans)
07 - Lungfish - Love Will Ruin Your Mind
08 - Material - On Sadism
09 - ESG - You Make No Sense
10 - Desperate Bicycles - Grief Is Very Private
11 - Beautiful Skin - Lacerations
12 - Faust - It's A Bit Of Pain
13 - The Feelies - Original Love
14 - The Mekons - Last Dance
15 - The Fall - Vixen
16 - Liliput - His Head All Red
17 - Au Pairs - Dear John
18 - Bush Tetras - Too Many Creeps
19 - 45 Grave - Bad Love
20 - 13th Chime - Cuts of Love
21 - Virgin Prunes - Baby Turns Blue
22 - Albert Kuvezin & Yat-Kha - Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)

Download: here.

We Are So Unnatural.

Been hit by a cold pretty hard today so what better way to celebrate than leaving work early in the rain, watching BBC4's 'Synth Britannia' and then passing out for six hours. Pretty decent doc though the British wave isn't necessarily my go to subgenre for late 70's/early 80's synth. However, I gotta say that there's a number of great interviews, my favorites being: Daniel Miller (The Normal/Mute Records), Gary Numan (Tubeway Army), Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire), and Chris & Cosey (Throbbing Gristle). Wolfgang Flür and everyone's recollections on Kraftwerk's influence was a nice unifier. I probably could have done without as much focus on Human League, Depeche Mode, OMD, Yazoo and Heaven 17 but that's really neither here nor there and more a matter of personal preference. The Joy Division/New Order excerpt seemed a little too quick in passing, though worth while for Bernard giving an account on building his own Transcendent 2000 and how JD wrote & recorded 'Atmosphere' in two freaking days. Also, how the BBC could use a clip from Dr. Who and gloss over Delia Derbyshire is beyond me, though Walter/Wendy Carlos does get an appropriate nod for pioneering groundwork. Tangent and minor gripes aside I enjoyed it overall and wish the U.S. could get similar programming.

You can download BBC4's 'Synth Brittania' (1hr 27min AVI) here:

Part 01, Part 02, Part 03, Part 04

or watch it on youtube.



P.S. - Related albums well worth listening to:

Gary Numan/Tubeway Army - Replicas

Daniel Miller:
The Normal - T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette
Silicon Teens - Music For Parties

Cabaret Voltaire - Red Mecca

Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats

P.P.S. - With the amount of J.G. Ballard references, I think 'Crash' is getting a bump in my reading queue.

It's Not In Misery But In Oblivion.

Been reading 'The Poems Of Dylan Thomas'. I'm finding it incredibly beautiful in a somber and inspiring manner. Thematically it's right up my alley and I am absolutely loving his tone and structure. To tie this into my recent VU blog postings, above is a fantastic performance of Thomas' well known poem 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' set to music by fellow Welshman John Cale with a stunning and lush orchestration. In contrast below is Thomas' own reading (both just beating Rodney Dangerfield's recitation by a hair).



A current D.T. favorite:

IT'S NOT IN MISERY BUT IN OBLIVION

It's not in misery but in oblivion,
Not vertically in a mood of joy
Screaming the spring
Over the ancient winter,
He'll lie down, and our breath
Will chill the roundness of his cheeks,
And make his wide mouth home.
For we must whisper down the funnel
The love we had and glory in his blood
Coursing along the channels
Until the spout dried up
That flowed out of the soil
All seasons with the same meticulous power,
But the veins must fail.
He's not awake to the grave
Though we cry down the funnel,
Splitting a thought into such hideous moments
As drown, over and over, this fever.
He's dead, home, has no lover,
But our speaking does not thrive
In the bosom, or the empty channels.
Our evil, when we breathe it,
Of dissolution and the empty fall,
Won't harm the tent around him,
Uneaten and not to be pierced
By us in sin or us in gaiety.
And who shall tell the amorist
Oblivion is so loverless.

A significant amount of Dylan Thomas' poems can be read: here.

'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' performed by John Cale w/ orchestration featuring a few more Dylan Thomas renditions can be found on: Words For The Dying (pw: lagrimapsicodelica).

'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' performed by John Cale solo on piano featuring still more Dylan Thomas renditions can be found on: Fragments Of A Rainy Season (pw: lagrimapsicodelica).

Heaven Knows, It's Got To Be This Time.

Guess I'm outing my birthday with this one, but what else is one to do with a blog at the crack of dawn (listen to 'New Dawn Fades'?). Oh yeah, post New Order videos. Right, right. Anyway, I listened to 'Ceremony' repeatedly at work tonight and since I'm still awake I've continued on to watching live vids of it on youtube. Wound up coming across this performance of 'Ceremony' and noticed that this particular show was going on two hours driving distance from my being born. If only Mom had gotten me out into the world a little earlier I might actually have caught it. Well, perhaps I'll send this along to her on Sunday thanking her for at least timing some good cosmic vibes for my entrance into this world.





(Also, making a mental note to myself to see the show 28 years late. Looks like it's on the New Order 316 dvd but incorrectly listed as being 11.18.81 instead of 11.19.81)

... Strangled.

Today a friend of mine passed along this mix he made, entitled 'Look At Her, Don't Be Shy!! (A Compiled Sound Document #1)'. Haven't had the opportunity to listen to all of it as of yet but I'm looking forward to doing so as I get some laundry done. The man has quality taste and has led me to some great music and art I may otherwise not have encountered. Some of it I'm familiar with, some of it I'm not so familiar with (which will surely lead to more googling & downloading) but for certain it should prove to be entertaining, interesting & enjoyable. I'm hoping that since it's been numbered that it will be the first installment of more to come. You can download it directly from sendspace: here. The track listing is after the break.

I'm Searching For My Mainline.

Still on a Velvet Underground kick. I was really digging the live version of 'Venus In Furs' from '66 in the VU video I previously posted which compelled me to hunt down live bootlegs from the '66-'68 period when John Cale was still in the band. At that point in time there seems to be far more willingness on Lou Reed's part to engage in experimental territory with Cale by way of noise/drone/jams. Happily for me, I came across an insane treasure trove of a blog full of VU bootlegs in FLAC format that allows me to bliss out to crazy VU shit like a jam that melds into 'Sister Ray' over the course of 40 minutes. Check out The Nuns Are On The Sea Wall if you want to be overwhelmed.

More rambling & direct links to a few VU boots in particular after the break.

Better Times Are When You're In Control.

Picked up The Bats 'Don't You Rise' 7" E.P. today, which I'm quite happy to have come across. It has a couple tracks recorded during the same sessions as 'Live At The National Grid' which I really enjoy so it's a quality score for me. Unfortunately, I still haven't picked up 'Guilty Office' as I've been holding out for vinyl but after double checking, it still doesn't exist. Probably going to have to suck it up and see if Amoeba has the CD. Sigh. If only I could just get my hands on some more Bats vinyl without having to resort to ebay/mail order (lord knows I hate waiting for shit to arrive to a fault).

Anyway, the track from the above vid is 'Made Up In Blue' from their 1986 E.P. of the same name. If you like what you hear, you may or may not find a download for 'Compiletely Bats' at Magicistragic (a blog well worth combing through despite a lack of recent updates).

I Could Sleep For A Thousand Years.

I was pretty happy to hear my favorite Velvet Underground song, 'Venus In Furs' the other day in a coffee shop (which has subsequently set me off on a current VU binge). Not a ton for me to really ramble on about regarding this vid but I'm enjoying watching it over and over. It's Jonas Mekas footage that has been manipulated by the original youtube poster with an end result that I'm enjoying a lot. Maybe it's the overtly sinister feel that I can't seem to get enough of. Yeah. That's it.

More info on the youtube page.