Then we decided to clim the oak tree

Okso, we looked at it from afar, this glorious tree, as the setting sun caressed its ancient trunk...


... and some of us even thought it was well worth a little nap under its safe branches, surrounded by freshly cut hay...


... then up went the Baking Queen, Catherine the Great, looking afar as her mind wondered to happy memories of tree climbing in the Lake District...


... and next was her, Heidi from Switzerland, taking advantage of that narrow space between the Queen's legs...


... thankfully, nature remained unperturbed. The sun waved good bye with a smile...


... while others were too busy and important to take notice of such mountaineering efforts. Calls had to be made to LA and Hollywood!


Oh... how we love our little Tuscan heaven...!

NGO

Carved on the pavement opposite Amnesty's headquarters. Where they trying to spell R.I.P. before being abducted and killed by a group of senior managers?

The music of men

Bill Callahan, the man behind Smog, pioneered the lo-fi genre of underground rock, with homemade tape-albums recorded on four track tape recorders. His music is said to draw on the guitar-wracking blues funk of classic americana and variously combines sampled noise, scratchy strings, moe-tucker-drumming (country-style) and beautiful piano arrangements. He's been around for a while, almost 20 years in fact, but is still growing from strength to strength. He recently performed in Reyjkavik alongside Joanna Newsom, an indication of his interesting take on life and music. Away from the limelight, he tells us about fragile emotions, loss, search and resilience, like in this video called Rock Bottom Riser.

Smog's record label, Drag City, is also behind a number of other interesting artists, but none as imposing as Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace, Palace Music and Palace Brothers. Despite the confused personality and the austere busker's looks, he's considered the finest songwriter to come out of America in the past decade, and has worked - amongst others - with Johnny Cash, PJ Harvey, Björk and Matthew Barney. Yes F, Johnny Cash, who recorded one of Oldham's best and darkest songs, I See A Darkness, not so long ago. I tried to find some of his music on the world wide web, but his personal elusiveness extends to his songs too. Only a video, and not one of his best songs either. But it's a start.

Finally, in this tribute to male songwriters, I wanted to point out to you Mission of Burma, widely acknowledged as "one of the first groups to achieve the potential of modern alternative/independent rock, fusing punk and experimental music into some of the most influential music to come out of the American punk/no wave scene". First active in the late '70s, they re-grouped in 2002 and are now experiencing something of a second birth under Matador, the label of Belle and Sebastian and formerly of Boards of Canada. In honour of my friend PDF, or maybe not, they have just created their own wiki with stuff from their latest album - the Obliterati - slowly being released on the net. Avanguard, I say. And damn good music too. They're playing at Koko here in London tomorrow night. I might leave my Mac for the occasion...!

street spirit

rows of houses all bearing down on me
i can feel their blue hands touching me
all these things into position
all these things are one to swallow whole
and fade out again and fade out

this machine will will not communicate these thoughts
and the strain i am under
be a world child form a circle before we all go under
and fade out again and fade out again

cracked eggs dead birds
scream as they fight for life
i can feel death can see it's beady eyes
all these things into position
all these things are one to swallow whole
and fade out again and fade out again.

麻痺

The Eraser

here
Absolutely amazing...

Life

It's weird. And strangely beautiful.

Some music, at last...

I discovered a gold mine. I was listening to some podcasts recently, and started doing some research on a couple of new indie/rock bands which I really liked - Alias & Tarsier and 13 & God - and found out that these artists have signed up to Anticon, an independent record label "dedicated to scrounging up quiet ideas and tiny epiphanies wherever they might be found". So I decided to share it with you.

Alias & Tarsier repeat the words dreamy and cinematic a few times when posting information about their music. Which I think is a fair and accurate picture at least of their first album, and of the way it came about. Working from their studios/apartments in Oakland and Brooklyn, exchanging emails and samples of their electronic sounds, they wrote their entire first EP without ever meeting eachother. If this isn't dreamy and cinematic, someone please tell me what is dreamy and cinematic. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to select their single, Dr C., from the list of tracks from Anticon's radio playlist. Awesome.

When I failed to find anything on-line by 13 & God, I turned to Three More Shallows, and discovered they are even better. Anyone who describes his sound as worry, accompanied by toy orchestra is bound to be cool. And click after click, I listened to every song posted on their website, and fell in love with their latest single, I Can't Get Next To You, to the point that I decided to write down some of the lyrics (I am reverting to being a teenager I guess):

Oh why I can turn a grey sky blue
You see I, I can make it rain when I want to
Oh yes I can build a castle
from a single grain of sand

You see I, I can make a ship sail on dry land
Let me say I, I can fly like a bird in the sky
I can buy anything that money can buy
I can turn a river into a raging flood
I can live forever, if I so decide

Proper orchestra sounds, instead, in a single from their second album, More Deep Cuts, entitled Freshman Thesis. Upbeet is actually raving about them, saying they are "[...] people deserving the title of "artists". In a world where lesser bands have been hailed and given accolade after undeserved accolade, Thee More Shallows continues to make their own distinct and underappreciated brand of hauntingly eccentric rock, proving how uninformed the masses truly are. This album is an excellent jab in the face to the stagnant music scene that has prevailed in the dead mainstream as well as in the ever-more homogeneous underground. It's everything that an indie rock record should be. Thee More Shallows awaits to truly dazzle you". Can't say I didn't warn you...

Vadim et Mel

How many years?
Too many to remember each emotion
Yet the vivid memory of an embrace
That was mine
Now nestled around this fragile being
My heart burst with joy when I thought
Welcome to the world, Vadim
You will be a great man

From the New Yorker

So good to be back in London...

The Soft Economy of Time

Silent alleys and dark courtyards.
Slow hours ticking in the breeze.
A cat tip-toeing under a car.
What is this secret you carry with you?
This bewildering confidence
that you'll never be erased?

Isn't time passing for you too?
Isn't history gnawing at your door?
And yet, this soft economy of time,
of knowing it is both worthless and priceless,
has turned you into the most powerful of nations
and is slowly eating you from inside...

At war with the garden

She then proceeded to attack a small wildboar, which she wrestled to the ground and butt-headed to its grave. We roasted the creature over hot coals. Her muscles throbbing. Her spirit unscathed.

Or was this just a dream?

A Door

Hiding treasures? Misterious creatures?

Actually, just crumbling walls and a battered Fiat Panda. How Sicilian... even in Rome...

1st of May concert - S Giovanni in Laterano

The heat. The crowd. The smell of spliffs rising to the sky. Workers' delight. While I crawled across town to play cards at Oddone High...

Tuscan storm

No sound

There are times
stranded in the buzzing noise of the city
when I forget
to listen to its sound

Travel notes

Living off a suitcase. Washing your clothes in other people's houses always leaves a foreign smell on them, as if they belonged to someone else. And because I am no longer sleeping in my own bed, I forget what it's like to be me. I turn into a stranger to myself. I say and do things like in a dream. I think I might wake up any moment and find myself back in my London bed.

Someone once said "partire e' un po' morire", which can be translated as "to leave (for a journey) is to let a little part of you die". The English language is usually much more concise than the Italian one, but not in this case...

So here are some thoughts, observations and images I collected over the last 10 days...

Palermo. Silent airport. Large artichokes. Concrete high-rises. Palm trees. More concrete high-rises. The clean tiles of a new apartment. The old market behind the prison. A young Sri Lankan boy carrying a heavy pot up a flight of staircases. Drunken dirving on a 1962 Vespa. The faraway sound of ships.


Roccalbegna. Tree planting. Drilling and fixing. Portrait of a Lady and 2046. Red wine. Indonesian furniture.


Rome. Solitude. The sounds and smells of the courtyard. A man and a woman arguing about nothing. Pans sizzling at mid-day. Endless websites on countries I have never seen: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia... The claustrophobic offices of my current employer. Cigarettes and sweat. Two girls, smiling as I stumble back at 2 am, hand me a white paper tissue. Do they think I am crying?


Dublin. Idle walks along crowded harbours. Oysters and tabasco sorbet! Open plan kitchens relentlessly churning out perfect dishes. Slightly provincial gay clubs. Cuddling under a duvet. Talking about the dark clouds at the horizon.