Swandown

On Sunday went to the Electric Palace cinema in Hastings Old Town to see Swandown the film of the collaborative project between Iain Sinclair and Andrew Kotting, in which they borrowed a swan pedalo from the lake on the seafront and pedalled it all the way up to the site of the London Olympics by sea, river and waterway in the Indian summer of 2011.  Interesting film supported by a limited edition book - I had to buy a copy - with emails and texts generated by the journey together with pinhole photographs taken by Anonymous Bosch using a Swan Vestas matchbox.  Kotting was on hand to explain the film and answer questions afterwards.  I couldn't agree with the questioner who found the imagery of river banks, forts and walls oppressive - I thought it seemed like a much more liberating experience.  I've still not decided whether to ask Iain Sinclair to contribute to the next book - we have a few big names onboard already.

By way of contrast with Swans, we saw 10cc in Eastbourne on Saturday: thoroughly professional and entertaining show with some very skilled and versatile musicians and singers (culminating in an acapella version of Donna) - it's easy to forget how many hits they had and the support set was Graham Gouldman (looking remarkably youthful) and most of the group playing his many memorable hits for others such as The Hollies and The Yardbirds.  Art or Art's Sake became a prog epic and I even found my foot tapping to Dreadlock Holiday, a record I loathed when it was all over the radio in 1978 and still wouldn't listen to out of choice.  Mick Wilson the singer and multi- instrumentalist also sings in Three Friends, who I enjoyed, with their new line up, at the Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham a few weeks back.  Looking forward to seeing The Fall in Islington tonight and The Roller Trio in Brighton on Monday.

Music for 2012

For what it's worth, here's some of the music I enjoyed this year, most of it even came out in 2012, which makes a nice change.

Christian Scott  Christian Atunde Adjuah (Concord, 2012)

Written using 'a new harmonic convention I call the Forecasting Cell' Scott has produced an endlessly fascinating double cd of jazz trumpet with a healthy injection of rock guitar and hip hop beats - fusion for the twenty-first century.  Special mention for the inventive guitar work of Matthew Stevens.  According to Scott in his pretentious liner essay: 'A Forecasting Cell is a harmonic convention that illuminates the end result of a harmonic sentence preceding its resolution.  Because the end result of a harmonic sentence is already outlined, the improviser and accompanist are coerced into a constant reevaluation of the topography of the harmonic/melodic landscape, ultimately resulting in the improviser being forced to question before he renders a verdict.'  Whatever, every time I listen I hear something new.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti  Mature Themes (4AD, 2012)

The mantle of Guided by Voices' Robert Pollard has been successfully passed on.

Motorpsycho and Stale Storlokken  The Death Defying Unicorn - a Fanciful and Fairly Far-Out Fable (Rune Grammafon, 2012)

Heavy metal, prog, psych, jazz, orchestral and chamber music, it's all here in a wildly ambitious concept album based on the voyage of a ship, or something or other.  Moments of longeurs on the second cd (the whole thing could be about 20 minutes shorter, a common fault these days), but the first cd is a thrilling ride from start to finish - not keen on the compressed-sounding vocals though.

Swans The Seer (Young God, 2012)

Yet another massively long double cd this is the culmination of everything Swans have been working towards for the last 30 years.

Reissues and old stuff:

My Bloody Valentine  Loveless (Sony, 2012)

One of my top five records, we've been waiting a long time for the reissues promised around the time of the reunion concerts - an immersive experience in sound.

Eberhard Weber  The Colours of Chloe (ECM, 1974)

Innovative and influential music that I discovered courtesy of The Freak Zone - must have been in the late Pete Namlook's record collection and Ryan Beano was also listening in.

Can  The Lost Tapes box set  Some fascinating stuff on here some of it very ahead of its time.

Goblin The Awakening (Cherry Red, 2012)  box set I purchased in Bologna.

Le Orme Felona e Sorona  Again purchased in Bologna. As usual with Italian prog I prefer the Italian language version (rather than the Anglicized Peter Hammill version).  A couple of weeks after buying this I had a conversation with a young Italian waiter at a West End wine bar who was raving about it.

London Orbital

Sunday 9th December will mark the date on which the orbital passenger railway around inner London will be open for use.  I have been looking forward to this event for many months as my London bolthole is very near Clapham Junction and the new line will enable me to get to East and North East London without travelling on the increasingly crowded tube or taking two or three buses.  See here and here and various informative posts on London Reconnections such as this one.  I just wish the new trains on that section of line had some transverse seats.

Events in the coming months

Time to advertise a few events coming up over the next nine months or so.  Firstly, Sophie Parkin will be talking about the Colony Room Club at Westminster Reference Library on the evening of Thursday 13th December between 7 and 9pm.  Details here, an article on her history of the club here and a tour here.  There's also a talk at the same place on actress Ellen Terry this coming Tuesday 4th December, which I would recommend.

Another noble venture is London at the Library - A Salon for the City who are organising a series of events at the same venue on the last Thursday of each month.  I'm involved in one of them and other speakers will include Sukdev Sandhu, Rachel Lichtenstein, Matt Brown from the excellent Londonist, Catharine Arnold and possibly Robert Elms and Iain Sinclair.  The full programme should be available on this site at some point.

Also at the library, on Friday 8th February 2013 from 6.30 to 8.00pm, A Gentleman of Hastings will be talking about Aleister Crowley's final three years at the Netherwood guesthouse and Gary Lachman will discuss Madam Blavatsky, the subject of his latest book.

I enjoyed this fascinating interview with Jonathan Meades on The Quietus site this week.

Appledore to Dungeness by rail

Photos taken by me on Saturday 24th November on an excursion train down the line from Appledore to Dungeness nuclear power station in Kent.  Weather suitably dismal.  Top: original route map; second:  passing ruin; third: view across the shingle to Dungeness nuclear power station in the rain and mist from the train (it wasn't possible to get off as there are no platforms, only facilities for loading the nuclear flasks) see here and here; fourth: Brookland Halt disused station, for more information see here and here; bottom: Lydd Town railway station disused since 1971, more information here and here.  The level crossing gates situated just before this station had to be manually opened and closed before the train could proceed.

Swans Down

To Koko in Camden Town last week, at the suggestion of Haunted Shoreline, to witness Swans in concert.  This was my fourth encounter (for the first, see post for May 2010) and many years had passed between this and the previous occasion, when I thought they were a bit restrained, with too many acoustic guitars in evidence.  No fear of that tonight, as I'd heard that they'd returned to being loud again, a statement that had me going to this gig with some trepidation, as I knew from experience what that would entail.

After a relatively restrained start the volume increased rapidly until after about half an hour I decided it was time for the ear plugs - even with them in it still seemed incredibly loud.  I had gone to one of the My Bloody Valentine reunion shows at the Roundhouse where staff were handing out earplugs but I soon took mine out as I couldn't hear the music properly - Swans were definitely a whole lot more than 1 louder.

This was sound that pummels you into submission, ritualised violence, that actually results in a kind of tranquility after a while; fortunately most of the noise was in the lower registers with no sudden squalls of ear-splitting feedback, so it could be coped with, just about.  The set length was also challenging, the kind of time taken by Bruce Springsteen or Led Zeppelin at Earls Court, clocking in at almost three hours, with one central 'song' lasting an entire hour it seemed.  A thrilling section marked a return to the Swans of old with one crashing chord being repeatedly played in unison, Michael Gira leaping like Pete Townshend across the stage and then running back to starting position to do it again - this went on for at least 10 minutes, probably a lot longer.

Nice to see a younger crowd than that which attends most shows I go to these days and I was also amused to hear Gira refer at the end to their first London concert supporting The Fall at Heaven (where I was one of the few who dared leave the upstairs bar to see them), remarking,'I sure made a lot of use of the glory holes there that night' - what could he mean?  There's a suitably pretentious review here and more straightforward ones here and here.

Paul Klee

Looking at the Tate site I see that the wish I expressed in an earlier entry this year - for a major London retrospective of the work of Paul Klee - will indeed be coming true in 2013.  Details here.  The painting above is called Walpurgisnacht.

Bologna

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting Bologna, a city of elegant arcades, fascinating shops, great restaurants and some wonderful frescoed churches.  Inside the complex of medieval religious buildings of Santo Stefano, the earliest dating back to the fifth century, I found this odd picture; it was outside a chapel commemorating airmen, with photographs (many in uniform) covering the walls.

Another accidental discovery was the Oratory of St Cecilia.  Her recumbent statue by Stefano Maderno in the Basilica di S. Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome is wonderfully evocative and there is a painting of it in the oratory - the frescoes of her life, together with SS Valerian and Tibertius are equally beautiful.

St Emilion

Another place visited this summer was St Emilion, a beautiful town with steep cobbled streets, albeit almost completely turned over to 'wine tourism'.  There are some vast wine 'caves' to explore beneath the streets and the amazing Monolithic Cathedral, also mostly underground and held up by huge metal supports.  My photos.

Montaigne's Tower

In August I had the opportunity to visit Montaigne's Tower near Bordeaux.  At the time I was reading How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakwell an excellent introduction to his life and work.  Also bought a bottle of Montaigne wine as the estate also contains a vineyard.  Photos by me.