The Words That Maketh Murder

As anticipated, I fell under the spell of P.J. Harvey's newest offering on the very first listen. Released on Valentine's Day, Let England Shake is her eight studio album, recorded in a nineteenth-century Dorset church.

Despite expecting a similarly pared down, ethereal sound to that of White Chalk (one of my all-time favourite albums), this seems more like a hybrid of her previous discography: from the grungy stylings of Dry, to the driving rhythms of To Bring You My Love and the boistrous anthems of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

Heavily influenced by both literary and visual art - from Eliot and Blake to Dali and Goya - the album comprises a portrait of England as a country built on battle and bloodshed, and chronicles an unfinished century of warfare. All in all, this makes for listening that is as infectious and powerful as it is eclectic. Deservedly - if unusually for an album that explores such weighty themes - it has met with both critical and commercial success thus far.

Battleship Hill is my favourite of the twelve tracks, a surprising reminder of the traditional folksy ballads of Ireland and England, with an emphasis on the sinister undertones of age-old relationships with the land:
  

The land returns to how its always been, 

The scent of thyme carried on the wind.

Jagged mountains, jutting out, 

Cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.

The Words That Maketh Murder is the first single from the album, a darkly comic nod to delusions of diplomacy, Afghan and World Wars. Directed by Seamus Murphy, the video features a mash-up of acoustic (auto-harp) and electronic versions of the track.

As one commentator here so aptly puts it: 'Madame Harvey gets more vicious, yet more beautiful with the passing of time.'
      

Sleep On A Clothes-Line

Sunday Postsecrets:

This last one especially resonates with me as
a longtime overactive sleeper..

 

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Test responses that are slightly more inventive than my standard 'I ran out of time' exam paper plea of school days past:

Tiny Dancer

 
The ballet inspired zeitgeist continues with
ribbons and lace at Erdem:

   

   

   

   

   

And Peter Breese's Predilection, an ink and gouache
representation of the ridiculously beautiful Natalie Portman
as prima ballerina 'Nina', set against Saint-Saëns's The Swan :
   

       

Clockwork Doll

In keeping with the topic of tiny dancers, around this time last year, one of my little students was in the process of adding finishing touches to the piano version of Shostakovich's Clockwork Doll, Op. 69.

To help characterise the music, I asked her to come up with a short narrative or poem, based on her own impressions of the piece. This was the result, evidence of why I never ever underestimate the competence of smallies:
   

Clockwork Doll

Turning slowly 'round and 'round

Accompanied by a soft sweet sound

Toes neatly pointed and hair in a bun

She gives it her all, 'til her dance is done.

A man appears, dressed in black

He takes over, pushing her back

But the lady makes her way back in

And the man moves off with an elegant spin.

By this time, the song has come to a close

And the dancer strikes her finishing pose.

R.K., February 2010 

The piece always reminded me of this video, which now seems like a harbinger of the macabre allure of Black Swan.

    

Helter Skelter

An extraordinary feat of viral musicianship by current students at my own Alma Mater, made all the more impressive by virtue of the fact that it was produced amidst final year stress. I detect a possible correlation between said stress and the multitude of beer bottles viewable here.

 

Blurb: 'An attempt to make my abundance of empty bottles into something slightly more useful...Took about 4 or 5 hours altogether and all bottles were recycled after the performance!'

Vittorio Monti's Czardas on 146 Bottles is their latest video:

    

Slow Like Honey

 More Thursday Trivia...

> In a standard deck of cards, hearts is the only suit
  in which the King (alias 'The Suicide King') is devoid of a
  moustache. Contemporary reworkings tend not to...
  'follow suit'

> An ostrich's eye is larger than its brain

> Rapper L.L. Cool J.'s name is an abbreviation of
  'Ladies Love Cool James' (!)

> Cocaine was the first form of local anesthetic, with
  official usage stemming back to 1884

> In Deshnoke, India, a Hindu temple dedicated to rat goddess
  Karni Mata houses more than 20,000 of her four-legged
  followers

> Libra, the scales, is the only inanimate Zodiac symbol

> Honey is the only foodstuff that does not spoil. That
  found in the tombs of Egyptian Pharaohs is still edible to
  this day 
     

Blue Jay Way

Couple o' snapshots from this week's short stay
in the City of The Tribes:

       

Sawdust & Diamonds

Elsa & Gogo is a West Cork based eboutique specialising in vintage and one-off jewellery and accessories. Their range of merchandise includes such goodies as these:

 

While not always possible, buying locally is generally a good call, not simply because it helps to support small independent businesses, but also because it circumvents exorbitant overseas delivery costs. (In this instance, it's less than four euro for delivery within Ireland, less than six euro for the UK.)

Find Elsa & Gogo on facebook or at their online store
   

Novocaine For The Soul

Having exhausted the list of cinematic must-sees, we recently ventured to Tangled, Disney's take on the eponymously hirsute fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. I was pleasantly surprised, not least because the 3d format meant that I got to wear a second set of glasses over my regular pair (stylish). There featured:
 

 Lots of fast-paced hair-slinging

'Pascal', the mute-but-lovable chameleon comrade 

And this lantern-laden lake scene, which brought a little tear to my eye with its sheer loveliness. Yes, I'm a sap.

       

We Still Got The Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues

A Sunday Postsecret

And some Wild Beasts

Heard Them Stirring

Extremely chuffed I was, to learn of the upcoming Fleet Foxes tour. Having noticed a rapid depletion of online tickets, a speedy purchase was made so as to avoid mental upset.

The second studio album by the Seattle-based sextet, Helplessness Blues, is planned for release on May 3rd, with Roy Harper and Van Morrison being cited as sources of inspiration for a sound that is, 'less poppy, more groove-based'. Click here for a preview of the title track.

Album Art by Toby Liebowitz & Chris Alderson

   
Today I learned that the band was originally called 'Pineapple', a name they later eschewed for one with more alliterative appeal (or as they put it, one that was 'evocative of some weird English activity like fox hunting'). 

Taken from their Sun Giant EP, Mykonos on repeat is one of my (not so) guilty musical pleasures. The video depicts a pair of small origami triangles, representing feet, on an adventure through a world made solely of paper. They journey past cloud, forest and foe, only to fall into the sea as the song fades.
   

 

Where is my Mind?

By the time Friday evening comes around, any semblance of coherent thought has given way to unintelligible garbling. I suspect it results from having to listen to the sound of my own voice for the greater part of the week.

This baby knows what I'm talking about..

Mal de muchos, consuelo de todos. 

   

One of Us Must Know

Trivia, of a Thursday...

> Emerson Moser made 1.4 billion polychromatic crayons
  during his time as Crayola's senior crayon maker. Only
  when he retired did it emerge that he was actually
  colourblind

> Astronaut Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was 'Moon'

> Centipedes always have an uneven number of legs

> In China, September 20th is 'Love Your Teeth' Day

> Gelotology is the study of laughter

> A sheep, duckling and rooster were the first passengers in
  a hot air balloon

> Ringo Starr means 'Apple Sauce' in Japanese. He once
  appeared in an advertisement for this very foodstuff
     

Oddfellows Local

Not a big Gaga fan, I must admit. However, there is something appealingly ridiculous about the notion of her incubating in a mutant green egg:

Or maybe it's just the amusement factor of the slew of 

similar eggs-amples that have resurfaced in the wake of 

Sunday's Grammy Awards.

  

Rainy Day Blues

Close to a solid month of rain...Make it Stop!

  

Notwithstanding, dreary skies have incited more than a few good songs through the years. Here's my little rainy day playlist:

> Nina Simone: I Think It's Gonna Rain

> Neil Young: See The Sky About To Rain

> Supertramp: It Rained All Night

> Tom Waits: Rain Dogs

> Thom Yorke: And It Rained All Day
> Willie Nelson: Rainy Day Blues

> The Sleepy Jackson: Rain Falls For Wind

> Regina Spektor: Raindrops

> Bob Dylan: Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

> Cathy Davey: Old Man Rain

> David Holmes: Voices, Siren, Rain

> Chopin: 'Raindrop' Prelude

> Leonard Cohen: Famous Blue Raincoat
> Manu Chao: Rainin' In Paradise

> Joni Mitchell: Rainy Night House  

And this happiness-making video:

Oh! You Pretty Things

   

 
I've lusted after this baby since the
moment I first clapped eyes on it - the
leopard plaque Lily Bag from Mulberry:
       

Especially beguiling on a
titian-haired Florence Welch:

    

   

Sadly, I am currently ill-equipped to
splurge on designer wares. Perhaps a
replica can be fashioned from a vintage
brooch & chain bag. We shall see!

         

Heartbeats

Unashamedly getting into the mushy spirit of things
for the day that's in it:

That aside, there's a bit of an anecdote behind this one...

Close to five years ago, I spent an unforgettable summer in the marvellously mind-boggling metropolis that is San Francisco - probably the most consistently surprising and completely special place I've been lucky enough to visit. Just prior to our trip, the Sony Bravia 'Bouncy Balls' ad arrived on our collective television screens. Featuring a cascade of no fewer than 250,000 rainbow coloured balls down a San Franciscan hill, and set against the vocal stylings of a then little-known José González, it elicited wide-spread 'oohs' and 'aahs'.

In any case, after a few days of fruitlessly pottering around the city with my fellow comrade, we took the advice of some new found friends and relocated to The Green Tortoise on Broadway St., where we continued to reside happily until pesky commitments (work, a college education) forced us to return home. At some point in the interim, the penny dropped that, adjacent to our beloved hostel was the fateful hill featured in that very ad. Furthermore, some of the remaining bouncy balls were to be found within the walls of our place of residence. While this didn't seem to be of great significance to anyone there save for us, it just about made our summer. To this day I've kept my bouncy ball in a trinket box purchased in China Town. It's the closest thing I have to a 'claim to fame' .

Incidentally, this particular hill was to prove memorable in more ways than one, not least because of the night I witnessed a fellow lodger merrily thundering down it on an old office chair into oncoming traffic - but that's another story for another day...
    

Come Together

It's not difficult to imagine that the usefulness of social networking sites only extends so far:

 

Radiohead's Ed O' Brien offers an alternative perspective. On the band's Dead Air Space blog, he waxes lyrical about the potential for such sites as a means of peaceful protest.

The Dignity Revolution

What have twitter and facebook ever done for us?

Obviously, keeping in touch with everyone, but I have to say I have become increasingly excited over the last 3 months about the possibilities of this form of communication.Yes, I am very slow out of the blocks. It's in the arena of public protest that it seems twitter and facebook are increasingly the means by which popular movements throughout the world are able to come together and mobilise.

I have been so moved by the peaceful Jasmine revolution in Tunisia; The anti-Government demonstrations centred on Tahrir Square in Cairo.. Social networking has helped facilitate the freedom to assemble peacefully and express oneself. Equally in Britain it seems to be having a similar effect in helping essential protests being organised by students and groups such as UK Uncut against the Government's ill thought out cuts...
         

Well done those people!

Ed.
  

Love is the Drug

Collective oversharing is a potent thing, particularly at such an emotionally loaded time as February 14th... hence an especially juicy week on Postsecret.com:

   

    

  

 

Also, some Love Day musings and momentos for

romantics and cynics alike:
    

     

Picture This

One of my very longtime friends (oldies are besties) is something of a seasoned blogger compared with yours truly. Her page, The Pretty Serpent, can be found at wordpress.com

A recent post details an undertaking by one Don Miller, who has resolved to create an image for every day of the calendar year, starting last January. Here are a couple of samples of his work:
 

 
A Clockwork Orange

The Pink Panther, The Pink Panther Strikes Again

& Curse of the Pink Panther

For more diurnal drawings, take a look at
365 Draws of the Year.