Droning Backpacker Ragas

Apologies for late arrival of some posts, busy with mad things & I can barely keep up with Twitter/Facebook presence.

I have been busy with Droning Backpacker Ragas, playback singers & bombay taxi driving techniques

A Small Crack in the Cosmic Egg

Okay, I have finally got around to doing a very personal, but what I believe to be a definitive list of the best UK Psyche.

• Oberon - Midsummers Night Dream
• Sun Also Rises - S/T
• Quintessence - S/T & In Blissful Company
• Third Ear Band - S/T & Alchemy & MacBeth
• Pretty Things - SF Sorrow & Parachute
• Tyrannosaurus Rex - My People Were Fair
• Clouds - Scrapbook & Watercolour Days
• Nirvana (UK) - All of Us
• Spooky Tooth - Its All About & II & Ceremony
• High Tide
• East of Eden
• Blossom Toes
• Edgar Broughton
• Traffic
• Tea & Sympathy
• Family
• Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
• Heron
• Pete Brown & Piblokto
• Mark Fry
• Comus
• Jan Dukes De Grey
• Affinity
• If
• July
• Kaleidoscope (check out the usa band of the same name too)

A Merry Prank

Driving about with Peter Cusack's Baikal Ice blaring from the car. This soundwork has some groovy bird sounds that freaked my missus out each time she heard it.

The next time I am going to up the gears with some Chris Watson.

• Baikal Ice

...perhaps his most lyrical work: a documentary recording of nature and life by the lake at the end of winter, when the ice begins to melt. (Piero Scaruffi, 2003)

You can hear the vast spaces, the majesty of the frozen lake, and the 'pittoresque' of the location through the wind, bird, and human sounds, but also through the acoustical features of the recordings. We can hear unusual bird songs, children playing with an outdoor PA system, Cusack in his daily routine (mediated by his very dry sense of humor). The recordings are crystal clear and ... create their own stories and convey a sense of here and now...these recordings disclose a unique soundworld. This reviewer would not be surprised if a compilation album of remixes/reworkings based on these recordings surfaced soon. (emphasis added; François Couture, Allmusic)

Habibiya - If Man But Knew

I am a bird of God’s garden
and I do not belong to this dusty world
For a day or two they have put me here
in this cage of my own body
I did not come here of my own
I will not return of my own
to my own country..

A Bird In God’s Garden – Rumi / Archuletta

Dvds to Watch While Your Neighbours are Smoking Fish on Their Chimneas

No 1 on the list has to be : Katalin Varga by Peter Strickland. Although he wished for another classical soundtrack, the music & ambient sounds on the film are outstanding.

Includes Nurse with Wound tracks........

The whole film has a great atmosphere, gypsy madness, transylvannian landscapes. In fact the film highlights how remote this region is in the 21st century & reminds me of my own feelings in Yugoslavia back in the day.

The extras on the dvd are superb & his chat about the banning of horse-drawn wagons on the main roads tells its own story.

In Blissful Company

There is just something that happened while listening to Family Elan - Bow Low, Bright Glow. I was taken right back to those first 2 Quintessence albums.

I believe it may have been the voices, it is the voices that always takes me back to re- listen to those amazing psychedelic lps released in a world full of optimism.