www.24.com coverage

No Rest was one of a number of featured South African artist MP3's on www.channel24.co.za. last week.

What they said:

"Reclusive singer songwriter gives avant-folk rock fans their fix with this abstract impressionist guitar and thumb-piano filtered tone poem off his bewitching debut solo album, Outer Tumbolia."

I guess I need to get out more!

http://www.channel24.co.za/Content/Music/Player/760/b203e5b30c624d43af03eb3be55814c1/19-03-2010-09-41/Ramon_Galvan_-_No_Rest

http://www.channel24.co.za/Content/Music/Mp3/Archive

Super Legs

Super Legs

I've got super legs
On super feet
They take me where
I need to be

And all my teeth
They talk to me
Tell me to 'shush!'
And when to speak

But there are secrets
That they keep
Well that would be
The genius of teeth

'Doh!

Being somewhat on the periphery in terms of involvement on a project involving shadow puppetry,

Blackmilk Music video for 'Kimono Dragon'

and then to a lesser extent on one involving the proto-stop-animation of a mutoscope,

'Girl & Rabbit' short film

I think I can take part in the collective slapping of palm on forehead after seeing this beautiful marriage of the two concepts into something delightfully original and bewitching.

Dialogue by Kumi Yamashita 1999 Light, Motor, Styrene, Shadow

Although strictly speaking not constructed as flip-books, I can't help imagining an asynchronous flipping of these 60 installations would make for a wonderful aleatoric ambient soundtrack somewhat akin to György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes.

Speaking of ambient soundtracks, watching these anonymous profiles baring their most intimate secrets keeps reminding me of the misheard whispers of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing

Dead Brine

Dead brine,
You know I need it

A rich wine
From a lake I brewed it

Crushed the 'rushes
And the mud
And the sick of the ducks
And the tears that I get
When the words come out

I tilled it, father
And I muddled it, mother
We're not getting any younger
No you don't
No you don't

Oh black basin
To quiet things down
It precedes conversation
On the things that matter
So I take some with me
In a flask for drinking
But the dead floats upwards
It's what my lips are kissing


I tilled it, father
And I muddled it, mother
We're not getting any younger
No you don't
No you don't

On and on
I took to swimming through
On and on (the sentry)
Pulled me back to shore
It's a deeper well
It's a sad farewell

(I paint a picture 'cos it's real)
On and on
(I choose a fiction 'cos it's fair)
On and on
Why don't you sing me something
Just a tune then we're something
Or just a word.

Then and Now II

The JEW'S HARP or Jaw's harp is widely distributed among primitive and civilised peoples. At its simplest it is a strip of bamboo cut in the shape of a comb with only one tooth; when made in metal, the tooth or tongue is a separate piece soldered to the frame. In each case the instrument is set between the player's teeth, and the mouth cavity amplifies the sound made by plucking the free tongue of the "harp." It is essentially an instrument for the player's pleasure, being hardly audible to anyone else.

Plate 133 152 Plates from Bonanni's 18th Century "Gabinetto Armonic" Antique Musical Instruments and their Players 1964 Dover Publications N.Y

   

Daniel AIU Higgs interview and performance with Jew's Harp

Refillable / Recargable

If ever I fall

You catch me

It's not a reflex

You catch me

If I come out fighting

You dispatch the winning blow

Oh, the price you paid

All the drinks you bought

I wish they were 

Refillable

Oh, the price you paid

All the drinks you bought

I wish they were 

Refillable

It's such a crime

All the drinks you bought

I didn't think to go outside 

and check on the supplies

Is this one mine?

I'm never really sure

I'll grab another from the pile

Its inexhaustable

Oh, the price you paid

All the drinks you bought

I wish they were 

Refillable

I'm building a tower to a fat man

With a fat wife

They're fat lined

And super kind

When the bough breaks

The words I speak

Are a fat whine!

I'm building a tower to a fat man

With a fat wife

They're fat lined

And super kind

When the bough breaks

My cradle speak

Is a fat whine!

And a tendril out of nowhere

It keeps me alive!

Ask me and I'll tell you everything

One small window to discover everything

I'll explain my hate,

Explain it away

Refill my cup

And I'll tell you anything!

Soap & Skin - Lovetune for Vacuum

Soap & Skin - Lovetune for Vacuum

Soap & Skin is the musical alter ego of 19 year old Austrian, Anja Plaschg. Although comparisons with Nico are unavoidable due to her very germanic vocal delivery and her use of European classical musical styles within her songs, her compositions are a lot more concise and focused.

Essentially Lovetune for Vacuum comprises of piano based songs augmented with Warp-like laptop textures, synth, strings and Anja Plaschg's vocals; sometimes amassed, sometimes very naked, making a virtue of their flaws and limitations.

The opening Sleep makes Plaschg's intentions clear. Its confessional, confrontational and stark tone playing with atonal, and hushed elements drawing the listener into the minutiae, only to fire a gorgeous bunch of ugly at you for getting too close, while the very pretty Cry Wolf with its clockwork-like elements, nursery rhyme melody and playful vocal processing beats Sigur Ros at their own pastoral game.

An influence worth discussing is that of Xiu Xiu. Like Jamie Stewart, Plaschg wields her vocals in a way that is both tender and embarrassing. Something similar to Stewart's popular style of vocal ejaculation such as the one in fan favourite I love the Valley OH! gets an airing on album highlight, the fable-like Spiracle. This is particularly evident and impressive in live renditions of the song. Elsewhere her use of synth noise, angry blasts of recorder and whistle and physical unmusical textures within a song exposes the influence further.

Similar in title though not in sound to Xiu Xiu, Mr. Gaunt Pt 1000 gives way to Marche Funèbre which is composed mostly of clipped orchestral samples and imagines a nightmarish meeting of Coil and Enya!

On DDMMYYYY Plaschg perhaps gives in a little too much to one of her influences, Autechre, but the results are very pleasing.

Brother of Sleep closes the album with a pleasant albeit innocuous sounding lullaby, but sinister textures right upon closure indicate that everything is not always as it seems