tonight in Chicago
These guys are playing at Constellation.
São Paulo Underground (Rob Mazurek, cornet, electronics; Mauricio Takara, percussion, cavaquinho, electronics; Guilherme Granado, keyboards, electronics, vocals), live, Italy (Pisa), 2012
This sounds like a communication from some distant planet—which I mean as a compliment.
Olivia Block, Aberration of Light, 2015
sounds of Zimbabwe
This I could listen to all day.
Thomas Mapfumo, “Chikonzero”
Live (studio performance), Eugene, Oregon, 2015
MVP? That’s easy—guitarist Gilbert Zvamaida. In his hands melody (or “lead”) and rhythm are one.
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the beat goes on
2,100 posts—and counting.
back to church
“Until I Die,” Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, Winston-Salem, N.C., 2001
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lagniappe
reading table
In a sense sickness is a place, more instructive than a long trip to Europe, and it’s a place where there’s no company, where nobody can follow.
—Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964), letter, 1956
old school
Skip James (1902-1969), “Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues,” 1931
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lagniappe
art beat
Vivian Maier (1926-2009), Chicago (Maxwell Street), 1962
It was, I recall, a cloudless morning in Chicago, as it was in New York. I had a hearing scheduled in federal court, but then, after the second plane hit, court was cancelled. We sat in front of the TV, unable to turn away.
William Basinski, “Disintegration Loop 1.1,” 2001
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lagniappe
reading table
Photograph from September 11
by Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012, MCOTD Hall of Fame), translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw BaranczakThey jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just opened.I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.
sounds of Norway
Maja Ratkje (voice, electronics) & Lasse Marhaug (electronics), live, Norway (Oslo), 2012
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lagniappe
reading table
Fragile the minutes. / Fragile the line between wonder / and woe.
—Linda Gregerson, “Pajama Quotient” (The Selvage)
serendipity
When this came on the radio the other day (WKCR, Columbia University), background became foreground.
Luciano Berio (1925-2003), Differences (1959)
sounds of Yemen, and Uganda, and Colombia, and Cambodia
The Real Hip-Hop, 2015
music clip of the day 