Our Monday Video this week is "Maybe Sparrow" by Neko Case, with animation by Julie and Paul Morstad. The song comes from Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, an album recorded at the Wave Lab Studio in Tucson. You can hear more of her music on her website.
Julie Morstad is a Vancouver artist whose work I just love. Go to her website to see more of her art -- and also check out her terrific new artbook, Milk Teeth, from the Canadian art & comics press Drawn & Quarterly.
This week's Monday Video, from the French singer and composer Émilie Simon, is for all the doll artists and doll art fans among our readers. I hope you enjoy this unusual little piece.
Simon, who is from Montpellier, studied ancient music at the Sorbonne and electronic music at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique. She has released several CDs, including Végétal, The Flower Book, À l'Olympia, and The March of the Empress. For more information, visit her website and MySpace page.
We have a terrific Monday Video for you this morning: a clip of Phil Cunningham interviewing Scottish singer/songwriter Karine Polwart about the creative process of writing her songs, which are influenced by traditional folk ballads and the works of Robert Burns. Visit Karine's website to learn more about her gorgeous, gorgeous music...and then visit Phil's to learn more about his. (Phil and his brother -- the late, great Johnny Cunningham --were the founders of the band Silly Wizard, and he's created a lot of wonderful music in the years since.) You'll find another good video interview with Karine here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).
Our Monday Video this week comes from The Mothers, an all-women punk band in Derby, UK, whose music celebrates the joys, vents the frustrations, and punctures the myths of motherhood. The band consists of five mothers, who describe their songs as "everyday tales of nits, pregnancy, school run dilemmas, and the computer game obsessions of our kids." Their video "Milk Pistols," animated by Eclectic, is a surreal "ode to breast-feeding" by "punk cows with attitude." (You've been warned.) For more information on The Mothers and their CD Ovulation, visit the band's website or their MySpace page.
Thanks everyone for your patience while waiting for this blog and JoMA to get back on schedule. I'm still not entirely over my illness, and thus not back to full-time work yet, but I'll start posting again as I'm able to. (If you're waiting for correspondence from me, please be patient a while longer. There's a lot to catch up on, and I'm still under doctor's orders to strictly limit my work time.)
Our Monday Video (above): Natasha Khan's quirky all-women band Bat for Lashes (based in Brighton, England) peforming their eerie song "Horse and I" at the Mercury Awards.
If you like the music made by Khan and her cohorts as much as I do, then be sure to check out their weirdly wonderful videos for "What's a Girl to Do" -- which makes me laugh every time I see it -- and for "Prescilla." Want more? Here's the band performing "Trophy" at Maxwells NJ, and a short interview with Khan at Flasher.com (followed by another gorgeous performance). Enjoy.
I had the good fortune to hear Albannach play last weekend at the Mid-Winter Scottish/Irish Music Festival in Philadelphia. Albannach (the Scots-Gaelic word for "Scottish" or "Scotsman") includes a piper, main drummer, bass drummers, and bodhran musicians, and the energy they bring to their playing is infectious. The bag piper, Donnie, is nicknamed "bullfrog" for the way his cheeks and neck inflate while he plays, and the drummers stomp and dance tirelessly while they pound out their rhythms.
Check out Albannach's tour schedule to see when they'll be in your area. And go to their MySpace page to listen. Oh, and if you're like me, and your first thought is "wow, that's chaotic," wait a couple of minutes more to let the sound sink deeply into your brain and I'll bet that you, too, will be hooked.
Our Monday Video today comes from Anglo-Indian singer Sheila Chandra, performing the Scottish song "Lament of McCrimmon/Song of the Banshee." It's a rendition that draws upon both sides of the singer's heritage, evoking the ancient sound of the Indian drone and the distinctive drone of traditional Scottish pipes.
"This melody was composed in 1745 on the departure of Donald McCrimmon by his sister. Another legend has it that Donald McCrimmon had a premonition of his death and composed the tune the night before he died and that his sister later wrote the words. Donald McCrimmon is said to have been killed in a skirmish in 1746 at the Rout of Moy during the last Jacobite Uprising. The McCrimmons were famous pipers and the hereditary pipers of the Clan MacLeod."
See "Folklore of the Voice," our profile of Sheila Chandra, for more information on this extraordinary performer.
We kick off the week this time with a video of Israeli singer Yasmin Levy and her superb, international back-up band performing "Ir me Kero Madre" on Dutch television during their recent tour of Europe. Levy's father was one of the leading figures in the preservation of traditional Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) songs, and Levy herself is dedicated to the revival of this passionate, cross-cultural art form. As her website explains it:
"The Spanish Jews who fled Spain in 1492 after the Edict of Expulsion took with them a rich cultural heritage including the Spanish language. For nearly five centuries Sephardi Jews have kept alive the language of those Spanish exiles. Ladino, as it is popularly known, is an archaic form of Spanish with structures and vocabulary that can be traced back to the 15th century. Over the centuries it has absorbed vocabulary from the countries in which the Iberian Jews had settled.
"While there remain very few native-Ladino speakers today, there has been a recent worldwide revival of interest in this 'dying' language. Likewise enjoying great popularity today are Ladino songs. These can be divided into romansas, ballads (dramatic narrative poems) and kantigas (lyric songs), the most popular of which are love songs."
Visit Yasmin Levy's website for information on her various CDs, and her tour schedule. If you have the opportunity to see her perform live, don't miss it. She has the presence of a goddess onstage and her voice is truly transporting.
Our video to kick off the week this time is of the Canadian "folk fusion" band The Duhks playing "Greenfields of Glentown" at CBC Routes Montreal 2006.
Zune Arts is a terrific website that features collaborations between musicians and artists in short animated films. There are many wonderful little films here -- and a host of talented musicians and artists to get to know. Below is "Swap Meet," a collaboration between againstallodds studio, founded by Derek Picken and Josh Thorne, and the L.A. band, Deadly Syndrome. (thanks to Laura Sweet of If it's Hip, It's Here)
Following Mary Barnard's ondine poem yesterday, our Monday Video to kick off the week is "Mermaid," a dream-like montage featuring the underwater dance photography of Oceanides and music from Aine Minogue's The Twilight Realm.
And speaking of mermaids, there's some lovely "Little Mermaid" art by Tigana here, including "Her Garden," pictured on the right.
In the JoMA archives, you'll find 2 good articles, "A Million Little Mermaids" by Virginia Borges and "The Mermaid" by Heinz Insu Fenkl, as well as two fine poems, "The Mermaid Sets the Story Straight" by Debra Cash and "Undine" by Jane Yolen.
Over the last four days I've been playing almost nonstop the fabulous new CD Galdrbok, Medieval Songs of Love & Enchantment, from Daughters of Elvin, a terrific English medieval music and theatre troupe (and favorites of Endicott.) The music is wonderfully rich and complicated, twisting together the sweetness of a hammered dulcimer and pipes with the frenzied bee-buzz of medieval bagpipes and the drone of a hurdy gurdy (to name only a few of the instruments they play). Added to that are the lush, ethereal vocals of Jennie Cassidy and Sophia Brumfitt. A heady brew indeed, the musical equivalent of an excellent and potent mulled wine, rich in spices and color.
The CD features a collection of medieval songs on love and enchantment from a variety of European countries. The opening song, "Ondas Do Mar de Vigo" (Sea Waves of Vigo), is a beautiful, melancholy 13th century song from Spain that conveys the longing of a woman waiting by the sea for her lover to return, while in "Mandad 'El Comigo" (My love's coming home), an ebullient bagpipe paired with a brisk drum evokes the joy of the woman as she sees him returning at last. In the French song, "Voulez Vous Que Je Vous Chant" (Would you like me to sing to you?), the hammered dulcimer accompanies a gentle, lilting song that recalls the meeting between a French knight and the Queen of the Fairies.
One of my favorite pieces, however, is the title song, "Galdrbok, book of sung spells, composed by Steve Tyle and Katy Marchant of Daughters of Elvin. The liner notes describe the inspiration for this rollicking piece: "Steve Tyle and Katy Marchant wrote this piece whilst honeymooning in a Pyrenean mountain retreat removed from civilization with no electricity, with wolves howling in the distance and bears roaming through the mist swathed landscape." Every time it comes on, I always crank the volume and just stop whatever I am doing to enjoy it.
Do visit Daughters of Elvin's myspace page to hear cuts from the new CD, view their touring schedule and really cool slide shows of this remarkable troupe, and best of all, purchase the CD on the site.
Here's a beautiful, beautiful video of two of the best Brazilian singers out there, Marisa Monte and Paulinho de Viola singing "Para ver as meninas."
Kitka, an all-women's ensemble specializing in Balkan music, collaborated a while back with Ukrainian-born singer and composer Mariana Sadovska to create the "The Rusalka Cycle," a choral performance of the laments of the Rusalka, the haunted spirits of drowned women. Due to the success of the show, Kitka has prepared an encore performance for January 4, 5, and 6th at Kanbar Hall in San Francisco. (Go here for times, directions, and ticket ordering.) Here's a brief description of the show from Kitka's website:
"In Slavic Folklore, Rusalki are the restless spirits of women who have died unjust, untimely, or unnatural deaths. They inhabit the waters, forests, and fields, luring people to them with their mesmerizing songs and wild laughter. Performed by the nine powerful female vocalists of Kitka, together with percussionist Loren Mach and cellists Jessica Ivry and Myra Chaney, The Rusalka Cycle is a riveting, dream-like journey that weaves traditional Eastern European folk song and ritual together with original music by Mariana Sadovska in a haunting and evocative contemporary theater production directed by Ellen Sebastian Chang.
"Our re-imagined 2008 production features new costumes by Valera Coble, lighting design by Jack Carpenter, sound design by Cuco Daglio, beguiling new characters, and many dramatic moments previously unseen."
It's also worth noting that even if you can't see the show, the CD is available from the website. And do, do, do stop by their MySpace page to hear some of their gorgeous singing.
At the Entering of the New Year
by Thomas Hardy
I (Old Style)
Our songs went up and out the chimney,
And roused the home-gone husbandmen;
Our allemands, our heys, poussettings,
Our hands-across and back again,
Sent rhythmic throbbings through the casements
On to the white highway,
Where nighted farers paused and muttered,
"Keep it up well, do they!"
The contrabasso's measured booming
Sped at each bar to the parish bounds,
To shepherds at their midnight lambings,
To stealthy poachers on their rounds;
And everybody caught full duly
The notes of our delight,
As Time unrobed the Youth of Promise
Hailed by our sanguine sight.
II (New Style)
We stand in the dusk of a pine-tree limb,
As if to give ear to the muffled peal,
Brought or withheld at the breeze's whim;
But our truest heed is to words that steal
From the mantled ghost that looms in the gray,
And seems, so far as our sense can see,
To feature bereaved Humanity,
As it sighs to the imminent year its say:-
"O stay without, O stay without,
Calm comely Youth, untasked, untired;
Though stars irradiate thee about
Thy entrance here is undesired.
Open the gate not, mystic one;
Must we avow what we would close confine?
With thee, good friend, we would have converse none,
it the fault may not be thine."
The video above captures several members of Daughters of Elvin in performance at the Oxford Folk Festival. (Daughters is a medieval music and dance troupe based here in Devon, directed by my good friend Katy Marchant -- playing pipe and tabor in this video.) The masked figure who emerges halfway through the song (based on medieval Woodwose legends) is just one of the many mythical creatures who turn the Daughters' sublime music into spells of incantation. The Woodwose mask was made by Katy, but the group also use masks and costumes designed by Alan Lee and Wendy Froud.
You can read more about the group here (in an article from JoMA's archives), or visit the Daughters of Elvin MySpace page to hear more of their glorious music. And I hope you didn't miss Chanda Cerchione-Peltier's in-depth article on Katy and the Daughters in the Summer 2007 issue of Faerie Magazine.
Speaking of Faerie Magazine, Chandra has asked us to mention the current Fall issue, which does indeed sound promising. "In the new issue," she says, "I interview [film puppeteer] William Todd-Jones, Ari Berk writes about Beowulf's Grendel, SurlaLune's Heidi Ann Heiner offers a history of Rapunzel, and there is a wonderful spread about Brian Froud's new book, World of Faerie. The magazine is available in the US through booksellers such as Barnes & Nobles and Borders; for readers in the UK, issues can be purchased through I Do Believe."
The carving above of a knight fighting a dragon comes from a misericord in the magnificent Exeter Cathedral, here in Devon.
In the video below, Kate Rusby performs "Sir Eglamore" (Child Ballad #18) -- a traditional Anglo-Scots ballad based on a 14th century French lais. (Read the lyrics here.)
For more of Kate's music, including her enchanting version of Child Ballad #2, "The Elfin Knight," visit her MySpace page. You'll also find quite a few good concert clips over on YouTube.
In the video above, Vienna Teng performs her dark, gorgeous song "My Medea," inspired by the classical Medea myth. (You'll find the lyrics to the song here.)
Teng was raised in California, studied at Stanford, and is now based in New York City. Visit her blog & website to learn more about her work, and go here to see more footage of Teng in concert.
Speaking of music, here at Endicott we're really looking forward to the Hidden Variable CD (featuring songs by Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Emma Bull, Lemony Snicket, China Mieville and Peter Straub, to name just a few), as well as the Hidden Variable's forthcoming video "Kindermarchen," with lyrics by Greg Maguire. Go here to learn more about the Hidden Variable project, which is the brainchild of Chris Ewan. And visit the Lorraine a Malena site for a preview of some of the songs.
Here's a bit of craziness to jump-start your week on a sleepy Monday morning, complete with masks and poultry from the fabulous Ozomotli.
Midori has been valiantly covering this blog solo while I've been down with a truly nasty flu -- and as I'm still shaking the last of a rattling cough out of my lungs, my posting may be a bit sporadic over the next week or so.
This post is to let y'all know that there is now an "Endicott Studio Channel" on YouTube, where we'll be putting videos that we think will be of interest to fans of mythic arts -- such as the Mythic Journeys documentary from the good folks at the Mythic Imaginations Institute, Ben Okri discussing his approach to writing, an A&E biography of J.K. Rowling, a little film on artist Paula Rego, the great June Tabor singing Child Ballad #191: "Hughie Graeme," and more. (f you come across other good videos on YouTube, send us a note and let us know.)
The video above is of Neil Gaiman reading his fairy tale poem "Instructions" at Cody's Books in Berkeley, California. Considering his voluminous output of work over the last several years, Ellen Datlow and I will forgive him for forgetting that he actually wrote the poem at our request for our children's fairy tale anthology A Wolf at the Door, where it was first published in 2000. It's my favorite of all his poems, and a real treat to hear him read it.
(While you're on YouTube, if you're a martial arts fan, check out this little video that Howard Gayton made of a tournament/demonstration of our Kung Fu teacher's school, The Dragon Temple, in our village hall in rural Devon.)
Click here for a bit of magical musical silliness to kick-start your week....courtesy of The Iguanas. I love these guys. I love to crank them up loud in my pick-up truck on hot desert nights during the months of the year that I spend in Tucson. Listening to their music on a Monday morning back here in the rain-drenched hills of Devon, I can almost feel that desert heat....
Enjoy!
I wasn't able to post a Sunday Poem last week, and I've been surprised by the number of people who have written to Endicott to ask us not to discontinue this feature. Don't worry, we have no plans to! The Sunday Poem will be back this weekend -- and here's a magical piece to tide you over until then: "Dream Fox" by Jack Roberts, which first appeared in Tar River Poetry and can now be found on the Verse Daily website.
Speaking of dreams, the Czech duo Tara Fuki has released a CD of alternative music inspired by dreams, night travel, the unconscious, and the poetry of the dark. Tara Fuki consists of violoncellists and vocalists Dorata Barova and Andrea Konstankiewicz, performing with guest musicians on tabla, kanjira, and other instruments. Visit the Calabash Music blog, Tune Your World, to hear music from the new CD, titled "Auris."
The pictures here are "Foxes" and "Blue Fox," painted early in the 20th century by the German Expressionist artist Franz Marc.
Here's a sweet little video to start your week with a smile. The animation is produced and directed by Joseph Gaffney; the song is "The World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies.
What did we do before YouTube? It's just so great for finding favorite videos -- like the one above, "Braided Hair," by 1 Giant Leap (along with Speech, Neneh Cherry, Ulali, and many others).
1 Giant Leap consists of Jamie Catto (from Faithless) and Duncan Bridgeman (musical director for The Rhino Drum Show created by Endicott contributor William "Todd" Todd-Jones), who traveled around the world to create "a unique fusion of sound, image and spoken word from global musicians, authors, scientists, and thinkers, and to explore 'The Unity in the Diversity.' " They released their first video and CD in 2002, and are now in post-production for a follow-video from their second trans-world journey.
Click here for another little video in which Jaimie and Duncan explain the project.
Here's a sweet little animation by Matthew Simkins for Seth Lakeman's magical song "The White Hare." I'm a big Seth Lakeman fan, not least because he's a Devon lad, writing songs that are often based on the myths, legends, and history of Dartmoor (where I also live). You'll find another good Lakeman video posted on Endicott's MySpace page.
More information on the "three hares" symbol that you see on the medallion in the video can be found here. More information on hare mythology and folklore is here. For wonderful mythic fiction involving rabbits and hares read The Limits of Enchantment by Graham Joyce, Hannah's Garden by Midori Snyder, and Medicine Road by Charles de Lint, illustrated by Charles Vess.
Speaking of good videos, don't miss the Ojos de Brujo peformance on Midori's MySpace page. It's a killer. Have a good weekend!
Since the Endicott Studio seems to have a certain fondness for all things food -- from myth, folklore, and the kitchen (not to mention fantasy photographs from favorite blogs!) -- I thought it might be fun to share one of my favorite food music videos: "Cumbia del Mole" from the singing of Lila Downs. The video is a "saucy" (ok...I said it!) celebration of Oaxaca's finest chocolate mole sauce (which really is food from the Gods, in my opinion). The video has great scenes of preparation, kitchens, markets, and the food!
There are an increasing number of performance troupes these days who combine music, dance, theater, acrobatics, pyrotechnics, and elements of shamanic ritual to create unique performances that bring mythic archetypes to life. We featured once such group in a previous post, Flam Chen of Tucson, Arizona. Endicott reader Barbara Brugger has recommended another: Kan'Nal, who describe their sound as "tribal psychedelic rock," along with their "alter-ego" group Lunar Fire, featuring "improvised music drawn from many sources, including hip-hop, punk, dub and psychedelic art rock."
Writing about Kan'Nal's music in The Washington Post, Michael Deed says: "It's a rare CD that makes you want to rub sticks together in your back yard, yank off your clothing and howl at the moon while cavorting around a crackling bonfire. Kan'Nal's Dreamwalker has that effect...Tribal-rock blasts such as 'Gypsy' and 'Iris' plunge a hand into your chest and grab onto the part of your being that swung from trees a few million years ago. Find another band that does that." (Read the full review here.)
Check out the Kan'Nal website, particularly the video section, for a taste of modern tribal magic.
The enchanting painting above is by the Russian illustrator Yaroslava Kuznetsova. It comes from the new edition of Ellen Kushner's novel Thomas the Rhymer, which will soon be published, in Russian translation, by Arda. The book is based (as many of you will recognize) on a famous fairy ballad from the Scottish border country. Here's a link to the American edition, which won both the World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Awards -- and soundly deserved them. The prose is lyrical and exquisite; the story is sensual, magical, and deeply moving.
"I had to do 'Thomas,' " Ellen recalls, "because, like many other writers, I knew 'Thomas' was my story. He holds the mythic power of King Arthur in the hearts of poets: the artist who is literally seduced by his muse, comes closer to her than any human should to the source of his art, and is profoundly changed. He can never be at home in this world again, and yet he must continue to live in it. That's how every writer feels, I think. Many writer friends had talked about writing a 'Thomas' story someday; kind of like an actor playing King Lear: it's a Great Subject that probably should not be tackled in one's youth. I would never have had the nerve to do it if it hadn't been forced upon me by circumstance. I still feel a little humble about it. I don't think I've written the definitive 'Thomas' -- I've just written my 'Thomas,' the 'Thomas' who addressed issues that were upon me in those years. Twenty years from now, I might like to do him again." 
Ellen is a folk singer as well as a writer; she knows the old material well and the book is rich with ballad themes. "The Trees Grow High" inspired the last third of the novel; the middle section, set in Faery, makes use of the ballad "The Famous Flower of Serving Men." "Famous Flower" is the story of a woman whose husband has been slain by thieves hired by her own mother. She dons men's clothes and joins the king's court, while the murdered man returns to earth as a dove, shedding blood-red tears through the forest.
Delia Sherman's excellent first novel, Through a Brazen Mirror, is also based on this evocative song. "I heard Martin Carthy's version of 'Famous Flower'," Delia says, "and it haunted me with questions. If a mother so hated her child, why not just kill her and be done? Perhaps there was more to it than simple hatred. The other train of thought the ballad started had to do with cross-dressing in a medieval culture. And the third could be stated as: In all these ballads with girls dressed as boys, the man falls in love with the boy, not the girl. What would happen if he weren't relieved to discover his beloved's true sex? In short, 'Famous Flower' gave me a beautiful, mysterious narrative framework upon which to hang all my favorite concerns: gender confusion, different kinds of love, the singlemindedness of the mad, foundlings and their origins."
I asked Delia if she had a theory about why certain writers found ballad material so compelling, returning to it again and again. "What I like best about ballads," she said, "is that they're plots with all the motivations left out. Why did Young Randall's stepmother want to poison him? Why choose eels? Why did Randall eat them (especially if they were green and yellow)? There's a novel there, or at least a short story. Ballads give you classical human situations, and also some decidedly unclassical ones, exploring relationships between lovers, parents and children, between friends, masters and servants. Many of them deal with power and powerlessness, which is one of the central themes of fairy tales too, but it seems to me that ballads are more pragmatic, more realistic, in their denouements. Not every villain gets his/her just desserts. I can imagine a ballad variant of 'Beauty and the Beast' in which Beauty comes too late, and sings a plaintive last verse over the Beast's body, about how she will sew him a shroud of the linen fine and sit barefoot in the dark all her days, for the love of him who she loved too late."
Other fine novels based on ballads include Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Alan Garner's Red Shift, Janet McNaughton's An Earthly Knight, Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock, Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard, Patricia McKillip's Winter Rose, Dahlov Ipcar's A Dark Horn Blowing, Greer Gilman's Moonwise, Sharyn McCrumb's The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, and Paul Brandon's The Wild Reel, among others, as well as numerous short story renditions. And if you're a ballad fan, don't miss Charles Vess' terrific The Book of Ballads, with graphic art by Charles and stories by the likes of Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Jane Yolen, Emma Bull, and many others. Midori's in there, with an unusual take on "Barbara Allen," and I wrote the book's Introduction. The Book of Ballads is not only a lovely collection for fans of traditional folk material, but I also recommend it as a volume with which to introduce younger readers to this wonderful subject. For the songs themselves, you'll find good music recommendations posted regularly on the Greenman Review.
The art above is by Yaroslava Kuznetsova ("Thomas the Rhymer"), Thomas Canty ("Thomas the Rhymer"), Charles Vess ("Thomas the Rhymer"), Warwick Goble ("Beauty and the Beast"), and Charles Vess once again.
Ojos de Brujo is a fantastic band from Spain that digs deep into the roots of gypsy and flamenco music and pairs it with Cuban drums and Senegalese hip-hop. The result is a vibrant sound that will get you out of your seat and dancing. The name "Ojos de Brujo" translates as "Eyes of the Wizard." Percussionist Xavi Turull explains: "We chose this because we think of wizards, witches, and sorcerers as the people who have more vision than the rest of the population. They are more aware of what is going on in this screwed-up world. And we think that music – and every other art form – should be trying to help make the world become more conscious and aware. Also, 'brujo' is a word strongly connected to flamenco. Gypsies have always had their witches and wizards protecting them."
Check out their video for the song "Sultana de Merkaillo," which is from their new CD, Techarí (which means "free"). Along with the regular band members, the song showcases its collaboration with musicians from around the world: Faada Freddy from Senegal, Asian Dub Foundation's Prithpal Rajput, and Nitin Sawhney, South Indian fusion artist. Cuban pianist Roberto Carcassés joins respected flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and Cuban très/flamenco guitar player Raúl Rodríguez from Son de la Frontera. This is music that moves!
We've written about Daughters of Elvin at Endicott before (there was an article on them in the Journal of Mythic Arts in 2002, and some of their masks were featured in our Mask Art exhibition, 2004). But our newer readers may not yet know about this wonderful troupe specializing in medieval music and dance, directed by my good friend Katy Marchant, who perform in old churches, castles, concert halls, and festivals all across the British Isles. Visit the Daughter's MySpace page, where you can hear some of their music and order their CD Garden of Earthly Delights (with cover art designed by Brian Froud).They're putting the final touches on a new CD now -- and keep an eye on Faerie Magazine, where they'll soon be profiled in an article by Chandra Cerchione-Peltier.
For readers in southern Arizona: Flam Chen -- Tucson's magical, mythical, pyrotechnical theatre troupe -- will be performing at the Nimbus Brewery today, along with a stellar roster of musicians, from 2:00 pm until midnight. If you missed the Tucson Folk Festival last week, here's a chance to see some of the best performers from it -- and all in aid of a good cause too. This is a benefit event to raise money and awareness about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. The $8.00 door donation goes entirely to the Save Darfur Coalition. Check the Events section of the Nimbus website for more info.
Perhaps I'll see some of you there?
If you are going out tonight to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, that fateful day in 1826 in Puebla, Mexico when 4,000 Mexican soldiers smashed the invading French armies, I recommend having a listen to a terrific NYC based band, Pistolera. Pistolera is a Latin rock/folklorico band that blends contemporary rock sensibilities with Mexican rancheros. Sandra Lilia Velasquez is the band's powerful lead guitar and vocalist; Maria Elena drives the accordian while bassist Inca B. Satz and drummer Ani Cordero pound out an infectious beat. You can check out additional performance videos and cuts from their fabulous CD Siempre Hay Salida on their My Space page. Below is the video (timely too considering the recent Immigration demonstrations) of their song "Cazador."
(Thanks to Tune Your World, one of the best blogs to see and hear new world music. Check out their Cinco de Mayo music special. Don't miss it!)
The London-based artist Rima Staines has created an enchanting animation for Polly Paulusma's song "The Woods," a single off the forthcoming album Fingers and Thumbs. If you have a fast Internet connection, you can see the animation in full here. A smaller version is available on Polly Paulusma's MySpace page. To see more of Rima's work (paintings, drawings, prints, etc.), visit The Hermitage website.
Rima also sends news that the London Gypsy Orchestra will be performing this Friday night, April 27, at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. The concert starts at 7:30 pm and admission is free. See the Events section of the LGO's website for more information.
Patricia Barber is a jazz singer and composer who received a Guggenheim Fellowship to produce an album of jazz songs based on the mythological characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses. On her website, Barber describes her thoughts about each of the songs in the cycle. "Morpheus is very dear to me," she writes, "because I have sleep issues, bad insomnia. It’s a prayer to the God of Sleep to send his son, Morpheus, the God of Dreams. It is one of my favorite songs of the entire song cycle....Pygmalion is very much in a classic American song form, written in that 32-bar style. There are a few harmonic variations and of course, what a wonderful story, how he waits for this cold piece of rock, this statue of a woman to come to life. That was easy for me to generalize to the universal question: 'Can I will you to love me? Can I will the fantasy to life?' "
You can read the rest of her song notes and hear tracks from Mythologies on Barber's website. And if you're in Chicago, you can hear her perform her work on Monday evenings at the Green Mill jazz club through June 25th.
Tinariwen are the creators of "ishoumar," a style of music melding the ancient rhythms of Tuareg tribal songs with contemporary rock influences. Initially, this form of music was created to express political themes of exile and resistance, but the style has evolved and broadened to include a range of songs evoking the daily lives and struggles of the Tuareg people.
The Tuareg are descended from the Berbers, the original inhabitants of North Africa. For centuries they have lived a nomadic life in the southern Saharan desert, with freedom of movement essential to their cultural identity and survival. In the 20th century their traditional homeland was divided between the modern nations of Mali, Niger, Algeria, Mauritania and Libya. Unwilling to settle down and assimilate, the Tuareg became a stateless people.
In recent decades, the Tuareg have continued to rebel against assimilation and repression, partly through periods of armed conflict and partly through their music. (There are legends, apparently true, of Tinariwen band members riding into battle in the 1980s with Kalashnikovs in their arms and guitars strapped on their backs.) "I don't like the idea of being a soldier at all," says Ibrahim Ag Alhabib (one of the founders of the group), explaining his transition from resistance fighter to musician. "I realized I was a musician and poet, and that there were better weapons with which to achieve what I wanted....Also, the repressive regime that used to rule Mali has changed, and things are changing for the better."
British music critic Andy Gill, writing about Tinariwen for The Independent, describes the mythic quality of their music. "Ibrahim spends many nights alone in the desert, communing with the spirits, or djinns, who he says give him inspiration for his music. 'Alone in the bush at night, I sometimes get this powerful feeling of a presence around me, and I find I can create things more easily: images and music come into my head, like a muse,' he says. 'Ali Farka Toure claimed that his muses were the water spirits of the Niger river; and it's a similar thing for me in the desert -- there's this other world that is constantly present, and that's what I commune with out there.'
"The spirit world is very real to the Tuareg," writes Gill, "whose origin myth, according to the band's friend and adviser Issa Dikco, involves a sort of spiritual intercourse. 'The first Tuareg was a djinn who wanted to possess a woman,' Dicko explains. 'He was the son of a human and a supernatural being. The other African people are wary of the Tuareg because they know there is this supernatural origin, and they are fundamentally different.' "
To learn more about Tinariwen and their music, read Andy Gill's full article on-line here, or visit the Tinariwen pages on the SASA music website. The latter site lists tour dates and a discography of their music -- including Tinariwen's newly released CD, Aman Iman. There's a video clip of
