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“She sprinkles flowers in the dirt / That’s when a thrill becomes a hurt”

Wanted some soulful-but-not-overly-corny tunes to work to so I put on a “song radio” Spotify station for music related to Gillian Welch’s “Look At Miss Ohio”, specifically the v. from Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains. First track to pop up was “That Day Is Done” with vocals by Elvis Costello and The Fairfield Four, Larry Knechtel on piano.

Oof, my heart…

The song was written by Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, and it looks like it was originally released by Paul McCartney on his album Flowers In The Dirt. Personally, I prefer the Costello + Fairfield Four version. For a similar version, see live recording on YT. Related: see the history of The Fairfield Four, pretty exceptional. The group will soon be 100 yrs old.

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“That cloud, that cloud / It looks like Ireland / C’mon and blow it a kiss now / But quick! / ‘Cause it’s changing in the big sky”

Yesterday was a Good Day ⚡️ Made a jumbled playlist with summer, optimism, a dash of rebellion, a little relaxation, and being ok with not being ok. Tracks as of 28.05.18:

  1. This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody) – Talking Heads
  2. I Love Hot Nights – Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
  3. Silver Lining – Rilo Kiley
  4. I’m A Lady – Santigold ft. Troubled Andrew
  5. Acid Raindrops – People Under The Stairs
  6. Blue Sky – The Allman Brothers Band
  7. Failure – Kings of Convenience
  8. Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
  9. Lady Pilot – Neko Case
  10. For the Dishwasher – Grandaddy
  11. Lola – The Kinks
  12. I Love You All – The Soronprfbs ft. Micheal Fassbender
  13. Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys
  14. Doo Wop (That Thing) – Ms. Lauryn Hill
  15. Mushaboom – Feist
  16. Circle – Shugo Tokumaru
  17. Your Arms Around Me – Jens Lekman
  18. The Big Sky – Kate Bush

EDIT 28.05.2018 at 14:37:
After making this playlist, SB suggested “The Morning of Our Lives” by Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers which does indeed fit the brief perfectly. Searched for the song on Spotify and came across this playlist, which IMO is superior! And it’s longer, so 👍

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🌈 + beata viscera iridis at the Royal Academy

Rainbows + Beata Viscera Iridis performed by Musarc at the Royal Academy, May 2018

Musarc performed Rainbows + Beata viscera iridis on the Burlington Gardens staircase at the Royal Academy on Saturday 19 May 2018 as part of the RA’s 250 birthday celebrations.

Rainbows is devised by artist Sarah Kate Wilson, and Beata viscera iridis is a simple arrangement of a medieval conductus by myself and architect Toby O’Connor. This is, I believe, the third staging of these pieces together.

A few of the performances at the RA had a lower key than usual. An interesting register to work with, the energy is very different. The clip here includes the introduction and the beginning of the conductus.

Photo by Justine Trickett. Recording courtesy Sam Belinfante.

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Surfing with coffee 4

Surfing with coffee #4. This is off the back of Odrathek with Musarc, includes a few things/people I’ve looked in to after that overwhelming experience. Not comprehensive, but perhaps consider this big wave surfing…

A
Célia Gondol (B↓)(C↓) Chase the vibrations; Jenny Moore (↓D) (↓E) Sang “Reclaim the night” the whole way back last night (Central line din disguises humming nicely); Neil Luck (↓F) Reliving childhood softball injury; Bartosz Glowacki with Lore Lixenberg (↓G) First time a live musical performance has made me cry; Edka Jarząb (↓H) Intoxicating voice for change; need to find the red book she read from on third day; read Warsound Warszawa; Rie Nakajima (↓I) Creator and destroyer of helpless noise creatures

B
Good Vibrations

C
Cordel Literature on Wikipedia

D
Reclaim the night, sung at Greenham Common women’s peace camp

E
Thank you internet, 8m51s in on showreel (↓J)

F
Bloody Sirens GET IT NOW!

G
Akkordeon Baroque, tickets for 23 May 2018

H
Wyjaśnienie na marginesie – Ginczanka // Explanation in the margin – Ginczanka (↓K)

I
Dead Plants and Living Objects (↓L)

J
Holly Pester

K
Zuzanna Ginczanka (↓M)

L
Pierre Berthet

M
On Centaurs (↓) Not ideal since it seems to be paginated for press…

N
Not all of me will die

And 🌈, with added 🌧! To be restaged next Saturday 19 May 2018 at the RA for RA250.

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Carillonkonzerte im Tiergarten

Carillonneur in Berlin Tiergarten

There’s a sweet little spot in my heart for bells. I’m in Berlin this weekend manning a table for OP at Miss Read, and on my way over through the Tiergarten yesterday morning I heard incredible music coming from the tower next to HKW. Turns out Berlin carillonneur Jeffrey Bossin gives free concerts throughout late spring / early summer, and one of them is today at 3pm. He must have been rehearsing yesterday.

carillon-berlin.de

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Iris, Iridis

Iris, Iridis (noun)
– declension: 3rd declension
– gender: feminine
Definitions:
1. Iris (messenger of the gods, goddess of the rainbow)
2. rainbow

You can identify third declension nouns by their genitive singular ending ‘-is’. See nationalarchives.gov.uk and Wikipedia.

In contrast with the first- and second-declension endings, those of the third declension lack a theme vowel (a or o/u in the first and second declensions) and so are called athematic.

Note via Toby O.

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Rehearsing Rainbows

Early last year, Sarah Kate Wilson approached Musarc with a concept for a performance involving coloured mirrors. Around the same time, Toby O’Connor and I were mulling over ways of working with Beata Viscera, a conductus by medieval composer Pérotin. These experiments blended well and in April 2017, Musarc opened and closed the 3rd Do Disturb festival at Palais De Tokyo with Rainbows + Beata viscera iridis. Watch a video documenting Musarc’s various PDT performances on musarc.org. These pieces were performed again as part of MK Gallery’s 2017 CityFest and at Rochester Square’s Open Day on 24 June 2017.

Musarc rehearsing Rainbows

Musarc rehearsing Rainbows + Beata viscera iridis at Central House just before the building was sold by London Met Uni.

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Tall, elegant time signatures

I recently came across a tall, one-per-system time signature style I hadn’t really seen before in Drei Volksliedsätze by Schönberg, published by Edition Peters (c) 1930.

Tall time signature in Drei Volksliedsätze by Arnold Schönberg

I searched around for some info about their purpose but didn’t find a ton of information. Some say that they are useful for conductor’s scores, others say that they’re useful when a time signature changes frequently throughout a piece. Most examples I’ve found are a lot more ungainly (but definitely more legible) than the tall, elegant time signatures in the Schönberg.

The usage isn’t consistent in the three songs. The first of the three (Schein uns, du liebe Sonne) has a standard one-per-stave time signature and is in 4/4 throughout. The second (Es gingen zwei Gespielen gut) is in 6/4 throughout and has a tall signature. The third (Herzlieblich Lieb, durch Scheiden) is a little nuts. It’s got tall time signatures and starts in 3/4, then packs 5 meter changes in to the remaining 21 measures.

The texture of the final two pieces, both rhythmically and harmonically, is much tighter than the first. Because of that, my feeling is that in this song cycle they’re maybe meant to encourage singers to read across the staves, to become more attuned to where they fit in as part of the whole. Would like to ask someone more knowledgeable in this sort of thing to see what they think.