hiromi uehara

Strolling through a fine Esbjörn Svensson Trio mix on Youtube this morning I discovered, sandwiched within a tranche of Thelonius Monk tunes, this. At first glance it looks like a return to showy excess: six stringed bass, too many drums, a corral of keyboards, and not to mention two necks on a guitar... Hold on though, this is pretty funky jazz, and sounds exquisitely clean.

The pianist is Hiromi Uehara. Her band is called Sonicbloom. Well, I'm hooked...



Lots more on Youtube, check her out.

addendum: actually, if you follow the mix, there's a performance from Hiromi earlier on. I didn't notice it at the time as I was working and only listening.

sad to know you're leaving

Friday, being poets' day, I usually catch Last Word on the radio, driving home from work. What is our fascination with obituaries? Next to the puzzle page, they are, allegedly, the most read single page in any newspaper. On the radio, the form expands into a mini documentary featuring audio clips and talking heads. You begin to wonder why they don't put it on the telly!

A couple of Friday's ago there was a piece about the reggae star, Gregory Isaacs. Isaacs had played a small part in my improver's relationship experimentation - a sofa, a girl and a lovers album - around the early 80s. Then reggae seemed to change pace and I lost interest, so it was a jolt to hear his life celebrated on Last Word.

So, last Friday I spent an afternoon listening to a Gregory Isaacs mix on Youtube. This is the first time I've used a youtube playlist. It was really quite good. I don't know why I'm surprised, Youtube is, surely, one of the finest websites on the wobbly web; precisely what the internet was made for.

But this video wasn't in the mix. I post it because it looked like a good gig: a veritable reggae gang show with an extensive, and casual, house band, and Isaacs, smooth and sartorial.

sirkka-liisa konttinen and the north

BBC Four is back on form this month with a series on The North [of England]. As a ''Southerner'', I have to be careful what I say about The North. I mean, I don't actually get up there much but, from what I know, it's all right. Largely my experience of it has been through the media of film, predominantly black and white ones, and books. I'm pretty sure both of these skew the true nature of The North, and its folk, but, to its advantage, gives it an extra sense of romanticism and strength; it makes for good art.

The series introduced me to the work of Finnish photographer and film-maker, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. This is a photographer to know as he obviously knows about photography, its potential and its purpose. In the 60s she came to Byker, a working class area of Newcastle on the verge of being pulled down to make way for improved housing. The young Konttinen fell in love with the community she found living in the terraces and moved in. Then she began photographing her neighbours and their neighbourhood. Then last year she returned to make portraits of newer residents of Byker Wall, the estate which replaced the condemned Byker, this time in colour.

Her portraiture is a work of genius; she manages to capture the finest of lines between the formal pose and the candid. Only the genuine expressions of the ordinary people in her images give away the unstaged nature at that moment of capture, and what Cartier-Bresson must have meant by the ''decisive moment''. Have a look at the family portrait with their bull terrier, above. It featured very briefly in the programme, and it turns out to be her own favourite.

I love the structure of this composition, the way the subjects are placed in the room as if she was setting out to paint the scene, not merely snap them. Yet they seem, at that moment, to be totally unconscious of the artist: the playful interaction between dog and master, the open wonder in the upturned face of the young daughter set against the knowing gaze of her older sister. Perfect.

manu delago & the hang

If you liked the sound of Toumani Diabaté's kora, I'm sure you'll like the sound of the hang, played here by Manu Delagu. Not actually a drum as suggested by the title of the video, but an idiophonic instrument of serious complexity (I'll stop here because I'm well out of my depth). Designed in Switzerland, it's a long way from putting holes in cheese and the cuckoo clock. However, I'd be happy to have a hang on my wall though it'd be too tempting to stay there for long.

toumani diabaté

Despite doodling on acoustic guitar in rare moments, I'm not a musician. It takes more dedication, over many years, than I could tolerate and I wouldn't be happy with just being a doodler. And then there's the instrument; what would I choose? The guitar is an easy choice but then you hear Miles and you wish it was the trumpet, or with Joe Morello, the drums! Each instrument has its own beauty.

In this short film, Toumani Diabaté introduces the kora. Can you imagine a sweeter sound coming from an instrument made from a vegetable? No.

Mrs. Schrödinger goes for a stroll

The video says it all.



Or does it?

It's disturbing the amount of CCTV there is about. Now I don't wish to draw fatuous comparison's with Orwell's 1984 but when I read that book in my youth, and got to the part where the sweethearts thought they'd escaped the prying eyes of state only to find microphones hidden in the hedgerows, I thought, how awful! And all the things I got up to as a kid, unobserved.

stickmen at atom

Over at the opposite end of the spectrum from BFI resides Atom Films. I'm not sure where Atom Films' films come from - country of origin, pro or am, small or big time - but they're certainly and consistently well-polished works; a cut above average youtube fare. Having said that, I remember them when they used to be better. Oh well, I expect someone at Atom had to do a necessary exercise in ''progress''.

Yesterday, I saw a clip for a programme which featured an aged writer who I didn't recognise saying something about all stories being essentially about death. That's funny, and very reassuring, because up until then I thought I must be developing a peculiar taste in literature - everyone seemed to be, whether literally or metaphorically, dying.

Is animation dead, and the wonder of it dying? Technology guilty, murder one? Here's a ghost of cartoon past,

Stickman Exodus
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

monday morning blue

A week off work starts today and by 9 o'clock I've had a run, walked the dog, cut my hair, shit, shaved and showered, and fit to go. And the sun is shining in a pale blue sky. The forecast said rain all week, but it also said sunshine yesterday which we didn't get. It's not that you can't trust British weather, you just can't trust Britain's weather forecasters. Speaking for myself, the weather's okay. Elsewhere it can be tragic or very boring.

At the time of the badgers incident I was being played a tape of the Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Now, I'm not a fan of all that high-pitched harmony but this one song shone through. It sounded familiar, like all good songs do even if you haven't heard them before. I didn't catch the name so I had an awful time on Youtube looking for it amongst the squeals. Here it is, Beggin', and it includes a video-edit by a fine-looking gentleman called pilooski, and an animator by the name of Cyriak. There's a touch of the Gilliams about it, and there's nothing wrong with that.




Now, it's a curious fact that Scandinavians speak better English than anyone else - including the English. It's also possible that they're creating the best music for the 21st century only we're not noticing it yet. Look around. Anyway, if you quite liked Beggin' but felt it could've been somewhat earthier, try Madcon - Europe's biggest hip-hop duo. From Norway. Theirs comes with a blaxploitation parody which is both funny and sexy, if that's your bag, man. Why not?

Momo Wandel Soumah and Jason Bua

Hey, it's time to listen to some laid back and rolling Guinea blues.



I love this sound but really it was the slideshow of art that caught my attention. I think, mostly if not all, by Jason Bua. Anyone know anything about him?

sex

This is not a purse.

I haven't explored it yet - I'm at work! - but already I like its style.

(Don't worry, I believe it's - ahem - intellectual).

Jaga Jazzist

A few years ago when I bought a copy of Kind of Blue in the Amazon sales, just to see what the fuss was all about, I wouldn't have believed it would eventually switch me on to Scandanavia big-time. I've never been there and I think I should go.

According to my radio jazz is big in Norway and Sweden. They kind of have their own way with Jazz. I can't describe it, and I don't know enough about music to want to try, but it sounds - I don't know - clean, young and fresh, like I imagine all Scandinavians to be. It's also sometimes crazy, which is also what I imagine Scandanavians to be.

I've just heard this on the radio. Jaga Jazzist are from Norway. Actually, I'd like you to listen before watching the band as they're distracting at first. I thought I was hearing the theme from a 60s TV show about a team of psychadelic private eyes, or a crime-fighting schoolboy who lives out of a suitcase with his mini-skirted, millionaire mother.

Once you've listened to it, then see the band; it's even more unbelievable. Enjoy.

piccadilly and the corned beef salad sandwich

Apologies for typing this with my mouth full but you know how it is when you come through the other side of a fever you have a ravenous appetite. I'm finishing off the last morsel of a corned beef, coleslaw and fresh salad sandwich made with home-baked bread, still warm; the dog, who disapproves of humans eating unaided, shows her objection by resting her drooling jowls on the closed lid of my laptop; in a short while she would ensure there's enough dog saliva to endanger life and laptop either by short-circuiting or fatal electric shock; I would have to put down my plate and remove my laptop from my lap thus giving her an opportunity to remove the sandwich. It doesn't work. I'm feeling right as ninepence after being far too unwell to eat a thing and now I'm far too hungry to play dogs' games.

Yesterday, I viewed the BFI playlist, The Big Smoke: London on Film. I've a soft spot for any old films showing ordinary goings on, especially up and down streets. London has a particular interest as it's where I'm from. The first clip, Old London Street Scene, 1903, I found truly incredible. Just how many horses were there in London at that time, and what did they do with all the shit? There's none to be seen in the film yet it only takes a couple of girls trotting by on ponies up our way and there's shit for miles! (I did a bit of reckless Googling and estimated over 100,000 public and privately registered nags by 1900 - and it was a much smaller place than now. When the oil finally runs out, and they find there's not enough minerals to make batteries for everyone to have a G-whizz, we'll be in the shit, again.

Moving on, I found this one interesting. It threw up some more questions. I liked the way the colour changes with the scenes, sepia for the interior of the Limehouse boozer, cyan for the street outside, but how would this have been done in 1920s; in the processing, post-process coating of the frames in each scene, or by coloured filters during projection? I don't know why I'm curious, I just am. I'll bet it's the middle one.

It's only an extract from a longer film, and I wouldn't mind watching the whole thing. It's a strong subject, racism, which with all isms isn't going away fast enough, and soon there'll be horseism and shittism to boot, mark my words.

tom dick and bfi

Taking a few days off, tom-dick, right now. It's been a long time since I last had sick leave, and I think it must apply to the whole country because, in that time, the afternoon telly has been neglected and, as a result, become unbelievably crap. I was hoping for a good, old-fashioned and classic film to take my mind off my chills and fever but instead got an endless series of programmes featuring estate agents showing vacant couples around vacant houses.

I had some time ago collected a link to the online British Film Institute and they have uploaded some ''curiosities'' from their archives on to BFI-Youtube. I hadn't realised this runs as a playlist, so by selecting one clip I ended up watching a concoction of weird and unrelated historical film clips for about an hour before I felt overloaded. Still, it was better than watching estate agents.

I'm feeling much better, by the way. Back to normal next week.

speaking of...

...chills and fever.



Young Tom Jones, (he's 70, you know?) ripping it up with his first band, The Senators. (Which, by coincidence, was the name of a different band that John Bonham, later of Led Zeppelin, first recorded with.) Remarkable sound, I think, considering the age. Especially the way the bass comes over. I believe the bassist is Vernon Mills Hopkins, a name that sounds as if it should belong to a Victorian industrialist rather than a 60s rock and roller. ah, well...

...back to the time machine.

...finally

If you though the sound of vuvuzela was something recent, here's evidence to the contrary. A British invention, apparently; seen in this film from 1939, rehearsing somewhere in the north of England, the Three Lions Junior Supporters Club Vuvuzela Marching Jazz Band, sadly unaware that British teams were excluded from entering the World Cup until 1950...



..oh well.

underground art

This thing I have about the web, well, a friend once told me when talking about work, ''you only get out what you put in!''. (He must have changed his mind because recently he was telling me how much he hated his job, working long hours, but that's a story for another time.) Well, I don't know about work but it seems to be true for trawling the web. I'm on a mini-roll here...

This is a find: Linear, a series of pencil portraits found at Art on the Underground. It's unusual as the drawing process is captured on film and accompanied by conversation with the subjects as they're being drawn. There's also background noise that makes up the working environment, hence the idea behind Linear. The artist is Dryden Goodwin. He tells it so,

'Linear exists as a repository of insights and histories, anecdotal and factual, revealed through the interplay of the drawn line and conversation, that is unique to the Jubilee line at this particular point in time. Drawing someone you've never met before results in an intense encounter and enables a unique intimacy to develop. As the portraits unfold, so too does openness in the conversation; Linear is all about different types of connection.'

To me, it's a wonderful example of drawing as performance art.

when you mention death, I hear violins

Life class isn't going well; I'm just not in the zone with it this time. I console myself by picking up a pair of studio easels, gratis. They'd been removed from their usual corner and placed in the naughty corner opposite, one bore a roughly penned note warning, ''broken, do not use''. Well, I asked if I could have them, to save them from being thrown away. That was last week. This week, after spending a half hour simply dismantling and reassembling, I have one perfectly good easel, albeit mucky with old paint, and a second mucky easel with only one missing bolt and wingnut, and a small wooden clamping piece which any numpty can fashion from a common or garden offcut. Brand new they'll cost £85 a piece. I'm as chuffed as a chuffed thing can be.

Trawling (I'm lately regarding this as a more suitable adjective than surfing) the net for inspiration, I stumbled upon this project from last year. 500 artists submitted a postcard-sized work to be included in a book entitled, A Book About Death. Brazilian artist, Angela Ferrara, compiled this superb video-slideshow of the exhibits. It runs a little fast for me [old codger!] but you can pause if you're quick [I should've kept up playing vid games!], and the music, though not unpleasant, wasn't what I'd choose when looking at pictures about death, or artwork of any sort. It's a bit full-on. You can always mute, of course. It's worth going to Youtube and watching in HD rather than this little embedded view.

don't buy any of these!

My path to mindful consumerism is fairing well. I can categorically claim now that I do not buy books, CDs, or DVDs. My conscience is not pricked by the damage I'm doing to these industries and their employees as I'm sure I'm in an eentsy-weentsy minority of, oh, about 0.0083%. I feel good.
I went to the library to get a book to help me with life drawing. I didn't spot one but came away with Outsiders: Art by People, by Steve Lazarides. It's an interesting book. Much of the art in the book is intended to shock the viewer by its context, its message, and its scale. In a book, most of it comes across as witty; I had to stop and think, hey, these guys are fucking up the places where peaceable folk live! Can vandalism be acceptable as art?
The best pieces were those temporary pieces which employed dummies; a cross-legged hoodie, head bowed, hands in pockets, leaning against a city office wall with a half-empty bottle of water beside him on the pavement, or the ''floater'' lying face down in the canal beside a bridge and clutching a collection of colourful helium-filled balloons. The first piece was largely ignored while the second eventually had the emergency services executing a deep water recovery. There's a clear line between despair and drowning.

We rent films monthly from LOVEFiLM. There's been some good ones recently;

• The Visitor,
• Home,
• Into The Wild.

I choose films arbitrarily, not knowing too much about them; like with books, you can do that more freely when you don't have to own them. So, you'd think there couldn't be any connection between these three films but now, strangely, I'm not sure.

iRack

It's high time I signed off my Mortuary Corners...

blues meditation

Mr. Natural by Mr. Crumb, and Mess o' blues by Messrs. Mississippi Sheiks. Nice.