Modern times

 

Michael Hedges on Chrome cassette 💫

 

Goto SG 146 LD

 

 An extract from a Reinhard's essay, passionately written years ago and which so much inspired me:

"For me the most important thing was the Goto SG146LD.

Klaus started with a straight 10 leafs 40 cycle horn in 1983.

… and it was simply awesome. SG146LD is the only compression bass driver which does not produce boom-boom if fed right. 

The SG146LD contrarily is on first impression not to be heard as bass, first you think, hey it is wrong, it is not connected, but then you realize, what they are doing, they integrate completely homogeneously into the sound, totally natural, like a royal soufflé, no more "cuts" between bass and mid-range (especially in the voices), just "one" sound. Marvellous. Really marvelous. And they make the right pressure. 113 db/watt/m... you can put some 35 watts in there... and you get volume like on stage... and nothing disturbing...

Perhaps one has to get used to that sound a little at first, because it is so "unspectacular" without boom-boom, but then there is no way back... nearly exactly the same is with their membrane basses...

… but, please keep in mind, we are exploring new territory ... nobody was able to advise us so far... and we are still learning... deeply learning...the adjustment of all those horns is not yet finished... and now comes the next big revolution: high resolution digital stream..."

Enough for me, as I can confirm all and every word, as I heard all the above and more… also if I’m still not liking enough that “high resolution digital streaming “ quoted above… my fault, as I love so much handling my discs and tapes 😏

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Kamasutra 💫

 

They - Moghul - had not TV or Internet, but they sure knew how to enjoy life 💫

Young Carol 💫

 

Carole, age 4, rowing her own boat. 

Thanks to Carole King Family Archives 🙏

Plato

 

"Music is a moral law: it gives Soul to the Universe, Wings to Thought, Imagination, Charm to Sadness, Joy, and Life to all things.

It is the essence of Order and elevates all that is good, just, and beautiful, of which it is the invisible, yet resplendent, passionate, and eternal form."

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Essenza 💫

 

… and this humble cassette, a beloved legacy of my very happy youth, sounds so true, beautiful and organic on my 

Nakamichi ZXL 💫

The most exhilarating…

 

… thing about browsing deep again into my discotheque is finding this and other masterpieces and listening to them like it’s the first time 💫

… and everything makes sense 💫

Alvin Lucier and Eternal Music 💫

The late avant-garde composer Alvin Lucier continues to "compose" music posthumously through a pioneering art-science installation called "Revivification" at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. 

 

Collaborating with artists and scientists, Lucier donated blood in 2020 to grow brain organoids from stem cells in a laboratory. These organoids, connected to a network of 64 electrodes, produce real-time sound responses using parabolic brass plates and transducers. 

The installation fuses neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and experimental music, raising profound questions about creativity, consciousness, and the possibility of artistic expression transcending death.

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Blue Goose 💫

 

After having began rebuilding my Studietto, I’m exploring the dozens Ikea bins stacked of records… it’s a sort-of time traveling as I experience alternate mixed feelings: who bought this record(s) or wow! I forgot I had this…

I’m right now enjoying a Blue Goose blues record I completely forgot I had …

This makes me reminding how much I loved searching and collecting these great discs… almost handmade in very limited quantities by Nick Perls, owner, engineer, R&D…

 I accumulated the whole label catalog over the decades, in pre-GEMM/Discogs era: Alan Seidler, Woody Mann w. Jo-Ann Kelly and John Fahey, John Miller, Rory Block, Sam Chatmon, Robert Crumb & His Cheap Suits Serenaders, Son House, Roger Hubbard, Roy Bookbinder and many more obscure others.

I spent maybe 10 years in sourcing them all and they represent a moment in my musical life when I loved unpolished, raw, wild music… roots music, purest Americana, real musicians living the Blues.

This Larry Johnson’s makes no exception: it’s amazing in its immediacy 💫 and you (me) realize you didn’t simply “bought some records” for sixty-some years, now BUT you (me) created an imaginary museum of beauty, so breathtakingly multi-faceted to sometimes leave you (me) speechless in awe 😏

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Hermann Hesse 💫

 

HERMANN HESSE died on August 9, 1962.

"Each of us must find out for himself what is permitted and what is forbidden: forbidden for him."

Hermann Hesse was a German-born Swiss writer, poet, aphorist, philosopher, and painter, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.

… as a plus, he had an impeccable good taste for hats 💫

Musicians I met in person 💫

 

I suddenly realized looking at this picture on a nice Telefunken disc back-cover, that I physically met all these incredible musicians…

Some of them passed but them all remain in my Musical Pantheon 💫  like the indelible memory of having met truly extraordinary people.

Carla & Steve, forever ❤️

 

These musicians, partners in life and music, played… “sang” with their respective instruments in this very disc their souls, their love… 

… because: music is love ❤️ 

The most “Made in Japan” 🇯🇵, ever 💫

 

Found by chance this made in Japan “Made in Japan” single 7” 45 rpm by Deep Purple… this little, humble disc put to shame most of others for superlative quality cover, with inner sleeve and awesome disc pressing!

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Current 93 💫

 

In the shadow-drenched territories where apocalyptic vision meets ritualistic transformation, certain recordings emerge that function as portals to forgotten mystical realms. Before us is such a transmission - "Like Swallowing Eclipses", from England's most enigmatic occult collective Current 93, a bewildering exploration of how sacred texts can bloom into dark ambient invocations through the alchemical vision of Andrew Liles and David Tibet. This monumental 7CD + 7" collection channels the mystique of ritualistic grandeur through kaleidoscopic arrangements that dissolve and reform like ceremonial incense. Drawing from the same psychoacoustic territories explored by Nurse With Wound, these eighteen extended sonic invocations transform four decades of Current 93's most vital recordings into something approaching the transcendental. Absolutely essential for anyone drawn to the outer reaches of dark ambient reimagined as spiritual archaeology.

Current 93 "Like Swallowing Eclipses" (7CD + 7" Box Set with exclusive Audio Postcard Flexi Disc)

Some albums arrive like apocalyptic visions of sacred transformation, carrying the weight of ceremonial gravitas and the mystique of esoteric revelation half-remembered. "Like Swallowing Eclipses" is precisely such a collection - eighteen extended invocations that float between the ritualistic and the transcendent, where Andrew Liles' psychoacoustic sorcery wanders into territories that shimmer with dark ambient grandeur and visionary folk wisdom. This isn't just music - it's the sound of spiritual archaeology and mystical rebirth flowing into something timelessly sacred.

Conceived as a ritualistic re-engraving across four decades of visionary output, this collection represents the most ambitious sonic archaeology project in experimental music history. Liles' signature approach to extracting and amplifying the most disturbing and transcendent elements often detours into realms that feel both familiar and deliriously otherworldly, sparked by the same psychoacoustic mastery that defines Nurse With Wound's most transformative works. Each track carries the impression that just the wind through ancient trees would be enough soundscape for these sonic alchemists to create their woven patterns of dark revelation.

The collective surrounding David Tibet draws from source material spanning Nature Unveiled, Dogs Blood Rising, Nightmare Culture, Live at Bar Maldoror, In Menstrual Night, Dawn, I Have a Special Plan for This World and Faust - creating what can only be described as a maximalist fever dream that operates along an imaginary lineage stretching from the surreal chamber works of early industrial pioneers through Thomas Ligotti's cosmic horror literature to contemporary dark ambient masters who understand how apocalyptic vision and ritualistic transformation can coexist in the most haunting ways.

The extended compositions don't merely reimagine familiar material or nostalgic recreations - they wedge transformative experiences into the psyche, seeds of forgotten mystical worlds that still ring true in any seeker's cosmos. Like the finest work emerging from the underground territories where Nurse With Wound and Current 93 have long operated, this collection proves that the most profound sonic revelations often take root far from commercial constraints, in places where visionaries are free to develop their most singular expressions of the sacred and profane intertwined.

Now presented as "Master Monster" Liles' definitive statement on Current 93's foundational period, "Like Swallowing Eclipses" reveals layers of mystical detail that transform already powerful source material into something approaching the transcendent. Within dense tapestries of ritualistic sound - where psychoacoustic manipulation weaves through spectral textures - Tibet's apocalyptic narratives create an immersive ceremonial process that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. This is dark ambient for people who understand that sacred transformation requires confronting the shadows, experimental music for those who remember what it felt like when every invocation could transport you to other planes of existence. Like witnessing a collective achieve their most visionary statement in real time, Current 93 weaves mystical revelation and ceremonial power into sonic forms that radically rethink what apocalyptic beauty might become - a profound collection of extended ritual invocations that shouldn't exist in our material world, but absolutely does.

RIP for Gianni Berengo Gardin 💫

 

Farewell to Gianni Berengo Gardin, one of the greatest photographers and a true master of B&W photography, a technique which allows a unique and personal interpretation of reality otherwise (most of the times) impossible with color.

His flawless, poetic eye captured the beauty of the world: he taught to me “how”, “why” & “when” shooting…. and the love and admiration for Leica 💎

[ lo sguardo del fotografo ]

“Non penso che la fotografia sia un’arte. La mia idea è che il mezzo testimoni la realtà. La racconti. Il resto sono balle.”

La fotografia ha qualcosa di associabile alla morte?

“Forse sì. Mi pare lo dicesse Roland Barthes. Ma alla fine penso che le persone muoiono, non le foto”.

Cosa ti suscita una persona che non c’è più?

“Un amico che non c’è più non sparisce mai del tutto. Però non è una foto sul comodino. Non è un morto incorniciato. È aria che circola e che tu respiri. Ogni tanto apri una porta e senti quel refolo che ti investe….la vita, anche all’ultimo scambio, conserva un senso. Mia moglie dice che sono un po’ matto. Perché non ho mai voluto in casa i ritratti di mio padre e mia madre. Li voglio ricordare com’erano secondo la mia sensazione. Non credo nelle foto dei defunti. Non credo nei cimiteri”.

~~~~

[the photographer's gaze]

“I don't think photography is an art. My idea is that the medium bears witness to reality. It narrates it. The rest is bullshit.”

Is there anything about photography that can be associated with death?

“Maybe. I think Roland Barthes said that. But in the end, I think people die, not photos.”

What does a person who is no longer with us inspire in you?

“A friend who is no longer with us never disappears completely. But it's not a photo on the bedside table. It's not a framed dead person. It's air that circulates and you breathe. Every now and then you open a door and feel that breeze hit you... life, even in the last exchange, retains a meaning. My wife says I'm a little crazy. Because I never wanted portraits of my father and mother in my house. I want to remember them as they were, according to my feelings. I don't believe in photos of the deceased. I don't believe in cemeteries.”

Thanks, Maestro 💫

Laura Nyro 💫

 

Laura Nyro  (October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997) was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th Dimension recording her songs. Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, show tunes, rock, and soul.

Between 1968 and 1970, a number of artists had hits with her songs: The 5th Dimension with "Blowing Away", "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", "Save the Country", and "Black Patch"; Blood, Sweat & Tears and Peter, Paul & Mary with "And When I Die"; Three Dog Night and Maynard Ferguson with "Eli's Comin'"; and Barbra Streisand with "Stoney End", "Time and Love", and "Hands off the Man (Flim Flam Man)". Nyro's best-selling single was her recording of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "Up on the Roof".

In 2012, Nyro was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Picture by David Gahr (circa 1970) 

Robert Wyatt & Alfreda Benge 💫

 

Tells more a picture than one-hundred words.

Robert Wyatt and his fiancé - then wife - Alfreda “Alfie” Bender in Prog attire: RW’s bag with Gong’s sticker and AB with a Matching Mole t-shirt 💫

Those were the days 💫

The Perfect Disc - Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece (1974) 💫

 

Such a gem 💎

Veedon Fleece is the eighth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, released in October 1974. Morrison recorded the album shortly after his divorce from wife Janet (Planet) Rigsbee. With his broken marriage in the past, Morrison visited Ireland on holiday for new inspiration, arriving on 20 October 1973 (with his fiancée at the time, Carol Guida). While there he wrote, in less than three weeks!

It has been compared to Astral Weeks (1968) with the same "stream of consciousness" lyrics but musically it is more celtic/acoustic and heavily influenced by Morrison's Irish trip. It has been called a genuinely underground album that he seemed to disown quickly after recording and has been referred to as Morrison's "forgotten masterpiece"

For myself: a personal Desert Island fave! 

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Martin, since 1833 💫

 

A 1929 Catalog 💎