Morton Feldman- Rothko Chapel / Why Patterns? (New Albion)

I realize now that though I've heard Rothko Chapel numerous times over the years I've never really listened, and this- this not listening- has to change. That's something I want this blog to do- encourage me to listen a little better. In a single concentrated listen yesterday evening, even with loud African female voices arguing in the flat above, I got it, absolutely nailed it.

Five brief movements and it's a brief piece- even at Feldman's leisurely pace there's a huge amount going on here, a vast amount of colours and instrumentation, and an assortment of moments that lock into the memory. This is beautiful music- nothing here to distract or disturb though the choir initially sound like they're performing a 40s B-movie theme, albeit filtered through Ligeti. This is charming rather than off-putting though, and the performance is very human and raw, subject to frailties but capable of transcendence.

Why Patterns? is less instantly engaging- though that's hardly a criticism with music like this- and in truth I like it considerably less. Flute, piano and glockenspiel, and all playing their sounds independently- four ears would be useful here, two is a compromise. You listen for the moments when the instruments engage and the sounds twist together. This music feels to me like a field of eggs cracking open one by one, a myriad of births. Small new creatures let loose on the earth. The chatterring hunger of the glockenspiel after ten minutes, nibbling away at the air: this is the most delicate of musics- the flute's return a minute or two later, with something like a declamation, is almost an intrusion. Ego arises.

Bitterly Passionate

Perched at the top of this year's gift pile is Ben Watson's 'Adorno for Revolutionaries' (Unkant)- if the test of a music writer is whether or not their words make you want to listen to the music they listen to, listen to the music they swear by, then there's no-one else in Watson's league. Much of his writing I find gloriously abrasive and impenetrable but over the years I've added more cds to my collection as a direct result of a fleeting mention by Watson in an essay on Adorno or Prynne than is, in all honesty, entirely healthy. Not since my years of tape-recording and annotating John Peel shows have I let one man have such a say in the music I consume. Less now, far less now, than a few years back, but even so. The influence is still there. His review of Coltrane's 'Live In Seattle'- 'the best recorded music that the twentieth century has to offer, no fooling'- I actually clipped out of a copy of The Wire during a clear-out that saw half a dozen year's worth of copies consigned to the bin.

The Adorno book isn't going to be a little light bedtime reading, but that isn't what I'm after. I'm tripping over piles and piles of little light bedtime reading when I'm at work. Passive can be awfully nice, but sometimes the awfully nice has to be rebelled against.

First Offerings

First blog offerings really shouldn't be meditations on the name you've hastily thrown together for your blog, but I came ready prepared with a real doozy only to find myself shot down with taunts of plagiarism. 'My Life In A Gush Of Boasts'- just the right amount of swaggering culture and beard-stroking wordplay, but... no go. And suddeny you're sitting there with a blank box you've got to fill in, a name you have to commit to instantly, a name that however you look at it is going to influence your approach to the blog in some way, minor or major. So- a fence around wisdom. And that's silence. Silence is a fence around wisdom. (So google tells me.) And if there's one thing I can point to as being a purpose in my life at the moment, it's a quest for silence. Peace. Whether it is in the music I listen to or in my sophomore fumblings towards some kind of siritual contentment, silence and peace are the companions whose coat tails keep slipping from my grip. And, on a more prosaic level, the quest entails a desperate need to move away from the noisiest, most inconsiderate neighbours a poor soul can imagine. And while, finances being what they are, that isn't going to be happening any time soon, it's the enticement of silence that will hopefully keep me focused.