Chatiryworld

Symphony of the Magnetic North

 

Just been alerted to this via Radio Orkney on Facebook, a new album out in April from Erland Cooper of Erland and the Carnival. Entitled Orkney: Symphony of the Magnetic North, it is a series of gorgeous songs about the islands.  Hopefully BBC 6 Music will pick this up because it really deserves attention.  You can read more about the album on Folk Radio.

The video above includes lots of shots of Stromness, where I used to live (I was in the same class as Erland's older brother at school).  Hopefully we can take Bagl up for a trip sometime soon so he can enjoy it too.

Seven Stories to the Sage

Last weekend we popped down to Newcastle and Gateshead.  My brother Dominic is a violinist in the National Youth Orchestra and they had a concert at the Sage (sadly as far north as they play).  We decided to make a day of it by also going to one of our favourite places, Seven Stories.  If you have children, or any interest in children's books and illustration, you really should get yourself there!

We went mainly to see the Puffin Books exhibition but also saw one of Anthony Browne's work (Willy the Wimp was a family favourite when I was a kid) and went Chaffy hunting.  I'd never heard of Find Chaffy before, but it's a really funny book, a little bit like Where's Wally? but with a story and more entertaining.

After lunching at the Cluny, wandering around Ouseburn and dinner with my dad and Dominic, we wandered over the Millennium Bridge to the Sage.  I'd only ever admired it from the outside but it's a fantastic building with lots going on.  The concert was absolutely amazing, they played a piece by Judith Weir called We Are Shadows and Mahler's 10th Symphony. I was a very proud big sister, and took a sneaky photo at the end...

Monday choon

Here's Lia Ices, we got her album Grown Unknown last week and can't stop listening to it.

New (to me) choons

First up, Esben and the Witch, been hearing them a lot on Marc Riley's 6 Music show, and indeed they played some live tracks for him.

Secondly, Jon brought Sharks Took The Rest to my attention, who are also very good.  (You want detailed musical analysis?  Ask Jon.  I either like it or I don't.)

Right, back to clicking refresh on Facebook to see if Emily's gorgeous baby brother has a name yet.

80s choons

Living on the Ceiling by Blancmange was the first single I ever owned (not the first one I bought though, as I was only 4).  I heard it on 6 Music the other night and decided to buy it off iTunes. Which then lead me to buy Brilliant Mind by Furniture...

And then I bought Feels Like Heaven by Fiction Factory

And then I had to go and get my bus and go to work.

Choons

I'm going to attempt to blog a bit more this year (than I did last year anyway, advent calendar excepted), although currently our iBook is a little temperamental at the moment.  We do have an iMac but it's in the work room and I like the sitting room more.  I thought that maybe I could start sharing more music (I'm saying maybe in case I don't keep up with this!), starting here:

This is Twin Sister.  BBC 6 Music kept playing this track one weekend in December when I wasn't feeling great and therefore snoozing a lot with the radio on.  I love this song, it's gorgeous.  I've bought it and at some point will investigate their music more with a view to maybe getting their album.

On Friday BBC 4 showed a repeat of Hugh Masekela's birthday concert.  I had never heard of him before (although I can't believe I haven't heard his music until now, just didn't know who he was) but I loved what I saw.  If I had watched it when it was originally on I would have heard of him before he played in Edinburgh last year around the time of my birthday, but nevermind.  This is one of his classics, Stimela.  I'm not sharing it for the video (which I believe is just scenes of Vienna, I don't know, I was doing other stuff whilst blasting the music out), but for the version of the song.  You can also catch the concert I watched on iPlayer for the next seven days.

Sunday, December 20th 2009

So, favourite christmas songs then.  For years and years mine has been Greg Lake's I Believe in Father Christmas but I think it may have just been toppled from the top by Tim Minchin's WHite Wine in the Sun.  It's beautiful, and as an atheist it sums up everything I like and don't like about christmas.  Plus it makes me think of my mum when he says 'but I like the songs', my mum once said she thought she was a christian atheist because she likes carols (hi mum!).

Waffled up

NOW WE FEED! NYARRRRH!, originally uploaded by Falling Sky.

We had an amazing time in Brussels, thank you so much to Marilou and Frederic for being such great hosts and letting us stay in their lovely flat.

We seemed to be on the move a lot while we there, but mainly we were wandering and talking, doing a bit of window shopping, deciding that Belgian children are much better dressed than British ones, that kind of thing.

My birthday on Sunday was lovely, I had a special breakfast complete with candles on a bread ring. Jon and I went to the Natural History Museum then slowly wandered back via the European Parliament, a few shops and a late lunch at Cafe Arcadia. That evening we went to see Sigur Ros who were fantastic. I'd never seen them live before, which made it extra exciting. We sat high up on a balcony which was a little unnerving but we had a fairly decent view of the stage. If you get the chance to see Sigur Ros, go go go!

Then it was back to reality and sitting around in London for the train. London is hard work, there are good bits, but it's hard work. We ate well in Leon though, and I enjoyed browsing in Muji and Liberty.

Je vais a Bruxelles pour mon anniversaire.

Grand Place - Bruxelles, originally uploaded by Spigoo.

A few weeks ago, as we sat down to dinner, Jon informed me that Sigur Ros were playing in Glasgow in November.

'We've got to make sure we book and go!' I said enthusiastically.

But Jon looked a bit odd.  He had to spoil a surprise, that was why.  He'd booked tickets to see them in Brussels on my birthday and this was going to be my present.  He had to tell me so that I didn't get suspicious as to why we weren't going to the gig in Glasgow.

I suppose it's a good job he told me, not least because I had to get another passport (application posted on Friday, received passport the following Wednesday, unheard of!), but also so I can do my usual reading up and plotting.  Not that we'll be there for that long.  We'll travel to London on the Friday, have an early night and get the first Eurostar to Brussels on Saturday morning, giving us a good chunk of Saturday and then Sunday in Brussels.  Back to London and then Edinburgh on the Monday. 

We're staying a with a very good friend, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her.  I'm not sure what we will do in Brussels, we'll be staying very near the centre in a lovely area.  Both of us have been to Brussels and have a bit of a soft spot for it.  I can see lots of just wandering around and stopping for waffles and hot chocolate.  Yum.  Jon's never been to the comic strip museum so I'm sure we'll end up there.

I love having an adventure to look forward to, especially when it involves one of my favourite bands and my birthday!

Veggie

I like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, even though he's most definitely a carnivore and his programmes tend to concentrate on meat, not that he's ever claimed otherwise.  I signed up to his River Cottage newsletter and was pleased to see that he's starting offering a vegetarian night at the farm.  Sounds absolutely delicious although perhaps a little far for us to go (and a bit pricey). 

On Sunday evening Jon and I went to see Nina Nastasia at Stereo in Glasgow.  It was a great gig, she's fantastic live, and the audience managed to keep quiet.  I'm thinking the yapping throughout gigs is an Edinburgh thing as I never experienced it in Sheffield.  Anyway, we discovered that as well as being a small venue, Stereo is also a vegan pub.  We decided to eat there and it was absolutely delicious, highly recommended and great value for money.  I had gnocchi with sundried tomato and walnut pesto and Jon had chilli tacos.  We both had banana chocolate sundaes for dessert, I don't know whether it was soya or tofu ice cream but it tasted lovely.  It's on our list of favourite places now.

Sew good

How cool is this video for Architecture in Helsinki?  Never heard of them before but couldn't resist checking this out after reading about it on Craftzine.  Embroidered animation and a catchy tune.

Architecture in Helsinki - Like It Or Not from helsinkids on Vimeo.

Portishead

We went to see Portishead at the Corn Exchange here in Edinburgh, bonus points for it being within walking distance of our flat.

Reviewing gigs is not my forte, but they were damn good.  I've never seen them live but it was just as I thought it would be, loud with great visuals.  It was brilliant to hear those classics from Dummy that I used to play over and over again in my room when I was 17, worrying my mum.  I didn't think that nobody loved me, but I did love that song.

Bad points?  The little 'discussion' I had to have with two Australian blokes who shouted to each other all the way through support act A Hawk and A Hacksaw (very good too).  I didn't want to have to confront them, they were drunk, but they were seriously pissing me off and their arm waving antics was taking up too much space.  Everyone else around us was pissed off too so I just asked them to be quiet so we could listen to the music.  I don't have a high tolerance level for people talking at gigs (maybe from a childhood of classical music concerts) but I do understand that it happens and all that but this was ridiculous.  So did they kindly STFU?  No, they had a go at us (Jon helped out) and said 'NO!  WE'RE TRYING TO HAVE A CONVO!'.  We suggested they might like to go and have it elsewhere but they thought this was particularly unreasonable and if we stood in front of them we wouldn't hear them.  I did want to ask them if they had got their tickets free and I was also this close to chucking my pint of water over them, felt both those things would inflame the situation.  We moved in front of them and got lots of sympathetic looks from other people but decided we should move away before the whole gig was spoiled.  Unfortunately that meant they were someone else's problem but they could try talking to them instead of us.  A couple of people thanked us for saying something, I only wish you could have all backed us up but I know not everyone wants to get involved with that kind of thing.

So we moved a few rows back and didn't have such a good view but as long as we were away from those fuckwits I really didn't care.  Jon noticed other chattering more than me but I just had an overwhelming sense of relief.  The other thing I noticed was the enormous amount of people who seemed to be viewing the gig through their camera lens.  Now Jon likes to take photos at gigs (although he didn't last night) but it's always secondary to actually watching the gig, plus the amount of time he spends taking pics is negligible compared to the entire thing.  But in the same way people wonder about tourists viewing their holidays through the video camera, I'm wondering about people viewing gigs this way, there were several people blatantly filming last night (oh look what's turned up, and god, the singing along sounds even worse!).  Plus if you're not near the front (and we weren't that far back) your view of the stage is spoiled by tiny LCD screens.

Anyway, rants aside, they were fantastic and Beth Gibbons is amazing.  And we got the free flash drives with a couple of minutes of images and noises from the recording of the album.  Here are some other reviews from their tour
The Guardian - read the second vox pop, I think there were several of them there last night
Gigwise.com - read the comments, are all gigs now blighted by idiots?
The Times
Portishead Official Forum - Edinburgh gig

Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach

I've watched a couple of the BBC's Transatlantic Sessions recently.  Jon isn't really into folk music, but we both really enjoyed Julie Fowlis' rendition of Bothan Àirigh am Bràigh Raithneach.  

My cultural world

Yesterday I popped into the National Library of Scotland to see the Happy Birthday Miffy exhibition.  There was a similar exhibition touring public libraries a few years ago and I wasn't sure if it would be the same one (it was in Leeds when I worked there and I helped out one morning), but it wasn't.  If you don't have kids, Saturday isn't the best time to go, but if you do, there are loads of fun activities alongside the exhibition.  I tried to avoid tripping over any little ones and wondering if lots of them needed their nappies changing or were just farting with excitement.  I didn't really get a chance to linger but what I liked best were the non-Miffy things, I'd never seen any other examples of Dick Bruna's artwork and it was really interesting.  I'd love to go and see the Dick Bruna Huis in Utrecht in the Netherlands, another thing to add to the list.  So, in conclusion, great exhibition, just don't go at the weekend if you want to spend quality time looking at the artwork.

Music now.  I heard the Soulsavers track Revival a few days ago on 6 Music, and then my cousin's hubby Ben blogged about it and I thought I'd look into them a bit more.  I may not appreciate the religious content (indeed I'm going to have to get the video for Revival out of my head, it's a cracking track but the video sums up a lot of what I don't like about religion, even if it is well filmed) but the music is bloody good and their latest album features greats such as Mark Lanegan and Will Oldham (big favourite in our flat).  It's also available in Fopp for £7. 

I'm filing Soulsavers alongside Nick Cave's Into My Arms (although they're not quite as good), which is a beautiful song and were Jon and I to have a big celebration in the future where we were committing to each other for life we might want to play it.  But we can't, because we're both atheists, not just one of us.  Actually, there's nothing to stop us playing it, we probably would at some point during that celebration but it's so powerful and we can't quite match the lyrics ourselves so we wouldn't be able to play it at any particularly significant point in that celebration.  In fact, why don't we all take a moment to appreciate it:

It's not cultural, but I tried to go shoe shopping yesterday.  I'm not sure I've recovered yet.  And I didn't come back with any shoes.

Secret Pal!

I got my first Secret Pal package this week, and mailed out my first to my spoilee.  It was full of lovely treats, from yarn to pens to pegs with sheep on them to chocolate and to this little chicken:

There was also a copy of Interweave Knits, a magazine I've sometimes seen in Borders and HK Handknit, and had a little browse, dithered about whether to buy it or not, and always decided on the latter.  It's a great read though, and the patterns are much more interesting than Simply Knitting.  It also seems much less patronising.

Anyway, thank you so much Secret Pal, it's was a brilliant package, I loved the little petals scattered in it as well and now I once again have a needle threader.  Now I just need to decide what to knit with the lovely yarn.

I've also been experimenting a bit with MySpace.  So far?  Not impressed, it's hard to use and full or crap graphics.  I suppose I am used to the clean lines of Typepad.  It is a good way of hearing music though, which is why I'll stick with it for now, but I'm not using the blogging facility there.