my personal best music lps (part 3)

CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG - DÉJÀ VU (1970)
a great piece of music history, one of the most a-waited records of all times. american folk music at it's best. and four legendary musicians at work. the most amazing thing about this lp is that you can clearly distinguish every piece of every one of the four. although they form a band, each one is a music genius in his own right...

FOCUS - FOCUS 3 (1972)
the richest sound by those highly skilled dutch musicians. a few 70's classic pieces are also here: 'sylvia', 'elspeth of nottingham', and of course the title song.

URIAH HEEP - THE MAGICIAN'S BIRTHDAY (1972)
i dare say this album displays the richness of their musical ideas in the best possible way. the crew was at their artistic peak, still with very clear english vocals by david byron and heavy bass riffs by gary thain. both don't stick around here with us anymore...

JETHRO TULL - MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY (1975)
another ian anderson's classic. beautifully folk-rocky, with great melodic lines mixed-in like raisins. and a strange medieval castle atmosphere...

AMERICA - HISTORY GREATEST HITS (1975)
i must have heard it at the end of 70s for the first time, and it contained all of their best music pieces, with 'ventura highway', 'i need you', 'muskrat love' and many others. every time i felt down'n out, it helped me thru'...

EAGLES - HOTEL CALIFORNIA (1976)
they got me with this. i can't get rid of the title piece for decades already. it'll be haunting me up to my end, perhaps ;) sometimes i can see images here reminding me of 'the shining' by stanley kubrick. by the way, listen to the unplugged version of the title piece, too. it's worth every second spent on it.

ALAN PARSONS' PROJECT - TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION EDGAR ALLAN POE (1976)
ok, the sequel 'i, robot' may be more melodious and compact one, but this one has an advantage: it's about the work of one of my favourite poets and writers - e. a. poe. i remember the sensation of some ghastly eternal rhythm while reading his 'raven' (which is for me the best poem from the west hemisphere) or of a familiar loneliness in his novels. eric wolfson knows how to pick up the themes for his music. and alan parsons knows how to wrap it up in soundscapes...

UFO - NO HEAVY PETTING (1976)
this record accompanied my wildest times at the university. 'belladonna', 'on with the action', and 'martian landscape' make up the highlights here.

TANGERINE DREAM - RICOCHET (1976)
a german classic. anybody still remembers bjoern borg against jimmmy 'jimbo' connors at wimbledon rendered in slow motion with a haunting 'ricochet' theme as a background music?? a pathetic thrill goes down the spine...

KRAFTWERK - TRANS-EUROPA-EXPRESS (1977)
well, an all-time legend from duesseldorf. elegance and decadence. and so perfectly and beautifully impersonal... russian constructivists from 1920s would have been delighted.

GARY BROOKER - NO MORE FEAR OF FLYING (1979)
the good ol' gary has always the right grip on the keys on his keyboard. and his vocals remind me of some forgotten times, back in far past, where the days had still 36 hours each. 'say it ain't so, joe' and 'give me something to remember you by' have once accompanied one of my feeling storms back in the 80s ;)

DIRE STRAITS - MAKIN' MOVIES (1980)
an incomparable sound by mark knopfler and co. definitely my favourite one. each song goes under my skin... but don't get me wrong: 'wild west end' from their debut lp and 'once upon a time in the west' from the sequel 'communique' belong to my evergreens, too :)

BRONSKI BEAT - THE AGE OF CONSENT (1984)
ok, i'm no great fan of jimmy sommerville's vocal style, but one must frankly say: the compositions and the atmosphere here are astonishingly good.

PETER GABRIEL - SO (1986)
this album doesn't have the brilliance and the energy of musical ideas of his first solo lp, simply called 'peter gabriel 1', but peter used to be like an old wine. the older he gets, the more ripe and versatile the bouquet is... and 'red rain' is also brilliant, no doubt.

DEVIL DOLL - DIES IRAE (1996)
a very sinister and dark oeurve by this italian-slovenian co-operation, managed by the mastermind mr. doctor. this is the music that can bring you down, if you only let it for a while. so watch out!...

EMILIE SIMON - EMILIE SIMON (2003)
she's like a delicate and beautiful flower for me. and her music sense makes her appear not out-of-this-world. when you dive in into this fairy tale, you don't wanna go out back into our gray reality...

my personal best music lps (part 2)

JETHRO TULL - AQUALUNG (1971)
the first one of ian anderson's great works. an absolute classic.

RARE BIRD - EPIC FOREST (1972)
a constantly high melodic level. those guys knew how to build an atmosphere.

BUDGIE - NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON A FRIEND (1973)
my long-time favourite band from wales with a beautiful roger dean's blood-red budgerigar logo. i pondered heavily which of their records to praise and i made up my mind for this one, their third work. maybe because it was the first one i've ever listened to, who knows? (but no, the first song i got to know was the 'nude disintegrating parachutist woman' from their first record). anyway, the song titles are equally strong here and some young musicians thought decades later it would have been a good idea to cover some stuff from here ('breadfan' by metallica). a very impressive music on this lp, my all-time evergreen. try 'in the grip of the tyrefitter's hands' or 'you're the biggest thing since powdered milk' and of course 'parents'.

WISHBONE ASH - ARGUS (1973)
one of the double-lead-guitars bands, but the first one, where the dialogs between those two instruments really worked (no offense for bachman-turner-overdrive nor ufo). this one is the catching concept of the knights-tales music, their third record. the band was my one-time favourite back in the 80s.

PILOT - MORIN HEIGHTS (1976)
i could have named their next work ('two's a crowd', after drummer stuart tosh parted) also, but this one seems to be more fresh and joyous. 'running water' and 'too many hopes' make it worth trying. after pilot disbanded, they all played with alan parsons project and with kate bush on her first records.

MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND - THE ROARING SILENCE (1976)
the emotional decision has fallen for this one. 'singing the dolphin through' and 'questions' were the music i grew up with.

GENTLE GIANT - THE MISSING PIECE (1977)
very unique sound of shulman bros and co. i mean they've created many good records, but this one seems to have the highest constant level for me. i like 'for nobody' the best.

SUPERTRAMP - EVEN IN THE QUIETEST MOMENTS... (1977)
i like this one, beside the 'crime of the century', the best. the title song and the terrific 'fool's overture' stand for highlights here. another one is a minimalistic 'downstream' song, the vocals accompanied only by a piano.

METRO - METRO (1977)
an obscure band, featuring duncan browne and peter godwin on their only cooperative piece. a melodically beautiful, mysterious, smoky world of crime and passion. it's unbelievable how it went into oblivion so completely.

FISCHER-Z - RED SKIES OVER PARADISE (1981)
their absolutely best record with great melodic harmonies. john watts at his best. this guy has such an ease of creating catchy melodies like, say, bono vox or david byrne. almost each song is a jewel.

XTC - ENGLISH SETTLEMENT (1982)
their most powerful work. a pleasure to listen to. andy partridge's voice makes up this unique touch.

POLICE - SYNCHRONICITY (1983)
i guess it's my favourite police album, although slightly slick one a bit, maybe (like 'every breath you take'). but the opening 'synchronicity 1' is still powerful enough.

MARILLION - FUGAZI (1984)
could be 'script for a jester's tear' or 'misplaced childhood', too, but 'punch and judy' alone won the race for this lp (one of the greatest lyrics in the rock history). and the music and fish's vocals don't need any recommendation.

FUTURE BIBLE HEROES - MEMORIES OF LOVE (1997)
although the next oeuvre by fbh ('eternal youth') may be equally beautiful, but the very roots of their music lie here. 80s revival at it's best. this trio is a win for the contemporary music.

SODASTREAM - THE HILL FOR COMPANY (2001)
this work is simply beautiful music. those guys have melancholy and melody in their blood. 'mood in the bunker', 'devil on my shoulder', 'another trail', to name only a few. it reminded me of cowboy junkies records.

RIVERSIDE - OUT OF MYSELF (2003)
this is a polish band with a ripe and contemplative sound and a rocky touch (it bears a certain far similarity to archive and marillion, and the vocals is english). those guys know how to make good music. my favourite piece is 'curtain falls'. a sound for long lonely winter evenings.

BLACKFIELD - BLACKFIELD (2005)
well, two guys with highly developed melodical senses, coming from different worlds. wilson and geffen created a mysterious oeuvre of ravishing beauty. and it's not so easy to make an outstanding record nowadays, when so much new stuff appears every day.

my personal best music lps (part 1)

BEATLES - PLEASE PLEASE ME (1963)
BEATLES - WITH THE BEATLES (1963)
BEATLES - BEATLES FOR SALE (1964)
BEATLES - A HARD DAY'S NIGHT (1964)
all in all, the beatles at their best. the freshest, the most twinkle-toed two third of a sixpack by them.

PINK FLOYD - A PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN (1967)
the melodic lines of syd barrett are really ghastly and seductive here. they remind me of a similar feeling while listening to the lonely guitar riff in the middle of tool's 'schism' song. it's a pity syd is not mentally with us these days. it's more or less the only remaining sign of his genius.

PINK FLOYD - A SAUCERFUL OF SECRETS (1968)
syd's spirit's still in this one. he contributed to some tracks, too. delightfully psychedelic, this oeuvre is.

KING CRIMSON - ISLANDS (1971)
this is a strange story: i listened to this lp for the first time and i got disappointed. after the second time i got interested, after the third one really curious. after i heard this work for the fifth time i was already fascinated, after the seventh time i was enthusiastic. never before and never after any similar experience happened to me... every one here is great and the minimalistic 'island' evolves like ravel's 'bolero' or, better still, like some dervish dance to a great finale.

MIKE OLDFIELD - HERGEST RIDGE (1974)
emotionally, my personal number one. accompanied my most precious feelings ever. the melodic harmonies and the depth are heartbreaking here.

ERIC CLAPTON - 461 OCEAN BLVD (1974)
a very diverse piece by eric. reggae mixes with rock and with ballads. charles boyer's 'please be with me' sways gently around.

CITY BOY - DINNER AT THE RITZ (1976)
lol mason's vocals is one of the most passionate in the whole rock history. it can be only compared with those of robert plant, meat loaf, tom verlaine and fish. melodically, 'the violin' song is a stroke of genius. noone else coupled the violin and the rock drums so convincingly.

AL STEWART - YEAR OF THE CAT (1976)
this guy is my favourite singer. you can formally see a golden girl in her middle 20s spending the late holidays with him, or a lonely ghost ship, sailing away from her own british fleet and from the mighty spanish main. al's telling his stories with music and images. and his acoustic guitar playing is masterly. a real aristocrate of pop.

TELEVISION - MARQUEE MOON (1977)
well, well, well... tom verlaine at his best. 'venus', 'marquee moon' and 'elevation' songs are the way punk could gladly evolve into.

KATE BUSH - THE KICK INSIDE (1978)
my female singer number one (well, recently challenged by anneke van giersbergen). 'wuthering heights' haunts not only charlotte bronte's heathcliff, but me too, for decades already. not a single weak spot on the whole debut lp, composed, arranged, piano played and sung by the then 20 year-old london dancer beauty (actually born in kentshire).

CLASH - LONDON CALLING (1979)
doesn't need any explanation. the freshest, the cutiest, the most powerful and the best london music ever.

SKIDS - JOY (1981)
an lp pulled to pieces by the critics. i don't give a damn, though. mesmerising, it is. 'blood and soil' and 'men of the fall', let alone the great 'waltzing mathilda' sung a capella by richie jobson are real masterpieces. if there has to be a soul out there, you can feel it here.

THIS MORTAL COIL - IT'LL END IN TEARS (1984)
you could lie down and weep constantly, listening to this one. a great work. liz fraser's vocals on roy harper's 'another day' is unmatchable in the whole rock history.

PETE TOWNSHEND - WHITE CITY (1986)
pete, old pal, what have you drunk or inhaled here? anyway, keep it like this. a mighty piece of rock. a great melodic work, too, particularly 'white city fighting'.

LOU REED & JOHN CALE - SONGS FOR DRELLA (1990)
a very personal tribute to a close friend by those two velvet underground vets. but go for the video of this work. you will see how two virtuosos build a sensitive space, filled with sounds and visuals.

NIRVANA - NEVERMIND (1991)
such clean, minimalistic and pure melodic lines, nonchalantly sung and played on a cheap guitar with a mighty rhythm section - a true classic already.

packaging revisited

richard linklater shoots his 'a wakin' life' traditionally with a camera, then invites draftsmen and animators to rotoscope and paint his film a-new.... a single second (24 frames) of this new edition (came out 2001) averages out 250 hours of one man's work. a film within a film, one could say, a crazy expensive effort to improve the visual appearance. an effort to improve the very package...

on the other side the jury of the 2004 festival of animated film in stuttgart, germany, grants one of the main prizes to the canadian christopher hinton for his 'flux' film, a 7-minute drawn animation, with a comment:
'an original animated film which could not have been made using any other medium.'

goodness gracious, sometimes i feel good knowing both extremes are still possible...

ev’rything but design

design... creativity... concepts...
lots of shallow and hollow words. our world gets no more experienced, no more acted upon... it gets designed now.
there are creative people everywhere, in every rat hole, everyone is a designer.
and the world looks worse and worse. there is no content anymore, there is only its packaging. we live among the very packages. oscar wilde was right: the first principle of life is to be artificial at all costs. what the second principle is, nobody has ever found out yet. we build up a wall around us with a little help from our friends, the designers. they set anonymous brick stones, one on top of another one, because design breeds new design. design is in need of design. and designers give birth to new designers.
and still... nobody has an idea about that poor second life principle...

children are presumably our future...

we tend to state: our children are our future. it’s more or less an illusion.
a few facts:
1. not everybody can have children nor he can afford any in an adoption way. will he be deprived of his future?
2. we come to this world alone and we’ll leave it also alone. no helper accompanies us in both cases. no joy nor mourning about those events is of any use to us.

there is more to it than that: beside the obvious and very common accidents we deliberately let the children be born because we’re subconsciously afraid of the future. we hope that our children will guarantee our old age privileges, that they'll earn enough to let us live a comfortable life we’re used to, and that they will take care of us in emergency cases. we invest in them now to protect us afterwards. we thus render ourselves inable to take the responsibility of our fate and we leave it in the end to our children instead.
we’re cowards and we fool ourselves we do anything for the future of mankind meaning to prolong our own petty existences.
the only thing we thus actually do is to undermine and to slow down our own spiritual evolution, to let others take command of our fates.

everybody acts his own role here. no other role is of any meaning to our real existence, the only one in this time and in this place...

traces of oblivion

one way, or another... dust, all the same...

dust

we're all but dust. dust on the way...

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