Monday April 25 2022
Having a rough one, so today’s choices are designed to make it better, hopefully for the both of us. That photo right there was taken at dawn on Route 80, yesterday.
This is a recent live performance of a new piece by Kali Malone “for meantone organ and choir,” and the person playing the organ who is not Malone is Stephen O’Malley. Let it soften your surroundings.
One thing I find soothing is that people stay committed to their struggle, no matter what. One of those people was Stuart Hall. If you don’t know him, I recommend this BBC podcast from last year about the writer and educator, told in his own words and by those who knew him. You can also see the entirety of Redemption Song, a cultural history directed by Jenny Barraclough that Hall narrated.
I’m writing a piece about the rise of softness in the last ten years of popular music. A band that comes to mind is Oregon, who are sort of impossible to place in a cohort. Sort of new age jazz? Maybe? And oddly, though I don’t think they would form again now, I think people might finally be open to them. This live set filmed at the Molde Jazz Festival in 1975 is fantastic.
A couple of months ago, while looking for something else, I came across Jocelyn Romo playing “really crazy, gentle tunes” at a spot in LA. I also loved a recent NTS set, but the thing I’m going for now is this slowed down Blue Gene Tyranny track, which she posted.
Two remembrances I loved: gallerist Peter Scott on Dan Graham and this oral history of Eve Babitz.
