September 24, 2007

Jiří Dědeček: Romance postmoderní (Songs #2)

I think, some songs best stand for themselves. We're not always having a long enough attention span for a whole album with good songs. So, since I introduced Kinky Friedman's They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore recently, I am planning to post some more individual songs that have touched me very much, in the one or other way. Unlike Friedman, who was singing in English, Dědeček's song cannot stand for itself, but requires some words of explanation, as I guess he's rather unknown outside of his native country, the Czech republic.
Jiří Dědeček (which could be translated as "George Grandfather") was born in 1953 and is currently the chairman of the Czech section of the international PEN club. He's publishing his poems in written form, but also records CDs in the classical singer/songwriter or Liedermacher tradition. Romance postmoderní (as you could guess already, it translates as Postmodern romance) is from the album Kdyby smrtka měla mladý (2003) and moves me because of the existential simplicity of the setting, the linking of an over-heated concept of contemporary humanities with the sorrows of the ordinary person, and last but not least because of the pretended naivité of the arrangement and singing. To share this with you, it's not enough to give you just a link for download. I tried to make a translation of the lyrics too. However, please help me to improve it, if you're either a native English or a native Czech speaker, for I am neither. If you can point out mistakes, ambiguities, and odd phrases, please leave a comment. My attempt at translating these lyrics goes like this:
We’ve been drinking beer with friends
and after the ninth bock beer
one spoke about good
and another one about evil

With my right ear I listened
and with the left I let it out again
and I was silent cause about this topic
I didn’t know anything substantial

The pub was smelling like steam
from some ritzy mash
and above it the youth bent
their postmodern physiognomies

On the opposite a languid miss
guzzled the last dumpling
and with her mouth full she said:
life’s the scheme of the devil

Perhaps yes, miss, perhaps no
I answered sharply
what else could she expect from a boy
just short above forty?

I see life very simply:
it’s possible that it’s a well
and so I stick to the pub
and enjoy being at the bottom

I keep sitting in the corner with my beer
and veal sausages
in the air the blue smoke is dangling,
in the john the literature newspaper...

Hope you have had the stamina to go through all my lengthy introduction and arrive here with enough interest to download and enjoy this. (The file is offered as a free download on the site of the label.)

September 18, 2007

Hot Pot: Celebrate Your Hat


Hot Pot is a German non-orthodox ska group, which means they might add a swing passage here, a rock part or some latin flavor there. The rhythm group's playing is quite decent, the singer's voice beautiful and the brass is rather weak. Nevertheless, it's worth a listen, becaue of the excellent song-writing (imo). If the playing skills and the production of this disc had been better, this group could have really been something. This album was recorded in 2o03. If you want to check what the group's up to recently, check their website. The folder with the music also contains a lot of live photos. Download (rapidshare, mp 3 @ 128 kb/s).

September 7, 2007

Pavel Fajt & Stepanida Borisova: Live in Ostrava 1998

When I was surfing the web for infos on Pavel Fajt, I found some real-audio-files of a live concert of Fajt with the Yakutian singer Stepanida Borisova on Fajt's far-from-up-to-date website (what's he been doing in the past years? he must have entirely retreated from making music, maybe taking care of his family?). So, what I did with these files I found there was to download and convert them to mp3 files. (For those of you who want to know how that works, check the tutorial on Swen's blog.) As you could expect with real-player files, they were coming in a poor quality (32 kb/s and 22050 khz in this case). To prevent that the conversion to mp3 would make them even worse, I chose 128 kb/s and 44100 khz for the conversion, also following Swen's tips. However, unless there is some audience or soundboard recording circulating somewhere, this should be the only chance to get this music at all. As far as I've seen, Fajt and Borisova have never released any official record, neither studio nor live.
At first glance you might think, the setting reminds you of something. Well, sure, Fajt is again playing duets with a unique female artist. But, don't expect anything near to Bittová & Fajt. Firstly, Fajt has abandoned the purely percussive approach and incorporated some live electronics. Secondly the mood is rather meditative, ambient-like. This setting of percussion, electronics and ethnic music comes closer to some softer pieces of Mari Boine or Wimme Saari than to Iva Bittová's music. Another reference point could be the Sainkho Namtchylak of Naked Spirit. Well, if you don't expect anything like Bittová & Fajt, you might come to enjoy this music too. What we can after all say about Fajt's playing is, that he creates a good setting for Borisova's versatile shamanic voice. If you want to check the original sound source, you'll find the real-audio files here (the site's in Czech, so if you want to find the links to the files, look for the the line which says "hraj 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11", that's the second "hraj"-line). There are a lot of nice photos from several gigs around on the internet, for example here and there. Some more infos here, or just google around...


Download the mp3 files in a zipped folder here.

September 2, 2007

Prögressor: Complete First Session


After my first two posts with music of the Prögressor (here and here) the artist himself sent me a message of appreciation for what I am doing here, and even provided a little gem for us: The complete very first recording session of Mr. Prögressor! And rumour has it, that he is just about to negotiate with a nice independant label about the release of an album which might serve as an overview over his musical work (with the stress on musical, because as I already told you, he's also a writer and a visual artist). Don't know anything about the status of these negotiations, however... So, if you enjoyed the previous Prögressor efforts or if you are just interested in some manipulated lo-fi-avantgarde-acoustic-guitar-electronic music, have a try and download! (73 MB, mediafire). If you don't know what to expect, you can imagine something somewhere in the realm of Tony Oursler's Poetics or the Henry Kaiser/Sergej Kuriokhin collaboration (although Prögressor himself says, that he's more interested in melodies than them Kaiser/Kuriokhin).
And for those of you who understand German (sorry, most of the titles are totally untranslateable), the tracklist might be of some interest: 1. Akkorde der Scham / 2. Surgeon of Madness / 3. Trägerrakäthe / 4. Nasenschein / 5. Im Labor / 6. Die Labgilde / 7. Arschmänner / 8. Schleimchirurgie / 9. Riffprögressor / 10. Mit Pfiff / 11. Riffprägrösser / 12. Ochsenjuck / 13. Schabernacken / 14. Traumhaft / 15. R-wachen / 16. Pfiffikus / 17. Parasitära / 18. Kinderliteraturm / 19. Schambaum / 20. Hintergrundcoller / 21. Autoklav.