Video – Page 10 – Frames of Reference

For Rachid Taha

One of the most memorable concerts I ever saw was by the French-Algerian singer Rachid Taha at the Barbican in 2007. It was loud and raucous and boisterous and energetic. It was fantastic! Halfway through the show the stage was invaded by a seemingly endless procession of girls from the audience who danced along with him. Then later Mick Jones of The Clash appeared on stage to accompany him in a performance of Rock el Casbah. It’s my favourite version. And then last week I heard he had died of a heart attack. He was not quite 60. I’ve been filling my workshop with his music ever since. Continue reading “For Rachid Taha”

Go To The River

I’ve always liked this song, and it just sprung to mind because of the thread of river related posts. It’s called Go To The River by French-Israeli singer-songwriter Yael Naim, originally released in 2010.

Waterlog

Waterlog is a short documentary which tells the story of writer Joe Minihane and his battle with anxiety. Finding an antidote in the form of wild swimming Joe sets out to retrace the route of environmentalist Roger Deakin’s nature writing classic, Waterlog. In a journey that takes him to every corner of the UK he eventually finds relief, not just in the cold waters he swims in, but by being open and honest about his mental health.

Thanks to Robert Macfarlane for the recommendation. More here at Waterlog Reswum.

Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil

I’ve been listening to the CD version of this concert all summer. My head is full of these songs. We saw Gilberto Gil in concert in June but missed Caetano Veloso. We could have seen them both together when they toured this show but I realised too late. I mentioned it to my daughter when she phoned from Brazil. Dad, she said, I’m in Salvador and I just saw them perform a free open-air concert! Now I imagine I was there too. This is my holiday video. I’m away from my computer right now. Back soon.

Majesty

The Majesty oak is well named; it truly is majestic, /məˈdʒɛstɪk/, adjective, having or showing impressive beauty or scale, synonyms: exalted, august, great, awesome, elevated, sublime, lofty. It is all of these and more. It lives in Fredville Park at Nonington in Kent, alongside other exceptional trees called Beauty, Stately and Staghorn, but Majesty is said to be the finest oak in all of the British Isles. It stands 60 feet tall and measures 40 feet around and estimates of its age vary from 400 to 800 to the best part of a thousand years, no one knows for sure but it looks to me like it’s been here forever. Continue reading “Majesty”

Andante

Andante (a musical term meaning ‘at walking pace’) follows the cellist Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for a deeply personal, yet breathtakingly public solo performance. With her prized cello strapped to her back, Boden reflects on how she wants to do something with music that transcends the commonplace, and on the particular joy of playing from Bach’s cello suite at ‘the top of the world’.

The Forest Of Bavella

High in the mountains of southern Corsica, on the road above Zonza and the Hippodrome de Viseo, described as Europe’s most elevated racetrack, we came to a hamlet of stone shelters with corrugated iron roofs, a collection of summerhouses and sheepfolds nestled beside the pass. We left the car at the Auberge du Col de Bavella, with the promise of a hearty meal upon our return. Continue reading “The Forest Of Bavella”

Patience (After Sebald)

This modest, immensely enjoyable documentary is about one of my favourite books, ‘The Rings of Saturn’ by the German poet and critic W G Sebald, who was born in 1944, taught for much of his adult life in this country, mainly at the University of East Anglia, and was killed in a motor accident in 2001. It was first published in German in 1995, translated into English three years later and is an account of a walking tour of Suffolk, the people he meets, the places he visits, and the historical and literary reflections prompted by what he sees and senses, taking his mind around the world. Suffolk becomes a sort of palimpsest for his eloquent, precise, lugubrious, often drily witty meditations about war, death, destruction and decay, about memories and continuities and the feeling that nothing entirely disappears.

Grant Gee’s film should make anyone want to read ‘The Rings of Saturn’ and the rest of Sebald’s relatively small but exquisite oeuvre, some eight or nine books in all.

Philip French

Tita

Trio Da Kali & Kronos Quartet – Tita, the first song on their debut album Ladilikan.

‘Tita’ was one of a series of songs that emerged around the time of independence in Mali and Guinea, encouraging the youth to follow their hearts, rather than their elders’ wishes. In this version, the leaders of this movement are the griots themselves, who have ‘fallen in love with love’ – even if it leads to malicious gossip and beatings. The word tita and titawati represented the swish of cloth as a couple danced in ballroom style – a true sign of modernity in Mali of the 1950s!

Trio Da Kali & Kronos Quartet

In Cambridge

As we walked into town we passed the back wall of Emmanuel College, overseen by the great Oriental Plane tree, Platanus orientalis, growing in the Fellows’ Garden. We tried to get a closer look but since neither of us are college fellows we had to be content to view it from a distance. Continue reading “In Cambridge”