Wednesday afternoon

"A poem, being an instance of language, hence essentially dialogue, may be a letter in a bottle thrown out to sea with the - surely not always strong - hope that it may somehow wash up somewhere, perhaps on the shoreline of the heart. In this way, too, poems are en route: they are headed toward."

(Celan, from 'Speech on the Occasion of Receiving the Literature Prize of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen')

*



It occurred to me last night that it's a while since I've put anything on the Blog to do with music. So here's an update ...

The Current Belgianwaffle Ambience

1. Martial Solal, soundtrack for 'A Bout de Souffle'
... think Miles Davis & 'Lift to the Scaffold', think Monk, think Belmondo, think Paris, think what Sarkozy is ruining ...

2. Herbie Hancock, soundtrack for 'Blow Up'
... put this on in the car and wind down the window and pretend you are David Hemings and everything in the world was still possible ...

3. 'Wings of Desire' soundtrack
... those very Britten-like cello pieces, the Stockhausen 'Stimmung'-like library sequence, Solveig Dommartin swaying to Nick Cave's 'From Her to Eternity' ...

4. Burial 'Untrue'
... ghost sounds and heart beats from the London streets ...

5. Herbie Hancock, 'River: The Joni Letters'
... could so easily have been really awful but the track 'River' is utterly beautiful ...

6. 'White Horses' off the CD 'Songs for the Young At Heart'
... summer holiday television (1970?), bad dubbing, Austrian girls and horses and Uncle Hugos ...

7. Nalle, 'The Siren's Wave', 'First Eden Sank to Grief'
... hear this on The Wire Resonance show - recommended! ...

8. Re-runs of Ed Reardon on Radio 4
... there are days when I am Ed Reardon ...

9. Boulez, Piano Sonatas
... I think I ought to like these but don't much ...

10. Debussy, Pelleas et Melisande (Karjan)
... one of Cornell's favourites, string sections like shivers running down your spine, lush stuff ...