Situationist International Comics

"We are only concerned with the moments when life shatters the glaciation of survival"

Three detoured comics and an appropriated image from the Situationist International. These are copyright free if not used for the purposes of profit. Taken from "Leaving the 20th century: The Incomplete Work of the Situationist International".

Please Do Not Run on the Platform

Field Recording Download

At 3 am this morning I finished the recording of the new NaDa BaBa CD. In my opinion it is a gem. I have learnt so much in the last two years since Yidaki Mind Tree in regards to CuBase and basic recording techniques (microphones are fascinating!).
The new CD is titled Ambient Time Arm and will be first available on Music Your Mind Will Love You next week (I still am struggling with an innovative cover design: L-shape gate fold with brilliant images by Erika). After a while I will post a free download at the Internet Archive and continue to sell the hand made covers etc. myself.
One thing I want to try to do is include a HTML file on the CD which directs a web browsers to this page when the CD is played or loaded into a online computer. It is the website of a recording I made at a Durga Temple near Nagwa Ghat in Varanasi India in August 1996. A group of about 30 devotees sing the Rama Sita Bhajan accompanied by a dholak for about 40 minutes. I wanted to put it on the CD but there was no room (it runs at 63 minutes now) so it becomes a free download instead.
I will have to wait until work resumes next month and I can ask Samuel (resident code wizard at HUMlab) about creating/finding a program which does such a thing.

CD Cover Rough

The CD is coming along nicely. This is a rough of what the main cover will look like (accomplished by Erika). We should be finished by the end of this month.
Around an hour of many things but the Didgeridoo/Yidaki is of course the center piece to the whole sound journey.

Summer Sun Tunes and Poesy

Strangely I am very occupied at the moment. With what is hard to say. Today I priced baby carriages (baby due 13 September), played blanket and chair house and rocket to "the forest planet" with my son, spent time with my extended family (including my mum who is here from Australia at the moment), remixed two tracks on the new CD I am recording (no one has ever done this sort of stuff with a didgeridoo before!!), declined an invitation to play at Trastock festival 2005, and hunted for the perfect DVD and Mp3 players.
Interesting...mmmm, I forgot to mention the Senagalese birthday party I attended on the way home from dinner at my Kenyan-Indian-Swedish father-in-law's place.
For summer listening I recommend the new podcast on the foxy digitalis site.
Enjoy!

När Min Pojke Gå På Stan

I saw a video by the Swedish band Doktor Kosmos yesterday of a song called (translation) "When my boy goes to town" (När Min Pojke Gå På Stan). It is a song which captures something of how I feel about my own son, Silas, and how he lives his life. This is especially true of the opening verse which goes something like: "we wake up and eat breakfast and he plays with lego and then we walk to the day center and he finds a stick he likes on the way and asks if we can play cops and robbers after I pick him up in the afternoon"..nothing earth shattering but just how much can any heart bear (ask a parent).
HERE is the clip...in Swedish for those learning the language.

Europe Rejects Software Patents

Some great news:

"In a shock move, the European Parliament has voted down the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to reject the directive on the patentability of computer implemented inventions.

A spokesman for the European Parliament said that 648 MEPs out of a total of 729 voted to reject the directive, which critics feared would widen the extent to which software could be patented.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) described this decision as a "great victory for those who have campaigned to ensure that European innovation and competitiveness is protected from monopolisation of software functionalities and business methods."
From Yahoo News via Stephens Web

I see this as a vote for open source software innovation in Europe. YIPPY!!!!

Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood. Jouer, c'est un acte sacré

A series of articles and reviews has appeared on the French music site MilleFeuille centered around the work of a collaborator of mine Meyekal Donnelly and several joint projects we are involved in. Although my French is non existent, I believe it is a positive review and articles (any French speakers reading are welcome to comment on this in English or Swedish...My language spheres). A English version of the interview and a public discussion around our label musicyourmindwillloveyou is available HERE.
Featured on the site is also the artwork of my partner Erika, a member of the ever strengthening collective.

Live Aid to Live 8

In July 1985 I was a sixteen year old living in a village of 700 people and 1000 horses in rural Australia. Live Aid came to us in a night long live broadcast from Wembley and Philadelphia. Some friends and myself watched it from the radio/beer shack one our our parents had at the back of their homemade house.
We managed maybe four beers through the night, feeling very drunk. Watched the telecast and slept in the yard under the chilly winter stars. I don't remember much of the actual content but I do remember it as the first time I actually felt part of the northern hemisphere. I felt connected to the world. In some ways it is how I feel today in regard to the internet.
Now it is being repeated but the connectivity has stepped up somewhat in the 20 years since Live Aid (estmated 1 billion viewers). Tomorrow night it will be on television, but also streamed on the net by AOL. Not only will those that log on be able to watch but they will be able to choose to some degree as well:

America Online Inc will stream complete, real-time feeds of the shows in six cities -Berlin, London, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome and Toronto - and offer another channel devoted to highlights from elsewhere.

organizers say the broadcasts on television, radio and the internet will be accessible to a potential audience of 5.5 billion people, or 85 per cent of the world's population.Sydney Morning Herald

Although 85 percent sounds like a market estimation, clearly we are becoming more connected on this planet.