A Wolf In Babylon

God it's hot, but I'm not complaining , it keeps the power bills down and makes walking into work pleasurable. Unfortunately I have to remain fully clothed so as not to frighten any living creature in my vicinity, so I am enjoying mytime at home where I can be on my own and therefore don't have to concentrate too much on my appearance.

After listening to Edgar Froese's "Aqua" I decided to put on "Wolf City" by Amon Duul II complete with it's winged sphinx cover (see here)designed by Falk U-Rogner, the band's keyboard player ,  From the opener "Surrounded By Stars" this album does not have a dud moment. The lyrics my be a little out at times but English is not their primary language and when they sing in german on "Deutsch Nepal" they sound supremely confident. I played it through twice and could have kept going, but I do realise that I can put it on whenever I want.

I then put on it's predecessor, "Carnival In Babylon" and at first I wasn't too taken with it. It's more pastoral in feel and while I think all the songs are in roghly 4/4 time the introduction of tablas and eastern percussion draws you into it. On the second play I was rehooked all the songs just held me and I could just listen to both these albums for a very very long time.

These are just two albums from the excellent Amon Duul back catalog and after "Vive LA Trance" they seemed to lose their way, but hit back remarkably with their last release "Duulirium"

So I've gone for "Deutsch Nepal" with some Ralph Bakshi animation which may be from his "Lord of The Rings", powerful stuff.

Sleep well.

Real Head or Artificial Head?

Been slightly worried as a few nights I've been so tired I've had to go to bed at nine. I'm up at six most mornings, sometimes earlier so that should give me nine hours sleep which should be more than enough, but I was under the impression that the older you got the less sleep you got.

Today I wasn't feeling exactly energetic but for one reason or another I've ended up doing 18K steps, the most this month, which i sjustover six miles. Included in that is mowing my lawn and trimming some of the wild edges of the garden resulting in a full brown bin.

Yesterday I listened to "Aqua" by Edgar Froese with it's artificial head recording and while it sounded fine, I wasn't exactly blown away. The title track consists of running water with some electronic sounds weaving in and out and eventually this becomes hypnotically excellent, great music for walking theough green parks to and just the sort for relaxing your mind. I was impressed enough to order the Edgar Froese "Virgin Years" and stick my copy of "Aqua" on Discogs here.

The thing is there's lots of other songs and pieces that have made better use of stereo options and one of the best is still "May This Be Love" from Jimi Hendrix's debut "Are You Experienced" apparently used in the film "Singles". Stick on your headphones and experience this for your self. YOu dontneed an artificial head for this, a real one will do just fine.

Enjoy my friends.

My Artificial Head

Apparently, yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day, and the days get shorter from now on until the Winter Solstice. F Paul Wilson's "Nightworld" has a premise where the days keep getting shorter in the culmination of his "Adversary" series which started with "The Keep" which was made into a film directed by Michael Mann and featuring Sir Ian McKellen which is worth a watch although not a classic.

It turns out that TangerinDream did the soundtrack and my last post was German rock orientated, and caused me to load a lot of German rock on to my phone to listen on my walk to work. One of these albums was Edgar Froese's "Aqua" his first solo album outside of Tangerine Dream and at the time it used an "artificial head" recording process developed by, among others, Gunther Brunschen, more of which you can read about here.

It was supposed to give a more realistic aural experience but was more of a marketing point, but you had to listen to this recording and in the end it was just a decent electronic record.

I am tempted by the Froese solo box set though I actually have a copy of "Aqua" and I will be listening to it on the way to work today.

The sun is shining the sky is blue so should be a good walk in.

I am always surprised how so many different things can be related, but again that's part of the rich tapestry of life. Have a brilliant Friday every one.

Dancing With Lemmings #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #2

I think my first exposure to Amon Duul II was hearing "Race From Here To Your Ears" on a UA compilation, "All Good Clean Fun". There was a lot of good stuff on there such as Man's "Daughter of The Fireplace" but this album made me want to hear the albums that the individual songs had come from and hearing "Race From Here To Your Ears" (Part of "Restless Skylight Transistor Child" that made up side two of th eoriginal albumthen seeing the cover of "Dance of the Lemmings" (or "Tanz Der Lemminge" which I think is the correct German original title)

 The album also drew me into what was loosely termed Krautrock but also made me realisethat music could sound much different to our normal western blues and rock and roll concept of rock. From this I went on to Tangerine Dream, Can, Kraftwerk and Faust as well as other less well known bands and all these now how a place in my music collection.

These days people equate German Music with Kraftwerk, and while not wanting to diminish their importance there is far more to German rock and progressive music than them, but they deserve their success and recognition.

So with that I will look out on the very light night sky of the longest day.

Sleep well, tomorrow is Friday.

Solstice Song

The sky is blue, there's not a cloud up there, and this morning when I went into the shower I was hit by the heat of the sun before I switched the shower on. IT's also the Summer Solstice so it's the longest day of the year and looking outside it looks like we are going to have a gorgeous and long day with many hours of daylight.

There are lots of things happening and am tempted to a couple of events tonight which are in the town centre and really with the fact it's th elongest day I should take advantage of the extra daylight that we have, although I also have Los Coyotemen at The Globe tomorrow night so this does look like being quite a busy week, but all the more enjoyable for it.

Weather is still very warm, but that is a plus, cold weather is fine as long as you can find somewhere and some method to actually warm yourself up.

I am combing my memories to think of an appropriate musical piece to go with this post, maybe something druidic and arcane, maybe some Julian Cope or Incredible String Band. "Painted Chariot" is leaping at me though I have already used it for my  #LikeNoOther series here. I'd also forgotten that Julian Cope appeared in my second ever post here which was a short overview of my exposure to Krautrock because Julian had produced a book with the same title on the subject.

In the end I've gone for "Parlipap" by Spirits of The Sacred Grove, so enjoy The SUmmer Solstice.

Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine With Numbers #TenAlbumsInTenDays #3 - #1

I've been listening to a few albums recently and tonight I put "Enjoy The Melodic Sunshine" by The Cosmic Rough Riders on the player. I've written about this album before and while it is not super consistent it does contain some excellent gems of songs. If you buy the super deluxe download you get forty songs for less than eight pounds which is great value for your money.

From the opening pastoral "Brothers Gather Round" which may not have been out of place in "The Wicker Man" apart from it's not as unnerving before hitting you with the beautiful but disturbing "This Gun Isn't Loaded" before returning to the soporific mood with the excellent "Glastonbury Revisited".

The album continues in this vein hitting highs with "Revolution(In The Summertime?)" but it's that opening triumvirate of songs that really nails it for me. I've also been nomintedfor another #TenAlbumsInTenDays by my friend Asher so this will be the first one on this list. I'm going to have to be careful not to repeat my album or people nominations.

Anyway, I am still doing the 340K steps a month to ensure a million steps every quarter but was wonderfingwhy as I got towards the end of the month I could hit my monthly target witout hitting my daily target of say 11.5K a day. It's simply that I often surpas the daily requirement and thhe surplus build up of steps means I have to do less to maintain the daily average. Hardly a perfect explanation but I have ten more days walking, 87K steps to hit 340K for the month, so 8.7K a day will do it. Of course I will try to maintain my 11.5K a day so should end up with a healthy surplus at the end of the month.

So I will leave you with the excellent "Revolution(In The Summertime?)" before I hit the sack. Enjoy your Thursday tomorrow my friends.

Dreaming Again

Just woken foorma fairly intenses horror story dream and I can't remeber a thing about it, just some incoherent images that may or may not have been there. I obviously dealt with it fine as I am just about to get up, take drugs, shower and get to work, but part of me does want to remember what the dream was about. I'm reading Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" so maybe that's something to do with it, and watching England vs Tunisia  last night where you know the technology is there and supposedly being utilisedto ensure fair play and once again cheating and gamesmanship rules the day, although for a change didn't result in victory.


Anyway once again we have an absolutely beautiful day and that means a walk to work and listening to music. Recent albums have included the first three Jimi Hendrix albums and Bowie's "Blackstar", the eponymous opener I still find absolutely jaw dropping and that along with "Lazarus" would be a reason to have the album if the rest of it were blank, and it isn't. I'm currently listening to Bob Dylan's "Shelter From A Hard Rain" semi bootleg which I originally bought because it contains a duet with Joan Baez on Woody Guthrie's "Deportees (Plain Wreck At Los Gatos)" and the playing is a bit shambolic but in a good way and the song selection isbrilliant, so this does get a lot of plays.

Yesterday I met some friendly cattle on the walk and posted a little film on Instagram but it can be a little awkward when you are trying to film, photograph, walk and make sure that you have an escape route. Evidence here.

I'm looking forward to seeing Los Coyotemen this Friday at The Globe which means I am getting off my arse and actually getting out. A friend of mine posted on Facebook that he doesnt have enough hours in this week, I feel I don't have enough hours in my life but maybe that is because I'm nauturally lazy but actually want to do things.

My friend Sophia alerted me to the Charity single "The Fall Of Emperor Less" by Dave King so I've included it in the list below and there's furter info here, there's no full length Youtube video, so we will go with Bowie's "Blackstar".

Have a good one.