:Wavetales

This flu started on last friday, I went to work anyway. I went to dance on sunday, what a great dances they were (really!). On monday I went to doctor, he gave me sick leave. I stayed home. Today I went to see him again, he gave me more sick leave. I’m home.

I’m not often using medication, but then again what is medication? Doctor asked me do I want any description for medicine, I said that I’ll try to avoid, eating a lot of garlic, ginger, lemon, honey, orange instead. He said: Right you are, medication wouldn’t cure you anyway, there is no cure for flu.

So now I came by the shop, got all the lemon they had left, some more honey, ginger and oranges.
Ok, I lied a bit, I haven’t just stayed home, I went to the shop and I also visited post office on tuesday (among other things). From post office I got a packet of Raster-Noton (+2 Philip Jeck) sent to me by microsuoni, my favourite r-n dealer. At least when being sick you have the time to listen to stuff.

So what can I say. I somehow find myself surprised that I like this kind of electronic, glitch, cut things but I do. Frequncies, when being somehow just frequencies are nice.
Byetone‘s stuff I kinda new it will be good and it is. But plastic star 12″ almost blew me away, it’s so… danceable and straight and on your face somehow.

Other one that was really pleasant one is NHK, also their first one is on your face, almost danceable, rhythmic and massive in some way. It’s not really big big massive, it’s like that they have this rather narrow scale of sound, but that narrow area is so full that it’s solid. Like block of iron or something.

Alva Noto‘s Xerrox was quite a dissapointment for me so I didn’t expect much from Unitxt, but it’s good, makes your ears bleed. Of course that french can be a bit disorientating, but never mind. Those sounds just hit hard, rhythms are clear in their unclearness of stop&go, but the beat stays there if you listen. There is actually something very powerful, almost violent in there. After all machines are still kind of violent, they continue to keep their rhythm, they do not react. Also these sounds of machines, inteference, gives this slight hint of paranoia, which seem to live in every future scenario. Same time this music isn’t futuristic in anyway. We are after all building more and more sensible robots, machines, whatnot. This is how the future sounded quite sometime ago. More and more this is present, what is now, lightcables, wlans, information going everywhere all the time, 0 and 1.

And talking about those Ryoji Ikeda doesn’t let me down this time either. Hell if I understand what he does and why I always find it somehow interesting, but that’s what happens. Test Pattern continues this happening.

Alva Noto‘s Transform is good but since that is the beginning of whole trans- series I knew it will be ok.
Ah you see, this is why I don’t write critics to anywhere, I can’t. Either the bloody thing is good or it isn’t, sometimes I can find the words to describe why it’s good or not but often I don’t find the words enough. And specially when hearing things just a couple of times, very very hard I say.

But at the same time music is the most important thing, (one them ok) and I want to share it somehow. Because I’m so often defined a lot by what I listen even though I’m not, but I am.

Maybe I still mention Coh plays Cosey which sounded good (first listen) and the “story” behind it seems to be interesting too, so maybe I’ll write more later when I get to know it better.

Then there is “new” Kangding Ray, Automne Fold, which will probably dissapoint me, since the previous one, Stabil, was and is so good that my expectations are too high. I’ll try to lower them before I listen to it.

Other stuff I’ve got long time ago… well one of most pleasant ones have been Light Of Shipwreck‘s From the Idle Cylinders. It’s Crucial Bliss release so the layout it superb then the music is great. Guitar drones, layers plus really rhythmic drum stuff that is almost tribal stuff. Well hell it is, but at the same time those guitars takes is away somewhere else so I don’t have this annoying hippie connotation with it like some other “tribal” things. Ah maybe I’m wrong after all, Also Troum has some tribel things and Troum is almost always Great. Troum‘s collabs with Martyn Bates and All Sides are actuall both really Great. I can’t say much anything else about them. great great.
I also got Red Hooker‘s Future according to yesterday and it is such a beautiful ep. For some reason Red Hooker as a name doesn’t really bring to mind classical stuff with violins and oboe’s and whatnot, but that’s what it is, anyone into Max Richter or Johann Johannsson should definetly check this one out.

More life mysteries, Long time ago I ordered Aidan‘s Fragile Movements In Slow Motion from Universal Tongue and at the same time I got Gnaw Their Tongues‘ Dawn Breaks Open Like A Wound That Bleeds Afresh, and often I have listened it late at night with headphones and everytime I think, This is fucking great! And I don’t really know why. Listen to it, find an answer.
Anyway this got me to get more of their releases and I’m not sure if it is a wise move. Then again I’m also getting more Black Bones Angel because their Nadja collab and I’m not sure is that a wise move either. Well I rather like Eternal Hunger…

What else. Not much there’s not much happening when being sick. There’s still music that I haven’t mentioned, but just check last.fm even though I haven’t updated the vinyl stuff for ages.
Oh one nice thing is that I really quite like Nadja‘s Perichoresis, it was not sure after Desire in Uneasiness that I like all thing Nadja release. And sometime ago close by but now quite a far: I also like Jesu‘s side of Envy/Jesu split a lot. It’s very poppy, but it’s nice. Good good.

Later I’ll try to get into this writing about music thing, and write about my Favourite band (well one of them), Monopot something. They definetly deserve more praise.

Back to bed.

Please do tell me

I made this song quite some time ago.
used to play it upstairs in the island.
Maybe she didn’t hear the lyrics, oh well, it doesn’t really matter anymore.

I was reading M. John Harrison at the time, Anima. I think I wrote about it here, so anima is actually a collection of two books: The Course of the Heart and Signs of Life. Of course this song got it’s lyrical inspiration from the book.

Books, both of them and actually all three M. John Harrisons book that I’ve read have this really deep melancholy in them, It’s hard to say what happens from time to time, there is a plot that is even quite clear, but what is the meaning of it? I have no idea, however the feeling that is in the books is something very true and… clear in it’s unclearness… I’m not making much of sense am I? well, just read either of them, or both or all, you get the picture, i’m sure. But remember I’m always a sucker for melancholia.

Back to the song… What can I say.. simple as hell… there is another… er harmony vocal somewhere in the back of my mind for this but it hasn’t manifested itself truly yet. maybe it never will. so 1 guitar 1 voice.

Lyrics maybe later if you want them…

Please do tell me

“I got the technique but I’ve lost the dance.”
So what is that technique, I wonder. We are talking about CI here again. There is no technique? or is there? Uh. The whole dance is based on sensations of forces, touches, levers, frictions, surfaces. So you need a technique to make yourself aware of these things, that you can sense them, read and react and alter your reaction as your reaction alters your sensation. So how can the technique come in between the dance, when dance equals sensing and moving with it?
Probably not, the problem more likely (I don’t know the case so well) is in the misunderstanding of “technique”. Often people seem to think patterns, movement patterns, as technique, but they’re not, they’re just patterns. They are useful yes, but only with your senses open. That you can sense when to use the pattern, and through that sense you start to sense how to alter the pattern so that it will work better in the circumstances, and soon you’ll be altering the pattern all the time and eventually, hopefully, you are not even aware of the pattern but you are moving the best suitable way according to your senses and your energy/feel of the dance happening.

So repeating pattern doesn’t necessarily open up your senses, thus it is not a technique that you need, it’s only a pattern. Pattern connected with sensing can become a part of the technique, when by repeating a certain movement you start to sense smaller and smaller changes in the actual happening, how the weight transfers, how my body parts connect, how by altering the movement, or place of my hand, a small changes happen in the action of my legs.

And becoming aware of this, these, you are in the actual moment, you are in the dance, you are dancing. Yes, you might be stuck still from time to time, but we are all stuck from time to time, it will pass.

Patterns are problematic because there is a sense of “right” in there. “To do something right, it has to happen like this.” “this is the right way to react to this happening” “this is the right movement”. But there is no right movement, there is several right movement and there is several wrong movements, they can even be the same movement, the key is sensing. What is happening right now? Movement, pattern made with sensing the gravities, forces, bodies is always right. Movement without sensing is easily wrong, and what is wrong after all?

So patterns are problematic but they’re also useful, because by repeating a movement you can start to sense smaller and smaller changes in the movement, action, structuring, everything. We are not learning patterns to learn them, we are learning them so we could learn something through them: Sensation of the weight of the head, how is it to be head down, how it is to align yourself on someones back, how the tone of body effect the movement.

It’s ok to get stuck in patterns, after all, we all have them, habits, and when we learn out of them we will get new ones, we are never without them, so it’s ok, but by starting to see them, and through them we learn more, and we are still/again dancing, making every moment alive and singular, not countless repetation without change. (there is never repetation without change, but if we dont’ feel/sense it, it will feel like repetation without a change)

Every dancer, musician, painter is training, doing the same thing over and over again, countless repetations, but learning, maybe slowly, maybe suddenly fast, but learning, changing. Do not think that dancing CI would be different. Only difference is that there really isn’t “right”.
When we get stuck with patterns we often also get stuck with ideas of good and bad and right and wrong. We want to be better, who wouldn’t. By making ourselves more aware of what we sense, what are our other possibilities in this moment (instead of prelearned pattern) we will get better.

I’ve been dancing CI about 7 or 8 years now. Within last two years I felt that there is all the time new routes, new sensations to be found. It might be that in the two hours of dancing, there is one glimpse of some new pathway. But the whole two hours is needed and the whole two hours is full movement and joy. And after all that, that small glimpse isn’t anymore precious than the rest of the dance. It’s all the same dance, It’s all valuable, it’s all joy.
I don’t dance to get that new pathway. I dance because I dance, because I enjoy it, because I want to, and those new pathways come out from that.

This post is related to my previous post, I got feedback that didn’t finish the though, but actually I did. this is just for help, talking just about CI, trying to make some of the things written already even more clear.
Hope this helps.

Please do tell me

I was watching a movie with a friend. I came back home, e-mail waiting for me telling that they’re not taking me to teach in Freiburg this year either. Maybe I’ll apply next year then. Maybe I’m done with teaching, maybe I’m somewhere else. You never know. However I feel dissapointed. Somewhere else they’re asking me to teach, I’m happy and scared to go. What do I have to teach anyway. I’m not sure how I’ll teach in SOS, I’m not sure how I’ll teach in Berlin, if the workshop is happening and I hope it is.
I’m not sure where to be on new year. More important would be, with whom, but it seems there are no great gatherings of people I know and like to be with. I was going to freiburg jam but now it seems I’m not. Flight from Berlin to Helsinki cost the same on 31.12.08 and 01.01.09 so where do I want to stay? It seems that there is no one anyway. And suddenly I feel alone, even though I know I’m not.
Or actually it’s all matter of perspective again, but I think whatever you are you’re always, either alone or not, but always. Our perspective have tendency to change of course.

Yesterday I was in xmas party. University sports. I knew one person there. And after the party I still know one person there. It’s so hard to meet people. It’s somehow difficult to communicate, most of people don’t seem to understand my humour, unless they have to spend some longer period of time with me. Of course there is exceptions, thank god. But I didn’t meet any of those yesterday. How ever I had fun dancing dor 3-4 hours. Very bad music, but who cares.

I feel loss, or lost, but that I have felt for a long time now, so it’s nothing new.

It feels bad to be rejected, even if it’s just a couple of hours of teaching. But the benefits would have been nice. And by the time I suppose I should have got used to be rejected. Specially since it’s so hard for be to believe that I’m accepted or wanted.

I wonder why she doesn’t answer my messages, I hate when people are not clear, even when they are unclear if they let others know they’re unclear it’s ok, but not to tell anything, just cut off, is deeply annoying. Reasons can be several, do I care what they are? It’s just another rejection, get used to it.

And through all this complaining I know everything is alright. There’s nothing that is meant to be. There is only is. We are so eager to find meaning everywhere. We need it. I need it. meaning for this, but there isn’t and that is the meaning. Same old same old.
All is good, its alright.
I made this song once, “it’s ok”

So speaking about music, one thing that I got quite some time ago is Max Richter‘s 24 postcards in full color. Now, I absolutely adore The Blue Notebooks and Memoryhouse, but for some reason I didn’t get the hang of Song from Before (at least not yet). 24 Postcards… is excatly what it says. 24 short pieces, some very strong some more vague, but in full color anyway. Like postcards where space is limited but can make a great impression and have a big meaning or can be a just nice note from someone thinking of you. I though I share two of my favourite “cards” here. Both of them are easily recognized as Richter’s and both are sentimental or melacholic, to which I’m always drawn. There is also more happy/positive cards in the pack, but like I said. I’m drawn to melancholic moods.

Good night with these two. i should be sleeping already

Max Richter – H in New England

Please do tell me