I've never been a fan of sundays for some reason, perhaps because it marked the gloomy end of the weekend, hence the ominous start of classes the following day, hovering like an impending near-death... after all, I did go to nuns' school... ta-da!
But even if my teen-angst ruined Sunday afternoons were marked by hours spent trying to study, cleaning, doing the laundry, melancholically writing half assed demo songs (for better TCMA songs, go here), and watching my father cook meticulously for hours, there would still be the precious yet fleeting Sunday morning-ish "morning".
Sunday morning once meant waking up late with an apex sunray rested on my smiling face, lazily sitting up in my bed as I'd grab my headphones to appreciate every single second of the fuzzy Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning", while I would reread some of my favorite childhood books. Then I'd prepare my famous brunch for the 'rents, and we'd savour it as we listened to some of my mom's favorites, Jacques Brel (whom she'd call Jacquot), Leo Ferre, or mine and my dad's favorite: Ella Fitzgerald and her golden, soothing, chill-inducing voice.
Then it would all end too fast, and the mid afternoon would morph into late afternoon, which led us to a generically bland Sunday evening (gotta save that energy for the long arduous week!), then bedtime, spent tossing and turning, and soon enough, being awoken by the gloomy cawing of that same damn humongous crow, followed by being reluctantly rushed through an inevitable slow paced, almost robotic, dazed and confused, almond-eyed, zombie-gulping-down-breakfast-driving-Nana-and-her-cousin-to-school-then-heading-to-work Monday morning.
Life has changed since then. But this morning, unlike other Sunday mornings, I woke up and had little to no must-do's on my agenda. Then I started feeling a little lost, sensing those anxious feelings of old creeping in. So I did something I haven't done in a while: I went looking for new music! I went over to one of my favorite blogs to once again enjoy the writing, photos and songs tastefully written, arranged and chosen by Dan, Jordan and Sean (and sometimes by their guests) over at saidthegramophone. [while you're there check out the umbrella tree picture and the awesome overlapping women with burnt eyes!]
I then stumbled upon a pretty sweet song. The kind that you've already heard quite a few times, but haven't outgrown or won't get rid of just yet, like your favorite holey shirt, or this Cranberries song. However this time, the trumpets are playing even more out of tune, the sky is grey, getting menacingly greyer and you know it's going to rain yet again, like it has all week, tutu-tutu-tutut, you know there will be thunder and lightning again tonight, because after all, this is South Florida and it's hurricane season! ok I got a bit carried away there, but I speak from the heart.
So after listening to that nonchalantly, slightly depressing yet appropriate song, I went over to another favorite blog of mine written in part, or should I say mainly, by an ex Montreal dweller and fellow lo-fi musician, vinyl collector and physicist (the last two of which I'm unfortunately not) extraordinaire: David Barclay (the one playing guitar in the picture below). Yeah, so David rocks my socks! he's pretty awesome, hell, Austin even had a little man crush on him! Yup, he's cute like that! [And I guess the folks at Channel 4 in the UK also fell for his rosy cheeks and cutesy twee songs, as I'm pretty sure the first thing I'm hearing in this Skins episode, or at least in this exerpt,is The Diskettes' "Art"!]
[Do I really find a way to talk about Donkey Heart in every post?!!! all THREE of them?!!]
So as per usual, Mr. Barclay had uploaded some pretty obscure and great stuff (or at least unknown to me, maybe aside from Nagisa Ni Te). And in one of the posts, he linked to this one blog, which linked me to yet another blog - ah the joys of the internet! To make a story short, I fell upon a goldmine (no worries, I'll share some of it one day... someday...), which in turn led me to finally listen to this:
here is the mp3 format:
Toumani Diabate - Ne Ne Koitaa
After hearing these magical golden drops, I believe talking and writing is void of meaning. Thus I will only add these words: this kind of beauty is yours to explore.
In the words of Mr. Murrow, good night and good luck!
P.S.: thanks for bringing it to my attention Mikey, "Shalom" is reuploaded.
