the viking of sixth avenue

The Music of Moondog @ Barbican, 30th May

It's no surprise that Louis Hardin became famous, inclined as he was to wander round the streets of Manhattan in Viking attire carrying a huge sword. That and playing strange and beautiful music on a selection of bizarre instruments, many his own inventions.

Moondog--for it is he--spent much of the 1950s and 60s doing these very things, mainly at the intersection of 53rd Street and 6th Avenue. At night he would sleep on nearby rooftops.

Positioned as he was near many concert venues and jazz clubs, musicians would often pass by and understandably his streetside performances aroused their curiosity. As a result, he went on to become an accepted part of the New York musical establishment, forging a particular friendship with Philip Glass, and eventually having many of his compositions performed in the concert hall.

In the 1990s, he collaborated with various British ensembles, and this tribute concert, held ten years after his death, features two of these: London Saxophonic and the Britten Sinfonia.

It's quite difficult to characterise his music: there are elements of big band jazz, sixties film soundtracks, Bach fugues and Mozart: the "Salzburg Symphony" is one work--of his total output of some 1,400 pieces--which has never been performed in public. Until tonight.

I reckon there's even a hint of a drum & bass rhythm in "Bird's Lament"...



More reading at Moondogmadness.

More tunes, you guessed it, at Spotify.

sea songs

North Sea Radio Orchestra @ Brixton Library, 29th May

Purveyors of genteel instrumentals and song settings of the poems of Blake, Tennyson, and the like, NSRO are one of the bands I've cottoned on to via Stuart Maconie's mighty 6music Freak Zone.

At full strength there are twenty players. Tonight there are ten: on clarinet, bassoon, cello, Spanish guitar, organ, piano, "monosynth" and sundry percussions. And then there's Sharron Fortnam's fantastic voice...



More tunes, as ever, at myspace.

Their Wikipedia entry tells you all you could possibly want to know about the history of the band.

le freak, c'est chic

One of my most welcome discoveries of 2005 has been Stuart Maconie's "Freak Zone" which goes out every Sunday evening between 5 and 8 p.m. on BBC's digitally excellent 6 Music radio.

Some good stuff I've recently heard for the first time: Supersister (Dutch prog rockers), Vashti Bunyan (folk hippie/mate-of-Donovan whose first album since 1970 is just out), 1960s "library music" (TV music from "Vision On" and the like!) and a Chris Squire solo album.

Stuff I have heard before but had forgotten how good it was: Robert Wyatt, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Focus, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Can, Michel Legrand, Talk Talk and Miles Davis's "Bitches Brew", last week's featured album.

All human life is here: ambient electronica, jazz fusion, post-punk, psychedelia, folk and more prog rock than you have been able to shake a stick at since 1974. Check out the tracklistings from recent shows and further info on the 6 Music website.