Well, this may possibly be my last post until December 29, as I am jetting off to Tasmanian waters for a few days and may not get near enough to a computer to make an update… so to sign off on what has been an amazing year, here’s a handful of songs to soundtrack these glorious summer days. To all of the people who have read this blog – whether you be a regular, a sporadic visitor, or a fly-by-nighter – thank you. I am already looking forward to an exciting 2010 as there are many projects bubbling away. Big love to you all…

Orenda Fink: That Certain-Something Spring

Orenda Fink’s sophomore solo album blends her love of traditional American folk music and Gothic literature. Recorded live in a basement and a lounge room , the album has that wistful melancholoy that has become the trademark of quality home produced folk. Orenda’s thick as honey voice sails in and out of the mandolin, accordion and saw that give this album a southern tinge. The perfect music to slow time… most definitely an album to curl up with.

Port O’Brien: My Will Is Good

Taken from their third longplayer, Threadbare, this showcases a stripped back sound for Port O’Brien. The album swells like a lung full of salt air, not surprising given Van Pierszalowski spends much of his year working on a salmon fishing boat. This album is making lots of the Best of 2009 lists, and for good reason. It is elegant in its simplicity, dramatic in its craft and brings a pop sensibilty to the folk tradition.

Vic Chestnutt – Coward

Lyrically, there are few singer/songwriters with the literary prowess of Vic Chestnutt and he doesn’t disappoint on his latest release, At The Cut. Released earlier in the year, At The Cut sees Vic team up for the second time with members of Montreal collectives, A Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fugazi. Its a darkly explosive combination, blending Chestnutt’s distinctively simple vocals and guitar playing style with the often mesmeric wail of strings and guitars that Godspeed and Silver Mt. Zion have made their own.

Ashley Capes and Jane Williams have just posted their first collaborative poem over at the poetry slave. The poem was written in response to expressionist painter Marc Chagall’s work, Les Fiances de  la Tour Eiffel. And as with all good collaborations, it has brought out the best in both poet’s work. There is an incredible energy that resides in the poem. Love, birth and becoming a parent are prominent themes.

Ashley opens the poem with the lines:

now I have taken all the bread and gathered it
inside my whale-like belly
for another time, or for when they dissect me
or if I have children

And later Jane responds:

through a red fog
a father sees his father
in the shape of
his own raised fist
and stops

Importantly, throughout the poem both voices maintain their own unique music, but when they come together, they sing in harmony.

Ashley is currently involved in a number of exciting projects, so checking out the links on this page will also yield good things – kipple, holland1947, issa’s snail and his own personal blog are all well worth the visit. And Jane’s blog also features many poems/stories from her recent collections The Last Tourist, Other Lives, Begging the Question and Outside Temple Boundaries. In short… there’s plenty to enjoy here!

A while back I made a post: A Poet Is… What Bob Dylan Has to Say and there was some interesting debate about Dylan being a poet. Well a good friend of mine recently turned me on to Bob performing a killer version of Jokerman back in 1984 on the Letterman show, which for mine has to be one of the greatest example of song lyrics working as poetry. If you need any convincing, read this:

It’s a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet
He’ll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot

(read the full lyrics here)

And I also recently came across this poem published in The New Yorker, which is taken from a book titled Hollywood Foto Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript, which collects previously unpublished poetry by Dylan and photographs by Barry Feinstein.

                                                after crashin the sportscar
                                                into the chandelier
                                                i ran out t the phone booth
                                                made a call t my wife. she wasnt home.
                                                i panicked. i called up my best friend
                                                but the line was busy
                                                then i went t a party but couldnt find a chair
                                                somebody wiped their feet on me
                                                so i decided t leave
                                                i felt awful. my mouth was puckered.
                                                arms were stickin thru my neck
                                                my stomach was stuffed an bloated
                                               dogs licked my face
                                               people stared at me an said
                                               “what’s wrong with you?”
                                               passin two successful friends of mine
                                               i stopped t talk.
                                               they knew i was feelin bad
                                               an gave me some pills
                                               i went home an began writin
                                              a suicide note
                                              it was then that i saw
                                              that crowd comin down
                                              the street
                                              i really have nothing
                                              against
                                              marlon brando

Is Dylan a poet? Let the debate roll on, but I know what side of the fence I am sitting.

                                                          i.

                                                          The gulls
                                                          still ghost the shore;

                                                          the hard pods
                                                          of sheoak spray their seed
                                                          across the path.

                                                          The dark sky is amber again.

                                                          Another morning, walking your tideline
                                                          composing another poem.

                                                          Each new line
                                                          patterns my tongue
                                                          like a nautilus

                                                          and my words disappear 
                                                          like stones
                                                          skipped across a wave

                                                          sinking through
                                                          the pages of water.

                                                                                       GN

                                                      ii.

                                                      Stately Queenslanders, convalesce
                                                      guard the shoreline;
                                                      ghosts of old men
                                                      cast in the shadow of jetty lights.

                                                      Eroded hardwood pillars
                                                      now remnants of your playground;
                                                      the pioneering spirit lingers
                                                      in the slow bite of rust.

                                                      Rolling tide,
                                                      churns forth your memory;
                                                      as the sea circles my ankles
                                                      I am written into your pages.

                                                                                                         CK

* Here’s another taste of the Ocean Hearted Project. Photographs and part ii of this poem are by Cindy Keong.

And the great releases keep coming as 2009 draws to a close. Here’s a taste from the new Sleeping States and Espers albums + a track from Iron and Wine’s 2009 collection, Around the Well. Hope these provide the quiet beauty you are looking for this Sunday morning… 

Sleeping States – Gardens of the South

Sleeping States main man, Markland Starkie has just released his latest long player, In the Gardens of the North, an album brimming with found sounds, layered harmonies, pensive tension and humming ambience. With Gardens of the South (like with much of the album) Starkie’s voice takes centre stage as it dips and swoons over the top of a sparsely swinging beat. And while the album rarely changes pace, each songs demands your attention, quietly rewarding those who take the ride.

Espers – Sightings

With new album III just released, Espers have continued to stretch the folk genre. There aren’t many bands who can blend the atmosphere of  early Black Sabbath with finger picked acoustic guitars, and electronic flourishes, but this is the swirling domain that Espers so fittingly occupy. On Sightings, Meg Baird’s vocals are languid and bewitching, providing an ethereal light to the swelling rhythms of the band. And there is just the right amount of blissful fuzz sitting in the background…

Iron and Wine – The Trapeze Swinger

Sam Beam knows the hypnotic power of a simple chord progression and he uses it to perfection here on The Trapeze Swinger. Add to that a stomping rhythm, blissful melody and vivid imagery and you have yourself a song that will stick with you long after the record has stopped spinning.

Along with being a political activist and Nobel Prize winner, Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda was also an avid collector of seashells. His love for the exoskeletons of molluscs is something that I share deeply, so I was fascinated to discover this, particularly after recently penning the poem, Morning Song, enamoured by the ocean’s quiet music that (for me) shells are such an integral part of.

Neruda has been quoted as saying:

“The best thing I have collected in my life are my shells,” the poet once wrote. “They gave me the pleasure of their prodigious structure, the lunar purity of their mysterious porcelain.”

And for the first time ever, more than four hundred of Neruda’s estimated 9000 seashells (amassed over a period of two decades) are on display at the Instituto de Cervantes in Madrid. It is times like this I dream of teleportation…

So while I may not get to see the display, this news has made me pull out several of my Neruda collections and rediscover my love for his words… his ability to capture passion and pin it to a page…

I will leave you with one of my very favourites:

Don’t Go Far Off, Not Even For A Day 
                                                  by Pablo Neruda

Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because –
because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don’t leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you’ll have gone so far
I’ll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Little by little
the sea gives up
its music -

foam and rush
the long unfurling
of seaweed

and rolling of kowries
striped or spotted
so fragile

in the sea’s blue hands.
It washes to shore
bleached notes

of destruction
to sing its wisdom
the loneliest song.

And though this music
will come to nothing
it fills your heart

footstep by
singular footstep
shell by broken shell.

School’s out this Friday night, so dust off those poems and get yourself along to Words or Whatever at Blackstar Cafe (44 Thomas St. West End) for a massive night of Open Mic and feature sets, including special guest from the US, Drew Dellinger. Entry is free and all the action kicks off at 7pm. See you there…

Well as you know, Sheish and I have been back in the studio working on tracks for what will be the next album. The first taste of the album is Grounded and the good folk at Black Rider Press have put it up for free download for you all. There is also a whole bunch of other sonic delights for you to download including comes to rest by Ashley Capes, The Everything Poem by Lily Chan and Smoke by Nick Santos-Pedro. So strap on your saddle and head on over to the Black Rider Shop to download some free sonic poetry. Look forward to hearing your thoughts…

                                                                               photo by Cindy Keong

My heart is never far from the ocean, but the pull of the salt has been even stronger these last few weeks…  I am currently putting the finishing touches on my next full length collection and have recently begun work on a really exciting multimedia project with photographer Cindy Keong. Both of these projects will be titled Ocean Hearted… so with that in mind, I have been soundtracking my silences with ocean songs. Here’s a few of the songs that have been washing over me.

Restless Waves – The Dirty Three

Taut and sensuous… Restless Waves pulls you deep into the blue. Ellis’ swelling violin, drifts elegantly over the gentle roll and tumble of the rhythms of Jim White and Mick Turner. And the bare-bone silences flesh out the aquatic journey. This is music to up anchor and drift away…

The North Sound - British Sea Power

Taken from the stunning Man of Aran album released this year, The North Sound is a jagged slice of melancholy. The band combine stillness and grandeur to create the soundtrack to Robert Flaherty’s film Man of Aran. The result is a broodingly atmospheric masterpiece and would have to rate as one of the most innovative releases of the year.

You Me And The Sea – The Gin Club

For me, the highpoint of The Gin Club’s 2008 release, Junk. You Me and the Sea, is the sound of a body, giving itself back to the ocean. As Salter declares, ‘my eyes the pearls that last/ my bones of coral make’, all wonder ceases… and then ’forever there’ll just be/ you me and the sea’. Heartbreakingly beautiful stuff.