The Soul of Things

The sun is getting too low in the sky...I walked up to the corner store this arvo and it was barely above the apartment building on the corner...and it's getting cold round here real quick!
Anyway, I've managed to clock up four of the five gigs on the list this week, so here's some more reviewing action:
Thursday night - Squarepusher - INSANE! The venue itself was incredible, Koko's in Camden...imagine a big old Victorian-era music hall but in crimson and gold, five or six tiers high, biggest mirror ball ever. He wasn't on until midnight, but when it started....without a doubt the most abrasive musical experience I've ever been to. Steel wool and machine guns somehow come to mind....and either side of him were these two huge black screens showing bright white geometric shapes, somehow manipulated by the programming (the only lighting in the room, so you couldn't turn away from it).
While being an overwhelming sonic experience, sometimes electronic music (for me) can be a bit boring to watch....boxes plugged into other boxes...so I made sure that I was in a spot on the side where I could mostly watch the crowd, and they were loving it, with everyone doing that strange little bobbing up and down dance that looks so silly but when you do it feels so right! I came out of there and I was walking down the street spitting out the rhythms without even knowing it! Incredible stuff.
Friday night - Tomasz Stanko / Charles Lloyd - beautiful. I've got Stanko's two albums with the group we saw, and it was great to see the boys stoke it up in contrast to the albums. All the melodies and arrangements wandered along nicely...don't know what I'd call it, but that doesn't matter. And then Charles with Zakir Hussain and Eric Harland - what an open set! with Eric and Charles regularly swapping around between kit and piano. Funnily enough I just ended up listening to Zakir and Eric being a world-class badass percussion duo, with Charles adding a zany old zen master vibe to the show.
So it's Vinicius Cantuaria tonight, which is going to be superb I know, and thus concludes an incredible, inspiring week. And then my friend Miss N coming to stay on Tuesday for a few days...always good to pass on the dossing karma, especially after my great weekend hanging with her in Helsinki a little while back. It just doesn't stop round here!....