I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas season and got one or two questions that are still bugging them. It’s for those that we sweat best after all.

I have gotten caught up in the early year rush of things and am a bit behind with my writing, but beware, some nice things are in preparation for further down the road (such as an article on the look of love).

In the meantime let me show you this beautiful jewel that came to me through my twitterfeed. Thank you @serscher.

This song must be one of the earliest that I have a memory off. I probably heard it for the first time when I was still sharing a room with my older sister (I did until the age of 7) who herself was a huge Frankie goes to Hollywood – or FGTH as you’d print it on your school gear – fan at the time and always.

It’s one of those songs that you never really forget and even if you haven’t heard it in ages it will immediately bring you back to a complete album of feelings and impressions. Holly Johnson has had many strokes of genius. I think this one however will stay with us for a long time still. Even after almost 30 years.

(I know that this was a huge hit and as such shouldn’t figure in this series, but it’s Christmas and sharing is the spirit ;-)

Here’s to a brilliant week to everyone out there listening.

I find it hard to imagine anything scarier in real life (as opposed to zombies or other imaginary, otherworldly horrors such as clowns) than taking your own advice. Particularly when said advice comes from rational thought and ideals of the philosophical mind rather than experience. As with anything what we think is best in general is rarely what we end up doing. If we did, maybe things in this world would look a bit differently.

I did take my own advice. The one from the very last post in this blog. It explains the long silence between articles. I’ve made the change and it’s been quite the ride so far. And no, I haven’t had any regrets. And I truly doubt that they might still come.

I’ve accepted a new job, in a new town, and with that chose two things completely out of my comfort zone: we moved to Zürich, and I chose to work in a field I only have marginal knowledge of.
While for some that may be a step down from the career that I have built for myself, for me it’s a time out. A much needed moment of fresh air, new acquaintances, new things to learn, old things to see from a completely new perspective and finally a new level of knowledge about myself and waht I am actually able to achieve.

Changing life, be it radically or a little less drastic, isn’t something that can be achieved in a single decisions. Most of the times we are dependent on other people’s choices around us and on all these small things that make up set tapestry of life. But like the unravelling of your favourite winter sweater or the famous saying about the wings of a butterfly, all it takes is action at the right spot. Funnily enough, the writers of the Expanded Universe of Star Wars call the theory behind such a technique “shatter point”. And that’s just what it is. Every change is destructive in its very own way and not every consequence might have been anticipiated. Just as we hadn’t planned for a pregnancy to happen (probably) the same week I was offered my new job.

Stalemate in any situation, is the worst thing that can happen to us as human beings. While I wouldn’t disagree on the fact that we all need stability and a certain kind of constant organisation to be productive and all that goes with it, I would argue that this is not a stalemate. Not being able to progress towards the person you want to be or the life you want to have, because you don’t have the job that would allow for certain changes, not being able to change said job because you’ve chosen to be good in a field that is transformed into a desert of austerity… amounts to stalemate. A vicious circle where the increasing level of cynism and emotional stress is the only sign to mark the next level on your very own path to personal hell.
Or not being able to do the changes you wish, because you can’t find either this guy, that girl or the right flat, the right car or once more the right job. Not because you don’t know what you want, but because ultimately you have no clue about the things you actually need.

Change in that respect becomes a question of life or death. Literally. Let the person you are die in that situation to become someone else that is changed by the situation or take charge of your needs and start shaping your life around them as opposed to the other way around.

Sure, one always gets by and there is no animal more gifted in finding creative ways to avoid making the hard choices and face change than humans. And even if we are quick to admit that we do live in a desert and that truly we should do things differently, we persist. We find excuses. We take our fears for granted.

And yet, all it takes is the first step.
Courage to you all to find the strength and the infantile curiousness to take a single step. My prayers and thoughts are with you.

There probably isn’t anybody in this world who doesn’t dream about changing something in their lives. It can be as small as finally finding a better way to deal with clutter and go as big as becoming a better human being.

Dream about it… talk about it… think about it and paint the future ‘changed’ state in a way that is appealing.

A lot of steps can make up what eventually can become a scary thing: change. If we could see into the future and only have a clear view of what this change can bring into our life… if we just could have some kind of positive reassurance that we are doing the right thing… yes, that would make it all so much easier. But the truly scary part about change isn’t so much the uncertainty, it’s the going out and making it happen part that is so hard. So hard in fact that in numerous situations, we prefer to play it safe. Putting ourselves out there in the world, is a hard gamble. Exposing who we are, what we wish for, running the constant danger of being rejected, of finding doubt where we need assurance and relief, it certainly isn’t something that will bring power or strength. Or so it would seem.

But if we try to look at it from another direction, then maybe change can be the one thing that saves us from becoming what we never wanted. (…) Look at a child that learns to walk. There isn’t anything particular running through their mind when they take the smallest, but surely one of the most important steps of their lives: the first one.
A first step always holds a promise. For the toddler it holds a whole life full of danger, full of injury, full of pain, but also full of discovery, fully of phantasy, full of exhilarating sensations, full of … new.

So many occasions come and go, but each and every one of them are a possibility to take a step. A new step, the next step, a faltering one, an assured one. And of course it is a dangerous thing. While toddlers run into a lot of physical dangers while starting their path in this world, as grown ups the pain becomes more hidden, more subtle and so much more devastating. Because we’re supposed to just ‘deal with it’, just ‘get on with it’. Because in a society that only considers a person in terms of performance and buying power, there is no space for ‘not dealing’ and ‘not getting on with it’. Through these eyes, only losers can’t deal with rejection, only underachievers dwell on the bad and the fear.

Reality obviously has a different face. It talks of the hard moments when you don’t know the direction for that first path. When you have the impression of being in a wrong path, but don’t know how to turn back. It talks of uncertainty and of failure. Of never feeling good enough, of never being enough.

Popular belief suggests that knowing what you want is the first step. But that also suggests that you know where to go.

Maybe knowing what you don’t want (such as persisting in a fearful state of mind or an undecided one for instance) is the better way to go. And sometimes it will take a lot of uncertain steps, steps that might seem wrong or out of place or useless to achieve that long sought after change that we wish for and dream about. Change in most cases doesn’t come with a label and it certainly doesn’t come in one giant heap. It takes a first step. And that first step, try to take it without thinking. Just as the child takes that first step into a new and larger world full of wonders and who know what could happen once the first one is done?

Obviously, I ran across Eastmountainsouth sooner or later, since they keep being bumped to my shuffle list. I had already covered the group as a true songwriter jewel, but seeing as their only album never had a sequel and it doesn’t look like they ever will do music together again, I thought about posting a follow-up to Peter Bradley Adams, the brains and voice behind Eastmountainsouth.

Since 2001, he has released several albums with various female singers to contrast his ‘the dreamy-voiced Adams’ as The Boston Globe called him. Gather Up (2006), Leavetaking (2008) and the latest album Traces (2009) all hold more or less the same layered quality of harmony that was so typical for Eastmountainsouth and that drew so many in.

Out of the three I feel like Traces – a fitting title – has come back to those roots in a way that closes the circle while giving this artist more maturity and depth, even if I wouldn’t have thought it possible. There is a certain calm quality about the construction of his songs and the sound. ‘Even’, ‘polished’, are words that springs to mind, and ‘touching’ another one.

In May 2009, “Leavetaking” the IAP awarded Peter Bradley Adams IAP’s the award “Best CD’s of 2008″ for Best Singer-Songwriter-Male.

Even so, with awards and even with steady releases, Adams has never truly made it into the charts or has been featured in popular TV Series (usually a good way to get people to notice you).
This circumstance earns him a special entry in my series. I hope you enjoy.

Eastmountainsouth will for me always be associated with my time in Paris. Forever will I see the snow storms and be reminded of the cold moments I spent in the city of millions, of the pain, but also of the exhilarating tension through which I lived there.

Their version of Hard Times (an old classic that goes back to the Civil War Time, or so it is rumoured) is such an uplifting song that even my solitude of the time couldn’t resist it’s charm.
Unfortunately there’s only a small bit of their version online to be found on Last.fm.

Founded in 1999, the group joined together the vocally astonishing Kat Maslich and the equally amazing Peter Adams. Both singers and writers had Southern backgrounds which can be clearly heard at some points in their album.
They only ever produced on album together under the name of their ‘band’ and which only came out in 2003, years after they had met and started working together. It remains to this day a perfect piece of music that unfortunately didn’t find any succession either by them continuing to work together or by either Adams or Maslich apart.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of videos that I could link here online, but you can listen to them on Last.fm or Pandora, their yahoo music site gives all the info you need. But if you trust me a little bit, then you’ll just go and buy the album. it’s worth it.

Not only are their texts of a particular clarity and a touching emotional expression, but their music has something timeless in it’s depths. Something that just can’t leave you cold. Something that can hardly be described other than that certain longing for completeness while valuing your own incompleteness.

I’ll leave you with one of the most amazing songs ever written: So are you to me.

Update:
Meanwhile, someone has put their version of Hard Times on Youtube: Enjoy.

My personal stress level and the one in my home has been on a constant high level the last couple of months. (To be honest, I can’t remember when it hasn’t been on a tense strain anymore.)

Apart from the usual problems that come with such a situation such as tense reactions, much less patience in everyday contacts, mental exhaustion (my reading subscriptions are piling up beside me) etc. there’s another thing that heightens the vicious cycle: isolation.

When we tend to throw ourselves into work, or tense work situations ask us to do it, then the first thing we’re cutting out on is the down time. Or rather the non-oriented down time.

Maybe this is just a typical intellectual’s problem, but having down time that is not itself filled with clearly denoted things such as reading something specific or watching something specific, is something that’s necessary. It’s the simple difference between a filled silence or relaxation and a true empty silence where silence suffices itself to a degree.

Meeting friends, just to meet them. Not to DO anything together, but just to be together for instance is one of those things where I surprised myself thinking ‘…but, what use is it…? We should be doing this or that…’

I find that automated train of thought of mine completely shocking, because I try to excel at the method of not finding a use or an intended goal in everything. Something that is so natural to our modern society. Sometimes just doing something for itself and without the knowledge of an immediate gain is much more important than actually achieving something on your to do list.

Why? Because we’re not defined by what we can achieve, but rather by what we can let go. Ultimately it’s only in those unplanned moments that the truly good things happen. Not because they’re better than the plan you made to achieve your degree or make your love happy, but because the unexpected and the unplanned is something the mind needs to even be able to project, plan and aim. If planning was all that was needed for a good life, a full life, then everyone could do it.

Be courageous and allow yourself the gap in planning, the silence in doing and the liberty to just… be.

Apart from one of my favourite Podcasts, the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast I satisfy my longing and dreams with quite a few folk and irish artists. Of course there are the well known ones such as Enya, Clannad, Loreena McKennitt or even Moya Brennan and Aiofé that quite often make it into the bill board charts – particularly around Christmas – there are some that offer a heartfelt new interpretation of the Irish theme to the lover of such music.

One name that is not so widely known is Kate Rusby. Even if The Guardian and other English Newspapers declared her the most well known folk singers of our times, outside of the UK barely anybody has ever heard of her.
And even if such well known names as John McCusker (who later became her husband) show the level of her work and brilliance in her tone and writing, outside of the folk scene, not one song of her was ever featured anywhere else but on the CD of the Sharpe Series.

Originally from South Yorkshire, born into a family of musicians as is the case with most folk singers or musicians, Rusby is a very discrete artist, again not unlike a lot of artists from this genre. But as Helen Brown wrote in the Daily Telegraph about Awkward Annie (her last album of 2007): Listening to Kate Rusby’s lovely new album, it occurred to me that she’s England’s answer to Dolly Parton. Not in terms of the wigs and the sequins, but in her quaveringly sincere ability to tell a simple, downhome story in a song and make your heart ache for it. No scandals, but so much talent.

The only song to ever make it into the official Chartsin 2006 was ‘All Over Again’ which featured Rusby beside Ronan Keating. A song he redid and resang with other female singers such as Foortje. (Read her biography on her official site from the first link on how much she liked that cooperation.)

After six studio albums and countless folk festivals, Rusby has never lost that spherical shine in her voice which comes naturally and without any superficiality through the headphones. Her music is something to be put on in the early hours of a Sunday morning when the fog hasn’t lifted and exposed the land below. When the idea of a fairy dancing around your garden, gracing it to flower, is not yet burnt away by the midday sun.

Edit: Again it’s impossible to get my RSS to show all the Youtube videos I embedded. So please, head over to the post site to get all the goodness.

Some of these artists deserve a bit more exposure and I thought that by sharing a few of the hidden gems I have waiting in my iTunes library with readers and friends, everyone could be served.

So, sit back and let yourself be inspired by artists and songs that you barely hear on any radio station or in any chart listing.

Madrugada

A group I discovered through my husband who in turn discovered them when he visited friends and working collegues in Norway. The band name is in fact misleading rather pointing to a Spanish dawn rather than Norwegian solid guitar rock with a voice to melt stones and rival with the best from Bryan Ferry to Nick Cave. After four studio albums and waiting for the big break in the US or across mainstream Europe, the band’s guitarist died under unknown circumstances in his flat… they finished their last record titled Madrugada nevertheless and all fans agree: it’s probably their best. Unfortunately it seems like it will also be their last. The group has split up and no notice of a reunion has been announced.
The first video was the first song I got to hear from them and I’ve been under their charm instantly. Melancholic, haunting and with texts as bold and poignant as they get.
In between Albums, they recorded a song for Ane Brun’s Duet album, another fine artist that will be featured here very soon.

Ane Brun and Madrugada

And finally, last year, after the sudden death of their guitarist, the group finished the album with the remaining artists and it is my favourite of them so far.
Listen to this to know what I mean:

Sivert Høyem’s voice holds so many colours, so many shades of emotions and the sound has a feel of something you’ve known for a long time… like your favourite sweater or cardigan, that wraps itself around your soul and heart and leaves no place for superficiality.

• Madrugada on Wikipedia
• Official Homepage
• Madrugada Lyrics

EDIT: RSS Subscribers, please read the original post on the blog to see and listen the embedded videos that apparently aren’t parsing properly here. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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