etnobofin

Beirut is a precociously clever young band (thanks to Nick at commontone.net for introducing me to them – hope you get your website back up soon mate!). Possibly one of the most precociously clever things they’ve done so far is get La Blogothèque to film all the songs from their second album Flying Club Cup, using continuous takes and a handheld camera.

All of the songs are on Youtube, and you also can view them on a dedicated site. As an artistic and marketing exercise, I think it’s a triumph. Apart from Beirut, there’s a whole bunch of other American music I’m discovering at the moment that I’m loving but I’ll save that enthusiasm for future posts.

Beirut albums are available on emusic.

In other news Laura Barton, the BBC’s director of pop music, writes in the Guardian and wonders if men are from The Mars Volta and women are from Venus and the Razorblades: does gender affect the way you relate to music? I think it’s a pile of rubbish. So does Lesley Douglas.

From the geopolitics desk, Diana Johnstone at Electric Politics deconstructs the independence of Kosovo and describes how the West has again rushed in where angels fear to tread.

And finally, if you ever get tired of Guitar Hero on Playstation, try the Berlin Philharmonic’s Cello Challenge. Pure genius (thanks to klari in Paris for the link).

I’m off travelling for week to stick RFID tags on teddy bears and look at space rockets. Back later.

James Brown – Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved
From Revolution Of The Mind: Live At The Apollo Vol. 3 [Buy]

Sunday’s Observer includes a feature by Ed Vulliamy telling the story of James Brown’s April 1968 concert at The Garden in Boston. It was the night after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

The city council decided at the last minute to televise the gig in a bid to prevent the sort of rioting that had hit many other cities across America following MLK’s death. It became a bona fide piece of pop (and American) history.

The article tells the full story, and it speaks to the power of James Brown at the time – not only as a performer, but as a symbol of black pride in the United States. I’ve been trying to think of any popular artists who have similar political and cultural clout today in the early 21st Century. (Any suggestions? Kanye? No, Bono does NOT count.)

At one moment in the concert, the stage was rushed by a group of kids, eager to shake Brown’s hand. As the police moved in, Brown refused their assistance, taking control of the situation himself. The events were broadcast live to the whole of Boston, and rather than scenes of police dragging black kids offstage, Bostonians watched James Brown’s horn section calmly persuade the stage invaders to return to the audience, so the concert could resume. JB told the crowd:

“You’re not being fair to yourselves or me either… now I asked the police to step back because I think I can get some respect from my own people. Now we together or we ain’t?”

Now THAT’s what I call crowd control.

There ain’t many performers, then or now, who could deliver political punch that was tight, compelling and totally funky like James Brown. Check Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved from Brown’s July 1971 engagement at the Apollo:

“We don’t need revolution / We got to have the Constitution”

A manifesto that would still work today. It could be Barack‘s perfect soundbite, if ever he wants to do a Public Enemy and sample JB on the campaign trail. It’s perhaps more powerful than Yes We Can , (a sincere and well-produced idea that will help get the kids out to vote, but it still tastes like another Live Aid style celebrity love-in).

P.S.

Staying with Boston and politics, matt has written a funny piece about John McCain’s daughter’s efforts as a blogger… she managed to pick the Ramones‘ most explicitly anti-Reagan song (Bonzo Goes to Biturg) for her Super Duper Tuesday playlist. Awesome.

Depiano – Gouvernement ya Congo
From Ngoma: Souvenir ya l’Indépendance [Buy]

Michael K. Nichols/National Geographic

Just finished Blood River by Tim Butcher – the story of his 2004 journey down the Congo River, retracing Stanley‘s 19th century expedition from Lake Tanganyika to the Atlantic.

Viewed from the developed world, Africa seems to have “trendy” crises, while other humanitarian disasters languish in obscurity and ignorance. The crisis of the present moment seems to be Darfur. In the 1980s it was Ethiopia. Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Somalia have sparked short-lived interest the western media, but these brief bursts of attention offer little lasting help to the people and nations concerned.

Africa’s problems are writ large in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Few people know (and I didn’t until I read this book) that the deadliest conflict since WW2 ended just 5 years ago – the Second Congo War killed 5.4 million between 1998 and 2003 through violence, disease and starvation. Butcher’s journey took place just a year after the war ended.

So Blood River is first of all classic story of adventurous (read: dangerous) travel. Given the war and steadily crumbling infrastructure of the Congo basin, Tim Butcher was very likely the first person to complete the trek overland across the DRC from East to West for a decade. Far more people have climbed Everest or reached the North Pole by foot in that time.

If Butcher had made his journey in the 1950s, it would have been a relatively comfortable trip via a network of riverboats and trains built by the Belgian colonial régime. But today the roads, railways and riverboats have virtually vanished. Kisangani, a city of half a million people is essentially cut off in middle of the rainforest, reliant on an airbridge and jungle footpaths for transport to the outside world.

Tim Butcher/Daily Telegraph

Butcher’s book also provides a good introduction to the often tragic history of the Congo, from Stanley’s barnstorming expedition, via rampant stripping of wealth and human lives by the Belgians and President Mobutu Sese Seko, through to the ethnic fighting and interference by neighbouring states that has marred the last decade.

Despite recent national elections and the presence of a UN mission, the quiet desperation continues for the DRC’s 60 million people, largely hidden from the eyes of the world. Average life expectancy is just 48, and while we buy iPods and surf the web, Congolese children are mining coltan by hand to support our technology habit.

Blood River pricked my conscience and made me want to learn more about this part of the world. Further excerpts and photos from the book are on the Daily Telegraph website.

Note on the music:
I discovered this track thanks to matt at benn loxo. It’s off a compilation of Congolese pop recorded in the early days of independence, before the nation imploded. The song mentions in respectful terms some of the early political leaders of the country, including President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, but not the first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who was arrested, executed and buried in the jungle in an operation apparently involving Belgian troops and the CIA.

Choir of Christ Church, Oxford – Kyrie: Deus creator omnium
From Taverner- Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas [Buy] [emusic]

A life of abstinence and simplicity seems a difficult thing to maintain… my resolution to give up alcohol for Lent lasted exactly 24 hours from Ash Wednesday until Thursday evening, thanks to an impromptu farewell gathering for a good colleague returning to New Zealand.

But the modest denial of a simple pleasure for 40 days (modest in my case, because – by English standards at least – I don’t drink often or much) pales in comparison to the lifetime of denial chosen by monks of the Carthusian order. Their strict code includes a vow of silence, reclusion from the outside world and a rigorous daily pattern of prayer, manual work and study.

Last night I watched Into Great Silence, the first documentary ever made about the Grande Chartreuse monastery, nestled in the Chartreuse massif north of Grenoble. It was filmed over six months by the German director Philip Gröning, who worked entirely on his own, sharing the same routine as the monks. (The monks are so reclusive that it took Gröning 16 years to gain permission to make the film).

The film is long – almost 3 hours – but it is engrossing despite the lack of any narrative and almost no dialogue. On screen, the monastery and its inhabitants create a universe that runs to rhythms utterly alien to the lives of most of us. We might even envy the simplicity of the monks’ routine as they pursue “the peace that the world cannot give”.

I was reminded a little of Tarkovsky‘s editing technique of “sculpting in time”- images and scenes are held for long periods, other shots are repeated in different contexts or from different angles. Stars rotate across the sky and seasons pass through the valley, and yet the routine of the monks remains constant and unswerving.

However, the silence is never absolute. The film is filled with the noise of daily activity and sounds of nature beyond the windows. Bells punctuate the movie just as they mark the lives of the monks. And the monks have a weekly “recreation” where they leave the monastery for a walk in the mountains, when they are permitted to speak to each other.

Perhaps the most haunting images are the portraits of the monks themselves, gazing down the barrel of the camera at several points during the film. Their expressions are inscrutable – we are forced to ask why these men have chosen to seek God through such a severe and demanding life: a life they accept with joy.

As with all humans, the ultimate spiritual motivations of the monks remain hidden from our view, knowable only unto their creator. But through the rhythms of Into Great Silence, we are offered an intimate and thought-provoking portayal of a way of living that has remained largely unchanged for a thousand years.

Varius Funkus – Get on the Beat
From S/T: [Available via email for 15.00 EUR]

Poitiers, new capital of French Funk?

When I was living in France in 2001, going clubbing meant stepping back to 1982. OK, this was in Mulhouse, hardly a trend-setting place, and I’ve heard the town described unfairly by other French people as “un trou“.

The uncontested hit du moment was Tomber la Chemise by Zebda – involving a lot of waving your shirts in the air at 2am. It’s a good thing that the song never made it to the anglo-saxon world and that nobody in 2001 had cameras in their cellphones.

Mulhouse – not the capital of French funk. But a nice town when you get to know it.

These experiences left the impression that fever for disco froth never quite died out in France. Indeed, discothèque is a French word. The ‘French touch‘ electronica that gained global prominence around the turn of the 21st Century reflected this continued fascination, and was exemplified of course by the success of Daft Punk. When their single One More Time came out in 2001, a provincial French city was surely the song’s true native context.

Varius Funkus is a band that proudly continues the funky theme in French pop. They hail from the unlikely city of Poitiers (famous previously for its university and the Futuroscope theme park), and offer a fine line in funk inspired by Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy’s Rubber Band.

The groups is led by guitarist/singer Cédric Morisseau, drummer Gwenael Drapeau and Manuel Gablain, a polymath trumpeter of some considerable talent. Varius Funkus is party music, it’s “on the one”, and their 12 track debut album Varius Funkus is so indie that foreigners can only order it by email…

Varius Funkus on myspace