PeaceT(b)lo(g)

Second day of a short-in-the-middle week. Today I need something to relax. I need something like a song with a whispered voice, a guitar and nothing else. I need somthing poetic. I need something I could listen while working. I say I could just because I sent my speakers to the conference to play some audiovisual. Therefore I’ll be in my mute office till the end of this week and that’s it.

To satify my today’s musical wishes, here we go with some music from Nick Drake.

Sir Nicholas Rodney Drake was an English singer-songwriter and musician best known for his acoustic, autumnal songs. His primary instrument was the guitar, though he was also proficient at piano, clarinet, and saxophone.

If you read it carefully, I said he was a singer-songwriter, because he died just a few months before I as born and he was just 26 years old. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, he’s widely recognized to inspire several artists like Robert Smith, Paul Weller, Kate Bush and many others.

If his songs have been defines autumn songs, you will find a good reason for that in listening to the one I’m going to post, “River Man”:

Nice daily dreams.

Domenico

The week that is about to start is quite peculiar. This is due to different aspects. The IAEA General Conference officially starts today. Thursday is off for UN staffs but I can’t take the Friday off too.. therefore I’ll be pissed off and busy at the same time. Can’t you see how much I love the Monday morning. Especially Monday mornings like this one! That’s life.

Let’s cheer up with some good music from Carmen Consoli.

This Italian singer comes from Catania, Sicily. She’s one year younger than me but already published 10 albums. I’ve played guitar with a band where they sang some of her songs, I’ve been listening to her dreamy voice, been thinking when understanding her lyrics.

For me, she’s one of the two greatest Italian female-singers we have had since 10 years ago, Cristina Dona being the second one. Her voice’s inflexion has something that makes it so characteristic. The way she plays guitar and moves on stage during live shows is full of energy and she knows she can transmit that to you. And she does.

I had so many songs I’d have liked to post for you today. But I had to choose one, at least for this post. Then I chose “Autunno distratto”, from the album “Mediamente isterica”:

Domenico

Weekend. Finally it did arrive. Time to relax. Time to go out. Time to dance to the rhythm of the beat. Plan for the weekend: take a rest, go out, eat food from Puglia, buy some clothes, drink not so much coffee but some wine and alcohol for sure, maybe go to office on Sunday to prepare check that everything is fine with the installation for the next week’s General Conference. So many things and even more just in two and half days!

Let’s start the weekend in the right way by listening to the music of the Breakbeat Era.

This British project, aiming to combine the breakbeat talents of drum ‘n’ bass representatives like Roni Size and DJ Die with the vocals of singer Leonie Laws. Their most famous single, “Ultra-Obscene”, was released as an album under the same title in 1999. It was one of the first rock/pop/drum & bass fusion albums, a genre which artists like Kosheen also later explored.

I found the video for another song, “Re Spect”, that I’d like to share with you:

Bon weekend a tous les vous.

Domenico’

Do you have any idea on how many entries you can get if you type the word “Love” in the Youtube search engine??? I have some. The search engine shows pages and pages reporting 50 on each page where 50 is part of “millions” found videos. You can therefore imagine I spent some time to find a decent video representing the band we are going to talk about.

Today we talk about the Love.

This American rock group was pretty famous between the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were led by singer, songwriter and guitarist Arthur Lee and the group’s second songwriter, guitarist Bryan MacLean. One of the first racially diverse American pop bands, their music reflected different influences, combining elements of rock and roll, garage rock, folk and psychedelia. This band highly influenced artists like the Pink Floyd at the time they published the album “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”, or like Television Personalities, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Primal Scream!

I got their masterpiece “Forever Change” as a X-mas gift from my friend Giovanni Maraschino who has been always into the Psychedelic scene. The gift was reeeally appreciated and I listened to it for a certain time… then I got bored, as it happens with several things.

The video I found is for the song “My Little Red Book”. You can have an idea of the Love’s sound but they were much more than that:

Domenico

I missed to talk about a movie I watched last Monday. Gomorra. The movie taken from the homonym book describes only part of the Napoli we know. That’s true. Napoli is not just that but nevertheless, it’s also that. Our land has been exploited, our culture has been tortured, our people’s mind has been brainwashed. Violence. The culture of the winner, at any cost, without thinking about the consequences, without thinking at what will be, about what will happen. People living in places without alternatives. Essentially, I think I should thank God or whoever decided I was supposed not to be born there, but just a few kilometers away.

Today we talk about Mc Lucariello.

Luca Caiazzo, A.K.A. Mc Lucariello, is an Italian rapper from Napoli that started when he was 16-yrs-old composing rhymes and beats. He created the crew “Clan Vesuvio”, a project that lasted just one CD and that saw the collaboration of artists like Co’ Sang’. Since Raiz left the Almamegretta, he has been the official vocalist for that band but he also released his solo album “Quiet” (I have it and can borrow it).

Today we listen to the song he composed with Ezio Bosso. The song is “Cappotto di legno” (in Neapolitan slang, it means “coffin”) has been written to spot the light on the situation of Roberto Saviano (the author of the book Gomorra), who lives escorted since the book has the world wide success it deserves and the Camorra sentenced Saviano to die:

Domenico

Bonjour, mes amis. I’m back full of strenght and looking forward to the weekend. You would say… Already?! I would reply… why not!? By the way, today we listen to something that reminds me some days with the stereo playing in my room, in Naples, about 7 years ago.

Today we talk about Belle & Sebastian.

This indie pop band formed in Glasgow, Scotland about 12 years ago. They have been called the greatest Scottish band ever and are one of the most celebrated groups of the ’90s.

Belle & Sebastian are often compared to influential indie bands such as The Smiths, as well as classic rock acts such as “Love”, “Bob Dylan” and “Nick Drake”. The name Belle & Sebastian is inspired by Belle et Sébastien, a children’s book by French writer Cécile Aubry and also a cartoon with a shepard and the big dog that sometimes I watched when I was a child.

They play pop music and they really know how to do that. When I listened for the first time to the album “If you feeling Sinister” (one of the red-cover ones) I was delighted by their touchy sound. The covers for their CDs are always nice and with a full colored background, like all-yellow, all-green, all-red. Their big success came with the CD “The Boy with the Arab Strap”, that contains some memorable songs.

Today we will listen to the song “Step in to my office”. Watch the video, it’s funny. In the beginning it reflects the dream of most of the men (at least the ones that I know) and then it turns into an unexpected end:

Domenico

Back. From the long weekend I had in Switzerland. Pretty tired, therefore not able to spend much time today in looking for something special to start the week. On the contrary, I will go for something very easy.

That’s why today I post something from the band Mystery Jets.

The only things I can say about this band are: they’re four, they’re English, they play indie-rock music, I found them maybe 2 years ago on the “New Faces” area on a number of Rumore but never heard something from them until now.

I found a pretty easy song named “Young Love” and I’d like to share that with you:

Tomorrow I hope to be less tired and more incline in proposing something I know a little bit more.

Domenico