From Perfect Sound Forever:
“It is difficult to describe the music of Exuma. Many times, there is not much in the way of instrumentation; most of the songs are anchored around his singing and acoustic guitar playing. It is undeniably African-influenced, with much exotic percussion, but it is also grounded in Voodoo beliefs found in the West Indies. His guitar playing is solid, but not flashy. He once said in an
interview, “I only know a few chords, but I can stretch them out!” His greatest instrument was his voice. It was a thing of ragged beauty. Neither too high nor low, it compelled and beckoned, sounding as if he had experienced many things in many planes.

On the first album of Exuma (called Exuma, but subtitled “Fire”) you hear a wolf’s howl, acoustic guitar, bongos and bells. Then a gravelly voice sings:

“I came down on a lightning bolt
Nine months in my Mama’s belly.
When I was born, the midwife scream and shout,
I had fire crystals coming out of my mouth
I’m Exuma, I’m the Obeah Man!”

The lyrics get even more colorful after this, if you can believe it. He makes mention of walking with Charon (the ferryman at the River Styx) and Hector Hippolyte (artist and Voodoo priest). The backing vocals are dolorous and chant-like; there are bird calls and the whole affair ends with a sonic boom.

Then, the SECOND song starts up!

This was 1970. The Guess Who were angering certain people with their song, “American Woman”, which some took to be anti-patriotic, so one can only gather what the reaction to this album would have engendered among the same factions.

One track, “Seance in the Sixth Fret,” is exactly that; a seance. While “Black Mass” by Lucifer (Mort Garson) has a simulation of a seance on it, the listener can become detached, as the album is played entirely on synthesizer. This doesn’t feel simulated (there is musical backing, but the words are prose, not poetry), even if no dead people spoke to anyone involved with the record. He calls out the names of three deceased people and there are sound effects; not quite a field recording, nor does it have the feel of an Andy Hardy musical in which Mickey Rooney turns to Judy Garland, and says “Hey, let’s put on a seance!”

The illustrations on the album are also rather odd. An anguished face on the cover, the foldout picture features two white, silhouetted profiles looking in opposite directions, reminiscent of the Greek God Janus, with two wings behind it. The back cover features a butterfly, whose wings feature two sets of eyes, one set eerily reminiscent of the eyes of the anguished face on the front cover!

…

COURTESY JOSEPH M.!

‘Slowly but steadily, madness descended’

by Mark Oliver
The Guardian Thursday February 10, 2005

At one minute past midnight last night, Ikea’s new flagship store opened in north London, and managers expected that around 2,000 bargain-hunters would quietly file in. The British, after all, have a reputation for being decorous queuers.

But Ikea had not predicted that up to 6,000 people would descend on the new store, in Edmonton, with a stampede to get in resulting in a frightening crush.

Thousands had been lured by bargains Рsome of which were only available until 3am even though a 24-hour opening was planned Рsuch as 500 leather sofas for only £45. Cars were abandoned on the roadside as shoppers attempted to reach the store in time to secure the best offers.

Six people were taken to hospital, including a man in his 20s who was stabbed nearby at around 1.30am. He was said to be in a stable condition, and it was not clear whether the incident was related to the opening.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
~Buckminster Fuller

“Located in the Cathedral, the Great Stalacpipe Organ is the world’s largest musical instrument.
Stalactites covering 3 1/2 acres of the surrounding caverns produce tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets. This most unique, one-of-a-kind instrument was invented in 1954 by Mr. Leland W. Sprinkle of Springfield, Virginia, a mathematician and electronic scientist at the Pentagon. He began his monumental 3 year project by searching the vast chambers of the caverns selecting stalactites to precisely match a musical scale. Electronic mallets were wired throughout the caverns and connected to a large four-manual console. When a key is depressed, a tone occurs as the rubber-tipped plunger strikes the stalactite tuned to concert pitch.
“Today, the organ is played by activating an automated system which works in a manner similar to a child’s music box. The organ is also fully capable of being played manually from the console, as Leland Sprinkle did for many years.”

COURTESY PETER R.!

The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting, 1890-1985
Edited by Maurice Tuchman

Around 1910, groups of artists moved away from representational art toward abstraction, preferring symbolism. They made an effort to draw upon deeper and more varied levels of meaning, the most pervasive being spiritualism. This book demonstrates that the genesis and development of abstract art were inextricably tied to spiritual ideas current in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sixteen essays explore such topics as music, romanticism, mysticism, and the occult and their relationship to abstract art. Among the many artists discussed are Kandinsky, Munch, Redon, Arp, Klee, O’Keeffe, Mondrian, and Marsden Hartley.

1986, 436 pages, 523 illustrations (122 in full color), 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches.
Paper, ISBN: 0875871305

From Robert Fripp’s online diary:

In this morning’s e-box, a letter from Jason Elliot. Jason is the author of An Unexpected Light, on his journeying in Afghanistan. We [recently] discussed a building Jason has discovered in Persia (ie Iran) while researching his current book.

“A note on the theme of the monument I mentioned.

“This ‘discovery’, along with one or two others, fills me with a private kind of excitement, but I am not at all sure who I may be able to usefully share it with, or to what purpose.

“But in brief: in northern Iran stands a celebrated tower, built entirely from brick and dating from the twelfth century, which commemorates the rule of a local monarch. It is generally thought of as a sort of folly, and indeed rather resembles an English one, though it is far more ancient and generally held up as an architectural marvel and something of an anomaly, if not a work of genius. I attach a photo I took. But that is about all, conventionally. It is publicly accessible but, being empty inside, is not used for anything at present.

“However… even from the exterior, the configuration of the structure reveals an advanced understanding of acoustics. At a distinct point about twenty metres from the entrance, one’s voice is unmistakably reflected to one’s ears, as though amplified, in a most disturbing (to me!) fashion; and inside – well, yes, it’s empty, but what an emptiness! I’d often wondered, from a distance as it were, what the place might have been for. And last year, when I was visiting for the second time, out of curiosity I sang the lines from La Boheme when Rodolfo seizes Mimi’s freezing hand in the darkness… and it knocked my socks off.

“The sound generated was truly extraordinary. I might have been Pavarotti. My voice was taken upwards, swirled around, and returned, resonant and purified. I was with two friends; we froze on the spot. I had never heard such sound. It is very hard to describe; a real voice would have sounded heavenly. It really went into our bones, and left us stunned. Nothing I have heard came close to it. The latest digital mixer couldn’t have done a more sublime job. It dawned on me then that such acoustic genius could not have been accidentally created, and I am convinced that the building was used for musical sessions long ago. There is nothing inside but a circular stone platform at the base, where people used to sit; and suddenly it took on new meaning.

“So, my experience there confirms what I have encountered in writing about Iran and aspects of Persian culture; namely that in essence Persian music is all connected with the idea of Paradise and its intimations here on Earth; and they knew how to make you feel you’ve died and gone to Heaven. Until recently there was no such thing as ‘popular’ Persian music as this was confined to the (formerly) royal and intellectual elite. But to mention the very word ‘music’ is problematic in the sense of what music is designed to achieve, since we are mostly trained to think of music as a sort of recreation.

“Iranian music and poetry are closely allied; purely instrumental music is very specific, and, traditionally at least, all melodies are associated with the different seasons, human temperaments, and times of day or night. A kind of mathematical correspondence links these genres. You could say that in traditional music there are three fundamental variations: orderly melodic progressions; single note-centred music that orbits as it were around a single source and eventually returns to it; and astonishingly complex rythmic or arhythmic compositions designed to overwhelm the mind by their intensity. If I had another lifetime I would investigate the geometry of these tonal systems. Until virtually yesterday I believed there was only one: ie european diatonic…

“But the goal is all the same: to coax the soul into a state of longing for the Real.

“And it strikes me as likely that the building in question was used as a musical forum. The only comparable site I know personally is Thoronet Abbey near Provence, which demonstrates exceptional resonance. Such things are seldom accidental; but the European dimension has been competently investigated already.

“There is another structure in Isfahan where the elaborate, hollowed out spaces in the walls have been put forward as resonating chambers, again for royal musical sessions. The point is that the people of the era knew what they were doing.

“I am sure one day the tower’s acoustic/harmonic properties will be rediscovered, and people will flock there. But not quite yet. Meantime, everyone from Caruso to Sting can eat their hearts out because for a moment I sounded better than all of them………”