New Friend is a five-part radio documentary by Bitsy Knox, exploring the context behind a series of photographs taken by the artist and experimental filmmaker, Barbara Hammer. The photographs were taken over one weekend in August 1973, on Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich, in the Salish Sea, in coastal British Columbia. This is the story of arrival, love, and politics, spanning 50 years.

New Friend was aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Radio in 2024.

Mixing and Mastering by Robert Steenkamer

Thank you to:

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Barbara Hammer Estate
Hornby Island Community Archives
Cashmere Radio, Berlin
96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio
KOW, Berlin
Company Gallery, New York City
All beings, human and more-than-human, of Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich, and its surrounding waters—where I am a part-time, uninvited guest on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

New Friend is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Barbara Hammer, “Aphrodite’s Birth, Hornby Island, British Columbia, 1972.”

Barbara Hammer, “Kissing, Hornby Island, British Columbia, 1972.”

Barbara Hammer, “New Friend and Terry, Hornby Island, British Columbia, 1970s.”

Barbara Hammer, “I’ve Got You, Hornby Island, British Columbia, 1975.”

Barbara Hammer, “Untitled III, Hornby Island, British Columbia, 1972.”

All photos courtesy of the Barbara Hammer Estate.

How we find words, and find them wanting: an inarticulacy, a circumlocution, a surfeit, a sanctuary.

1. You won’t hear much of me in this episode, but I’ve included details about each piece of music below.
2. Thank you as ever to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s Jingle.
3. The title of today’s episode comes from an opening line of Dionne Brand’s poem, Nomenclature for the Time Being. Her latest book of new and collected poems, Nomenclature can be found here.
4. Taha Muhammad Ali’s poem Revenge can be found here.
5. You can read Mahmoud Darwish’s poem “Identity Card” here.
6. Watch Simone Forti’s 2003 performance of “News Animations” at Bennington College (audio excerpts of which are aired in this episode) here.
7. 🇵🇸 Stop the bombardment of Gaza 🇵🇸

Ferkat Al Ard, Matar Al Sabah, Oghneya (Habibi Funk 019), 2022 (Habibi Funk Records, Berlin)

Issam Hajali’s trio Ferkat Al Ard, “Oghneya” was groundbreaking release from 1978 that represents the meeting point of Arab, jazz, folk and Brazilian styles with the talent of Ziad Rahbani, who did the albums arrangements. Here are the lyrics translated into English:

Morning rain, take me out again

To greet the city streets

And a handful of sand in my heart

I wasn’t sure of my path

When it was early rain

They wake up in the sleeping streets

They wake up in the sleeping streets

City prisoners

But the next dawn rain

It will be abundant

And it will run in the sand on my heart

And all the upper floors

All are the sins of the city

All are the sins of the city

All are the sins of the city

Recordings from 4.11 “Free Palestine will not be cancelled” Demonstration, Berlin

Max Roach, Triptych Prayer, Protest, Peace, We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite, 1961 (Candid)

This piece, which sits in the middle of the album, was originally composed as a musical score for an improvised ballet, and thematically links the history and legacy of US slavery to independence movements in several African nations. Abbey Lincoln is the vocalist on this piece.

Dionne Brand, Nomenclature for the Time Being, from Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems, 2022 (Duke University Press/Penguin Random House)

This is an excerpt of Brand’s poem Nomenclature for the Time Being, a poem to be found at the beginning of this collection, comprised of poems written over the course of forty years, and introduced by Christina Sharpe.

Maya Al-Khaldi, Samis Lullaby, Other World, 2022 (Tawleef, Palestine)

Maya Al-Khaldi is a Palestinian, Jerusalem-based artist, musician, and composer. This album imagines a future from the beginning point of Palestinian folklore. Here is the English translation of the lyrics:

ohhh to God, my loves, pray for Sami to be safe

God bless you, and seven camels to carry

Pistachios and hazelnuts, all for your teeth to come out

Sleep, your eyes are full of sleep

Like a sleepy deer, sleep under the shade of a sleepy tree

Sleep, your eyes are drowsy

May the eyes of the enemy be full of misery

He wants to sleep, he wants a lullaby

Like in the cradle of Maryam, and the covers are silk

Sleep, drift onto sleep, sleep, my love, Sami

Sleep, drift onto sleep, and listen to me,

Sleep, drift onto sleep, my love, Sami, sleep,

Take his pain away, sleep,

He loves with his big heart, Oh drift away

God bless you, my brother, sleep, close your eyes

May all your worries go away and guide your mind to slumber, close your eyes

May all your worries about the air, the land and the money, go way and go to

sleep with pleasure, my love, Sami, sleep, sleep sleep,

sleep with pleasure, my love, Sami, sleep, sleep

Linda Heck, Right, On Triangles: Sound In Geometry Series Vol. 1, 2018 (Thisco, Lisbon)

Linda Heck is a Sewanee/Memphis multimedia artist, musician, writer, and founder of Electric Arcadia.

Pablo’s Eye, Double Language, Spring Break, 2018 (Stroom)

Pablo’s Eye is an international collective, started in 1989 by the Brussels, Belgian musician Axel Limbeert.

Todd Fletcher, A Part of City, Entrance, 1989 (Poison Plant)

Todd Fletcher is a Washington DC musician who co-founded the Poison Plant label, releasing ambient and prog albums from 1988 on. He relocated to Arizona in 1992, continuing to release ambient music sporadically.

Taha Muhammad Ali & Peter Cole, Revenge, Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, 2006

Taha Muhammad Ali was one of the leading poets of Palestinian contemporary poetry. He was born in Saffuriya in 1931, and fled to Lebanon in 1948 with his family. A year later, he slipped back over the border and settled in Nazareth, where he died in 2011. This reading, with his long-time translator Peter Cole, was recorded in 2006 at the Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, New Jersey.

Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler, Wanabni, Wanabni, 2010 (Zig Zag Territories, France)

Palestinian singer and oud player Kamilya Jubran and Swiss musician Werner Hasler (trumpet, electronics) have been collaborating since 2002. This is their second recording together.

Muqata’a, Thakira Jamaiya, Inkanakuntu, 2018 (Souk Records)

Ramallah’s beat master Muqata’a’s Inkanakuntu was Souk Record’s first release. Thakira Jamaiya means “collective memory”. In Muquta’a’s words:

“The intro of “Thakira Jamay’iya” is from a Kuwaiti drumming of about 40 people and they have this crazy syncopation that happens and the repetition of their loop could reach something like 64 beats. You know how like a lot of western music its 4-4. There it can reach 1-64 and that’s one loop. I was fascinated by that and how it sounds so I sampled it.”

L’Rain, Sometimes, I Killed Your Dog, 2023

I Killed Your Dog is L’Rain’s, also known as Taja Cheek, third album.

Uwandile, Where it All Began, Apartheid, 1987

This album, by the South African musician Uwandile Piliso, was recorded in 1977 at the Decca Studios in Lagos (Nigeria). It was produced and backed by the Nigerian band T-Fire leaded by Themba Matebese. The album was later re-issued in 1987, at the height of Apartheid in South Africa.

Les Humphries Singers, Motherless Child, Les Humphries Singers, 1974

Les Humphries Singers were a roving group of singers from variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, formed in Hamburg, West Germany, in the early 1970s by Les Humphries. One member was Liz Mitchell, later the frontwoman of Boney M, the lead vocalist here. Motherless Child is a rendition of the classic Spiritual, which would become an anthem of the Civil Rights era, although probably first popularized by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, in the 1870s.

Mahmoud Darwish, Identity Card (1964), read by Souhad Zendah, at Harvard University, 2008.

Souhad Zendah, currently a Senior Lecturer at Tufts University in the Department of International Literary and Cultural Studies, reads Mahmoud Darwish’s “Identity Card” (“Record, I am an Arab”) in English and Arabic at Harvard University, September 18, 2008. This poem was subject to enormous controversy when it was first read on air on the Israeli Army Radio’s “University on the Air” programme. It was first published in the book Leaves of Olives, in 1964.

Neil Mills & Elaine Mills, Number Poem For Two Voices (Two Sections), Konkrete Canticle – Experiments In Disintegrating Language, 1971

This piece comes from a compilation album of rather obscure sound poetry, put out by the Arts Council of Great Britain.

KMRU, Solace, Peel, 2020 (Editions Mego)

KMRU is the moniker of Joseph Kamaru, a Berlin-Nairobi based producer and beacon of the experimental scenes of both cities, recorded in Rimpa, Nairobi.

Simone Forti, News Animations, performed at Bennington College, 2003

Simone Forti has been performing News Animations for the past 40 years. It is a piece inspired by her father, whose fastidious newspaper reading Forti credits with their decision to leave Mussolini’s Italy in 1938, saving them from persecution. This recording was made by Eccentric Motions and Pooh Kaye.

Yara Asmar, it is 5.00pm and nothing bad has happened to us (yet), synth waltzes and accordion laments, 2023

Released on October 6th 2023, this album is by the Beirut based musician and puppeteer Yara Asmar. She frequently plays with her grandmother’s accordion.

Girma Yifrashewa, The Shepard With the Flute, Love & Peace, 2014 (Unseen Worlds)

Born in Addis Ababa in 1967, Girma Yifrashewa’s life in music began with the Kirar, a harp-like traditional Ethiopian string instrument. At 16, he began to study piano, receiving a scholarship to study at Sofia State Conservatory of Music. After the fall of communism, he moved to Italy to continue his studies, then back to Sofia, and finally back to Ethiopia in 1995, where he taught piano at Yared School of Music until 2001. This piece was written and arranged by the late Professor Ashenafi Kebede (Amharic: አሸናፊ ከበደ; 1938 – May 8, 1998), who founded Yared School of Music, and was a revered composer, educator, writer, and musicologist.

Linda Sharrock, They Begin to Speak (Studio Part 3), They Begin to Speak, 2016

A collaboration principally between Mario Rechtern, Max Bogner, and Sharrock, this album arises following Sharrock’s stroke in 2009, and her subsequent loss of movement on one side of her body. Max Bogner describes the experience of collaboration thus in an interview with the Quietus:

“The visible frames of expression, our tongues and touching points we had before were shattered into raw pieces and we got plunged into a black sea with no vision nor direction minimized or in this actual sense raised to archaic instincts and just the most basic connectivity a human soul could ever feel. It was a complete and absolute explosion and defragmentation to our most inner parts. After we came back to the surface and from the cellar or Orpheus’ underworld I sat down and didn’t know what had happened or how I should feel about it. All my wishes of moving towards a more abstract realm in music were fulfilled in this hour and it was too much to take or rationalize but I was hooked. “From this point the core trio of Linda, Mario and me went on playing with an ever changing group of likeminded souls around us, people who can feel with us on this level of interconnection which basically leaves the terms of music behind and enters the ones of caring and human interaction, love, sacrifice, suffering, empathy, coining the term of ’empathoharmonics’ since it is not the music we play or our instruments or the structures but it is the (de-)/harmonising of our innermost and darkest motion, the shadow of our negativity, the reverberation of our souls.”

The pendulum swings, widely at first, until finding its centre. The pendulum, a motion of chaos, an oscillation between worlds and people.

Tracklist

The Weather (english language training video)
Oakland Elementary School Arkestra, Indecisive Weather, Big Music Little Musicians, 1994
Joren Hammudoglu, Lorenz System Attractor Music, 2018
Oscillation Circuit, Homme, Série Réflexion 1, 1984 (Sound Process)
Helen Ripley-Marshall, Green Chaos, Green Chaos, 1988 (Freefall)
Phương Dung – Đố ai, Băng Nhạc Sơn Ca 5 (Tiếng Hát Phương Dung),
Don Voegeli – Echoing Bells, Four Notes in Search of a Tune, 1973 (University of Wisconsin)
Tom Hayes, I’m Strange, Simon Sez – A Rock Opera, 1971 (Silver Crest Custom)
Haïti 2000, Métamorphoses Et Psychodrames Sur Le Theme De Complainte Paysanne, Tèt San Kò – La Nouvelle Musique Haitienne, 1980
Sarah Feldman, E/A, Grids EP, 2023
Sonic Youth, Pendulum Music, Goodbye 20th Century, 1999
Les Cértitudes, Part V (extract) Construire sur les ruines d’un passé encore fumant, 2023
Peter Mummé, Veronica Takes a Bath, Veronica Takes a Bath, 1986 (Phon’m)
György Ligeti, Poème Symphonique for 100 Metronomes performed by Frangoise Terrioux, 1962 (performed here in 1997)
Joan Brooks, The Letter, The Long and Winding Road, 1970
Suzanne Ciani Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Closed Circuit, Synergy 2016
Ellen Zweig, Network of Letters, Fiction of the Physical, 2023
Salenta + Topu, Woman Reading a Letter, Moon Set, Moon Rise, 2023
David Darling & The Wulu Banan, Pasibutbut, Mudanin Kata, 2004
Wandjuk Marika ‎ Wandjuk Marika In Port Moresby – Didjeridu Solo, 1977
Riad Awwad, Hanan Awwad and Mahmoud Darwish, When We Meet Again, The Intifada 1987, 2021

Remember when Summers felt impossibly long, or were they impossibly short, bringing with them all of the anxiety and excitement, embarrassment and lust, boredom and anticipation of beginnings?

Tracklist

Jeannette, Oyé Mama, Oyé Papa, Soy Rebelde, 1971
Myra Davies, Worm, Cities and Girls, 2008
Celine Gillain, Together, Mind is Mud, 2023 (cortizona)
Albert Ayler, Again Comes the Rising Sun, The Last Album, 1970 (Impulse!)
Ka Baird, Tok Tru, Sapropelic Pycnic, 2017 (Drag City)
Mu: Pradʒékt*, Mi Na Penda Sana Uya, Asia Dream, 1985
Björk, Venus as a Boy (Harpsichord version), 1993
Darlene, Ranum Kamaishe Ghar, DON’T LOVE YOU BUT WANT TO, July 2023
Chantal Michelle, Night Blindness, Night Blindness, 2021
Night Swimmer, Silver Flying, Xia Ye, 2022
Susumu Yokota, Song of the Sleeping Forest, Symbol, 2005 (Lo Recordings)
Lou Blic – Minéralité, Uneven Paths: Deviant Pop From Europe 1980​-​1991, 2018
Tomoki Kanda, Moodswings to the Moon, Interstellar Interlude, 2012 (Crue-L Records)
Xiao Yun, Purple Garden 紫楽園, Purple Garden, 1994 (reissued in 2023 by EM records)
Dania, Spectral, Foreign Body, 2023
Tomoki Kanda, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Interstellar Interlude, 2012 (Crue-L Records)
Ben Shemie, The Mirror, Desidirata, 2022
The Oakland Elementary School Arkestra, Ripple, The Thornhill Sound, 2018 (Sundazed Music release)
Horace Tapscott Conducting The Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, Quagmire Manor At Five A.M., The Call, 1978
The Oakland Elementary School Arkestra, The Tailgater (with Tyrone Hill), The Thornhill Sound, 2018
Arthur Russell, In the Light of a Miracle, Picture of Bunny Rabbit, 2023
Orchestra Of The Eighth Day, Dancing In The Wind, At the Last Gate, 1984
Caetano Veloso, You Don’t Know Me, Transa, 1972

My friend Lau once told me, “dust is the last thing”. Everything turns to dust eventually. It’s the last step. Perhaps it’s an afterlife, hovering energy carried by the wind into the atmosphere, anticipating the moment when the smallest breath of water vapour will form around it, carrying it downwards to fertilize the earth. From this parched place, we’ll be thinking about prediction, patterns, and invocations.

1. Thank you as always to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingle.
2. Thank you to Julian Talamantez Brolaski for generously allowing Something Like to play its poem if i could i surely would. Thank you too to Haus für Poesie/Lyrikline for the recording of Julian’s if i could i surely would. Julian Talamantez Brolaski is a poet and country musician. Its forthcoming album It’s Okay Honey is coming out on August 4th this year. You can listen to the singles No More Lonesome Heartaches on Spotify, Youtube, or Apple Music.

Tracklist

Chuck Senrick, It’s Alright, Dreamin’, 1976/re-issued in 2017
Lia Kohl, First Picture of the Weather Pattern, Too Small to be a Plain, 2022
Bobby McFerrin, Kolo, Kolo, Kolo, Jack Nicholson, Bobby McFerrin – The Elephant’s Child, 1987
Judith Hamann, Down to Dust (Excerpt, 2018, composed by Anthony Pateras), Music for Cello and Humming, 2019
H.Takahashi, Dust, Low Power, 2018
Gia Margaret, Ash, Mia Gargaret, 2020
Julian Talamentez Brolaski, if I could I surely would
“Blue” Gene Tyranny, The Forecaster Hopes (2019), Degrees Of Freedom Found, 2021
Ellen Zweig, If Archimedes, Fiction of the Physical, 2023
Alva Noto / William Basinski / Martin L. Gore – Subterraneans, 2023
Ka Baird, Heaven and Hell (by Dorothy Ashby), Bespires, 2020
Bendik Giske, Rush, Bendik Giske, 2023
Sally Barker, Chains, The Rhythm is Mine, 1990
Salenta + Topu, Jour de Pluie, Moon Set, Moon Rise, 2023
Hildegard Westerkamp, Talking Rain, Harangue I, 1998
Leo Svirsky, Rain, Rivers, Forest, Corn, Wind, Sand, River Without Banks, 2019
The Growth Eternal, III. Rain Song for Five Bass Guitars, Bass Tone Paintings, 2020
A.C. Marias, There’s a Scent of Rain in the Air, One of Our Girls Has Gone Missing, 1989
Hiroshi Yoshimura, Wet Land, 1993
Buffy Sainte-Marie, For Free, Quiet Places, 1973

Little Triumph: making soup for the week. Little Disaster: Discovering the jeans you found at the thrift store smell like cat pee when it rains. This month’s episode of Something Like is dedicated to the little highs and the little lows, and all of their brief moments ecstasy and embarrassment, pride and self-pity.

But really, why does everything need to be so expensive? I want to believe in a better world, I really do.

1. As always, thank you to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingle.

Tracklist

The Sounds of Syanon, Syanon Choir, Arise, Shine, The Prince of Peace: A Rock Jazz Cantata, 1969
Alogte Oho and his Sounds of Joy, Mam Yinne Wa, Mam Yinne Wa, 2019
Jean-Baptiste Lully, Triomphe de L’Amour (Prélude Pour le Nuit), 1681
Grant Chapman, Flourish, Memory Card, 2021
Gunnar Gunnsteinsson, I Believe in a Better World, Gunnar Gunnsteinsson – A Janitor’s Manifesto, 2023
Sabiwa, Christal, Island no​.​16 – Memories of Future Landscapes, 2023
Nate Scheible, Our Doubts are Traitors, Fairfax, 2022
Ara Tokatlian / Enrique Villegas / Guillermo Bordarampé, Camino A Samarkanda – Inspiración / In Memoriam, 1975 (reissued 2009)
Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for First Choir, Like a Ship, Like a Ship (Without a Sail), 2017
Ebony Jet – Satellite of Love, Blacklips Bar: Androgyns and Deviants — Industrial Romance for Bruised and Battered Angels, 1992–1995, 2023
Takashi Kokubo & Andrea Esperti, Gaia’s Love Theme, Music For A Cosmic Garden, 2023
Annea Lockwood, For Ruth, Tête-à-tête, 2023
Omma, Messages, Doma, 2020
Ayana Contreros, Keepsake (Demo), 2023
Roger 3000, Reste en Vie, Reste Envie, 2023
Angel Bat Dawid, INTROIT, Joy’n’Suff’rin, Requiem for Jazz, 2023
Briana Marela, Silver Tongue, You Are a Wave, 2022
Anja Ngozi feat. James Mollison, Burna Close, rhygin, 2022
椰子の岸辺 Goro Ohmi, 椰子の岸辺 yashi no kisibe (palm shore), 虹神殿 Niji Sinden, 1983
Dennis Brown, Things in Life, Hold Tight, 1986

Tracklist

Masahiro Takahashi, Back to the West, Humid Sun, 2023
The Pyramids, Birth Speed Merging Pt.1, Birth / Speed / Merging, 1976 (reissued by Idris Ackamoor in 2022)
Sarah Webster Fabio, My Own Thing, Soul Ain’t, Soul Is, 1973
DaYe 大叶, Dì 地, EP1, 2022
Andrew Thomas Wilson – Beginning, Carnarvon Rain Forest, 1984
Breathing – Piotr Kurek, Peach Blossom, 2023
Suso Saiz, Changes And Reality, Resonant Bodies, 2022
Angel Bat Dawid, TUBA MIRUM- The Changes, Requiem for Jazz, 2023
Nyokabi Kariuki, Folds, Feeling Body, 2023
Karin Krog, Just Holding On, Don’t Just Sing: A Karin Krog Anthology 1963-1999, 2015
Sublyme Diagonal & Roger 3000, Somos, Bulyon, 2023
Fatima KwAkE, I.D CanAlterRareDiscriptionS, Síbin Vol. 1, 2023
Ted Greenwald, Whiff, 1979
Bobby McFerrin, The Elephant’s Child Lullaby, The Elephant’s Child, with Jack Nicholson, 1987
Last Movement Of Hope, Benjamin Clementine, And I Have Been, 2022
Meredith Monk, Change, Key, 1971
Terry Riley, Journey From The Death Of A Friend, Les Yeux Fermés/Lifespan, 2007
Phase 1, 2, 3, 4 Sunny Murray, Sunny Murray, 1966

Shortly before the advent of 2023, I pulled the same Tarot card, always reversed, three times. It was the Three of Cups. The first time, it was greeted by a foreboding chorus of uh-oh’s. The second time, a borrowed cat chose it for me. The third time, I knew it was coming, and had prepared myself to answer to the image: Wounds become scars, and scars tell stories of adventure.

On New Year’s Day, I read Alice Notley’s The Prophet, (1979), which starts with, “They say there is a dying star which is traveling in two directions. / Don’t brood over how you may have behaved last night. If you / Can’t remember that much about it, don’t ask anyone else about it / Except a little, in case you were wonderful in your abandon. / Don’t gloat if you were wonderful, for you have a hangover, ass, / Soon you’ll be old and you will still be this childish. . .

This episode celebrates reading and listening to music, with offerings in mind.

1. I begin with Renee Gladman, The Eleven Calamities, Calamities, 2016 (Wave Books)
2. Then CAConrad, Painted Pigeon Project, (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, 2014 (Wave Books)
3. Bernadette Mayer reads The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica (1968) at a poetry reading in 2019
4. Bhanu Kapil reads Poem Seven from How to Wash a Heart, 2020 (Liverpool University Press) on the occasion of winning the TS Eliot Prize
5. I then read Asiya Wadud, Anything is Light when it Bears it Heavy: Etching a Name onto a Malleable Surface from New Weathers, Poetics from the Naropa Archive, ed. Anne Waldman and Emma Gomis, 2022 (Nightboat)
6. Finally, I read Alice Notley, The Prophet (1979) from Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970-2005, 2006 (Wesleyan University Press)
7. As ever, thank you to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s theme music.

Tracklist

Pharoah Sanders, Greeting to Saud (Brother McCoy Tyner), Elevation, 1973 (Impulse!)
Choices, Nikki Giovanni, Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day, 1978
Kahil El’Zabar Quartet, A Time for Healing, A Time for Healing, 2022
Bitsy reading: Renee Gladman, The Eleven Calamities, 2016 (Wave Books)
Midori Takada, Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter, Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter, 2022
Bitsy reading: CAConrad, Painted Pigeon Project, (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness, 2014, Wave Books
Bernadette Mayer reading her The Way to Keep Going in Antarctica in 2019
Wadada Leo Smith / Douglas R. Ewart / Mike Reed. Unknown Forces, Sun Beans of Shimmering Light, 2021
Bhanu Kapil reading Poem Seven from How to Wash a Heart (TS Eliot Prize), 2020
Aline Bouvy, Splendeur et Décadence des Sirènes, 2022
Valentina Goncharova, Return to the Ocean, Ocean – Symphony for Electric Violin and other instruments in 10+ parts, 2021
Bitsy reading: Asiya Wadud, Anything is Light when it Bares it Heaven, Etching a Name onto a Malleable Surface, New Weathers, Poetics from the Naropa Archive, 2022 (Nightboat)
Helen Thorington, Terra dell’Immaginazione, Real to Reel, 2019
Bitsy reading: Alice Notley, The Prophet (1979), Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970-2005, 2006 (Wesleyan University Press)
Three Pastorals, Autumn Fair, 2022 (Recital 10th anniversary project)
Max Meaza, Complicated Life, West Coast Hotel, 2006

Here we are at the end of another year, predictably in its vortex.

How is time marked? Could we mark time by folding time—a repetitive act, of traversing the same road, always in pursuit of observing new details? Perhaps, like the three-headed Chimera, to fold time is to swing one’s heads to face each other, greeting the past as we turn from the future, kissing the future as we’re spooned by the past.

This is Something Like’s 50th episode, and surely that’s something of a milestone, a jubilee, right? Halfway to a hundred, the paper folded, still small, not yet open. More space to write.

1. As always, thank you to Julien Meert (Roger 3000) for providing Something Like with its jingles.
2. This will be the last episode of the year, so I wanted to say Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and everything else!

Tracklist

Nancy Mounir (with Naima El Masreya), Taala Ya Shater, Nozhet El Nofous

Side D, Peter Brötzmann/Milford Graves/William Parker, Historic Music Past Tense Future, 2022

Itoh Masyitoh & Rineka Swara – Malati Dina Imutna, Noan Mangina, 1980

Aylu, Lilla, Profondo Rosa, 2022

James Newton, Arkansas Suite, Flute Music, 1977

Tutorial, Mikrokosmos, Another Time, This Time, One Time, 2019

Tapiwa Svosve, Side A, A lung in a horn in a horn, 2022

Sun Ra and his Arkestra, The Moors (Moorish Nights), June Tyson: Saturnian Queen of the Sun Ra Arkestra, 2019

Duval Timothy (feat. Yu Su), Wood, Meeting with a Judas Tree, 2022

I-sef u-sef, consistency, consistency, 2022

Holy 21st Century – Anne Waldman & Brendan Haskins, Going Vocal, 2018

Alice Coltrane, Going Home, Lord of Lords, 1972

Miriam Makeba & Dollar Brand Quartet – Ityala Madoda (Live at Berliner Philharmonic 11.03.1978), 2018

Ishmael Reed, Anniversary Song for Carla, Hands of Grace 2022

Helen Thorington – Blauvelt Mountain, 2003

There are about 37.2 trillion cells in the human body, and we share our bodies with 39 trillion microbial cells. To quote the artist and writer Steffani Jemison, “where does your body end and the world begin?” Are we ever really alone? This is an episode about the multitudes in and around us—their collaborations, interconnections, and chatter.

1. Thank you as ever to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingle
2. Check out Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions, 2013) here.
3. Check out Steffani Jemison’s debut experimental novella A Rock, A River, A Street (Primary Information, 2022) here. An excerpt is read by Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro, who is also the copy editor of this book.
4. Annie Ernaux’s interview with the White Review can be found here.

Tracklist

民藝復興 Endeavour, Mystics, 極樂 (Elysium), 1992
Blue Gene Tyranny, We All Watch the Sun and the Moon (for a Moment of Insight) [Live at Cooper Union, New York, May 8, 1992], Degrees of Freedom Found, 2021
Duval Timothy, Mutate, 2022
Minicomponente, Casa de Higos, In, Tu, 2018
Doris Dennison, Land Form, Earth Interval I, 2022
Ana Roxanne, I’m Every Sparkly Woman, ~~~, 2019
Dominic Voz, Right to the City I, Right to the City, 2022
Interior, Shadows of You, Design, 1987
Virginia Astley, From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, 1983
Aylu, D’Oro, Profondo Rosa, 2022
Delphine Dora, L’utopie du renouveau (feat. Le fruit vert, Adam Cadell, Valérie Leclercq), L’inattingible, 2020
Leena Lee & Vania Fortuna, Niebla, Niebla, 2022
Sessa, Você É a Música, Estrela Acesa, 2022
Steffani Jemison, A Rock, A River, a Street (excerpt, p 102), Primary Information, 2022, read by Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro
Wadada Leo Smith / Douglas R. Ewart / Mike Reed, Sun Beams of Shimmering Light, Sun Beams of Shimmering Light, 2022
Feminist Improvising Group – Reykjavík (19th November 78, Part 1), Feminist Improvising Group, 1979
Frères de Keur Moussa, Le Seigneur nous offre sa bienveillance,MARDI – Prière du Matin : Laudes – Antienne “Le Seigneur nous offre sa bienveillance” et Cantique de Zacharie · Choeur des Moines de l’abbaye de Keur Moussa au Sénégal, 2014
Dominic Voz, Right to the City II, Right to the City, 2022
Weyes Blood, It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, 2022

What is it to feel potential unfold around us? What are the sensations of possibility? What should we expect? In this episode of Something Like, we’ll take a page from the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and explore the precipice of actuality, potentiality, and its misunderstood sister, impotentiality. Failure, success; let it in, let it out, let it go.

• As always, thanks to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingle
• Giorgio Agamben’s Potentialities (Stanford University Press, 1999) is available here to read for free.
• I also read from Inger Christensen’s Alphabet, translated by Susanna Nied (New Directions, 2000), which is available to buy here.

Tracklist

Elkie Brooks, Pearl’s a Singer, Two Days Away, 1977

Swami Kriya Ramananda, City Indigo, Hymn to a New Age, 1981

Orlando Gibbons, What is Our Life, 1612 (performed by the Cambridge Taverner Choir)

John Luther Adams, Four Thousand Holes, 2010

Tiziana Simona (feat. Kenny Wheeler), Kind Folk, Gigolo, 1986

Celia Shepard and Benny Powell, Ceah the Wizard, Video Arts Music, 1987

Zeena Parkins – The Butcher Shop. Dawn. Amalia Is Alone. She Sings Her Thoughts About The Universe, The Opium War, 1999

Toshiyuki Tsuchitori and Ryuichi Sakamoto ‎- Musique Differencielle 1, ディスアポイントメント・ハテルマ, Disappointment-Hateruma, 1976

Luka Aron, Divisions of the Field, Tinctures, 2022

Lindsay Cooper, Uncertainty Principle, Out of Nowhere, Schrödinger’s Cat, 1991

Amirtha Kidambi & Lea Bertucci, Siren Call, End of Softness, 2020

Björk, Allow, Fossora, 2022

Baikida E.J. Carroll, Orange Fish Tears, Orange Fish Tears, 1974

OHYUNG, Symphonies Sweeping, imagine naked! 2022

Patricia Wolf, A Conversation with my Innocence, See-Through, 2021

Sarah Vaughn, Rainy Days and Mondays, Live in Japan, 1975

Montgomery and Turner, Circumstances 2, Sounds Passing Through Circumstances, 2021

Sam Waymon, You’ve Got To Learn To Let it Go, Ganja & Hess soundtrack, 1973

The sound of summer, a drone, a noise, and annoyance, an immortal being: the cicada has me hissing in a late day requiem to Summer.

• Thanks as always to Roger 3000 for providing Something Like’s jingle.
• Special thanks to Harkeerat Mangat for his invaluable thoughts and wisdom in relation to Dhrupad, Raga, and Indian Classical Music in general.
• The book Harkeerat mentions and I read from is Amit Chaudhuri’s Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music.

Tracklist

Albro T. Gaul – Cicada Song, Sounds of Insects, 1960

Lars Erickson, Cicada, Time Circles, 1989

Simone, Cigarra, Cigarra, 1978

Oman and Shanti, Emergence, Celestial Odyssey, 1985

Dialect, Under ~ Between, Under ~ Between, 2021

Maria Monti, Il Letargo, Il Bestiario, 2012

Cassandra Miller, O Zomer!, O Zomer, 2018

Villagers From Xiaohuang Village, The Song Of Cicadas In May = 五月禅歌, Folk Songs Of The Dong, Gelao and Yao Peoples, 2021

Black Unity Trio, Birth, Life, Death, Al-Fatihah, 1969

María Elena Walsh, Como La Cigarra, Como La Cigarra, 1973

Ustad Amir Khan, Raga Marwa, 1960

Pauline Oliveros, David Rothenberg, Timothy Hill, Arc Hive, Cicada Dream Band, 2014

Sam Gendel, Cicada Duo, Cicada Lite (Live in Texas), 2022t

Call Of The Cicada (Utom Udel Kuleng Helef), Utom: Summoning The Spirit (Music In The T’boli Heartland), 1997

David Rothenberg, Magicicada Warm Springs, Bug Music, 2013

Sarah Davachi, Hours in the Evening, Let Night Come on Bells End the Day, 2018

Walter de Maria, Cricket Music (1964), Drums and Nature, 2000

James Edward Greeley, Hakomi (Hopi) – Where are you?, Before America, 2017.

Graciela Paraskevaídis, E Desidero Solo Colori, Dantas Leite* / Mendes* / Paraskevaídis* – La Voz, La Palabra, 1978

Jean Roché and Jean Thévenet, Marécages D’Irian-Jaya, Mars 1997, En Fin D’Après-Midi. Sauterelles, Courtilières Et Cigales. Concert En 2 Parties, La Seconde Plus Près Du Ruisseau, Avec Des Chants De Grenouilles / Irian-Jaya Marshes, New Guinea, March 1997, Late Afternoon. Crickets, Mole-Crickets And Cicadas. A Two Part Concert, The Second Close To A Stream, With The Song Of Frogs, Cidadas and Crickets, 2009

The Intervening Mind considers the effect of intrapersonal communication, or inner speech, on attention. The nature of inner speech is that it is multitudinous, a polyphonic (and possibly incoherent) interweaving dialogue between one’s inner thoughts and the exterior world. It’s integral to emotional processing, decision-making, and the formation of memory, but it can act as a distracting force. Inner speech can interfere with your ability to concentrate on what you’re reading, or what another person is saying. We’ll dive into the role inner speech plays in our understanding of time unfolding, of focus, and of the fallacy of multitasking.

• This episode of Something Like was made on the occasion of Intimate Connections, streaming in-situ in the Resonance Room at Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, part of the exhibition YOYI, Repair, Care, Heal. 

Tracklist

Robert Beatty, Side A, Breathing Meditation

Gia Margaret, No Sleep No Dream, Mia Gargaret, 2020

Junichi Kamiyama (神山純一), 水色の幻想 (Illusions Of Blue), Aqualy Dew (水の音楽), 1993

Dewa Alit & Gamelan Salukat, Likad, Chasing the Phantom, 2022

Samuel Beckett, Not I, performed by Billie Whitelaw, 1973

Tonto’s Expanding Head Band, Aurora, Zero Time, 1971

Arca (Laurie Anderson Remix), Big Science, 2022

Joan La Barbara / Melody Sumner Carnahan, de Profundis: Out of the Depths, a Sign, The Time Is Now. 1997

Nina Guo, songs from blauch räusch [UT004], 2021

Jasmina Al-Qaisi, Talking Just to Hear Yourself, 2020

Edgard Varèse, Tuning Up, 1998

Andy Bey, You Should’ve Seen the Way, Experience & Judgment, 1973

Tracklist

W.A. Mathieu, Walking, The Listening Book and The Musical Life, 2008

Felicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, OL, Comme un Seul Narcisse 2016

Angel Bat Dawid, Harkening Etudes, 2021

Simone Forti, Night Walk, Al Di La, 2018 (Saltern Records, LA)

Kate NV, Walk, Bouquet, 2022

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Mindimooyenh, Noopiming Sessions, 2020

Chloe Alexandra Thompson, Walks/Flowers, Moiré, 2021

Mary Krstic, Potwisha, Break the Chains, 1979

Los Dinámicos Exciters – Cuando Llegue A Phoenix, Lo Mejor De Los Dinámicos Exciters

Dylan Henner, Children Were Climbing the Old Tree in the Park, Flues of Forgotten Sands, 2022

Everything Play, 田舎暮らしの夢見人 (Country Dreamer), Everything Play, 1992

Sopa de Pedra, Claro – I Verão II Corpo III Fonte, Do Claro Ao Breu, 2022

Laura Nyro, Stoned Soul Picnic (Demo Version), Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (Expanded Edition), 1968 (remastered in 2002)

Blue Lake, Shoots, Stikling, 2022

Eddie Chacon, Outside (Laraaji remix), 2020

Claire Rousay, everything perfect is already here, everything perfect is already here, 2022

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee (Polymnia / Sacred Poetry), 1982

Linton Kwesi Johnson, Poem of Shape and Motion, More Time, 1998

A meta-mid-life-crisis maybe. Something Like That, or Something Like that goes searching for permutations of adjacency and in-articulation, watching mouth-agape as parallel worlds open in front of us in a call and response with our own. Or something like that. Moans, prophecies, New Age bedroom jams, UFOs, and a letter home await.

Tracklist

Antonio Smith, Magia de Ser, Ven, seamos más…, 1974

W.A. Mathieu, Turning Point, In the Wind, 1983

Cktrl, May, Rhythm Section Presents Shouts, 2021

Leslie Winer & Maxwell Sterling, Once I Was, 2022

Sault, Time is Precious, Air, 2022

Julius Eastman, Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan D’Arc (1981), Unjust Malaise, 2005

India Gailey, koʻu inoa (by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti), to you through, 2022

Sosana Gebre Eyesus, ስቀለው እያሉ – Seqelew Eyalu, Sosana Gebre Eyesus, 2018

Blue Gene Tyranny, Time Transposing Pianist (A Letter from Home, vertical version) [Live at Roulette, New York, March 27, 1992], Degrees of Freedom Found, 2021

Prince Nifty, Commentary on Dream III – Anti-Gravity, Interplanetary Machines, 2022

Arushi Jain, Richer than Blood, Under the Lilac Sky, 2021

Ami Dang, Raiments, Parted Plains, 2019

Synthesis, I Am That I Am, Planetary Peace, 2016

カルメン・マキ [Carmen Maki] – 本能 [Honnou (Instinct)], Adam and Eve [アダムとイヴ (Adamu To Ibu)], 1969

Kellee Patterson, Be All Your Own, Maiden Voyage, 1973

Blue Gene Tyranny, That Then, Now This (Live at Merkin Hall, New York, April 1, 1991), Degrees of Freedom Found, 2021

Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings, Untitled, Nodal Excitation, 1982

Howie Lee / Fishdoll, 慢化无, Howie Lee & Fishdoll – 慢化无／飞夜种, 2018

Shakali, Ad Astra, Aurinkopari, 2022

Cecil McBee, Into a Fantasy, Flying Out, 1982

Sun Ra & His Arkestra, That’s How I Feel, Lanquidity, 1978 (reissued 2014)

“Blue” Gene Tyranny, A Letter from Home, the basic chords, improvisation for one pianist (Live at Roulette, New York, December 1, 2004), Degrees of Freedom Found, 2021

Something Like That, That, Something’s Happening, 2022

It turns out, an indoor coil is the component of an air conditioner that sucks the heat out of the room. This episode of Something Like wants to reverse that process. If home is a state of mind, then maybe your apartment is an extension of your mind, maybe you’re in a relationship with your apartment, maybe you’re in a ritual with your apartment. These are declarations of inside love.

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle comes from Roger 3000
• I read from Part 2 of Midwinter Day, by Bernadette Mayer. You can listen to more about the process of writing this book on the excellent podcast, Commonplace, with Rachel Zucker.

Tracklist

Takashi Kokubo (小久保隆) – Corridor Music (回廊の音楽), Digital Soundology #1, Volk Von Bauhaus (20th anniversary reissue), late 1980s

Eartha Kitt, Chez Moi, EP, 1965

Roger 3000, Entrée, Reste En Vie, 2022 (futura resistenza)

Howie Lee, Door of Aspiration, Birdy Island, 2021

Toshio Tanioka and Tom & Jerry’s, Kamakura, 人間であること (Human Being), 1973

Alice Notley, A Woman Comes into the Room, 1979

Jeff Majors, Room 400, Yoka Boka (For Us All), 2018 (originally a 1986 private-press)

Bernadette Mayer, Midwinter Day (Part Two excerpt), 1982

Entourage Music & Theater Ensemble, Days/ Percussion Solo/King’s Birdcage, The Mermaid’s Purse: Live at Chatham College, 1976 (Smithsonian Folkways reissue 2022)

Tara Clerkin Trio, In the Room, Tara Clerkin Trio, 2019

Trilby’s Couch, AC Marias, One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing), 1989

Panxing, Small Worlds, Slowmusic, 2021

Interior, River, Design, 1987

冥丁 Meitei, 骨董 (Antiques), Kwaidan 怪談, 2018

Tiziana La Melia/Ellis Sam, Marseille Cat, Kletic Kink, 2020,

Nikki Giovanni, My House, The Way I Feel, 1975

Nala Sinephro, Space 8, Space 1.8, 2021

Bea1991, Don’t Touch My Freedom, Brand New Adult, 2019

Annabel Lamb, Take Me In Your Arms, Once Bitten, 1983

Anadol, Gizli Duygular, Felicita, 2022

Ichiko Hashimoto, Ballet, Sounds From The Music Interior (The Music Interior Sampler), 1985 (originally Ichiko, 1984)

Jane, I Slap My Belly, Edward Not Edward (Compilation), 1989

Elan Noon, Th-That’s All Folks, Caricature, 2022

Karma Moffett, Sitting Still Within, Sitting Still Without, 1982

Tinsel peril surely describes the sparkle of new snow, but in this new world that’s unfolding around us, this new war, this new refugee crisis, tinsel peril takes on a different tone: all the flitting flimsy shimmer of yesterday’s party is now caught in the slightest wind, rustling danger in its weightlessness, its high pitched quivering. This episode is in dedication to all of the people who are being displaced by the conflict in Ukraine, and to the people who are giving their time, their homes, and their hearts to provide refugees a safe landing. Thank you <3

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle is courtesy of Roger 3000
• Check out the excellent Ukrainian label Muskut, from which much of the music out of Ukraine you’ll hear today derives. All proceeds of their record sales will go to Ukrainian charities and defence forces.
• The music under my voice today comes from the inimitable Midori Takada, and Through the Looking Glass (1983).

Tracklist

Emily Dickinson, Glass was the Street – in Tinsel Peril (1518)
Karin Krog, Images in Glass, Don’t Just Sing: A Karin Krog Anthology 1963-1999, 2015
Nyokabi Kariuki, Equator Song, peace places: kenyan memories, 2022
Valentina Goncharova, Higher Frequencies, Recordings 1987-1991, Vol. 1., 2020
James Newton, Skye, Flute Music, 2022
Joel Andrews, Schawkie Roth, Crystal Vision Dance, Love the Earth, 1980
The Worlds of Love, Gesture, The Worlds of Love, 1989
Bendik Giske, Flutter, Cracks, 2021
Perila, Double Echo, A Collective Memoir, 2022
Alice Shields, Apocalypse: Truth, Apocalypse: An Electric Opera, 1993
Maxwell’s Silver Band, My Little World, Wataru, Isao, Hirohito & Yoshiaki, 1975, Fuji Mountain Records
Yas-Kaz, The Magical Stones, The Double Mirrors,The Wave of Breathing, Jomon-Shu, 1984
Svitlana Nianio & Oleksandr Yurchenko, Untitled 1, Znayesh Yak? Rozkazhy, 2020
Liam Byrne, Lines Curved Rivers Mirrored: I. (Edmund Finnis), Concrete, 2019
Áine O’Dwyer*, The Ruling of Pan, Music For Church Cleaners Vol II, 2015
Matana Roberts, how bright they shine, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, 2019
Hamar, Laensha / Calming Down Song, Musik Der Hamar, 1987
Chillera, Side A, Live from Odessa, 2021

For this year’s Valentine’s Day episode, the 41st episode of Something Like, we turn to Strangers. Strangers, their dangers, their mysteries, and all the feelings and fantasy and projections they produce in us. We’re going to channel that feeling of looking across a room and catching the gaze of an unknown. Perhaps, in that brief moment, you imagine what their life is like, what they do for a living, where they live. Maybe you imagine what it would be like to have them in your life, for them to become a friend, or a lover, what it would be like for them to be in your bed, in your kitchen, what their voice sounds like. For your inner Faye Wong.

• As ever, thanks to Roger 3000 for providing Something Like’s Jingle
• Thanks to Mayra for introducing me to Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Moonlight and Rain <3

Tracklist

Akilah Oliver/Latasha Diggs/Tyler Burba (LIve), Beautiful Boys, Akilah, 2011

Patty Waters, Touched by a Rodin in a Paris Museum, You Thrill Me, Plays, (1970/2020)

Roel A. Garcia, Frankie Chan, 汗、雨、淚 (Rain, Tear, Sweat), Chungking Express O.S.T., 1994

Noel and the Red Wedge, Specimen, Peer Pressure, 1981

Studio 621, グラスを傾けて (Tilt the Glass), 百物語 By Y･O･K･O, 1986

Kiri-uu, Ilu Neiu Kiigel / Pretty Girl On A Swing, Creak​-​whoosh (Estonian, Ingrian and Votian song re​-​imagined in Australia by Olev Muska and Mihkel Tartu), 2021

Fatima Al-Qadiri, Stolen Kiss of a Succubus, Medieval Femme, 2021

Robert Ashley, She Was a Visitor, Automatic Writing, 1996

Visor, Inbox, Visor, 1997

Máryko Dry “Il M’a Trouvée Dans Les Rues” – Private Press, 1989

Laurie Anderson, The Stranger (Live), United States Live, Recorded live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City (USA) on February 7-10, 1983, 1984

Elodie Lauten, Magnetism, The Mystery of the Elements, 2002

Coil, Where Are You, Musick To Play in the Dark2, 2000

Klein, Bad Boy This, Bad Boy That (Interlude), Now That’s What I Call R&B, 2021

Randy, Candles of Love Burn, C. Life Records, 1979

Slapp Happy, A Little Something, Peel Sessions, 25 June 1974

Van Morrison, Madame George, Astral Weeks, 1968

Norma Tanega, No Stranger Am I, Walking My Cat Named Dog, 1966

B.J. Ward, Keep it To Yourself, Vocal Ease, 1970

The Cramps, What’s Behind the Mask, Songs the Lord Taught Us, 1980

We start this 40th episode of Something Like with a story shared by a dear friend, about a psychoanalytically profound dig in her garden ending with a mysterious and inspiring omen. We’ll then go about turning things around in our hands, hearts, and minds, moving around ideas to understand their hidden contexts, what’s lurking in their crevices. We’ll start with 15th century polyphony, work our way over to none other than Bobby McFerrin, and wend our way by Howie Lee, Jjjjjerome Ellis, P.M. Tummala, Marnie Weber, and others right back to where Something Like began 40 whole episodes ago: Robert Ashley’s Private Parts. Make sure to listen all the way to the end, as there’s a special surprise lurking around the 1:55:00 zone.

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle comes courtesy of my dear friend and collaborator, Roger 3000.

Tracklist

The Clerks’ Group · Edward Wickham, Missa Prolationum: Kyrie, The Ockeghem Collection, 1995

Pauline Oliveros, The Roots of the Moment, The Roots of the Moment, 1988

Bobby McFerrin & Jack Nicholson, Just So, How The Rhinoceros Got His Skin & How The Camel Got His Hump, 1987

John Zorn, Ocean Nymphs (Book II), Madrigals (For Six Female Voices), 2014

Howie Lee, 光阴向太阳 (Time To The Sun) Ft. Yehaiyahan, Birdy Island, 2021

Carlos Maria Trindade / Nuno Canavarro, Blu Terra, Mr. Wollogallu, 1991

Stevie Nicks, The Dealer (Demo), Tusk Master Reel Recording (1979), and then for Bella Donna (1981)

George Lewis & Miya Masaoka, A Thousand Subtle Ways, The Usual Turmoil and Other Duets with George Lewis & Miya Masaoka, 2011

Teruko Fujii (藤井輝子), 砂の城 (JAi Tout Fait Pour Ça), Mountain and River of Love, 1971

Marnie Weber, Bubble Blues, Woman with Bass, 1991

David Sylvian, Preparations for a Journey, Preparations for a Journey, 1984

Charmaine Lee, Congealed (for cg), A Stone Widens It, 2020

Jjjjjerome Ellis, Jede Krankheit ist ein musikalisches Problem, The Clearing, 2021

P.M. Tummala, Meera Post-Awakening, Abstractions in Meera, 2021

Robert Ashley, The Backyard, Private Parts, 1978

This episode of Something Like—the last of 2021—started off with the title “Banality and Foreboding”, reflecting that now-familiar cyclical feeling of another covid abyss. But somewhere along the way, I remembered that this little radio show has nothing to do with those two words; that’s not what we’re here for! Instead, we’ll turn to some important 2021 lodestones: Milford Graves, Anne Waldman, and Laurie Anderson (as well as a very transformative jigsaw puzzle) in search of new year’s resolutions. What we find are protest songs, songs in the future past, songs by the ocean shore, songs seeking the overtones of a buzzy field recording, songs for placing your cheek to the earth. Nothing doesn’t matter. Work on your memory. Enjoy the darkness.

• Behind my voice today you hear Joel Andrews & Schawkie Roth’s Love The Earth (1980), from a tape treasure I found on Hornby Island this year.
• Something Like’s jingle comes to us as always courtesy of my dearest friend and collaborator Roger 3000.
• Check out this wonderful podcast, An Invitation to Species
• All of Laurie Anderson’s Mahindra Center lectures can now be found on Youtube.
• You can watch Milford Graves’ memorial at Artists Space in New York here.

Tracklist

Milford Graves, Babi (excerpt), Bäbi, 1977

L’Rain, IV, Fatigue, 2021

Princess Diana of Wales, Choir Chant, Princess Diana of Wales, 2021

Anne Waldman and Laurie Anderson, Rune, SCHIAMACHY, 2020

Claire Rousay, A Kind of Promise, A Softer Focus, 2021

Robert Wyatt, The Age of Self, Old Rottenhat, 1985

Jennifer Walshe, Johannes Ockeghem: Missa Prolationum, Kyrie, A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance, 2020

Caetano Veloso, Não Vou Deixar, Meu Coco, 2021

Maya Weeks, War on Time, Tethers, 2021

Els Vandeweyer, Yellow Flower Outro, Trash, 2021

Organic Music Theatre, Butterfly friend, Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972. 2021

Roger 3000, Fourmis, 2022

Nina Simone, 22nd Century, Tell It Like It Is – Rarities And Unreleased Recordings: 1967 – 1973, 2008

All my life I’ve been afraid of the ground shifting beneath my feet (and not just because I grew up on the Cascadia Subduction Zone); what is it to experience the awesome subterranean power of what lies beneath us? Is this a time to get on all fours, as low to the earth’s curve as you get? Grounding, or earthing, is an alternative therapy that relies on the earth’s electrical charge interacting with our own as a healing process. But what if this process of lowering ourselves to the earth’s surface, to feeling its electricity, its hum, is also a process of reminding ourselves where we stand—and that we stand—on a shared earth, to which we all share the same responsibility.

If none of this makes sense to you, that’s ok. Here’s a bunch of sacred music, a bunch of free jazz, a bunch of clicking and gurgling catharsis that I hope will serve a purpose in the midst of the season of long shadows!

• As ever and forever, thanks to my dearest buddy Julien Meert (Roger 3000) for Something Like’s jingle
• Thank you to Madeline Rose for sharing your poem with us! And thanks to Mayra for putting us in touch <3
• Under my voice today you will hear excerpts from an exceptional album by the Spanish jazz musician Pablo A. Gimenez from 1988, The Work in Progress

p.s. This is an episode dedicated to my home ground, the Pacific Northwest of Canada, where I was lucky enough to spend the month of October amongst old friends and family!

Tracklist

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Salvation/Reminiscing, Prepare Yourselves to Deal with a Miracle, 1973
Nadia Cattouse, The Message, Earth Mother, 1969
Don Cherry, Om Shanti Om, Om Shanti Om, 2020
Takashi Kohgo (向後隆) – Sahmadi. Crescent Compilation: Autre Méthode Divinatoire, 2004
Tirzah, Crepuscular Rays, Colourgrade, 2021
Ka Baird & Pekka Airaksinen, Roseclouds, FRKWYS, Vol. 17: Hungry Shells, 2021
Bergur Anderson, Troubadour’s Lament, Night Time Transmissions, 2021
Marion Brown, Sweet Earth Flying, Part 1, Sweet Earth Flying, 1974
Susan Alcorn (with Janel Leppin live at 2640, Baltimore, 2012), O Sacrum Convivium, Sister Mirror, 2020
Vladimir Oidupaa Oiun, A Thin Mountain Ash, Divine Music from Jail, 1999
Ihor Cymbrowskyj, Przyjdź Aniele (Come, Angel), Przyjdź Aniele, 1996
Madeline Rose, A Day in Which No Day, 2021
Picture Music, Hauptbahnhof, Picture Music, 1987
Lucy Liyou, You Are Every Memory, Practice 2021
CKtrl, Will the Feelings Leave, Robyn, 2020
Oakland Elementary School Arkestra, Planet Earth, Big Music Little Musicians, 2018
Willie Dunn, The Pacific, The Pacific, 1983

This episode of Something Like for Montez Press Radio and Kunstverein in Hamburg was recorded and edited on an island in the unceded traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation, in the Pacific Northwest of Canada, and in several cities across Europe. Special thanks to the writer and editor Olamiju Fajemisin, with whom this hour of radio was conceived and researched, and without whom would not have been made possible. Texts are quoted from Fred Moten’s Sound in Florescence: Cecil Taylor’s Floating Garden, Sound States, edited by Adalaide Morris, University of North Carolina Press, 1997 and Malik Gaines’ Nina Simone’s Quadruple Consciousness, Woman & Performance, a Journal of feminist theory, 2013. Thanks to Jason Dodge and Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro for lending their tarot-based structural technique to this episode.

• As always, Something Like’s jingle is courtesy of Roger 3000
• The music behind my voice is Vangelis’ Beaubourg, 1978
• You can watch Nina Simone’s entire iconic Live at Montreux 1976 concert here
• Read Fred Moten’s Sound in Florescence: Cecil Taylor’s Floating Garden here.

Tracklist

Nina Simone, Feelings, Live at Montreux 1976

Cecil Taylor, 5’04”, Chinampas, 1987

Frederic Rzewski, Coming Together, Attica, 1974

This episode of Something Like imagines dipping your fingers into a glassy subterranean river, impossibly still, ancient—a gradually collected, fluid experience. Jorie Graham’s 2020 poem Thaw—where the title of this episode comes from—draws on another image: a plot in the back of her building, a “green sensation” that pushes up, pushes it. She writes, ” . . . Our prior lives press on us. / Something with heavy re- / collection in it / presses. Not / history anymore of course but / like it. Is it five minutes or five hundred years. . . “

This is an episode interested in marking change, locating decisions, and witnessing shifts in spatial orientation, but it’s also an episode that calls on interior magic.

As ever, thanks to Roger 3000 for Something Like’s jingles.
The music under my voice today comes from John Chen (陈国平) and his album Songs From Within (心意), 1999.

You can read Jorie Graham’s Thaw here.

Tracklist

Jennifer Walshe, Epitaph of Seikilos, A Late Anthology of Early Music, 2020

Buffy Sainte Marie, God is Alive, Magick is Afoot, Illuminations, 1969

Ka Baird, Subration, Bespires, 2020

Folk Music At The Sibelius Academy = Kansanmusiikkia Sibelius-Akatemiasta (Melkutus), Taru Aaltojen Ruokopillistä, 1983

Don Cherry’s New Researches featuring Naná Vasconcelos, Elixir Repris – Witchi Tai To, Organic Music Theatre: Festival de jazz de Chateauvallon 1972, 2021

Jason Sharp, Blossoming Rest, The Turning Centre Of A Still World, 2021

Cole Pulice, Sleep Helix, Gloams, 2020

Michael Stearns, As the Earth Kissed the Moon (Excerpt), Planetary Unfolding, 1981

Sofie Birch & Johan Carøe, Calibrating Senses, Repair Techniques, 2021

Kay Hoffmann, Tempus Instat, Floret Silva, 1985

Mad Music Inc, 03, Mad Music, 1977

Alanis Obamsawin, Nziwaldam, Bush Lady, 2018 (reissue)

Alan Watts, Onion Chant, This is It, 1962

Master Wilburn Burchette, Raising the Pyramid of Power, Guitare Grimoire, 1973

David Bowie, Quicksand (Demo), Hunky Dory, 1971 (remastered in 1990)

Masma Dream World, Becoming the Magician, Play at Night, 2020

This Mortal Coil, Song to the Siren, It’ll End in Tears, 1984

L’Rain, Find It, Fatigue, 2021

Leslie Winer, Fragment #2, When I Hit You, You’ll Feel It, 2021 reissue

For this very special 35th episode of Something Like, I invited the artist, poet, educator, and very dear friend Alex Turgeon to speak about the emotional potential of architecture, the queerness of ruins and decay, and his solo exhibition at Ashley Berlin, Interiors. To quote curator Stephanie Holl-Trieu’s text for his exhibition, “In Interiors, Alex Turgeon traces the structure of the feeling of home. A table becomes a landscape with windows to the interior, and a screen looming over the table performs as the sky. The sky says, Though sticks and stones may house my bones / Words will always stack together/ / To make the four walls of which they frame / And call me poetry by name.”

Unlike other episodes, I don’t unpack any of the music played on this show this time, in order to devote as much time as possible to Alex’s brilliance. With that in mind, email me if you want more info on any of the music or works that I’ve played here.

• Learn more about Interiors and the programme at Ashley Berlin here: https://ashleyberlin.de/
• Learn more about Alex Turgeon’s work here: http://alexturgeon.com/
• As always, Something Like’s jingle comes courtesy of the brilliant Roger 3000.

Tracklist

Julius Eastman, Femenine (extract), 1974, performed by ensemble 0 & Aum Grand Ensemble, released 2020 by Sub Rosa

Stephanie Holl-Trieu, Exhibition text for Interiors, Ashley Berlin, 2021

Roxy Music, In Every Dream Home, a Heartache, For Your Pleasure, 1973

Fred Simon and Liz Cifani, If I Could Tell You, Time and the River, 1985

Willie Dunn, Nova Scotia, Creation Never Sleeps, Creation Never Dies: The Willie Dunn Anthology, 2021

Moss King, Hallway Rug, Omni Gardens, 2020

Aaron Betsky, Queer Space, SCI-Arc Lecture, March 22, 1995.

Jeritree, House of Many Colours, Jeritree’s House of Many Colours, 1978

Yoshio Ojima, Mensis, Une Collection Des Chainons I: Music for Spiral (1988)

Lavender Country, Crying these Cocksucking Tears, Lavender Country, 1972

Yoshio Ojima, Mensis, Une Collection Des Chainons I: Music for Spiral (1988)

Joni Mitchell, Shadows and Light, The Hissing of Summer Lawns, 1975

Michael Ranta, The Wall is There, Die Mauer, 2019

Séigen Ono, Seigen, Waterfront, 1984

The Blue Nile, A Walk Across the Rooftops, A Walk Across the Rooftops, 1984

Yves Jarvis, Constant Change, The Same But By Different Means, 2019

Randy Kerber & Jowee Omicil, The Long Way Home, Y Pati, 2020

Alvin Curran, Walked the Way Home, Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden, 1975

W-14, Falls to Ruin, Falls to Ruin, 1984

Essex Hemphill & Wayson Jones, Brass Rail

Nailah Hunter, Ruins, Spells, 2020

Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn, 1994

Rémi Chaudagne, L’Île Des Temps, L’Île Des Temps, 1984

Everything But the Girl, Lonesome for a Place I know, Idlewild, 1988

Summer in the city: Hazy freneticism, long evenings in half light, sticking your arm out your office window, rolling up your pant legs and dipping your feet in a fountain, eating fries at the public pool, biking through the pine forests for the last unfound spot of dappled sunlight by the lake. Sure, there’s a certain amount of envy built into watching your friends leave the dusty, hot grips of the city for calmer, greener, beachier locations, but Summer in the city is also an exercise in in super-saturation (as the poet Monica Youn writes), in monotony with a different, louder beat.

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle comes courtesy of the wonderful Roger 3000
• I read First Blues by Saundra Rose Maley, from Disappearing Act, 2015 and A Parking Lot in West Houston, by Monika Youn from Barter, 2003
• The sounds behind my voice today were recorded from my window, which overlooks the Admirälbrücke. Please everyone, be kind to the neighbourhoods you inhabit at night!

Tracklist

Marjorie Van Haltern feat. Louis Giansante, Dead of Summer, 1982
Herbie Hancock, Watermelon Man, Head Hunters, 1973
Ron Everett, Glitter of the City (Song by Tahira), Glitter of the City, 1977 (re-issued 2021)
Joe Cocker, (Video Interlude) Summer in the City, Have a Little Faith, 1994
Oliver Sain, Bus Stop, Bus Stop, 1974
Frank Harris & Maria Marquez, Field Trips, Echoes (compilation), 2019
Earnest Hood, Night Games, Neighborhoods, 1975 (re-issued 2019)
Oum Kalthoum, Alf Leila we Leila أم كلثوم – ألف ليلة وليلة, Alf Leila we Leila, 1969
Eli Keszler, Rot Summer Smoothes, Icons, 2021
Barrington Levy, The Vibes is Right, Here I Come, 1985
The Durutti Column, Sketch for a Summer, The Return of the Durutti Column, 1980
Lion, You’ve Gotta Woman, But Do I, 1975
Pooka, Sex On, Graham Robert Wood, 1995
Quincy Jones, Summer in the City, You’ve Got it Bad Girl, 1973
San Sebastian Strings, You Even Taste Like the Summer, The Sea, 1967
Cathy Claret, Le Lundi Au Soleil, Cathy Claret, 1989
Blue Gene Tyranny, Any Fine Afternoon (1983), Degrees of Freedom Found, 2021
Sun Ra Arkestra, The Satellites are Spinning / Lights on a Satellite, Swirling, 2020
The Awakening, Glory to the Sun, Mirage, 1973
Jon Hassell, Nightsky [the living city], City: Works of Fiction, 1990 (re-issued in 2014)

I’ve been haunted by a faint hum, an electric touch, and would like talk about the Sixth Sense. In medical terms, the Sixth Sense could be Proprioception, the ability for our bodies to locate themselves in space. It is an intuition, an innate knowledge. It’s deeply rooted in our sense of right or wrong.

We’ll turn to the British Columbia artist, filmmaker, and poet Ellie Epp, whose 1996 film Bright & Dark will be our guiding light as we work through notions of feeling, improvisation, chance, and preparation. We’ll also turn to Fred Moten, and his writing on Cecil Taylor’s Chinampas, and to Divided Publishing’ new publication, Stage of Recovery by the artist and activist Georgia Sagri.

• As always, thanks to Roger 3000 for providing Something Like’s jingle
• The music behind my voice today is Monsieur de Saint Colombe’s Works for 2 Bass Viols, by Voix Humaines
• You can read about Ellie Epp’s work on her website and in this PDF of Mike Hoolboom’s book on her work. Thank you to Ellie for your generous spirit and for sharing your work with us, and thank you to Adrienne Herr for the universal synchronicity of her attentions by bringing Ellie to us!
• You can find Fred Moten’s Sound in Florescence: Cecil Taylor’s Floating Garden (first published in Sound States, edited by Adalaide Morris, University of North Carolina Press, 1997) here on Ubuweb.
• Pick up Georgia Sagri’s Stage of Recovery here.

Tracklist

Jeanne Lee, Sundance, Conspiracy, 1975
Ellie Epp, Bright & Dark (description read by Bitsy), 1996
Lee Roetman, Life is a Changing Composition Flow , Peace and Love from Lee, 1971
Carman Moore, Improvisation, Personal Problems, 2020
Infinity Knives, Sway Me, Sway Me Into the Arms of the Lord, Dear Sudan, 2020
Bjork, Sweet Sweet Intuition, Post, 1995
Sue Tompkins, Ruin, 2017
Oakland Elementary School Arkestra, Butter, Big Instruments, Little Musicians, 1994
Cecil Taylor, 5’04, Chinampas, 1987
CC Hennix, Blues Alif Mim in the Modes of Rag Infinity, “Live at Issue Project Room”, 2016
David Rosenboom & Peggie Sampson, The Seduction of Sapientia (excerpt), The Contemporary Viola di Gamba, 1973-74
Maria Chavez, The Language of Chance #1, Live at Le Guess Who, 2018
Celia Hollander, You Have 3 New Telepathic Messages, Recent Futures, 2020
Rachika Nayar, New Strands, Our Hands Against the Dusk, 2021
Seigén Ono, Model-93, Seigen, 1984
Georgia Sagri, Performance Study Group in Zurich (excerpt read by Bitsy), Stage of Recovery, 2021
YOM, Celebration, Celebration, 2021
Brother Ah, Spirits in the Night, Move Ever Onward, 1975 (reissued in 2016)
Piero Umiliani, Isola di Sogno, La Consolazione Della Pietra, 1967
Lafawndah, The Stillness, The Fifth Season, 2020
Andy Bey, I Know This Love Can’t Be Wrong, Experience & Judgement, 1973
Ellie Epp, Ready (read by Bitsy)

I should probably preface this episode by saying that I’m not, myself, currently in a state of heartbreak. But perhaps because this is such an inevitable state, it’s the episode I’ve been asked to make the most often. Almost everyone will experience some kind of brutal breakup in their life, some kind of agonising heartbreak, some kind of lonely heart, some kind of crushing love sickness. At that time, it may seem like the most crushing, most distracting, most viscerally painful experience you’ve ever gone through. Luckily, there are more breakup and heartbreak poems and songs out there to get you through this time than there are hours of staring at your ceiling pouring over the minutiae of your last conversation with your ex. Take care, you lonely hearts, it doesn’t last forever.

• As always, Something Like’s intro jingle comes courtesy of Roger 3000
• The music behind my voice this week is Pauline Oliveros’ The Beauty of Sorrow, from Tara’s Room, 2019
• You can learn more about Alex Turgeon’s art and writing here: http://alexturgeon.com/ and pick up Love Poems for Ceres at Broken Dimanche Press.

Tracklist

Connie Converse, Talkin Like You (Two Tall Mountains), How Sad, How Lovely, 2015
Alex Turgeon (read by Bitsy), Even Cowboys Get the Blues, Love Poems for Ceres, 2017
The Shangri-La’s, Past, Present, Future, 1966
Nona Hendryx, Tears, Skindiver, 1989
Panxing, How, Slowmusic, 2021
Annie Lennox, Primitive, Diva, 1992
Susan Stone/Melody Sumner Carnahan, Ruby’s Story, The Time is Now, 1997
Etta James, I’d Rather Be Blind (Live at Montreux), 1975
Kath Bloom & Loren Mazzacane, My Stupid Little Heart, Sand in My Shoe, 1983
Woo, Sad Hearts, A La Luna, 1991
Tracey Thorn, Too Happy, A Distant Shore, 1982
OCA, I Believe in You, Aging, 2019
Kate Bush, Ne T’enfuis Pas, The Single File, 1983
Anne Carson, Chapter XIII: Water (read by Bitsy), Autobiography of Red, 1998
Marzieh, مرضیه – مجنون (Majnoon), The Best of Marzieh, 2001
George Michael, Jesus to a Child, Older 1996
Lewis, Fallin Down, Hawaiian Breeze, 2015
Charmaine Lee, U Tried, A Stone Widens It, 2020
Everything Play, ロミオとジュリエット (Romeo & Juliet), Everything Play, 1992
Audre Lorde, Movement Song (ready by Bitsy), From a Land Where Other People Live, 1973
Mao & Friends, It’s Too Late, Call on Me, 1972
Pulp, There’s No Emotion, Freaks, 1987
Little Ann, Deep Shadows, Deep Shadows, 2009 (originally 1967)
Candi Staton, You Don’t Love Me No More, 1972
Diamanda Galás, I’m Going to Live the Life, Malediction & Prayer, 2018
Mary Ann Daly, New Life, Heart, 1975

Right now, outside my window, thousands upon thousands of juicy buds are aching to unfurl. Newness in electric green, swaying violently as they contend with the changing wind. A harrowing moment to emerge, to open yourself up again, to take on a new shape, but that’s the way of Spring, right?

This is an episode of Something Like that looks at newness in its revelatory, ritualistic form, but also in its anxiety, the stress and also the exhilaration of meeting a moment, of opening oneself up to a moment.

• As always, thank you to my dearest friend Roger 3000 for providing Something Like’s jingle
• The music under my voice today is Larkin’s O’Cean (1980)

Tracklist

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, London Symphony Orchestra, Promises, March 2021

Brother Ah, Transcendental March, Sound Awareness: Move Ever Onward, 1975, reissued in 2016

Theatre of Nature, Anna von Hausswolff, All Thoughts Fly, 2020

Popol Vuh, Kyrie, Tantric Songs/Hosianna Mantra, 1991

Wojciech Rusin, Dance, The Funnel, 2019

Rachika Nayar, The Trembling of Glass, Our Hands Against the Dusk, 2021

Dialect, Yamaha Birds Pt. 2, Under ~ Between, 2021

Everything Play, 君に輝く太陽を感じよう (Feel The Sun), Everything Play, 1992

Kendra Smith, Iridescence, The Guild of Temporal Adventurers, 1992

Irena and Vojtěch Havlovi, In the Garden, Melodies in the Sand, 2021

Laurence Brisset (Hildegard v. Bingen), Hodie Aperuit, Gemme, 2015

Maggie Payne, Shimmer, Ahh-Ahh, 2020

Leona Hirota (広田玲央名), Flower, Leona, 1985

Mad Music Inc. 11, Mad Music, 1977, reissued in 2016

Koh-Tao, Moon in the Lake, Tayu Tayu (たゆたゆ), 1997

Alice Coltrane, Spring Rounds from Rite of Spring, Eternity, 1976

In this special 30th episode of Something Like, we look at the glistening, darkened, persistent paths that water carves, producing new life in the process. A year into recording Something Like from my bedroom in Kreuzberg, we’ll also look into the cyclical quality of water, and so its place in memory. We’ll return to the observance of its dual states: wetness and dryness, high tide and low tide, the shore and the depths of a pool. To navigate all of this, we have Alejandra Pizarnik’s 1962 poem Caminos des Espejo as a guide, this time read by the poet Mayra Rodríguez Castro from her current home in La Esperanza, Colombia—one of the rainiest places in the world.

• Special thanks to Mayra for her contributions to this episode!
• Thanks as always to Roger 3000 for providing us with Something Like’s jingle
• The music behind my voice in this episode is from Toshiya Sukegawa’s (助川敏弥), Bioçic Music Aqua (バイオシック・ミュージック 「水」),1993

Mayra A. Rodríguez Castro is a poet and translator. Rodríguez is the editor of Dream of Europe: Selected Seminars and Interviews (Kenning Editions, 2020). Her translations include the Pornomiseria Manifesto by Luis Ospina and Carlos Mayolo (2017) and Ecogenoethnocide by Santiago Arboleda Quiñonez (2018). Here is an interview with Mayra speaking about Audre Lorde, Dream of Europe: Selected Seminars and Interviews, a book that Mayra edited and released with Kenning Editions last year.

Ladan Osman is a poet, born in Somalia and raised in Columbus, Ohio. She earned a BA from Otterbein University and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers. In 2014 her poetry collection The Kitchen Dweller’s Testimomy won the annual Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Osman lives in Chicago. Read her poem Water at Narrative Magazine.

Alejandra Pizarnik was a poet, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1936. She studied philosophy and literature at the University of Buenos Aires before dropping out to pursue painting and her own poetry. She lived in Paris from 1960–64. She published eight books of poetry before her death in 1972 at age 36, by suicide.

Here is Lydia Merriman Herrick’s English translation of Caminos del Espejo from the Spanish:

Paths of the Mirror

I

And above all gazing with innocence. As if nothing were happening, which is true.

II

But I want to look at you until your face moves far from my fear like a bird on the sharp edge of night.

III

Like a little girl drawn with pink chalk on an ancient wall suddenly erased by the rain.

IV

Like when a flower opens up and reveals the heart it doesn’t have.

V

All the gestures of my body and my voice to make an offering out of me, the branch that leaves the wind on the threshold.

VI

Cover the memory of your face with the mask of the one you’ll be and frighten the little girl that you were.

VII

Their shared night dispersed with the fog. It’s the season of cold nourishment.

VIII

And thirst, my memory is of thirst, I below, in the bottom, in the well, I would drink, I remember.

 IX

To fall like a wounded animal in the place that was going to be revelatory.

 X

Like someone who doesn’t want something. Not a thing.

Sewn mouth. Sewn eyelids. I forgot. Inside, the wind.

Everything closed and the wind inside.

XI

Words turned golden in the black sun of silence.

 XII

But silence is certain. That’s why I write. I’m alone and I write.

No, I’m not alone. There’s someone here who trembles.

XIII

Even if I say sun and moon and star I refer to things that happen to me.

And what did I want?

I wanted the perfect silence.

That’s why I speak.

 XIV

Night takes the form of a wolf’s howl.

XV

The pleasure of getting lost in the premonitory image. I arose from my corpse, I went looking for who I am. Wanderer from myself, I’ve gone towards she who sleeps in a country to the wind.

XVI

My endless fall into my endless fall where nobody awaited me, since upon seeing who was waiting I saw none other than myself.

XVII

Something was falling in the silence. My last word was I but I was referring to the luminous dawn.

   XVIII

Yellow flowers in a circular constellation of blue earth. The wind-filled water quakes.

XIX

Glare of the day, yellow birds in the morning. A hand unleashes darkness, a hand drags the hair of a drowned woman who doesn’t cease passing by the mirror. To return to the memory of the body, I have to return to my grieving bones, I have to understand what my voice says.

Tracklist

Sun Ra Arkestra, Sea of Darkness / Darkness, Swirling, 2020

Mayra Castro Rodríguez reads Alejandra Pizarnik’s Caminos del Espejo, 1962

Dorothy Carter, Along the River, Waillee Waillee, 1978

The Growth Eternal, V. My Storm at Sea, Bass Tone Paintings, 2020

Laila Sakini, The Potion in the Pool (Flora Yang Remix), 2020

Flesh & Bone, Ocean Song, Skeleton Woman, 1992

Nobue Kawana, あのとき限りの私たち (A no toki kagiri no watashitachi), Nobue’s Sea, 1975

Ana Roxanne, Venus, Because of a Flower, 2020

Né Ladeiras, Húmus Verde, Alhur, 1982

Fred Simon & Liz Cifani, Time and the River, Time and the River, 1995

Rock & Waves Song Circle, I, Rock & Waves Song Circle, 2016

Brian Bennett, The Sea, Nature Watch, 1982

O Terno, Profondo/Superficial, <atrás além=””>, 2019

Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton, A River Song, Music & Poetry of the Kesh, 1985 (2018)

Kay Gardner, Atlantis Rising, Emerging, 1978

Cris Williamson, Waterfalls, The Changer and the Changed, 1975

Mayra Rodríguez Castro, lluvia, 2021</atrás>

How is it that for every song about the special kind of love of friendship, there are hundreds about breaking up? In celebration of Valentine’s Day coming up, this 29th episode of Something Like plumbs acid folk and avant-garde composition alike to search out the love involved between friends, and what that could mean. This is no invective against romantic love but we might take a renewed look at a couple of love songs, asking if they could apply to your best friend too.

• Special thanks to Rosa & Dylan Aiello, Nooa Avo, Oopie Ghosh & Nadia Jones, Orsod Malik, Hoora Sarajan, and Camilla Wills for their excellent input into the making of this episode! Happy Valentines Day, my friends! Will you be my valentine? I choo choo choose you!

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle comes courtesy of my dearest friend, Roger 3000. Check out the precious new release on his imprint Tundra Records by DJ New Smile here.

• HONEY is a riso printed zine meditating on the experiences of friendship. The project was conceived by two friends who recognised non-familial connections were entirely formative to their politics, welfare and identities, but observed a marked lack of attention on modern forms of friendship in print media. Order your copy of Honey here and check them out on instagram.

• Orsod Malik is a Sudani curator, editor and digital archivist. He is the founder of @code__switch, an archive/continuum of radical internationalism and a curator at the Stuart Hall Foundation. His work attempts to draw links between yesterday’s anti-imperial struggles and immediate conjunctures.

• adrienne maree brown is a writer, a pleasure activist, a sci-fi/Octavia Butler scholar, a facilitator (non-active), a speaker/singer (including wedding singer) and a doula living in Detroit. I read an excerpt from their Coevolution Through Friendship (February 5, 2013), which was published in HONEY.

• Cat Cohen is a comedian and writer. Nooa Avo read her poem, poem I wrote after I looked at your jawline and it ruined my life

• Sandra M. Gilbert (born December 27, 1936) is an American literary critic and poet who has published in the fields of feminist literary criticism, feminist theory, and psychoanalytic criticism. I read her poem, Thinking About an Old Friend (1980).

• Emily Brontë was a British writer. In this episode, I read her poem Love and Friendship.

Tracklist

Nikki Giovanni, Two Friends, The Reason I Like Chocolate, 1976

Bebe K’Roche, Strong and Free, Be Be K’Roche, 1976

Gary Shearston, Friend to Me, I Get a Kick out of You, 1974

Julia Holter, Moni Mon Ami, Ekstasis, 2012

Brady Cohan, Oliver and Me, Studies Vol. 1, 2020

Jenny Hval (feat. Laura Jean Englert & Vivian Wang), The Practice of Love, The Practice of Love, 2019

Kirby Shelstad and Richard Allen, Just Friends, Peaceful Solutions, 1984

Frank Harris & Maria Marquez, Bein’ Green, Echoes, 2019

Heather Leigh, Prelude to Goddess, Throne, 2018

René Aubry & Jean Schwarz – Five Women, Still Waters: Ballet De Carolyn Carlson, 1986

Tirzah, No Romance, No Romance, 2014

Dylan Henner, We Could Hear them Singing From Across The Valley, The Invention of the Human, 2020

Beverly Glenn Copeland, Nothing Beautiful, Beverly Copeland, 1970

Laraaji, Moods and Emotions, The Piano Trilogy, 2021

Kinoko Gumo, Please Give a Name to the Small Life, Kokoro O Utau, 1972

Dne, Friends Cleanse, These Semi-Feelings, They Are Everywhere, 2016

Jill Caslaghi, Friend of Mine, Friends of Mine, 1977

Scott Seskind, I Remember, Chance, 1990

Lou Reed, She’s My Best Friend, Coney Island Baby, 1976

Julian Cope, Sunspots, Fried, 1984

Bob Reitman, A Few Thoughts, The Eleventh House, 1971

Johnny Frierson, Have You Been Good to Yourself, Have you Been Good to Yourself, 2016

This is an episode that started as a meditation on waiting, and became an episode about the distillation of time and the experience of time passing: its expansions and contractions. Our lodestars in this sense will be two great proponents of free jazz: the musician/researcher/educator/gardener/martial artist Milford Graves and the writer/educator/poet/filmmaker Amiri Baraka. We’ll be looking at time as irregular, subjective—its passage expressed elastically. Mostly, we’ll be looking at patience and its ritualisation. We’ll search for strategies in music to be in time, and so perhaps to account for its passage not in terms one’s own subjective experience of it, but in terms of existing within its inevitability.

Hang in there, friends.

• As ever, Something Like’s jingle is provided by my brilliant friend and collaborator Roger 3000, who has an adorable new track out on bandcamp now.
• You can listen to Amiri Baraka’s complete 1985 lectures at Naropa University here.
• You can watch Milford Graves: Full Mantis here.

Tracklist

Playlist

Milford Graves, Milford Graves: Full Mantis, dir. By Jake Meginsky, Neil Cloaca Young, 2018

Ka Baird, Isentropic, Bespires, May 2020

Barbara Golden / Melody Sumner Carnahan, My Pleasure, The Time is Now, 1997

White Light, We Sat Together, White Light, 1982

Loris S. Sarid, Orrizontale Verticale, Music for Tomato Plants, 2020

Celia Hollander, Spared Time, Recent Futures, 2020

AM 4, And She Answered: Mi-La, …And She Answered, 1989

Anadol, 78 ((yetmiş sekiz) Yılının En Uzun Dakikası, Uzun Havalar, 2019

Patricia Brennan, Improvisation VI, Maquishti, 2021

Amiri Baraka, On Class, Speech, Rhythm, Sound, and Music, Naropa University, 1985

Sarah Davachi, Accord of Voice I, Laurus, 2020

Neil Young, I’ve Been Waiting for You, Sugar Mountain – Live at Canterbury House, 1968

His Name is Alive, Tape Slow, A Silver Thread (Home Recordings 1989 – 1990), 2021

Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000, Walking, OM COLD BLOOD, 2018

Gavin Bryars, Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, The Sinking of the Titanic / Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet, 1975

 
Ah 2020, what is the soundtrack to your misery? This episode of Something Like, the last of this goddess-forsaken year, cycles back through past episodes and past moments to plumb the music that marked time this year.
 

Tracklist

Blue Gene Tyranny, Leading a Double Life, Out of the Blue, 2019
White Light, I Want You to Know Me, White Light, 1982
Silvia Tarozzi, Al Cancello, Mi Specchio e Rifletto, 2020
Mich Live, Planet E, Message from Heart, 1986
Pyrolator, Gespraech mit der Erde, Wunderland, 1984
Mikrokosmos, Another Time, This Time, One Time, Another Time, This Time, One Time, 2020
Lyu Hongjun (劉宏軍), フルスーの景 (Furusu No Kei) , 大地の詩 (Songs Of The Earth), 1988
Carman Moore, Love Trouble, Personal Problems, 2020
Björk, The Anchor Song, Debut, 1993
Alabaster DuPlume, Visit Croatia, To Cy & Lee: Instrumentals Vol. 1, 2020
Keeley Forsyth, Look To Yourself, Debris, 2020
Duval Timothy, Same, Help, 2020
Gia Margaret, sadballad, Mia Gargaret, 2020
Roger 3000, Tu Ne Meurs Pas, Fiftine, 2020
Iceblink, Cellphone in the Bath, Carpet Cocoon, 2020
Ana Roxanne, Camille, Because of a Flower, 2020
Nailah Hunter, Bassin Bleu, 2020
Jay Electronica feat. The Dream, Ezekiel’s Wheel, A Written Testimony, 2020
Sun Ra Arkestra, Seductive Fantasy, Swirling, 2020

This year, in lieu of getting sloppy in velvet at Christmas parties, howling at the Solstice moon, shooting arrows and shooting back Thor’s Hammer at the Schloss Britz Weihnachtsmarkt, wrapping white elephant gifts for the Christmas Pyjama Jamboree, and basically living in the reflection of a Christmas tree ornament, I made a special holiday episode of Something Like, and invited some of my favourite people in the world to send over their holiday greetings.

Each message feels like the best little sonic xmas gift I could ever ask for, and I can’t wait to share them with you. Thanks to Julien Meert, Elif Saydam, Michele di Menna & Max Brand & Mina, Camila McHugh, Sascha Garrey & Daniel Girard, Tim Koh, Alex Turgeon, Viviana Abelson, Céline Gillain, Joseph Kusendila, Leon Eisermann, Rosa Aiello, Anna Łuczak, Emma LaMorte, Louise O’Kelly & Paulo Andres Gonzalez, Nooa Avo, and Margie & Tony Knox for sending over your messages; you’ve warmed my heart more than you can know! Also sending love to all those who couldn’t send something along, I’m sharing this episode with you in particular.

Happy holidays, Merry (Happy) Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solstice, everybody! This lonely year is almost over. Almost time for another.

• Check out Artist Charity Aid Network (A.C.A.N.) on Instagram and support the charities participating artists have chosen! Plenty of last minute xmas gifts for great causes!
• Check out this list posted by A.C.A.N. telling Berliners where they can donate clothing, food, money, and supplies over the holiday season and all year round.
• Another idea: Tim Koh’s new album “In Your Dreams”, out now on Bandcamp and the holiday episode of Kokonut Trip on NTS.

Tracklist

Roger 3000, Jingle Bells, 2020

Marvin Gaye, Purple Snowflakes, 1964

Home Alone “I’ll Give it a Whirl”, 1990

Vince Guaraldi Trio, Christmas Time is Here, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965

It’s Christmas Time, The Qualities, 1960

Eurythmics, Winter Wonderland, A Very Special Christmas, 1987

Jun Togawa, 降誕節 (The Nativity), Wish With You A Merry Christmas, 1983

Elif Saydam’s Top 5 of 2020

The Patti Smith Group (Radio Ethiopia Field Marshall), White Christmas, 1978

Eddie Daniels, Sleigh Ride, A GRP Christmas Collection, 1988

YTV Santa Calls, 1997

Pastor T.L. Barrett and the Youth for First Choir, Jingle Bells Part 1, 1971

Michele di Menna, Max Brand, Mina

Cocteau Twins, Frosty the Snowman, Snow (EP), 1993

Kate Bush, December Will Be Magic Again, 1980

Vince Guaraldi Trio, O Tannenbaum, A Charlie Brown Christmas, 1965

A Message from Camila McHugh

Coil, Christmas is Now Drawing Near, Winter Solstice (North), 1999

Sascha Garrey & Daniel Girard, Deck The Halls, 2020

Karina Skye, We Three Witches, Pagan Yule Carols (Wiccan Holiday Music), 2012

Viviana Abelson, 2020

Celine Gillain, I’M SORRY IF I HAVEN’T ALWAYS BEEN A GOOD FRIEND, 2020

Beverly Glenn Copeland, Winter Astral, Keyboard Fantasies, 1986

Joseph Kusendila, Le Frêne (The Ash Tree), read by William Gallab

The Choir of Chester Cathedral, Song of the Nuns of Chester (1425), Glory to the New-Born King – Christmas Music Sung by the Choir of Chester Cathedral, 2012

Betty Arden, Funny Bells, 2020

YTV Santa Calls 1997

Suicide, Hey Lord (1981), ZE A Christmas Record, 1981

Alex Turgeon, 2020

Special EFX, Silent Night, 1988

Tim Koh, Little Drummer Boy, 2020

Haruomi Hosono, 25 December 1983, We Wish You A Merry Christmas, 1984

Louise & Paulo in London, 2020

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Ding Dong Merrily on High, 2010

Little Women, Ding Dong Merrily on High,1994

A message from Emma LaMorte, 2020

J.S. Bach, Christmas Oratorio, BMW 248 Part Two: For the Second Day of Christmas, No. 10, 1734 (performed by Anthony Rolfe Johnson, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, 1987)

A message from Anna Łuczak, 2020

Nina Simone, I am Blessed, Broadway Blues Ballads, 1964

Stevie Wonder, Someday at Christmas, Someday at Christmas, 1967

Dave Grusin, Some Children See Him, A GRP Christmas Collection, 1988

An interview with Leon Eisermann from A.C.A.N.

A message from Rosa Aiello, 2020

Prince, Another Lonely Christmas, Purple Rain, 1993 (first as a B-Side on I Would Die For U, 1984)

Tom Recchion, A Christmas Filled with Tears, Where Were You on Christmas, 2006

Taeko Ohnuki, Inori (To Nobody), We Wish You A Merry Christmas, 1984

A message from Nooa Avo, 2020

Joni Mitchell, River, Blue, 1971

A message from Margie and Tony Knox, 2020

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge / Patrick Hadley, I Sing a Maiden, 2012

Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, Once in a Royal Davids City (Desc. Stephen Cleobury), 2017

Female ascetics, hermits, wise women, and witches, and the lore that circles around this archetype is what we will be exploring in the 25th episode of Something Like: Hag Lore. I’m very pleased to be sharing this episode with some wonderful friends and artists who share my fascination with this archetype. We’re going to listen to a reading by the Canadian artist Rochelle Goldberg, a reading from Don Quixote by the Canadian Berlin-based artist Elif Saydam, sound recordings by the British Berlin-based artist and music from the Berlin based artist and musician Anchoress (Anna-Lucia Nissen & Alex Rathborne). And so we’re going to also look at female-identifying characters who chose a life of seclusion, who removed themselves from the material world: the Desert Mothers, the anchoresses of medieval christianity, and perhaps even some contemporary evolutions of this type. We’ll delve into what is behind the fascination with the notion of female recluses.

• As always, Something Like’s intro jingle comes courtesy of my main bud Roger 3000
• Big thanks to Anna-Lucia Nissen, Beth Collar, Elif Saydam, and Rochelle Goldberg for their invaluable contributions to this episode!
• Check out Chris Newby’s 1993 film Anchoress here.
• Learn more about Rochelle Goldberg’s Born in a Beam of Light here.
• A useful resource in relation to the themes picked up in this episode is of course, The Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, by Silvia Federici.

Tracklist

Adult Fantasies, Under A Steelplate Sky, Towers of Silence, 2020, originally from the album For the Time Being, 1989

Rochelle Goldberg feat. Veit Laurent Kurz & Yanik Soland, Born in a Beam of Light, 2020

Wilburn Burchette, Birth of a Witch, Guitar Grimoire, 1973

Beth Collar Reads the Civil wars: A Tree is Best Measured When it is Down (David Byrne, Gavin Bryars, and Philip Glass and Robert Wilson), 1984

Keeley Forsyth, Glass, Photograph EP, 2020

Okkyung Lee, The Longest Morning, Yeo-Neun, 2020

Stevie Nicks, Rhiannon (Piano version), Enchanted, 1998

Nailah Hunter, Ruins, Spells, 2020

Anchoress, Eternal, In Times Where Eyes are Low, 2020

Kassia (University of King’s College Chapel Choir), Hymn of Kassia, 2009

Alanis Obomsawin, Bush Lady Part II, Bush Lady, 2018

Ana Roxanne, Take the Thorn, Leave the Rose, Because of a Flower, 2020

Elif Saydam Reads Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Chapters 12 & 14

Silvia Tarozzi, Hai nella bocca un silenzio, Mi Specchio e Refletto, 2020

Kenneth Anger, Hermit, Puce Moments, 1949

Kay Gardner, Wise Woman, Moon Circles, 1975

The voice lives inside and outside of our bodies, simultaneously. When you speak, or sing, or hum, you’re moving mass inside of your own body and mass around you. Like colours and smells, different tones and different vowels have specific effects on different parts of our bodies. These are some basic principles that the healing music researcher, flautist, Dianic priestess, teacher and lesbian music pioneer Kay Gardner (1941–2002) outlined so prolifically in her writings and audio recordings, Music as Medicine (1997-8). In this episode of Something Like, we’re going to invoke Gardner to guide us through the potential of our own voices to heal ourselves and others. Meanwhile, we’ll step through vocal and traditional choral traditions and innovations.

• As always, Something Like’s jingle music is by Roger 3000
• The music under my voice this week is Pauline Oliveros’ Accordian and Voice (1982)
• You can find all of Kay Gardner’s Music as Medicine sessions on Youtube, and more information about her research in her 1997 book Sounding the Inner Landscape
• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Roomful of Teeth, Partita for 8 Voices Part 4: Passacaglia, Partita for 8 Voices (Caroline Shaw), 2016
Kay Gardner, Session 2: Healing & The Aura, Music as Medicine, The Art & Science of Healing with Sound, 1998
Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Agba’a, Africa Genjoh 1994 (originally Selections of African Folk Music, 1982)
Anonymous (from Orune): Cantu a Tenore Trattu’e Orune
Buffy Sainte Marie, Poppies, Illuminations, 1969
CoH & Cosi Fanni Tutti, Lying, CoH Plays Cosey, 2008
Pamela Z, Obsession, Addiction, and the Aristotelian Curve, Pamela Z: A Delay Is Better, 1993
Kay Gardner, Session 2: Healing & The Aura, Music as Medicine, The Art & Science of Healing with Sound, 1998
Matana Roberts, Jewels of the Sky: Inscription, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis, 2019
Judith Hamann, Humming Suite III – Harmonics étude for one cello and one voice, Music for Cello and Humming, 2020
Hildegard v. Bingen, O Cohort of the the Army of the Flower, O nobilissima viriditas: The Complete Hildegard von Bingen, Vol. 3, 2004, Celestial Harmonies
Dylan Henner, I Was Reading the News But I Felt So Sad I Had To Stop, The Invention of the Human, 2020
David Hykes & the Harmonic Choir, Multiplying Voices At the Heart of the Body of Sound, Hearing Solar Winds, 1983
Kay Gardner, Session 2: Healing & The Aura, Music as Medicine, The Art & Science of Healing with Sound, 1998
Ustá, GLAS Choral Music of the Soviet Union, 1989 (excerpt)

Sometimes we can feel change coming, fermenting inside of us. Sometimes we know the texture, the feel of that change, before we know its shape. This is an episode dedicated to pawing the burlap and stroking the velvet of what is to come. We’ll look at potential, intention, and drudgery in the pursuit of what is nascent and waiting to bubble forth, ready to drink and produce newness. This episode takes its cues from Sally Potter’s 1993 film adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, with a soundtrack by David Motion, Jimmy Sommerville, and Potter herself.

• As always, jingle music is courtesy of Roger 3000
• The music under my voice this week is from Laurie Spiegel’s “The Expanding Universe”
• I read passages from Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Talents” and Madeline Miller’s “Circe” that you should definitely seek out from your local bookseller or borrow from a friend.
• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

David Motion, The Maze, Orlando Soundtrack, 1993
Beth Anderson, I Can’t Stand It, Sugar, Alcohol, and Meat (Dial-A-Poet), 1980
TRJJ, Emulation of History (Disguised Drums), TRJJ Music Compilation: 12 Dances, 2019
Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, The Struggle of the Magicians, Part 3, I Am the Center: Private Issue New Age Music In America 1950-1990, 2013
Duval Timothy, feat. Lil Silvia and Melanie Faye, Fall Again, Help, 2020
Flesh & Bone, Compassion (The Untangling), Skeleton Woman, 1992
Elodie Lauten, Death As a Woman, The Death of Don Juan, 1985
Adrian Piper, Mythic Being (excerpt), 1973
Du Yun, The Ocean Within, Le Poisson Rouge, NYC, 2012
Massive Attack, Unfinished Sympathy, Blue Lines, 1991
Mikrokosmos (Steffani Jemison and Justin Hicks), Another Time, This Time, One Time, 2020
Lyra Pramuk, New Moon, Fountain, 2020
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Carrying Gravity, The Mosaic of Transformation, 2020
The Caretaker, I Still Feel as Though I am Me, Everywhere at the end of Time, 2016
Bedouine, Come Down in Time, Come Down in Time, 2018
Nailah Hunter, White Flower Dark Hill, Spells, 2020
Jimmy Sommerville, Coming, Orlando Soundtrack, 1993
David Bowie, Changes, Hunky Dory, 1971

≈≈ An important disclaimer for Something Like listeners: Please, please, please do NOT pick and eat wild mushrooms unless you are an experienced forager, or are doing so with an experienced forager. Even then, be sure to thoroughly consult and cross-reference field guides before you put any wild mushroom in your belly. The devil is in the details: If you’re not sure of what you have, err on the side of caution. Most mushrooms won’t kill you, but some (like many amanitas) almost certainly will. Know the details of what you want to pick, and know the common symptoms of poisoning (like S.L.U.D.G.E.). And hey, even if you don’t yet feel comfortable picking mushrooms to eat, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy getting low and appreciating these fascinating little guys! ≈≈

Takamato ridge, crowded with expanding caps,

filling up, thriving—

the wonder of autumn aroma.

From the eighth-century Japanese poetry collection Man-nyo Shu

Gary Snyder, that great Beat writer and partner to Joanne Kyger, spoke of mushrooms as “the completion of the work of a poet”. The emergent fruits of the vast informational subterranean web known as mycelia are fed by decaying matter, and the “immediate biomass of perception, sensation, and thrill”, enacts a process of recycling—a process that both fungi and artists know well. In this episode of Something Like, we take an extended stroll through the forest, scouring edge habitats in search of what we might call the mycological way.

This episode holds plenty of lonnnnnng new age and minimal lingerings, a couple dungeon synth tracks, and hopefully just enough Terrence McKenna to get your otherworldly senses tingling.

I’m what you might call a resolute amateur in all things mycological, so please be kind if I mix up a few details along the way!

• The albums you hear under my voice are:
• The Obsolescent Arborist: Tree, Timber and Forest (2018)
• Coniferous Myst: V (2019).
• Intro jingle tunes provided by my dearest buddy and collaborator, Roger 3000.
• This episode, like so many things in my life, wouldn’t be possible without the help and forest companionship of another main buddy: Elif Saydam.
• Here’s some reference material:
  • The Song of the Earth, by Jonathan Bateman (in which he references Gary Snyder)
  • Mushrooms Demystified, by David Arora
  • All that the Rain Promises, by David Arora
  • The Mushroom at the End of the World, by Anna Tsing
  • Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore by Lawrence Millman
• This episode originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Eola, This is the World, Dang, 2016
Gary Snyder, Wild Mushroom Song, The Dial-A-Poem Poets: Biting off the Tongue of a Corpse, 1975
Václav Hálek, Xerocomus moravicus, Hudební atlas hub, 2003
Ella Jenkins, Pretty Trees Around the World, Rhythms Of Childhood, 1963
David Naegele, Temple in the Forest, Temple in the Forest, 1975
Ernst Karel, Mycological (Stereo Version), 2016
Maria Sabína, Mushroom Ceremony Of The Mazatec Indians Of Mexico, 1957
Pauline Anna Strom, Mushroom Trip, Trans​-​Millenia Music, 1983
Konkrete Canticle (Bob Cobbing), Hymn to the Sacred Mushroom, Experiments in Disintegrating Language, 1971
Mycologia, Tippler’s Bane (Coprinopsis atramentaria), Assorted Mushrooms of New England, 2019
Michael Stearns, Light in the Trees, The Storm, 2001
Joseph Shabason, Forest Run, Anne, 2018
Sylvia Plath, Mushrooms, 1959
Trees, Snails Lament, The Garden of Jane Delawney, 1970
Stevie Wonder, Trees, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, 1979

“. . . It’s at this moment that I decide to make a change, set up some rules, do something, because when the life of the living moves slow, it speeds the overall sense of time. It gives the impression that life goes by “In a flash,” “In a breath,” “Before you know it.” I decide: 

First, I will forbid the use of any such phrase, including, “Where has the day gone?” including “Already?”. Second, I will do all I can to avoid tradition, which speeds time. Like ritual speeds time. Like routine, which I cannot possibly avoid, speeds time. Third, and most important, because it is something I can control, I will adopt an exercise for slowing time: to place details in time, so to prevent the seamless fold from taking hold. . . ” 

(an excerpt from Calypso Goes out of Favour by Rosa Aiello)

In this very special 21st episode of Something Like, Bitsy speaks with artists Emma LaMorte and Rosa Aiello about Emma’s solo exhibition, Aussicht, in-situ at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, late into the night.

As they go on an ekphrastic exploration through Emma’s exhibition, they ask: what produces a feeling of the continuous present, and how do we move through it? What does the passage of time feel like for an artist—for a new mother—and how does this relate to care, to duty, to patience, to pleasure, and even…to injustice?

Taking a page from Aussicht, this is an episode in four parts, and features an original score by LNS (Laura Sparrow), as well as excerpts from Rosa Aiello’s text for the exhibition, Calypso Goes out of Favour, an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, Calypso’s Way.

Huge thanks to my special guests Rosa Aiello and Emma LaMorte, as well as to Ben Marvin, Laura Sparrow, and of course Miriam Bettin, who curated the exhibition, and was instrumental in helping this episode happen.

• Aussicht is on view at the Kölnischer Kunstverein now through October 18th, 2020.
• Emma will be screening Stan Brakhage’s Anticipation of the Night (1958) on October 13th, at 7pm at the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Register here.
• Hear more of LNS (Laura Sparrow) here and on her bandcamp: https://lnslaurasparrow.bandcamp.com/
• As always, thank you to Roger 3000 for providing the music in Something Like’s jingle.
• This week, the tracks under our conversation include: Brian Eno’s Thursday Afternoon (1985), Alice Coltrane’s Reflection on Creation and Space (1973), and Midori Takada’s Through the Looking Glass (1983)
• Erratum: I keep referring to Terry Riley and Don Cherry’s Descending Moonshine Dervishes incorrectly (without the important “shine” in that “moon”).
• This episode was originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Day 1, LNS & Rosa Aiello, (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2020)

Early Dawning, Slow Attack Ensemble, (Music For Turntable Guitars & Sampled Instrument, 2020)

にわとりと蝿 (“Chicken and Flies”) Lyu Hong-Jun (劉宏軍), Songs of the Earth, 1988)

Day 2, LNS & Rosa Aiello, (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2020)

Her Might Waters Run, Matana Roberts, (Coin Coin Chapter 4, 2019)

Gespraech mit die Erde, Pyrolator, (Wunderland, 1984)

Day 3, LNS & Rosa Aiello, (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2020)

What is our Life? Orlando Gibbons, (First Set of Madrigals and Motets 1612, performed by the Rodolphus Choir)

Afternoon at heart, Miyane, (August 2020)

Kokorowa, Killing Time, (Irene, 1988)

Blues Alif Lam Mim in the Modes of Rag Infinity (excerpt), (CC Hennix Live at Issue Project Room, 2016)

Day 4, LNS & Rosa Aiello, (Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2020)

Descending Moonshine Dervishes (excerpt), Terry Riley & Don Cherry with Karl Berger (Live in Cologne, 1975)

Alone in the Night, Michael Small, (Klute, 1971)

Night Thoughts, John Zorn, (A Vision in Blakelight, 2012)

Woman of the Night, Sally Oldfield, (Celebration, 1980)
 
 

“Apocalypse is a sense of time”, writes the artist and writer Rosa Aiello: “an end-point at which something is revealed.”

In 557, ten years after the first plague pandemic—Justinian’s Plague—wiped out 40% of Constantinople’s population, an earthquake destroyed much of the city, including the Hagia Sofia, then only 20-odd years old. Self-appointed Christian prophets popped up everywhere, warning that the End was Nigh. Many of the city’s citizens suddenly changed their ways, conducting more honest business and giving money to the church. This sudden change in people’s behaviour did not go unnoticed, and has long since become a mode of control, but also a conceptual framework within which humans have learned to, in the words of medieval scholar James Palmer, conceptualise, stimulate, and direct change. Apocalypticism, writes Palmer, is about humans needing an ending. But apocalypticism is a 19th century concept. In the Middle Ages, the word apocalypse in a general sense referred to “insight, vision, hallucination.” An uncovering, not an ending.

Back in December 2012, on the eve of the Mayan Codex Apocalypse, thousands of people gathered on top of a sacred mountain village in the French Pyrenées called Bugarach, awaiting salvation from the Rapture by an alien civilization. The mountain is steeped in mythology: geologically, its summit is older than its base. Cathars were massacred here, and the mountain’s caves are thought to be entry-points to a mystical subterranean civilisation known as Agartha. Later, Bugarach became the inspiration for Jules Vernes’ Journey to the Centre of the Earth, which in turn was a central inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s “first contact” classic, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

This was the pretense for a lecture I gave in Marseille, France, a few weeks prior. If apocalypse means revelation, an uncovering, then what if we are in fact living through multiple apocalypses, over and over (as Franny Choi writes of in her poem, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On)? What if we aren’t the protagonists of our own stories, but its background actors running amok, being eaten by zombies and washed away by tidal waves? And, as medieval scholars have often asked, why do we humans need an ending so badly, but can never imagine ourselves ending?

This special 20th episode of Something Like will explore Endzeitfragmente (to borrow a term from the Sequentia album of the same name): “End Times” music. This is music about endings, and music made for and about the (primarily Judeo-Christian notion of) apocalypse, from the 9th to the 21st centuries. How better to mark an milestone of sorts—a bend in the road— than to ruminate on how the journey might one day end—only to begin again?

We’ll observe the term as Octavia Butler understood it: perhaps the apocalypse is not a singular event, but multitudinous, scattershot, unfolding over a series of seemingly unrelated and yet certainly interconnected climatic, political, economic, and social events. So apocalyptic events are in fact mere moments, but revelatory ones. Revelations of precarity or mortality. In recent years, as the world’s politicians have had to look the facts of climate change in the face and stare down the 2-degree celsius hourglass, they’re also revelations of a surfeit or dearth of agency: of greed and complicity so broad, so terribly normal, that its sudden lack is only met with slack jawed despair. Then what?

Here’s Rosa again:

“Apocalypse is a sense of place. Here we reached the end some time ago, we are past disaster and have survived, wiser, but cut off from the pre-apocalyptic world. Or was it because we had always been cut off—we had used the same images, however distorted, had suffered the same illnesses of body, society, and environment but couldn’t leave, couldn’t circulate as the symbols and commodities did—that our ending came first, discontinuous with and nonetheless a version of the ending they will all face soon.”

• As always Something Like’s intro jingle music comes courtesy of Roger 3000
• The music behind my voice in this episode is from David Hopkins’ Gaia, 1987
• You can read Franny Choi’s The World Keeps Ending, And the World Goes On here
• Check out Anchoress’ new album, out this week, here.
• Check out Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000’s new single Extinction Piece, here: https://tundrarecords.bandcamp.com/album/extinction-piece (All proceeds go to the WWF).
• Erratum: in the show I say that the earthquake in Constantinople happened in 556, but it’s 557. I also mis-quoted the title of Franny Choi’s poem in the show. A weird momentary lapse in critical thinking while recording. Sorry!

Tracklist

Mark Pritchard feat. The Space Lady, S.O.S.

Joan Armitrading, Save Me

The Cambridge Singers, Libera Nos, Salva Nos

Nico, Afraid

Alanis Obamsawin, Of the Earth and of the Sea

Anne Waldman, Guro Moe, Deb Googe, Håvard Skaset, Ambrose Bye, Devin Brahja Waldman, Extinction Aria Part II

Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000, Extinction Piece

Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Sequentia / Germany Anon. 9th cent. Adducentur

Duval Timothy, Tdagb

Adult Fantasies, Parsi

DJ Richard, Dissolving World

Natalie Mariko, Antichrist

Anchoress, Anxious Clown

Lyu-Hongjun, (劉宏軍) フルスーの景

Shelley, Reproduction is Pollution

Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom, How Much Better if Plymouth Rock Had Landed on the Pilgrims (Section VIII, excerpt)

Masami Tsuchiya, Fear for the Future

IAMDDB, End of the World

Dijvan Gasparyan, I Will Not Be Sad in This World
 
 

City mice of the world, do you see stars in the eyes of the country mice as you trudge through the cosmopolitan sludge (that you love)? Country mice of the world, is this when the real work begins? Either way, the end of summer is no time of escape. Or is it?

• My intro jingle as ever courtesy of the excellent Roger 3000.
• This episode was originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Project Pablo, Intro, Come To Canada You’ll Like it, 2018

Mary Watkins, Leaving All The Shadows Behind, Something’s Moving, 1978

Naomi Shihab Nye, Last August Hours Before the Year 2000, 2005

Green House, Soft Meadow, Six Songs for Invisible Gardens, 2020

Miss Abrams and the Strawberry Point 4th Grade Class, Running in the Green Grass, “Green Grass” / “Sweet Summertime”, 1972

Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Colour of Anyhow, Beverly Glenn Copeland, 1970

Dominique Lawalree, Le Secret Blanc (First Meeting), 2017

Nobuo Uematsu, Phantasmagoria, Phantasmagoria, 1994

The Books, The Lemon of Pink I, The Lemon of Pink, 2003

Susan Cogan, Space Age Primitives, 2015

Lynn Castle, Forest, Rose Colored Corner, 2017 (originally recorded in 1966)

Isturo Shimoda , Like a Child, Love Songs & Lamentations, 1973

Jane Wong, Pastoral Power, 2016

Felicia Atkinson, Lush, The Flower and the Vessel, 2019

Shelleyann Orphan, Southern Bess/ A Field Holler, Helleborine, 1987

Neil Young, Through my Sails, Zuma, 1975

Janice Giteck, Breathing Songs from a Turning Sky, Music from Mills, 1986

Carman Moore, Love Conquers, Personal Problems, 2020

Marjorie van Halteran and Lou Giansante, Dead of Summer, the Sound of Radio, 1982

Vivaldi, L’Orage, Sophie Mutter, Herbert von Karajan, and the Vienna Philharmonic, 1990

Susana Rinaldi, Sur, A Un Semajante, 1993
 
 

In her 1985 anti-colonial future-past epic Always Coming Home, Ursula K. LeGuin opens with an archeology of the future, a future people based on indigenous civilizations of Northern California. In the book’s introduction, she writes: “The only way I can think to find them, the only archeology that might be practical, is as follows: You take your child or grandchild in your arms, a young baby, not yet a year old, and go down into the wild oats in the field below the barn. Stand under the oak on the last slope of the hill, facing the creek. Stand quietly. Perhaps the baby will see something, or hear a voice, or speak to somebody there, somebody from home.”

This is an episode about the act of going home, and where that home zone is located.

• As always, intro music is provided by Roger 3000
• The background music behind my voice in this episode is from Lucinda Chua’s Improvisations & Meditations from Villa Lena (released by NTS)
• You can read A.F. Moritz’s Home Again Home Again here
• You can check out Alex Turgeon’s work here
• This episode was originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Ursula K. Le Guinn & Todd Barton, Homesick Song
Joni Mitchell, Case of You (Live in London, 1983)
Lijadu Sisters, Come on Home
Jeff Majors, Nomad
“Blue” Gene Tyranny, A Letter from Home
Silvia Tarozzi, Mi Specchio e Refletto
Meredith Monk, Memory Song
R Beny, Cascade Symmetry
Judy Mayhan, I’ve been the One
Iris Dement, My Life
Joseph Shabason, I Thought I Could Get Away With It
Laurie Anderson, Is Anybody Home
Valentina Goncharova, Zen Garden
Alex Turgeon, Latch Key
Gia Margaret, No Sleep No Dream
Buffy Sainte Marie, The Dream Tree
Yumiko Morioka, Moon Road
Adrienne Rich, Dreamwood
Nikki Giovanni, Motherhood
 
 

What’s your hybrid loner vibe? Are you a cat person or a dog person? Are you an introverted extrovert? Or an extroverted introvert? This episode explores what it might mean to relish in your alone time, that space of solitude so many of us need to recharge our batteries, and go into a very special form of contemplation. To take a page from Frank O’Hara, it can be a dark time, but maybe a richly dark time.

• As usual, intro music for Something Like is provided by Roger 3000
• The music behind my voice in this episode is Enno Velthuys’ Different Places (1987)
• This episode originally aired on Cashmere Radio and on 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio.

Tracklist

Monica, Don’t Take It Personal (Just one of dem days) acapella version
Gigi, Tirut Yebatin Lig
Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (performed by John Dorenburg), Suite for Solo Viola di Gamba, Mov. 1-2/5
Cocteau Twins, Lazy Calm
Arthur Russell, I Never Get Lonesome
Gia Margaret, Apathy
Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000, The Heat Within
Sun Ra & His Arkestra, I Am Trying to Find Myself
Woo, It’s Cosy Inside
Iceblink, Healer
Angel Bat Dawid, The Joy of Living
Donnie & Joe Emerson, Thoughts in My Mind
Hako Yamasaki, Wandering
Valentina Goncharova, Contemplation
Carman Moore, A Personal Story
Mark Hollis, Inside Looking Out
Jackson C. Frank, Dialogue (I Want To Be Alone)
Marieangela, Alone with the Day
Catherine Ribiero, La Solitude
Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom, Talk 2
Moses Sumney, And So I Come to Isolation
Whitney Houston, One of Those Days

It’s officially summer, friends. And where better to spend those dog days than lounging around a grassy knoll, swatting bugs and squinting in the afternoon sun? This is a show dedicated to that very seasonal pursuit, both its languid joys and its tinge of melancholy. We’ll almost ask, is Summer a time for relaxation or revolution? What will the hot weather bring us? Can we bliss out f’days, to take a page from Laraaji?

• As always, Something Like’s jingle music is by Roger 3000
• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Woody Guthrie: Grassy Grass Grass

Alabaster duPlume: Whisky Story Time

Ana Roxanne: Slowness

Stacey Juritz Ravens Keller: Like the Grass (Live in Basel), excerpt

Priscilla Ermell: Meditação

Blake Mills: Summer All Over

Maria Monti: Aria, Terra, Aqua e Fuoco

Vashti Bunyan: Diamond Day

The Weeds ザ・ウィーズ: 日記 Diary

The Sea Urchins: Wild Grass Pictures

June11: A Peaceful Vale

Brigdet St. John: I Like to Be With You in the Sun

Mich Live P: Planet E.1

Brian Eno: A Clearing

Laraaji: I Can Only Bliss Out (f’days)

Honey Harper: Green Shadows

Mary Lattimore: Wind Carries Seed

Joni Mitchell: The Hissing of Summer Lawns

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa: Her Eyes Have It

Andre Ethier: Dream on Pigs

Ted Lucas: It Is So Nice To Get Stoned
 
 

≈≈ Please support bail funds in the US here ≈≈

≈≈ Sign this petition to make Juneteenth a national holiday in the US ≈≈

≈≈ Justice for Chantel Moore ≈≈

In today’s episode, we ask, how can a lack of touch, a lack of hapticality arouse so much in us? What does it mean to be deprived of touch as animals, and what does loneliness have to do with physical contact? If we’re not touching other people, what exactly are we touching?

• Thank you as always to Roger 3000 for providing the intro music for this show
• Underneath my voice today you will hear Hildegard von Bingen’s Canticles of Ecstasy, performed by Sequentia (1993)
• This episode was originally aired on Cashmere Radio and CHFR 96.5 Hornby Island Community Radio

Holdfast

Robin Beth Schaer

The dead are for morticians & butchers

to touch. Only a gloved hand. Even my son

will leave a grounded wren or bat alone

like a hot stove. When he spots a monarch

in the driveway he stares. It’s dead,

I say, you can touch it. The opposite rule:

butterflies are too fragile to hold

alive, just the brush of skin could rip

a wing. He skims the orange & black whorls

with only two fingers, the way he learned

to feel the backs of starfish & horseshoe crabs

at the zoo, the way he thinks we touch

all strangers. I was sad to be born, he tells me,

because it means I will die. I once loved someone

I never touched. We played records & drank

coffee from chipped bowls, but didn’t speak

of the days pierced by radiation. A friend

said: Let her pretend. She needs one person

who doesn’t know. If I held her, I would

have left bruises, if I undressed her, I would

have seen scars, so we never touched

& she never had to say she was dying.

We should hold each other more

while we are still alive, even if it hurts.

People really die of loneliness, skin hunger

the doctors call it. In a study on love,

baby monkeys were given a choice

between a wire mother with milk

& a wool mother with none. Like them,

I would choose to starve & hold the soft body.

Copyright © 2019 by Robin Beth Schaer.

Touch Gallery: Joan of Arc

by Mary Szybist

The sculptures in this gallery have been

carefully treated with a protective wax

so that visitors may touch them.

—exhibitions, the art institute

of chicago

Stone soldier, it’s okay now.

I’ve removed my rings, my watch, my bracelets.

I’m allowed, brave girl,

to touch you here, where the mail covers your throat,

your full neck, down your shoulders

to here, where raised unlatchable buckles

mock-fasten your plated armor.

Nothing peels from you.

Your skin gleams like the silver earrings

you do not wear.

Above you, museum windows gleam October.

Above you, high gold leaves flinch in the garden,

but the flat immovable leaves entwined in your hair to crown you

go through what my fingers can’t.

I want you to have a mind I can turn in my hands.

You have a smooth and upturned chin,

cold cheeks, unbruisable eyes,

and hair as grooved as fig skin.

It’s October, but it’s not October

behind your ears, which don’t hint

of dark birds moving overhead,

or of the blush and canary leaves

emptying themselves

in slow spasms

into shallow hedgerows.

Still bride of your own armor,

bride of your own blind eyes,

this isn’t an appeal.

If I could I would let your hair down

and make your ears disappear.

Your head at my shoulder, my fingers on your lips—

as if the cool of your stone curls were the cool

              of an evening—

as if you were about to eat salt from my hand.

Copyright © 2013 by Mary Szybist.

Tracklist

1). Life Without Buildings, The Leanover (Any Other City, 2001)
2). Iceblink, Cellphone in the Bath (Carpet Cocoon, 2020)
3). Erykah Badu feat. André 3000, Hello (But You Caint Use My Phone, 2015)
4). Abdul Wadud, In a Breeze, (By Myself, 1977)
5). FKA Twigs feat. Lucinda Chua (Cellophane, Magdalene, 2019)
6). Liam Byrne, Les Voix Humaines (Concrete, 2019)
7). Andy Bey, The Power of My Mind (Experience & Judgement, 1973)
8). H.Takahashi, Circulation (Low Power, 2019)
9). Hildegard V. Bingen, O Rubor Sanguinis (Sequentia, Voice of the Blood, 1995)
10). Arca, Piel (Arca, 2017)
11). Jeanne Lee, Yeh Come T’beh (Conspiracy, 1975)
12). Curd Duca, Touch (Elevator 2, 1999)
13). Patti Smith, The Histories of The Universe (Giorno Poety Systems: Big Ego, 1978)
14). February Montaine, Kubler Rosa (As Late as the Light that Hides it, 2019)
15). Simone Forti, Face Tunes (1968) (Al Dal La, 2018)
16). Mary Szybist, Touch Gallery: Joan of Arc (2013)
17). Eartheater, Below the Clavicle (2020)
18). Planetary Peace, I Am That I Am (Synthesis, 1980)
19). Bitsy Knox & Roger 3000, Your Body (2019)
20). Mark Renner, Wounds (Few Traces, 1986)
21). Madonna, Substitute for Love/ Drowned World (Ray Of Light, 1997)

• Protestor bail funds and support networks
• More protestor bail funds
• Anti-racism texts
• Help for Beverly & Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland

Water Devil By Jamall May

Spout of a leaf,

listen out for the screams

of your relentless audience:

the applause of a waterfall

in the distance,

a hurricane looting

a Miami shopping mall.

How careful you are

with the rain-cradling

curve of your back.

Near your forest,

all are ready to swim

and happy to drown

in me: this lake of fire

that moats the edges.

From my mouth,

they come to peel the flames

and drink their slick throats

into the most silent

of ashes.

In this episode of Something Like we swim in water water, everywhere (but not a drop to drink?), from 300m deep in the middle of the Salish Sea to 13,821,480,454 miles from earth (and counting). The Pacific, protest, crying, and grandmothers abound. An episode on sweat surely to come.

• As always, intro music is provided by Roger 3000
• Background music for this episode comes thanks to Barry Truax’s Island (2001) and Roland Hanneman’s Mystic Sea (2011)
• This episode originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Bitsy Knox – Field Recording on Little Trib Beach, Hornby Island, November 2019
Baka Children – Water Drum (excerpt) – Lullabies & Children’s Songs (1972)
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Something Blue – Soundscape 1: Surround (1986)
Jon Hassell – Toucan Ocean – Vernal Equinox (1977)
Bruce Lee – Be Water My Friend
Emily A. Sprague – Water Memory Poem – Water Memory/Mount Vision (2019)
Guan Pinghu – Luishui (流水 / Streams / Flowing Water) – Ancient Classics of Qin Han and Wei Dynasties (1998 issue)
Robert Haigh – The Secret Life of Waves – Creatures of the Deep (2017)
Hildegard Westerkamp – Kits Beach Sound Walk (excerpt) – Transformations (1996)
Ana Roxanne – It’s a Rainy Day on the Cosmic Shore – ~​~​~ (2019)
Southern Resident Killer Whales L-Pod in the Salish Sea – Ocean Networks Canada (October 3, 2011)
Robert Wyatt – Sea Song – Rock Bottom (1974)
Deux Filles – Drinking at the Stream – Silence & Wisdom (1982)
Talking Rain – Susan Frykberg & Hildegard Westerkamp – Harangue 1 (1998)
Kath Bloom & Loren Mazzacane Connors – How It Rains – Restless, Faithful, Desperate (1984)
Bitsy Knox – Field Recording of rain on Hornby Island, October 2019
Beverly Glenn Copeland – Erzili – Beverly Glenn Copeland (1970)
Alice Coltrane & Carlos Santana – Angel of Air / Angel of Water – Illuminations (1974)
Leo Svirsky – River Without Banks – River Without Banks (2019)
Nina Simone – Take Me To The Water – High Priestess of Soul (1968)
Doreen Day – Nibi / Water Song – (Thanks to) Mother Earth Water Walk
Fat Chants – When The Rivers Are Hot (1980)

• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Before I get into the details of this episode of Something Like, I’d like to share some resources relating to the current protests against anti-black racism and state-sanctioned violence in America:

There is an anti-racism demonstration in Berlin this Saturday, June 6th at 2pm, starting at Potsdamer Platz.

More protests in Berlin and across Germany this week:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CA4-bsdqf2B/

Protestor bail funds and support networks:

• https://bailfunds.github.io/
• www.communityjusticeexchange.org/nbfn-directory

Anti-racism texts:

• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WZpQpu9AkCaUQOaTCKn7CQ4rlkxpMRL5

THE FANTASY WORLD MASTER LIST OF RESOURCES ON HOW TO DISMANTLE SYSTEMIC RACISM:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16CFLrMySyQR8cLTmACUKtHfc-UQ9PUA0ktLAfApydS8/htmlview?usp=sharing&pru=AAABcp9xnEw*iUNStCtTFoWbV-eubvbTwA#

Janaya Future Khan on what white people must know:

• https://www.instagram.com/p/CA3OB9fByeN/

The Other Box on how to be actively anti-racist:

• https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxHQBeHxfm/?igshid=k71cxzj5rwkm

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “It’s OK to live a life others don’t

understand,” writes author Jenna Woginrich. That’s a healthy attitude for

an eccentric person like her, who taught herself by trial and error how to

run a small farm with a meager budget while all alone in the middle of

nowhere. But does her advice apply to everyone? I say yes, it does. All of

us have quirky behaviors and idiosyncratic ideas and odd feelings that

other people find hard to understand, let alone appreciate. I bring this to

your attention, Gemini, because the coming weeks will be a time when it’s

best for you to emancipate yourself as much as possible from the need to

be perfectly understood as you express your raw, pure, unique self.

(Rob Brezsny’s FREE WILL ASTROLOGY, Week of June 4, 2020)

The premise for this episode of Something Like is one I’ve been mulling ever since I came across a cassette tape of Frank Perry’s 1989 Zodiac album at the Free Store on Hornby Island. It got me thinking about how and why so many musicians have sonically explored the world of astrology and the universal traits of its signs. Where better to start a 12-part series on astrology than with the curious and witty, loquacious and adventurous, busy and creative minds of the Gemini? Sure, they have a reputation as heartbreakers, but they’re also the best friends and collaborators you could ever ask for (especially for Scorpios like me). It’s no wonder that the Gemini’s insatiable desire to communicate has produced so many brilliant musicians, some of whom we’ll listen to today: Prince, Laurie Anderson, Suzanne Ciani, and Sun Ra to name a few.

• As ever, the intro for Something Like is by Roger 3000
• During speaking segments, the music under my voice is Harry Partch’s Castor & Pollux (1952), and then Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Suite Castor et Pollux (1773)
• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

Frank Perry: Gemini, (Zodiac, 1989)
Prince: Why the Butterflies (Piano & A Microphone, 1983, 2018)
“Blue” Gene Tyranny: Leading a Double Life (“Blue” Gene Tyranny, 1978)
Emerald Web: Through the Garden of Mirrors (Valley of the Birds, 1981)
Brian Eno: St. Elmo’s Fire (Another Green World, 1975)
Robert Creeley: Gemini (Goddard College, May 18 1973)
Marion Brown & Gunter Hampel: Gemini (no.520) (Gemini, 1983)
Laurie Anderson: Born, Never Asked (Big Science, 1981)
Michele Mercure: Beside Herself (Beside Herself, 2018)
Mort Garson: In Love, Gemini (Signs of the Zodiac, 1969)
Joan Armitrading: What Do You Want (To the Limit, 1978)
Fleetwood Mac: Silver Springs (1977)
Suzanne Ciani: The Eighth Wave (The Velocity of Love, 1985)
The Travelers: Wanderer (1960)
Ströer Duo: Nomad Song (Nomaden, 1985)
Just Us: Easy
Yves Jarvis: Talking or Listening (The Same But By Different Means, 2019)
Tushiya Sukegawa: Gemini (Bioçic Music, Astrology, 1993)
Sun Ra: That’s How I Feel (Languidity, 1978)

For the Tuesdays that feel more like Saturdays and the Sundays that feel like a Monday, this show brings us all the procrastinating, languid, zoned out glory of trying to best understand what to do with your time, and when. Prayers and ragers for busy and dumbbell minds alike.

• Jingle tune comes courtesy of my best buddy Roger 3000
• The music under my voice is a wobbly, delayed version of François Couperin’s “Deuxième Leçon de Ténèbres”
• Originally aired on Cashmere Radio and 96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio

Tracklist

1). Barefoot in New York, Arthur Russell
2). This is Almost a Happy Ending, 48 Cameras
3). There’s a Scent of Rain in the Air, A.C. Marias
4). Another Weekend, Ariel Pink
5). 水夫たちの歌声, World Standard
6). Lake, Anna Domino
7). CLST1, Sublyme Diagonal
8). Summertime, MiEKAL aND
9). Euphoria, Stacey Jones
10). Memory of a Big Room (for Matthew), Ellen Fullman
11). In All This Everyday, Joanne Kyger
12). Dal Di Là, Simone Forti
13). Summer On Its Way, Paul Buchanan
14). Spielt Eigene Kompositionen, Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
15). Sun Dance Poem, Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton
16). Prayer, Saskia
17). Tuesday Brightness, Eileen Myles
18). Short & Sweet, Charlemagne Palestine & Terry Jennings
19). just because u designed it, Natalie Mariko
20). These Days, Trine Dryholm
21). Je Derve Avec L’Air, Yoran
22). Out On The Weekend, Neil Young
 
 

Bonjour mes amis,

I’m very excited to share the second episode of our series on Baroque music, all about the music made during the reign of Louis XIV. Those of you who know me will know that this music is the origin of my love of baroque music, and I’ve tried to bring a little bit of context to this fascinating era in which ballet was first refined, and in which a seventh string was added to the viola da gamba! What a time!

The cover image for this episode comes courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum, and is an illustration of a costume for a “Hocricane” in La Douairère de Dillebahaut, from 1626.

Tracklist

Hello my friends,

I’m so very happy and proud to share the 10th episode of Something Like with you!

This episode is dedicated wholly to the voice, and particularly the female voice: to our breath, to our speech, and to our songs. Thank you to Luzie Meyer and her class at Weissensee Kunsthochschule for the fascinating seminar on situated feminism in sound I get to sit in on. I’m excited to put a couple of the musicians we’ve spoken about in another sonic context here. I also want to thank Kate Brown and Ben Marvin for asking me to contribute to their occasional mailer, S.W.I.M. (http://swimpubs.com/articles/the-borderlands), which includes a text and sound piece corresponding to this episode. Finally, I want to thank Elif Saydam, artist, roommate/domestic life partner and all around friend, who is responsible for the gorgeous cover image of this episode, as well as many joys in my life. Wow, friends, right?

• The music behind me is from Joanna Brouk’s 1981 “The Space Between”

Tracklist

Hello babies, little kids, big kids, and very big kids, this is the long-awaited “Smooth Baby FM” episode!

I have a lot of people to thank for their input into the choices for this episode: Rebecca Brewer, Chlose Mckintosh Murray, Elizabeth McIntosh and Stephen Murray, Emma LaMorte and Ben Marvin, Kate Brown, Nicole Ondre and Kalin Harvey, Lodovico Corsini, Eléonore Jacquard, Michele di Menna, Martin Meert, Sophie Fürse, and Joseph Shabason, to name a few. Not all of your suggestions made it in here but thank you so much for widening my eyes to the surprising sonic world of the smalls!

Cover image comes to us via Tarō Gomi
Music under my voice is thanks to Steve Roach’s “Quiet Friend”

Vibe breakdown:

00:00:00 – 00:40:00 = curious and busy minds (for staring at walls, colouring?)
00:40:00 – 01:02:00 = dance party!
01:09:00 – 01:30:00 = cool down and chill out (with made-up languages and mouth bows)
1:30:00 – 2:00:00 = nap time

Tracklist

As we know, Chronos, the personification of time, created Chaos and Aether. How apt. If you have also been wondering why your brain won’t stop the jibber-jabber of activity at night these days, then you’re not alone. Time is alive.

We start this episode with Nina Simone asking where the time goes, and work our way through the crackly wistful folk boo hoos of the likes of Duncan Browne, Kath Bloom and Loren MazzaCane all the way to some cathartic ticky-tacking Swiss and Italian musical projects fiddling with insistent rhythm (which is how my brain feels as it desperately tries to connect with the crippling lethargy of my body, like a cranky and exhausted child being dragged by its determinedly busy mother, my brain). This all leads to Selma Hayek being thrashed by the surf, and Jesus Christ getting an earful from Judas as Mary Magdalene attempts to soothe his cracked feet.

Happy quelling of the subconscious, everybody! I’m tired.

Under my voice is “Celestial Ash” by Anna Homler.

Tracklist

In Patricia Rozema’s fucking excellent 1987 film “I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”, the loveably scrappy protagonist Polly (a rare female voyeur in film!) discovers that her cool gallerist boss privately makes exquisite paintings, which appear only as blindingly bright, empty light boxes on film.

This episode of Something Like explores the dichotomy of darkness and light, using Fanny Howe’s short essay on the blind French Resistance hero Jacques Lusseyran—”A Useful Man”—as our guide. This essay comes to us via her new book, Night Philosophy, out now and available via Divided Publishing: https://divided.online/publications/fanny-howe-night-philosophy/

The music under my voice is Telemann’s Concerto for Traverso and Recorder in E Minor (Bremer Barockorchester)

Tracklist

Hello my dear friends,

I’m back with the 6th edition of Something Like. This episode is dedicated to a handful of American avant-garde composers, most of whom came into prominence in the 70s and many of whom are at least loosely affiliated with Mills College’s Center for Contemporary Music in Oakland, California (which originated as the San Francisco Tape Music Center).

So, you know, something like another kind of, like, pop music.

The music under my voice this time is from Carl Stone’s Woo Lae Oak.

The blog post on Wadada Leo Smith and his scores, written by Bradley Bailey over at the Hum, can be found here: https://blogthehum.com/2016/11/23/the-scores-of-ishmael-wadada-leo-smith-ten-freedom-summers-and-the-specter-of-race/

And here’s the final scene, in all of its gay glory, of “Songs of Sappho”, featuring Andrea Goodman and the New York Greek Drama Company: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiNYJf41ErI

Sending my undying love and the strong urge to hug you!

Tracklist

As long promised, here is the 1st part of my 3-part amateur guide for amateurs to Baroque Music.

This is in no way an exhaustive history of early Baroque, but more of a personal exploration into an era of music that has long fascinated me. As a result, gaping holes abound. So, inevitably, do historical mistakes* and misinterpretations.

The pieces of music I’m playing for you here are really a mixture of personal favourites and ones that have helped me understand and contextualise the music in history.

As ever, please excuse my terrible pronunciations in Latin, Spanish, Italian, and Nahuatl!

Much love, miss you and love you all!

ERRATUM:

• I repeatedly refer to GIULIO Caccini as Giovanni. Whoops.
• Oh and another: When I mention slavery at the beginning of the episode, I’m referring to the beginnings of slavery in America, which began in 1619.

Tracklist

As promised, and coming straight to you from my bedroom, here is a whirling and needy journey through the sonic cosmos of sexual desire and romantic love. Stick with me, this one’s a long and surprising one.

The (mostly erotic) poems you hear all come from the exhaustive “World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse From Antiquity to Our Time” edited by Katharine Washburn, John S. Major, and Clifton Fadiman,

Underneath my voice you hear Monsieur de Saint Colombe and his Works for 2 Bass Viols.

Tracklist

Back again, my dear friends, with a Saturday evening show dedicated to the world of plants! Songs for plants, by plants, about plants, all in the tune of green. Which means, of course, some of the (mostly) New Age goo I love the most.

I know I promised you a sexy-no-sex show, but it turns out there are a lot of songs about sex, romance, and desire, so you’ll have to hold onto your panting loins for a few days longer. Ditto all my baby mummas/daddyos, Smooth Baby FM is on the way!

p.s. sorry for butchering names (especially in Latin) as usual.

Love you! Miss you!

Tracklist

I’m back. This is not an April Fool’s Edition, don’t worry.

I love you and miss you, dear friend. Here’s to the Pacific Ocean, Gaia, and wishing I could give 20-second-hugs to you all.

Happy Birthday, Juan Pablo Larraín!

• Now taking requests for upcoming episodes. The themes are: “Smooth Baby FM” (for all of our baby mummas and daddy-o’s). Send me your baby’s babble. Or yours, you baby, you.
• Sexy no sex (for those of you who are curious how I will narrate your masturbation playlist)

Tracklist

A Coronamix just for my sweetest friends. Love you and miss you.

Music behind my voice is from the great contemporary gambist Liam Byrne, all off of his album “Concrete”

The Marge Piercy book I mentioned wasn’t, in fact, “He, She, and It” but “Woman on the Edge of Time”. Both brilliant works!

Please don’t share this on social media, but feel free to share amongst mutual friends! <3 <3 <3

Tracklist