Tonight we trip through a vaguely surreal bricolage of sounds and themes. For some reason I've had "Stardust" running through my head, so we'll hear some of that one this evening, as I exorcise and exalt its persistent beauty.
And now the purple dusk of twilight time Steals across the meadows of my heart High up in the sky the little stars climb Always reminding me that we're apart You wander down the lane and far away Leaving me a song that will not die Love is now the stardust Of yesterday The music Of the years Gone by
Tonight we return to Australia, this time to take a look at tourism and advertising jingles, national park music and vacation novelties, and odd gospel, as well as some soundtracks and schmaltz from Sven Libaek. Once again with Urban Bowerbird as our spiritual guide. Less an naturalist's daydream than last week's show, this is more a anthropological look at the banal poetry/poetry-of-the-banal and time-capsule artifacts of forgotten, more or less mainstream Australian media. 7-10, TONIGHT!
Tonight, Explorers Room officially becomes a 3-hour show. I know, I've built settlements in, and basically annexed, that third hour many times before. But now it's time to absorb it entirely and afford it full statehood as a full-fledged member, and one-third of, the Explorers Room. This is partly due to the addition of a wonderful new show, to be announced soon I'm sure, which will follow me on Thursday nights. Exciting!
Tonight's inaugural 3-hour program will ship us out to Australia, immersing us in ornithological expedition, nature documentary soundtracks, and the unique sound of Australian jazz (as evidenced in the works of John Sangster, Don Burrows, and just a bit of influential Australian transplant Sven Libaek, who'll get a deluxe show all to himself this spring).
Most of this stuff came into my personal explorers room via the transmissions of the splendid music blog, Urban Bowerbird, and so the Bowerbird's custodian (fellow traveler Rohan) will act as our spiritual guide this evening. In a perfect world, he would be on the show with me, leading the way into this forest of sound, but alas we are separated by the divisive structure which is this entire planet. Come and be naturalists with us.
(Next week, we might very well be returning to Australia, for a survey of Australian kitsch, advertising, travel and tourist industry recordings, and more jewels of that stripe from Urban Bowerbird. But we'll see–I'm always flying by the seat of imperialist jodhpurs here. Anyway, that'll happen soon.)
But while I've got you here, I just want to reiterate how great Urban Bowerbird is, and how desperately much you ought to be exploring it yourself. Go there, spend some time.
Additionally, the proprietor of Urban Bowerbird, in addition to being a genuine naturalist, is also a musician; I've particularly enjoyed his most recent recordings, Aurora Australis, under the nym of Bronzewing. Check it out:
Tonight on Explorers Room we'll spend an evening in the company of a few of my favorite examples of exotic jazz. Sophisticated (and otherwise) jazz-ups of exotica, Afro-syncretism, Eastern picture-painting, and cool tropicalissimo – it all awaits you and your wonderful ears, tonight, 7-9.
If you've yet to upgrade your Eden's Island from the cruddy rip that was floating around for so long, then I have some news for you: there's a nice rip of it over at Basic Hip Digital Oddio. But go with haste, my child, for it's only gonna be there for you until Feb. 5. That's how things are done over there. HURRY.
Eden's Island is about as essential and magical as an exotica LP can get. If you miss out on this one, I do recommend the Black Sweat reissue, which sounds great, even though they fucked up the cover like a bunch of fucking clowns.
