Current weather. Tangy scented air at body temperature gives way to soft lazy rains and assorted earthy aromas. Negligible wind speed, mogadon tripping cloud formations ranging from steel grey masses to white tendril sirius barely occluding the dopey gong bong of a sun. General condition of heightened sensuality with ultra virile overtones.
If I could control the seasons a year would consist of twenty four and a half weeks of May, twenty four and a half weeks of June, and three weeks of mid to late October.
Next weekend (weather permitting), I think I will have a ride up to one of my favourite local spots near Mottram St Andrew or the NT ornamental garden at Hare Hill and try to get some good pictures. I have not visited this place for some time but I seem to remember an almost eerily enchanted “secrete garden” consisting of a large and immaculately tended lawn enclosed within four walls and set in the middle of nowhere like some strange surreal disembodiment. This garden as I remember, was dotted with large wire sculptures of figures on horseback, and at one end there was a grotto like pergola strung with ivy and climbing roses. It always struck me as the perfect setting for a surreal photographic homage to the Greek Earth goddess Demeter. However, at that time I think I was having some sort of Ken Russell delusion ..best forgotten hay! Or maybe it was just one of my odd “smoke” dreams?
I keep on trying to find a way to make this website look and feel more atmospheric. But I just can’t be bothered trying to learn any more IT stuff and can’t afford to splash out on a computer that would be capable of running the more dynamic authoring software. So notepad and HTML scripting is where it will have to be at for the moment.
The spring time has also got off to something of a good start on the musical front too as I managed to finally get hold of a copy of Stereolab’s exceptionally rare Sound Dust CD. It is an unusual outing even for the Lab and seems to depart slightly from the usual Gane and Sadier formula. Sound Dust often evokes a darker and even quite sombre tone in parts. The situationist essence of other albums seems to have been replaced with an odd mixture of existential angst and a hint of more personal longings.
It is a rare thing indeed for me to find a Lab album with less than 100% appeal. But I fear that the only track on Dust that will stand the test of time (for me) is Nought More Terrific Than Man if only for its well crafted quality of … something jazzy, don’t forget we are dealing with a genre defining or defying force here, and I can’t quite decide wheather Nought More Terrific is some kind of proto Paul Hardcastle tune or not as the case may be…man!…naturally!