music

I suppose I haven't posted any music lately. I've been listening to a lot of stuff though, here are some things on repeat:

Sapmi by Torgeir Vassvik is an amazing album, though it's throat singing of sorts, so it's a bit of an acquired taste. Torgeir is from Finland and is Sami, the indigenous people of the Scandinavian high arctic. He combines overtone singing and joiking, which is a traditional Sami technique meant to capture the the essence of a person, place, thing, animal, or phenomenon. I own quite a bit of arctic music and this one really brings me back to the Arctic more than any other. I can feel the sighting of the bear in the pine-wood forest in the song Bjørnen / Máddu or the sound of rushing water in a mountain brook in Water Song / Siiggát.

Here is more music I suppose is an acquired taste...bagpipes:

The bagpipes are not just Scottish, you can find them in a great many countries from the Middle East to Estonia. Unfortunately, the art of bagpiping has died out in Norway, but Elisabeth Vatn has resurrected them admirable, combining them with some interesting jazz and country influences on her album Piper On The Roof. 

I am a huge fan of Martyn Bennet and have been for some time. Sadly, he died quite young of cancer a few years ago. I had some of his other stuff, but just acquired this album recently. Glen Lyon remixes songs sung by his grandfather and mother in Scots Gaelic, a language I know a little of, but even if you don't you can enjoy this album. One of my favorite songs is "Cave of gold":

An ancient Hebridean legend tells of a famous piper who goes into a cave to find out why it claims so many lives. From deep within, his pipe music echoes out, telling those listening that a green fairy-demon is attacking him. This surreal song imitates the pipes and begins "It's a pity I didn't have three hands, two for the pipes and one for the sword." The chorus repeats his promise to return.

In more contemporary pop music, I've been enjoying Making Mirrors, by Australian artist Gotye

It's quite an eclectic album, but I really love the videos that have come out so far for the album, such as Bronte, which is about the loss of a beloved pet, but the video takes it to a whole other level of lush gorgeousness and wistfulness...

Speaking of wistfulness rediscovered this animated gem recently in my old Youtube favorites. It was done by Italian animator Bruno Bozzeto and is set to Sibelius' Valse Triste from Kuolema for orchestra (Op 44). It is quite a haunting reflection on the inevitability of losing things:

Reader Matthew sent me this radio piece about Slow Food's Terra Madre convention. It features some cultures I am very interested. One is the Scottish Crofters and bonus points for mentioning the Highland Clearances, which forced many crofters from their home, often cruelly. One of those people was Jemima Campbell, one of my ancestors. More and more my diet has come to resemble that of a crofter: grassfed lamb and beef with some horticultural crops.

Here is Julie Fowlis, one of my favorite Scots Gaelic singers:

Another people featured are the Sami (sometimes called the Lapps, but that is considered derogatory), a relatively little-known indigenous culture in the far-north of Scandinavia that once herded reindeer extensively. Some still practice this, though it is dying out for the same reason that cattle driving died out in the US: farmers don't want nomadic grazing animals invading their land, so they fence it off and sometimes kill the animals. I was surprised at some of the negative attitudes against Sami I encountered from Swedish farmers. This story talks about how Sami eat dried reindeer meat as a snack to gain energy. I often bought reindeer meat in Sweden and it was excellent. I hope Sweden will realize the value of this to their nation's health and support these herders better.

I also really like Sami music. Here is one of my favorite Sami throat singers: 

As I understand throat-singing may be an acquired taste, here is the more contemporary beautiful Sofia Jannok, who I met last year

As Prof Gumby (and I) say, modern indigenous people aren't paleolithic people, but they still have much to teach us. Why are they so healthy when eating their native diets? I think science should explore this, but I also think they deserve to have their livelihoods supported because they have cultural, social, and culinary value among other things. Hopefully increased appreciation fostered by Slow Food will allow them to find a way to sustainably share their food with the rest of the world.

When I was 15 I moved from Georgia to Illinois. My father had gotten a job transfer. He promised that when we moved I could have a horse. I dreamed of snow, something so precious in the South that even the sight of flurries would render Marietta immobile. I would bully the girls next door and my sister not to disturb that light blankets that sometimes fell, but before noon they would have melted into the dull beige lawns. Once there was even a blizzard and everything shut down for days.

But blizzards are relative. I found the cold of Illinois all-permeating and paralyzing. Even heated blankets couldn't protect me from it. I shivered constantly and sometimes when I was doing homework I would find my nailbeds a sickly bruised blue. I stayed home from school often, I dreamed of going back home to Georgia. I wrote poetry about how someday I would like to someday be buried in the red clay there. I thought of that often. I was sick all the time, my lungs architectural structure made of just about as many medications as my doctor could prescribe: albuterol, advair, singular, ad nauseum.

Never could I imagine that I would learn to love a land dark and covered with snow. I wasn't going to study abroad because my health was so bad, but after I started eating better I found myself the will to go across the ocean.

I took this picture after trekking from my country home in Ultuna to central Uppsala. My heart was warmed by the beauty of the countryside and forests where I found my path. My body was warmed by a thick wool sweater and reindeer stew. I had learned to eat of the North and wear her bridal gown.

One thing that kept me warm were some fur cuffs I sewed on my coat. Polarfleece is nice, but there is nothing like the coats of animals who have evolved for eons in winters darker and deeper than ours.

But fur is a funny thing. "I hope that fur is vintage or faux" say many who see the fur poking ourside my mittens. No, faux fur is a mockery of the real thing. And while it might please them to know I obtained them as a side effect of tasty rabbits I ate, in the end does it matter? A strange morality around fur has entered into our culture. Partially it is a result of activism by groups like PETA, that target low-hanging fruits associated with the wealthy. People forget their logic is founded in the idea that animals have inalienable rights like ours, a logic that precludes meat-eating as well as mink. They instead make up their own moral code: that fur is OK if you ate the animal or if it's vintage. I certainly prefer to wear what I ate (incidentally, if you are buying a whole lamb you should definitely request getting the hide tanned), but it's strange they don't also ply their disapproval on other less-than-whole uses of animals.

So fur is bad? Because not using any part is bad? When was the last time you ate a liver? Oh, because it's a trivial reason to kill an animal? Well, who decides what is trivial? 

I hesitate to label clothing as "paleo," but using animal fibers in my clothing has definitely made me love winter more. And when I wear them I often think that this is what allowed my ancestors to thrive in places far colder than Chicago. 

Maybe it's Avatar, but there sure are a lot of music videos with hunter-gatherer imagery

Of Montreal: Indie pop featuring cannibals!

Kelis- Electrohip-hop Avatar-inspired archery and general sexiness

Iamiwhoami- Bizarre Swedish ambient folktronica? Think Bjork or Fever Ray.

Familjen: Swedish electropop as swamp thing