Rio En Medio is terrific. Frontier. First song, coffee shop guitar, radioshop electronics and a multi-tracked whisper. Loveliness. Very Cloudboy. I've mentioned that somewhere else. These seem less apt as dream narrations than as a random recounting of space and time. It's random and disassociated, both very good things to be. I went to lunch today, always Indian on Sundays, I should alter my pattern of behaviour. Perhaps Somali or Vietnamese? Do you consume anything of a culture when you consume the food of a culture? I suppose there are the memories and experiences of everyone who has preserved this cuisine over the millenia. But then they serve goat in India rather than Lamb. I am not consuming anything of actual Indian content. Surely all of he ingredients are local. Perhaps a few special spices are smuggled back in the underpants of entrepreneurial Indians to escape the food nazis from Center for Science in the Public Interest. Has India been a target of their scorn? I am not sure. My experience is entirely metaphorical. The creams and delightfulness portend ill omens from the nannies who wish to forbid indulgence on any level. The sky this evening was like a Tandoori Chicken, fiery and orange and turbulent, aflame with colour and vigour. The colours of an indian dish delight the eyes with brilliant oranges, deep greens, creamed browns and earthy beiges all mixed together to make a palette of goodness to paint the soul's insides with warmth and heartiness. Rio En Medio is not Indian. She matriculated at birth into the red somewhere in California, how unfortunate, but she has turned her parent's mistreatment into a benefit as the music is escapist and fragile and always in fear of being discovered. Cracks and peelings left untouched and a gentleness pervades. Cloudboy is the definitive touchpoint in my ears but who would know what that means? Would Rio En Medio? Demarnia Lloyd would be a likely candidate to tour communes and kibbutzes given the opportunity I am sure. Third song. Industrial samples and violins and the metronomic guitar lines. I picture her very short with long fingers. I have no idea. Spaced out event horizon effects here, her voice heavy with reverb, nice. When you see a sky like this evenings you are stopped suddenly in tracks even though you've seen hundreds of night skies as lovely. It is the grandeur, the cathedral roof of the world painted afresh every evening that beguiles. The fresh snows on mountain tops one hundred miles away that accompany as supporting actors. It's a wondrous country. Big sky country. This music was made for turbulent skies aflame. Horns, very Red Rubicon, nice. Of Montreal is playing this evening, but for 20 dollars, pah, full frontal should not be more than 13 dollars. Next song for Rio En Medio, lp static, sampled strings and then a whisper. Same as always. Random lists of accumulated images, not as profound as she would imagine it is. The segments seem pasted together inelegantly, hardly seamlessly, it isn't in the realm of a Mum or a Lara Lockton collage is it now. But it is nice. I really enjoy this album. I would listen in the library while reading of the Borgias but my experience of listening to music in a library is tainted by a young woman at Oakland University in the early 90s who had me thrown out of the library because I refused to stop listening to an album she couldn't hear because I was tapping my foot unconsciously along to the beat. I can't recall which record was my demise. Possibly Northside or something equally dire but she was really very rude. Oakland University had an insane imbalance among their female/male quota. Far too many young women and too few young men but then that is the case in most universities these days as boys are a dying breed among the educated. Pity. Spoken word samples in some made up language of yore. This is filler. Sorry. Let's talk about the brilliant sky paintings instead. Over. Next song, a long one, Venus of Willendorf, could be some sort of statement on the theoretical matriarchal pre-history of humanity. I don't know. Mainly spaced out Murcof-ish effects and some twinkles and beeps. Filler, but lovely filler all the same. When they play this live surely there is some scruffy looking humanities major with soul poured over a box load of electronic gear trying to conjure and coax mysiticism from his radio shack gadgetry. I picture him pulling his hair behind his ear incessantly and wearing a tam even though he grew up in Boulder. Now whispers have returned, eveyrthing else has been turned down, nice effect this. It is all a bit like Set Upon a Curve. Cloudboy's site is never updated except for news of new releases by Demarnia's rapping brother. I don't care about Jody Lloyd actually. This is meant to be serious music. I am not always certain we need serious music. When was the change from fatuous, mindless fun to fatuous, pompous rock? Was it Somebody to Love? I heard it on the radio and it is absolutely joyless and dour and ridiculously awful. Did Grace Slick kill rock music? Possibly, though I bet Jefferson had loads more po-faced anthems that no one cared about before that song. What is the point of the rock and roll statesman anyhow? Poetry doesn't move anyone these days. Will Maya Angelou be at the coronation? Surely. Or Toni Morrison? How about Jewell? Next song, after the long song, a more conventional folk song, with guitars, melodica and small splashes of electronic percussion in the background. Very nice. I have to go to work early again tomorrow morning. Always. Work dominates my life. I think about it all weekend this time of year. I need a new job. It is not a good time to change jobs though. Now Last Child's Tear, another long one, starts off with squiggles and pointlessness, then a guitar, reminiscent of the second song's melody, is it a larger suite we're dealing with with revolving employment of melodic ideas I am too simple to comprehend? Now singing. Lions. All very spiritual. I quite like this. Her voice is very nice, are most whispers enjoyable then. I've never recorded my own whispers. I could be lovely at low decibels. Unkown. This is very quiet and spare. A donation to the fabric of space time in peace, now to the next segment of recorded vocal snippets and gibberish then drum machines and volume. Return of the rock and echoes and reverb and her voice in a more determined whisper. Perhaps she is merely soft spoken. It is still pointless, lyrically, tone poetry that owes more to inanity than anything else but that's the beauty of lyrics in music they really do not have to be about anything at all and if they are about anything lest they be interesting on their own then the fact that they are poignant or relevant in any current social setting it all means very little to me. These words sound nice, they might make Rio En Medio cathartically cry all night long while she's recording her dreams in a dream journal but they move me only physically. My head becomes heavy and permeable. Now the title track, some more intricate guitar picking and distant thrum of percussion and kitchen pots and pans tinkering and others, chants. Can you make a living by playing all of the communes in the world? Can one be the Nana Mouskouri of the Kibbutz set? There are certainly commune sympathies in the new administration. Of course the glorious thing about communes is that they are voluntary. Communism only fails when it is compulsory. Israeli Kibbutzes are always heralded as bulwark examples of the triumph of collectivism but these are people with the same motivations of making themselves feel superior to everyone else. Nothing wrong with that. It is actually a rare flowering of market philosophy when like minded groups assemble and attempt to find a niche. They're poor, malnourished and short, they play spin the draidle and they read books written in ink made from black bile on hemp hewn pages. Again, nothing wrong with that, my own upbringing was unromantic and dull. But when Rio En Medio shows up at a commune in New Mexico do they play acoustic or guerilla style by tapping into the 440 on the poles that lead to the way out of the neolithic age. I don't know. I've never been to a commune. Perhaps Rio En Medio thought it paradise. Demarnia Lloyd would. This is very Cloudboy/Demarnia. I've said that already. It is a few weeks after I began this entry. I have this job that is decidedly odd when described to people and it has dreadful hours. I was up at 4am this morning, Sunday, to work for a few hours before the rest of the world woke from its slumber and made its way to Starbucks in their hybrid Outback wagons. Where I did work is called the Highlands, it is an incubation region for future Joebama yuppie types. Next song has started. Whispery folk, lovely thing. Highlands is not nearly posh, conservative or generic enough to qualify as authentically yuppie. Home prices have not reached the stratosphere as of yet, even before the property crash. This is the issue with these yuppie Joebama types they are like the kibbutzers and communers in that they want access forbidden to their little enclaves where they are hermetically sealed with their pre-approved national chains that cater to Joebama types, their Borders books and Whole Foods grocery stores. They walk the streets and in passing see loads of people with $1200 baby strollers and their outfits tailor made for walking slow or walking fast or whatever. I run, ha, but I do sometimes and I wear ratty bermuda shorts and a tee shirt. I've never thought to acquire running "gear". Is there not joy in running because of the primitive brain sense that it is the most low tech of exercises. I will admit to buying a good pair of shoes but that is merely for podiatry's sake. Who wants bad feet when you are old? But I pass people with LED lamps on their heads, their fanny packs with six different power bar compartments and drink holders, the velcro arm strap for the ipod with the heart rate monitor and the spandex leggings and nike ball cap. What an ordeal. Ridiculous. Even more so when couples match. I am so judgemental. Judgment will be key in the near future. Because instead of finding solutions to anything the immediate rush will be to pronounce judgement on the preceding 8 years in some attempt to solidify the movement at hand. Not a bad thing actually as solutions offered by Henry Waxman and his crew would be dire. No coal fired plants. There isn't a viable alternative and government grants will not lead to one. Perhaps the death ray could heat my house, if placed on a lower setting. But we must save the polar bears even as they are thriving. Sharon Lawrence has tears on command ready for the skinny polar bears, emaciated from competition. And the Europeans arresting Rwandan officials. There is judgement there. In Spain they have bravely indicted the dead. Ah. But when all of your energy is spared for the aftermath you tend to overlook a great amount of injustice and atrocity as it is actually happening like say in Darfur and Myanmar. But we can't muster the spirit to combat evil but we can muster it when we need to condemn it after everyone has died. Never Get You. Klezmer doodlings. I have begun The Yiddish Policeman's Union and I rather love it. Is The Wonder Boys good? It was a failure as a movie. I should try it next. I recommended At Swim Two Birds to someone and they love me now. Ah. I only read it long ago because Peter Jefferies had named a record after it. Well played Peter. Later when he wrote me a letter denouncing Stereolab in means of praising Snapper I forgot to mention I loved the book. But I do. Read it. Next song, nice, whispers and percussion and guitar squeaks. It seems decidedly low tech but I bet it took some effort to make it appear so. Ah well. Do they sell Kibbutz material at Whole Foods? I was there the other day and they have fireplace logs made of coffee. it was 50$ a box, it sat near to a regular bundle of "wood" which was 3 for 10$. The coffee logs did not appear to be big hits. Are they fair trade coffee logs? Was the wood cut from rainforests? These are important questions for a Whole Foods patron, the majority of which early in the morning appear to be in their 50s with long hair that should have been shorn 2 decades earlier and a twinge of grey highlighting their decidedly asexual appearance. But their mind is glorious, it is enhanced by the kibbutz tea. Next song. Last song. Humms and beeps at the moment, rain storm checking in, this is another long one. I forget whether or not this is the best song on the album. It probably isn't.