SILK FLOWERS: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Folk Roots, New Routes/Mockingjay Part II

The Hunger Games trilogy does a great job of telling a story I already love. Running Man, Battle Royale, Discipline and Punish–all great examples. The spectacle of a single individual withstanding the exertion of state power in a public forum, and the way that the audience's sympathy with this individual reinforces state power, is an effective and revealing situation. I think it also has a relationship to some of the underlying themes of Silk Flowers, but that's a different conversation. I'm also very interested in the post-apocalypse, and in particular stories of what follows.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

I think Fact and Fiction is the perfect name for this group because while the song is good, the video is unreal....

Monday, February 21, 2011

Folk Roots, New Routes/Mockingjay

This week, 4 Men With Beards reissued one of my favorite records of all time: Folk Roots, New Routes by Shirley Collins and Davy Graham. Originally released in 1964 by Decca, it's my favorite thing either of them have ever done. I think it's easy to be disappointed by such collaborations, but the collision of Collins' reverence for tradition and Graham's polyglot explorations into jazz and pop alongside British folk rubs out their individual flaws and completely surpasses even their most brilliant solo recordings.

While Shirley Collins sings with absolute reverence, her bell-clear voice slicing through each arrangement, Davy Graham's guitar is borderline delinquent, stumbling and wandering where it pleases. It's magic that he trusted her to hold each song in place as he skipped in circles round her, and incredible that the label didn't insist on a full band or string arrangements behind them.