Stadiums & Shrines

E73: u own the water by Nina Keith

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In lieu of lists, I’ll start Episode 73 by saying that my favorite album of 2019 is Nina Keith’s arresting MARANASATI 19111, released in the late summer by Grind Select. It carries a kind of emotional sway unique in the sprawl of contemporary wordless music. To me, these arrangements — classical piano conversing with found sounds and textured traces of vocals, flute, and electronics — render the sense of impermanence found in listening with palpable awareness, intention, and pause, be it for the clouds or passing thoughts. The album never ceases to surprise in its utility, its choices to bloom sounds in certain moments, its ability to regenerate and turn corners, between melancholy, bliss, and revelation, seamlessly.


This music is deeply personal to the Philadelphia-based composer and trans woman — built around specific memory networks dealing with her experiences with tragedy, trauma, EMDR therapy, paranormal incidents — while also wildly inviting; it lets listeners in. She recently spoke with Whitney Wei of Bandcamp Daily about the concept of groundlessness, with respect to mortality as well as artistic expression and improvisation. It’s an enlightening read and makes her mix for us that much more effective. As do her accompanying words for u own the water, below:

“A couple months ago I was recovering from surgery and my friends were all sitting on this bed together when I admitted to them I had just learned that my birth time was actually 4 hours off from what I had previously thought. My friend immediately pulled out her phone to figure out my birth chart again (double libra, capricorn rising). My girlfriend exclaimed, ‘There has to be something wrong, how is there no water in her chart? She’s the soggiest bitch I know.’

“This mix began as a playlist on my phone to soundtrack my self care routine. Most of those nights aren’t really planned but rather surrendered to. Usually they come about from being at a sort of low desperate place often reeling from woes of existing in hostile, patriarchal and transphobic environments. After mindlessly adding songs to that playlist I realized it was somehow unintentionally but explicitly aquatic themed and didn’t have many cis men on it. I decided to make this mix expanding on that theme.

“I think about water as a conduit between myself and the world. An aid to soothe and dissolve the disconnect with the world that I might be feeling. My ideal self care routine involves sitting in a candlelit bath and/or crying completely for the sake of crying without needing to find a reason. There’s a gentle exchange with water. It’s the same water that evaporates into clouds and rains on everyone.

(*Not trying to make any kind of statement here. I love music made by boys, just not what I listen to during my bath-cry.)”

~~~


Kelly Moran – Water Music
Felicia Atkinson – To This Island
Emily A. Sprague – Water Memory 1
Colleen – A Swimming Pool Down The Railway Track
Katie Dey – Waves
Mary Lattimore – Wawa by the Ocean
Kara-Lis Coverdale – Splash 144
Nina Keith – I’m In The Water
Tujiko Noriko – The Flood
Yohuna – Lake
Ana Roxanne – It’s a Rainy Day on the Cosmic Shore
Resina – Dark Sky White Water
El Perro Del Mar – Inner Island
Julia Kent – Acquario
Julianna Barwick – Crystal Lake
Anna Luisa – Liquid Memory
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Wetlands
Meredith Monk – Cloud Code
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – The Only Water
Astrid Sonne – Water Creates Swimmers
Floating Spectrum – Inner Island
Holly Herndon – SWIM

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.

E72: Songs of Melancholy by Bill Lee

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The music of Bill Lee (né Gillim) has changed considerably since the dark devotional tones of his experimental project, Megafortress. If Believer, his last record in 2014, glimpsed a songwriter inching out from the abstract, Lee’s debut under his married name reveals him coming into absolute focus, unflinchingly vulnerable, steeped in family life and Americana’s past. His falsetto has grounded down to his chest; his instrument of choice is the guitar; its immediacy shapes to his schedule as a stay-at-home father. Believer’s psychic searching has now settled quietly in a living room in upstate New York. Lee’s mind hasn’t rested, though.

It’s a natural and charming musical pivot, performed across Songs For The Family, his new collection of finger-picked, band-backed noir folk/country songs “populated by lost fathers, exhausted mothers, wayward children, and fearful lovers.” There is a crucial tenderness — as Lora Mathis coins it, “radical softness” — to these songs. Mathis says, “be close to your friends and make sure they know you love them and will fight for them.” These songs are fighting for love. A 21st-century troubadour’s document of what could and should be championed; narratives about dynamic families accessing diverse emotions, flawed characters embracing failures and learning how to “stick close to (their) tenderness.”

In advance of his release show this weekend, Lee shares a slow-moving picture for the sweet generational hymn “Family.”



He also compiles and presents episode 72:

“These are some of the songs that really struck me during the three years I was making Songs For The Family. I found myself returning to them again and again. As you can see from the names on the list, I wasn’t really digging into the obscure. They’re just some of the most beautiful, melancholy songs by some pretty big names.

There’s Elvis’s ode to his recently departed mother. Sinatra’s tale of a small town husband left alone to raise his two young sons. And Willie Nelson’s phone call to his ex detailing the ruins of the happy family life they once shared. There’s a wonderful, heartbreaking melodrama in many of these songs that, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get enough of.”

J.J. Cale – Starbound
Elvis Presley – That’s Someone You Never Forget
Bobbie Gentry – Courtyard
Mickey Newbury – I Don’t Think Much About Her Anymore
Waylon Jennings – Dreaming My Dreams With You
Willie Nelson – Little Things
John Prine – Sabu Visits The Twin Cities Alone
Fred Neil – A Little Bit Of Rain
Frank Sinatra – For A While
Etta James – I’d Rather Go Blind
Tammy Wynette – My Arms Stay Open Late
Merle Haggard – Train Of Life
Tom T. Hall – Homecoming
Michael Nesmith – Keep On
Willie Nelson – Some Other World
Neil Young – Little Wing
The Neville Brothers – A Change Is Gonna Come

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.

E71: Angeles by NOIA

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Episode 71 belongs to Brooklyn-based, Barcelona-born artist and film sound designer Gisela Fulla-Silvestre aka NOIA. Last spring saw the Cascine release of Crisàlida, a sprawling four-tracker informed by the myriad styles of her musical heritage (dancehall, tropicalia, R&B) with influence from cultural theory spheres. Sung seamlessly in Spanish, Catalan, and English, Fulla-Silvestre’s vocal work looks skyward, interacting with the unusual patterns of her visceral, textured productions.

Fulla-Silvestre’s entry to S&S Radio elicits a similar sensation in that it pulls from disparate universes while feeling intrinsically connected. The set is decidedly unmixed; its stitched effect resembles a run through the radio dial, with seaside salt jettisoning through a cracked car window. She explains:

“The selection is called Angeles, it’s womxn voices singing tunes that make me feel near the sea. It’s mostly a collection of Catalan, Andalusian, Mallorcan, and Spanish Folk music with inserts of an AI singer and a hidden classic by Elizabeth Fraser.”


Silvia Pérez Cruz – Pena Salada
Yona – Oblivious
Soleá Morente – Por tu querer como un niño
Eartheater – Inclined
María José Llergo – Nana Del Mediterráneo
Cocteau Twins – Circling Girl
Elza Soares – A Mulher Do Fim Do Mundo
Silvia Perez Cruz – Folegandros
Rosalía – Que Se Muere Que Se Muere
Maria Arnal y Marcel Bages – Tú Que Vienes A Rondarme
Maria del Mar Bonet – Alenar

S&S Radio broadcasts every now and then on Newtown Radio.

STILL, Waiting

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Today there is an unusual disc out in the world featuring recorded moments from many friends of Patient Sounds (intl)​, including contributions by our daughters. It is bittersweet to say goodbye to Patient Sounds. The independent publishing house is closing down after ten years. Still in their prime — STILL, Waiting — with their renegade ethos intact (read the letter). Their sounds have shaped S&S just as much as the words of the label’s founder, Matthew J. Sage. My tape collection is probably 40 percent PS. If you are in Chicago, celebrate with them tomorrow (Wednesday, August 21st) at The Hideout Inn.

A few recent releases, below, followed by the program’s tracklist.



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