Kevin Ayers

Give me leave to wonder that News of this nature should have such heavy Wings...

The sad news of British rock musician and song-writer Kevin Ayers death last week got me thinking about the fickleness of the British music industry and fame and fortune. I can’t remember being so moved over the death of a rock musician since hearing of John Lennon’s assassination in December 1980. 

There’s something very poignant about rock stars ageing, whether gracefully or not, even more so when they die almost forgotten. Those acquainted with the back-catalogue of Kevin Ayers' recordings which span forty years, may well wonder whether his talent for penning witty and wistful songs ever got the full recognition it deserved. Contributing factors include changes in rock and pop fashion over time and Ayers' own refusal to compromise his artistic integrity and play the games dictated by the music industry. 

With his good looks and rich baritone voice Kevin Ayers (1944-2013) was a charismatic rock-star who embodied the free-thinking counter-culture of the 1960's. Celebrant of elegance and decadence, Ayers was at his height of popularity during the mid-70's with the albums - Whatevershebringswesing, Bananamour and The Confessions of Doctor Dream. 

Variously described as an English eccentric, a supreme musical raconteur, a pioneer of psychedelia, and a bon viveur whose inspiration came from fine food, wine and the sunshine of the Mediterranean, Ayers began his music career in the experimental progressive rock band The Soft Machine. 

Closely associated with the Canterbury scene, The Soft Machine were in the vanguard of 'happenings'  in swinging London during the heady days of the 60's. At one gig bassist Ayers brought a motor-bike on-stage and placed a microphone to its engine while revving  it up. 

The family tree of musicians who once played in The Soft Machine reads a bit like a Who's Who of Rock musicians. It includes Dave Allen, who left the band shortly before Ayers to found the Anglo-French group Gong, the saxophonist Elton Dean, the song-writer and drummer Robert Wyatt, and the now distinguished composer Karl Jenkins C.B.E.

Kevin Ayers contributions to The Soft Machine's first album includes the songs Joy of a Toy and Feeling' Reelin' Squealin' (Feb.1967) which became the B-side of the band's first single and one of the first ever psychedelic era recordings, it features Ayers in lugubrious and deep-toned mode. The album also includes Ayers' song Why are we Sleeping. 

Why are We Sleeping is an important reminder that Ayers took the esoteric ideas of George Gurdjieff (1866-1949) with his view of human consciousness as little more than 'awake sleeping' quite seriously. There can be little doubt that both George Gurdjieff and Kevin Ayers would whole-heartedly have agreed with an observation made by Sir Thomas Browne, centuries earlier  -

surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world.

The theme of dreams occurs frequently in Ayers' songs. Why are we Sleeping was later re-worked into a full-blown version on the album The Confessions of Dr.Dream (1974). In many ways however it was the song Stranger in Blue Suede Shoes which became Ayers' signature-song and demanded by audiences as an encore.

After leaving The Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers collaborated with some of the very best British musicians, two of whom have died in recent years, the soprano saxophonist Lol Coxhill (1932-2012) (an improvised session heard at Herringfleet Fayre’80 and a venue at St.Benedict’s, Norwich 1997) and David Bedford (1937-2011) keyboards and instrumental arranger on several of Ayers' albums. (World premiere of Bedford's Recorder Concerto at the Norfolk and Norwich Triennial Festival 1994). 

A very young Mike Oldfield joined Ayers' band The Whole World in 1970 and he features in a guitar solo on the track Everybody's Sometime and Some People's All the Times Blues, while the piano-playing of Elton John can be heard on the album Sweet deceiver (1975). Above all others however, it was his long-term friend and music-partner Ollie Hansell (1949-1992) who recorded on a total of 11 albums  over an 18 year period  who contributed most to Ayers' sound. After Ollie Hansell's death in 1992 Ayers embarked upon one of his longer sporadic reclusive phases, releasing his last album, the first in 15 years, The Unfairground (2007) to critical acclaim.

In addition to his whimsical, melancholic and romantic persona embodied in his quintessential English song-writing, there's also an experimental strand to Ayers' music, notably in the tape-loop riffs of Song from a bottom of a well, the tape-montages of Shooting at the Moon and the extended concept track, The Confession of Dr. Dream (1974) which, with its varied moods, drug-induced paranoia and heavily-phased synthesizers epitomizes the best and worst excesses of 70's Rock music. A long-running humorous allusion to bananas can also be found in several Ayers lyrics. 

The album entitled June 1st 1974 recorded at the Rainbow Theatre, London, seems a high water-mark in Ayer’s live performances. Sharing the bill with Brian Eno and ex-members of The Velvet Underground John Cale and Nico. Its now near common knowledge that John Cale was not particularly happy on the day of the Rainbow theatre performance, having discovered Ayers sleeping with his wife the day before. 

Along with his lounge lizard and melancholic persona, there’s a strong trait of the eternal lover in both Ayer’s music and life. It’s no coincidence one of the few songs he recorded which was not penned by himself is a song made famous by Marlene Dietrich, Falling in love Again. How much persona and real-life inter-acted in Kevin Ayers psyche will never be known. He certainly played up to the role of  eternal lover and Casanova and epitomizes  in astrology the Leonine creative artist. Although little mention of any long-term relationship can be found in Ayers' biography, he is survived by three daughters.   

Ayers was a long-time Francophile and lived on and off in the south of France over the decades. He also occasionally resided at Ibizia, a favourite resort and haunt of Gothic chanteuse Nico. The song Decadence on the album Bananamour is a portrait of Nico. 

Ayers' music often accompanied my own love-trysts and the harmless and risky experiments conducted with Dr. Dream during my teens and twenties. Its also sadly now a reminder of a friend no longer alive who  first introduced me to Kevin Ayers' music, attending with me a gig by Ayers at UEA, Norwich in 1977, if my memory serves right.

 Discography
Joy of a Toy -  Harvest November 1969
Shooting at the Moon - Harvest October 1970
Whatevershebringswesing - Harvest November 1971
Bananamour - Harvest May 1973
The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories - Island May 1974
June 1, 1974 (with Nico, John Cale and Brian Eno) - Island June 1974
Sweet Deceiver - Island March 1975
Yes We Have No Mañanas -Harvest June 1976
Rainbow Takeaway - Harvest April 1978
That's What You Get Babe - Harvest February 1980
Diamond Jack and the Queen of Pain - Charly June 1983
Deià...Vu - Blau March 1984
As Close As You Think -Illuminated June 1986
Falling Up  -Virgin  February 1988
Still Life with Guitar - FNAC January 1992
The Unfairground - LO-MAX September 2007

Notes and Links

Header quote is the opening line of Browne's A letter to a Friend

Quote-  tis no melancholy conceit  is from Religio Medici Part 2: 11 

Wiki-Links

Kevin Ayers      Gurdjieff

Guardian Obituary Feb 13 2013

A mighty Stone falling from the Clouds

Two major astronomical events occurred on Friday 15th February, 2013. First a sizeable meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Oblast in the Southern Urals, then, 15 hours later, a 50 metre asteroid skimmed a mere 17,000 miles past Earth. The meteorite and asteroid were almost 500,000 kilometres apart and travelling in completely different directions. The Chelyabinsk meteor known as 2012 DA14 is the largest object known to have entered the Earth's atmosphere since the days of the Siberian meteorite of Tungaska in 1908.

Meteorites have long been of interest to scientists. Included among the many curious, rare and imaginary books, paintings and objects conjured from Sir Thomas Browne's fertile imagination and summarily listed in his late miscellaneous tract Museum Clausum (circa 1676) there can be found-

14. Another describing the mighty Stone falling from the Clouds into Aegospotamos or the Goats River in Greece, which Antiquity could believe that Anaxagoras was able to foretell half a year before.

The ancient Greek Anaxagoras (c. 510–428 BCE) was one of the first scientific thinkers to speculate upon phenomena such as eclipses, meteors, rainbows and the sun. The protagonist in American author Gore Vidal's 1981 novel Creation reminds us of the Greek scientist's claim to fame-

'According to Anaxagoras one of the largest things is a hot stone that we call the sun. When Anaxagoras was very young, he predicted that sooner or later a piece of the sun would break off and fall to earth.... The whole world saw a fragment of the sun fall in a fiery arc through the sky, landing near Aegospotami in Thrace. When the fiery fragment cooled, it proved to be nothing more than a chunk of brown rock. Overnight Anaxagoras was famous'.

Sir Thomas Browne's study and reading of early Greek science was exceptional amongst pioneers of the 17th century scientific revolution. The philosophical and scientific thought of Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastus are well-represented in his library, as are books by Archimedes and Euclid. In all probability Browne encountered Anaxagoras's scientific observations when reading either Pliny, Simplicus of Cilicia (c.490-560 CE) or Aristotle's criticisms of the pre-Socratic philosopher. Browne's own scientific speculations  include the observations-

'The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity.' - from Christian Morals Part III, Section XXIX

To make an end of all things on Earth, and our Planetical System of the World, he (i.e. God) need but put out the Sun. - from A letter to a Friend

At present, modern-day science can only predict such events within approximately two weeks of their occurring. The Chelyabinsk meteor was totally beyond prediction or detection until entering the earth's atmosphere and exploding, causing wide-spread damage and shock, injuring over 1,000 people.

The Danish film director Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) analyzes in depth the psychological effects experienced by two sisters when faced with an impending cosmological disaster.

Notes

Greek science books listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's Library include-

Archimedes Opera Gk. and Latin. Commentary David Rivalti 1615 p. 28 no. 2

Aristotle  - Over 15 various titles listed.

Plato - Theologia Platonica de Immortalitate Paris 1559 p. 15 no. 95

Plato - Chalcidii Timaeus de Platonis - Notes J. Mersius 1617 p. 11 no. 106

Simplicus - Commentary in Enchiridion  Epistles Gk.  and Latin  pub. L.B. 1640 p. 10 no. 43

Links

Wiki-link to article on the  2013 Russian Meteorite event

Browne's  miscellaneous tract 13  Museum Clausum

The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche

The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche by Guilio Romano.

All the evidence suggests the Italian painter Guilano Romano (1499-1546) was one the earliest artists who can be defined as Mannerist in creative outlook. Romano's The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche (1532) includes subject-matter of a mythological nature, its staged in a highly theatrical setting and uses unusual perspective as well as eroticism; all of which are characteristics associated with Mannerist art.

The Wedding-Feast of Cupid and Psyche was also painted by Romano's teacher, Raphael. It is however only one of several fresco's painted by Romano on the walls on the Palazzo del Te at Mantua in Italy. The lively and highly-stylized marriage-feast includes nymphs, fauns, satyrs, a drunken Silenus figure and what were at the time, rare and exotic animals, namely a camel and an elephant, both of which are centre-stage in Romano's fresco.

During the Renaissance new sources of myth such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Hygenius' Fabulae became available to artists. It’s in the The Golden Ass by Apulieus, the sole surviving novel of the Roman-era, that the earliest literary source of the marriage of Cupid and Psyche can be found. Written sometime during the 2nd century C.E. the protagonist in The Golden Ass narrates upon his transformation into a donkey. The reader subsequently shares a donkey’s tribulations and perspective upon life which culminates during a ceremony of the cult of Isis, in which the donkey-narrator eats a bunch of roses, resulting in his becoming human once more.

Horacio Vaggione

Today’s the 70th birthday of the composer Horacio Vaggione (b. Cordoba, Argentinia 21st  Jan 1943). Vaggione is a composer of  electro-acoustic music who uses the very latest technology to explore the many shapes and forms of sound itself. Vaggione studied composition at the National University in Córdoba and the University of Illinois USA and has been Professor of Music, University of Paris since 1994. Using compositional techniques such as granular synthesis, microsounds and micromontage, Vaggione creates sound-sculpture of intricate beauty and startling originality.

Like Rock music, electro-acoustic music’s embryonic beginnings can be traced to the 1950’s. In Paris, pioneer Musique Concrete composer Pierre Henry (b.1927) experimented with natural sounds such as a door creaking, then editing the recording through a variety of means, including tape-splicing, loops, backwards and filtering. Pierre Henry’s Voile D'Orphee  (Veil of Orpheus) of 1953 remains a work of staggeringly early originality and inventive process given the equipment available at the time. Henry's approach to electronic music-making seems to be have been advanced in Vaggione’s own unique sound sculpture. Both composers have for many years been resident in Paris.

I’ve had an interest in electronic music ever since acquiring Deutsche Grammophon vinyl recordings of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966) and Hymnen (1967-68) in the early 1970’s. Stockhausen (1928 - 2007) was one of the most influential figure’s in the development of electronic music and was at times notoriously uncompromising in his artistic agenda to the point of gross insensitivity on occasions. His Gesang Der Junglinge (1955-6) uses both electronically-generated sounds along with recordings of a boy singing text from the Biblical Book of Daniel chapter 3 where Nebuchadnezzar throws Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into a fiery furnace. Miraculously they are unharmed and begin to sing praises to God. Such thinly-veiled subject-matter suggests Stockhausen,  throughout his creative career was willing to use his music as a means to open the door for his audience to approach unpleasant aspects of the psyche. Stockhausen's Kontakte (1960) remains a landmark in electronic music. His large-scale work Hymnen (1966-67) lasts some 112 minutes and includes samples of National Anthems to illustrate world-scale historical events and their consequences. It’s a work which though dated, can be hard-hitting and revelatory; its also music which is very much of its time, being a psychedelic and apocalyptic vision.

Far more approachable is Stockhausen’s Telemusik (1966). Composed during a visit to Japan and using sounds recorded from temple rituals and ceremonies, the soft-focus tonality of this short work (17 mins.) reveals it as delicate and gentle work. Stockhausen interested the songwriter John Lennon (1940-1980) enough to ensure that the German composer appears on the background of the Pantheon of credited influences and admired people of the Beatles album-cover Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band (1967). Much to the rest of the band’s alleged protestations, Lennon subsequently went ahead and insisted that his own electronic montage Revolution no. 9 was included on the subsequent White album (1968).

It was also during the late 60’s that the Moog synthesizer was invented. It’s previously unheard-of, seemingly magical abilities were showcased in the phenomenally popular album Switched-on Bach (1969) in which the music of J.S. Bach and it's contrapuntal nature can be heard with each voice/line sharply delineated. Carlos’s music received even greater exposure when featured in the controversial Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange (1971).

During the 1970's Horacio Vaggione visited all the major studio's with electro-acoustic composing facilities  in Europe. In many ways the 1970’s decade was the Golden era of electronic music and quite distinct from avant-garde acoustic-electronic music of the era, numerous rock and pop musicians developed electronically-generated music. The seminal albums by Kraftwerk, thematically shaped by the experience of motion via cars, trains and rockets (Autobahn (1974) Trans-Europe Express (1977) Man Machine (1978) and Computer World (1981) along with the less rhythmically-orientated and stronger in melodic content electronic music of Parisian Jean Michel Jarre (b.1948) Oxygene (1976) Equinox (1978) and Magnetic Fields (1981) demonstrated the new protean abilities of the electronic medium through advances in technology in the hands of the creative musician. 

Vaggione’s La Maquina de Cantar (The Singing Machine 1978) in step with the latest trends in music of the decade, uses loops of sound, not unlike Terry Riley’s ground-breaking A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969) or even Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (1973). However, the heavily phased hypnotic, repetitious pure electronics such as by the German band Tangerine Dream in Phaedra (1973) and Rubycon (1976) which use large-time scale canvases became unfashionable for its excesses in the 80's. Such music-making soon tires the listener. In comparison Steve Reich’s Music for 18 musicians (1976) which lasts an hour, holds the listener in thrall,  its short phrases are skilfully juggled among members of an ensemble, Nor can one overlook the influence of early, so-called ambient music such as Brian Eno's Music for Airports (1978) while the aquatic soundscape of Jean Michel Jarre’s Waiting for Cousteau (1990) now seems to have become a classic of large-scale ambient minimalism. 

Vaggione’s latest release Points Critiques (2012) includes compositions dating from the 1990’s and the first decade of the 21st century including Nodal from 1997. There's a free download of Vaggione's 24 variations (2011) available at itunes. (Youtube clips of both titles below).

I remember a stunning performance of  well-amplified electro-acoustic music at Norwich cathedral in the 1970’s. Most listeners were amazed at how the combination of the acoustics in historical buildings with the extraordinary sound palette available to the modern composer using electronic equipment and transformed recordings sounded in such a setting. I also remember here at Norwich, the University of East Anglia once had, not only a school of music with studio recording facilities, but also visiting electronic music composers and a series of concerts devoted to the performance of electro-acoustic music. All now extinct, sacrificed upon the altar of pecuniary expediency.

Whether the appreciation of such sound-structures as Vaggione’s is an acquired taste from training the ear or simply the product of being able to listen without prejudice or preconceptions remains debatable. I quite like this statement made on Youtube about Vaggione’s music

The more art is abstract, the more it challenges the consumer. Consumers who are empty inside cry for forms and shapes. They have to, otherwise they are lost. Nothing is more telling about a person than the way he/she reacts to abstract art.

What is certain is that a rich variety of tonal texture and engaging demonstrations to the listener of how sound can be transformed in exquisite detail can be heard on Vaggione’s Points Critiques (2012). Each electro-acoustic composition is exemplary of granular synthesis and a fantastic listening experience. 

Happy birthday to Horacio Vaggione, grandmaster composer of electro-acoustic music.

Sun enters Aquarius

Celebrating the Sun entering the zodiac sign of Aquarius for the fifth billionth time. 

It was the Swiss psychologist C. G. Jung  who stated -  'As we all know, science began with the stars, and mankind discovered in them the dominants of the unconscious, the "gods," as well as the curious psychological qualities of the zodiac: a complete projected theory of human character'.  [1]

The archetype of  the zodiac sign of Aquarius the Water-Bearer is said to symbolize humanitarian idealism, self-sacrifice and service to others. However, C. G. Jung  chose to devote several years study on its adjacent sign Pisces and its relationship to Christianity,.

Aquarius is one of the four signs of the Fixed Cross of astrology; the other three being Leo the Lion, Taurus the Bull, and the Scorpion (substituted with an Eagle, perhaps because the insect was unknown outside of Europe). These zodiac signs were adopted by Christianity, perhaps as early as 400 CE by Saint Jerome as emblems of the four evangelists with Christ's sacrificial role represented by Taurus, Royalty by Leo, an all-encompassing view of humanity from a great height by Eagle/Scorpio and the combined human and angelic form of Aquarius. The Christian tetramorph is a superb example of how symbols can drastically change over long stretches of time.

In his essay on the Paracelsus, C.G. Jung sketched the psychological element of the Zodiac thus-

'He beholds the darksome psyche as a star-strewn night sky, whose planets and fixed constellations represent the archetypes in all their luminosity and numinosity. The starry vault of heaven is in truth the open book of cosmic projection, in which are reflected the mythologems i.e. the archetypes. In this vision alchemy and astrology the two classical functionaries of the psychology of the collective unconscious, join hands'. [3]

Jung was a learned and erudite scholar of comparative religion who, far from debunking astrology observed- 

The sought-for Mercurius is the spiritus vegetavius , a living planet, whose nature it is to run through all the houses of the planets i.e., the Zodiac. We could just as well say through the entire horoscope, or, since the horoscope is the chronometric equivalent of individual character, through all the characterological components of the personality. [4]

 Jung interpreted the human psyche's relationship to nature thus-

'All the mythologized processes of nature, such as summer and winter, the phases of the moon, the rainy season, and so forth, are in no sense allegories of these objective occurrences; rather they are symbolic expressions of the inner, unconscious drama of the psyche which becomes accessible to man's consciousness by way of projection - that is, mirrored in the events of nature'. [5]

In Nature, the water-bearing cloud and the magical transformation of water into frost, snow and ice can be considered as representing Aquarius. 

In the arts, numerous writers, often with a humanitarian and social reforming agenda, such as Charles Dickens for example, are represented by the sign, as well as the downright eccentric, such as Lewis Carroll, also exhibit Aquarian traits. The music of the composers Mozart, Schubert and Delius, along with Philip Glass and Frank Zappa all have strong Aquarian traits, as do the curious triumvirate, all of whom were born on January 27th, each possessing strong positive and negative Aquarian psychological traits, namely, Lewis Carroll, Mozart and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. 

Due to its ethereal nature, Aquarius is said to be as much prone to mental illness as experiencing flashes of inspirational genius. Aquarian interests may be said to include anything unusual or odd, such as electronic music, for example. Humanitarian and secret societies are also said to be under the domain of Aquarius, as is the central nervous system, along with the realm of psychic phenomena and the esoteric in general.

One dictionary of symbols defines Aquarius as follows-

All Eastern and Western traditions relate this archetype to the symbolic flood which stands not only for the end of a formal universe but also for the completion of any cycle by the destruction of the power which held the components together.....Consequently, Aquarius symbolizes the dissolution and decomposition of the forms existing within any process, cycle or period; the loosening of bonds; the imminence of liberation through the destruction of the world of phenomena. [6]

Another source defines Aquarius thus-

The inner substance of this zodiac type is fluid, light. ethereal, volatile, limpid, transparently spiritual and, so to say, angelic. It comprises the gift of indifference to self together with serenity and self-sacrifice, friendship and concern for others. [7]

In world political affairs it is also often when the sun is in the zodiac-sign of Aquarius that the Presidential Inauguration of the American President, as well as the delivery of the President's State of the Union Address occurs, along with World Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th.

The archetype of Aquarius is that of the herald who proclaims a new world order based upon the principle of a united humanity. The best and worst aspects of Soviet communism can be seen in introducing and implementing such an idealized society. In modern times the archetype of Aquarius continues to exert a living influence upon the human psyche in new forms of communication in mass society. Television and the computer-age are good examples of Aquarian developments of science and technology. Nuclear and Atomic energy may also be interpreted as resultant of the Aquarian archetype.

A fine example of religious symbolism and the study of comparative religion, in conjunction with a description of the glyph for Aquarius, occurs in Sir Thomas Browne's highly-compressed essay of hermetic phantasmagoria, The Garden of Cyrus.

he that considereth the plain cross upon the head of the Owl in the Lateran Obelisk, or the cross erected upon a pitcher diffusing streams of water into two basins, with sprinkling branches in them, and all described upon a two-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphics of the brazen Table of Bembus; will hardly decline all thought of Christian signality in them. [8]

It is of course impossible to definitively list all the psychological traits and characteristics associated with each of 12 quite distinct zodiac archetypes of the human personality. Perhaps in the future, the zodiac sign of Aquarius will revert to a mundane, rather than an esoteric meaning. If, or more likely when, the world's resources are even less secure than at present, maybe the simple act of freely sharing the life-giving element of water, without discrimination towards unknown others, viewing all life-forms as complete equals, may  hopefully be realized in this archetype.  

Notes

[1] C. G. Jung Collected Works vol 12. 246

[2] Aion : Researches into the phenomenology of the self - C.G.Jung  Vol. 9 i pub. 1959 RKP  

includes-

VI.    The Sign of the fishes p. 72 -95

VIII.  The Historical Significance of the Fish p.103

XI.    The Ambivalence of the Fish Symbol p.118

X.     The Fish in Alchemy p. 126

XI.    The Alchemical  Interpretation of the Fish  p.154

[3]    Essay on Paracelsus CW 15

[4]   CW 14: 298

[5]   CW 9  i  7 

[6]  A Dictionary of symbols   J.E. Cirlot

[7]  Dictionary of symbols Penguin  ed. Chevalier

[8] Athanasius Kircher's Oedipus Egypticus 3 vols. 1652-56 includes an engraving of the Bembine Tablet of Isis is alluded to twice in The Garden of Cyrus  pub. 1658 .