Sparks

I've been intending to post on Sparks for some time when I stumbled upon a discussion between two American ladies who were wondering where on earth the 1970's pop-music duo had disappeared to. That shared query was  impetus and  motivation enough to merrily tap away at the keyboard today.

The brothers Ron Mael (b.1945) and Russell Mael (b.1948) are long-time residents of Los Angeles, California USA. They released their 22nd  album in 2009, the  experimental operetta, The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman. In 2010 they achieved the unique act of performing in chronological sequence one of their 20 albums every night for 20 nights at the Islington Academy and Shepherd's Bush Empire, London. They may have performed their  last ever live gig in America on December 1, 2010 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Although there's been occasional years of hiatus between album releases, Sparks have effectively been in the music business for over 40 years .

Ron and Russell Mael first cut their teeth and found fame during the early 1970's  when resident in England. Their big hit  in England was  This town ain't big enough for the both of us (1974). The hit introduced the world to Russell's  hall-mark falsetto voice and quirky lyrics and Ron's dead-pan yet scary, facial posturing.With the poetic, teen-age sensibility of a Holden Caulfield (of The Catcher in the Rye), Russell has retained a unique and beautiful voice.  His more reserved elder brother Russell, a 1920's Igor Stravinsky look-a-like,  has developed a powerful rhythmic drive and unique melodic line on keyboards  to accompany his brother. Incidentally its mostly older brother Ron who writes their music, while Russell supplies and sings the quirky lyrics.

Doggedly ignoring all musical trends, styles, fashions and crazes, Ron and Russell Mael  have carved their own idiosyncratic style, a kind of 70's techno-vaudeville, suitable to accompany a Buster Keaton adventure comedy, a true hybrid of American and British pop. According to Wikipedia Sparks have created their own unique musical universe; that's debatable but the brothers Mael have been enjoying a Renaissance in the first decade of the 21 st century. Indeed the 21st century has seen a distinct new creative drive by Sparks and growing critical acclaim with each new album release Their last few albums have built upon the style and success of each previous release. The realm of light opera in often comic has  been a fertile arena for their creativity.  Abandoning their Giorgio Moroder techo-style of the 80's and 90's, ever since the arrival of L'il Beethoven in 2002 their new operatic style has gathered new fans world-wide. There's no opportunity to demonstrate their music  here other than to enthuse over it, but their lyrics are worth quoting for his often acerbic and off-the-wall word-play, witticisms and social observations . Their  humour is  up there with the odd-ball wit of the Marx brothers -
                           
                       How do I get to Carnegie Hall ? Practice man, practice.

Sparks' distinctive humorous album art-work includes one  cover depicting a recent after-math, a light plane crash landed in a back-yard; in another the brothers are seen hands bound  in an out-of-control motor-boat, in yet another, Russell  lays prone having  hit the deck in a boxing-ring. in the other corner Ron, wearing boxing gloves, raises his  arms in triumph. The brothers like to express their decades long working relationship in their art-work.Other long-term sibling or male duo artists which immediately spring to mind include the British artists Gilbert and George and the film-makers the Brothers Quay, directors of the wonderful Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.

If you grew up during the golden decade of 1970's pop music, when the world was a slightly more innocent place, or simply enjoy hearing great 70's style pop music, then Sparks music often frantic and intense yet funny, rhythmically inclined with gorgeous harmonies especially the last four or five albums this century, are well worth hearing. Young listeners may also enjoy. Lovingly and painstakingly recorded in  sophisticated layered production, well worth hearing ! Pass me my Space-hopper ! What is there left for the  American Grandmasters of Pop, Ron and Russell to achieve with 21 albums to their credit ? However they  do like to defy and surprise expectations !

Exotic Creatures of the Deep (2008)

* Strange Animal  - "What a strange animal we are".

 Anyone who seriously contemplates the species arrives at this conclusion quite swiftly.

* (She got me) Pregnant - So how would a fragile male ego cope with finding after a one-night stand that they were pregnant ?

"And then you learn that though she is several thousand miles away/ there is a part of you she's given you and now you have to deal with it."

* Lighten up Morrisey - Sound  advice to some sometime famous Brit. pop star who the Mael brothers admire.  

 "She won't go out with me 'cos my intellect's paper-thin/ She won't have sex with me unless it's done with a pseudonym".

*  This is the Renaissance -  "If you like to read, man you are in luck/ Gutenberg is cranking up a Bible with a centre-fold...Science is here , nothing left to fear"

*  Photoshop - There's some very dramatic multi-track vocals going on here

 "Baldness or aloofness removed without a trace. Photoshop me out of your life".

* I can't believe that you would fall for all the crap in this song. 

   More lampooning of  the music industry.

Hello Young Lovers (2006)
 

 * Perfume  -Russell names and sings the names of dozens of  perfume brands. 

*  (Baby, Baby) Can I invade your Country -  A  bold statement on Foreign policy.

* Metaphor  -  a track with superb multi-track harmonies by Russell.

"Chicks dig D -I -G metaphors, use them wisely, use them well and you'll never know the hell of loneliness".

*  As I sit down to play the organ at Notre-Dame Cathedral - A track which allows Ron to show-case his keyboard virtuosity, he must be playing at least five keyboards here.

" I got Faith, I got a deep abiding Faith, that in this Sea of faces, this sea of believing faces, there's always one face that's here to escape the rain".

On June 25, 2011 as part of the Los Angeles Film Festival, Sparks will present the World Premiere live performance of  The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

 Wikilink

 Sparks 

Bee

He that would exactly discern the shop of a Bees mouth, need observing eyes, and good augmenting glasses; wherein is discoverable one of the neatest pieces in nature, and must have a more piercing eye then mine;  

 -Garden of Cyrus  chap. 3

There's a wealth of literature and religious symbolism  inspired by the  bee. The furry, flying insect is held in great esteem throughout the world despite its sting. Unlike the ant which invariably is likened to the robotic world of  automata, the bee has always been viewed as a hard-working  insect capable of altruism and self-sacrifice for the greater collective  good of the hive. Often used as a symbol of moral worth and integrity, the busy bee appeals greatly to the work-ethic of Protestantism.

The ancient Egyptians described   Pharaoh as He of  the Sedge  and Bee and  used honey as an effective contraceptive. In the Old Testament the story of Samson and the supernatural 'power' of honey can be found. (Judges 14:v.8). The Hebrew word for bee, dbure has the same root as  dbr meaning  'word'. 

In Classical antiquity bees were often depicted upon tombs as symbols of Resurrection; because the three month winter season when bees seemed to vanish was compared to the three days after the Crucifixion, only to reappear in Spring as if resurrected. In fact until the modern Industrial age, honey was  not only greatly valued as the only available source of sweetness but is also  the one and only food-stuff which  can never 'go off' and is incorruptible.

Bees have also symbolized eloquence, poetry and the mind. The Roman poet Virgil attributed the spark of divine intelligence to them. His fourth book of Georgics contains advice upon how to keep bees. Virgil's poem, over 500 lines long was for centuries one of the best-known works  of apiculture and how best care for  bees.

They alone hold children in common: own the roofs

of their city as one: and pass their life under the might of the law.

They alone know a country, and a settled home,

and in summer, remembering the winter to come,

undergo labour, storing their gains for all.
For some supervise the gathering of food, and work
in the fields to an agreed rule: some, walled in their homes,

lay the first foundations of the comb, with drops of gum

taken from narcissi, and sticky glue from tree-bark,

then hang the clinging wax: others lead the mature young,

their nation’s hope, others pack purest honey together,

and swell the cells with liquid nectar:
there are those whose lot is to guard the gates,

and in turn they watch out for rain and clouds in the sky,

or accept the incoming loads, or, forming ranks,

they keep the idle crowd of drones away from the hive. 

Bk 4 lines 153-169

Because the bee-hive has a radically different social organization to humankind's, bees and the hive have often been used as analogies to human society. Writers such as Shakespeare, Erasmus, Marx and Tolstoy each used the hive to describe human social organization. In his The Fable of the Bees (1714) the political thinker Bernard Mandeville argued that any distribution of wealth, even by theft, fraud and prostitution keeps the wheels of capital rolling and is thus legitimate. However his views were strongly condemned by  contemporaries as immoral.

Of all the varied literature relating to the bee that of the Belgian author and Nobel-prize winner, Maurice Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee (1901) is perhaps the most mystical. In Maeterlinck's work, contemplation of  the bee's life-cycle  and the hive rises to hymn-like heights of rapture. More recently the Swedish author Lars Gustafsson's novel The Death of a Beekeeper (1991) is a first person meditation by a Beekeeper suffering from advanced Cancer upon the imminent approach of death. 

Returning to bee-keeping itself,  'even though as early as the 1530s it was well known that the male drones were sometimes obstacles to honey production, most writers on bees for the purposes of their labor/religious/political metaphors kept the King a King.  However it was known that the queen bee was a female at least since the C17th century. Charles Butler's Feminine Monarchie popularized the notion, and was also the first work to stray from the usual methods towards bees and beekeeping of repeating ancient sources on the subject, and offer something like practical, even scientific treatment. Butler even scores the buzzing of the bees to music'.[1]

The buzzing sound of the bee, in effect its song, has fascinated musicians and composers. The bee is celebrated in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Flight of the Bumblebee, an interlude from his opera The Tale of Tsar Sultan. Its salutary to realise that although Rimsky-Korsakov wrote many operas often of  several hours length, his miniature tone-poem of seventy seconds is the work for which he is best remembered. More recently the British composer Michael Nyman wrote a short concerto for Saxophone and orchestra entitled  Where the Bee dances in which the  melodic line played by the Saxophone  imitates the joyous, zig-zagging flight of the bee.

Thomas Browne's Religio Medici includes a poem of highly original apian imagery; the poet imagining himself  a bee.

And then at last, when homeward I shall drive
Rich with the spoils of nature to my hive,
There will I sit, like that industrious fly,
Buzzing thy praises, which shall never die
Till death abrupts them, and succeeding glory
Bid me go on in a more lasting story.

- R.M. Part 1:13

In fact mention of bees occurs in each of Browne's major works. Abandoning poetry,  his Pseudodoxia Epidemica includes a lengthy digression upon why the bee produces a buzzing sound (Bk.3. chap.27). Browne, rather bravely writes of placing a finger upon a bee in order to determine its buzz. Elsewhere in his writing's there's a curious record, purely in the cause of scientific investigation, of Browne actually eating spiders and bees to determine their culinary and dietary effects, while in Urn-Burial he notes  bee's  funeral rites, ejecting its dead out of the hive.

Because scientific enquiry was invariably  patriarchal in its thinking, it was assumed  that the Hive was ruled by a male;  not until the nineteenth century was it finally accepted that a female Queen, not a male King rules the hive. The construction of the hive has been a source of wonderment to many, not least to  Sir T.B. who in  The Garden of Cyrus waxes lyrical upon its architecture thus-

The sexangular Cels in the Honeycombs of Bees, are disposeth after this order, much there is not of wonder in the confused Houses of Pismires, though much in their busy life and actions, more in the edificial Palaces of Bees and Monarchical spirits; who make their combs six-cornered, declining a circle, whereof many stand not close together, and completely fill the area of the place; But rather affecting a six-sided figure, whereby every cell affords a common side unto six more, and also a fit receptacle for the Bee it self, which gathering into a Cylindrical Figure, aptly enters its sexangular house, more nearly approaching a circular Figure, then either doth the Square or Triangle. And the Combs themselves so regularly contrived, that their mutual intersections make three Lozenges at the bottom of every Cell; which severally regarded make three Rows of neat Rhomboidal Figures, connected at the angles, and so continue three several chains throughout the whole comb.

The bee is an insect now included in the ever-growing inventory of endangered species upon planet Earth. It's recent decline is a matter of great concern. Without bee's ability to pollinate, crops would not grow. In fact humanity's fate is dependent upon the bee. The Varroa mite along with the phenomena known as 'Hive collapse disorder' in which swarms simply vanish, has decimated whole colonies. In recent decades pesticides, along with motor-car exhaust fumes and mobile phone signals have also been blamed for the bee's decline . In fact the plight of the modern-day bee wherever industrial-sized fruit-crop growing occurs, has been likened to  many working hives being over-crowded upon a budget air-line for a long over-night flight, only to be awakened upon arrival without any acclimatization, to a long day's labour immediately upon landing. Needless to say such treatment is motivated purely by economic factors.

The above photo is one of my best snaps. I particularly like how the  bee's furriness and  transparency of its wings is captured.

[1]  Info contribution by Brooke
Wiki-links
 Bee
 Fable of the Bees
Virgil's Georgics IV
Flight of the Bumblebee

Cromer

Because it has a rail connection to Norwich Cromer is  probably the coastal resort I've frequented most. It's been a while since I visited the 'Gem of the Norfolk Coast', which is situated some twenty-odd miles north of Norwich. A barmy summer of crab sandwiches, swimming and putting on the green, now long gone.

Cromer is also the place where over many years I've read innumerable books while on the beach. These days I have a small tent with me in readiness for the vastly differing weather conditions between  hinterland and coast. 

I'd almost forgotten how relaxing it is to turn the pages accompanied by the  sound of  surf  and waves breaking. As ever there was an fairly stiff off-shore wind from an icy North sea, but the quality of light, bracing air and immensity of space, easily compensated. Geographically, the Norfolk coast is famous for being a place where facing due north there is no land between oneself and the frozen ice of the Arctic. A little too early in the year for a swim in the sea.

At low-tide one begins to sense the prehistory of the coast-line. In fact much of the beach was once part of a prehistoric forest bed which was formed between 780,000 to 450,000 years ago.  Known  as the  geological era of  the Cromerian Stage, during the last ice-age or Pleistocene, the Cromerian Interglacial is the benchmark that all European countries use when studying their own  geological  deposits. 

The fossilized skeleton of a steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) an elephant some 600,00 years old was discovered not far from Cromer,  at West Runton in 1990.

Further along the coast is the site of  Seahenge,  an early man ceremonial ritual site marked by a circle of wood beams with an upturned tree-root at its centre dated  circa 2100 BCE (scroll down to earlier May post for pics of Seahenge).

It's very pleasant on a summer's evening to sit on Cromer Pier with a drink and watch the sun sink into the sea.

Cromer by James Stark (1794-1859) 'Norwich School'

Wiki-links
West Runton Elephant
Cromerian Stage
Seahenge
Norwich School

Polygraphiae

Included among the many books in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne of  an esoteric outlook is a book entitled Polygraphiae by Trithemius (1462 -1516).

The story goes that the young Trithemius studied at the University of Heidelberg where he became acquainted with the magical arts. Taking shelter from a snowstorm at the Benedictine monastery of Spondheim he became a monk, then the Abbot of Spondheim in the following year. In this position he re-installed discipline, repaired and restored the monastery and established one of Europe’s great libraries with over 2,000 manuscripts, including many works on science and philosophy.

Typical of the fate of many Renaissance Hermetic philosophers, Trithemius was often accused of sorcery and wizardry. The Emperor Maximilian I summoned him in 1503 in order to interrogate him on matters of faith, but Trithemius insisted he was a Christian and Humanist. In addition to being an Abbot of a Christian monastery, Trithemius was also a lexicographer, historian, cryptographer, and polymath as well as occultist. His fame as an occultist originates primarily from the infamy of his  Steganographia  which instructs how to conjure and talk to angels. Trithemius was the teacher of  Cornelius von Agrippa and Paracelsus, while the English Hermetic philosopher John Dee was also influenced by him .

In her scholarly work 'The Occult  philosophy of the Elizabethan Age' (1979) Dame Frances Yates noted-

In 1509-10, Agrippa was in Germany, visiting the learned abbot Trithemius, and it was about this time that he wrote the first version of the De occulta philosophia.  The manuscript of this version exists. It is dedicated to Trithemius, who was undoubtedly an important influence on Agrippa's  studies.

In his less controversial work Polygraphiae Trithemius elaborates at length and in detail upon different forms of secret writing, formulas for making codes and methods of encryption and decryption. Modern-day computer security also relies upon sophisticated codes and programmes of encryption and code in order to function without interference or fraud.

With his love of languages along with his interest in the secret, hidden and undiscerned, it’s little surprise that Sir Thomas Browne not only possessed a copy of Polygraphiae pub. Cologne 1571 (S.C. page 30 no. 17) by Trithemius, but is also credited with coining the  word ‘cryptography’ into the English language. The first recorded usage of the word according to the OED occurs  in ‘The Garden of Cyrus' in which Browne alludes to -
‘the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven'.

See also blog entry  - Cryptography and Gaffarel's astrology
Wikipedia entry   - Library of Sir Thomas Browne -  a short introduction and selection of book-titles.

 

Kronos Quartet

The highlight of this year's  Norfolk and Norwich Arts Festival  for myself was the opportunity to  hear the world-famous string-players, the Kronos quartet. The music festival opened with an unique event, the sound of a solo saxophonist accompanied by no less than 200 amateur saxophone players, of all shapes and sizes, throughout the region. It was an extraordinary sound to hear in the city centre outside the  Forum, and no small feat to assemble the collective players upon a stage and then to  depart in  a caterpillar procession .

Memories of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival stretch far back to the days when it was known as the Triennial Festival and held  once every 3 years, during October. My very earliest memory is that of the composer Benjamin Britten dropping in upon a rehearsal of his 'Cantata Noyes Fludd to thank the singers for their efforts. In fact the NNFT is the oldest and longest -running of all British music Festivals. Other recent  highlights which immediately spring to mind include hearing an electrifying performance of Shostakovich's Ballet suite 'The Bolt' by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Mahler's 9th symphony performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, a Sea-side  choral oratorio  by Ray Davies of the Kinks, a recorder concerto by David Bedford, the viol consort of Fretwork playing a new work by John Tavener, and the legendary 'father of minimalism' Terry Riley perform, among many other happy musical memories of the Festival. Actually, it's the one guaranteed two weeks in the year a Norwich concert-goer can be guaranteed the opportunity to hear  world-artists perform.

The Kronos Quartet have been playing to audiences  for over thirty years now; their ability to casually change genre and style to demonstrate the flexible  texture and expressiveness of the string quartet is simply amazing. I first heard them playing on Philip Glass's experimental song-cycle 'Songs from Liquid Days' (86) and their sensitive accompanying Astor Piazolla upon the bandeleon in 'Five Tango Sensations', (91) is a firm favourite of mine, as is their playing on the Philip Glass soundtrack to the original 'Dracula'  film (2001). 

From American composers such as Glass, Reich and Riley, to Argentinian tango, Indian Raga and Bollywood to Gypsy folk music, the Kronos  have now released over forty  albums,  the programme at  the Theatre Royal Norwich was equally varied. They played a soft poignant piece by Laurie Anderson entitled 'Flow' and a powerful, pulsing, dramatic theme by Clint Mansell from the soundtrack to the Darren Aronfonsky film 'The Fountain'. It didn't exactly help that the Kronos had decided not to play the evening's programme in the sequence advertised, but this was more than made up for in rapport as frontman David Harrington cracked a subtle joke to the audience, (You have your favourite Icelandic composers, this piece is by ours). The Kronos are not shy of using amplification or tape-recording which more often than not enhances their harmony and unity, as was demonstrated in a new work by Steve Reich, WTC 9//11 which used voices recollecting the tragic event. 

The overwhelming sense I apprehended from hearing the Kronos quartet was that they seemed well aware of their legacy. They have distinguished themselves as reinvigorating and reviving the string quartet to a new world-wide audience. As collective musicians they've proved the traditional combination of instruments is infinitely capable of performing rock and pop as well as jazz or modern minimalism, and this comes across in the confidence, technical brilliance and the unity of their playing. No other string quartet  in modern times has achieved as much, and their performance at Norwich was a memorable one, not least for their generous three encores which included the ever-popular  'Flugufrelsarinn'  by Icelander, Sigur Ros.