Debut Album for Wasp Summer

Ladies and gentlemen, it delights me to announce that my dear friend and multi-talented superhero, Wasp Summer, is about to release her debut solo album, and you can help make it happen. The music is already recorded and her excitement about it is positively radiant. She has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise the money for the final stages: mixing, mastering and manufacturing. As well as snaring you a copy of the album, there is a cracking selection of bonuses for contributors, so please pop by and have a look. Splendid music and superb value!

Her music is alt.country/folk and her voice is like both a warm hug and roller-coaster for your heart. Have a listen on ReverbNation, SoundCloud or BandCamp. Also dear to my heart, she was also a member of Melbourne band, The Mime Set, who did such mind-blowing work with poet, Sean M. Whelan.

Close as a Slow Dance will be the first A Headful of Bees release for 2012. Please help make it real!

Berlin Compass and A Month of Sundays

Blimey, what a rather large month November has been. Maybe it’s all this buzz of activity that has kept the first snow from falling, which I must say is rather disappointing, even if I have been enjoying the surprise (relative) warmth.

Sandra Sarala pulled off a nigh-impossible four evenings straight of brain-stretchingly diverse performances, under the four points of the Berlin COMPASS. Here are a few Northern snaps from the also fabulously talented Maren Imhoff.

 

I had a splendid time on Friday evening. It brought together so much of what I love in Berlin – a collaborative spirit, variety of styles, beautifully cosy venue, and an eager audience.

And those things were also abundant in the Headful of Bees‘ Month of Sundays series at Cafe Hilde. Such a delight to feel yourself lifted and evaporated by wonderful music in what feels very much like your own (albeit very large) living room. This round of delights and wonders featured Ken Burke, Wasp Summer, Eric Eckhart, Miss Kenichi, Violetta, Entertainment for the Braindead, Folk’s Sake, Short & Sweet, Seanin, Nina Hynes, Sara Pickin and me (including a surprise bonus set yesterday evening). Ken and Hilde are cooking up more splendours for you next year, so keep your scanners aimed in that direction!

Another string to an already formidable bow

If you’ve ever heard Joe Czarnecki play guitar, you could be forgiven for thinking that was all he could do, and could easily conclude that this was more than enough. But blimey… this! With To Build a Spine, he also becomes one of my favourite poets. I hear echoes of Shane .L. Koyczan and Coleman Barks in this, but it is very clearly Joe’s own voice, his own heart. Listen to it. Name your price for a download: it’s worth having.

Gold for the Goldmine

Nina Hynes makes wonderful music. To me it has a fairy tale’s balance: beauty and wonder with those delicious shadows and hints of danger. Chiaroscuro music, perhaps. Her music covers a pretty broad range of style and feel, but I find it hard to get past Sewing Machine for its gorgeous old timber and dusty attic beauty. You can hear it and bag yourself a bargain download at her BandCamp page. From there, you can also hear her latest album, Really Really Do, which was my introduction to her music.

The Berlin-based Irish singer-songwriter-filmmaker-… is gearing up to make her 4th studio recording, and has her band and even a choir lined up for making the album at a pace that would have a passing whirlwind give an approving nod. The new album is rumoured to be heading for a more acoustic flavour, but judging by some previews posted online and her recent live performances, we can still expect the richness of her previous work.

To make the new album possible as an independent artist, she’s having a swing at crowd-funding, in this case using the relatively new Irish site, :fund:it. Read about her project here. The page includes a video introduction that shows as much her quirky humour and enthusiasm as much as it does her music. There is just a week to go for her to reach her funding goal; if it falls short of this, no money is given out, so if you like what you’ve heard so far, please take a look at the splendid array of bonuses on offer for funders, ranging from a download of the new album upon release to a life-time’s supply of tickets to her shows and even a launch concert in your home!

http://www.fundit.ie/project/goldmine

Writing as essential maintenance and repair

Today was one of those days where something goes askew in the brain or elsewhere in the body and I felt inexplicably miserable. What brought me out of it, after a little musical and literary sympathy from Mssrs Oberst and Tan, was writing myself into the place I felt I needed to be – in this case, the gorgeous hills and vineyards, just to the North-East of Melbourne (remembering them at about this time of year, incidentally).

This approach, of writing as both a way of working through things and of connecting with the world, is the beautiful kernel of Writing Our Way Home and A River Of Stones. The latter in particular draws on some of the observational traditions we see in Japanese poetry, using writing as a way of developing a better sense of connection with the world around us; the former aims to foster a sense of community in such writings. Whether you join the community or not (after all, the writing and observing are more important than more time on-line!), these sites and their related books are a good reminder of how brilliant writing can be for exploration and a spot of mental repair, and also offer abundant inspiration if you need a little push to get started.

You might also care to pop by A Handful of Stones, which is a “small stone” blogzine with a broader scope, including fiction. There are some gorgeous pieces there – only bite-sized and yet often completely satisfying.

30 Days of Poems

Erstwhile Berlin poet, educator and collage artist, Michael Haeflinger, has started up a blog for this, the USA’s National Poetry Month, upon which he will feature a poet and/or poem a day – poems and poets who have influenced him and resonated with him. Will definitely be worth following, because those influences have led to Mike whipping up some mighty fine words of his own. Go have a look. He starts with a solid bit of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

A very well-deserved honour

Shaun Tan was yesterday announced as the winner of the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The summary from the jury is a beautiful description of his work. Not only is he one of the finest visual artists of our time; he is also a masterful storyteller (and a very nice gentleman as well). If you have somehow missed his work so far, please do yourself the massive favour of (at least) checking out The Arrival, The Red Tree, The Lost Thing, Tales from Outer Suburbia; he has also splendidly collaborated with John Marsden (The Rabbits) and Gary Crew (Memorial, The Viewer). There are wonders in all of them, but also a real sense of emotional connection. Inframe.tv also has a lovely short documentary on him, during the production of the Lost Thing film, here.

It fills the heart to see a fellow with such a fabulous talent and imagination (and skill!) rightly honoured (he also shared in an Academy Award this year, for the short film of The Lost Thing). Congratulations, Shaun Tan, and please keep it coming!

Another brief endorsement

Shaun Tan is magnificent.  I’ve been lucky to have him speaking and showing his work in Berlin twice in the last year, and lucky to have good people spotting such!  Let’s let the man speak for himself from here…

Shaun Tan on Inframe.tv

Thanks to Kusi Okamura for reminding me of this lovely little video.

More moving and writing from Liz Erber

Reports are that the previous workshop series have gone well – enthusiastic involvement and surprises.  A nice way to explore new territories, and I’ll be aboard myself as soon as time avails.

Sofa Sessions at Joe’s Bar 20100709

Evenings like this are like a particle accelerator to every bit of my body. I’m buzzing. I can’t really describe it, but it’s wonderful. Probably the best I can do is to hand over to Ms Sam: her song, Planet Sized is stuck in my head at the moment, and gives a wonderful impression of the delight that is making it hard for me to hold all my atoms together. Wayward Breed, Ken Burke, Wasp Summer and Eric Eckhart. If you have to relocate to Berlin to hear them, it will be worth it. Look out for more. For now, bask in their respective MySpace glories, and to all you exquisitely beautiful audience members, please come again and spread the word widely. Heartfelt live music is the stuff from which beautiful lives are woven.