After nearly a week in which it seemed the new season was at last arriving in these parts, the winter returned in force during the day and is striking back now in the form of a hailstorm – and coupled with a heavy workload at present, including the completion of a longer text which I hope to post here shortly, a certain ennui d’hiver has been pressing upon me; so on today’s trip through Soundcloud, the tempo will tend to the slower side, the mood more in a minor key.
To begin with, there’s an intriguing electro-acoustic exercise by a music and vocal student at Western Michigan University, Laura Tribby, entitled “Lonely Lucifer.”
Second there is a lovely version, with an accompaniment laced by klezmer bittersweetness, of Georges Brassens’ arrangement of Louis Aragon’s poem, “Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux,” by the Berlin band Music Men (about which not much information is available other than the name of its frontman, Alex Sitnikov).
Ce qu’il faut de malheur pour la moindre chanson
Ce qu’il faut de regrets pour payer un frisson
Ce qu’il faut de sanglots pour un air de guitare– Louis Aragon, “Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux”
Thirdly, a few days ago, Jonnie Allen, the singer, songwriter, and musician based in Salisbury who’s been featured on this site before, raised a new structure around his special sense of humour, and he called it “Our House” – it’s this which is tonight’s final offering.