I’m sitting on the subway up here in northern Europe, and I’m having myself a little moment. Listening to a lovely electronic track by Max Million called “Monogramma” on SRS Podcast. Suddenly a street musician begins playing his electric violin in the background. And magically, he is in perfect sync with the music. Certainly rythmically, and close enough tonally that it works. The distance – both in space, with him a wagon behind me; and in the slight musical aberrations – creates a quite sublime feeling. I’m enraptured – rejuvenated. Bear with me now, as I’m about to delineate, in my quasi-Borgesian way, how a new genre could be established out of this strange, serendipitous coincidence. Continue reading
This year we’ve lost a lot of great people. I never knew any of them. But I’ve been sad. Sad in ways I didn’t really knew I could be. This year we’ve lost David Bowie, Olle Ljungström, Prince, Lemmy Kilmister and, just today, Freddie Wadling. Sorrow will come, sorrow will go. There are situations when you will lose people who’ve cared for you as much as anyone possibly can. When these people go, it means the world. But you don’t miss these guys, the ones I mentioned above, because you knew them: You miss them because what they taught you about yourself. Freddie Wadling, in particular, was a true outsider artist, literally in that you will not recognize his name without a certain knowledge of Scandinavian culture. But he signifies the fact that the most broken-back, bald, crumpled person can carry others through song. Discover him. You will not know the language, but you will know the feeling, and the power.
a truth called nothing 