Sunday Features - Upcoming World Music Artists in Year 2005 - Part II

Melike (Long distance/Harmonia Mundi)

Thanks to forced secularisation in the 1920s and relatively early industrialisation, Turkey has a well-established "folk" tradition in the Western sense, in which privileged urbanites look to rural sounds as a source of inspiration and "authenticity". Real traditional music, meanwhile, thrives in peasant and nomad communities.

Epitomising the former tendency, cool-voiced chanteuse Melike Tarhan draws the sounds of the ashik - Anatolia's traditional bards - into a web of sophisticated international influences, creating a parable on the current Iraq war which makes for surprisingly soothing, meditative listening.


Title: Macar
Release Date: August 9, 2004

Melike is the name of a new band based in Ghent and it's also the name of lead singer Melike Tarhan, born in Ghent of Turkish parents. She grew up listening to classical Turkish music, but gradually became engrossed in all forms of traditional Turkish music. She has also studied Eastern as well as Western singing techniques. She decided to start a band with husband Osama Abdulrasol. Abdulrasol studied Arab music in Baghdad, Western classical music in Great Britain and plays the qanun (plucked zither).

Melike breathes new life into the old troubadour songs by creating a Turkish folk style that belongs to the young generation of today. Macar tells the story of a boy who goes off to war, and is dedicated to the children who were victims of the war in Iraq.

This CD is built around the narrative of a 17-year-old boy who goes to fight and die in Çanakkale: the 1915 battle better known in the West as Gallipoli, where the ill-advised Allied invasion of Anatolia met with fierce and unexpected resistance from Ottoman troops. Masterminding the resistance was Mustafa Kemal, who went on from there to build modern Turkey and become Atatürk. One of the most tragic battles of the past century, where hundreds of thousands died for nothing more than colonial interests, the incident definitely resonates in these times of bloodshed.

In this concept album, Melike’s delicate and sweetly perched voice brings alive some of the ancient troubadour traditions of Anatolia. This short album is a tapestry that describes a circular cycle of life, love and death. It opens with a young boy, Macar, leaving his village of Suvermez to fight for his country. Macar disappears in the conflict leaving his mother wondering if he is alive or dead.

Mixing poetry by W.B.Yeats with a rich vein of traditional Turkish folk music, Melika weaves a spellbinding story of despair, hope and resilience. It is a simple tale, simply told. Melika claims the record "was conceived like a novel" though, at 48 minutes, a gripping short story is perhaps a more suitable description. Be that as it may, 'Macar' is yet another example of the Turkish musical renaissance that is centred on but is not exclusive to Istanbul, in the early part of this century.

Rich string arrangements support the delicate but intense voice of Melike, who tells the story in a combination of traditional and original pieces, with brillant contributions from some top-class Turkish soloists: Derya Türkan and Nedim Nalbantoglu. The two traditional tunes with 'aviary' metaphors - Bülbülüm Altin Kafeste and Iki Keklik, with the final track stand out for emotional charge, but the whole record introduces a welcome new voice and an original concept into the increasingly global Turkish music scene.

Sunday Features - Upcoming World Music Artists in Year 2005 - Part I

Warsaw Village Band (JARO)

The word "barbarian" crops up pretty soon in conversation with Wojtek Krzak of the Warsaw Village Band. And it keeps recurring. Not because of anything I've done, I hasten to add, but as a description they adopt not only of their style, but their attitude to Polish traditional music. It's strident, rough, and in your face - the Polish Pogues.

"You will not find many bands like this," says Krzak. "We are barbarians on the violin and other instruments. We use the violin like an electric guitar or the voice just shouting. There's the influence of traditional music of course, but also the sounds of contemporary life. So we're also like a rock band."


Title: Uprooting
Release Date: November 1, 2004

The six members of the Warsaw Village Band live in the Polish capital in a distinctly urban society and four of them were born there. But they have a passion for Polish traditional music and making it vital for their own generation. In Polish they're known as Kapela ze wsi Warszawa - the 'Band from the Village of Warsaw' which clearly implies the collision of urban and rural.


Title: People's Spring
Release Date: May 1, 2003

In the latest album Uprooting, the song 'In the Forest' has a tune from the collection of Oskar Kolberg (1814-90), Poland's pioneering collector of folk songs. The vocals are shouted with a punk-like savagery, intensified by the consonant-heavy Polish language and occasional grunts. The string playing is aggressive and scratchy, but full of character and supercharged with powerful percussion on frame drums and a swish of cymibal.


Title: Kapela Ze Wsi Warszawa
Release Date: December 4, 1998

The band started in 1997 (with a largely different line-up) and won first prize at Polish Radio's Nowa Tradycja (i.e. New Tradition) festival, which led to their debut album. Since then the current members have joined the band and their wider success dates from 2001 and their second album People's Spring which won them the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music in 2004 in the Newcomers category. Their latest album Uprooting is far ahead of the previous discs in playing and production.

Start the new year in London

Just came back from my trip . . . hey, actually I'm feeling good to start my new year in London, since I brought back quite a few good stuff during my visit to Rough Trade, Virgin, and other small record stores.

haha, that explains why I didn't blog anything here for a while :P



Rough Trade nearby Notting Hill



Athlete performed at Virgin Megastore





People can listen to almost all the CDs in the Virgin store by just scanning through the bar code. Amazing!

Sunday Features - CDs - November 28, 2004

Pavement (Matador)

Pavement's expanded double-disc 2002 reissue of Slanted and Enchanted — dubbed Luxe & Reduxe in its deluxe incarnation — was a landmark for expanded reissues, not just because it was the first time an indie rock band was subjected to such an exhaustive exhumation of the vaults, but because it was excellent in both its execution and material. Since its release, few have attempted to meet that standard, let alone match it — Universal's double-disc excavations of Sonic Youth's Dirty and Weezer's first album come close — but it wasn't until Pavement reissued an expanded edition of their 1994 second album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, on its tenth anniversary that there was another alt-rock reissue as satisfying as Luxe & Reduxe.

Subtitled "L.A.'s Desert Origins" — somewhat of a non sequitur since the album was recorded in New York — this double-disc set adds 37 bonus tracks to the original 12-track album, rounding up all the stray tracks from 1994, plus a Peel Session from around the time of the album's February release and a whole bunch of previously unreleased material, including the scrapped initial sessions for the album featuring original drummer Gary Young.

Where Luxe & Reduxe was largely comprised of recordings well known to diehards, L.A.'s Desert Origins contains a slew of unheard music, all presented on the second disc, titled "After the Glow (Where Eagles Dare)." The bonus material on the first disc — titled "Back to the Gold Soundz (Phantom Power Parables)" — consists of all the previously released Crooked Rain-era non-LP material: B-sides, bonus 7"s, tribute tracks, tour EPs, and cuts from various-artist samplers. This material isn't as strong on a song-by-song level as the stray tracks from Slanted & Enchanted, but cuts like "Raft" and "Coolin' By Sound" are solid B-sides, the "Jam Kids"/"Haunt You Down" single deserves to be heard by a wider audience, and the two R.E.M. — related songs — a mournful cover of "Camera" and the wryly brilliant tribute "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" taken from the No Alternative album — are rather brilliant; plus, it's also interesting to hear a vocal take of "5 - 4" (even if it does make it too busy).


Title: Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert Origins
Release Date: October 26, 2004

For diehards, it's nice to have all this material collected on one disc, but the real appeal of the set is that second disc, which contains no less than 21 previously unreleased tunes. The first eight consist of the shelved sessions with Young, which pretty much sound like rough demos when compared to either the finished album or Slanted and Enchanted.

Listen to how fluid "Range Life," "Elevate Me Later" (here titled "Ell Ess Two"), and "Stop Breathing" sound on the finished album compared to the good but flat versions here, and it's easy to understand why Young was fired and these songs were recut. That said, there are some excellent things from these sessions — "All My Friends" and "Soiled Little Filly" are promising songs that would have made good B-sides, an early version of "Flux = Rad" rocks really hard, the instrumental "Bad Version of War" has an intoxicatingly insistent fuzz guitar refrain, and "Same Way of Saying" recalls the haunted vibe of Creedence Clearwater Revival ballads (even if Malkmus comments that he "kind of feels like Hüsker Dü on this one").

After these early sessions are wrapped up, there are 13 outtakes from the New York sessions that lead to the final album. Some of this is little more than instrumental noodlings — interesting noodlings, as on the synth-heavy "Colorado" — while some of these are alternate takes of songs that wound up on the album, on B-sides, or on Wowee Zowee. Of those, the tracks that fall into the latter category are the most interesting, since "Kennel District" sounds like a closer cousin to "Loretta's Scars" in this incarnation and "Grounded" is disarmingly different here — lighter, faster, and not nearly as somber and stately. Of the unheard songs, the slow heavy groove of "Hands Off the Bayou" is the strongest, but "Fucking Righteous" is a fun, fast throwaway (and a harbinger to the latter-day "I Wanna Mess Around") and "Rug Rat" is engagingly silly.

Finally, the set closes with the aforementioned Peel Session from February 1994. At the time, all of these four songs were unreleased, but over the next year, "Pueblo Domain" would work its way onto Wowee Zowee while both "Brink of the Clouds" and "The Sutcliffe Catering Song" (later retitled "Easily Fooled") would show up as studio-recorded B-sides, leaving the Scott Kannberg's solid "Tartar Martyr" as the only unfamiliar title. While not quite as infectious as the Peel Sessions captured on Luxe & Reduxe, this is still loose and engaging, an excellent way to end a reissue that's not only remarkably generous, but remarkably entertaining. There may be a throwaway or two tucked away in the outtakes on the second disc, but even those have a ramshackle charm, and the entirety of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert Origins is essential for any Pavement fan or any serious fan of '90s indie rock. Frankly, it just doesn't get much better than this.

Sunday Features - CDs - October 31, 2004

The Czars (Bella Union)

Another crushingly lovely record from Denver's underrated Czars. Goodbye is a gay break-up album in which echoes of Robert Wyatt, Queen, ELO, Flaming Lips, torchsong country and jazz lap around singer John Grant's complex, deeply felt kiss-off. It helps that Grant is blessed with the voice of a sad-eyed angel. The gentle, irresistible gallop of Paint the Moon is the Czars at their most instinctively melodic.

Goodbye is an exploration of feelings and emotions that are often in conflict with one another. Sometimes angry, sometimes tender, always inspired, it is hard to imagine a band who can match The Czars for power, gravity and grace. As an artistic endeavour for The Czars it is the statement of a group that has reached both a sonic and aesthetic maturity.

The album begins with a haunting piano solo, lightly sketching out the structure of the astonishing title track. The opening line "I'm waiting over here just to see you for the last time" establishes an anxiety about moving on, while the hopeful sound of the chorus is underscored with the darkness of the line, "I love to see you fade and die."


Title: Goodbye
Release Date: September 27, 2004

'Paint the Moon', the stunning third track, is possibly the most perfectly-realised Czars song to date. Shuffling drums underpin John Grant’s caressing vocals on this country-tinged moment of genius. The track is based on an episode of the Twilight Zone and continues the themes of mortality and remorse.

'Hymn' is a definitive moment for the new sound of the band. Music boxes, multi-tracked vocals and electronic inflections texture the chord progressions. In the second verse, the beautiful vocals of Sara Lov, from Bella Union label-mates Devics, provide a striking contrast to Grant’s voice. 'My Love' is a lovely, lazy ballad, spinning a tale of a forbidden love while stressing the importance of knowing what you've got before you lose it. It descends into the dark, bluesy chords of 'Little Pink House' – a tribute to Grant's grandmother. The vocals of Andy's sister Julie Monley add a deep, soulfulness on this classic bluesy number, and trumpet virtuoso Ron Miles solos beautifully.

A striking contrast to earlier pieces, 'I am The Man' combines eccentric electronica, distorted guitars and a vocodered chorus, with Grant boasting: "I’m not just a man, I am the man you can’t have..." 'Trash' continues the theme, and is certainly Grant at his most scathing. It also contains a fabulously over-the-top guitar solo. Brian May eat your heart out!


Title: The Ugly People Vs the Beautiful People
Release Date: November 25, 2002 (UK release)

After this the mood settles into the recognition of loss and regret. 'I Saw a Ship' utilises a simple child-like melody to express the feelings of someone who has been beaten down by life. 'L.O.S.' again lingers on the past: "I want you to remember me for things I never did", sings Grant on a killer chorus to melt the hardest heart. The urgency of the music seems to reflect the crisis of knowing it is too late to change things. The song ends with beautiful weaving melodies and a peaceful feeling of resolve.

'Bright Black Eyes' seems to gel all of these confused feelings into a sense of finality. There is an awareness of being wronged, but also a sense of one’s own accountability when Grant sings, "I have let you play me and take me to places that I thought that I couldn’t find." There is a sense of recovered strength at the end of the album as the song builds to it’s rousing climax. After a short space, the album’s secret track – 'Pain' - reflects on the episodes that made the album possible: "Pain, it takes so much pain to help you feel if you can’t feel at all", sings Grant over an addictive slice of catchy west coast pop.

Goodbye isn't simply a narcotic swoon of melancholy, however: "I Am the Man" and "Trash" are immensely spiteful. Consistently inventive, profoundly moving, and never less than gorgeous, Goodbye is staggering. It's high time its creators stopped being Denver's best-kept secret.

The Czars make their eagerly-awaited return superb third album, Goodbye, the follow-up to The Ugly People Vs the Beautiful People, which was released to great critical-acclaim in autumn 2001.


Title: Before... But Longer
Release Date: November 25, 2002 (UK release)

Goodbye is filled with incredible songs notable for their rich production, high levels of musicianship and, of course, John Grant's beautiful baritone vocals, painting broad textures over dense sonic space. Lyrically, the album deals with themes of loss, regret and change. It begins with a haunting piano solo, lightly sketching out the structure of the astonishing title track.

It would be hard to think of a band who manage to incorporate so many influences into their music as The Czars. John Grant’s electic taste takes in artists as diverse as Kraftwerk, Patsy Cline, Cabaret Voltaire, Jane Siberry, Rachmaninoff, Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Low, Miles Davis… Yet though one can detect these influences, The Czars never sound like anyone other than themselves.

Upon returning to Denver after six years spent at school in Germany, vocalist John Grant formed the first incarnations of the Czars with bassist Chris Pearson, drummer Jeff Linsenmaier, and a revolving door of guitarists. Andy Monley, who had played with Pearson in Jux County, offered his services on guitar and eventually became a full-time member. The band sent a copy of a self-produced CD to the Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, who had just started his own Bella Union label with bandmate Robin Guthrie. Impressed with the band's diverse mix of shoegaze and alternative country, Raymonde eventually flew the band to his September Sound studio to record 2000's Before...But Longer. The Ugly People Vs. the Beautiful People followed in 2001.

John Grant from The Czars last year made one of the most tuneful renditions of the poems, on "16 Haiku and Other Stories - Haiku Fourteen (b)".


Title: 16 Haiku and Other Stories
Release Date: October 13, 2003

Morrisey Rallies for Kerry - Statement From Morrissey's Official Website

"With all my heart I urge people to vote against George Bush. Jon Stewart would be ideal, but John Kerry is the logical and sane move. It does not need to be said yet again, but Bush has single-handedly turned the United States into the most neurotic and terror-obsessed country on the planet. For non-Americans, the United States is suddenly not a very nice place to visit because US immigration officers – under the rules of Bush – now conduct themselves with all the charm and unanswerable indignation of Hitler’s SS. Please bring sanity and intelligence back to the United States. Don’t forget to vote. Vote for John Kerry and get rid of George Bush!"
Quoted from Morrissey's Official Website

Sunday Features - CDs - October 24, 2004

The Trashcan Sinatras (Picnic Records)

The lyrics to the opener, “Welcome Back,” on the Trashcan Sinatras new album, Weightlifting, could easily be a message to the band themselves. A few seconds into “Welcome Back” Francis Reader, the Trashcan Sinatras’ front man, sings: “Welcome back, back to health, back from the edge where we found you.” These lyrics mirror the reality the band has faced since 1996’s A Happy Pocket. After the release of A Happy Pocket, the band ended up declaring bankruptcy, but due to their love of making music together they managed to come back from the brink of financial ruin to release Weightlifting, a musically solid collection of songs that are as good, if not better (in some respects), that their previous albums. That is to say if you are a fan of their earlier albums, you will surely love the new record. Weightlifting picks up where A Happy Pocket left off and the two albums can be played back-to-back seamlessly despite the eight years that have passed between the two releases.


Title: Weightlifting [Deluxe Edition]
Release Date: September 27, 2004

The Trashcan Sinatras have not really experimented very much on Weightlifting, instead choosing to stick with what they know best: extremely melodic, guitar driven pop. One thing that is noticeable on Weightlifting is that the majority of the tracks are fairly slower-tempo numbers. With the exceptions of “It’s a Miracle” and “Welcome Back,” the new record is very mellow. You could say that “Weightlifting” is a calmer, softer side of the Trashcan Sinatras, but that’s almost redundant because the band has never been known for producing blistering rock songs. After the high-powered opener, the Trashcan Sinatras glide right into “Got Carried Away,” which begins with a gorgeous guitar arpeggio. Reader sings “Wait ‘til I get over this phrase, a weakness hard to break. Was that a knock on an early grave? I’ve gone wrong way to be saved.” As they have been on previous Trashcan Sinatras releases, the lyrics on this record; are thoughtful reflections on life, never boring and often quite remarkable. “Freetime,” one of the stronger tracks on Weightlifting, has an infectious melody and optimistic lyrics: “Oh my lucky number’s been rolling all summer, And when the sun shines. I celebrate the beauty in life – it’s my duty in life.” Guitarists John Douglas and Paul Livingston weave lovely guitar textures all over the new album, utilizing guitar effects like the wah-wah and tremolo to create airy atmospherics. The best examples are on the slower-tempo songs “Usually” and “Leave Me Alone.”

The album ends with the title track, one of the most lush and beautiful songs on the album, full of interwoven guitar arpeggios and Reader urging: “It’s been a lovely winter hibernating away. You need a little sunlight on that face … You could make your way out, if you lay down the load.” There really is not one bad track on Weightlifting. Since their debut album, 1990’s Cake, the Trashcan Sinatras have managed to maintain an impeccable quality that sets their music apart from the music of many of their peers. It is the rare band that can continue to put out brilliant records 15 years after their debut. The Trashcan Sinatras are one such band.

Although A Happy Pocket was sadly never released in the U.S., dedicated fans have surely gotten their hands on it by now. Thank you cards can be sent to Spin Art Records for agreeing to release Weightlifting in the U.S. Spin Art has issued the Cd in two versions. The regular version has 12 tracks. The deluxe version has the same 12 tracks as the regular version plus two bonus acoustic versions of “All the Dark Horses” and “Weightlifting.” The deluxe version also comes with a DVD featuring live versions of five songs from the new album; recorded in Los Angeles on March 16, 2004 for the KCRW “Morning Becomes Eclectic” radio program. The DVD is excellent, giving a living personality to some of the new songs. The most wonderful thing is seeing the raw emotion conveyed by Reader when he sings. He often closes his eyes, visibly straining at times to reach the higher notes in order to make the performance perfect. It is just a preview of what fans can expect this fall and winter when the Trashcan Sinatras tour the North America, Europe and Japan.

Sunday Features - CDs - October 17, 2004

Hector Zazou (Materiali Sonori)

Once again, Hector Zazou has delivered yet another masterpiece, which is comparable to the recent works like Sahara Blue and Songs From the Cold Seas. This time the Strong Current is a collaboration among a new string of famous or more obscure singers (Laurie Anderson, Jane Birkin, Lisa Germano, Nicola Hitchcock from Mandalay, Melanie Gabriel girl of Peter, Lori Carson, Caroline Lavelle, Emma Stow, Catherine Russell, and Sarah-Jane Morris) and his usual assistants (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Rieflin, and the clarinettist Renaud Pion).


Title: Strong Currents (French Release)
Release Date: September 29, 2003

Track 01. Into your Dreams (with Laurie Anderson)
Track 12. Ocean of Sound (with Laurie Anderson)
Laurie recorded the three texts that Hector Zazou sent to her by fax. Laurie's voice, without any effects, is already so full and so contained.

Track 02. Mmmh (with Mélanie Gabriel)
Mmmh is difficult song on which the great voices were crashed to pieces and the small ones were drown. After 10 years of time without finding the right vocalist, Mmmh is finally completed with a surprise voice. Hector Zazou found Mélanie Gabriel accidentally from a live performance of the her father Peter Gabriel's last Real World tour. Song was sent to the office of Peter Gabriel, his daughter was a bit rambling while the song was playing on telephone. From now on, after listening to this beautiful track, it's no doubt that Mélanie Gabriel will appear in the Hector Zazou's albums more often.

Track 03. Beauty (with Jane Birkin)
During the working process of "Beauty", several pianists almost break the fingers in the studio. Three years later Stefano Bollani entered to the studio, his hands flied in all directions while he was still warming up! Stefano Bollani definitely has the doubted forgiveness, which brings us his unique piano style with strong currents, with perplexity.

Track 04. In the Middle of the Night (with Lori Carson)
This song was produced in Seattle, from beginning to end, with the battery of Bill Rieflin (former R.E.M. drummer), the guitar of Chris, and the voice of Lori Carson.

Track 05. Let it Blow (with Emma Stow)
Emma Stow, who is one of the member of Phosphorus (the Roman duo with Crammed Discs), sings with longing sadness in "Let it blow". Emma's haunting voice infused into the piano and the bass perfectly, it expands the horizon of this ablum to another level. May be just like Hector Zazou once described that "Emma seasoned her Roman salad with the french dressing . . . " Definitely, it's something worth tasting!

Track 06. Under My Wing (with Nina Hynes)
Nina, a girl of (owner of) an Irish pub, does not like the folklore. I will not try to define Nina Hynes here, although everyone thought this song was performed by Bjork. There is something of délicieusement sick in this strange girl that makes me feel so guilty to compare her voice with Bjork. "Like listening the acid drop voice plunged in a bath of LSD", Hector said.

Track 07. The Freeze (with Caroline Lavelle)
From "Shining Midnight", to "Lights in the Dark", to "Coming Home" (the album of Yungchen Lhamo), to the latest one "Strong Currents", Caroline Lavelle has been working with Hector Zazou for so many years. A long history of Freeze! This lyrics was actually written at the time when Hector Zazou was still on the voyage of the remarkable ablum "Songs of the Cold Seas". Just like another unfinished piece left behind somewhere in his backseat, and then someone finds it by chance and make it happen. Caroline, at last, succeeded in binding the whole.

Track 08. Remember (with Sarah-Jane Morris)
Sarah Jane Morris is a truly independent spirit who's been making exciting music and pushing the envelope ever since her heady days at the top of the charts alongside Jimmy Sommerville in The Communards. Hector Zazou discovered Sarah-Jane Morris through her husband David Coulter.

Track 09. Is This (with Catherine Russell)
In geology as in music, there are some slips and cracks in which old layers are revealed and some new ones are recomposed. Certain features in "Is This" are accentuated with electronics and with dissonances pointed at end of the layers. Not a question of gumming, rather of underlining. Ryuichi Sakamoto played the piano piece for this track; he was able to carry it out precisely and carefully, which makes the piano arrangements so recognizable. Catherine has a history of being the pretty chorus behind Cyndi Lauper, Madonna or Costello Elvis.

Track 10. Indiana Moon (with Lisa Germano)
Lisa Germano has been worked with so many artists throughout her career, including David Bowie, Iggy Pop, U2, Calexico, Ed Harcourt, Harold Budd, and now Hector Zazou.
Born and raised in Bloomington Indiana where she still lives with her cats and extensive gardens. Lisa Germano went solo after lending her fiddle to John Mellencamp's cause. This track "Indiana Moon" is perfectly written for her darkness and abrasively brooding voice.

Track 11. Morning (with Nicola Hitchcock)
Hector Zazou invited the singer of a group that everyone knew for a long time: Miss Nicola Hitchcock (from Mandalay). With Sakamoto's piano played in the "Morning", this vibrato can literally be auscultated by breathing through the lungs of the very naked Nicola.


Title: Strong Currents (Italian Release)
Release Date: September 29, 2003

Italian release in the series Sonora Portraits. The CD is packed in a slipcase featuring a 94-page booklet with discography and an interview with Hector Zazou. In this interview he talks about Minimalists, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, and tells his side of the story about the omission of the tracks To A Reason and Victim Of Stars on the final version of Sahara Blue. The interview also includes philosophical reflections of his career as a global musician, a chronology of his works, photos by John b. Root and an introductory essay by Giampiero Bigazzi.

Hector Zazou has always dedicated himself to contemporary electronic music, and has researched into the music of the world and the global concept of making music. In his musical world, anything is fair game — operatic arias, children's songs, Afro-pop, jazzy horn charts, and delicate chamber music.

"The point of departure is never important. What is important is the detail that I find and put in my suitcase, and which belongs to me."

The disc is a also intimist, the songs in the "Strong Currents" are as contained as the ones in "Songs of the cold seas". Works of his close friends, of his meanders and its depths, "Strong currents" is perhaps as more difficult of access as its predecessor. Songs are built in the light shift of melody, the result is quite disconcert. But certainly this work has its moments of grace ("Let it blow" by Emma Stow, and "Is this" by C.Russell), of stridency (the raucous voice of Sarah-Jane Morris), of shifted and minimal poetry ("Ocean Of Sound" by Laurie Anderson).

Complex, ambitious, obscure like the human heart, it definitely deserves more than one's inattentive attention.

Sunday Features - An Interview with Hector Zazou - October 17, 2004

Shaken, Not Stirred

An interview with Hector Zazou (An excerpt from the booklet released with "Strong Currents", click here to see the full version in French)


Q: Who are, in your opinion, the musicians who really changed the musical scene, making it possible for our generation to make music like we do today?

Zazou: In my life I experienced two great musical shocks. The first, at the end of the 1960s, was with Captain Beefheart, and the second was some years later when Brian Eno recorded Another Green World.

Beefheart's music was - and still is to me - a total mystery, undecipherable and following an incomprehensible logic. I've read a great deal of material, and asked his musicians many questions on his way of composing, but I still don't understand how the whole thing works. And I need to be perplexed to keep admiring.

With Another Green World I was presented with another kind of problem: that of evidence and clarity. The simplicity of Eno's music was such that, paradoxically, it put it out of reach.

Beefheart and Eno are the Pollock and Rothko of 20th-century music. It's impossible to reproduce all the drips of a Pollock painting, but also impossible to reproduce Rothko's barren rectangles.


Q: What about minimalists such as Reich, Riley, and Glass?

Zazou: With Music for 18 Musicians Steve Reich wrote a fundamental - even seminal - piece of the Minimalist school. Of Terry Riley's work I like In C, which he wrote in the right place and at the right time. I remember seeing Riley in concert some years later, improvising on his portable organ, and I must admit that I was very bored. I felt that his language had become obsolete.

And I think more or less same thing about Philip Glass: he is part of that class of musicians who did invent something but this something was not fundamental, it was a detail, a decoration - they are interior designers, not architects.

I spent six months in the United States in 1978, and I met all the minimalists: Reich, Glass, La Monte Young, Glenn Branca, John Adams, Ingram Marshall. But the one who left the deepest impression on me was Robert Ashley. He recited texts over a pop-like music, which his lovely deep and unblemished voice.


Q: Ashley is an important musician who deserves more recognition.

Zazou: He is both a theorist with very clear ideas about the avant-garde, the role of the artist, etc., and a musician who loves sound and knows how to work with space.

When I met him he lived in New York and spent half of each year at Mills College in Oakland, where he taught the class created by Darius Milhaud.

Seeing his video work - portraits of the minimalist musicians - and listening to his music I discovered what freedom was. It was the end of 1970s, a time that I remember was great fondness, because all these people - Reich, Glass, Ashley, Adams, etc. - were beginning to be known but still not part of the avant-garde establishment.


Q: I believe that musicians such as Eno, Sakamoto, Laurie Anderson and yourself, as well as others who emerged and developed mostly in the second half of the 20th century, are the heirs of the Minimalist school, and marked the definitive shift of music from notation and the concert tradition to working in the recording studio.

Zazou: We had the great opportunity to have access to the fabulous technical developments of the recording studio. It might seem foolish to say, but I really believe that if Bach or Beethoven had lived during our time they would have also used the recording studio as an instrument.

When you record classical music today, you place microphones in such a way to bring out certain sections, you edit together different takes and you even add reverb by re-recording in a church or a location with good acoutics.

What interests me is to create in the studio pieces that cannot be played outside the studio. I am always surprised when I hear musicians saying that they must be able to reproduce on stage the music that they are recording in a studio. All the interesting things done today in music come from the recording studio. Of course there are very talented songwriters who only need a guitar or a piano, but when you hear a record such as Tilt by Scott Walker - in my view one of the best released in recent years - you can understand what a great contribution the recording studio can make, not only on a technical but also on an emotional level.

The same difference exists between the theatre and cinema. Seeing actors shouting themselves hoarse on stage seems as absurd! And what is the artistic interest of a painted portrait when there is photography?


"The point of departure is never important. What is important is the detail that I find and put in my suitcase, and which belongs to me."


Q: What experiences of your past do you keep as part of your heritage?

Zazou: For a musician the heritage of the past is a burden that one must dispose of, though it is also necessary to assess its importance. But it's not easy. Elaborating one's style requires making constant subtractions, it is an endless process of making attempts and then discarding them.

From time to time, one makes a small discovery and exclaims "Look, that's me!" But it's such a long, desperately slow, discouraging and frustrating process.

Since I don't really subscribe to any theory, I don't have a specific system to guide me. I move from a genre to another following my discoveries, trying not to lose my way.

As a result, many say that my music is too cold, too cerebral. For a long time I was irritated by this criticism, and I couldn't really understand what they meant. Today, instead, I accept it completely. If my music is cold, then so much the worse. Or so much the better. Who said that coldness is a fault? Does emotion always need to be warm? Does one reproach an essayist for not writing thrillers? Why should all music necessarily be oriented toward entertainment?

Music is the art of sounds. One cannot reduce it to a series of catchy songs or pieces. The music I love is not easy. The word "easy" is already a pejorative: we say an "easy girl". And Hitchcock's great women were cold beauties . . .

It is interesting to analyze the crisis of serial music that supposedly cut off "serious" musicians from popular audiences. In serial music the problem is not the method, but the result.

There is only on Pollock. By throwing paint on a canvas one will not necessarily obtain a masterpiece, but by throwing paint on canvases Pollock created masterpieces. And his work is much more interesting than that of a painter of portraits or landscapes, even if one can still paint portraits and landscapes with talent today.

What I want to say is that art moves, and some artists push while others hang on in order to be carried. Both can do good work, but I will always prefer those who try to advance. Without them there would be no movement, no dynamics.


"For a long time I've wondered who I was and to what world I belonged. I finally found the beginning of an answer: I am a citizen of a planet where all the worlds are blending in order to create a better one."


Q: How would you define your style?

Zazou: I don't really have an answer to this question. I advance feeling my way in the dark, and I often bang my head against the wall. I challenge myself: can I make a piece like this or like that? Such attempts at imitation will lead to something that resembles me, or at least I hope.

The point of departure is never important. What is important is the detail that I find and put in my suitcase, and which belongs to me. Every problem has its solutions of style and genre. I try to find within these solutions my own solution. For example, if I need to write a part of strings, I listen to the records I love in which someone found his own answer: may be Charlie Parker's recordings with a string section, or the arrangements behind Frank Sinatra's voice, or Debussy.

I analyze, I try to understand, and when I think I've understood I ask myself whether this answer found by someone else can also work for me. Do we not all live this way? Taking advantage of the experience of others, through books, films, conversations with friends, through our lover's caresses? How can one know that something ought to be done before one has done it?

My ambition is to arrive a certain organization of beauty. My records must be beautiful, even when they are bizarre. Christian Oster, a French writer whom I admire, has described the novel with these words: "It's a bizarre object, a mix of sense and sound". I feel the same way about a record.


Q: Your music tends to be figurative, but ever since Sahara Blue this has increasingly changed

Zazou: It's true. There was a progressive shift that took place almost without my being aware of it. A process resembling a disintegration. Or the loss of that which some call roots. I feel better and better in a space that is really nowhere, a sort of red balloon of which the string has been cut and is no longer tied to the earth.

For a long time I've wondered who I was and to what world I belonged. I finally found the beginning of an answer: I am a citizen of a planet where all the worlds are blending in order to create a better one.

This is clearly utopia, but if you don't believe in this type of thing when you are considered an artist, then what is the point of going on?


Q: Albums such as Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses, Sahara Blue, and Songs From the Cold Seas are an attempt to create this other world by mixing styles and cultures. You brought together such diverse people as Jon Hassell, Manu Dibango, Richard Horowitz, Ryuichi Sakamoto or John Cale next to Corsican singers, and for Sahara Blue you invited Bill Laswell, Gerard Depardieu, Dead Can Dance, David Sylvian . . . Can you talk about these projects?

Zazou: I discovered Corsican traditional singing when I was producing the record of a local singer. I suggested that she leaves her songs aside and work in a broader project that would gather all of the island's best voices. It was a radical idea, especially because female singers are not supposed to sing polyphony and because there is great rivalry between singers that makes collaborations between them quite difficult.

I wanted to explore the horizons that Peter Gabriel had revealed with his album Passion. Passion played a fundamental role in my conceiving Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses: I used its blending of traditional and moderm, synthetic and acoutic, north and south as a guideline for my own work. I was incredibly lucky in that all the elements of the puzzle found their right place and in that the whole was not only coherent but also appealing to many people.

In Sahara Blue I coutinued applying the same formulas but I tried to personalize them more. Some of the musicians who had participated in the Corsican project introduced me to friends of theirs, and so the circle broadened. It was once again Jacques Pasquier who had the idea of setting to music Rimbaud's poems: he had asked me to compose something for the 100th anniversary of Rimbaud's death, which was being celebrated at the Grande Halle of La Villette. It had to be a kind of ambient music for an event that last 24 hours.

I suggested a collaborative work between Sakamoto, Sylvian, Laurie Anderson and myself. I can't remember exactly why Laurie Anderson didn't take part in the project. We went in the studio and came up with a work in progress, and Jacques wanted to finalize it on record. The other guests came later, gradually, as Jacques was able to find the money to pay them.

There was no serious problem or misunderstanding with any of these people. Even with David Sylvian, who didn't want the songs he sang to be included in the final version of Sahara Blue (there is another version in which he sings on two tracks). He never explained his reasons for refusing, and this hurt me; but time has passed and we are in touch again now . . .


Q: I imagine that things went just as well in Songs From the Cold Seas. How did this unusual project start?

Zazou: It started with its title. I thought that Songs From the Cold Seas was mysterious and poetic and that behind these words there must be an entire world to be discovered.

So when I went to propose it to Sony I had a concept and nothing else: no music, no performer. It was the strangest contract I've ever signed, especially considering that it was with major label. The budget was good, I was granted total artistic freedom, and I was able to engage a cameraman - Philippe Romeo - to fellow me around the Arctic. We shot and recorded in Siberia, in the Great Canadian North, in Greenland, Alaske, Japan, Scandinavia . . .

It was an unforgettable experience. For the first time in my life I could invent a world that was both real and completely abstract, in which the languages were totally hermetic but told passionate stories. It was a chromatic variation on white (except for the Long Voyage, which I composed to express my gratitude to Sony and not because I was forced to).

In my view the best track is Inuit Song, with the voices of the two young singers from Baffin Island over electronic noises as hard as ice and as disturbing as the ice pack.

The Great North is not a peaceful place. It's filled with suffering and fear. You feel attacked down to the very core of yourself, and not simply by the cold.

Sunday Features - CDs - October 10, 2004 (Part II)

Husky Rescue (Catskills)

What is it with Scandinavians and country music? Maybe it's the inherent sadness and the dark night of the soul attracts the residents of the world's northernmost outposts. Or possibly the copious capacity for drinking away the pain?

Finnish multi-instrumentalist and all-round musical magus Marko Nyberg leads the charge. His delicate, country-folksy yet contemporary music is surely the work of an artist touched by the chilly majesty of his homeland, and much more besides. He speaks of his influences as being ‘the magical moment’ and mood in movies. David Lynch, Lars von Trier. Wim Wenders, Lukas Moodysson, Russ Meyer, Scandinavian architecture, Erik Satie, the airy lushness of French impressionism and Philip Glass. The sound of Arvo Part, warm and honest country music and a lot of other things in pop culture (such as) graphic design and photography.

Marko Nyberg and his band have struck gold with teir debut album for Catskills. The country-influenced folk-pop with organic instrumentation and sparse, affecting samples, made extra sweet thanks to the swooning vocals of Reeta-Leena Korhola and Emma Salokoski.

These are fine performers, whose love for the genre is clearly genuine rather than simply tongue-in-cheek, and by the sounds of it, the love of folk and country melancholy has now spread to Finland and one Marko Nyberg's band Husky Rescue.


Title: Country Falls
Release Date: October 11, 2004

Not that "Summertime Cowboy" is exactly Alt.Country in the fatalistic, Handsome Family sense of the term. Indeed, it's a quite fabulous collision of styles. It's built around a sublime, whirly Northern soul groove featuring samples, impeccably funky drums, Stax-style chopped guitar and an impossibly smoky and sultry vocal from unknown 20-year old Finnish girl Reeta-Leena Korhola. Remember the name. You'll hear more from her, mark my words.


Title: Summertime Cowboy
Release Date: October 4, 2004

Mad mash up of Pepe Deluxe cohort Marko Nyberg's acoustic bliss out 'City Lights' with Roxy Music's 'Love Is The Drug' and 'When Doves Cry' by Prince. Backed with a minimal electronic beats version.


Title: City Lights (versions)
Release Date: August 19, 2004

Rich, melodic mood music from Pepe Deluxe cohort Marko Nyberg, whose downtempo, acoustic-driven tracks draw on '70s film scores, Pink Floyd and the contemporary stylings of artists like Zero 7 and The Bees. Swooning vocals come courtesy of Reeta-Leena Korhola, with guest musicians providing lap steel, tremolo guitar and Rhodes trimmings.


Title: City Lights
Release Date: June 17, 2004

Unlike many artists who cite such wide-ranging influences, you really can detect them in Nyberg’s music. Each song is a self-contained mini-movie aiming for its own unique emotional impact. Take ‘New Light Of Tomorrow’, a slow burning Floyd-ian epic, a hushed meditation on hope and doubt. Both intimate and immense, this is the stuff of heartbreak, a happy-sad reverie.

Somewhere between the moody cinematics of Pink Floyd, the quirky orchestrations of The Bees and the lounge-influenced French instrumental scene, Finnish bunch Husky Rescue drop their second 10" through Brighton's Catskills label.


Title: New Light Of Tomorrow
Release Date: March 11, 2004

As clear as icewater, as dazzling as the Aurora Borealis, as jolting as a splash in the face from a Finnish lake; the music of Husky Rescue is more than capable of refreshing even the most jaded palate and warming the cockles of those left cold by lesser talents.


Title: Sleep Tight Tiger
Release Date: September 15, 2003

When asked to describe his own work, Nyberg’s metaphors are unusual but entirely appropriate: David Lynch meets the night-less night in Lapland, he suggests, or perhaps Bambi meets big bad wolf and they become friends. If you can read that and not be intrigued, you are an iceberg, my friend!

Sunday Features - CDs - October 10, 2004 (Part I)

Ella Guru (Banana Recordings)


If quiet was the new loud, whispering must be the new quiet.

2004's run of astonishing folk-infused records shows no sign of abating: indeed, they just seem to keep getting better. Adem, Gravenhurst, the Memory Band and Animal Collective have all delivered top-notch work, and now, with the help of Frank Zappa and Jimmy Carl Black, Liverpool resident Ella Guru has delivered no less than a masterpiece.


Title: Park Lake Speakers (Single)
Release Date: October 25, 2004

Well, it might be their first album, but it certainly doesn't sound like it. Everything about Liverpudlian octet Ella Guru's debut reeks of antiquity, from their name - taken from a title on Captain Beefheart's 1968 psychedelic oddity, Trout Mask Replica - to the air of exquisitely refined exhaustion that hangs over most of their songs.

Inviting the 68-year-old former associate of Frank Zappa, Jimmy Carl Black, to speak out on a couple of closing tracks confirms the impression that while they hail from the same urban stock as the Coral and the Zutons, Ella Guru are lost in deep ancestor worship.


Title: the First Album (Debut Album)
Release Date: August 9, 2004

The beauty of it lies in John Yates's songwriting, which, at its best – on This Is My Rock and Roll or Augustus Golden - nails the yearning, quietly desperate ambience of classic country rock. Just don't expect it to leap out at you.

Lead John Yates seems uncomfortable with the Americana and Lambchop comparisons: "I don't think we sound like them at all. You have a pedal-steel in a band and immediately people think you're alt. country." However, despite his protestations, it’s hard not to place some of their tunes firmly across the Atlantic. Yates’ hushed vocals can sound like Kurt Wagner’s conversational style mixed with the frailty of Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous. But, to suggest that Ella Guru are some kind of Yankee pastiche band is hugely unfair.


Title: 3 Songs from Liverpool (Single)
Release Date: September 22, 2003

Consistently tuneful, enchanting and magical, Ella Guru are a soft breeze of crisp air amongst a slew of over-rated guitar bands. They manage to be both intense but light-hearted, complex but uncluttered. Ella Guru are an unblemished polished gem of a band that lure you into their hazy soundscapes, but don’t expect them to dress in gorilla suits and play dustbin lids anytime soon.

Check out the full version of Ella Guru's the First Album in the BBC's music session.

Sunday Features - CDs - October 3, 2004

Gravenhurst (Warp Records)

It’s unusual to hear such extensive use of acoustic instruments on a Warp album, to say the least, but songwriter Nick Talbot deserves to have an amazing career ahead of him. Somehow it’s even more fitting since Flashlight Seasons is released hot on the heels of the new Nick Drake retrospective. Distinctive arpeggiated guitar playing, a misty rural atmosphere, enigmatic lyrics, a unique and earthy singing voice, and that’s just Gravenhurst. Whichever way you look at it, Nick Talbot is an amazing discovery, and if there’s any musical justice in the world you’re going to be hearing about him a lot.

'Black Holes in the Sand', a mini album of all new material will be released in November. It features six tracks and clocks in at over half an hour.


Title: Black Holes in the Sand
Release Date: November 1, 2004

“It’s music that’s made by somebody who grew up on indie rock like The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth, and then started listening to Burt Jansch, Fairport Convention and Nick Drake,” explains Nick. “That’s early Fairport Convention, when they were actually good,” he adds. “I’m really into sonic rock music and I’m trying to make it rest easy with what is kind of folk music really.”

They say it’s always the quiet ones you have to look out for and nowhere is this more keenly observed than on Gravenhurst’s (Nick Talbot) second album. Originally released last year on his Silent Age imprint, but now picked up by Warp, Flashlight Seasons might caress with its threadbare acoustica and delicate arrangements. But behind Talbot’s soft emasculated voice beats a haunting, almost funereal heart. Such a juxtaposition is best exemplified when the textured, uneasy listening of East Of The City is followed by the soothing folk plucking of Damage. Maybe Kings Of Convenience were right after all: quiet really is the new loud.

Check out the full version of Nick performing songs from the album for the BBC's music session.


Title: Flashlight Seasons
Release Date: June 28, 2004

Warp Records are also releasing the soundtrack to the new Warp Films release 'Dead Man's Shoes' - a very special release containing 18 tracks that are the backbone of Shane Meadows extraordinary new film, including Gravenhurst's "the diver"


Title: Dead Man's Shoes
Release Date: October 4, 2004

Sunday Features - Books - October 3, 2004

Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.


Title: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
Release Date: August 26, 2004

In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.


Title: Persepolis: The Story of an Iranian Childhood
Release Date: May 22, 2003

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.

Chances are that if you are an American you know very little about the 1979 Iranian Revolution. "This revolution was normal, and it had to happen," says Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, a totally unique memoir about growing up in Iran after the Shah left power. "Unfortunately, it happened in a country where people were very traditional, and other countries only saw the religious fanatics who made their response public." In her graphic novel, Satrapi, shows readers that these images do not make up the whole story about Iran. Here, she talks freely about what it was like to tell this story with both words and pictures, and why she is so proud of the result.

Sunday Features - CDs - September 26, 2004

Zbigniew PREISNER

Three Colours Blue, the first in Kieslowski's trilogy exploring the themes of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood, stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman who loses her composer husband and their child in a car crash but slowly rebuilds her life through the healing force of music and the gift of creativity.

The soundtrack to Three Colours Blue is performed by the Sinfonia Varsovia, conducted by Wojciech Michniewski, with the Silesian Philharmonic Choir under the direction of Jan Wojtacha. Featured soloists are the soprano Elzbieta Towarnicka, the singer Beata Rybotycka, the recorder player Jacek Ostaszewski and the pianist Konrad Mastylo.

The music was recorded by Rafal Paczkowski at Studio S4, Polish Radio, Warsaw and the soundtrack album was first released in 1993 on Virgin. Distributed worldwide by EMI.

Three Colours White, the second in Kieslowski's trilogy, starring Zbigniew Namachowski as the divorced husband of Julie Delpy, whose plans for revenge against his ex-wife are ultimately foiled by his own humanity.

The soundtrack to Three Colours White is performed by The String Sextet and the Zbigniew Preisner Light Orchestra, directed by Zbigniew Paleta.

Three Colours Red, the third in Kieslowski's trilogy, starring Irene Jacob as a young model who accidentally meets Jean-Louis Trintignant, a retired judge, with whom she forms a close friendship that ultimately liberates them both.

The soundtrack to Three Colours Red is performed by the Sinfonia Varsovia, conducted by Wojciech Michniewski, with the Silesian Philharmonic Choir under the direction of Jan Wojtacha, and with additional performances by the Katowice Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Zdzislaw Szostak. Soloists include the soprano Elzbieta Towarnicka.

Both soundtrack was also recorded by Rafal Paczkowski at Studio S4, Polish Radio, Warsaw and the soundtrack album was first released in 1994 on Virgin. Distributed worldwide by EMI.

They are currently distributed by MK2 Music.

Three Colours - Bleu/Blanc/Rouge: 3cd


The ten one-hour Dekalog films are set around the same modern Warsaw apartment building. Each film deals with a theme - love, marriage, infidelity, parenthood, guilt, faith, compassion - exploring the relevance of one of the Ten Commandments, showing how people deal with moral dilemma in their everyday lives.

The soundtrack for nine of the ten Dekalog films marks the point where the creative relationship and friendship between Preisner and Kieslowski first flowered and contains the seeds of much of Preisner's later work. (Kieslowski and Preisner decided that Dekalog would not require an original music score). The music is performed by the Katowice Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Zdzislaw Szostak. Soloists include the soprano Elzbieta Towarnicka, the guitar player Andrzej Modrzejewski, the recorder player Jacek Ostaszewski and the pianist Konrad Mastylo.

The music was recorded by Zbigniew Malecki and Aleksander Dowsilas at Radiowy Dom Sztuki Studio, Katowice. The soundtrack album was first released in 1991 and re-issued on Silva Screen [Preisner Edition] in 2000.



MK2 Music has also released a compilation of Kieslowski's films, all composed by Zbigniew Preisner.

Ost : Kieslowski Films

Full Text of Sinead O’Connor’s Advertisement

I am exercising my right ...

which is the same as any other person's, to reply when someone has written about them the type of article which Anna Coogan was made to write about myself and my brother Joseph yesterday in the Evening Herald. On foot of my having set out to do something fun and helpful.

I believe that more so called "celebrities" should stand up for themselves when subjected to this type of dismissive abuse which I have been the butt of in this country for twenty years now, without really ever standing up for myself. In an intelligent manner. To me, this issue is not about me, but about the freedom God gave all of us, in fact the DUTY we have, to be ourselves. And we all have the right to be who we are, without being ridiculed and abused every time we set foot out the door to go to work.

I have been the whipping post of Ireland's media for twenty years. I don’t think there can be any person male or female from this country who has been as consistently lashed as I have been and always am no matter what I set out to do. And what have I done to deserve these lashings? I have not behaved the way a woman is supposed to behave. I have refused before God to take no for an answer whenever it is because I am a woman. And if I complain about being abused by the media ye blame me for it. And say the abuse is my fault. I do not accept that.

If ye all think I am such a crazy person why do ye use me to sell your papers? Why do you bother writing about me at all? It doesn’t make sense.

And because having been raised in the era of Gay Byrne and Marian Finucane, in an Ireland which was allowed to voice its true self before the age of tabloid news. Our hands have always been encouraged in this country, to be raised and what I adore about my country is that very thing, that we voice our selves and we do so because we were given that gift by RTE telifis Eireann, in an era when nobody else would give it. I grew up in that age, where old men fired off letters to newspapers and one would think nothing of finding one's father exercising HIS right to speak. I am proud of being my father’s and my country's daughter.

I feel I have as much right as any person on this earth to express my opinion because I believe that we all can change the world. If ye think I am so ridiculous why do ye give me any attention? And the world is so full of agony at the moment for so many people, and it’s because of hatred. All kinds of hatred. And the media have done more than any religion has ever done, to spread unlovingness in this world but there comes a time when really it has to stop. Because ye are causing an awful lot of real pain to a lot of real people whom you think of as mere pieces of paper. Because ye have not met these people and ever sat with them. Nor walked a mile in their shoes. Yet ye are happy to lash women. When a man can say and do what he pleases and everyone thinks that's great.

I also grew up in an Ireland where people protested openly about whatever they needed to and were given that freedom, which is gone now. Replaced by fear. And no wonder people are afraid. If what ye have done to Sinead O'Connor over the years is anything to go by, they'd have dead good reason to play the game and laugh along and be very afraid indeed.

I am guilty of being real. In an arena which is nothing BUT a lie, never mind full of lies. If any of ye knew where I came from, believe me, ye would weep, if ye knew the half of what created Sinead O'Connor. Contrary to what your article stated, my brother Joseph himself, in Magill magazine some twelve years ago, stated that what was done to us by our mother was to the extent that if you did it to an adult you would be put behind bars. There has never been a dispute between me and my brother over what happened to us.

Only we deal with our experiences differently in ways which are right for us as individuals. I needed to sing it out. I needed permission to be crazy. Why should crazy be a term of abuse? If ye knew even the half, which you will never know, of what we went through in our mother's house in the Ireland of the late sixties and seventies which covered up so much child abuse. And people were made ashamed to speak and afraid of so called madness, or worse, the fear that nasty people would treat you as if you were crazy. A child of violence and abuse is not allowed a voice. I needed to really use singing and songwriting to express my broken spirit having arrived as I did on the music scene at 17 years of age. I talked about what my songs were about. Without discussing the personal experiences of my brothers or sister.

I needed to do that, so that I might recover my soul somehow and I had never found any other way. And yes at the time I talked, child abuse was a hot potato. Before I spoke as an Irish 19 year old, about my experience of horrific and evil terror. People wanted to make me out to be a liar. And they have wrongly repeatedly suggested that I am not speaking the truth. Before God let me swear to you that if I or any of us were to tell you what we went through this country would cry for a month.

To know what I and my brothers and sister survived, makes me proud of us all. And we will never any of us tell ye. For it is only between us four. And let me state that while my hero, my brother Joseph, may have been upset that I spoke, he never said I was not telling truth.

To me, I had to voice my self. And before me, anyone who talked about abuse was blacked out as if there was something to be ashamed of. But I was never ashamed. I didn’t do what was done. Why should I hide it? These things need out and I outed.

Which was unheard of. And since I did the media have been after me and it is them as well as me who have created controversy. I was being me. They made that a controversy, not me. But to bring my brother and I into a piece like yesterday's on foot of me trying to do something fun and good, is just abuse. And I really need to tell you all here, that twenty years of being ridiculed, lashed, called mad, by people who don’t even know me, who don’t even think for a second how that affects my life or the other lives they play games with, has taken a severe toll on my health and has had consequences for my life which have resulted in me really being fair game apparently for really an awful lot of people to really crush and sh*te on. And I know that I am unconventional and have been a little sh*t stirrer.

But for good and loving reasons, and I don’t see that what I have done deserves the type of horrific treatment of me by the media every time I set foot out to do anything. Could it be because I am an unconventional woman. Yes. For ye know if ye wrote about Bono like you do about me he'd kick your asses.

Mind you, I know he, not knowing me, thinks I’m just a crazy bitch too, and I feel so sore when every time I meet Harry Crosbie he tells me something horrible someone in the scene has to say about me. What did I do to deserve such pillioring? Was I not entitled, to grow up in public, and make all my mistakes out of an honest heart.

Not a bad one. And I came from such low self esteem in the first place, but twenty years of ye being so horrible to me has truly truly smashed my spirit and my heart. So I may have brought some of it on myself, but for what reason did I bring it?

Because I was real. In an arena of liars who lie to themselves. And are petrified by their own madnesses and have not the courage to go there in full view of the world as I do. For I don’t believe in shame or fear. That’s why Ye keep hurting me too. To shut me up because I am a good thing. But I will never let bullying and false cruelty make me afraid, after coming from where I came from.

I deserve life. And I have to be honest with ye from the bottom of my heart now. I know that being unusual, I am responsible for this mess too. But Ye are too, and it aint fair to always blame it on me.

Whatever I have done in the past, while I had a chance before god to speak for justice even though I might be mocked, I deserve to be able to sing and work and try to just do some good in this world and I can’t do it because it’s such a national pastime now, box sinead o'Connor. I tell ye no one could live under such pressure. I have never hurt anyone by what I said or did as an artist. Why do ye want to hurt me so much? I tell you from the bottom of my heart, I can’t live with it any more.

I beg ye please. Could I just be redeemed? Whatever I have done or not done, I am a good and loving women who did what she did out of passionate love for God, and for truth at any cost.

Please, I just want to be a little old lady now, and not be all controversial and not be bashed and called crazy and laughed at when I open my mouth to sing or speak. Why are the media so cruel to people? Don’t ye see we are not bits of paper/ My heart is not a bit of paper.

And I beg ye, I can’t live with the pain of being this nation’s whipping post any longer. Untie me please an wash me down I ask ye. An let me just get up off the floor and try to sing some good into this world and I'll be happy never to open my mouth to speak again if ye will only call a ceasefire on Sinead because she getting old and weak an she just can’t take it.

None of ye actually take the time to get to know who I really am. An ye think nothing of being so cruel. And if I say anything I am blamed and told I bring it on myself? How? By being real? Because I wasn’t in it for the money.

Please. Can we bury the frigging history of Sinead O’Connor and not have all this same abusive cruelty barfed out every time I try to live.

I have three children to mind. I am a full time mother. Not what ye imagine I am. I have not had some "frenetic" life. Yeah, I been crazy with pain, as ye would be too if ye had come from where I truly came from. And if ye were on the receiving end of what I have been given by ye since I was nineteen years of age. And if ye knew ye would be proud of me, that I didn’t shut up. Please folks, can we come to some arrangement here because it ain’t that ye can’t see I am a good thing too. Why ye want to hurt me so much? I have not complained from my heart before. And there doesn’t seem to be a press complaints commission here. But since it’s become a national pastime treating Sinead O’Connor like a crazy bitch, if there was one, they probably would not give a damn.

Please, I just want to sing religious stuff from now on, I am thirty eight. I want to head into middle age with some peace in my soul, surely ye can say she deserves peace at least. I never set out to do any harm as an artist. And I don’t believe I have done any harm, or anything to deserve such abuse and ridicule and disrespect as I get. My kids need me to be happy and strong. Not afraid to live.

I’ll be honest here from the bottom of my heart, if ye want me to be someone who can be of use to this world, can’t ye give me support? After years of mocking me?

I beg ye. Let me leave Sinead O’Connor behind and step out to do my singing without having to battle walls of prejudice and pain. I will behave. Can ye?

We are all entitled to redemption.

I believe I am a person with a very large and passionate heart who can do a lot of loving good for this country which I passionately adore. If I am loved and given space to grow and not have my spirit smashed in the ways me and ye have smashed it. I really love life and my kids and God and my singing. But I tell ye I cant cope as a vulnerable woman in this world, when I am still being bashed around as a national pastime everytime I try to do anything even good.

I need support. A lot of gentle loving support. And forgiveness. I grew up in public. Please let me live. And instead of spreading hatred in this desperately spiritually lost world, can ye not try to give a bit of love so someone might not have to feel that they are so awful they don’t even deserve to exist. That’s the real Sinead.

Being real. In the words of Eliza Doolittle, with whom I identify hugely, "I'm a good girl I am". Please stop hurting me and help me to be even better instead. I realise I risk ye all taking the piss again. But I'm into being real. And not letting that kind of thing make me afraid to be who I am.

I am sorry for any hurt I have ever done anyone in this world by anything I ever did or said or didn’t do or say. Please let me have a second chance at just singing and bringing some love into people's lives with singing, instead of bringing pain into my own. I ask you this before God and in God's name.

Please stop hurting me and maybe I could start being more bloody useful. Ye know if I were really as crazy as ye make out I am I would deserve compassion, not bashing.

Sinead O'Connor

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