Alasdair Roberts

Zmz is going to see his minstrel-hero play tonight.  It seemed like a good idea to take the trickle of time available to me before the event to gather thoughts and consider feelings.  Perhaps afterward I can use the data comparatively to determine whether I am feeling disappointed, elated, inspired, et cetera.  I have been aware of the musical contrivances of Alasdair Roberts since very late last century.  The Appendix Out group stuff, and especially "Tangled Hair" and "The Grey Havens" from Daylight Saving, came to me in a troubled time. I rediscovered these slow, fragile, and beautiful songs some time after a number of intense personal relationships had withered. The music was a balm that worked healing magic, especially when heard lying on a bed under a window with the midday summer sun pouring in. The Night is Advancing and Farewell Sorrow, when I finally found them, worked on me in like manner, but of an evening: these were faerie tunes from the distant gloaming of my ancestors.  They caused me to happily swoon and retreat from the over-hyped modern world.  Roberts sang with passion and earnestness of things close to my own heart though far from my present reality, the history of a people severed by the sea.  So, this will be a special opportunity and a chance at refreshing the Gaelic psyche within the space-cadet.  I hope it goes well.

For a wee bit more information, and some music, feel free to check his artist page at Drag City Records:
http://www.dragcity.com/artists/alasdair-roberts

The album Spoils is particularly wonderful, and the newest, A Wonder Working Stone, well, we'll just have to find out now, won't we?

This is a skinny little post, in hopes that the apophthegm "you are what you eat" might nicely adjust to "you are what you write".  Zmz just recently found out that old worries about high blood-pressure were well and good, but distracted from the real concern: very high cholesterol from eating all this rich Earth-food.  He immediately re-joined the Order of the Carrot (you can too):

http://www.theorderofthecarrot.com

His colons, as you can see, are still functioning very well, thank-you-very-much.  He has quite taken to a little spinning disc with sound pictures etched in, which can be found on the electric web here:

http://yellowjacketavenger.bandcamp.com

Zmz still thinks of music as having a physical aspect, like one of those saucers journeying to new worlds simply by spinning, or Mr. Young's silver seed, or Mr. Morrison's Crystal Ship.  The Achilles heel is Achilles' shield in this scenario. The former becomes the latter and vice versa when the latter fails to protect the former. The idea spins round and round like the many-pictured protective disc from the old Greek poem which, for all its beauty still could not act as proof against death.  When we go, we may bite the dust, but the dust devours us soon afterward leaving us very skinny, indeed.

See you in the future, dry bones!