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Last Day in Motueka, 28/10/06

by: A Tiny Window

Publication date: 2006-10-28

Usage: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Topics: saz, baglama, drone, droning, acoustic, atmospheric, folk, free psych-folk, free psychfolk, free psych folk, freeform, improv, improvisation, improvisational, improvisatory, improvised, improvising, jam, jamming, lofi, lo-fi, organic, other, psychedelia, psychedelic, psychfolk, psych-folk, space, spacey, spontaneous, reggae, roots, Rasta, Rastafari, spring, Beltane, Beltaine, Beltain, New Zealand, Aotearoa, Motueka, Riwaka, Breton, Brittany, Galcian, Galicia, recorder, birdsong, traditional, Cornwall, Cornish, traditional Cornish, Tolkien

A collection of lo-fi recordings, generally quite folky, with a couple of reggae-ish things and a bit of freeform saz. Recorded the day before I left Motueka (South Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand).

Notes

The Riwaka Steiner Playgroup Spring Celebration 2006:
Matthew, Alan, Helen (her twins Tui and Maya either side), Lilli floating overhead
Helen - recorder, guitar, voice, drum
Alan - guitar, drum, voice (at the beginning of "Pat-a-Pan") [1-5]
Matthew - saz
Richard and Cindy - dan moi
Lilli - drum, dance, wreath-making, barely audible voicings, unclassifiable cosmic contributions
Saan - drum [6-18]
Tomaash - drum [6-18]

1-5 recorded outdoors at the Riwaka Steiner Playgroup Spring Celebration, so as well as chattering people, there's some gorgeous Aoatearoa birdsong. 6-18 recorded in Helen and Chris's music room, Motueka, later that evening.

"Helen's possible Breton tune" may be Breton. Or Helen may have made it up. She can't remember.

"I'll Tell Me Ma" is a traditional Irish song - this is Alan's reggae version, wherein he seems happy not to bother singing the words, getting really into his rhythm guitar thing.

"Pat-a-Pan" is something Helen and I both first encountered via The Spacegoats in the early 90's. Having been asked to play something for a sort of "southern hemisphere Beltaine" gathering (which had been rained off), we'd got this together the week before. Helen was a long way from the microphone, so you can't hear the words very well.

"Questions (version)" is an instrumental version of Alan's song (you can hear the song being sung here).

'May'pole dancing in late October

"May"pole dancing in late October. If you look closely, you can see Lilli starting to levitate!

I think that's the "Bear Dance". And I was told the "Galician solstice tune" was a Galician solstice tune. But you can never rely on that kind of hearsay - someone please let me know if they have more info on these tunes.

"Helen's new rhythm" was just me jamming over Helen teach Saan, et al. a new drum rhythm she'd learned.

"Ryb on Afon" is a Cornish tune Helen had heard me play that morning and asked me to play again. As you can hear, she picked it up almost instantly.

"traditional and/or Goddess chant" is of unknown origin. It sounds very much like the sort of thing women on protest camps in the 90's used to sit around fires singing. I asked Helen, she said it was traditional. You can't really hear the singing very well, unfortunately.

"Kaike en Sholio" is my version of a Greek song reproduced from an old 78rpm disc on a volume of the Secret Museum of Mankind series.

"Lothlorien" is a beautiful piece of music Helen created years ago to accompany the words to a Tolkien poem (one of the elven ones from Lord of the Rings). I'd learned it from Stef, I think, in the late 90's, and Inge and I recorded it in Belgium in 2001 (you can hear that here). This was the first time I'd heard Helen sing it.

more 'may'pole dancing

more "may"pole dancing - that's Helen's son Tane in the foreground
"The November Pole" was a little tune that came to me walking along Kina Beach a couple of days earlier. I'd cycled there after a community lunch at the Riverside Community. Another happy little tune, almost embarrassingly so (reminds me a bit of Morris dancing, maypoles, etc.) - a lot of joyful music came out of me around this time, making a change from all the usual melancholy, dirgey, droney stuff! I'd only attempted to play it a couple of times prior to this, so it's a bit rough, but you get the idea.

"Significantly Altering the Elevation" is a tune that came together a couple of weeks earlier on the Treewalk (there's a more substantial version here).

"Uffington Riddle" came to me walking along The Ridgeway from Uffington Castle to Wayland's Smithy one midsummer, after spending the afternoon playing saz atop Dragon Hill and exploring the weird landscape thereabout. Helen mentioned Wayland's Smithy that evening (chatting with Richard about various megalithic sites in England) which is what reminded me of this tune.

"Sally Gardens" and "Wild Mountain Thyme" are a couple of traditional songs I've been playing recently, and which I found in Helen's beautifully compiled and illustrated book of songs. It was getting very late, her voice was going and my playing was getting a bit ropey - but they're nice snapshots of the evening. We'll do them properly one day.

A Tiny Window
The Spring - 'audio blog' contact: mwatkins@maths.ex.ac.uk