Providing, deciding

 Image- More Pictures of the USSR

 

Quiet Christmas

 

 

There's always something left to love-

image- Vaughn Teegarden Into the Faerie Wood

This Woman's Work

This is one of my favorite Kate Bush songs. In recent years she rerecorded This Woman's Work and I actually like the new version better. As Ms. Bush has gotten older her voice has gotten lower, and I like her lower register. Kate Bush directed the original video and I like how the lights fade down in the waiting room and the coffee machine stays lit. This song reminds me of  some personal feelings and memories. Heavy. Even though it's a favorite, I don't listen to this song often.

I was born in a cloud, now I am falling, I want you to catch me

Kate Bush is coming out with a new album! It's called 50 Words for Snow, an album with snow and winter as a theme. Winter is probably my 2nd favorite season, after autumn. I know people have some issues with winter. A few of my long time Chicago friends up and left for warmer climbs because they've "had it with the winters".  I don't blame them.

I used to curate seasonal themed video shows at the Heaven Gallery. We would do a "Winter Screening" and serve hot chocolate. Prior to the actual shorts program there would be a group snow installation and different people would submit videos that involved snow. Anni Rossi would play too. I miss those screenings a little bit.

I love seasonal themed art projects and I love Kate Bush, so I'm excited about 50 Words for Snow. It's a little pared down from her last couple of albums, the songs employ sparse arrangements that involve her piano and her voice. In this song, Snowflake, she sings a duet with her drummer's son. His voice is the higher part. & speaking of kooky ethereal lady singers- Tori Amos also came out with a pared down album recently for the classical label Deutsche Grammophon. Night of the Hunters features acoustic instruments that also rely on her piano and voice. And she sings with her daughter.  They perform a song involving snow called Snowblind.

I looked through some of my old files and found one of the Winter Screening posters designed by Lilli Carre and Alexander Stewart. It's really cute, and reminds that I have talented friends :)

How to Be Invisible

Image z.t. (costa rica) 2005 by Elspeth Diederix

Efteling

In 1978 Kate Bush performed a few of her songs in and around Efteling, a haunted castle amusement park in Sweden. There's some old videos of it up on youtube. Most of the songs are from the album The Kick Inside, one of my favorite albums ever. The song and the album The Kick Inside, were inspirations for my short film Kick. I even showed a portion of the Efteling performance of The Kick Inside during the premiere for Kick. I used it as a transition during Linda Feferman's Linda's Film on Menstruation. The song The Kick Inside comes up at about 15:09, she has powdered hair and she's doing sort of a Lady of Shalott performance in a boat. (& Wuthering Heights is at 3:10...)

But every time it rains, You're here in my head

There are have been some "constants" in the music I've listened to and Kate Bush is a constant. I started listening to her when I was about 13 when I heard her on the college radio station (WMSE). She had come out with a new album which was evidently a BIG DEAL to some of the DJs over there. The album was The Red Shoes and I thought it was great but it wasn't until a few years later that I bought her other albums and they were a BIG DEAL to me, especially/obviously Hounds of Love. She's a beautiful and talented woman in her own world- where she works at her own time table, with her own agenda and her own musicality. I've just started listening to her all the time now for some reason, possibly because she just came out with a new album called 50 Words for Snow...I've been watching her youtube videos too, the Cloudbusting video was always interesting-

Kate Bush's song Cloudbusting was inspired by Peter Reich's Book of Dreams. Peter's father Wilhelm Reich was an eccentric therapist and an inventor who among other things made a Cloudbuster, or a rainmaker that evidently...worked.

I saw the Cloudbusting video when I was little and I was mystified. I remember Kate Bush's wide eyes and pixie cut and the weird machine she was operating. Like anything pertaining to Kate Bush, the details involved in the production of the Cloudbusting video are interesting. Some facets and people contributing to the enterprise were-Terry Gilliam, HR Geiger, a theatrical distribution and Kate Bush knocking on Donald Sutherland's hotel room door and asking him to be in the video.

Image Vogue Italia March 2008

Both Ends Burning

Image Vogue Italia Septeber 2008 via veryverychic

Nausea

I love Adult. A million years ago I spent a New Years with Vanessa Bucella, Dave Dobie, Douggpound and Eric Fensler. We just kept going to parties that Doug was DJing. And we said that he had to space out the Adult, he couldn't play just Adult, even though that's what we wanted to hear. Jeez that was a million years ago.
The music that plays over the credits for KICK is Mouth to Mouth by Adult (with permission).  The song is chilly & "upbeat" with electro elements. There's this whirring sound that plays throughout. Perfect way to end a science-fiction film about luddites. Plus it was sweet to use music that had influenced me way back when. Sometimes it's good to go back to the well, and sometimes the well is in the back of your CD drawer.

Adult have been doing some interesting music and film projects of late. Nicola Kuperus often exhibits her photography. I've always loved her photos.

Dragging 2008 Nicola Kuperus link

image at top of post Self Portraits #2 Gala Collette