Filastine Frequency

I just played last night in Zurich (note: late posting), the promoters are a clever bunch who frame their monthly event as a visit to an imaginary nation in Africa called Tam Tam. The public passes through a border, then seek citizenship at a passport office. Their poly-cultural vision flows against the current of at least 60% of their Swiss compatriots, the ones who just voted for a referendum banning the construction of any new minarets in the entire country. A lot of europeans are paranoid about Islam, and rightly so, since their own religion has withered away. Euro churches are full of tourists clicking fotos, not the faithful or the penitent.

Or maybe their fears stem from the fact that Islam is the most recent upgrade of the Sky God Religion from the mideast, version 3.0. Christianity (v2.0) is soooooo last century, a clunky obsolescent OS that people cling to out of nostalgia or loyalty. Even more hidebound are the users of version 1.0, the old skool, with their austere 8-bit hebrew graphics, always battling with users of version 3.0 about who’s OS is “keeping it real”

On the subject of throwing all the 3rd world muslims out of europe…..  it just happened to my music partner, Nova. Her  Euro (Schengen) visa reached it’s 90-day end. ¡Fuera! back to Indonesia.

It took us four months of constant effort and hundreds of dollars to get her that precious EU visa, she had many a flight or epic train trip to gather the papers: criminal background check, AIDS test, bank account info, medical checkup, job contract, all that supposed to be translated by certified (expensive) translators, notarized, legalized, stamped and sealed by distinct offices scattered across Java.

Our first mistake was to begin with the Spanish embassy, until realizing it’s a nest of corruption. The embassy staff make the process impossible via normal methods, while hustlers directly outside offer guaranteed Spanish tourist visas for $$, obviously splitting the money with the employees on the inside.  We succeeded eventually with the German embassy, it’s better to deal with rigorous officials than the corrupt.

It was worth it the effort. Continuing with the nerdspeak, Nova is Filastine 4.0 (mixing, percussion, video, & now voice). She’ll be sorely missed, both musically and personally.

A triptych that shows the development of a live drum piece.1. studio- hallway next to my kitchen, Poble Nou 2. rehearsal- breakwater of Port of Barcelona 3. live- Kafe Antzokia, Bilbao (footage thanks to StereoZona)

below pic from Kafe Antzokia, Bilbao, also this excellent video at from same

here are images from the performance
i was joined by cello: Amelie Bouard, mouth: mc Subzero Permafrost

fotos by Orianomada, except 1 by Maik

later I’ll post video

mil gracias a Kognitif Krew

please re-post it, blog it, rate it, email it, comment on it, etc, it was a lot of work and we’re keen to get it out there

From the wikipedia on Hungry Ghost: “In Japanese Buddhism, the Gaki (餓鬼) are the spirits of jealous or greedy people who, as punishment for their mortal vices, have been cursed with an insatiable hunger for a particular substance or object. Traditionally, this is something repugnant or humiliating, such as human corpses or feces, though in more recent legends, it may be virtually anything, no matter how bizarre.”

That’s all of us nowadays, always trying to fill some void, cradle to grave advertising saturation and consumer fetishism. 

I developed this track over a few weeks in Kyoto, staying in the house of Shimizu (guitarist of post-rock band Soft). It’s the kind of old kyoto house made mostly of paper and thin wood, where someone of my height must duck at all times.

On my way to Tokyo to record ECD and fly to the United States, I detoured via a  series of trains and small buses to arrive in a mountain village. From there I walked up a path through the forest for a few hours to arrive at the hot springs frequented by a pack of wild monkeys.
There i stripped naked to sit in a hot pool, with curious monkeys gazing on. Later I went to stare at them in their preferred pools. After a few hours of this I hiked down to the small bus, then small trains, then a shinkansen bullet train that took me into central tokyo, changing to a few metro lines and arriving in Shinjuku financial district, the odd location of Irregular Rhythm Asylum, Japan’s anarchist/activist infohub.

Train Journey from Mountains to Tokyo from Grey Filastine on Vimeo.

We set up a mic there amidst the books and music and ECD recorded his part for the track.

Perhaps most incredible about ECD is that anyone interesting in japan seems knows who he is, something of KRS-1 and Doctor Octagon rolled together.

This is how i first met ECD: As you’d correctly assume, nearly everything in japan is mediated and controlled by the corporate state, drenched in artifice and vapidity. But this kind of total oppression breeds an equally strong counter-culture. Some clever situationist/anarchist types were running a candidate for mayor, this campaign gave them license to use a sound propaganda truck. The law specifies the exact size of the trucks, but not the size of the speakers on the truck, so they cubed it with a sound system, leaving just a tiny hole for me to deejay, and threw a big street occupation next to the Koenji station. While deejaying I had to wear an armband issued by the Tokyo government that said “official sound action technician”. It basically turned into a wild fucking street party, people were crowd surfing, diving off the sound truck. I was supposed to play for an hour and it turned into three.  ECD surprised me when he jumped on the mic a few times.

Tokyo-Koenji Election Street Occupation from Grey Filastine on Vimeo.

 This was one of the days that has stuck with me, when I think about it I can’t help but smile. Even in a place as locked down as Tokyo we find a way to make cracks.

Wire MC is the definition of hiphop activist. His story is so long and deep I’m not going to try and condense it. Sumu just passed me this excellent video of him, it’s somewhere to start. I only have this blurry pic.

I was trying to do a session with Wire when I was in and out of Sydney on tour in 2006, when he finally rang me back i was due to be at the airport leaving for europe in 30 minutes. Since he was just down the street I invited him to come at that very moment, in the 15 minutes before he arrived I set up and tested the mic. He showed up, we recorded for about 5 minutes, then doubled a few phrases that worked well, then my airport cab arrived and I had to fly out the door.

I’ve talked so much about sample sources on other tracks that i’ll leave the melodic tones a mystery (they are not electronic/synth) and talk about other things. The drum that comes loudly in the lower dynamic sections is called a kanjira, this one is electronic, but i have a real one as well. It looks like a very small tambourine, the head is made from a snake skin. To play it you get it wet, then modulate the tone with your thumb. The world’s best kanjira players are a really heavy guy and his son, who both have the habit of playing with their shirts off. But somehow with South Indians this rarely looks macho.