Thursday, January 20, 2011

Stop: Artist at Work



Stop! Here is an artist at work with simple raw talent and she works it well.

I first heard Priscilla Ahn one day probably about five months ago searching through YouTube or possible just video surfing recommended videos and such. It was either that or my brother sent me the link to one of her songs. However I found it really doesn't matter. What does is that I discovered and added to my list of music I love, another amazing voice.

Her voice has something of an etheral quality to me. Pure but with something of a raw edge that brings it back down to earth just a touch. I love it. And her lyrics are also beautiful. But the best part of it is she is a true musician. She isn't relying on flashy backing bands to make the music and make her song stand out she is doing it all herself. She plays the guitar and I barely notice it there because her voice is the instrument that carries the song.

She is not alone in these talents. Other artists for me hold the same talent; Laura Marling, Clare Bowditch, Lenka, Ben Harper, Emiliana Torrini, Jack Johnson, Missy Higgins, and George(Katie Noonan and Tyrone Noonan being the vocalists of this band are both stunning) just to name a few.

With all these artists I can sit there and listen to their albums on repeat and just zone out to a place where nothing can bother me and the lyrics speak to my soul(okay maybe that is a little cheesy sounding but it really is true!).

This is not to disparage other artists either who do have backing bands and such to help make the music because I love those bands and artists as well in no shortage but I have to say my favourite music is always that which goes back to the acoustic where you can just turn on and zone out to another place- if you haven't yet you should try it. Nothing is more relaxing than just listening for the nuances in the voice and the music itself and how they work together to create what can only be described as beautiful music.

So sit back and relax to the pure tones of Priscilla Ahn or whoever else it is that takes you away to amazing musical happy zone and just feel.


~~Random Logic~~

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

My Country- A Land of Sweeping Plains.

I wrote this one a few days ago on new years day... with pen and paper. Just got around to posting it.
~~~

If there is one poem I adore unreservedly it would be My Country by Dorothea Mackellar. It is a poem that epitomises Australia at its best and worst and my love for it. Many people only know one verse of this poem but it has become probably the best known piece of Australian poetry apart from The Man From Snowy River by A.B.Patterson also known as Banjo Patterson.

And as I travel on this train from Sydney to Wagga Wagga on the first day of 2011 I am reminded about what makes Australia what it is.

The fields flash past rolling over the hills. They are green and golden all at once. Scrubby brush and grasses cover some whilst trees dot others. Bales of hay are rolled and spread over fields- waiting to be covered perhaps and taken to a shed. Sheep and cows graze in the fields. The sheep run awat from the train line across the field as the train passes. A foreign entity in their existance.

Some trees are little more than skeletons of a former life. Bare branches and trunks. Perhaps they were victim to fire or simply ceased as they were with their bare branches reaching out and up like gnarled fingers.

I look a bit closer out the window and I see the wire fence which withstands nature though with the help of the farmer and marks the edge of a field. Closer still and yellow wildflowers, small and bright grow across the ground and along edges of tracks in bunches.

The bank rises away from the tracks the earth a bright shade of something akin to the colour yellow or orange made so by the sandstone and clay whilst other areas are bright ochre.

A stand of trees all vibrant shades of green gives way to more fields. Dams created by those who farm the land stand full of water given by recent rains.

Telegraph poles with wires swooping between them mark the path of the railway.

A rail crossing barrier, arm down and bells sounding flashes by in the blink of an eye; and as this passes me by I see what makes Australia. And I feel insignificant.


 ~~Random Logic~~