sadara.be

The first time I saw Waltz with Bashir, I fell asleep. No reflection on the film, more a reflection on my irregular lifestyle. Seeing it the second time I was again struck by the opening credits, a masterpiece of scene-setting. But to wind back a bit ….

Waltz with Bashir is an animated documentary telling the story of the director Ari Folman’s search to recover his memories of his own involvement in the 1982 massacres of Palestinians in the Shatila and Chabra refugee camps on the outskirts of Beirut.

This mix is a bit quirky, I have to admit, but then … there’s no telling what people will like.

The first voice is that of Asha Bhosle, the voice of a thousand Bollywood movies.

(Note: The tracks will be in this order the first time you play the mix. If you listen a second time, the tracks will be in random order. Unless you delete the 8tracks cookie first. Or use a different browser.)

Then there’s Hamza el Din, accompanying himself on a ‘tar’, a type of frame drum. Just a voice and a drum. And check out this YouTube video of him singing a song from his native Nubia. He’s accompanying himself on the ud.

Then there’s Purple Rain, by Stina Nordenstam and Red Green and You Blue by Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, featuring a teenaged Mike Oldfield on bass and the amazing Lol Coxhill on soprano sax.

For a bit of early-nineties nostalgia, there’s the hyperactive Alexander Bălănescu and his string quartet commenting on the ex-Warsaw Pact nations’ new-found liking for Democracy.

There are a number of versions of Gavin Bryars’ Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet. This piece consists of a tape loop of a tramp singing, which Bryars has given a variety of string orchestrations. My favourite version is the one where Tom Waits sings along, but at 19′ 38″ that’s a bit long to be putting on 8tracks. The version in this mix lasts a paltry 6′ 6″. As with so much of Bryars’ music, there’s a story behind it.

Next there’s Funeral Ikos by John Tavener. Unfortunately, in this recording the low basses at the bottom of the chords which end each ‘Alleluia’ are either inaudible or missing, which in the context of an audio CD could be said to be a distinction without a difference. The text is pretty wonderful, too. Here’s one of the verses:

Youth and the beauty of the body
fade at the hour of death,
and the tongue then burneth fiercely,
and the parched throat is inflamed.
The beauty of the eyes is quenched then,
the comeliness of the face all altered,
the shapeliness of the neck destroyed;
and the other parts have become numb,
nor often say:
Alleluia.

Lastly a reworking / recomposition by John Woolrich of a Monteverdi madrigal. The piece is called Ulysses Awakes and is for solo viola and strings.