mudd up!

2 weeks ago we learned that the program that was bringing my band Nettle to the U.S. next March was cancelled - terminated - due to financial crisis. ‘It’s no small irony that a program inspired by 9/11 as a way to (re)connect with the wider world now finds itself without support thanks, if indirectly, to the disastrous policies of the Bush administration.’

It was quite a blow, especially as we needed something like this to make a US trip possible; people with Arabic writing on their passports are having a worse time than ever entering America, even with serious visa sponsorship.

This unpleasant notice gives us renewed determination to put the album out during the week when we should have been doing shows in America, Abdel & Khalid’s (& Wren’s) first time there. Strangely enough, the cancellation gives a new heft to it’s working title: In The Heart of the Heart of the Country . Plus, at some core level, it’s music about friction, at least to me.

THE GOOD NEWS is that i just confirmed a Rupture South American tour for late November/early December. Events in Bolivia (La Paz, El Alto) and Lima, Peru. Details TBA.

elsewhere on the continent, Rukula directed me to a full-length, embeddable version of the Musquito animation, thanks!

Esa Cumbiera Intelectual (en español) - …another long article on cumbia , out today in the Argentine newspaper Página 12. (aside: as we drove, Pablo Lescano played me some of the upcoming Kumbia Queers album he produced and it sounded great, Andean-style vocals !, all in all unlike their current album’s dull rock covers.) shout to Sonido Martines for the tip.

+ + +

Musicans have to tune to something, and “in-tune” versus “out of tune” is a matter of relativity, so you might as well tune to the rooster.

Vibracatheral Orchestra has a nice album by that name which i blogged about 2 years back (”hangin’ out in another corner of the astral plane parking lot…); today i found its likely namesake:

Blind Street Musicians of Cusco - Tuning to the Rooster

… once they’ve tuned it, the Peruvian harps and mandolins sound like this:

Blind Street Musicians of Cusco - Marinera Cusqueña (3-Beat Rhythm)

the album’s buyable. Japan possess an intense tradition of blind street musicians playing strings which Ove-Naxx introduced me to.