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Swiss Sounds
Recorded and shot over 16 days across Switzerland, taking 23 trains, 3 gondolas, 2 boats and 1 bus. I ended up with around 200 different sounds, with the goal of creating one single piece of music with it.
That’s French experimental artist Thylacine, summarising his recent project for Swiss Tourism.
When plants play on a band
A Manchester band, Bionic and the Wired, is in the news for a performance that featured a mushroom and two plants, each equipped with bionic arms, playing together.
Getting plants to individually play musical instruments has been at the heart of their efforts for some time now. In their words, “their art explores the intelligence and responsiveness of the natural world by transforming bio-electrical signals into artistic expressions”. The latest staging was, as they put it, “the largest ensemble of fungi and flora ever to perform live” using their bionic technology.
RIP Alan Bergman
I rate the original version of The Windmills of Your Mind as one of the most perfect film songs in terms of the way the lyrics, the music, and the vocals match the vision behind the song and the way it’s shot.
Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
When you knew that it was over
You were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair
RIP Jesse Colin Young
Some may come and some may go
We shall surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass
Dick Van Dyke with Chris Martin
A collaborative music video that is, to quote one reviewer, “part biog, part document, and all-round big hug” for the veteran actor-entertainer, who will turn 99 this week.
The Last Verse
Disney has formally released this 3 minute short—originally screened at D23 2024—featuring the new verse added by the late Richard Sherman for ‘It’s a Small World’.
German Navy clarifies playing of Darth Vader’s Theme
Following the viral video of a German warship playing The Imperial March (a.k.a. Darth Vader’s Theme) while entering London, the country’s navy has clarified that there was nothing to read into that choice. To quote from an Ars Technica report:
Coming eight decades after Londoners lived through the German "blitz" in World War II and then spent years waiting for a German naval invasion that never materialized, playing the Big Bad Guy's theme from Star Wars films was certainly a bold choice. But a German naval spokesperson assured the BBC that the music had "no deeper message" and added that it was not some sort of commentary from the German naval staff. Rather, the boat's commander "can choose the music freely."
The little spectacle did show two things. One—assuming this was, in fact, a joke—it put the lie to the old stereotype that the Germans have no sense of humor, a stereotype that has led to the production of actual BBC headlines like "Why people think Germans aren't funny."
Second, it's a reminder that people of my generation, those who grew up watching the original (and best!) Star Wars trilogy, are now the people running the world and its weapons systems. And we're bringing our musical tastes with us, even if they come from a galaxy far, far away.
Separately, AP News offered these notable observations:
For its departure, a tugboat pulled the warship down the river near Tower Bridge as sailors — without any lightsabers, sadly — stood on the deck.
There’s no word whether Anakin Skywalker himself was aboard.
RIP Mark James
The man who wrote and “provided the blueprint” for the Elvis classic, Suspicious Minds.
My favourite lines:
Oh, let our love survive
I'll dry the tears from your eyes
Let's don't let a good thing die
When, honey, you know I have never lied to you
‘We're Safety Now Haven't We’
That grammatical absurdity is the title of a music album from — believe it or not — the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The liberty with language extends to the songs. For example, the benefits of wearing a helmet are offered via a track titled Protect Ya Noggin’ with lyrics such as these:
I’mma put my helmet on then go zoom, yea yea
Sitting flat up on my head real evenly
Low on my forehead, yall ain’t seeing me
To be fair, it should not be a surprise for anyone who has followed the social media postings by the agency. As a report on CNET put it, the album is “the natural evolution of the agency’s amusing-yet-serious social presence”.
The cover art is equally amusing. Among other oddities, it features a cat with a phone and a fox wearing a bike helmet. There’s also a ‘warning’ that this is a government PSA.
Link to album:
-CPSC website
-YouTube
RIP Burt Bacharach
A 4 minute showcase of some of his best known songs
A 1964 upload by the BBC Archive in which he talks about his craft
RIP Marilyn Bergman
Of the many notable songs that she co-wrote with her husband, there are a couple that I especially admire: The Way We Were and The Windmills of Your Mind. Besides the sheer appeal of the lyrics, what has stood out for me is the way that the former embodies the soul of the movie it was written for, and the way that the latter nails the turbulence in the mind of the character it was written for.
From The Way We Were:
Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What's too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
From The Windmills of Your Mind:
Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
When you knew that it was over
You were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair