Four Things #11
Four things #11..
Welcome to the last few "Things" of 2019, hope everyone is hanging in there! Just wanted to thank you all for the feedback on my last letter, as people have pointed out, there are a lot of great (and not so great) versions and edits of the Secondo Coro delle Lavandaie. I really love the very basic edit of it by Rahaan, then there's the much crazier version by 3rd Face, the OOIOO one and a much free-er interpretation by Dame Area that's worth checking out. I wanted to shout out Joe Muggs and congratulate him with the release of his book "Bass, Mids, Tops" this week, and Bradley Zero and Dreamcast who joined me at New York's Good Room last weekend for one of my favorite sessions in that space to date. Lastly, I was very happy with the December episode of my "Darkest Light" show, so if you're into that sort of thing please check it here. The archive will be added when the NTS crew returns from their holiday break. Happy New Year!
If you are enjoying "Four Things", feel free to pass on the subscribers link to friends, or check out the archive here https://tinyletter.com/Martyn-Deykers.
Martyn,
Dec 27, 2019
FIRST THING: IS GUDETAMA DEPRESSED?
While looking for a Christmas present for my daughter, my friend Vivienne brought up Gudetama, a very cute Japanese cartoon by Sanrio. (makers of Hello Kitty) Gudetama is the most unlikely of characters, he's not heroic, not good at any type of activity, he's just an egg yolk, and he is incredibly lazy. (Gude Gude is lazy, Tamago means Egg) It prefers to do next to nothing, and is always tired (of what, we don't really know). On the Sanrio site there are over a hundred merch items, such as posters with texts like "Why Bother?" or "You are ageing. Congrats." and one with Gudetama hiding under an eggshell with just the word "Nope." Gudetama is somewhere between extremely tired and extremely zen, or as Vox called it "Gudetama is the Tony Robbins of doing nothing". But is it depressed? Perhaps the general message of Gudetama to kids is that it's OK to feel down or tired once in a while, to shut the world out if that's what you need to take care of yourself. Gudetama takes care of himself by sleeping, under a little slab of bacon.
SECOND THING: LOVE IN THE AGE OF PRINCE
I've already mentioned in a previous news letter that Michael A. Gonzales is a v. good writer, and that was before I came across this older piece of his that was published on Catapult. (A site that has a lot of great reads by the way) This is possibly one of the most beautiful stories about the loss of a loved one I've read in a very long time and I'd love for you to take your time for it. Everything else I could possible say about this will just sound like shallow waffling so I will leave you to it.
THIRD THING: THE REPORT
Any movie with Adam Driver in it is worth watching and so we dove into The Report yesterday. Chronicling the story of the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into the CIA's EIT program (Enhanced Interrogation Techniques) it is a captivating insight into the workings of the intelligence community and how it is often at odds with the political side of Washington. Most striking however is how in less than a decade the Left's skepticism towards the IC has turned into unapologetic cheerleading in the Trump era, and the other way round, with the Right having no issues with torture techniques but now accuses the "Deep State" of everything going awry in the current administration. Unsurprising that the movie reviews on Amazon are as partisan as the real world.
FOURTH THING: BÈLÈNOU
The group Bèlènou was formed in 1980 by the two intellectuals Edmond Mondésir and Léon Bertide, to re-introduce and honor Bèlè music, the traditional, spiritual sound of the island of Martinique. Characterized by the interplay between choir and a protagonist lead singer in a conversational way, supported by simple codified rhythms usually played by a kind of rimshot, Bèlè tells us the story of the struggle of slaves on the island. A Caribbean blues that sounds surprisingly modern and direct, maybe because of its minimalist universal approach and spiritual purity. Check out the long lost album "Emosyon Tambou-a", which was beautifully reissued on vinyl and also available on Bandcamp. I played two pieces on my "Darkest Light" show on NTS last week, check the archive here.