colleen

This mix retrospective coupled with pics of my past live shows ends at the perfect moment: the future will soon be my present. What do I mean with this sentence, which kept cropping up in my mind yesterday? As with most of us, my life has been partially put on hold with Covid, but releasing my 7th album was on my mind long before Covid got here, and the thought that within less than 2 weeks the album will finally start its life at Thrill Jockey Records in spite of current circumstances fills me with deep gratitude and a sense of hope that this won’t last forever.

This last mix: October 2015, I had some bad news in my close family and was filled with worry and sadness, which is reflected in this mix, which takes its name from a beautiful 1960 Bengali film, “The cloud-capped star”, with an amazing soundtrack interspersed throughout this mix, with old favourites and an African ending.

That show, Moogfest, Durham, NC, 20th May 2017: my last show playing Captain of None live, the first in which I played an excerpt from the yet-to-be-released A flame my love, a frequency. Two days earlier, I was playing in San Diego: I had a blast birdwatching, was disappointed with the show, then spent the scariest hour of my life in an Uber on the way back to my hotel in Del Mar – literally *the* scariest hour of my life, worthy of a David Lynch film, in which I thought I would die – and I honestly think it’s a miracle I did get back to my hotel safely (I vowed to never to take an Uber again – hadn’t been my choice in the first place – and have stuck to this decision ever since). I spent 19th May trying to recover from the shock, wondering if I was even going to be able to perform. Thankfully, by 20th May, I pulled myself together enough to realize that this was indeed my last show performing my beloved album, and perhaps somehow this horrible adventure was there to prove a point about the fragility of life and how it could all be taken away suddenly and absurdly.

PLAYLIST

OST Mildred Pierce

Reuben Bell And The Casanovas – It’s Not That Easy

Nina Simone –  When I Was In My Prime

Bela Bartok – Rumanian Folk Dance

Jane And Barton – It’s A Fine Day

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 1

Denial – California Dreaming

Dark Day – The Metal Benders

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 2

Meredith Monk – Nota

Bob Lind – Black Night

Jackson C Frank – Just Like Anything

Townes Van Zandt – Waiting Around To Die (Live At The Old Quarter)

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 3

Stina Nordenstam  – Clothe Yourself For The Wind

Dominique A – Nous Marchons Sous La Neige

Grouper – Disengaged – Vital

Greg Gives Peter Space – Electric Eel River

OST Stroszek

Stefan Lakatos/Moondog – Over The Mountain

Khassonka Dunun – Traditional Music From Mali 

Bena Kazembe Balitumpa – Kalimba & Kalumbu Songs, Northern Rhodesia

Lalle – The Fulani, Niger / Northern Bénin

Taireva – Zimbabwe, The Soul Of Mbira

OST The Cloud-Capped Star 4

OST Mildred Pierce

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