Here’s a new instrumental for everyone, completely improvised with my mac’s internal mic running.

Feel free to download and share. Let me know what you think.

   C.Way - “Impromptu No.1″

Another installation of this game I play where I open Itunes, enable Shuffle, listen to the first song that comes up, and write whatever comes to mind about it.

This time I was served up a song from The Knife, off their record “Silent Shout”, called “The Captain”. I love this song — it always settles & unsettles me with its cold vistas & brittle expanse.

First, the song:

The Knife - “The Captain”
   

And here, a poem I wrote for it:
   

Spray of marbles skipping
along vast mesa of chrome.

Slow fanning wingspan of
hungry metal owls
sweeping over stone.

A long thunder, away.

Measured avalanche of
straw, sand & aluminum
upon meadows of
magenta blossom.

Old indigo geysers,
dusted with crimson flakes.

Gray coral spiking up from pink ponds.

The distant throaty lowing of beasts.

   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008
   
   
Buy Records from The Knife at Insound.com

New song (zipped — sorry, my site host doesn’t let me upload mp3s):

“Now I Can Move” - C.Way
   

Lyrics:
   

Now I Can Move - C.Way

3 o’clock in the Morning I can’t move
   Black rose Blooming in the middle of my Forehead
Dread, anger, belonging to Nothing, collaring my Throat
   Skin thick with Centipede feet, make me Twist my sheets
Now i can Move

2.5, 5, 10 milligrams
   2 glasses, 3, half bottle, I can’t move
Chart it, log it, Scattergraph
   Cardboard instruments dissect, disentangle
This thickening Knot of Days
   But now i can move

Planet of Ocean
   No land, No land
Wrap me, Foam me, Carry me in

There’s a copy of me
   Waiting in you
There’s a copy of me
   Waiting in you

   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

Basil, Balsamic vinegar, chocolate ganache.

Perhaps not flavors that you would think weep to share the same morsel.

But after my first bite of a Basil Balsamic Chocolate Truffle by emChocolatier, I couldn’t imagine anything tasting more harmonious, more singing with sympathy, than these ingredients bound and blended in a little dark bundle. Mouth-bliss.

Ellen Mirsky, owner of EMchocolatier, is clearly a gifted sweetster. She’s also quite seasoned: her website’s C.V. cites Todd English and Pichet Ong (whose P*ong is another study in whimsical and tantalizing flavor-play) as former employers. Her impressive past aside, what she’s doing in the present is wonderful: her artistry in this basil-balsamic truffle winningly showcases the power of spiking sweetness with savory elements. The result is a complex, transporting bouquet of a bite. The rest of her offerings — including chocolate bark, turtles and clusters — show the same adventurousness & spirit: sea salt, fennel and chili are among the flavors and ingredients that regularly show up in her confections.

It’s not often that chocolate makes me really slow down, focus on & wonder about what it is I’m experiencing. These truffles made it happen so often that I felt nearly guilt-ridden from the experience by the time the box was empty. Thank you emChocolatier.
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

Los Panchos - “Si Tu Me Dices Ven”

My mom got me into Los Panchos when I was a teenager. She used to play the famous trio’s records all the time, and before I knew it their harmonies & romanticism had me hooked. It wouldn’t be until my late 20s though that I’d really start to fall under their spell.

This song in particular is a good example of what they do well. I love the rich panning, the spacious production, the hand drums on the left, the maracas on the right, that opening & decisive guitar solo so characteristic of this style of mexican ballad (known as the bolero).

I love too the lyrical themes, again so typical of the form, saturated with longing, ruefulness, graceful tragedy. This song’s title loosely translates to “If You Say to Me: Come”. Other lyrics, simple and trenchant: “If you say to me: come, I’ll leave it all behind”; “my secrets, which are few, belong to you as well”.

Then there’s the guitar solo at 1:44, always my favorite moment of Los Panchos songs: cascading, nimble, fleet & yet heavy with feeling.

The whole song makes me feel like I’m on a sturdy raft, making my way down a misted river at night, with soft, warm, puddling rain falling on embankments nearby.

Click here to buy Los Panchos records from Insound.com
   
C. Way/ SnailCrow.com © 2008

A scanned image taken from a recent Exquisite-Corpse-ish drawing game I was involved in recently with close friends. This drawing (click to expand) courtesy of The New York Scrivener: