Evanston: RRAKALA; old muffins
Evanston: RRAKALA; old muffins
I am indebted to Jim in Los Angeles for informing me that Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, of whom I have written here before, has released a new album.
After the I expect undreamed of by anyone worldwide success of Gurrumul’s first eponymous album, RRAKALA is more of the same and maybe purer. No English lyrics at all this time, only Aboriginal dialect. If you didn’t like Gurrumul’s first album, you won’t like this one. If you did, I think you will. I certainly do.
The themes are the same: ancestors, wind, tides, crocodiles, clouds, a sense of loss, tribal solidarity, young men setting out in a small boat to catch sea turtles and the wind comes up, rocks. The elements of great empty Far North Australia.
In addition to Gurrumul’s usual guitar accompaniment, a few of these songs include other instruments. The almost lullaby-like piano accompanied, “Warwu”, has already found its way onto my ‘favorites’ playlist.
If you are in Australia and maybe the UK, you can download RRAKALA through the iTunes Store. However, with an American iTunes identity, I couldn’t, and at this moment RRAKALA is not available at the U.S. iTunes Store, presumably due to reasons of greed and distribution rights; so I bought the CD at Amazon. How last century.
Jim also sent me a link to a YouTube video of Gurrumul singing a duet with Sting of “Every Breath You Take.” This is most definitely not the kind of song you will find on Gurrumul’s albums, but charming nevertheless.
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I just ate a month old bran muffin. Not bad, which makes me wonder what kind of preservatives they put in these things.
The muffins were among the SUV load Carol and I brought back from GANNET Saturday, including provisions for the mini-cruise that never was; everything that might be damaged by being frozen this winter; and several things that wouldn’t be, such as the Sportaseats, sleeping bags, and pillows, that are still new and fresh and I would like to keep that way a while longer.
Aware that I do not yet have my full energy back, Carol has been very understanding about this, and so a mound sat in the corner of the living room until yesterday when I sorted through, repacked and found places for most of it in various closets.
Exceptions are a waist high stack of sails and the Avon dinghy in the corner of the second bedroom. I’m probably going to dispose of most of the sails, but I’d like to think about that a bit more before I do. And the Portapotti, which sits near the front door--perhaps it is unnecessary to say that we don’t have many visitors. Although it has not been used, it does have water in it and needs to be emptied and dried, before being stowed out of sight and mind.
For some reason this is an aspect of GANNET ownership for which I am not finding any enthusiasm.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011