Thoughts on ephemera: music, photography, tea & everything else
Jan 1st, 2009 by Brian Lavelle
I’d like to wish a happy and healthy new year to all my family and friends, and to everyone else who stumbles upon this blog. One of my resolutions for 2009 (one of many…) is to post more often, and to post more often on tea.
It’s a big year for us: Jill and I will be married on 21 March, the vernal equinox, and I’m a month into a new job which is going very well.
Hope to see you all in 2009!
Nov 12th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
I’ve been listening to the Weather tonight, and for a large part of this week in fact.
By that I mean I’ve been listening to the fruits of the Space Weather recording session last Saturday in Glasgow. The line-up was as it is now and ever shall be, amen: Alistair Crosbie (electric guitar), me (synthesizer) and Andrew Paine (electric bass guitar).
It was another excellent session, full of laughter and joyous camaraderie, and it makes me think that for all we strive to do our solo recordings on our own to the best of our abilities, there is nothing like playing good music with good friends. I begin to see why certain people hate all the faff of studio work and live to play live together, whether that’s in front of an audience or not. There are some moments and extended passages of real beauty in what we did at the weekend, and that’s down to the three of us doing more or less with what we have in front of us.
There were pieces from the session which were just beautiful: understated and contemplative, but slowly burning with that strange SW magic that infects the first album we’ve already done (the cover is image at the top of this post).
There are also moments of pure wonderment at how these tracks come across in their recorded form, when compared to how I remember us playing them. Did we actually do this? It seems hard to believe. But the actuality of the smiles on our faces as we played them, and the memory of those smiles now, are the greater rewards in all of this.
One of the pieces essayed on Saturday was a long floating instrumental, which reminds me quite a bit of the work of a US group called Alien Planetscapes, who were stalwarts of the 80s home taper scene. They worked in a few experimental styles, but this kind of eerie space rock, with brilliant free floating bass (courtesy of Mr. P), was the kind of thing they did best I think.
One more session like last Saturday’s and we will have a second album to contend with before the first is even out. It makes you think…
Nov 9th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
–They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro–
On which lost the more by our love.The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing….Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
At school, I had a fundamental difficulty with Robert Hardy’s work. I read Return of the Native in my last year, and I recall not enjoying it at all. Worse than that, Hardy’s Wessex was colourless, plodding and its denizens devoid of hope, at least as far as I could tell from my limited reading of that novel twenty years ago.
The poem above (’Neutral Tones’) is from the 1898 volume Wessex Poems And Other Verses and I was amazed to drink in its bleak outlook. It rejoices in its lack of colour and now that seems to me to be an integral part of its beauty.
Our tastes changes over time; what was once dull for me because it seemed colourless is now emotionally effecting precisely because of that colourlessness. I should try Hardy again in longer form. Perhaps twenty years later I’ll be able to take some pleasure from its joyless panoply.
Aug 9th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
I received a giant parcel from the great Scott Wilson at Yunnan Sourcing today. The main bulk of this order is a set of seven pu-erh beengs of the Menghai classic recipes 7542, 7582, 7512, 7532, 7262, 7572 and 7592, called Six-Famous-Tea-Mountain (I love that hyphenation and awkward singular/plural!).
The whole caboodle comes in a lovely woven basket:
The overall package is so beautifully put together that it almost feels wrong to start drinking the tea. Perhaps that’s why, with the purchase of these 7 cakes, Scott has also included a 50 gram sample of each tea. A great idea; and I can’t wait to get started on these, allowing the seven full cakes to age gracefully. I will enjoy them, I think, in my new Yixing Zisha Shi Piao Hu pot from Stéphane Erler of the Taiwan-based Tea Masters blog:
And aside from contemplating the climbing of mountains of tea, I’m really delighted to report that I’m in a band again for the first time in years. Space Weather is a trio consisting of Alistair Crosbie (electric guitar), me (synthesizer) and Andrew Paine (electric bass guitar). As these fellows are some of the nicest people you could hope to meet, the decision to join them was one of the easiest and quickest I’ve ever made.
We’ve had a couple of recording sessions so far and the music seems to come so effortlessly and interconnectedly that I think we’re definitely on to something. The pieces are simple, linear, largely melodic in the conventional sense and entirely improvised. Although we’ve all recorded in separate duo combinations over the years—Alistair and I, and Alistair and Paz, as well as a possible forthcoming Lavelle/Paine outing—this is the first time the three of us have worked together as one. The two sessions have been relaxed, warm, funny and wonderfully joyful experiences: good company and great music (well, we think so anyway: there should be some samples up soon at the MySpace page linked to above, so you can judge for yourself). You can’t really ask for more than that.
Our little power trio already has enough material for an album, just from these two afternoon sessions, which is astonishing in my experience given the melodic nature of the music. Next time we meet, we’ll just need to decide on titles, some fine editing and the sequence of the pieces—and probably just keep recording. I can’t wait. Expect at least some if not all of the tracks, or indeed the album itself, to be called Space Weather…
Jun 27th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
Here are my first efforts with this camera. The film is Ilford Delta 400 and these are scanned from prints, which were developed locally. They’re straight scans, without any processing or cleaning.
I’m not sure I like the tints which the developing process has added to some, although not all, of the five I’ve posted here. I’ll need to investigate developing at home!
There were quite a few of the photographs I wasn’t happy with; I certainly need more practice with the camera, but these five at least confirmed my FED-2 seems to work well enough and the FED 50 lens is clear. More soon.
Jun 24th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
I’ve always enjoyed what I consider—no doubt pretentiously—to be rather unusual musics. There, I’ve said it.
At school, I came across a group of strange individuals performing under the name Ring. There’s very little about them on the great interweb, perhaps reflecting how individual and obscure their music was at the time. They had an early demo tape (untitled) which was released in 1984 on the anarcho-punk label BBP Records and Tapes (a sticker on the cassette proudly proclaims their motto “DIY not EMI is our game”). Ring’s first “real” (ahem) album, again on tape, was O De Dun Dun, self-released in 1989. Both were wonderful. There is, apparently, a Levitation connection in their guitarist Bic (Christian Hayes) who went on to form that group with others. I’ve never heard them.
And then there was this tape—Nervous Recreation—their third and last outing, which was just extraordinary in so many ways I find hard to express now.
I dug it out tonight, from amidst a huge unlit pyre of magnetic media, just to see if it was as magical as I’d remembered, despite nearly two decades of unreliable nostalgic mist. Its cover is still as odd to me now as it was then. The music is complex, playful and accomplished, and as the site above notes, in thrall to the genius of Tim Smith and Cardiacs. That, in my book, is A Good Thing. It’s incredible to think, in fact, that this material was recorded on a four track cassette recorder.
And, remarkably, listening to it for the first time in probably 15 years or more took me back again to happy (if frustrating) times in 1989, sitting in the refectory at school, trying to explain the last track on the album, “Some Fish Have Teeth”, to anyone within earshot, even those who thought Iron Maiden were the pinnacle of invention in music and hairdressing.
But especially I tried to explain this music to Judith, to whom I was in thrall. I failed to explain it, probably, but at least I tried. Not that she ever knew I was in thrall. I think. It just seemed to me, at that point in time, that there was never more of a beautiful truism than “some fish have teeth” to the point where it became something of a mantra. That all seems a bit silly now.
And Judith, if by some quirk of fate you’re out there and reading this, do get in touch. I think I know what the song means now.
Jun 9th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
I’ve just received a beautiful new (well, really quite old) FED-2 rangefinder camera made in the former Soviet Union some time in the 1950s. The FED-2 was the first and very successful attempt by Soviet camera makers to improve upon the original and vastly more expensive Leica II and IIIg designs.
The camera above is unusual because it’s finished in black enamel, so this is an opportunity to see how the FED-2 would have looked if that finish had ever been available on a camera out of the FED factory. It never was, and this finish is in fact the detailed modern enamelling work of a skilled restorer from Odessa in Ukraine.
The story of the FED factory is an interesting if unpalatable one. The factory (ФЭД) in Kharkov was an orphanage-turned-work-commune named for Felix E. Dzerzhinsky, founder of the original Soviet Secret Police, the Cheka (later the NKVD).
And the origin of the title of this post? It’s from an old Soviet song about war journalism:
With Leica and with notepad
And sometimes with machine gun
We passed through fire and frost.
Stephen Rothery has a controversial conspiracy theory that the early Leica I and II models were clones of the first FED rangefinder (the FED-1 or Fedka). He posits that the Leica in the song was simply a genericised trademark and that, for some time in the 1920s to the early 1940s, Leica in Russian was a synonym for a 35mm camera. I’m not sure about this, but it’s a good story…
Anyway, these are rugged, inexpensive machines that take great photographs, on good old fashioned film. I plan to use this pretty much exclusively for black and white photography; perhaps I’ll post some shots here after I’ve used it for a bit.
—
[Edit: 23 June 2008: I worked out the camera is from 1955 and is the type 'a' version of the FED-2. I've added a wonderful little wrist strap from Gordy's Camera Straps. Elegant, simple and rugged. And very reasonably priced too! The camera, which is heavy enough, feels safe hanging on it. Highly recommended.]
May 10th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
It’s a fact that no matter how small the boxes are which arrive in the post for me, both of our cats will attempt to park themselves inside them when they’re empty (and often as they’re being emptied). Here’s Hamish happily ensconced inside the box in which I received an order from Puerhshop yesterday. As you can see, he doesn’t quite fit but he looks happy enough: definitely Priority Male…
But enough of the cats, who really have no interest in tea I’m glad to say. Today, I tried another of the Shincha I’d ordered from O-Cha.com: this time it’s the Fukamushi Sencha Supreme. Originally, I hadn’t opted for this one as I don’t have a lot of experience with Fukamushi, but comments of the Green Tea Forum suggested that this year’s harvest of this Shincha was rather wonderful, so I buckled. Again.
The leaves are a beautiful grassy emerald green, with shards of lighter colour throughout, and are quite fine as a deep steamed tea like Fukamushi will always be. The vendor says of this tea:
Very green and very thick. More astringent than most or our green teas, the taste of this fukamushi sencha remains on the palate for an extended time. As this is a very bold green tea, be sure to not brew too hot, for too long, or with too much leaf.
Mindful of this advice, I was careful in making this tea for the first time, particularly given my lack of experience with Fukamushi. The parameters I used for the first session were:
A measured amount of 2.0 grams of the fine leaf in a small pre-heated kyusu with 150ml of water at a temperature of almost 80°C for 1.5 minutes. The vendor recommends those parameters of time and temperature with an amount of 4 grams for 300ml of water so I just halved that direction for the small pot I was using. The simple arithmetic seemed to work fine.
The aroma of the unbrewed leaf is much more grassy and intense than the Kirameki I reviewed previously. There’s also that same distinctive sencha sweetness in the smell that I find very hard to describe: a vegetal, rather than sugary, sweetness. I could breathe in that aroma for hours without tiring of it; it’s uplifting and empowering. Or am I just overly excited by the prospect of this tea?
The colour of the liquor is a powerful green: rich and luxuriant. And the taste of this first infusion is surprising. It is bold, as Kevin Moore of O-Cha.com indicates, but it’s much less sweet in the taste than I’d anticipated from the aroma of the dried leaf alone. I’m beginning to learn that the infusion of any tea can dramatically change what you might expect from its taste, having formed a view when giving it a good sniff beforehand, so to speak, and that this applies not just to Japanese tea.
I suppose the same can be said for decent wine and good single malt whisky. Can whisky and tea be compared? Well, it’s been said before that single malt whiskies are chemically complex and are known to contain several hundreds of individual components (congeners) including a variety of alcohols, aldehydes, acids, esters and phenols, as well as carbonyl - sulphur- and nitrogen-containing compounds. Many of these contribute to the flavour of a whisky and the relative concentrations of each are dependent upon variations in raw materials and production methods. Consequently, each single malt whisky is discernable from any other, including those produced at a neighbouring distillery. I’d be curious if the same can be said of green tea. What makes a particular tea grown in a certain area and processed in a defined way taste differently from others, even in following years? I’ve read comment that this year’s Hatsumi Shincha is quite a bit different from last year’s: same farm, same processing, same vendor. So why the difference? Answers on a postcard, please!
Back to the Fukamushi: as the tea cools in the yunomi, more of the vegetal taste comes out. I can’t place it, but its flavour is really quite different from the other sencha I’ve tasted. I like it; it’s different and surprising. A second infusion of this tea, brewed for around half the time of the first one, perhaps a little less, comes out an even more intense colour. Jill described it as chartreuse and that’s a good description. The taste is less strikingly vegetal than before; possibly somewhat sweeter.
I can see this tea will be a nice contrast to the others in the cupboard and I’ll definitely enjoy finishing it.
Next up for review: possibly the Hatsumi mentioned above. We’ll see. I still have a large stack of puerh to get into, and some oolong; fear, perhaps, is keeping me from going there…and I’m obviously enjoying my Shincha so much!
And for good measure here’s the other one, Bob—our Little Slice of Darkness—in that same box. Obviously, he can’t miss out on some packaging action; his brother, however, is the trailblazer when it comes to that kind of thing…
May 7th, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
Well, in a twist on the title and content of a slightly earlier post, I’m delighted to say that Spring definitely seems to have sprung around these parts. The temperature and sunshine over the last few days has been consistently good. Maybe I’m speaking too soon, but it is May, after all…
Perhaps I’m wrong, but what may be heightening my mood even more so than the upturn in the weather is that two of my packages of Shincha have just arrived from O-Cha.com.
I tried the first of these today, the Uji Shincha Kirameki. The aroma of the leaf in the just-opened package is wonderful: fresh, grassy with an astonishing sweetness that’s hard to compare to anything else.
My parameters for brewing the first infusion were as follows:
A measured amount of 4.0g of the beautiful deep-green grassy leaf in a pre-heated kyusu with 200ml of water at a temperature of approximately 65°C for 1.5 minutes.
The first infusion is light and grassy, with a soft mouthfeel and no bitterness whatsoever. As you might anticipate with a good first flush tea, there is no hint of the kind of ‘tiredness’ you find in older senchas. There’s a slightly sweet flavour to this but the overall impression is of lightness. The liquor is faintly transparent green, with yellowish tints. The shorter steep time may account for this, but it’s recommended that the brewing time be reduced for a shincha and also that the temperature be reduced slightly. I’ve no complaints with that advice at all; it certainly worked for me.
The liquor of the second infusion was cloudier and greener (pictured here). It has more of an initial impact on the tastebuds in the mouth; slightly more bite than the first infusion. It’s very good indeed and confirms my view that the second infusion is the more representative of the power of a particular sencha.
I managed to get good fourth and fifth infusions of this tea before I had to call it a day. And that was down to me, and the lateness of the hour, rather than the tea. I don’t doubt that if I’d persisted the tea would happily have given more. I’ve not experienced that in a Japanese tea before. Whilst this tea may be relatively expensive—$37.95 for a 100g bag—I can’t complain, particularly if each 4g kyusu of the tea gives at least five delicious infusions. That’s about $0.30 or £0.15 per 200ml yunomi. As they say, you do get what you pay for.
I’ll be interested to compare this Shincha to the other (less expensive) O-Cha.com Shincha I received: the Shizuoka Sencha Hatsumi. More on that one at a later date.
—
[Edit: 9 May 2008: I've had a couple of further sessions with the Kirameki and, thanks to Ryan's advice, have had even more enjoyment from this Shincha. I increased the leaf to water ratio—in fact, I used a smaller kyusu, using approximately 4 grams to about 150ml of water—and increased the temperature to approximately 75°C.]
May 1st, 2008 by Brian Lavelle
Well, I’m not, as a matter of fact, a cat but I have recently been reading a book with that title by the Japanese author, Natsume Sōseki, written at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
Originally published in ten instalments in the literary magazine Hototogisu between 1905 and 1906, I Am a Cat is a satire on upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era, portrayed through the eyes of an “unloved, unwanted, wandering kitten”. And it’s very amusing in a wry, philosophical sort of way; easy to dip into and with a storyline that’s more a string of anecdotes and observations than a rigid narrative structure.
I’m enjoying it; the observations on the superiority of cats over humans are really quite droll, especially if you know even a little of how cats behave; and with it tonight I’m also enjoying some 2000 Long Yuan Hao Yi Wu Mountain raw puerh that I got as a sample from Yunnan Sourcing. Very nice indeed, and my first ever puerh: the smokiness, dried fruit aromas and lasting flavour are quite intense, and not what I was expecting at all.
Okay, so that’s Chinese tea, with a Japanese novel, itself translated into English: but it’s Thursday night and it’s been one of those weeks…
