I know of two things named after Alexander von Humboldt: a penguin and an ocean current. The current flows northwards along the coast of Chile and Peru bringing cooler waters from the southern oceans up to the tropics where it provides a plentiful supply of nutrients for the marine life there. The penguin is…Read more Humboldt Currant
progressive rock
Life Goes On
Musicians may die but their music lives on. Pekka Pohjola was a Finnish multi-instrumentalist and composer born in the same month as the Crotchety Man blogger. He studied piano and violin at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and, in 1970, joined the progressive rock band, Wigwam on bass. He left to embark on a solo career…Read more Life Goes On
The Clockwork Fable
I love a good story. And The Clockwork Fable is a splendid story. It concerns the subterranean city of Cogtopolis, founded 200 years or more ago. There is no natural light there. The citizens have legends of a sun that once shone above the surface but its rays were extinguished by clouds of choking, burning…Read more The Clockwork Fable
An Outcast of the Islands
Or, Finding Colin This week Burning Shed is inviting pre-orders for an album called Still. This new release appears to be by a fish called Colin (Bass) and a pen called Daniel (Biro). Crotchety Man recognised the pen as a writer of ambient aural pieces but the fish was hidden in the aquatic weeds of…Read more An Outcast of the Islands
Winter Is Never
This video appeared on the Proglodytes blog last week. It pleased Crotchety Man greatly and impelled him to pursue Gazpacho across previously uncharted regions of online musicland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okjo3tRZnNY For English speakers 'Gazpacho' is a strange word. It's a Spanish word for a cold vegetable soup. Not the most promising name for a band, you would…Read more Winter Is Never
Soften the Glare
A Couple of Unrelated Things Before We Start ... Robert Fripp posted a very moving tribute to Bill Rieflin on his Facebook page this week. Bill was a drummer and keyboard player who became part of the wider King Crimson family. He succumbed to cancer on Tuesday. Burning Shed is offering a free download of…Read more Soften the Glare
Artificial
artificial /ɑːtɪˈfɪʃ(ə)l/ adjective made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural. "her skin glowed in the artificial light" (of a person or their behaviour) insincere or affected. "she gave an artificial smile" It always puzzles me why 'artificial' has negative connotations. I suppose it's because mankind's…Read more Artificial
Pavlov’s Dog
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist. He was born in 1849 and in 1904 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Pavlov was studying the digestive system in dogs when he noticed that his test subjects would salivate as soon as the research assistant who normally fed them entered the lab. In…Read more Pavlov’s Dog
A Scarcity of Miracles
I think Spotify has performed a miracle. On my Release Radar this week the track that caught my ear was called A Scarcity of Miracles. It was by Jakko M. Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins, and it had a release date of 2020. For this ardent follower of King Crimson new music by three…Read more A Scarcity of Miracles
Nine Feet Underground
If you dig deep underground you should take care or you may plunge into the hellish land of the fallen angels. If you dig deep into the past you may find yourself in an altogether more pleasant place. If you go back before the the Devil spawned hip hop and grime, before the urban pop…Read more Nine Feet Underground
