Within a Sky Full of Earth

The odyssey of joining 33 musical projects together, from Portugal and from the two special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, is finally out of the box with mostly all of the aims of Project T(H)REE achieved. After one year of detailed work and effort with the participation of more than one hundred people, David Valentim, the producer, taking all the credits of this olympic challenge, and Bloom * Creative Network, a part of the engine, have launched the first III CD last weekend in Hong Kong and Macau, with two successful events.

T(H)REE is a musical project that brings together for the very first time, on the same record, modern musicians from Portugal, Macau and Hong Kong. Wishing to materialize and shape a truthful blend of cultures the idea also comes from the significant ambition to enhance local music creation beyond its borders. Reaching distant domains, bringing the steer to extensive forms and new contacts as musical and cultural projects that otherwise would never taken place. This project is also born under the structure of a pure and boundless dialogue, where the finest blend of creative processes, sounds and distinctive ways of making music flow in a world without space and distance, making technology the elemental connection and the convergence point. The final result is a surprise and an outlook reference for the music scene of the three territories involved.

III T(h)ree • New Musical Roots from Portugal, Hong Kong and Macau
Concept and Production: David Valentim • Graphic Design: Alexandre Paixão • Photos: Ana Mendonça, António Falcão, David Valentim, Hina Shimomura, Paulo Carneiro • Texts: António Falcão, Erik Piece, Rui Dinis, Yuen Chi-Chung • Mastered by: Alok Leung • Presented and distributed by: Bloom * Creative Network

...
T(H)REE is on sale in the following places:

HONG KONG
• White Noise Records [http://www.whitenoiserecords.org]
• Kubrick [http://www.kubrick.com.hk]
• Zoo Records [http://www.zoo-records.com]

MACAU
• St. Paul's Fine Arts Gallery [http://www.stpaulscorner.com]
• Portuguese Bookshop [Rua de S. Domingos 18-20 R/C]
• Pinto Music [Senado Square • next door to Starbucks 1st floor]
• Lines Lab | Bloom [Creative Albergue • Calçada da Igreja de S. Lázaro, 8]

ORDER ONLINE here.

"O menino ateu de esquerda vai visitar a avó enquanto a miúda católica de direita vai pular ao som dos Killers."

Passei os últimos dias a ouvir as entrevistas da Antena 1 sobre o estado do jornalismo em Portugal. Uma parceria entre a rádio pública e o Centro de Estudos do Século XX, a cargo do jornalista da Antena 1 Ricardo Alexandre com a colaboração de João Figueira, investigador e académico do Instituto de Estudos Jornalísticos da Universidade de Coimbra que, entre outras coisas, foi jornalista em Macau. No âmbito das comemorações do 25 de Abril a Rádio Macau levou-as para o éter.
No fim-de-semana enquanto andava de um lado para o outro, entre Macau e Coloane, apanhei parte da entrevista de Emídio Rangel, a primeira a ir para o ar; quase por completo a de Joaquim Letria, plena de vida e de tempo; e ainda, no meio da chuva de Domingo, a de Maria Elisa, à qual prestei menos atenção. Durante os dias da semana procurei as outras: Vicente Jorge Silva e Sena Santos.
O primeiro vagueia pelo seu passado numa espécie de sufoco e alude-nos aos episódios da sua vida profissional plena de paisagens. Liberta-se no fio das palavras que vai dizendo, em alívio, e agradece no final por isso, numa perspectiva assombrada de acontecimentos que nos são de todo comuns. São estas imagens tornadas imaginação que fazem a grandiosidade do mundo falado e em particular do universo da rádio, que se ouve e onde se esconde o nosso próprio sabor, na visão mental de outras vidas e outras cronologias.
Longe, tanto em distância como em tempo, no escuro da noite, enquanto enganava o sono, olhei para as histórias do Expresso, com Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa em cima da mesa, a transe da Madeira com a boçalidade de João Jardim, que aludiu um pouco ao sítio onde vivo, e as tricas do Público a terminar com o desprezo de Belmiro de Azevedo e o desejo de novos projectos.
Sena Santos alude-nos ao jornalismo como alguém que se apaga para dar luz, como um ofício de claridade, e é uma experiência ouvi-lo. Ainda não cheguei ao fim.
Cada um deles abre o seu jogo. Todos mudaram a forma de fazer jornalismo no Portugal depois de Abril e são marcos das história de um país. Estas são as primeiras cinco entrevistas de um projecto que terá outros entrevistados e que no futuro resultará também em livro. Podem ouvi-las nas ligações seguintes, aqui nas versões integrais:

Emídio Rangel • Joaquim Letria • Maria Elisa • Sena Santos • Vicente Jorge Silva

'THE SOLDIER, HIS WIFE AND THE BUM'
I was a bum in San Francisco that once managed to go to a symphony concert along with the well dressed people. And the music was good but something about the audience was not. And something about the orchestra and the conductor was not. Although the building was fine and the acoustics perfect I preferred to listen to the music alone on my radio.

And afterwards I did go back to my room and I turned on the radio. But there was a pounding on the wall. 'Shut that god damn thing off!' There was a soldier in the next room bubbling with his wife and soon he would be going over there to protect me from Hitler. So I snapped the radio off and then I heard his wife say 'You shouldn't have done that'. And the soldier said 'Fuck that guy' which I thought was a very nice thing for him to tell his wife to do. Of course she never did.

Anyhow I never went to another live concert. And that night I listened to the radio very quietly, my ear pressed to the speaker.

War has it's price and peace never lasts. And millions of young men everywhere will die. As I listened to the classical music I heard them making love. Desperately and mournfully, through Shostakovich, Brahms, Mozart, through crescendo and climax and through the shared walls of our darkness.
BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

In a place they say is dead
in the lake that's like an ocean
I count about a billion head
all the time
there's a motion.

I saw the cloning
of the famous family
I heard the droning
in the shrine
of the sea-monkey.

Beneath reflections in the fountain
the starry sky and Utah mountains
they are swimming happily
can't you see
a life that's so sublime?
in TROMPLE LE MONDE

If you are looking for the best speaker system to pair with your mobile sound device, Zikmu is the choice to make.

Zikmu is the product of the association between the leader in wireless mobile telephony devices Parrot and the awarded designer Phillipe Starck. The system is a set of 2.5 feet tall speakers that use Bluetooth to communicate with each other. Thanks to Parrot's NXT technology they are able to relay sound 360° arround the room , using an extra-flat mebrane to create small-scale vibrations across the speakers' entire surface.

"We were not aiming to create just another speaker," says Philippe Starck. "Our design focused more on making the air vibrate. There is actually a three-dimensional feel to this vibration, meaning that the air is palpable, almost humanlike in presence, like a fragrance."

They're not around yet, you still have to wait untill Spring. In the meantime you can start to save your money because this combo will cost around 12 000 HK$ (1.500 US$). The good news is that you're not buying just an extreme sound quality for something you use everyday but also a work of art on a unique piece of design that you can always be proud, just for looking at. [SOURCE: ECOUSTICS]
• PRE-ORDER OR ASK A QUOTATION AT BLOOM BY THROWING US AN EMAIL.

This song could have been our soundtrack. It's called "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead" "The Sun Smells Too Loud" and is on the last album of the Scotish band Mogway, which was titled "The Hawk Is Howling", that will be realeased on the 21st of September. It's a delightful essay on sound and ambience. Mogwai member Barry Burns described the album's songs as being "dreamy ballads about forbidden love gone awry".
Listen to it as you scroll our website down. We've been very busy and we could not update our blog so often, we'll try our best to do it more in the future, as soon we park all our cars.
[MOGWAY ON WIKIPEDIA]

THE BOX is Kung Chi Shing and Peter Suart. The duet was formed in 1987. Both found the project as a means to escape. It doesn't matter if they go by the same door, but together they make a 'bomb'. THE BOX is a theatrical music ensemble who presented concerts and music theatre works alone and in collaboration with visual artists, choreographers, theatre folk and musicians in Hong Kong and Taiwan. For their 20th anniversary, they played Bluebeard at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in HK.
First time in Macau together, Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing, a classical music professor, will perform a selection of material from their twenty-year history; Suart on voice (sung and spoken), keyboard and percussion, and Kung Chi Shing on violin and flute. The music is dark, bizarre, lyrical and beautiful.
Words in English.

THE BOX at Bloom Yellow
Sunday, the 27th of July
ALBERGUE • ST. LAZARUS DISTRICT
Just follow the plenitude and you get there.
[DOWNLOAD POSTER]

The Long Blondes are a 5-piece English indie rock band from Sheffield. The band is known not just for their music, but also their "glamorous punk" image. Front-woman Kate Jackson was featured in The Guardian's style section and the NME cool list, moving from 39 in 2005 to 7 in 2006. When questioned about her place in the first NME list by The Guardian, Jackson remarked "Probably because they didn't have enough girls. It was so overrun with boring boys, they needed someone to bring a touch of glamour."
The Long Blondes' songs reflect a number of influences, including 60s pop, Buzzcocks, The Ramones, post-punk and new wave. Traces of work by another Sheffield band, Pulp can also be seen in their recordings, their debut album was indeed produced by Steve Mackey, bassist of Pulp. The prominence of these various influences varies from song to song. Jackson's vocals have been compared to Ari Up of The Slits, Deborah Harry of Blondie and those of Au Pairs. Dorian Cox's backing vocals are also very similar to those of former Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker. The music features angular guitars and prominent bass guitar lines. However, the band themselves claim somewhat more eclectic influences than their sound suggests, citing Burt Bacharach, Holland-Dozier-Holland, Chinn and Chapman, and Stock, Aitken and Waterman as influences. The band gained notoriety early on in their career for their bold proclamation "We do not listen to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors or Bob Dylan. We chose an instrument each and learnt to play it." This quote was first published on their website, and is a comment on the derivative nature of the contemporary music scene rather than a criticism of the aforementioned artists.
[Listen to them HERE and HERE]

We owe it all to the sun and the heart
For now it gets a little bit harder
So turn it up turn it up
Till the clock is done and left
Till it's left behind me
It's just like staring into the sun
It's just like...

We owe it all to the sun
And our hearts for now
They get a little bit harder
But if you change your mind
And wave goodbye to us
And them...
You were stepping on my hands
But if you change your mind will then...
Its just like staring into the sun
It's just like
It's just like...

All we want is a lonely house
A lonely bed
To call our own
A lonely bed
To call our own
To call our own
[GREAT NORTHERN]

Well, is about time to put some sound here. We have the pleasure to announce the opening of BLOOM RADIO today. Supported by Last•FM, the social music revolution, we bring you two channels that you can choose from, play, stop, change, fast-forward, and sing and dance. Look at the right side here at our home. Currently we are playing, on CHANNEL #1, songs from Jacques Brel and related artists and, on CHANNEL #2, Nick Cave as his deadly friends. This will change with time. We're open for requests. Take your peek now and enjoy! We don't need to say more. It's all for you.

[REMINDER]
• BLOOM RADIO #1: Jacques Brel's Similar Artists
• BLOOM RADIO #2: Nick Cave's Similar Artists
[CLICK TO OPEN IN A SMALL POP-UP WINDOW]

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind or waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
Stars of night turned deep to dust
Melt me down
Into big black armour
Leave no trace of grace
Just in your honor
Lower me down
To culprit south
Make 'em wash
The space in town
For the lead and the dregs
Of my bed I've been sleepin'
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the later parade
Once I wanted to be the greatest
Two fists of solid rock
With brains that could explain
Any feeling
Lower me down
Pin me in
Secure the grounds
For the lead and the dregs of my bed
I was sleepin'
For the later parade
CAT POWER - THE GREATEST

Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad

So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time
[FROM THE HAND OF MORRISSEY AND THE SMITHS]

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN

Moving uptown
But I know it's the place I should be
The streets are all quiet
And no one saying nothing at all

Then the sun came out of he clouds
And charged up the satellites
We all got our energy back and started talking again

It's the blessed routine
For The Good, The Bad And The Queen
Just moving out of dreams with no physical wounds at all

Don't kick the crack heads of the green
They are a political party
And the kids are never going to be tired
Cos everything is so slightly
Everything is so slightly
Come
Everything is so slightly
Come

The Good, the Bad and the Queen is a song by an unnamed alternative rock band fronted by Damon Albarn, the one from Blur and Gorillaz, and is the title song and final track on their 2007 debut album The Good, the Bad and the Queen. A live version of the song recorded at The Tabernacle was also released as a B-side on the band's second single "Kingdom of Doom".
When the album was previewed by Uncut in November 2006, the magazine called the song "a surreal knees-up round a knackered old joanna that celebrates how the same sun cheers both Queen and crackheads - before building up to a psychotic guitar wig-out."
Damon Albarn told NME in January 2007 that the song "had to be last" referring to the position in the album because "where do you go after that noisy bit at the end?"
Noel Gallagher, Albarn's old rival from the Britpop days of the 1990s said in a March 2007 interview, ""I love the bit at the end of their song 'The Good, The Bad and The Queen' when it goes crazy". It was the first time Gallagher had ever spoken favourably of Albarn's music.

In May 2007, the band posted an official video linked from YouTube for the song on their MySpace blog. Picked up by BLOOM TV, here it is now:

• THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE QUEEN - (LIVE VERSION)
• THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE QUEEN - SUFI VIDEO (by STEPHEN POOK)
[click the links above]

[SEARCH FOR TGTBATQ ALBUM ON THE NET]

I have become a silent movie
The hero killed the clown
Can't make a sound
Elliott Smith

«Aquell matí em vaig llevar, no recordo on ni tan sols el temps que fa, I tot havia canviat. Però jo no ho sabia, encara, i més m'hagués valgut no saber-ho mai. El meu món era petit, però suficient, abans. Deixà de ser-ho. La meva vida, un cel particular, nulla incertesa, dolça soledat; ' més tard, cau soterrat, previsibilitat maleïda, asfixiant aïllament. Mai res no m'havia fet tanta falta. Ni la sang que per les venes em corre no necessitava amb la mateixa urgència. Mentre el dolor creixia, de sobte, aquell soroll estrepitós, insuportable. Cridant, plorant, vaig córrer. Era incapaç de sentir els meus crits, de segur esgarrifosos. De sobte, l'abisme s'obrí sota els meus peus. Morir, volia. Recuperar el meu cau, la meva estimada soledat, els meus llimbs, la meva preuada illa. I vaig caure. Queia, sentint-me cada vegada més prop d'aquell horror, del meu propi dolor, del més terrorífic despertar dels meus sentits, tot just acabat de descobrir. Ja no recordo quan va ser que vaig despertar aquell fatídic matí, aleshores salvador. No recordo quan fa que estic caient, que caic, veient la fi més propera cada vegada però amb la incertesa de si mai arribarà. Ara el dolor sembla no tenir límits. El dolor i la por són tot el que sento. Tinc por de caure per sempre.»

«Naquela manhã acordei, não me recordo onde nem tão pouco o tempo que fazia, e tudo tinha mudado. Mas eu não sabia, ainda, e seria melhor se nunca o tivesse sabido. O meu mundo era pequeno, mas suficiente, antes. Deixou de sê-lo. A minha vida, um céu particular, na incerteza, doce solidão; Mais tarde, buraco soterrado, previsibilidade maldita, elemento asfixiante. Nunca antes me havia feito tanta falta. Nem o sangue que nas minhas veias corria necessitava de tamanha urgência. Mas a dor crescia, de súbito, aquele terrível tumulto, insuportável. Gritando, em lágrimas, fugi a correr. Era incapaz de sentir os meus gritos, seguramente aterrorizados. De repente, o abismo abriu-se sob os meus pés. Morrer, queria. Recuperar o meu buraco, a minha doce solidão, o meu limbo, a minha preciosa ilha. E eu senti. Caía, sentia-me cada vez mais perto daquele horror, da minha própria dor. Do mais terrífico despertar dos meus sentidos, justamente tudo o que acabava de descobrir. Já não recordo quando vai despertar aquela fatídica manhã, o ápice salvador Não me lembro de quando estava a cair, quando caí, vendo o fim cada vez mais perto mas fiquei incerteza de saber quando finalmente viria. Agora a dor parece não ter limites. A dor e o medo são tudo o que sinto. Tenho medo de cair para sempre.»

Recoil in «Liquid»
Music: Alan Wilder
Narration: Rosa M. Torras
Aditional Vocals: Diamanda Galás
[TRADUÇÃO DA CASA]

O vídeo que se segue tem origem incerta. Alan Wilder, o mentor dos Recoil, pertenceu, até 1995, aos Depeche Mode e as imagens são, talvez, uma mistura de outros vídeos desta banda. Aqui, são apenas o pretexto para ouvir o som que sobra das imagens, não importa realmente de onde vêm.
[SEGUIR ESTE LINK ou CARREGAR NA IMAGEM EM CIMA] • ON BLOOM TV • 2007

* para o Bernardo, por quem ouvi falar Catalão há pouco tempo. O Bernardo deixou Macau há dias. Fica também um abraço de todos nós, por termos ficado mais pobres.

[SULTAN'S PARKING BY RING JOID AND THE SPEEDS FROM MARS © 2006 • MADE WITH THIS and THIS]

Though critics may bow to art, and I am its own true lover,
It is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.

Though smooth be the heartless prayer, no ear in Heaven will mind it,
And the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it.

Though perfect the player's touch, little, if any, he sways us,
Unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us.

Though the poet may spend his life in skilfully rounding a measure,
Unless he writes from a full, warm heart he gives us little pleasure.

So it is not the speech which tells, but the impulse which goes with the saying;
And it is not the words of the prayer, but the yearning back of the praying.

It is not the artist's skill which into our soul comes stealing
With a joy that is almost pain, but it is the player's feeling.

And it is not the poet's song, though sweeter than sweet bells chiming,
Which thrills us through and through, but the heart which beats under the rhyming.

And therefore I say again, though I am art's own true lover,
That it is not art, but heart, which wins the wide world over.
BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX


[READ BY ALAN DAVIS-DRAKE • ON LIBRAVOX]