White snow, true Winter

After a while here I am, back to the trees' fort, or to the fort on the trees.
We've been travelling a lot in the recent three weeks, with our younger brothers Les Rhinoceros, and with our cicero Jakub from Seek Harbour Booking. We were East, tomorrow we start another tour and we will go West.
I thought of not writing post for the 4 months of touring we had ahead, for then coming back with tons of new trees photos and stories.
But it looks like i have already too memories from the first leg of the tour that I won't be able to take any new ones, so I decided with post something, every once in a while.
Three pics for the first three days of the tour.
Between Slovenia and Croatia. Trees are tall, they're able to keep apart all the grey. They're stunning. Even if I wasn't driving at all, I couldn't sleep in the van, I stared at the window and just tried to count'em all. Of course, I didn't make it.
They are so many of them, it is something that simply makes me joyfull.
They will win, they always will.
And I rememberd when I thought I was scared of Trees.
Now i can only think that posting these three new trees it is the best wishing luck for the new tour that is starting.
Take care, you too.

Beijing Winter Tales

Lotuses grow out of the mud pure and clean.
Some Beijing Winter Tales are about the lotuses growing out of ice, waiting for the Spring.
The beauty of Winter colors is a bold statement in which I read the art of enjoing the waiting, every little step. It is so hard sometimes. As when checking a pic before posting it to see if everything is in its right place.
This whole set of picture was taken by our C. Lee during her last staying in the North Capital of China. They were shot in December.
There are 4 of them.


A fifth photo is of a Tree coming out of a Beijing Wall. You can see some starlings flying around. Are They the ones I was talking about few weeks ago? I like to think that!

So, 4 pics of Lotuses + a Tree= 5. We miss one thing to get to Six, and you know how picky I can be with Numbers.

And the sixth will be the teaser for our upcoming album "Anyway, your children will deny it", shot by Luigi Dalla Riva e Simone Piva, on a Ba Abat set design called "HereWeare".
Just click on the link below.

"ANYWAY, YOU CHILDREN WILL DENY IT" TEASER

Friday, january 27th
signed

f.

Waves over the miles

Last time I was writing something here it was almost a month ago.
Now we have a new year, I personally have thousand different thoughts to follow in my head, and tons of pics to better organize.
Anyhow, there's a detail that I've been noticing in all the photos I took from the end of December to yesterday (January 11th, dates, you know, are important!): WAVES! Think of it as a concept, as the waves which (butthole) surfers are looking for or just as a lonely and gigantic big Wave that will wash all of us away, i can tell you they've been picking up on my mind for almost three weeks now. And if you check this three pics I'm not sure you will see anything related to it. Maybe it's just me thinking that trees can protect us even from that gigantic Wave. The sound of the wave hitting on the trees, I imagine it to be atonishing, though.
This short introduction is to present the new first pics of 2012.


I'll be hitting the road with my cohorts soon (check live page for updates!) so I'll be collecting new pics from this side of the world and the other, as we know it.
And I'll be posting here the first promo pics for the new record (Anyway, your children will deny it) very soon, pics which were taken by our friends @ quasimontecarlo, on a set design by Ba Abat http://www.baabat.com.




By the way, the second picture in this post depicts a Birch Forest up in the mountains between France and Italy, an amazing place where I did find some peace in the last days of 2011.






God speed.

signed,

f.

After going Sinister around the world.

After introducing C. Lee and the photos she took while in Shanghai (she's still there, still hiding, and I underline that I mean a positive thing in saying "hiding". Hide yourself in the woods! There you'll find protection), here some other news: besides our beloved Trees, you will recognize some birds on 2 of the 3 pics I'm posting today.
I've learned these birds are called starlings.
They've been reharsing for days, in order to migrate.
It's still kind of warm here, 8 to 10 Celsius degrees, maybe 5 in the evenings.
When I was a kid it was like this earlier in October.
Anyway, these birds have been doing circles all day long in the past couple of days.
At the beginning I had the feeling that I was missing something...
Then i remembered.
With C. Lee, three years ago at least, we did record some birds while they were doing this same thing. We used those field recordings as introduction to "Go Sinister", a song part of the "...and He told us to turn to the Sun" album...
And now here they are, and I'm pretty damn sure they are the same birds. Less maybe, but they came back.
And I want to be clear, I'm not saying here that they came back for me, nor for C.Lee. No, they came back to the Trees. They found once here protection, so they came back.
They prove me right, or I prove them right.
Here a link to listen to that song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceeb7y407Uo

The birds taught me that I always should to go back to the Trees.
These trees of ours.

Sub Pop

Hectic post today.
I've been asked by our friend Dean Whitmore to provide a top 10 something for the Top Ten of 2011 Friends of Sub Pop Edition.
Here's my contribution.

Among the live shows i had the chance to see in the last couple of years while touring with Father Murphy, this is my top ten (in no particular order):

Talk Normal, performing at Sonic City Festival, Kortrijk, Belgium
Deerhoof and Xiu Xiu, performing Joy Division's Day of the Lords, Lee Palace, Toronto, Canada
Asian Women on the telephone (AWOTT), live at SKIF Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia
KILLL, live at SKIF Festival, St. Petersburg, Russia
Sic Alps, live at Victoria Dalston, London, UK
Thulebasen, live at Sodra Theater, Stockolm, Sweden
The Ex & Brass Unbound live at Magasin 4, Brussels, Belgium
Movie Star Junkies, live at No Fest, Turin, Italy
Dead Western, performing at HUB, Sacramento, US
Monstro (i believe they changed their name to "Consort of the true drone", anyway look for Ezra Buchla!) live at The Smell, Los Angeles, US

Updated the live page, with the archive list until 2004.
Check also clips page, and new pics.
Soon more details about our new "Anyway, your children will deny it" album, due to release next february 2012 (the more we listen to the new tracks, the happiest we are for asking Greg saunier to mix this new jam of ours).



Hectic post, hectic photo of a green tree coming out from the myst.

Protect yourself, now, You.

Ageing

In Ancient China, when a Mandarin was getting old, he used to leave the Capital, going South.
The ageing Mandarin knew he would have been in need for even more protection. So he spent days and days in having Trees growing all over the place, as new symbols of his power. He now could rest, They were looking after him, he was safe again.
The three photos here were sent to me early this morning from Shanghai, where C. Lee is hiding at the moment (hiding has no negative meaning at all. Hide yourself in the woods is a wish I would say to my best friend).
She said these trees have been protecting first the Mandarin, then the Yuyuan Garden for centuries.

Now she found new protection too.

When you really need to name things.

I usually do need to give names to things (think of Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks, with his beloved Trees...).
Here, while posting pics, I never thought of saying the proper names of the different trees I was going to show. That's weird, I never thought of it. Telling the truth, I usually rename the pics, choosing not the name of that peculiar tree, but most of the time writing where the photo's been taken, or, when travelling, the nearest city. That's weird too... I think, i.e., to the Scandinavian trees I've posted, I wrote they were in Copenaghen, Stockolm or other cities, but I actually took those pictures while going from a city to the other. When you go to visit someone you usually bring something with you, it is very important to show your gratitude and your respect. A present. Maybe my habit is to bring with me pictures of trees to be given to the next city I'll be, so not to look just as an empty vessel to fill.
Anyway, the two pictures of today were taken on thursday 17th, from the Treehouse, and they show the best spot to look I can think of, if I'm in need for some peace. But I did forget to name them, so, while looking on the archive for doing the upload, I noticed their numbers were 1944 and 1945. I love names and I love dates. And I do know that numbers have always a meaning.
Many things happened and changed in those two years.
At one point, in 1945, there was more light. So in the picture.
But just a bit more, because so many steps were and are yet to be done.
That's why I keep on keeping tracks of trees all over I've been and, where I'm at home, of the ones sorrounding this place. It's them who protected us in all these years, it's them that will keep on protecting us.
I talked about my need of naming things, so I want to end this new post with a list of names/titles.
Thanks to titles longer than usual, I found myself able to describe, better, to introduce myself and the possible listeners to a song of ours. Here below there is the best introduction to our new album, starting from its songs titles.

Anyway, your children will deny it

1- How we ended up with Feelings of Guilt.
2- His face showed no distortions.
3- It is funny, it is restful. Both came quickly.
4- Digging the bottom of the Hollow.
5- In praise of our doubts.
6- Their consciousness.
7- In the flood, with the flood.
8- Don't let yourself be hurt (this time).