Sometimes life requires us to go the proverbial extra mile, against the odds, around the houses, into wormholes that we may not have thought of.  Sometimes, the way is wild. There is nothing that cannot be dreamed into being. Every strange method, every thing in our world, once existed as a (maybe madcap) mental map.

So I found myself, sometime back in 2009, without access to a studio that housed a decent (recording quality) piano.

I had had previous access to a very fortunate situation – ‘Overtones’ studio, and in permanent situ/loan, the glorious piano of French jazz /concert pianist and friend of Madonna, Katia Labeque. No ordinary instrument, this was a limited edition (one of maybe 4 or 5) Yamaha/Steinway hybrid. It’s presence was that of a mighty galleon – filling the entire room, top lifted like a sail to reveal the guts. It was both ship and whale. The vessel and the journey. I steered it through treacly, dark, mermaid dwelling deeps. Merely pressing a single bass key, was to sound a sonorous bottom end orchestra of vibration through the floor. It’s  sustain pedal was somewhat clunky, but an intrinsic part of its charm.

I cried frustrated tears when the Arts Council cuts that year, slashed the studio right out of existence. 100% gone. The way appeared to be blocked. There followed some self-pity. In time,  with some inspiration from my shamanic lucid dreaming practice, I went into wild vision space. After much patience, trust and affirmative thought process, I dreamed a series of rooms, filled with pianos. Uprights, grands, vintage blonde wood harpsichords, white rock n’ roll kitsch and bluesy baroque curlicue. The rooms had a warehouse, matter of fact quality – not especially beautiful – but piano filled.

About 6 months later, ordinary reality manifested a welcome solution. Imagine my surprise and delight upon discovering Jaques Samuel’s piano studio/practice rooms, in Marble Arch. Inexpensive, friendly, efficient and filled with brand new (tuned weekly) Kawai pianos for hire, practise and purchase. Even a kitchen to make coffee and eat sandwiches.  Myself and genius engineer Felix Macintosh, managed to record the basis of an album here, using small, clip on and free standing mikes and a laptop/portable drive. Also, imaginative scheduling around building works/random flurries of Rachmaninov from prospective customers. (We returned later in the year to record numerous overdubs for my current CD, ‘Dangerous Loving’.)

I’ve come to appreciate the wyrd way, into the unknown, sometimes against conventional wisdom and yet…with the flow. Nature always has a canny plan. Sometimes better than the original plan.

And I’ve come to appreciate the neat, woody, cherry plummery, round sound of Kawai (literally ‘cute’ in Japanese), and the easy depression and weight of the keyboard. Almost like a toy piano.

Katia Labeque’s  gorgeous behemoth ended up at Cheltenham Jazz festival, I hear. (But can be heard on all 11 tracks of my 2006 CD, ‘Going Solo’.)

Steven Beckow and Link TV  -  for excellent videos, reportage and commentary from the left field, the back of beyond, the New Age, the cutting edge, the emerging paradigm. Steve Beckow is a gentle, humble Canadian who uses his central site to publish a stream of resources concerning 2012, UFOs, ET ‘Disclosure’, channellings from discarnate, ascended entities, NESARA and the general collapse of time, money, society and government as we know it and the future (rapidly becoming current) 5th dimensional reality.

SOME GOOD BOOKS:

Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes by Daniel Everett - fascinating autobiography by an American missionary and linguist. In this account, his attempts to Christianise the fully present living, numbers-eschewing, Jesus-rejecting, forest dwelling Amazonian Piraha community, results in him losing his religion altogether. A compelling and often self-deprecating chronicle that shows the gradual dismantling of one man’s sense of cultural superiority in the face of happy indifference.

Life After Death – The Book of Answers, by Deepak Chopra – comprehensive musings on our  broader existence beyond physical death. Combining perspectives on animal telepathy, Indian Buddhist parables and quantum physics.

The Silent State – Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy by Heather Brooke - good to read another perspective on what we already suspect.

Best Lesbian Erotica 09, edited by Tristan Taormino – just because.

DMT – The Spirit Molecule, by Rick Strassman – more people know about DMT (dimethyltriptamine) these days, partly due to the New Age and Shamanic/anthropological revival movements of the past 20 years. A substance found in hallucinogenic plant entheogens and the pineal gland (also bone, blood and spinal fluid) of humans, DMT has a mysterious relationship to our concept of  the soul or spirit. Spontaneous releases of DMT during phenomenal events such as conception, birth, death or near-death and dreaming, produce fully involving, transcendent hallucinations that can include communications with non-human worlds and entities. I am not so keen on the science lab context of this book, preferring perspectives that are rooted in authentic shamanic settings. However, it’s illuminating reading nonetheless and the research is worthwhile. A perennial question arises in the mind of the reader – how can naturally occurring bodily substances be classified and subject to legal control by the state? Who owns our bodies, minds, food and medicine – and why do we let them? The next concern that arises for me, is this: I have a troubled, hollow feeling with experiments with magical practice or substances that look to me like pure recreation with no protocol – or just to ‘prove to science that it can happen’.  I respect the Shamanic ethic of knowing why you are going somewhere, for what purpose, in order to do what, for the benefit of whom. Not just to be a tourist.

I Got Thunder – Black Women Songwriters on their Craft, edited by LaShonda Katrice Barnett -  inspirational interviews with 20 seminal female heroes of jazz, gospel and soul. Fascinating and nourishing to hear how other artists create art. Infinite reasons and motivations – lifetimes of determination and sometimes, happy accident.

Left to Tell – Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immacurlee Ilibagiza – difficult but necessary to know stories from this era. I once got into a random conversation with someone at a party. She turned out to be a researcher into genocide, as a phenomenon. She told me that at any given time, there are about 60 genocidal movements taking place on the planet, probably more. We hear about some, and not others – but it’s always present, and something humans can be manipulated into relatively easily. Unspeakable. Words run out. Don’t even have a platitude about the enduring strength of the human spirit in the face of evil blah etc. A great deal of food for a great deal of thought, from a very brave woman, whose tale we are lucky to be able to read.

Onwards…with inspiration, healing, mental fuel and unbounded imagination…

Intelligent arty gay Italian movies, with soundtracks that fuse tango, trip hop and hard house, tall copses of Ash trees that roar with harnessed wind and sun,  billowing their silver presence up into the airy blue, swans and their offspring bobbing daintily on green rippling ponds, the gravitas of babies, melting into sudden  beams and chuckles of Buddha gladness, the wobbly old man across the road, robustness of youth still radiating from clenched knuckles, dried slivers of pineapple,  melting gossamer ribbons of surreal seaweed sent from Tokyo with love, Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, cool rain falling on nightclub sweat soaked skin, geeky satisfaction of assorted rainbow  plastic plectra molding against my palm then clicking plinkyly on guitar strings, unexpected shamanic presence of genuine spirit medicine showing up during a child’s animal song, modal jazz melody and  harmony, pinched harmonics, serious concentration, the first cup of tea, dreams of swelling ocean waves the size of office blocks, but warm, temperate, navigable, silver birch voices rustling the last rays of solar radiance,  gospel outfit Nu Colours (who remembers them?) multiple viewpoints, agreeing to disagree, going separate ways, re-kindling hope, feeling of oak bokken and jo staff  swinging in the harsh morning air, hair, Randy Crawford, Bach, beetroot, ginger, December, Glastonbury, bitterly sad yet ecstatic memories, particularly, green parakeets in the baking streets of Barcelona, drains, jasmine and pig feet in Bangkok, the collision of past and present, layered, nested multi-dimensional realities, inner travel across familiar yet mysterious lands, roasted tea ice cream, teaching, learning, cats, spiders, shield bugs, ants, snails, elephants, rivers, soil, sage, breathing, stars, jeans, magnets, books, blu-tac, solitude, honey, grass, aeroplanes, snow, bridges, candlelight, sleep, Summer, Autumn, fearlessness, lists of things…

This is me chilling out at ‘Sometime’, a jazz club in Hachi-Oji – cool suburb of Tokyo, late Oct 2010.  So much is encapsulated in this moment. Lunchtime jazz, imaginative sprawls of clairvoyant mental synchronicity riding on the back of effortlessly graceful piano improvisation.  It was an unforgettably dreamy day, filled with strong coffee, laughter, Indian curry, constantly feeling hungry and not wanting it to ever end. Brief interlude, later in Shinjiku – an  African band in the park, more coffee – and a strange, kitsch, Pegasus sculpture in a department store (I dreamt of visiting Japan on a flying horse before I actually did.)

Photo by Haruka Tara Chino.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-snfe7MJiY&feature=related