When Centering
Or how I spent my summer vacation.
Welcome back to Sunday Morning Records. I took a much needed hiatus, that has honestly stressed me out every weekend since it wasn’t planned, and every week I thought the next one would be the one for my return to this publication. A few months have passed since I was last here, and in that time I’ve experienced several highs and a few lows. All that being said, I’m back at it, though I can’t honestly say how frequent they will be. When I began writing this I wasn’t working, and I was going through six months of recentering myself. A couple of months after the start of SMR, I got a job, changed roles, and began writing Not A FTH Newsletter for Flushing Town Hall. I’m having a great time writing it, but like many other things in my life, I let my ambition get carried away and I bit more than I could chew. This was entirely by self design, and I realized that once again in my life, I had to recenter. I’ve always wanted to do everything at the same time. In this stage of my life, I’m re-realizing that time is not unlimited, and I must pick the things I’m able to do, and try to execute them to the fullest of my abilities, and not allow my ambition to sweep me off my feet. All being what it is, I’m happy to be back here, with you who take the time to read this, and you who ask me when the next issue of SMR will be released. Your encouragement has kept me going while I’ve been “away”.
There’s so much I’ve wanted to write about for the last couple of months. I’ve been wanting to write about our wonderful trip to Tennessee back in April. The Great Smoky Mountains, the caverns, Nashville and of course the Jack White concert. It was a blast! While in Nashville I got some records and NA drinks at Vinyl Tap, while catching an acoustic set from Lilly Hiatt. I got to see my dear friend Sabelli and eat at her fabulous restaurant Sabell’s. We made our “pilgrimage” to Third Man Records, and got even more records. We watched Sinners on IMAX at Opry Mills shopping mall and then took a tour of the Grand Ole Opry, which was quite the juxtaposition.
I’ve been meaning to write about our trip to Philadelphia for a Japanese Breakfast concert, where the opening act Ginger Root, made me an instant fan. I wrote about my love for Japanese Breakfast in Finding Jubilee. We also attended a Eurovision Song Contest party with beloved friends and cheered for Estonia’s Tommy Cash with Espresso Macchiato and Sweden’s KAJ with their sauna loving song Bara Banda Batsu. They placed 3rd and 4th place, respectively.
I’ve been wanting to write about New York Liberty games, and NY/NJ Gotham FC games, and Gogol Bordello in Prospect Park, and King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard with Tevon at Forest Hills Stadium. I’ve been meaning to write about day trips to Brighton Beach, and cookouts in the park, and The Prospect Park Soiree, and the NYC Poetry Festival in Governor’s Island, and all the photos I’ve snapped, but not yet developed. All in all it has been a wonderful summer.
At the start of the summer my sister and father came to my house for dinner and dominoes. It was the first time they’ve come, the first time I cooked for them, the first time my table witnessed my dad pulling a capicua out of nowhere. I made pernil, lentejas, arroz y tostones, and they brought over a great big biscocho Dominicano with Lucero Family written on it. This was a massive deal for all of us, whose effects are still reverberating through my spine. In the midst of all this happiness, I can’t help and feel, what if this always had been? What if there was no disfellowship, and no separation? What if we were always we? No matter how good the nows are, my lamentation of before tilt me slightly off center. Maybe not so slightly. I ended up quietly experiencing profound lows in the weeks that followed. I’ve been thrown off center by something good and I didn’t see it coming.
I’m trying to understand how to find and stay, in center. I’ve been searching for ways to appreciate the goods, and overcome the bads, without being thrown too far in one direction or the other. This is probably a life long issue, but the pendulum has me so exhausted, I would really like to try living somewhere in the middle. An even ebb and flow would be great, but even the tides have their temperament to contend with. Why should I be different?
A few weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of attending The Poetry Society of New York’s annual Poetry Camp. This year’s theme was rewilding, and it was held at the Outlier Inn in Catskill NY. We spent five days and four nights in the woods, writing, editing, listening, playing, performing, laughing, eating, and getting stung by mosquitoes. In essence, we rewilded. I got to reconnect to my poetics in a serious and calming day. I did yoga in the mornings, had a great meditation and writing workshop, got to write in a white plastic dome under a rainstorm and generally experienced a recentering that I have been in much need of. I have felt different ever since then. Different in my skin, at work, and in my approach in practicing my arts.
Video courtesy of Jane LeCroy
Throughout these past few months I’ve been returning to one album over and over again: A La Sala by Khruangbin. Last year I called them the champions of chill when I wrote about their album Mordechai. Today they are my champions of recentering. A La Sala is somewhat of a return to center for them as well. While Mordechai had many more vocals than any of their previous albums, A La Sala is quieter and calmer. It still has a couple of more uptempo bangers, but overall it projects the serenity of a cozy living room in a desert environment where it occasionally storms. I’m definitely projecting my own feelings onto this project of theirs, but that’s what I’ve felt every time I spun this record, or played it on a commute to and from work. It allows me to space out a bit. It calms me when I want to focus on reading or sitting still. Its grooves and melodies have helped me return to center. Hope I stay here for a while, but if I don’t, I know that I’ll be able to once again find my center.
[this side]
Fifteen Fifty-Three starts the album off in quiet with ambient night sounds for about ten seconds when Laura Lee comes brings in the heavy bass and gets everything started. It’s a slow groove of a song. If your head is right and your sway and bop along with no presumption, then you’ll be gently swept away by the guitar’s desert rosey sound while the drums and bass keep your time right.
May Ninth feels like a continuation of the last song with some dreamy summer vocals. I call the vocals dreamy summer but the first song with lyrical singing in the album is an invocation for May to arrive, hoping for the rain. Maybe it’s elementary school indoctrination, but I do find myself excited for May showers too.
Ada Jean guides you through this portion of the album, bringing up the tempo ever so slightly. It feels like you’re getting more of what you heard, but halfway through the tune, the guitar starts to thunder. Is this the rain we wished for? No lyrics here, but there’s a soft panting sound throughout the second half, that ends with sirens.
Farolim de Felgueiras or Lighthouse of Felgueiras is a two minute noodling guitar interlude. All you hear besides the guitar is footsteps in the background. Maybe the guitar is the lighthouse guiding the feet to safe harbor. It ends with the thud of a dropped coin.
Pon Pon is the whatever was activated by that coin. The first song that makes you want to stand up and boogie. This is a boogie at its essence with a whispered lyrics behind the infectious rhythms.
Todavia Viva continues the whispers until the Spanish lyrics enter the foreground. Slower tempo than the last song, but still ramped up over all with the power of funk worldwide. We’re still alive after all.
[that side]
Juegos y Nubles begins the second side of the record with a bang. If the first track as quiet and demure, then this one is boisterous. It announces itself with confidence and is ready to make some asses shake. We’re here for a party.
Hold Me Up (Thank You) keeps that party going, with a funk line that feels right out of Mordechai. Give thanks to all that hold you up, as I give thanks to this album for holding me up, as well as all around me that keep me sustained. We are here because of the folks that love us, and what better reason for a party is there? I’m feeling a little Caribbean influence, especially in the back half of the song.
Caja de la Sala feels like another interlude similar to Farolim de Felgueiras, but this time the noodling feels a little more hopeful. It reminds me of doing a sun salutation towards a perfect sunrise. Now I wish I did one of those on the Great Smoky Mountains. There’s always next time.
Three From Two is a glorious morning song. Yesterday was great, and today is filled with so much promise. Let’s get our tea, and take a great walk during a perfect Sunday morning. Through the park, with the meditations of that ways and all that could be in the backdrop of everything that we do.
A Love International is why I get up every single day. Songs like this, feelings like this, this is the reason. It fills me with joy whenever I listen to it. I usually play it a few times in a row because I just can’t get enough. The soft chanting background vocals, the progressing instruments, they all take you to a place where I don’t ever want to come back from. A place where love is international, where it extends throughout all of us, and what we touch and how we care. The building intensity makes me feel like it might become too much, but it never does. It only makes me yearn for more. And it never stops either. It just fades away, but somehow you know a version of those musicians are somewhere still playing that melodic refrain over and over and over and…
Les Petits Gris brings us back down before they depart. It’s a soft waltz tucking you back into bed. The ambient night sounds are back, and ready to whist you off into a deep slumber.
I hope you enjoyed the recentering of Sunday Morning Records with Khruangbin’s A la Sala. I want to tell you that I’ll be back next week, but I know what I have in front of me, and in my newly recentered fashion, I’ll tell you that I’ll try to have something by then, but it might be two weeks. Just know that I haven’t given up and I still have more personal essays, and albums to share with you. In this tumultuous present, remember to make time for art. Remember to make time for music. Remember that one day a week, you should be able to slow everything down, sip some tea, and enjoy a Sunday Morning Record. Until we me again, I’ll leave you with a few shots of the summer. Have a great week.
