My Chinese New Year Playlist

To herald The Year of the Monkey, here’s a bunch of monkey songs. Not just any old monkey songs from a random trawl of The Welkin Reticulum.

>>> Just songs from my collection that I like.<<<

Enjoy!

Following The Connections

The Italian Chapel

I had a hankering to listen to Inge Thomson the other day so I played her album Shipwrecks and Static on the iChoons. Wondering if she had anything new I had a look on her website. Sure enough there was a new album Da Fishing Hands which I promptly bought.

Shipwrecks and Static is a collection of idiosyncratic songs with a home studio feel, whereas Da Fishing Hands sounds much more produced and commercial. Both albums are full of what I want from music, made by people who care deeply about music, words, feelings and the world we share. There seemed to be a cohesive message contained in Da Fishing Hands so, I cast my query into The Welkin Reticulum [1] and found this short film by Andy Crabb which explains all and more.

Da Fishing Hands from Andy Crabb on Vimeo.

I noticed that he’s also made a video of Karine Polwart singing Hamish Henderson’s song Freedom Come All Ye, which has become the unofficial Scottish national anthem - although Hamish Henderson said he would rather it be an international anthem.

I don’t know that I have any Scottish blood in me but this song always stirs me up and Karine Polwart [2] singing it makes it doubly potent.



Click the following link

"Freedom Come All Ye" performed by Karine Polwart in The Italian Chapel, Orkney August 2013. from Andy Crabb on Vimeo.

Read the explanation below the video viewer (click Read more… on the left) for an incredible story of Italian prisoners of war who built a thing of unbelievable beauty, on a tiny island near Orkney, during a time of hardship and conflict and brought two communities together for several generations.

All because I wanted to listen to Inge Thompson and followed a few connections, I learned so much and discovered something wonderful.

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1. My daft term for the internet (literally SkyNet but we’re not there yet - thankfully).>
   
2. Karine Polwart is an inspiration. I love her music, her voice and what she does in the World. Where you find Karine Polwart performing you’ll often find Inge Thomson too.