Stockholm (2)

Some records and where I bought them.

Pet Sounds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talking Heads ‘Nothing but Flowers’ (Steve Lillywhite mix). A 10” that I had not seen before. Number 6043 in a ‘limited edition’ of 10,000’ – rare! Pet Sounds is the destination of the walk described in my post Stockholm (1). I have bought a Talking Heads album here previously – a live bootleg called ‘Emitting Diodes’.

 

Fylkingen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Bruford’s Earthworks ‘Dig?’. Maybe a mistake this one…Django Bates and Ian Ballamy both feature but this was1989 and I am not convinced. There is a tiny record shop in Fylkingen  (where I drew The New Songs a few nights later). The shop is only open twice a week from 5.30 to 7.30 on Thursday and Friday nights…it is packed with good, obscure stuff…indecision meant that I bought this rather than something I really wanted or something that I didn’t know at all and might have loved.

 

Fade Records

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Feelgood ‘Malpractice’. Fade records is across the street from Pet Sounds and is much smaller. I bought this inspired by ‘Oil City Confidential’ and Wilko Johnson’s recent, very moving radio appearances…here is an interview with him in the Guardian. I read that he has had to cancel his last two Canvey Island shows so I guess that he has, sadly, played his last.

 

Vintage Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meredith Monk ‘Dolmen Music’. When he sold me this record the guy in the Vintage Room said: ‘This is a really great album.’ And he knocked a few Krona off the price. Both of these occurrences are really unusual. I heard the first track of this, ‘Gotham Lullaby’ on the radio in the early 1980s – I taped it and have returned to it many times since. I have never heard the whole album until now.

Stockholm (4)

‘The New Songs’ at Fylkingen. Monday 25^th March 2013.

Eve Risser – piano

David Stackenäs – guitar

Sofia Jernberg – voice

Kim Myhr – guitar & zither

The New Songs

Eve Risser

David Stackenäs

Sofia Jernberg

Kim Myhr

Stockholm (3)

Stadsgårdsleden, Monday, March 25th, 2013. Around 6 PM.

When I heard the intersecting rhythms of the bells on this crossing I thought of Steve Reich’s Clapping Music. In the recording the sound of road traffic dissipates this effect but listening to the sound in situ the ear filtered out the foreground noise. The crossing did not go anywhere…the road and pedestrian stairway to which it led were both blocked off.

Stockholm (1)

22nd March, 2013

From Centralstation to Södermalmstorg.

From Centralstation. This is one of my favourite urban walks….south from the station over Gamla Stan to Södermalm…it is a walk without the constant background sound of traffic and it encompasses a rich variety of architectural spaces. The over-riding sound is of footsteps and the low background babble of conversation. In fact, today, I start by leaving the station by the wrong exit so I need to cross Vasagatan, a dual carriageway, before walking up the steps into the St Clara churchyard. This connects via a back street to the pedestrian shopping street Drottninggatan which in turn leads to the bridge crossing onto the small island of Helgandsholmen where the parliament building is situated.

The passageway which bisects the parliament connects to another small bridge that crosses a dark, culverted waterway which always flows with an alarming rapidity. Today there is a demonstration in the open area on the other bank and I need to walk round this…there is a chant that sounds like ‘Shame Sweden, Shame Espresso’ – clearly this is only half right. I think later that I should have recorded this.

From here up the long, steep steps lead into the area behind the Royal Palace which is dotted with sentry boxes. The route follows the curved outer face of the barracks and then meets the end of a wide, sloping plaza with statuary and an obelisk looking out across near-distant water. A small street leads into a square (Stortorget) where the Nobel Museum is situated. Off to one side of this square is a beautiful well-head with water (movement and sound) frozen in stone on its four sides. This is a photo that I took on another trip.

The streets from the square slope down and eventually emerge onto the south side of Gamla Stan at Kornhamstorg where the containment of the narrow streets in the old quarter ceases. It is always a confusing negotiation across what seems to be a series of bridges, walkways and roads here and this is the first space since the road outside the station where there is any appreciable traffic noise. The sounds of buses, trains and cars intermingle here. Looking at this area on a map it is clear that it is actually a single, wide bridge with a narrow waterway running through it. Leading out of Södermalmstorg, Götgatan rises up the hill. Walkers only encounter the occasional car on the crossing streets. From the top of the hill there is a vista culminating in the dome of the Ericsson Globe . Over the top and down the hill Götgatan ends in Medmorgersplatan, the square in the centre of Södermalm, and here the traffic noise begins again in earnest as the square runs into a large wide street….