The present moment with music: Finch+ Keita+Bellowhead

Well, not all on the same bill, obviously….but two cracking gigs recently, both of which in different ways demonstrated yet again that if music is powerful enough and we are ready for it, then it holds us in the present.

Catrin Finch is a miraculously good harpist, as I expect you know. She is touring with  Seckou Keita, a kora player from Senegal. "Oh dear, another interesting but somewhat forced marriage of dissimilar world music genres," you might be thinking. But the kora is of course an African harp. It was a wonderful evening. The music is of itself not especially complex (the harps are!) but very beautiful.

For much of the time, I was solid gone, as people used to say. Gone where? Into now. No planning and worrying, no regretting or re-playing, no narratives being spun in order to justify and explain.

Here they are in action:

 

and in more reflective mode:


They have a CD out. It's not for me to tell you what to buy for Christmas, but….

As for Bellowhead - I may have mentioned them before. A ridiculously exciting and absorbing experience which, later on in the gig, had a similar effect, despite being such a different sort of music.




Nothing to do with genres, then, just to do with being fortunate enough to find two musics that enable presentmomentness.

Cropredy Capers - Bellowhead and mindfulness too?

This clip, despite inevitably poor sound quality, gives, I hope, some sense of the phenomenal energy and drive of this unique and glorious band in full cry. To be down the front was the sort of overwhelming excitement that I was in need of after a lot of funerals and a disturbing episode with an old friend-who-may-be-about-to-turn-into-an-ex-friend. Not so much distraction, more like total absorption.

It was one hell of a set, and (other, true) old friends who had never seen them and have been very patient with my ravings about them were astounded and elated.

Mindful? Well, it stopped me running mental scripts (you know, "maybe I should have..." or "that's typical of me, what a fool, I should have..." or "next time, I'll.." - that sort of thing) and it took me out of myself. It wasn't a meditative calm. But it was definitely a different and very refreshing place to be. Strange that this sort of high-energy, basically uncomplicated music can do that, in a different way from, say, Miles Davis or Mozart? 

If you don't know this crew - their music is firmly rooted in the English tradition, they are not straining after some tedious "new folk" concept, they have simply found their own bag. Theatricality is a big part of it. They lean towards rude old songs about maidens who don't stay that way for long. (OK ladies, but that was then and this is now. Bad old days, I daresay, but bloody good songs!) They know, in some songs, how to hold things just this side of chaos. All power to them!