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.