Previous Posts providing an Annotated Index to music on TumbleStone Blog dealt with the First Five, the Next Five, Numbers 11 to 20 and Numbers 21 to 25. What follows are the next ten, all posted between April and September 2019.
26) “The Secret Kissing of the Sun and Moon” by Hang Massive (24 April 2019) – This is a short Post featuring a video of an instrumental piece, set in the grand geological landscape of Ladakh. Both the music and the video had recently caught my attention and provided an opportunity for something different – at the time I was posting primarily on fossicking and tumble polishing. Hang Massive consists of two musicians, Danny Cudd and Markus “Offbeat” Johansson. Their instrument is the hang, described as a “new-age percussion instrument” (Wikipedia). The duo first released their music in 2011. The hang, based on the Caribbean steelpan, was first produced in 2000. Ladahk is a region of north India, the highest plateau in that country. Located in the western Himalayas, its spectacular alpine scenery and Buddhist history and culture are featured in the video.
27) “From Little Things Big Things Grow” (4 June 2019) – This Post was prompted by the discovery of a book, “A Grain of Sand: Nature’s Secret Wonder” by Gary Greenberg (2008). That got me thinking about different geological scales – planet, continents, rock strata, stones through to sand. I then thought of a song I had used when I was a lecturer at the University of Waikato in a lecture on sampling methods in social research – Paul Kelly’s “From Little Things Big Things Grow”. The song is about Aboriginal land rights. Central to it is the historically significant gesture of the pouring of a handful of red soil by Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam into Vincent Lingiari’s hand on 16 August 1975. This symbolised the legal transfer of Wave Hill station back to the Gurindji people. In my lecture, the idea of little and big things was a metaphor for “sample” (a small group) and “population” (a very big group). In the Post, it became a metaphor for geological scales. Paul Kelly (born 1955) is a well-established and important Australian singer-songwriter. His output has been prolific (as evidenced by his very long Wikipedia entry) and still growing. He received the Order of Australia in 2017 for distinguished service to the performing arts and to the promotion of the national identity. Ross Clelland, writing for Rolling Stone, described Kelly as follows: “While he was rightly lauded for his ability to sing of injustice without ranting, or deal with the darker sides of human nature non-judgementally, often overlooked was the fact he could write a damn fine melodic hook to go with those words” (Wikipedia). He has written the music for several Australian movies, and continues to record albums today (IMDb). Like Bruce Cockburn (see #16), Paul Kelly has had his face put on a postage stamp.
28) “Valley’s deep and the mountain’s so high…” (5 July 2019) – In mid-2019 I finished tumble-polishing a very interesting little Riverton stone that I called a “landscape stone”. It reminded me of a Japanese watercolour landscape of valleys and mountains. I had been listening to a song by Barclay James Harvest called “Hymn” that I initially heard being played by my wife Petra. It’s first line is “Valley’s deep and the mountain’s so high”, and the connection clicked. It turned out that Petra also had the vinyl LP it appeared on, “Down to Earth” (1977), the band’s eighth studio album. The Post contains some information about the band (including where their name came from) and the meaning of the song.
29) “This place is endless thin…Proterra” #1 (25 July 2019) – This Post is about the Back Beach, Riverton Aparima, and its significant meaning to me, apart from being a great place to fossick for stones. There are two songs in the Post. The first is Dougie MacLean’s “Feel So Near”, a song in my Top Twenty all-time favourites. A simple acoustic guitar carries a tale of nostalgia and companionship and a love for the wild coast. I had recently experienced wild weather at the Back Beach and had some good photos of it, so the song was fitting. Dougie MacLean is a Scottish singer-songwriter who has performed since the mid-1970s. One of his most famous songs is “Caledonia”, often dubbed Scotland’s “unofficial national anthem” – I later used this song in a Post in 2022, and also used his “Stepping Stones” in another Post in the same year. MacLean composed “The Gael” which became the main theme to the movie “The Last of the Mohicans” (1992). “Feel So Near” appeared on the album “Riof”, released in 1997 by Dunkeld Records, MacLean’s own label. Dougie MacLean received the OBE in 2011 (Wikipedia). His official personal website is here.
30) “This place is endless thin…Proterra” #2 (25 July 2019) – The second song in this Post (see Entry #29 above for the first) is “Proterra” by Runrig. A Scottish Celtic rock band, Runrig formed on the Isle of Skye in 1973 (Scottish Traditional Music Hall of Fame). They have consistently maintained key parts of their Island identity – the frequent use of the Gaelic language and an awareness of the region’s historical, political and environmental issues. “Run-rig” was a set of narrow strips that were part of the traditional semi-communal farming system of the Highlands and Islands. In August 2018, Runrig performed the final show of their farewell tour in Stirling City Park beneath the castle ramparts (Wikpedia). The opening lines to their song “Proterra” (Latin “for the land”) fits perfectly with the main theme of this Post about my personal history with the Back Beach of Riverton Aparima – “As I walk along these shores, I am the history within”. “Proterra” comes from Runrig’s 2003 album of the same name, their 12th studio album – reviewed here.
31) Edinburgh’s Castle Rock and “There’s a Touch” by The Proclaimers (4 August 2019) – I’ve always been intrigued and entertained by the quirky video that The Proclaimers developed for this song. When I was thinking of doing a Post about Edinburgh and some of its geology, after visiting there in May 2017, I thought of this video. The Proclaimers are twin brothers Charlie and Craig Reid who were born in Edinburgh. They sing in their distinctive Scottish accent, known especially for songs like “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”, “Sunshine on Leith”and “I’m On My Way”. They have released 12 studio albums since 1987 (Wikipedia). “There’s a Touch” appeared on their fourth album “Persevere” (released 2001). The official website of The Proclaimers is here.
32) Green and Black: Green Stones and Mary Black’s “The Moon and Saint Christopher” (12 August 2019) – This Post acknowledges the gift of a book of poetry from and by Kay McKenzie Cooke. Kay lived as a child in Orepuki and she knows Gemstone Beach well. Her ancestry is a mix of Maori and Pakeha, part of the mix being Irish Catholic. Given that green is the Irish colour, the Post features a number of green stones from Gemstone Beach. It also features a song by Mary Black. I’ve been a long-standing fan of this Irish folk singer whose “Song for Ireland” is maybe her best and most well-known. Her first solo album was in 1982, often referred to as one of the best Irish albums of the 1980s (Wikipedia). Mary Black is regarded as one of the most important Irish vocalists of her generation. For a number of years, “What Hi-Fi?” magazine considered her voice to be so pure that it was used as a benchmark for comparing the sound quality of different high fidelity systems. In November 2022, Black received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Ireland’s national broadcaster. She is still recording and touring. A biography is available here. “The Moon and Saint Christopher” was written by Mary Chapin Carpenter and features on Mary Black’s album “Mary Black: The Collection” (1992).
33) “Hymns to the Silence”: Recently Polished Stones from Gemstone Beach (27 August 2019) – I had been listening to and enjoying the meditative quality of a number of Van Morrison’s songs, especially those from his album “Inarticulate Speech of the Heart” (1983). His later piece, “Hymns to the Silence” (from the 1991 Album of the same name) is similar in tone. Working with stones, I am often struck by their quintessential stillness, silence and peace. Hence the opening line and heart of this Post – “Stones are hymns to the silence of deep time, the silence of the deep past…” The stones are presented, to speak for themselves, with the backdrop of the music. Van Morrison is often compared to Bob Dylan, “the only living rock songwriter who has matched the breadth of his vision and his impact” (Rolling Stone). But also, “an eccentric performer who is likely to sing his best songs with his back turned. Too personal. Too unpredictable. Not quite presentable. And way too spiritual” (Time). George Ivan Morrison has been recording music since the mid-1960s and is a prolific song-writer and recording artist (discography). He has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was knighted for services to the music industry in Northern Ireland (Wikipedia).
34) “Here Is Where The Heart Is… Sea Winds Out On The Wild” #1 (17 September 2019) – I had previously written a Post about the significance of Riverton Aparima’s wild Back Beach to me. This Post is a tribute to another wild beach, Orepuki’s Gemstone Beach, and its trace fossil stones. “Out on the beach, in the wild wind and salt spray, the waves roaring in, the wet stones glistening in the winter sun – my Scottish ancestors must have known something like this…” Working on this Annotated Index of music in TumbleStone, I’ve become aware of how many Scottish musicians I enjoy (such as Runrig, The Proclaimers and Dougie MacLean) and others of Celtic origin or influenced by Celtic music (such as Mary Black and Van Morrison). My Great Great Grandparents arrived in New Zealand from Scotland in 1868 and somehow that Scottish ancestry remains strong. The first song in this Post is “Here Is Where The Heart Is” by Wolfstone. I bought the CD of their 1991 album “Unleashed” when I visited the UK in the late 1990s. I drove through Scotland listening to it again and again, along with my first Runrig CD. “Here Is Where The Heart Is” is a nostalgic song from the perspective of those forced to leave home and country – “From farm and croft and residence, they cleared them from the land/Families of young and old with one wave of a hand/Were sent on board to sail the ocean wide/To a stranger’s land o’er wind and sea and tide.” Wolfstone were formed in 1989. Their Celtic rock repertoire consists of both original songs and traditional folk pieces. Their name comes from the “Wolfstone”, a Pictish stone originally sited at Ardross, close to where the band initially recorded (Wolfstone website).
35) “Here Is Where The Heart Is… Sea Winds Out On The Wild” #2 (17 September 2019) – The second song in this Post (see Entry #34 above for the first) is “Recovery” by Runrig. Another nostalgic song referring to the Scottish Highland and Island Clearances, it too refers to wild seas, one of the main themes of this Post on Gemstone Beach. “Recovery” appeared in Runrig’s third album (1982) of the same name. See Entry #30 above for some background on Runrig.
The next five musical pieces used in TumbleStone Posts can be found here.
