Friday, April 25, 2014

1Q84

Magic realism style was invented as far as I know by the Latin-American writers (like Marques or Llosa), but Murakami si very good at it too. In 1Q84 the world described has a strange feeling even from the first pages with that surrealistic descent of Aomame from a suspended highway to escape a traffic jam. By the beginning of the second volume (where I am currently) the space-time has serious flaws and the two parallel stories of Tengo and Aomame are on a collision course. Can we get as far as in "Time Out of Joint" or it will be something else? I'll see when I finish the book.
As in many other of his books, Murakami makes many references to various musical pieces, from classical music to jazz and rock. Some of them are recurring like Janacek's Sinfonietta, but others appear like gems hidden deep down in the ground, like the one page description and analysis of the Atlanta Blues by Loius Armstrong and the All Stars (in this description the clarinetist Barney Bigard is the actual star). So I searched this song on YouTube and it really sounds nice. And if you have the curiosity to read the comments from the video posted below you will see that many people landed on that page after reading about the song in 1Q84. Enjoy :)


Thursday, April 17, 2014

Cover Power: Don't Believe a Word

One more cover power session, this time it's one of the most celebrated Romanian hard-rock bands, Iris, which covered in 1996 a song from Thin Lizzy. The Romanian version is quite well known and for a long time I didn't even know it was a cover of another song. Below are the two versions: Sa nu crezi nimic from Iris and Don't Belieave a Word from Thin Lizzy. Enjoy!