Winter Roses + Rituals

02005-04-30 | Uncategorized | 7 comments

Music: Winter Roses – I am listening to the whole CD for the first time, working on flow and sequence…

From the time I was six, one of my responsibilities was to wash rice. It was a ritual of childhood and first cooking experience.
Later, I had to cook the rice after school. I remember hearing the pot lid make sounds while it boiled, watching the steam as it simmers and rests, seeing the windows steam up and the smell of the cooked rice.
In this method of cooking rice on the stove, the “koge” is sometimes formed. Koge is the rice that has browned on the bottom.
The first rice is offered to family butsudan, always. The new rice cookers are the best invention and make perfect rice/sushi, etc, but does not offer the entertainment of the sounds and aroma of the old.

In Italy there are basically two different ways to make risotto. The first method involves constant stirring of the rice and broth and the second method, which some people believe to be superior, suggests that one leaves the pot to cook on low heat without stirring. The rice at the the bottom browns or even burns and is discarded (I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to scrape that pot) but the rice above that layer is perfect.

It seems to me that it is beautiful and maybe even important for us to pick certain little rituals that re-connect us with life, whether that is making rice the old-fashioned way, or grinding coffee by hand, or shaving with a double-edged razor. If it makes you be completely present for that time, then it is working.

Damn, this is a fine record… reminds me of the Dreaming CD from the Opium album, but with a couple more upeat songs thrown in, a richer guitar sound – mostly due to recording digitally instead of analog… and how great does that Lakland bass sound! I am thinking of adding a hidden 13th track – hidden means that it won’t show up, but if you let the CD play through the end of the 12th track it will find the additional piece…

7 Comments

  1. Matt Callahan

    Considering my great affection for the Dreaming CD, the wait just became a bit more interesting. A hidden track would be great. I love the sound of the record playing at the end of Innamorare.

    Reply
  2. Borya

    An expectations-rising description. But I’m sure it’d turn out a fine record whatever direction you’ll make it head towards. A hidden track … or hidden sounds, like church bells, footsteps, would make this present even more precious.

    Reply
  3. Ottmar

    Actually… you guessed it. The hidden track is a spacious remix of the main Le Cafe melody combined with the sound of me walking through the frozen snow one morning in december.

    Reply
  4. Adam Solomon

    Oh wow, that sounds amazing!! So there the two ends meet, this hidden track and your post months back about recording the snow ;) So have you researched this? Because I’m curious, how does the hidden track work, exactly? If you were, say, to put the disc in the computer, would it detect the 13th track, with just a long silence at the end of track 12? Will clicking the forward track button after track 12 bring you to the 13th? The coolest would be if you could make the 13th track available only by listening to the end of 12 for a certain time, but…..is that possible, to trick the CD player like that?

    Reply
  5. Ottmar

    It is in fact very easy. You simply don’t add the command for the CD player to know that #12 has ended. Instead you add a few seconds of silence and then continue with the 13th song – on the 12th track! That means only 12 tracks show on the CD display and on your computer, and you can only reach the 13th track by listening to the whole of the 12th track – or fast-forwarding.

    Reply
  6. Adam Solomon

    Oh! So the two songs are actually on one track? And the CD player, then, would still read track 12 when playing this 13th song?

    Reply
  7. Borya

    This post has been removed by the author.

    Reply

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