First presented at the 2003 Venice Biennale, Johan Thom shows the video projection Bind/Ontbind as “a metaphor for the constant processes of decay and of regeneration [which] may disfigure us, but whenever we attempt to replace them with new systems of thought we are in fact simply disfiguring ourselves anew. Also, at the opening, Thom will perform (Twilight) of the Idols, exploring the physical action of the clenched fist associated with political groups, anger, violence and frustration.

Using enormous photographic prints, horizon-forming wall paintings,
sculpture the scale of architecture, collosal scaffolding structures and gargantuan installations, Stephen Hobbs draws on the nature of the physical, psychological and social urban beast of Durban to explore how the city is in constant flux. Hobbs notes that “Modern cities are organised into grids, but within those grids there’s disorder. It’s a phenomenon of the city I try to image.”

Young filmmaker Chris dos Santos’ short film At Thy Call will be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival which opens on 14 May. At Thy Call examines young men’s experiences of the border war which took place during the apartheid years.

South Africa, 1984. Every white male from the age of 16 that has completed high school is conscripted into the South African National Defence force to answer their call of “National Service”. Danie Joubert is a young and proud Afrikaner who’s family name is well respected in the army due to his older brother�s accomplishments at the Battle of Cassinga.

Danie proves to his corporal (who is a hardcore racist), that he is a great leader, that he has pride to defend his country, but it is only when Danie meets Nick, a rebelious Englishman, who doesn’t believe a word the army says, that Danie starts to question which side of the fence he should be on. Dos Santos has been praised for providing a fine historical context and analysis of the dominant culture of the time.

1. Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti-)

- a dozen traditional and might as well be traditional songs about equality, civil rights and the blessings of the Lord might seem an unusual choice for album of the year, but this collection of freedom songs, sung with unfailing authority and conviction by one of the great soul and gospel voices of our time, who happened also to have been around and involved when activist singing was at its ‘60s peak, and produced with impressive simplicity and focus by Ry Cooder, ended up winning hands down as it just kept getting stronger and more emotionally involving as its rivals struggled to keep up

2. Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Domino)

- the combined age of the two artists at the top of this list is around 130, not bad for someone who prides himself on continually seeking out the new and the challenging and never, in the words of the civil rights anthem that gave its name to my No 1, turning back (well, not that often, anyway), but if you think that nostalgia might have played too great a part in the choices you clearly haven’t heard the music – there is, in fact, as so often, a touch of an unspecified, indeterminate past about the sound of Wyatt as he deals expertly and enticingly in gentle persuasion, quietly mordant wit and engaging wistfulness, and dispenses, often with considerable political irony, a general air of calm as he dabbles in his usual array of folk, jazz and amiably avant-artpop and rock forms, yet he always sounds slightly ahead of whatever else is going on – Wyatt’s strength is that he’s not only a dabbler but perhaps even, in cricketing terms, a dibbly-dobbler, too, that quintessential English medium pacer who seems innocuous enough but is damn nearly impossible to get away, and who invariably ends up snaring his prey – “Comicopera”, a significant part of which finds Wyatt reflecting on war, seems likely to stand out for some time even in his singular body of work

3. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba – Segu Blue (Out/Here) / Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara – Soul Science (Wayward)

- essentially, I suppose, banjo and fiddle music from West Africa, Kouyate’s Malian ngoni and Camara’s Gambian ritti being, respectively, fundamentally and without getting too musicologically anal, ancestors of those favourite folk instruments, and every bit as thrilling as any created in the Appalachians or anywhere else (and arguably more elegant than most) – Kouyate’s group is a ngoni quartet with guest vocals from several highly evocative West Africans, including the celebrated Kassy Made Diabate and Malian bluesman Lobi Traore, while Camara’s collaborator is the long serving guitarist in Robert Plant’s band and the producer of the first album by Tinariwen, for whom see (not much) further down this list – despite the sometimes fanciful notions that surround the pre-slavery West African origins of the blues, it’s hard not to hear them here; where “Segu Blue” might be redolent of the Mississippi Delta, though, “Soul Science” seems to align itself with that state’s hill country’s hambone and drone

4. Joe Henry – Civilians (Anti-)

- the legend “produced by Joe Henry” is a surefire indicator of quality in a record, so it’s appropriate that the best of these last year turned out to be his own tenth, and surely finest, album - if I had any influence at all, his Our Song would win Grammy Song of the Year by several lengths – it’s an astonishing meditation on growing old, the fleeting nature of even the most substantial fame (American sports names don’t come very much bigger than Willie Mays), America’s own, suddenly less certain place in the world, the gap between what we want and what we’ll settle for, and buying garage door springs, that moves almost imperceptibly from an assertion of the protagonist’s individual rights to his submission to God’s will – a friend who understands these things better than most says Wave, the very next song on the album, is in fact the year’s best - to single out these two, though, is to overlook at least half a dozen more whose clarity of thought and individuality of expression might just take your breath away

5. Okkervil River – The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)

- there’s about a minute on this album, as A Girl In Port plays out to pedal steel swooning over boozy horns and Nashville piano, that may be the most gorgeous I heard all year – the song itself is an absolute drop-dead beauty, but what’s most striking about the Austin band’s fourth album in a steadily more impressive Jagjaguwar catalogue that must, surely, eventually result in some small measure of world domination, is that the others around it, from the rocking opener with the enigmatic title via the smart-arse references to songs with numbers in their title (the point of Plus Ones is made by adding one to titles by Paul Simon, ? & the Mysterians, Nena, the Zombies, R.E.M., the Byrds, David Bowie, the Crests and the Commodores - nine miles high, 100th red balloon, 97th tear … geddit?) to a reflection on the suicide of poet John Berryman that culminates in Sloop John B, the Caribbean folk song that became a Beach Boys hit, all stand up for themselves – and the solo demo versions of those songs on the extra disc of the limited edition stand up, as a quite different album, to the official full band versions

6. Tinariwen – Aman Iman (Independiente)

- somebody, turning up late and looking for a hook, called Tinariwen the Touareg Rolling Stones, and the description appears to have stuck, in some quarters at least, but, if that conjures up an image of ancient if once bluesworthy poseurs falling off camels rather than out of palm trees, nothing could be further from the truth – there’s a spirit and an (albeit dark and brooding) elemental energy about these fierce looking former freedom fighters’ trademark desert blues that grabbed hold of my sub-Saharan heart the first time I heard it, and simply won’t let go – the trick is for the music to transcend the back story, and Tinariwen’s has done that, without a single missed step that I can recall, throughout three albums

Ek het nou by my 2 vriendinne ge erf ‘n paar van hul kinders se klere so
ek/ons het nie baie klere om aan te koop nie, kort nou nog net van die
poeier, roompies en daai goedjies. Ek neem aan my ma en sussie gaan
vir my
een of ander tyd ‘n stork party hou. As mens mooi luister hoor mens hoe
hulle probeer praat sonder dat jy hoor, maar mens vang hulle lekker uit.
Skoonma kan glad nie geheime hou nie. Aan haar praat kan jy sommer
uitvind
waar wanneer ens.

Hulle huis is mos nou weer in die mark. Was ‘n vorige keer, maar toe
wil
die ou antie nie meer verkoop. Nou het hulle weer ‘n plekkie in
Ruwal wat
hulle van hou, maar om hulle plek te verkoop lyk maar na ‘n missie.
Dis vir
oor ‘n miljoen in die mark en so ook die een wat hulle koop, maak nie
veel
op dit nie.

Die 29ste van die maand is hulle 40 jaar getroud dan vat Conrad
(Benita se
man) vir ons en die twee susters en die een se dogter en skoonseun Spier
toe. Hy doen deesdae baie goed vir homself. Skoonpa probeer
natuurlik met
alle geweld uitvis waarheen ons gaan en gister kom hy weer met so
storie toe
dog ek, wag ek gaan jou in ‘n rigting in stuur. Ek sê toe sommer,
ja, ek
kan nie onthou wanneer laas was ons by Blouberg nie, dit gaan darem baie
lekker wees. Hy wil so graag vir Conrad sê, hy hét geweet.

Hulle sê dis ‘n baie casual plekkie/eetplek by Spier. Ek was nog
nooit daar
nie, gedink dis net een groot restaurant en dan die gewone goed toe sê
iemand hier by die werk daar is ‘n hele paar eetplekke, verskillende
atmosfere ens. Sien nogal uit daarna. Ons gaan maar min uit.

Hoe gaan dit nou met julle twee’tjies? Weet die dr al hoekom sy die
baba
verloor het? Hou moed, party dae gebeur dinge wat ons nie verstaan
hoekom
nie. Ons hou duimvas vir die volgende keer, want al vang Jandré baie
bollie
aan sal ek my lewe nooit ooit ruil vir een sonder hom nie. Net so stout
soos hy is is hy te cute. Die man het sy eie manier van goed
uitspreek ons
lag ons dood, maar jy moet nou net nie voor hom lag nie….en ons
sing so
oulik. Hy mos laat begin praat, nes sy een tannie. My ma sê toe my
middel
sus begin, toe hou sy nie op nie.

Johan kla so as hy stout is dan herinner ek hom aan wat sy ma gesê het.
Sy’t gesê hy was vrek stout en ‘n kind aard mos maar na ‘n mens. Ek sê
sommer “ja, nou aard hy na jou, wat jou ma grys hare gegee het, haal
al jou
streke uit”.

Nou ja, ek stop eers, ek kan nog laaaaannnnk aangaan. Johan vra
hoeka elke
nou en dan of ek al iets van jou gehoor het.

I am a prisoner in a cold cell. The prison I am kept in has long been decrepit and poor, and I have no more neighbours to keep me company, but I did have some companions –they may even be called friends, in some circumstances- in the old days when the prison was a shining bastion of reformation. And, like all people confined for long enough in one place, we shared stories and myths. I cannot, at the moment recall any of them, except one.

The myth is that if one is cooped up too long in the stagnation of prison air, one’s lungs grow accustomed to it, and then if one should be freed or escape, one’s lungs would immediately seize up because of the freshness of the air and one would die. This is the one story that stuck with me through my long imprisonment. I have forgotten many many things; my name, for one, but in the end that is not important to me as the guards would simply call me by my number, not my name, and since the guards have long since disappeared, I have also forgotten my number. I have also forgotten for what crime I was imprisoned in the first place. I was never in any doubt that I deserved my sentence; I’m just no longer sure why I received that sentence, or even exactly what the sentence was. I’m sure it’s a dreadfully long time. How could it not be? I’ve been here for a dreadfully long time. Surely the fact justifies itself? I have been here for a long time, it follows logically that I have to be here for a long time.

As I have mentioned before, the prison is no longer what it was when I came here. There are no longer showers or food or company or guards. They have all left a long time ago, and I am alone in the prison. Yet, I never dare to venture beyond the hall of my cell, and rarely even beyond my cell. All the doors are open, yet I fear the freshness of the air beyond it. And besides, I don’t feel like I’ve completely served out my sentence. I should know when I am finished.

Yet, even if someone from the ministry came and said my sentence was served and I was free to go, I’m not entirely sure I would leave. I would be absolutely paralyzed by the fear of the air, and they would not be able to shift me, and finally, after exerting themselves to some extent they would wipe their hands and foreheads, spit on me and walk away saying that I did not deserve to be let free. And perhaps I don’t, if fear of leaving paralyzed me so.

Or perhaps the ministry man would not be a ministry man after all, but rather a sneaky revolutionary who would try to get me to leave on purpose so the air would kill me, and thus prove his movement’s point to the government. And he would not shed a single tear for me, for how much greater is his cause than the life of one invalid?

Or perhaps the ministry man is a ministry man, and he has been sent to oversee my execution. And he would come and before the execution he and the guards would stand and talk and decide to have a laugh at my expense. They would decide that they would give me false hope just before shattering it again and killing me with what sustained them.

As I sit here, this has happened many times, but every time the people would come to get me I would throw them with rocks and shout until they ran away and I am left in my isolation. No, I will never trust them! I will sit just here and serve my sentence out quietly, until I’m quite sure I’m done.

Death comes for the dying, like a dog to its evening bowl,
Hungry, expectant, confident.
It adheres to the living in the vicinity
It fills your aura and lives in your dreams
You can see signs of it in the sky and birds and sea.
But, for all that, death is not to be feared.
It’s just the flipside that comes with every single.
What else do we really expect, when we tire of living?
Only modern man has pushed it aside;
We assume our medicines will keep us going indefinitely.
Death, like our horses, cows and pigs
Used to live in every household;
It was never far away, from our minds or our lives.
Festivals were held in its honour:
It had a face, a name, a character.
Death was respected. It was present.

Once, I cornered a mongoose in a tree
It stared straight back at me
There was no fear in its level gaze -
If I was its death standing before it
I was neither welcomed nor rejected,
I had simply come there on that day.

Does a mountain fear death?
When it opens a grassy eye,
What does it muse when it surveys
The brief lives that flicker on and off,
Death-life, life-death,
Upon its slopes?

A samurai contemplates his death
Every day.

7. Frode Haltli – Passing Images (ECM) / Sinikka Langeland – Starflowers (ECM)

- a couple of extraordinary and spellbinding Norwegian musicians taking chances with their folk tradition (and, at the same time, taking their folk tradition to places it can hardly have imagined possible) – Langeland merges her Finnish table harp, the kantele, and her stunning folk voice with a group of jazz musicians including the outstanding saxophonist Trygve Seim on a series of songs by woodcutter poet Hans Børli; accordionist Haltli adds trumpet, viola and voice where the natural sounds of breath blown, air pumped and horsehair scraped become as riveting and engaging as the non-vocal sounds that sometimes emanate from Maja Ratkje’s throat, lips and tongue, yet these are as beautiful in their own way as the slow, still, folk-inflected tunes that gradually unfurl out of and fold back into Haltli’s remarkable musical imagination

8. Martin Simpson – Prodigal Son (Topic)

- this may be the album, in a long and impressive career, that best represents Simpson’s range – the traditional English folk songs are there, as ever, his radically improved singing no longer playing second fiddle to his remarkable acoustic guitar playing, and so are the American roots influences in which he immersed himself even more completely in his years living in the USA (including a more mature and better considered cover of Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927 than the one on Simpson’s debut, slightly altered to accommodate Katrina), and, of course, the delicate instrumentals, but, perhaps most of all, there’s also a brutally honest, beautifully paced original song about his father, who was never any good with money, yet taught his son a range of small skills he uses every day

9. The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (Merge)

- the question, of course, was how these sudden yet persistently appealing Canadian indie rock darlings were going to top that amazing debut - they didn’t, quite, as it turned out, but the fact that they got this close is pretty remarkable in itself – Funeral’s sheer unexpectedness is what dazzled everybody, and probably continues to do so – the darker, perhaps more deliberate Neon Bible is not as explicitly ravishing, but it’s still beyond what most bands achieved in 2007

10. Sam Baker – Pretty World (BlueLimeStone)

- Baker, in an apparently endless line of brilliant Texan songwriters, had to re-learn the guitar following injuries sustained in a bomb blast twenty odd years ago, when the guy sitting next to him in a Peruvian railway carriage was killed, and he sings in a halting, slightly stilted fashion as a result of his consequent severe hearing loss, but his songs, packed with small but crucial insights and which might, of course, not otherwise have been written the way they were, don’t need the support of that amazing story to reveal themselves as among the pithiest and most poignant I’ve heard for ages

El RE-MIX es un perturbador de la paz.

La cosa crucial es: el RE-MIX quiere toda la verdad, el mundo no.

Pero qué es la verdad es la pregunta.

El RE-MIX postula, pero no posee el significado y sustancia de una verdad.

Para nosotros, RE-MIXERS, la verdad no es estática e inmutable, sino un movimiento interminable dentro de lo infinito.

La verdad en el mundo está en eterno conflicto.

El RE-MIX lleva este conflicto a los extremos, pero lo desactiva.

Por ello RE-MIXING no se convierte en un credo.

Está en continuo conflicto con sigo mismo.

Quien sea que RE-MIX desea vivir para la verdad.

Prefiere establecerse en la verdad que estar feliz en la ilusión.

En la verdad primordial, aunque nos desplome, hay allí un sacar a la luz –si es realmente verdad- que nos salva.

Esta es la cosa maravillosa acerca del RE-MIXING: si solo evitamos toda decepción, atravesamos cualquier velo, perforamos cada mentira, y si obstinadamente seguimos hacia adelante con ojos claros, supeditando nuestros RE-MIXES a la venidera RE-MIXING, entonces, al final, el RE-MIX es no destructivo.

En el auténtico RE-MIXER, la conciencia de su independencia es siempre simultánea a la comprensión de su impotencia; el rapto de creatividad está siempre acompañado por la aceptación resignada del fracaso, la esperanza de un vislumbre del final.

RE-MIXING nos hace enteramente conscientes de las variadas formas de nuestra dependencia, pero de manera que, en lugar de permanecer aplastados por nuestra impotencia, encontramos, desde el ventajoso punto de nuestra independencia, el camino para la recuperación.

translated by victor fowler calzada and first published by miradas