Le soleil est arrivé

"The sun has arrived / the birds are having fun [...] / the kids play outside / the dads work on their construction sites, whistling / the sun came back, summer is here"

I just spent two wonderfully sunny summer weeks in the Swiss mountains and can't think of a better way to celebrate this and summer in general (before autumn comes) than by playing you this song by the 9-year old Gérard who luckily went to Freinet school in 1971. He sings and plays metallophone on his song, accompanied by Marc and Roger, same age, on percussion and xylophone. An incredible record of kids avantgarde, played on Orff instruments, rubber bands and knives-on-the-edge-of-desks. Definitely one of my finds of the year. More of this would probably really have led to socialism (of the good sort).

Support Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers Records helped us rediscover some of the most amazing music from the past: Pakistani synth-meets-accordion soundtracks, hungarian fuzz, Swiss musique concrète / synth jazz, Krauty cuckoos, psyched out Frenchmen, heavy heavy thai stuff and Czech fairy tale music among many other things. I wish all reissue labels worked in the same careful way, clearing all the rights, adding extensive liner notes and amazing cover art.

Now Finders Keepers is in danger after a fire during the London riots destroyed 90% of their stock, as well as the stock of about 100 other independent labels, interrupting their income immediately.
Help them recover by buying Mp3s through their Mp3 store, T-Shirts and the series of special CDs they set up with the help of Jarvis Cocker, Gruff Rhys, Demdike Stare and many others.
I had the pleasure to work with Andy Votel and Doug Shipton  from Finder Keepers in the past - they are also extremely nice people. So, please go buy some Mp3s, ok?

The two clips below were created for an event in the context of the essential FK-release Pomegranates with pre-revolution pop from Persia/Iran.

Japanese UFO Magazines

The non-japanese parts point to George Adamski (who met Venusians in 1952 and still seems to have followers) and E.T.
I like the combination of the astronaut and Adamski's UFO/Lampshade picture.