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Category: miscellaneous

Word power: “Do elephants have souls?”

What elephants may be lacking most of all is not language but the Rosetta Stone to prove they have it and clue us in to what on God’s green earth they’re talking about all the time…. They have a vocal range of ten octaves (a piano has seven), and up to three-quarters of the sounds they produce are inaudible to human ears. 

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Music review: Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton

For nearly three decades Chris Abrahams and Lloyd Swanton have been two thirds of The Necks.

That singular Australian trio is renowned worldwide, but its members do many other good, highly diverse musical things.

Chris Abrahams’ Climb and Lloyd Swanton’s Ambon are wonderful, in very different ways.  Climb is all piano, solo. Ambon involves a shifting cast of thirteen…and a true story both dreadful and inspirational.

 

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Wine review: two excellent, affordable W.A. Chardonnays

Stella Bella 2014 Chardonnay and Castle Rock 2014 Diletti Chardonnay are available for circa $30 a bottle in Australia.  Respectively, from Margaret River and Porongurup, each is distinctly different. Both are clearly superior to a lot of more expensive Australian Chardonnays.

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Rottnest Island in winter (1 of 2)

To most West Australians it is “Rotto” – their very own, magical, holiday island, “overseas”, at home…within eyesight of Perth.

To indigenous West Australians it is Wadjemup – a place of exile, imprisonment, premature death. The island’s 19th & early 20th century history is more monumentally unjust & tragic than Alcatraz’s.

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Music review: two remarkable Scandinavian trios

Together for the first time as a trio on disc, Danish drummer Morten Lund, Swedish bassist Lars Danielsson & Norwegian saxophonist Marius Neset (l-r, above, photographed by Stephen  Freiheit) have delivered a wonderful, exuberant album. Norwegian drummer Per Oddvar Johansen’s trio is utterly different, somewhat darker.

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