Aug 09 2008
Space Weather on Six-Famous-Tea-Mountain
I received a giant parcel from the great Scott Wilson at Yunnan Sourcing today. The main bulk of this order is a set of seven pu-erh beengs of the Menghai classic recipes 7542, 7582, 7512, 7532, 7262, 7572 and 7592, called Six-Famous-Tea-Mountain (I love that hyphenation and awkward singular/plural!).
The whole caboodle comes in a lovely woven basket:
The overall package is so beautifully put together that it almost feels wrong to start drinking the tea. Perhaps that’s why, with the purchase of these 7 cakes, Scott has also included a 50 gram sample of each tea. A great idea; and I can’t wait to get started on these, allowing the seven full cakes to age gracefully. I will enjoy them, I think, in my new Yixing Zisha Shi Piao Hu pot from Stéphane Erler of the Taiwan-based Tea Masters blog:
And aside from contemplating the climbing of mountains of tea, I’m really delighted to report that I’m in a band again for the first time in years. Space Weather is a trio consisting of Alistair Crosbie (electric guitar), me (synthesizer) and Andrew Paine (electric bass guitar). As these fellows are some of the nicest people you could hope to meet, the decision to join them was one of the easiest and quickest I’ve ever made.
We’ve had a couple of recording sessions so far and the music seems to come so effortlessly and interconnectedly that I think we’re definitely on to something. The pieces are simple, linear, largely melodic in the conventional sense and entirely improvised. Although we’ve all recorded in separate duo combinations over the years—Alistair and I, and Alistair and Paz, as well as a possible forthcoming Lavelle/Paine outing—this is the first time the three of us have worked together as one. The two sessions have been relaxed, warm, funny and wonderfully joyful experiences: good company and great music (well, we think so anyway: there should be some samples up soon at the MySpace page linked to above, so you can judge for yourself). You can’t really ask for more than that.
Our little power trio already has enough material for an album, just from these two afternoon sessions, which is astonishing in my experience given the melodic nature of the music. Next time we meet, we’ll just need to decide on titles, some fine editing and the sequence of the pieces—and probably just keep recording. I can’t wait. Expect at least some if not all of the tracks, or indeed the album itself, to be called Space Weather…
