Will we get fed up 11 Sept programmes on TV ? Last night�s programme focusing mainly on the mayor was gripping. Yvonne and I speculated that our visit to NYC and especially Ground Zero made the footage taken on the day that much more real. My children have been both to the top of the WTC and to Ground Zero � Yvonne and I have only been to the latter. Just one more example of the differences between the generations. But like the Holocaust its an episode which pushes at the limits of language and exhibits the sublime.'God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my wilful path violently and recklessly. All things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or for worse.' This challenging quote opens Andrew Keeling's other diary today.

I had lunch with Jonathan who lives in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and I asked him about the development of mutual hostility between Saudi and the US. He said that many Saudis have experienced official harassment in the US since 9-11 � customs, immigration, police etc � and this is fermenting resentment. He also said that the political influence of the clerics on the domestic scene is very much on the decline.

I have been listening to my first mixes of Fifths � GI and Fifths GIR. I haven�t yet got tired of going over them on Mini Disc. In fact I took them with me to Selsdon for just that purpose. That particular MD has some of the mixes that led up to the Blossoms version on Plundafonix. Gilbert has reacted well to the idea that we have a crack at an impro version of Good Vibrations. I also thought I might sent him the version of The Last Eleven Bars which has a guitar solo on the tale to see if he would like to do a version where he takes that role.

Another path which is opening up is to work with fragments of vocal which from Robin and Cathy. For example I want to juxtapose Cathy singing �We�ll to the woods no more� with Robin singing �You are my unfolding dream�. If justification were needed it would be rooted in Muse Theory which I suspect underpins both pieces.

The life of Lamont Young is one of my obsessions � as the phrase goes, I can bore for England on this topic. I have just got Wim Mertens 1980 book American Minimal Music which has a good chapter on him � it helps clarify the extraordinary sequence of influences in his teenage years and early twenties. Young and Eric Dolphy are obsessed by Charlie Parker. Then he studies serialism with Leonard Stein who had been Schoenberg�s assistant in LA. Next he writes the first minimalist pieces and then he goes to Darmstadt, meets Stockhausen and is introduced to Cage scores which he begins to study in depth. He moves to NYC and becomes a major member of the Fluxus circle which includes George Macunias and Yoko Ono. John Coltrane re-ignites his interest on jazz. John Cale joins him in the Theatre of Eternal Music. If you read it in a novel you wouldn�t believe it.

Mertens studied Musicology and Social and Political Sciences. He includes a final chapter on the grand theory of musical minimalism using the ideas of major contemporary Continental philosphers � Adorno, Degreuze and Lyotard � trying to weave together the compositional innovations of Schoenberg, Cage and Young. This is the first time I have read an attempt at this level analysis.

Mertens did the music for the Greenaway film, The Belly of an Architect.

I must look at the golden section sight which Mark has put up.

Peter Chatterton has put more new video material up on www.kwaze-kwasa.org. I put up a sad piece which confirms the hypothesis that pre-existing STDs in the Southern African population is one of the reasons for the accelerated diffusion of the virus there relative to other populations. Unfortunately this diffusion took place unnoticed in the mid 1990s when attention was elsewhere and the scale of the threat was not appreciated. The phenomenon began to attract attention through ante-natal testing by which time the horse was well and truly out of the stable.

Get out the hard hats and rubber trousers here comes a wave of European minimalist theory from Dr Broekman:

"The repetition which influences the music of Mertens and indeed functions as its dominant compositional principle consists of a special dimension. The repetition occurs for two reasons. Firstly, it is intended to carve out a space for listening in the flowing stream of music and emotion and secondly, it is designed to enlist the feeling of pleasure. The challenge with which Mertens confronts us is that the technique of repetition remains dominant in his music but acquires a different meaning. One may even suggest that in this respect Mertens' music is conceived traditionally and composed accordingly, to such a degree that it is impossible to experience it without the Minimalist tradition looming large. Often the function of the top-line is to act as a signifier indicative of the meaning of the music. In ascertaining the meaning of the music the listener is not involved in the process of representation in the classical sense of the word. On the contrary, it is analysis through which meaning comes to the fore. Unlike Fabre, Mertens does not presuppose a fixed experience on the part of either the listener in musical production or the spectator in theatrical performance. As is well-known, such a presupposition was deemed to be necessary for purposes of cathartic effect. The aesthetic attitude is reminiscent of the blossoming of Russian formalism at the beginning of the century. Modern structuralism emerged from this development. In this context art is considered to be a technical-analytical procedure. Here the forms of the material go hand in hand with the distortion of reality in order to attain maximum autonomy for the work. This procedure does not inevitably lead to the kind of rigid objectivity which suppresses individual talent as was the case with American Minimalism. Nor does the procedure result in the generation of universally valid truth. Mertens' music can hardly be defined in terms of fixated objectivity or universal validity as explained above. For this reason one should develop a concept that will function as a contrast to objectivism and systematism. However, one should guard against a lapse into subjectivism in an attempt to develop a new concept. Mertens' music provides ample opportunity for a fruitful exploration of this attempt. There is reference to the here and now with respect to both listener and composer. In addition entrapment into the system is transcended with the aid of concrete references to the history of music. In this respect specific emphasis is placed upon repetition and play with fixed formulae. This technique plays a role in Strawinsky, for example. But such reference scarcely happens in a musical way in the sense of quotations of musical fragments. This does take place however in the form of quotations of the titles of well-known compositions of European history, or when titles of Mertens' own compositions are taken from Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos (LIR, THE FOSSE) - and this would be a thorn in the eye of the American Minimalists.

Pheww are we Lionhearts going to take this lying down - certainly not - the English sensibility isnt all supressed emotion Laura Ashley frox and wafting about on the Cam, you know:

BRYTER LATER � THE FIRST CHUNK

Place to Start The Guardian Alternative Top Ten URL puts Bryter Later, Nick Drake�s second album, at No 1 position. It summarises the choice as follows:

�Juxtaposing a peculiarly urban, subterranean psychiatric darkness with gentle rivers, summer picnics and sunny meadows, Bryter Later - stately, precious, tragic - leaves a trail of mysteries in its wake and a recurring icy sensation in the bones of everyone who hears it. Next time someone tells you that white boys can't sing the blues, lend them a copy.�

Their one caveat is over the �noodling instrumentals� � and indeed they are something of a puzzle. Are we meant to take them �seriously� ? Are they no more than their congenial surfaces? Can this really be true if the album is such a psychological materpiece?

(Brian Wells and I once discussed the urban character of Bryter Later on camera for � glad to see the Guardian agrees with me.)

Introduction Nick liked the blues and could play well in the Jansch-Renbourn style that became popular in the middle third of the 1960s in the UK. If we look carefully we can see various traces of blues ideas and motifs within his songs on this album � and indeed elsewhere in his work. On Bryter Later, the instrumental introduction may be stately, precious, mysterious and gentle but it is built round a four bar descending figure � exactly the kind of device that we find in the 11th bar of a classic twelve bar blues � falling from the seventh to the sixth � ablues device which he uses eg on Pink Moon.

As such it introduces one of the constructive devices of the songs on Bryter Later which is used in:

a) the descending major and minor figures over a tonic pedal that mark out the fixed musical points in City Clock

b) the blues harmonies in the �nobody knows� section of Poor Boy

c) transformed in the little riff that underpins One of These Things first which works its way up to the major seventh and then falls through the sixth and flattened sixth

Nick returns to this device to chilling effect in Parasite on Pink Moon.

Hazey Jane II

Bryter Later proceeds with sharp changes of tone and style on successive tracks and �starts as it means to go on�.In complete contrast to the Introduction, the first song on Bryter Later has a very complex dynamic structure. The lengthy instrumental opening is operates as a recurrent transformation. It helps us find our way through the rush and turmoil of this complex piece. Initially it leads us into the distinctive opening section of the vocal - a tumbling scalar tune about fear, darkness, light, unfamiliarity and comfort.

The harmonic basis for this initial section contains another Drake signature � a stepwise chord progression from a minor chord to the major chord a tone below. This device recurs in Hazey Jane I and Northern Sky, also in Place to Be on Pink Moon.

After the tumbling first passage of the song has resolved itself, the song stabilises with a short �calypso� episode. The Calypso has a simple but stable harmonic form - ABBA - which effectively opens an issue and closes it down again � or creates some pressure and then releases it.

Opening ............................ Closing

Hey take a little while To grow your brother�s hair

And now take a little while To make your sister fair

Now take a little while To find your way in here

Now take a little while To make your story clear

These �calypso rituals� anaesthatise the tumbling fears and trigger another transformation episode � the �bridge section� � which in harmonic terms follows one of the standard templates for this form. The bridge progresses through flatter keys to arrive at a point of maximum harmonic tension:

............ harmony moves to flatter keys...............

Now that the family is part of the chain take off your eyeshade start over again.

Now that you�re lifting your feet from the ground weigh up your anchor and never look round,

The first time through the harmonic pressure from the bridge section is discharged into the introductory instrumental idea which leads back into �the calypso ritual� and then into a repeat of the bridge. This second bridge leads us to the final destination of the song � also in calypso form:

Opening.......................... Closing

Lets sing a song for Hazey Jane She�s back again in my minds eye

If songs were part of a conversation The situation would be fine.

So by the time we get to the end of this intricate piece everything is almost completely sorted out � Hazey Jane is back in the singer�s imagination and if only the world of art coincided with reality there wouldn�t be any problems. Bye bye weasel! As with so many of Nick�s songs the emotional story at the core of the song is expressed at many levels within the work.

At the Chime of a City Clock

But of course it isn�t. In this Bryter Later world, the exaggerated ritual exorcism of inner turmoil on the first track is hardly going to be the final destination. The principle of �sudden change� has to work itself out.

City Clock i draws on blues and jazz � to explore ambivalent inner states in an urban landscape. The alto sax fills and solo in particular establish a �loner� identity and the major/minor ambiguities are exploited to the full to leave the end of the song empty and challenging. We are left at �urban subterranean psychiatric� pole of the album�s strange ambit in a world remiscent of de Chirico�s haunting cityscapes.

One of These Things First

The rules change again � in the following song we have a riff, an elongated structure and we go round the structure three times with no bridge. Nothing could be simpler.

The riff has mild echo of the blues � or if you want to emphasise the European heritage maybe it�s a Neapolitan Sixth. The basic verse unit is twenty four bars long and has echoes of the standard twelve bar blues structure - AAB.

The main �structural� feature of the song as whole (as opposed to each verse) is in the lyric - which is structured ABA. Parts of the first verse are repeated in the third verse to make it a slightly distorted echo of the starting point. The repeated section is:

I could have been a signpost could have been a clock

As simple as a kettle as steady as a rock

There is some subtle art here � the repetition is itself �a signpost� and it marks out the time of the song � it is simple and steady (whereas in fact the rhythmic basis of the song is anything but). And it focuses attention on the next two lines � which are different from the first verse.

I could be even here

I would be I should be so near

So the simplicities begin dissolve � and the true nature of the song is revealed. It�s a song which uses all kind of mostly traditional devices to �playfully� expose the rather awesome gap between actuality and possibility � and to hold the singer back Hamlet like from the decisive step. It recapitulates in sharper form the gap implicit in the conclusion of Hazey Jane II.

Hazey Jane I

The return of the Hazey Jane theme is the first indication that Bryter Later might have a macrostructure. In this second HJ song the singer is once again talking to/about Jane. The most obvious structural links with the first HJ song are:

a) the sidestepping harmony

b) a falling musical line

c) a �middle eight� or �bridge� which moves into �flatter� keys

The sidestepping is used differently though � in HJ2 the song opened by �stepping down�. In HJ1, in harmonic terms, the song starts �down� and completes each element by �stepping up� then �stepping down�.

DOWN

Do you curse where you come from do you swear in the night

STEP UP

Will it mean much to you if I treat you STEP DOWN

Right

The last part of this pattern is used again to complete the verse structure:

UP

Hey Slow Jane make

STEP DOWN

Sense

And the further repetition of the stepdown adds finality to the fourth line of each verse:

Slow slow Jane cross the fence

Slow slow Jane we�re on the move

Slow slow Jane fly on by

The overall structure of the song is the classic � 2 verses � bridge � final verse Somehow in the bridge transformation there is a shift from �we�re on the move� to �living a lie � and � flying on by�. HJ1 is pretty much about closure and having the last word and as stands in a complementary relationship to the first song on Bryter Later. HJ2 was picking up energy and resolving difficulties and fears and HJ1 is about movement and development coming to an end. .

Bryter Later

This instrumental which gives its name to the album is a hinge � we go through the door from the first world that the song sequence establishes and brings to completion� and end up in �another place�. The last three songs on Bryter Later tell a different story � and indeed the first of these, Fly, is more direct emotionally than most of the songs on the album

Bryter Later, the instrumental, trucks along quite happily in a pastoral mood as if we are all friends once again and off on a picnic. The main musical idea encountered is a little calypso with a rather catchy lift in the line to finished on the sixth � a slightly devil may care gesture. The calypso has a tail which leads into a slightly choppier final section although this manages to resolve itself on a perfect cadence. Here�s a map:

Introduction

Calypso �devil may care� plus tail

Agitation � resolved in a perfect cadence

Repeat the whole thing and cycle out.

On the second time through Lyn Dobson takes a flute solo � not quite in the pastoral in style. The climax in the improvisation is in the �agitated� section and Dobson signals this by moving off a legato style into heavier articulation � but this is a passing shower which doesn�t disturb the sunny afternoon�s picnic.

How then should we regard the tune, Bryter Later?

Might it be:

a) part of the intermission or interval � rather like the ice cream we eat even though we are in the middle of the performance of a subtle and complex tragedy ?

b) rather as radio comedy shows used to have �musical links� music is meant to signify �moving on� through a rather picaresque sequence of episodes. We happen to be moving onto repentence and attempted reconciliation but we don�t know that until we get there ?

c) a rather more extreme case of the method already demonstrated whereby relatively benign musical surfaces disguise more troublesome content which is a substantive contribution to the overall musical and emotional coherence of the sequence ?

d) just a mistake � a lapse � something that didn�t come off. � the Guardian�s point of view on the instrumental music?

Here�s David Drew writing about Poulenc at the end of the 1950s and his adoption of a strategy close to option b :

�His uniqueness lies in the nature of his sensibility. Possessing as he does the ability to juxtapose incongruous elements in such a way that a consistently ironic light is shed on them, he produces by means of this irony the impression of a unified idea. During this process, ideas that are basically undistinguished acquire a certain poetic refinement, for the irony admits of a certain pathos and the pathos is an outcome of true feeling. It hardly need be said that without a very considerable musical gift this method would not be practicable.�

That�s about as far as I can take it at the moment. The Guardian might be right. Or, if we trust to Nick�s �considerable musical gift� then there is an intended emotional whole that is more than the sum of the parts � and probably more than whatever noun signifies � moving on and being in the middle of the story�. I think this is probably quite a good account of the overall structure of the album.

One of Poulenc�s immediate predecessors and influences may provide a better model � Eric Satie. Satie is an elusive character whose status changed both in his lifetime and since his death. The last 20 years of his life covered a revolutionary period in several arts � and his work tends to make more sense as a precursor of movements which have emerged since � Conceptualism, Da-da, Minimalism. Rather like Cage (who was the source of one Satie revival) Satie redefined what a musical composition is � how it might be put together and how it might be appreciated or understood. On the one hand his pieces may look like quirky short tunes � on the other the quirkiness arises both because of their titles and the integration of text into them and because of some of the musical devices used � which cover both repetition and polytonality.

I feel happiest at the moment regarding Bryter Later, the tune, in that spirit. It may look like a simplish tune played through twice � but the meaning arises from a combination of both internal and contextual elements:

a) the simplicity of some of the musical devices used to construct the tune

b) the overt musical meanings in the flute solo which extends the genre dimensions of the piece, recalls the sax obligato in City Clock and anticipates the one in Poor Boy (and the piano solo)

c) the juxtaposition of the �absences� in the piece with the voltatility and and contradictions in the meanings of the pieces which surround it � a path which might lead both into Derrida�s notion of the endless deferral of the fulfilment of meaning and the importance of seriality in art since the 1960s and especially since Warhol