Dinner Music 78: The weekly lineup
lebanese jazz-folk, avant-pop lounge guitar, summer camp sounds
This week the sound is, perversely, about images, which is really just another way of saying they are about evocation and immediacy. The poet Robert Hass said, “images haunt.” But, I don’t think he quite meant the spooky type of haunting, but something closer to the original meaning which is “to frequent (a place).” It’s about finding the new in the familiar. Getting closer to feeling and story in a moment.
We begin with Harumi, an artist that no one really knows much about and that some posit actually never even existed at all. That’s spooky haunting, right? The album has that early sixties sentimentality — commentary on the world, dreams of love. There’s something in the grain of sound that is cumulative, with each song building on the one that came before. If you’re a Labi Siffre fan, start here. We move into Peggy Lipton’s one and only album, self-titled. You may know her as Rashida Jones’ mother or Norma Jennings in Twin Peaks, but her brief career in music gave us an album that is quiet, with that quintessential flower child energy of the late sixties. Sustained piano melodies, gentle vocals, summer camp harmonizations. This album is what you hope to find when you’re crate-digging at a garage sale. Speaking of Twin Peaks, we move into II by Von Wildenhaus, an avant-pop lounge minimalist album with the mood of the Pacific Northwest and its mysteries. Self described as “guitar noir” music, this instrumental album sweeps through film-esque sound with recurring motifs and haunting (yes, I’m using haunting again!) vocals. If I were to thank any particular label for this newsletter, it would have to be Habibi Funk. From that label, we have Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard by Issam Hajali, an album that was recorded in 1970s Paris and with a limited run of only 75 cassette tapes. It “fuses jazz and folk with Arabic and Iranian influences” to create something “melancholic, stripped down” that doesn’t follow traditional structure, so becomes something unique and of itself entirely. We end with the new Faye Webster, whose song “Lifetime” is probably the most imagistic song I’ve listened to in a long, long time.
Enjoy.
The playlist
Monday
Harumi - Harumi (1968)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Tuesday
Peggy Lipton - Peggy Lipton (1968)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Wednesday
II - Von Wildenhaus (2017)
Bandcamp / Spotify / Other streaming services
Thursday
Mouasalat Ila Jacad El Ard - Issam Hajali (1977)
Bandcamp / Spotify / YouTube / Other streaming services
Friday
Underdress at the Symphony - Faye Webster (2024)
Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube / Other streaming services
Pair with
Pasta with radicchio and balsamic dressing. Thinking specifically about “immediacy” with this one. Easy, delicious, a little bit impressive. That is the perfect combo for a Dinner Music recipe.
Sparkling chenin blanc. I’m sorry, do I say this every week? I can’t stan chenin blanc enough. Seriously, get a sparkling chenin and add it to your dinner rotation!
A lace tablecloth. I think this is the cheapest, chicest way to take your dining room table from boring to cool. There’s something about lace decor that feels decadent, like Oscar Wilde would approve.
Eros The Bittersweet by Anne Carson. “The experience of eros is a study of ambiguities of time.”
Squiggly stoneware dinner plates. Probably a bit impractical, but wow these are very, very fun and would probably make food look very good.
Thank you, thank you.
Have a great week.
Always a good day when Harumi crops up on Substack!