Please note: if the stream buffers, click on this link and select the option to listen through your desktop player.

Just a few months after pecking my way out of my egg, I took flight with my parents to live in a place called Sainte Rose du Lac, on the prairies of Manitoba. I was far too young to form any memories of the place that I can recall, instead I have appropriated stories from my family. Dad skiing to work, Mum wrapping us kids up in so many layers that we could hardly move, stuffing us in cardboard boxes and dragging us in sleds across frozen lakes to feed bears peanut butter sandwiches in the Riding Mountain National Park, before singing us to sleep beneath the wailing of the Northern Lights.

All the half imagined memories I’ve been fed over the years have woven together with vague conceptions of Canada’s vast landscape, so now beyond the Atlantic, just above the USA, lies a dreamlike expanse of windswept plains, fragrent pine forests and endless, bitter cold lakes.

Although this may bear some resemblance to parts of Canada, I’m sure it’s a laughably naive description to anyone who actually knows the place. The variety and cultural blend of music played on this week’s Treasure Nest gives the lie to this romantic silliness. Nonetheless, the gorgeous, atmospheric sounds of The Wilderness of Manitoba have plucked at my memory’s heartstrings since the moment I first heard them, making me long for recollections of a childhood lost in Canada before my brain began to record.

Anyway, enough reminiscing, back to Treasure Nest, Canada style! This particular treetop shrine to audio joy is lined with varied rhythms from across the country. There’s Quebecois folk, both traditional and new, from the slightly unhinged, stridently sexy a cappella harmonies of Galant, tu Perds ton Temps to Bette + Wallet’s punk accordian lament about squeegee kids in winter.

From Toronto there’s Cuban licked jazz in the shape of Jane Bunnett. Canada’s first lady of saxophone and flute, as well as being an award winning composer and musician, is a social activist whose work to spread cultural understanding between Canada and Cuba has earnt her the official recognition of her home country in the shape of The Order of Canada. Bunnett’s music is an incredibly rich blend, challenging and vital in its layering of rhythmic culture upon culture. Her latest project, Embracing Voices, is a perfect example of her imaginative, boundary breaking approach.

There’s also a healthy dose of lo-fi shoestaring from Alberta’s Chad Vangaalen, who’s EP is available for free download from his Myspace, and a heartbreaking lovesong from Montreal’s Leif Vollebekk. Add to the mix Canadian heavyweights Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, and three super slick kinky lounge pop numbers from coquettish chanteuse Caracol, a few non Canadian crepes to layer between the maple syrup, some rambling from this little bird, and Treasure Nest’s good to go.

Playlist for Oh, Canada! Treasure Nest 24.01.10

Les Sauvageau - Les Tireux D’ Roches
Dingo De DJango - Christine Tassan and les Imposteures
L’amour est un tricheur - Caracol
Master Song - Leonard Cohen
La Comparsa - Jane Bunnett
Somerhill - The Miserable Rich
Crows Feet - The Wilderness of Manitoba
Willow Tree - Chad VanGaalen
Love on the Brew (Radio Edit) - Worm
Go! Canada - 6 Day Riot
You Couldn’t Lie To Me In Paris - Leif Vollebekk
Cold box - Caracol
Squeegees - Bette + Wallet
Shosholoza - Zogma
In The Pines - Sarah McQuaid
That Song About the Midway - Joni Mitchell
Our socks forever more - This Is The Kit
Samara (Bulerías) - Camarón De La Isla
Decara A La Pared - Lhasa De Sela
Rabbit Story - Ahn Sook Sun
En Filant Ma Quenouille - Ffynnon
P Stands For Paddy/Road To Lisdenvoorna/Sporting Paddy - Dave Gossage and The Celtic Mindwarp
Quand J’étais Fille À Marier - Galant, tu Perds ton Temps
Summer Shoes On - Michael Jerome Brown
Get Up-Sam Sam - Les Mon Oncles
Paye La Traite - La Bottine Souriante
Tes larmes - Caracol
Ula Nagalei - Nørn
Que Reste T’il De Nos Amours ? - Angelo Debarre & Ludovic Beier
El Rio - Jane Bunnett and The Spirits of Havana

OBSESIÓN / Obsesión’s interview

This week, Treasure Nest is one year old. Your favourite treetop shrine to audio joy has nestled in the canopy of the Custard Factory’s Rhubarb Radio plantation for 35 hours of airtime. 12 Special guests have clambered up through the branches to join Magpie Brown in the studio, and we’ve played a heady concoction of tunes from 42 different countries.

As you’ll see from the massive length of this week’s playlist, Treasure Nest is now two hours long, which means there’s be much more time for japes and tomfoolery, and, more importantly, more music than you can shake your tail feathers at.

Rhubarb Radio’s audio stream has been fixed, so you should have no trouble listening through the player above, do let me know if it still buffers.

I hope you enjoy the show, please follow the links to find out more, and spread the word about Treasure Nest by embedding it in your own little corner of the interweb, by following this link. If you have some music you’d like Treasure Nest to share with the world, just get in touch.

A Minha Menina - Os Mutantes
Funky In Here - The Dayton Sidewinders
Boca Abajo - Habana Abierta
Gypsy Doodle - Analogik
La’w Vlé - Kassav
Suni - Dotschy Reinhardt
Timido Tango - Banda Bardò
Ravatan - Tarantolati di Tricarico
Melancholy Flower - Mama Matrix
Kibori - Mahala Rai Banda
You and Me - Yes Sir Boss!
May We Meet - Dave Rybka
Brown Box - Maybe Myrtle Tyrtle
Lijo - Alina Orlova
Piazza, New York Catcher - Belle and Sebastian
Ghosts - Laura Marling
Conquistador - Emily Manuel
De Cara a la Pared - Lhasa de Sela
Your Rocky Spine - The Great Lake Swimmers
A War I Cannot Win - Phil King
Dead Man’s Curve - The Master Chaynjis
Don’t Mean to Sound Cynical - John Napier
La Vida - Obsesion (Watch their interview above)
People of the Light - Tumi and the Volume
Passing Time - John Fairhurst
Adagio - Seven Ages
Frisson - Mukta
Afoxé - Benjamin Taubkin & Núcleo De Música Do Abaçaí (twice because it’s so lovely)
? - Shambel Belayneh (provided by Blue Nile in Hockley)
Ravatan - Tarantolati di Tricarico
La’w Vlé - Kassav
Uzobuya Nini? - Simphiwe Dana
Sylvia - Sa Bat Machines

Who says Christmas shopping has to be a horrible, stress filled nightmare? Lots and lots of people, is the answer to that question. How awful trawling through aisle after garish aisle of tinsel strewn tat, trying to remember what particular shade of purple your grandmother can bear to wear, which obscure author your most pretentious relative is raving about at the moment.

Once New Year arrives, then, nothing short of a miracle will coax your average sentient human being over the threshold of any retail establishment.

Occasionally, however, a magical shopfront emerges from the biting winter cold, a treasure trove to rival Mister Benn’s Special Costume Shop, or the finest confectioners your childhood memories can muster (mine is the Stars newsagent in Parton Road, Aylesbury).

Duttons for Buttons in Harrogate is a case in point. No prizes for guessing what’s for sale here- thousands upon thousands of buttons of every shape, colour and size, made from plastic, wood, porcelain, shell, glass, leather and no doubt many other materials. This place does exactly what it says on the tin.

You may not think you need buttons, but once you see the enormous selection of tiny, beautiful discs, stored away in neat little boxes and glistening like jewels from every corner, you’ll change your mind. Even if they’ll be stored away in a tiny tin on a shelf somewhere, to be taken out and examined at a later date, they’re still worth the investment.

Once you’re all buttoned out, leave the shop and turn right down the hill toward The Ginnel, and you’ll soon find vintage paradise Space Harrogate. Prepare yourself for another Mister Benn experience- this place will take you back a few years, to a time before objects had the corners knocked off. Every few feet of the floorspace is stocked by a different proprietor, so you can lay your hands on anything from working jukeboxes to empire line wedding dresses, hand crocheted berets or original copies of The Bionic Woman.

Incisive and beautiful, sensitive yet uncomfortable, Mark Jenkins‘ work speaks to the layer that trembles beneath our conscious train of thought. Those apparitions we see only in dreams are made plainly visible in the midst of mundane street scenes and bucolic landscapes- a man drowing himself, head buried beneath the lapping tide, legs in jeans grappling with the pavement through holes in a rubbish sack, a woman lying precariously along the uppermost edge of a grubby billboard. His work can be see at Lazarides Gallery.

NB If you’re having trouble listening from here, click this link then choose ‘play in your desktop media player.

This week’s show is a hot water bottle, to slowly melt the ice and warm your bones. We’re travelling from cold lands and ice bound, clinking sounds, through to more temperate climes, then on to the tropics and Sub Saharan Africa. Those of you familiar with hypothermia will know it’s dangerous to warm up too quickly, so we’re taking it just a few degrees at a time. I’ve given each track a temperature based on its origin, starting off in Russia.

-14°C - Moscow - Scotchna & Lebedig – Gregori Schechter and The Wandering Few

The Russian capital is the birthplace of Gregori Schechter and The Wandering Few. An incredible clarinetist with a heartfelt passion for Klezmer- Jewish celebratory music with an unclear history going back thousands of years- Gregory and his band are also literally available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

-13.5 °C Montreal and Detroit - Kill/Any Type of Way – Tor/Sufjan Stevens

Next we head to North America for a track from Montreal rapper Tor’s darkly atmospheric remix of an album by Detroit born producer Sufjan Stevens. Illionoize is available for free download here, and it gets better with each listen. Star of Wonder/None Shall Pass is gorgeous.

-6°C Stockholm - Smält Mig Tilglod – Sofia Karlsson

According to Swedish Treasure Nest listener Anders Falbe, the title of Sofia Karlsson’s track Smält Mig Tilglod means ‘melt me into embers’, more or less. This is appropriate, as the young folk singer’s native city is the last in this playlist to shiver below freezing.

I recently had the priviledge of seeing Sofia Karlsson play a breathtaking gig at Vega in Copenhagen- probably the city’s most hygge live music venue. Karlsson’s band comprises fantastic musicians - especially percussionist Fredrik Gille, who played an intricate and totally unexpected tamborine solo while the others were preparing for the next song, and English fiddle player Emma Reid.

The audience at Vega sat hushed and expectant as Karlsson tripped delicately between Swedish folk infused ballads, frenetic toe tapping jigs and even a spot of yodelling. There’s immense strength and subtlelty in Sofia’s tiny frame, no wonder she’s won both Swedish and Danish Grammies.

1°C Bristol - No 1 – Ben Capp

What better way to melt than to the slow, emphatic build of Ben Capp’s No 1? I could go on about this gentleman for ages, much better to let his work speak for itself. Check out his production at Reecho. A fascinating photographic insight into the 80s and 90s Bristolian subculture that spawned Tricky, Portishead and the trip hop tradition comes in the shape of Beezer’s Wild Dayz, and the accompanying exhibition continues at Bristol City Museum until March 2010.

2°C Cardiff - Yr Adar Gwylltion – Ffynnon

Next up, Treasure Nest favourites Ffynnon with their haunting song Yr Adar Gwylltion. Last I heard, Ffynnon were touring a musical adaptation of a Mabinogion legend called Hunting the Giant’s Daughter. If their live performance at last year’s Wadebridge Folk Festival is anything to go by, audiences are in for something very special.

22°C - Dakar - Yaye Fall – Carlou D

Statuesque, ethereal and supremely confident (justifiably so, I hasten to add), Carlou D was the highlight of the Womex 2009 showcases. He was visibly fired up by the need to share a heartfelt, political message about his country and culture, and the whole affair spoke of the way artists such as himself are often exoticised by the European music industry, rather than just listened to and engaged with on an intellectual level. Carlou D is represented by the wonderful Motherland Music, who are also looking after Suzanna Owiyo.

24.3°C - Brazzaville, Abidjan, Rabat - Sobe/ The Chance – Ya Tatchi

This track is taken from a newly released collaboration between Congolese trumpeter, composer and band leader Patrick Tatih, Moroccan guibri virtuoso Majid Bekkas and musicians from Ivory Coast. Fusing jazz, West African and Arabic rhythms, Jazz ‘n Bar is luxurious yet understated- perfectly uplifting during these cold, dark months.

25°C - Cairo - Asrar el Ein – Hossam Ramzy & Sammy el Bably

Check out the brass section on this track- breathy, warm and deep as a canyon.

29°C - Rio de Janeiro - Se Não Avisar o Bicho Pega – O Rappa

This track is taken from a live recording for MTV in 2005. The exclusive concert was attended only by friends of the band and member’s of O Rappa’s official fan club, and included a special guest appearance by Maria Rita on Rodo Cotidiano.

29°C - Ouagadougou - Mama Africa – Waka Tibio

This track is, in the parlance of hip hop hypsters the world over, HEAVY, as are Waka Tibio and Ali Diallo- the man behind Ouagadougou’s Waga Hip Hop Festival.

30°C - Reunion Island - Lafrikindmada – Lindigo

30°C - Abidjan - La Folie O – Melek

32°C - Abuja - My Lady Frustration – Fela Kuti

Last but by no means least- three more to get us up to a sticky 31°C. Firstly, I dare you to stay still to anything by Lindigo, who’s uber vibrant brand of traditional Reunionese Maloya is currently raising the rafters of several venues in France. La Folie O is taken from Melek’s album Inspirations . It’s a ridiculously infectious plea to embrace insanity in your day to day life- including lines like “J’embrace ma lady à la folie/Elle me dit, “cheri je t’aime!” à la folie!” Lastly, Nigerian legend and father of all things afrobeat, Fela Kuti. Fela fans can expect more releases from his back catalogue through Knitting Factory Records in 2010, and there are also rumours of a biopic.

Fresh from the Australian Joys of Spring album launch just a few days ago at Gertrude’s Brown Couch in Melbourne, John Fairhurst has revealed the first confirmed dates in his 2010 tour. On January 11th, with one ticket for him, one for his guitar, and armed with a video camera, he’s starting up Australia’s East Coast on a busking tour. From Melbourne, John will head up to Sydney, busking along the way, in time to record a session at independent radio station and distributor Sideways Through Sound.

From there he’ll set off for Brisbane, then on to the Australian Country Music Busking Championships at Tamworth Country Music Festival. The competition takes place on Tamworth’s Peel Street, and festival goers turn out in droves with their deckchairs and sun shades to watch the acts.

This is more than your average busk to coax some loose change out of the public’s pockets, however. As well as a $1,400 cash prize and the chance to perform at the festival’s closing ceremony, talent scouts from major record labels have been known to pounce on precocious talent in previous years.

Past competition winners include EMI Australia’s country music star Troy Cassar-Daley, and the edgy Kasey Chambers-performing here with her husband Shane Nicholson.

Check John Fairhurst’s website for his progress through the outback, before he heads to the USA for the next leg of the Joys of Spring tour.

“REFRESHINGLY ORIGINAL ….. UNASHAMEDLY FEEL-GOOD MUSICAL THEATRE, designed to kindle a warm, fuzzy feeling in its Christmas audience, and it does so to brilliant effect.”
Dominic Martin, The Stage

Now that Pamela Anderson has dropped out of her first two appearances in Aladdin this Christmas, there’s no alternative but to seek out something a little more warming and wonderous to get those festive sparkles a-twinkling.

Instead of peroxide super boobs, garish transvestites and saucy one liners, how about Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, MokitaGrit style? This hearty mince pie of a story has been adapted for stage by Phil Willmott , and if MokitaGrit’s track record is anything to go by, it should cure even the staunchest Scrooge of the bah humbugs.

MokitaGrit is one of the UK’s most prolific theatre companies, with over 20 productions under its belt after just a couple of years. Quantity, in this case, does not preclude quality it seems, as the company boasts awards from The Society of London Theatres and Brighton Fringe Festival.

I can’t wait to see how this young and vibrant company handles such a classic of Victorian literature- certainly a brave undertaking. If the prospect of such bonafide Christmas cheer is not sufficient to tempt you to the box office at The King’s Head Theatre in Islington (possibly the cosiest venue in London, and apparently the first pub theatre to be founded in the UK since Shakespeare’s day), then warm your hearts and your mulled wine in the knowledge that proceeds from the production will be heading to Great Ormond Street Hospital’s Theatres for Theatres campaign.

For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

It seems that last week, horrific shooting gallery X Factor finally became too much even for uber calm rock god Sting: “How appalling for a young person to feel that rejection. It is a soap opera which has nothing to do with music. In fact, it has put music back decades. Television is very cynical.” Obviously, Sting has no motive to jump on the X Factor band wagon, other than to share his disgust- the guy’s famous enough right? He does have a new album out though, featuring a gorgeous rendition of traditional Halloween song Soul Cake…

What must run through the minds of those thousands of hopefuls who line up like lambs to the slaughter in front of Cowell and his coven? Looking to such unfeeling, self satisfied individuals to approve of one’s voice is like inviting Sweeny Todd to judge Masterchef.

Personally, I think Donna has a fine pair of lungs on her, and she definately means what she sings. If X Factor can teach us anything, it’s that if you like singing and you want to be heard, you should do it regardless of what total strangers think. After all, the birds don’t care, do they? For more on Seeds, check out History of the Future.

Walk up the red carpet into The Nightingale Club just off Birmingham’s Hurst Street, and into a world of A list stars, draped in dead animals and diamante, drowning their jaded sorrows in endless martinis, voguing for the paparazzi like it’s 1990 and hawking up their emotional innards for all to see.

Blinded by the camera flash and incensed at the barrage of impertinent questions yapped your way by endless tabloid hacks high on instant coffee, you’ll stumble into a world so achingly cool, so drenched in Chanel No. 5, that for a while you won’t notice the stench of rotting celebrity flesh.

This is Oscar Wilde’s A Women of No Importance, as seen through the eyes of Ay Mango! Theatre. A world where angels fear to tread, the bottom feeders of red top journalism find their juiciest pickings, and the photo editors employed to cover up It Girls’ modesty with sensitively placed yellow stars have a field day.

Directed by the inimitable Ellie Middleton, with an all female cast, and glamorous soundtrack courtesy of Burn The Bra Crew, Ay Mango! Theatre’s production drags this classic class satire slurring and bitching into the age of reality TV and rubber neck journalism.

When Wilde penned his biting slur on a world he viewed askance from its very heart, the wider public had little idea of the lives their so-called social betters lived, something which made his work all the more scandalous. Behind the glamour of the glitterati, things were just as sordid and messy then as they are in this unshockable day and age, as Ay Mango! Theatre makes deliciously clear.

Mistress Allonby (Claire Corfield) is an Essex girl extraordinaire, too rich and jaded for gold digging, too pissed to keep her bra straps or her tongue from slipping.

Lady Hunstanton (Miriam Edwards) is an aging Cyndie Lauper crossed with Dawn Porter- her blonde is so peroxide it looks like she’s about to disintegrate, and that Nu Yoik drawl is more self indulgent and drawn out than a painful death on a Broadway stage. “Hunny….bunny….treacle pie!” she slurs through lipstick thicker than a rhino’s skin, “I can believe anything, provided that it’s quite, quite fabulous!”

Lady Caroline (Rahil Liapopoulou), meanwhile, pours Greco Versace scorn on all about her, wearing a red dress so utterly expensive that mere mortals like ourselves would have to take out a mortgage to get our hands on it.

Lording it over everyone, unsurprisingly, is Lord Illingworth (Lorna Meehan), who prances around with his cock in the air, bearly held in by his Saville Row suit. He knows the worth of everything, and dollar signs light up his hard little eyes like lust in a young lover’s gaze, as he eyes up all the flesh for sale at tonight’s couture cattle market.

Wide eyed and innocent, Ilingworth’s shy young PA Gerald (Emily Spetch) drinks in all this dazzling refinement, desperate to be part of a world he feels he’s very much beneath, and all the while Hester (Lucy Nicholls), that “woman of no importance”, looks on aghast from behind her handbag, trying not to vomit. I didn’t know whether to side with her, Lord Illingworth, or with those rich girls who just wanna have fun- either way, I certaintly enjoyed seeing how the other half live Ay Mango! Theatre style.

Magpie Brown returned from Womex 2009 in Copenhagen with hundreds of new nuggets of audio joy stuffed between her feathers, and she begun playing them out on Rhubarb Radio this month. Thanks to Bryony and the lovely people at Womex for recommending Treasure Nest to those who visit the site