Brassaï's Parisian night photography

Here is Brassaï himself, towards the end of his life [in a 1976 interview with Claude Bonnefoy], describing one of his night-time expeditions in the early 1930s: 'I used to spend whole nights beside the canal, waiting for the right moment to take the shot, or in other words for a little fog to soften the lights. Often the hirondelles, the policemen on bikes, seeing a man squatting down would stop and ask me: "What are you up to?" And I'd say: "I've come to take a photo." At two in the morning, that seemed like an odd thing to do. So, I'd have a couple of prints on me so I could show them what it was possible to achieve at night. Then the ones that liked taking pictures would ask me for advice. I explained to them that I had several exposure times - the "Gauloise exposure", in other words the time it took to smoke a Gauloise, and the "Boyard exposure", which was about twice as long. This airy description, long after the event in question, contrasts with remarks made by Brassaï during the 1930s when he referred to 'a period of endless experiments with developers and exposure times', which were probably closer to the truth. The table of exposure times, reproduced at the back of Camera in Paris, shows that far from being a mechanical and repetitive practice the calculations involved a number of parameters, including natural lighting conditions and supplementary light sources. The exposure time could be anything from a fraction of a second to ten minutes or longer: 1/50 of a second for a photograph taken using flash ('14 July, Place de la Bastille'; 'Parisian cats'), one minute without supplementary light ('A carriage in front of "Le Dôme""), ten minutes for a Seine embankment shrouded in fog, or a panoramic view taken from one of the towers of Notre-Dame.

- Sylvie Aubenas & Quentin Bajac, Brassaï: Paris Nocturne, London, 2013, p.196-98.

All I needed was the love you gave

Thursday music corner: The Flying Pickets are a British a capella vocal group formed in London in 1982 from a group of theatre actors. Taking their name from a union term for mobile strikers who join picket actions, the group was founded by Welsh actor / singer Brian Hibbard, and originally consisted of six members. 

The band had a huge British hit single at Christmas 1983 with their cover of Yazoo's Only You, which was the Christmas number one and topped the British singles charts for five weeks. This bested Yazoo's chart performance for the Vince Clarke-penned single, which reached number 2 in the UK charts in May 1982.

The Flying Pickets have released 13 albums, the first of which, Lost Boys, reached number 11 in the UK albums charts in 1984, and number 19 in Sweden. Their cover of Only You also topped the singles charts in West Germany and the Republic of Ireland, and hit the top five in Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. The band's follow-up single, the Van McCoy cover When You're Young & In Love, reached number 7 in the UK.

Flying Pickets - Only You (1983)

See also:

Music: Yazoo - Don't Go (1982)

Music: Flying Pickets - When You're Young & In Love (1984)

Music: Housemartins - Caravan of Love (1986)

It's a secular day and it will be even better tomorrow

Thursday music corner: Super Furry Animals are a Welsh indie-rock band formed in Cardiff in 1993, with Rhys Ifans as the original lead singer, who was soon replaced by Gruff Rhys when Ifans devoted his time to his acting career. The band have released nine albums between 1996 and 2009, with two certified gold albums and three certified silver. Their Rings Around the World album in 2001 was their most successful, reaching number 3 in the UK album charts. Super Furry Animals have released 26 singles, 18 of which reached the UK top 40; to date the most successful has been Northern Lites, which reached number 11 in 1999.

Inaugural Trams was the first single from the band's 2009 album Dark Days / Light Years. The spoken-word German phrases are delivered by then-Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy.

Super Furry Animals - Inaugural Trams (2009)  

See also:

Music: Super Furry Animals - Northern Lites (1999)

Music: Super Furry Animals & The Beatles - Peter Blake 2000 (sound collage, 2000) 

Music: Gruff Rhys - Loan Your Loneliness (2021)

Merely cannon fodder in the 19th Cavalry

Thursday music corner: Bonny Light Horseman are an American folk trio consisting of established singer-songwriters Anaïs Mitchell, Eric Johnson and Josh Kaufman. Formed in 2020, the band has released three albums: a self-titled 2020 debut, Rolling Golden Holy (2022) and Keep Me On Your Mind / See You Free (2024). All three albums have reached the top 20 of the UK Indie charts, and they have been nominated for two Grammy awards. The band takes its name from a Napoleonic-era traditional folk song.

Someone to Weep for Me was the fifth and final single released from Rolling Golden Holy. 

Bonny Light Horseman - Someone to Weep for Me (2022)

See also:

Music: Bonny Light Horseman - Deep in Love (2019)

Music: Bonny Light Horseman - Lover Take It Easy (2024)

Music: Bonny Light Horseman - I Know You Know (Yttling Jazz Remix) (2025)

Do not obey what most people say

Thursday music corner: Bran Van 3000 is an indie rock band from Quebec, who have released five studio albums between 1997 and 2015. Of these, three entered the Canadian album chart top 20: Discosis (#5 in 2001), Rosé (#9 in 2007) and The Garden (#15 in 2010). The band has also had four Canadian top 40 singles from 1997 to 2001, the first of which, Drinking in L.A., also reached number 9 in Sweden and number 3 in the UK singles charts.

Astounded, the opening track on Discosis, is the band's most successful single, reaching number 3 in the Canadian charts and achieving top 40 status in the UK and in the US Dance chart. It features vocals from legendary American soul singer Curtis Mayfield, used after his death in 1999 by prior permission of the artist, and derived from 1980s archival recordings.

Bran Van 3000 - Astounded (feat. Curtis Mayfield) (2001)

See also:

Music: Bran Van 3000 - Drinking in L.A. (1997)

Music: Bran Van 3000 - Everywhere (1998)

Music: Bran Van 3000 - Call Me (I'll Be Around) (2007)

 

Scenes from a West Country horse-fair

The crowd had thickened perceptibly now; and Wolf realised that he was seeing the most characteristic gathering for that portion of the countryside that he was ever likely to see. Here were smart self-satisfied tradesmen from Ramsgard with their wives and their girls. Here were weather-stained carters from Blackmore; cider-makers and cattle-dealers from Sedgemoor; stalwart melancholy-looking shepherds from the high Quantocks; a sprinkling of well-to-do farmers from the far-off valley of the Frome; sly, whimsical dairymen from the rich pastures of the Stour; and, moving among them all, slow-voiced and slow-footed, but with an infinite zest for enjoyment, the local rustic labourers that tilled the heavy fields watered by the Lunt.

The two men pushed their way back to the taut, vibrating rope, beyond which the driving contest was now proceeding; and as they rested there, Wolf's mind felt liberated from all its agitations, and he drank in the scene before him with unruffled delight. The peculiar smells that came to his nostrils - leather, and straw, and horse-dung, and tobacco-smoke, and cider-sour human breath, and paint, and tar, and half-devoured apples - were all caught up and overpowered by one grand dominant odour, the unique smell of the trodden grass of a fair-field. Let the sun shine as it would from the cold blue heaven! Let the chariots of white clouds race as they pleased under that airy tent! It was from the solid ground under human feet, under equine hooves, that this Dorsetshire world gave forth its autochthonous essence, its bitter-sweet, rank, harsh, terrestrial sweat, comforting beyond conscious knowledge to the heart of man and beast.

Nothing could have been more symbolic of the inmost nature of that countryside than the humorous gravity with which these lean yeomen and plump farmers drove their brightly-painted gigs and high dog-carts round that hoof-trodden paddock! The obvious reciprocity between the men who drove and the animals driven, the magnetic currents of sympathy between the persons looking on and the persons showing off, the way the whole scene was characterised by something casual, non-official, nonchalant - all this produced an effect that only England, and perhaps only that portion of England, could have brought into being. Behind Wolf and his companion surged a pushing, jostling, heterogeneous crowd, giving vent to a low, monotonous murmur; and behind them again could be heard the raucous cries and clangings and whistlings from the noisy whirligigs.

- John Cowper Powys, Wolf Solent, London, 1929, p.174-5 (1961 edn.).