c’est le weekend mes enfants.

time’s a-ticking, it’s nearly christmas, nearly next year. heck, it’s nearly the rest of your life.

it’s also time to slow down a little, even if only for six minutes and forty two seconds and make the most of a day off (though not two; both me & jak are working come saturday night).

i’m always in awe of the new york jazz scene of the fifties and sixties. having only ever crudely managed to get tunes out of pianos, saxophones and trumpets in a hamfisted teenaged way and never having the talent or drive to take it any further than school recitals and local jazz competitions i feel this mild tension hearing the very pinacle of a genre i gummed at the edges of and disgarded in favour of the lure of boys with long hair and guitars.

the very best jazz recordings played back through a crackley stylus into my living room or headphones carries me away on a whistful cloud of admiration and jealousy at the fluidity of sound, the effortlessness of movement and the sheer emotive power of the music.

peace piece is one of those ‘in-tune-with-your-soul’ type joints. it sounds like breathing and takes you away with it on waves of lilting melody, measured harmony and pensive rhythm.

bill evans - peace piece

photo from (via)

So we got the redesign done (almost) in time. I had a post with a link to some amazing versions of september song all planned in honour of our birthday month, but was still changing things on monday-maybe next year.

Most of the nut and bolts for the new look come from the wonderfully talented Robert Ellis and his great wordpress theme. We spent a bit of extra love and attention trying to make it homely and think it is a better representation of who we are.

Expect a few tweaks and refinements over coming days and weeks-(probably weeks actually I don’t think I can face any more sausage fingered tinkering with stuff I barely understand). But this is us for a while.

It’s been a great year, finding out what horse latitudes is all about and seeing it develop into something we love and cherish. We’ve made some great friends along the way and discovered some amazing music, and next september, who knows where we might be.

Here’s to the changing of the tides.

Charles Sullivan-Now I’ll Sleep

so, my man has a talent.

for taking on stuff he knows a little about (like me) and through willpower, perserverance and a not inconsiderable brain making it work for him.

for looking up through a narrow skylight and seeing out into space.

and that, reader, is what you see here.

while all around him might have seemed to have been a blur of wedding plans, trips to france, fried breakfasts, pastry and omnibuses of the wire he was tweaking his magic up in the latitudes to bring you this.

breathe it in.

it is beautiful.

your all new latitudes should make for a better reading experience.

for greater depth and wider breadth.

its like the great glass elevator, it goes sidewises and up and down - explore our old posts via tags and referrals if you’re new; relive them if you’re old.

just come on in - the water’s fine…

pic via

So we’ve made it to friday.

Thankfully, now it’s time to put all that work stuff on the back burner for 60 hours or so and concentrate on the more important things in life. When I say ‘important things’ I’m thinking specifically of chilled beer/bacon and eggs for breakers/borderline inpropriaty/chelsea getting spanked 6-0 and ashley cole leaving the pitch at half time weeping because he’s getting booed by his own supporters/etc etc

You should definitely make time to read stephen fry’s wonder-blog (via df), if not for the incredibly crafted prose then for the ode to all things technological (which coincidently provides a nice counterpoint to yesterday’s thrift post) and try and find time to appreciate all the good stuff you have-amongst the constant noise of city life.

Till next week.

Here’s some funk.

(peace to chidi)

MacAttack-Art of drums

photo via

In a week of deepening financial gloom, the announcement of the UK iphone launch seemed more a reminder of how quickly the perceptions of things can change than the bright glimpse of technological utopia promised in january. Maybe it’s me, preoccupied as I am by house hunting and wedding planning, but money just doesn’t seem to stretch that far in London these days, everyone seems to have money-but none of it seems belongs top them.

It’s not that I don’t love beautiful things, or have suddenly become immune to the sensual delights that good food/clothes/geeky shit can bring, it just seems to me that these things have moved from the periphery of life to become an unhealthy focus. Just look at the aimless losers, spending all day arguing over technology brands on blogs and forums- like that shit means anything.

What happened to buying things for the function, with form an intrinsic, but secondary, factor ?

And I love Apple-I love (some) of what it represents-it’s unrelenting quest for usability and greater interaction between software and hardware.

But I don’t need it.

And thrift has been replaced in our culture (so poorly) with the needless excess of disposable fashion and landfill consumerism. It will make us better people if we can live within our means, better able to deal with the storms that this week’s financial upheavals may well be the start of.

And that iphone won’t tempt me (too much) in November (hopefully), and one day when it’s comes free with my contract it will be both beautiful and practical and, most important of all, bring me a greater, deeper joy.

Gil Scott Heron-Madison Avenue

(pic via)

So everything is kind of moving in slow motion today (which is very nice)

After last weeks horrendous mix of estate agents, spreadsheets and endless to-do lists it feels a slighty break in the busy autumn ahead.

It was a weekend of strange encounters and brief journeys into other people’s lives. Who knew friday we’d end up chatting prince with Rem Koolhaus ?(he’s a fan btw-but I think all dutch people are, right?) and by sunday I’d be staying up to 4 in the morning to catch one of the purple maestros penultimate after shows (for free).

Much as my main motivation right now is to do with creating a home and things staying the same for awhile,  I guess you always need to be looking for ways to take on fresh perspectives (and the challenges they bring)-otherwise you just go stale.

Anyway, it’s starting to sound like I really need an early night. (which I do)

This might help.

Ramsey Lewis-Crescent Moon

So there’s this article that you need to read.

It’s an interview with Steve Earle, someone who I really admire, who was awesome in the wire and who’s music represents all the things that make artistic endeavour good and worthwhile-ie that music at most vital is the product of the same struggle we face in our lives to find some kind of meaningful truth.

And really that should be enough.

But sometimes the stars just align.

Sometimes the world feels like it’s finally righted itself after a long, torturous winter.

Halfway through the article is this quote, from the Hardcore Troubadour himself, which I may well get tattooed across the chest of my first born child.

“I don’t care what you think of them. I’m an Arsenal fan. I fucking am. Fucking Manchester. Fucking Oasis.”

Steve Earle is a gunner.

And all is well with the world.

Steve Earle-Jerusalem

(via)

pic via our pal ross

So it’s been a mother of a week. Moving server turned into the week of living hell…..but we’re back now and everything is beautiful. That geek thing is a foreign country to me and despite being (sort of) conversational about some stuff, when you get a little deeper in it all gets very, very cloudy.

Oh well.

Next week we will be posting again as normal and I will be a lot less sleepy (and when I say sleepy you can read that as grumpy)

Maybe we needed the break.

I feel like an injured player who’s been sitting on the sidelines for half the season, just about to come off the bench.

This ones for learning to appreciate patience.

mc lyte-listen up

nice.

(from suckuk)

giant panda - diggin the tapes

Spent sometime getting into imovie on the train to my parents on friday-it’s really simple to use, but not quite as precise a thing as I (being a little OCD) would like. I put a soundtrack to this awesome video of a star with a comet’s tail (via bb)- the track is the ’still going theme’ by dfa record’s latest still going btw.

Over at basilika we’ve started a new feature guiding lights which puts together the best bits of the hundreds of mp3 blogs we listen to into a bite-sized 30 min mix. Check it out.

The big news of the weekend was the birth of mika charlotte to hl alumnia jez -congrats to the family proctor (expect lots of gentle, uplifting piano music on innersounds for the next few weeks)

Speaking of gentle and uplifting the weekend also saw the death oh Jon Lucien, who’s music has touched and inspired me for many, many years.

R.I.P.

Here’s something to remember him by and to celebrate the birth of the youngest M.C.

John Lucien-Love Everlasting