a-one: Free Association

This was a gift from Tim, sometime in the 1990s.

When I was a very small boy, I had a picture book about a tortoise's birthday. Being a tortoise, what he really wanted for his birthday was a fresh lettuce with a little dewdrop on one of the leaves. As the day wore on, an elephant brought him a gift of a barrel of water, and demonstrated what fun it was to use your trunk to give yourself a shower with the water. Then a hippopotamus came, with a gift of a mud bath. And so on. The tortoise grew increasingly despondent, and despaired of getting a gift he could actually use. As the sun turned into a deep red ball and started to touch the horizon, a small mouse arrived, pushing a large round object wrapped with a bow. It was a beautiful fresh lettuce with a little dewdrop on one of the leaves.

Tim's gifts have got better over the years, but this one feels a bit like a mud bath from a hippopotamus. The kind of noodly jazz-lite with a house beat that you hear in 'pre-club' bars (or so I imagine).

All Music Guide entry for this album