Tim Curran's album "Versus"

I like to take a random punt on i tunes once in a while, how else can you be pleasantly surprised, not knowing what you're buying and you've got a few shockers under your belt, can lead to a broadening of vistas.

 As I'm off games again, with yet another spasmed back (cricket) I've been going a little bit mental, climbing the walls etc. Watching perfect Trestles on the web cast didn't help much, neither did checking out Dane Reynold's blog, where he surfs fairly ordinary waves, one's I can expect to come across and yet the outcome is rather different.


Picture: Tim Curran is also an accomplished surfer who was responsible for the surfing in "Sipping Jet Streams" on the Italian segment, a great surfing flick meets art house travel film.

 But Tim Curran's album did strike a certain chord with me. An eclectic mix of folk, rock and jazz keeps you guessing what's coming next and my spirits lifted like a sun rise...you can't ask for more from an album, so I thought I'd pass on his good vibes.

 Of course my rehab program on my back consists of a lot of swimming. Tim's song "Swim" featuring the somewhat dreamy chorus "I'd rather swim home", seemed such a benevolent call to front crawl, that my mind swam in it.

My mind roamed back to Byron Bay on those beautiful Aurelic evenings, when the sun burns the sky as Helios transports it to its daily resting point. Every evening a lone figure would paddle his Kayak across from Watergos in the south to nearly Ocean Shores to the north. He transported me back there and I actually touched a memory and smelt it again as if for the first time.....wonderful. Thank you.

 So buy it, listen to it, whatever...good stuff.

 Next on my experimental list to try are Herb Alpert and his then band "Tijuana Brass", I'm thinking of taking a punt on "South of the Border" as an album and I'm getting pretty excited about what I imagine Sergio Mendes will unearth. Inshallah.