This is what I listened to between changing nappies
Posted by: Dev B on 28 April 2003
A selection of new tunes that I listen to between changing nappies this weekend. I got the write ups from an on line and they seem to describe the albums pretty well.
1. Ghazal - Beautiful, mesmerizing, thrilling and profoundly musical ECM debut by the distinguished Indian-Iranian ensemble Ghazal. Since its formation in 1997 by Shujaat Husain Khan and Kayhan Kalhor, long recognized as master musicians in their homelands, Ghazal has stunned audiences around the world with its unique music, which is comprised of improvisations based on Indian and Persian traditional repertoire. Their communicative power is in full bloom on this live recording from Berne, Switzerland.
2. Tomas Stanko Quartet - The Soul of Things - Exceptional balladesque album by the great dark-toned trumpeter and his excellent young Polish quartet. There is a timeless feel to 'Soul of Things' that relates to Stanko's roots as a player. The forward-looking musician is also looking back here, and re-connecting with early influences. He triggers memories of his first heroes - memories of Miles, memories of Chet Baker - in his lonesome, soulful soliloquies.
3. Evan Parker Electro Music Ensemble - Towards the Margins - British saxophonist Evan Parker was one of the first musicians to record for ECM, appearing on the label's fifth album in 1970 as a member of the Music Improvisation Company; his partners in that collective included Stockhausen associate and electronic composer Hugh Davies. Over the past three decades, electronics have been one of Parker's abiding interests and his collaborations both with improvisers using electronics and with composers of electronic music have been many. In 1992 he formed the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble to explore more fully the potential of live electronics in improvisation, a potential that has grown as the technology has become more sophisticated. The Ensemble pools musicians from the worlds of free improvisation, jazz, contemporary composition and computer music research, with most of its members straddling more than one idiom or area of activity. The Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble has toured widely, and its North American debut at the Victoriaville Festival was widely hailed as the event's highlight: "An orchestral music of panoramic scope, full of spatial detail...cascading layers of morphing transmutations ... the electronic manipulations charged the music with a sense of spontaneous discovery" - Cadence, "Ardent ... grandly ambitious ... broadly sweeping schemes, mating improvised activity with MIDI-fied crosstalk" - Jazz Times
4. LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad: Logical Progression Live UK 2002 - Usual high quality stuff from Bukem (Good looking Records)
5. Movement: Perpetual Drum and Bass Motion mixed by Bryan Gee (Movement Records)
6. DJ Kicks - Smith and Mightly - Packed with their own productions and remixes, Smith & Mighty's volume in the DJ Kicks series does a very good job at blending beat-heavy tracks with the pair's occasional experimentalist flair. Including the early Bacharach covers "Walk on By" and "Anyone Who Had a Heart," plus a remix of another longtime pop classic ("The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face") and tracks by other Bristol massives like DJ Krust (Studio K7!)
7. Jacques Lu Cont - Fabriclive 09 is personal and playful, electric and energetic. Including tracks from the roots of rock, the days of disco, the source of house and the edges of electro, Jacques constantly re-loops and re-edits cuts into a bassline-led, vocal-happy, 70 minute bump-a-long. Alongside studio wizardry and mixing mastery is the Lu Cont sense of fun and party-sprit: check Strauss meeting the Eurythmics for evidence. Currently between artist albums, ‘FABRICLIVE 09’ screams the co-ordinates of the former wunderkind’s future direction: this is new Jacques’ CD. (Fabric Records)
8. Ronu Majumdar, Abhijit Banerjee (not related to me, although I wish he was) — Lady Astride the Tiger — On this recording Ronu's mastery of his chosen idiom, that of Hindustani music, is laid bare while his command over his chosen instrument, the Bansuri, is equally obvious. Abhijit Banarjee performs admirably, providing rhythmic accompaniment on the tabla. Rags — Jainjhoti, Bhupali, Durga, and Kashmiri Dhun (Waterlily Acoustics)
1. Ghazal - Beautiful, mesmerizing, thrilling and profoundly musical ECM debut by the distinguished Indian-Iranian ensemble Ghazal. Since its formation in 1997 by Shujaat Husain Khan and Kayhan Kalhor, long recognized as master musicians in their homelands, Ghazal has stunned audiences around the world with its unique music, which is comprised of improvisations based on Indian and Persian traditional repertoire. Their communicative power is in full bloom on this live recording from Berne, Switzerland.
2. Tomas Stanko Quartet - The Soul of Things - Exceptional balladesque album by the great dark-toned trumpeter and his excellent young Polish quartet. There is a timeless feel to 'Soul of Things' that relates to Stanko's roots as a player. The forward-looking musician is also looking back here, and re-connecting with early influences. He triggers memories of his first heroes - memories of Miles, memories of Chet Baker - in his lonesome, soulful soliloquies.
3. Evan Parker Electro Music Ensemble - Towards the Margins - British saxophonist Evan Parker was one of the first musicians to record for ECM, appearing on the label's fifth album in 1970 as a member of the Music Improvisation Company; his partners in that collective included Stockhausen associate and electronic composer Hugh Davies. Over the past three decades, electronics have been one of Parker's abiding interests and his collaborations both with improvisers using electronics and with composers of electronic music have been many. In 1992 he formed the Electro-Acoustic Ensemble to explore more fully the potential of live electronics in improvisation, a potential that has grown as the technology has become more sophisticated. The Ensemble pools musicians from the worlds of free improvisation, jazz, contemporary composition and computer music research, with most of its members straddling more than one idiom or area of activity. The Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble has toured widely, and its North American debut at the Victoriaville Festival was widely hailed as the event's highlight: "An orchestral music of panoramic scope, full of spatial detail...cascading layers of morphing transmutations ... the electronic manipulations charged the music with a sense of spontaneous discovery" - Cadence, "Ardent ... grandly ambitious ... broadly sweeping schemes, mating improvised activity with MIDI-fied crosstalk" - Jazz Times
4. LTJ Bukem & MC Conrad: Logical Progression Live UK 2002 - Usual high quality stuff from Bukem (Good looking Records)
5. Movement: Perpetual Drum and Bass Motion mixed by Bryan Gee (Movement Records)
6. DJ Kicks - Smith and Mightly - Packed with their own productions and remixes, Smith & Mighty's volume in the DJ Kicks series does a very good job at blending beat-heavy tracks with the pair's occasional experimentalist flair. Including the early Bacharach covers "Walk on By" and "Anyone Who Had a Heart," plus a remix of another longtime pop classic ("The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face") and tracks by other Bristol massives like DJ Krust (Studio K7!)
7. Jacques Lu Cont - Fabriclive 09 is personal and playful, electric and energetic. Including tracks from the roots of rock, the days of disco, the source of house and the edges of electro, Jacques constantly re-loops and re-edits cuts into a bassline-led, vocal-happy, 70 minute bump-a-long. Alongside studio wizardry and mixing mastery is the Lu Cont sense of fun and party-sprit: check Strauss meeting the Eurythmics for evidence. Currently between artist albums, ‘FABRICLIVE 09’ screams the co-ordinates of the former wunderkind’s future direction: this is new Jacques’ CD. (Fabric Records)
8. Ronu Majumdar, Abhijit Banerjee (not related to me, although I wish he was) — Lady Astride the Tiger — On this recording Ronu's mastery of his chosen idiom, that of Hindustani music, is laid bare while his command over his chosen instrument, the Bansuri, is equally obvious. Abhijit Banarjee performs admirably, providing rhythmic accompaniment on the tabla. Rags — Jainjhoti, Bhupali, Durga, and Kashmiri Dhun (Waterlily Acoustics)