What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol.IX)

I've got those to work through.

'Sunshiny' Saturday morning music before the wind & rain comes!

"Us and Them" came up on a SBT random selection yesterday, great album

SJB

John Mayer "Paradise Valley" (Spotify Premium US)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN9CVqnPi9c

RTZ "Return To Zero" (Spotify Premium US)

Ludwig van Beethoven:  Andreas Woyke (Piano), Friedrich Kleinhapl (Cello) 

Sonata for Cello and Piano no 4 in C major, Op. 102 no 1

Sonata for Violin and Piano no 10 in G major, Op. 96

Sonata for Cello and Piano no 5 in D major, Op. 102 no 2

Woyke and Kleinhapl forgo the usual three sets of Variations that everyone includes in there Cello Sonata recordings.  Instead, they give us their own arrangement of the G major violin sonata.

Kleinhapl plays on a Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Piazenca 1743 violincello and Woyke joins the ranks of those contrarians who are playing on Fazioli.

Doug,

Regardless of the possible discrepancy in fame, I find it in bad taste to have the names of the two musicians printed in different size. It leaves the impression that one is a super maestro and the other is a third assistant.

Wings "Venus and Mars" (Spotify Premium US)

Meditating......G

Haim, I couldn't agree more but this falls back to the stupidity of marketing school 101 basics.  The perceived star must receive the big headlines.  This falls second place after the "sex sells" chapter.  I find this is achieved in various ways like the different font size, no photos of the "other guys" or full page(s) versus postage stamp size on the last page, or a photo that visually tells you who's the boss compared to the underling.  

Sometimes there is a grouping where there is no outright perceived forerunner and the equality is more fairly distributed but generally even here if it is male / female team the female always comes out on top.

I don't want to generalize but I have a sore spot to generally pick with egotistical string players and I'm going to pick on violinist today.  Otherwise known as the super ego arrogant genus species.  For example, Beethoven's Violin or Cello Sonatas are really titled Sonatas for Klavier und Violine (or Violincello) and not the other way around.  Beethoven wasn't a string player foremost and everything he wrote would have generally started on the piano.  The common misconception these days is that the pianist is the accompanist (like with vocal music or lieder).  In the former, this is not true.  It must be a meeting of equals although technically with the likes of the Beethoven, Brahms etc. the pianist carries the lion share of the load.  These composer's were mainly pianists after-all.  No matter though - it should never be lopsided and the equality should be shared.

Who's the boss (focus is only on Kavakos)?

Orkis who?

Equal font size but one of the rare photos where the pianist actually gets the dominance.  Marketing 101 says Uchida is the name that will guarantee more sales.   It always about the money in the end...

A few examples of a more modern day equal pairing:

This is getting better.  A meeting of equals generally accepted but rightly or wrongly the subconscious still perceives Faust with the edge and this is intentional.  Her name is first and she is slightly in the foreground on the photo. 

Another rare example of equal pairing but with the subtle dominance to the female given through visual queues.

On CD:-

Josh Ritter "The Beast In Its Tracks" (Spotify Premium US)

Howard once you get passed the heavy riff's you can hear the blues and jazz influence that made a lot of Sabbath's song's really swing.

The Minus 5 "Killingsworth" (Spotify Premium US)

rummaged my iTunes database and discovered this forgotten album...

Received early copy due to Bandcamp purchase. Very good arrangements and atmospheric backing vocals with Adrian Crowley to the fore.

http://gillsandell.bandcamp.com/album/light-the-boats 

There's a lot of euphoria around his 'Bobness' at the moment....... Just thought I would give this fantastic album a long overdue play.

Double Vinyl  

Black stuff. A bit of hippy music for a Saturday evening.

Country Sleep, Night Beds

This is a treat. I agree about Carpet Crawlers (though rather curiously described on my CD sleeve as “The Carpet Crawl”!?).  The live performance seems richer and more intricate than the TLLDOB version.  Firth of Fifth good too but I know what I like was the biggest nice surprise. 

Well worth the money. Think my Genesis collection is now complete.

MDS