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

Today's soundtrack

10cc: Bloody Tourists

London Grammar - Truth is a Beautiful Thing

This has definitely grown on me. Vinyl sounds sublime.

Steely Dan-Aja

watched a tv show on the making of Aja last night and was amazed at how complex of an album this is. Truly a masterpiece. 

Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Spinning more vinyl. This is an older copy a good friend donated to my collection. 

1977 - UK first pressing (vinyl only)...

Thanks to SS for his post earlier on.

BTW, I’d appreciate if anyone had a spare cover  to donate as mine has been knicked. 

Now Playing....

Pat Benatar - Gravity's Rainbow

Streaming on NAS.......  Taking a trip back to the early 90's this morning with an album that is going to wake this sleepy head up....... Volume up and Pat's belting out the tunes........

1977 original vinyl, produced by & featuring Johnny Winter on guitar.

Dug out these 3 from my 100 Miles LPs - great to listen to them again !

Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

I'm having a vinyl afternoon. Although, my musical choices are random.

Peter Dijkstra - Bach: motets

Allmusic.com:

That Bach's motets are not his most popular sacred choral works is easily explainable. When asked to choose between the Passions' spiritual drama, the Mass' magnificent architecture, the cantatas' infinite diversity, or the motets' inward piety, most listeners will more likely choose any of the former before the latter. Still, for concentrated intensity, it is hard to surpass the motets, particularly in performances as superlative as these by the Nederlands Kamerkoor under Peter Dijkstra. A mixed choir with 26 members, the Nederlands Kamerkoor makes up for its small size with superb singing. The performances here are mellow but lucid, with a devotional but not sentimental tone and a blend that never sacrifices clarity for musicality. Under Dijkstra's skillful and sympathetic direction, they make Komm, Jesu, Komm sound honestly heartfelt; Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden sound sincerely joyful; and Jesu, meine Freude sound like the cri du coeur it is. With super audio sound that puts the listener in the same room as the performers, this disc should be heard by anyone who knows Bach's motets.

This is one of my favorite  AB albums especially the track 'No More Tears' an absolute classic 80's soul ballad well worth checking out..

 ANITA BAKER The Songstress (1983 US 8-track vinyl.

(2013)

Purson with Rosalie Cunningham lead vocalist and bass guitar are a great throw back to some fine 70s rock, prog and psychedelia bands, The Circle and The Blue Door was their debut album.

Remaining in chilled mood, Passenger - The Boy Who Cried Wolf

A beautiful album.

al9315 posted:

 

Dug out these 3 from my 100 Miles LPs - great to listen to them again !

One hundred Miles Davis albums?!!! Yikes, I always thought I had a lot of Miles albums so I’ve just had a count. I count a mere 63, so chapeau to you. 100 shows real commitment. 

First one of Ewan's superb recommendations, John Primer - All Original

...now a drastic change in mood prompts Cara Dillon - Wanderer

I don't know what happens to cause such a change in mood that one minute I am enjoying Mr Primer but suddenly have an urge to listen and relax to Ms Dillon. It just shows me how important it is to have a varied selection of music across a few genres to match music to mood.

Vinyl reissue of the original RCA Victor '1963 release.

I saw this on here recently, which reminded my that I wasn’t able to get it when I downloaded Acoustic Classics II. I found it on Qobuz, and very very good it is too. 

(1971)

Curved Air - Second Album

Many sounds from Purson's music and Rosalie Cunningham's voice in particular have triggered certain old memories and a need for some Curved Air and Sonja Kristina's voice, I'm sure that Rosalie and Sonja could have interchanged almost seamlessly between the two bands!  

Now Playing........

Steely Dan - Aja

Streaming on TIDAL........  Mentions from SPURRIER SUCKS and TONY2011 above prompted me to give Aja a spin, its been awhile.......and sounding mighty fine!

I 'rediscovered' this album yesterday. I make no excuses for listing it here again today, other than that it is a spectacularly great album. It is a great showcase for the exceptional talent of Guthrie Govan too.

Listening to this very fine album...

Ralph Towner / John Abercrombie: Five Years Later

John Kelman By JOHN KELMAN
February 25, 2014
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Ralph Towner / John Abercrombie: Five Years Later
SLIDESHOW The long overdue release of Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie's Five Years Later, originally released in 1982, may well be the most eagerly anticipated of the Re:Solutions series that brings into print—on CD (four titles for the first time, Five Years Later previously only available for a limited time in Japan), vinyl and high resolution digital formats—seven historic ECM recordings. Add the three Abercrombie Quartet albums recorded immediately prior to Five Years Later—1979's Arcade, 1980's Abercrombie Quartet and 1981's M, planned for release later this year in an Old & New Masters Edition box—and all of these two seminal guitarists' ECM recordings will finally be in print on CD internationally, and not a moment too soon.

When Towner and Abercrombie recorded Sargasso Sea in the spring of 1976, they'd already been friends for several years; Abercrombie, in fact, wrote the well-known waltz from his 1975 ECM debut, Timeless, on the piano in Towner's apartment in 1973, aptly titling it "Ralph's Piano Waltz." Abercrombie credits Towner— already established, by this time, as a stunning multi-instrumentalist and distinctive composer with an instantly recognizable harmonic voice, both solo and with improvising world music progenitor Oregon—with helping him develop his own approach to composition, and by the release of Five Years Later both had evolved into inimitable players, writers and, most importantly, musical partners. Like its predecessor, Five Years Later is split between individual compositions and collective improvisation, though this time a full 23 minutes of the album's 50-minute run time is devoted to spontaneous creation.

The composed music is wonderful, with Towner's knotty but intrinsically lyrical "The Juggler's Etude" one of his most memorable compositions to this day and "Caminata" a miniature of singular melancholic beauty. The contrasting light and dark of Abercrombie's "Child's Play" and more dramatic ebb and flow of "Isla" are further evidence of the guitarist's compositional evolution, in just a few short years.

But it's the free improvisations that reveal just how much Towner and Abercrombie's shared language and innate chemistry had evolved—the result of growth in their own separate projects and with more time spent on the road together. "Late Night Passenger" opens ethereally, with Abercrombie's electric 12-string guitar swells and Towner, on classical guitar, layering melodies that might be of the moment but nevertheless feel preconceived—the sign of two improvisers truly looking to build something from nothing. Building to a first inevitable peak, Towner quickly shifts to a simple but effective preparation device—a matchbook, interlaced in the strings of his guitar near the bridge that makes it buzz—adopting a more percussive and propulsive underpinning to allow Abercrombie to take flight with a lengthy solo that gradually entwines with his partner, leading to a harsher conclusion where, between Towner's buzzing and Abercrombie's scraped strings, the two suddenly...just...stop.

With 32 years having passed since Five Years Later and both guitarists either fast approaching or already passing the seventy-year mark, would it be too much to hope that a third installment might be considered? If not, the collected ninety minutes of Sargasso Sea and Five Years Later remain some of the finest, most intuitive and intimately inspired dual-guitar music in the history of jazz.
Track Listing: Late Night Passenger; Isla; Half Past Two; Microtheme; Caminata; The Juggler's Etude; Bumabia; Child's Play.

Personnel: John Abercrombie: acoustic and electric guitars, electric 12-string guitar, mandolin guitar; Ralph Towner: 12-string and classical guitars.

The Mekons - Honky Tonkin’, original vinyl.

Country/folk tinged punk/rock, probably for me the high point  of their long existence. A set of good intelligent songs, well sung and well played, an album I’ve listened to wth immense pleasure for 30 years. 

seakayaker posted:

Now Playing.......

 

Paul Motian - Time and Time Again

Paul Motian (drums), Joe Lovano (tenor saxophone), and Bill Frisell  (guitar)

Streaming on NAS........ Arrived in mail and ripped to NAS, I played this album on TIDAL and really enjoy this trio, so ordered the CD, simply lovely!

Is that a true representation of the cover, seakayaker.   Looks like a pictorial representation of the UK government's Brexit policy. 

M

Listening again to this recent purchase while cooking dinner. This lady has a lovely voice.

(1982)

CSN - Daylight Again

Just because I haven't listened to this in a while and spotted it as I was coming out of  'C' in the library