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

TK421 posted:

Aimee Mann - Mental Illness

Discovered this album a few weeks ago via forum members comments.

It's very addictive and Goose Snow Cone is an excellent track.

Great idea. I've not played this for a while. I'll give the vinyl a spin to join you.

Now Playing......

Pierre Favre Ensemble - Fleuve

Pierre Favre (percussion, drums), Philipp Schaufelberger (guitar), Frank Kroll (soprano saxophone, bass clarinet), Helene Breschand (harp), Michel Godard (tuba, serpent), Wolfgang Zwiauer (bass guitar), and Baenz Oester (double-bass)

Streaming on Tidal.......   Some soft and easy jazz this Sunday Morning......

From ECM Reviews here:

A vital current in the European jazz circuit for decades, Pierre Favre gets full spotlight as composer on Fleuve, which finds the Swiss percussionist in the company of a most unusual ensemble that includes two bassists, tuba, harp, reeds, and guitar. The album certainly lives up to its name, which means “river” in French, and accordingly funnels springs and streams into a larger, contrapuntal current.

Although every musician contributes viable color to the Fleuve palette, the alizarin crimson of harpist Hélène Breschand, forest green of bassist Bänz Oester, sky blue of guitarist Philipp Schaufelberger, and the sunlit soprano saxophone of Frank Kroll (also on bass clarinet) add especially noteworthy streaks to the emerging image. Of that image, track titles such as “Mort d’Eurydice” and “Reflet Sud” give us tantalizing hints, reflecting a mythology as personal as it is timeless.

The music is delicately paced, and spins from that core group (with Favre’s adaptive rhythms completing the pentagon) a narrative of elemental conversion. Whether through the spiraling hide and seek of “Panama” or the angled wingspan of “Albatros,” Favre and his bandmates change up combinations, switching above and below, with seamless intuition. One moment might find a theme pouring from the group in tutti, while the next shifts into a duet of guitar and brushed drums, or harp and bass, that strings every melody with care.

Hints of enchantment abound, as in the bass clarinet ambling along the banks of the “Nile” or the medieval song that ghosts the inner sanctum of “Decors.” As throughout the album, gestures abound with glorious promise and find realization through Favre’s orchestral sensitivity.

An album of sense and originality, this is the pinnacle of Favre’s ECM output.

Slim68 posted:

Jerzy Antczak, String Theory.

I may have posted this one once or twice before This is such a good album, I just never tire of it.

Thanks Simon, you keep re-reminding me to buy this! 

Hamelin in what he does best: (relatively) unknown, virtuosic music, which he makes sound better than it is. Rubinstein's fourth has racked up a fair number of high profile recordings (including an excellent one by Shura Cherkassky, his last studio recording), and it is the best work on this disc. I'm not familiar with Scharwenka's first concerto beyond this recording; It's an easy listen - melodic, epic, but also plodding along without any memorable development. But Hamelin is awesome.

Cheers

EJ

Jeroen20 posted:

Kylie Minoque - The Abbey Road sessions

These Kylie Minoque songs backed by an orchestra are quiet enjoyable.

How quiet?

G

Probably my overall favourite JJ Cale.

G

Marillion, Clutching At Straws.

Ripped from my original 1987 CD and sounding superb.

Super CD compliation of versatilev sunshine popsters:

Stevee_S posted:

Slim68 posted:

Jerzy Antczak, String Theory.

I may have posted this one once or twice before This is such a good album, I just never tire of it.

Thanks Simon, you keep re-reminding me to buy this! 

You're welcome, If you have Tidal, it is on there. I imported the CD from Poland. I have not seen it on Bandcamp.

(1998)

Just because its been a while and there are some great old hits and fillers here that take you right back...

Slim68 posted:

Stevee_S posted:

Slim68 posted:

Jerzy Antczak, String Theory.

I may have posted this one once or twice before This is such a good album, I just never tire of it.

Thanks Simon, you keep re-reminding me to buy this! 

You're welcome, If you have Tidal, it is on there. I imported the CD from Poland. I have not seen it on Bandcamp.

Yep fully Tidalised here and I've had it in My Music there for months, not on bandcamp as you say so I guess I'll have to spring for a CD import.

Sunday's vinyl delight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7YETXELwxs

Lifesigns, Cardington.

Lifesigns is a project of John Young who has worked with a fair few artists Fish being one. This album is well worth checking out if you like some good Prog.

As a side note, I see the Cardington airfield quite regularly as it is not fair up the road from me. Iron Maidens "Empire Of The Clouds" song is written about Airship R101 who's maiden voyage was from Cardington and ended in disaster in France on 5th October 1930, seven years before the Hindenburg.

I'll join you with their eponymous album from 2013. I've not really got into this album or band, but I'll give it another try.

A new discovery for me, following recommendations on here. I’m really enjoying it. I play far less folk music these days, and it’s good to hear more. 

(1972)

Oooh yes... early Savoy Brown doing what came naturally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwgvEOY0vaA

I still can't get on with Lifesigns!

So I switched to Sandy Denny. Playing now 'Like an Oldfashioned Waltz'. Listening to the jazzy tune on here, 'Until the Real Things Comes Along', makes me wonder what direction she might have taken had she not died at the young age of 31 in 1978 and maybe if she'd had the support of good management and free of the influence of Trevor Lucas. There seem to have been too many obstacles.

Todd Rundgren - Something Anything [Double CD] [AAD]

Released 1972

Staying in a folk mood, this is a wonderful tribute album to Ewan MacColl, with every song a fine interpretation. 

Seal's debut album. I have quite a few of his albums and like them all but for me this one remains his best. 

Last vinyl for tonight - Fela Kuti live in '77:

Having enjoyed Seal's debut album I thought I'd listen to his second, too.

This morning's selection.

Now Playing........

John Abercrombie Quartet - Wait Till You See Her

John Abercrombie (guitars), Mark Feldman (violin), Thomas Morgan (double-bass), and Joey Baron (drums).

Streaming on TIDAL.......   Sunday afternoon guitar with John, sounding mighty fine.....

From EMCREVIEWS here: 

John Abercrombie’s moody quartet gets a reboot on Wait Till You See Her, swapping out bassist Marc Johnson with a young Thomas Morgan (in his ECM debut) while retaining violinist Mark Feldman and drummer Joey Baron. Just as the previous outings were exercises in atmosphere, so this 2008 session is a paragon of subduedness, for even at its most swinging (checkpoint: “Anniversary Waltz”), Wait maintains a cautious fusion of reflection and fire. The results are in no way pedantic, but instead shine with robust physicality.

To offset the buff, “Sad Song” opens the album’s mostly Abercrombie-penned journey on a slow note. Whereas in the past, Abercrombie and Feldman took turns at the melodic helm, this time around the guitarist breathes more independently, freeing Feldman to converse with the band’s newest addition. Indeed, violin and bass diagram their conversations softly and with tact, skating across a surface burnished to ebony sheen by Baron’s brushing. Abercrombie proceeds non-invasively, a firefly writing its somber blues through an open shutter. Couched in the chamber aesthetics of “Line-Up,” for another, the Feldman-Morgan circuit fizzles with pizzicato sparks, but returns to a feeling of quietude like a baby to mother’s embrace.

Despite the looseness of the music, its focus finds epitome in Morgan’s bassing. Be it the laser precision of “Trio” (a tent on the album’s camping grounds that leaves no room for violin) or the dreamy tension of the Rodgers & Hart show tune from the album gets its title, Morgan keeps the spine activated while the rest of the body drifts in and out of consciousness. A notable drifting out takes place in “I’ve Overlooked Before,” which from coolly ambient beginnings draws mysteries in charcoal. Through these reefs Abercrombie moves aquatically, his strings the tendrils of a jellyfish, stretching and compressing to the pulse of the tides. Feldman, ever the dolphin, darts through the currents and lures some of Abercrombie’s most mellifluous playing from the coral. In both “Out Of Towner” and “Chic Of Araby,” the second of which closes shop, the feeling of connection among the quartet is especially intense. To a camel’s gait, Abercrombie snakes through Feldman’s direct hits like a sidewinder, leaving a trail of esses to show for his carriage. For our part, all we can do is follow, tracing our listening along that perfect path in admiration.