What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XIV)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 31 December 2017
On the eve of a new year, it's time for a new thread.
Last year's thread can be found here:
(2018)
Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa
Already my favourite Beth & Joe studio album this one kicks off like a couple of double espressos at day beak!
King Tubby - Declaration of Dub.
Another standout effort from His Highness, Osbourne Ruddock, dub master supreme. (IMHO). 
A great album. Where the guys once started in imitation of electronic music with a more traditional jazz trio type of approach, but now have integrated more and more electronics as well. But as they have done that in a tastefull manner, it’s a great album...
band/orchestra
It's a quote that fits some in the jazz community's penchant for self-important navel gazing too of course—following the release of Man Made Object one or two of the more reactionary elements of the UK jazz scene questioned whether the group could even be called jazz. Its a debate that we can deal with quickly—as
b.1964
woodwind
A Humdrum Star is a definite jump forward in the incorporation of electronic music into the GoGo Penguin sound and, like it or not, jazz. The signs were certainly there in 2016, when bassist
" data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Nick Blacka spoke of the greater freedom, or at least absence of rules he saw in electronic music, yet this time there is a greater confidence in realising their intentions. Its an openness that allows the group to take compositional inspiration from different sources and methods—they have, for example, sometimes started the traditional way on bass and piano while on others used modern production packages such as Ableton and Logic to make initial sketches that they can collectively develop. It's a 'whatever works' attitude that has allowed them to capture that creative spark in the most efficient way, not losing the moment in requiring a certain set of instrumental pre-conditions to be met.There is a rush to the opening trio of compositions that serves as a good weather-vane to your likely reaction to the record. The moody "Prayer," soulful piano underpinned by electronic rumble and effects, leading rapidly into the higher register chiming piano of "Raven" that starts in jazz before heading towards the sort of territory explored by Roni Size's Reprazent in the 1990s. Its neither entirely drum & bass, nor acoustic jazz, but it does include a great improvised piano solo from " data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Chris Illingworth in a modern classical style, and is generally fantastic. The album's killer, the immense "Bardo," is better still. Illingworth's high register piano seeming to float over the bass and sub-bass rumble to give a remarkable sense of acoustic space. The track is currently getting attention in the UK from the likes of Mary Anne Hobbs on the BBC's enlightened 6music station, and is an extraordinary piece of music, quite possibly the best thing they have done to date. The use of piano over electronic beats has echoes of the mid-1990s progressive house of Brian Transeau or the more European take of Shazz on the French F-Communications label— although for the good of your continued membership of the jazz community it is probably best to keep this to yourself.
There is an increased confidence to the performance on "Strid" too, the audacious way that the piece jumps like a DJ's fader has been flicked to another tune and back. The structure is inspired by the way that fate can randomly intervene in our lives, specifically by a beautiful yet perilous stretch of the River Wharfe where Nick Blacka grew up. The piano led "Transient State" is perhaps the most similar to the style of previous albums but even here there is a greater assurance in the way that the rhythm shifts and crunches yet remains in keeping with the original theme. It also features some great cymbal work from
" data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Rob Turner at the final breakdown that builds the excitement and would sound fantastic live.For GoGo Penguin, A Humdrum Star is the culmination of the musical development they have been building towards since their debut Fanfares appeared on
" data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Matthew Halsall's Gondwana records back in 2012. The influences from electronic music have been absorbed, developed and interpreted from the standpoint of musicians with interests in modern classical, jazz and improvised music which means that, like Mats Gustafsson trying to define jazz, heaven only knows what we should call it. What we can say is that it is an exciting, exhilarating and original blend that freshens up its sources and takes them somewhere new. 2018 has its first classic—highly recommended.Track Listing: Prayer; Raven; Bardo; A Hundred Moons; Strid; Transient State; Return to Text; Reactor; Window.
Personnel: Chris Illingworth: piano; Nick Blacka: bass; Rob Turner: drums.
ewemon posted:
A number of tracks off the new Jayhawks album due out July.
Looking forward to this. How does it sound Ewemon?
kevin J Carden posted:10cc, Sheet Music. Listening to ripped CD and sounding great, but this is one of those albums that has me investigating buying a record player to get the full experience.
Smartass, clever, clever, Art school, stuff perhaps, but clever it certainly is and some belting tunes. An all time fave. Joyous Album.
Kevin, by coincidence I have just been listening to "How Dare You" - a real blast from the past from my teenage years! Graham Gouldman still performs as 10cc and they still sound good.
Chunky posted:ewemon posted:
A number of tracks off the new Jayhawks album due out July.
Looking forward to this. How does it sound Ewemon?
Wish I could tell you but not allowed to. It is a condition of my getting samples up front of most of the new releases I post and this one is no exception.
On vinyl...
Gregg Allman, Southern Blood, original UK vinyl
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Best of on Verve, Tidal
J.J. Cale - Live WAV CD rip, and Shades Original UK vinyl
Two of my oldest and dearest friends visited for the weekend, lots of walking on the moors, nice wine consumed, and music played. Most of the music was background as we talked, but these 4 demanded full attention.
Gregg Allman Southern Blood I play a lot here, a master singer choosing songs from his great contemporaries and using the last months of his life to create a fantastic monument, grown up rock and blues songs about living life and leaving it sung with heart.
The Ella and Louis doesn't really need any explanation, two,of the greatest singers of the 20th century taking on the standards, and showing Just why their reputations are so high, utterly compelling singing.
Then J.J. Cale, both albums we played are wonderful, but for me especially Live. A hybrid of blues, rock, folk, country with a sultry rhythm backing, J.J.’s conversational vocals, and the songs, better known by other artists, Cocaine, Call Me The Breeze. Then that guitar, he dragged the greatest emotion out of a sustained note, out of perfectly judged gaps between notes, and out of occasional running lines of gloriously simple melody. It takes a truly top-rank musician to make such beauty out of such deceptive simplicity.
It’s my friends’ silver wedding anniversary soon, a trip to the river for a copy of Live has sorted part of their present.
Still think this is his best album. If you love rocking blues then give this a listen
Last one for this evening as my nephew is due over with a demo of some new songs for his band.
Bentley Caldwell - The Place That I Call Home.
Tidalising this at the mo', ............... great shout, yer man Ewen, and NigelB .............. cheers chaps! 
(Ain't this Tidal a wunnerful thing, given the present cost of acquiring this particular CD?)
The Fireman - Electric Arguments, finds McCartney at his experimental best in collaboration with Youth.Each track was written ,recorded and sung in the space of a single day, the only criticism is perhaps that the album is too long.
Steely Dan - Aja, 2015 180gm vinyl release
A louche jazzy rhythm underpins complex time signatures and fantastic horn and guitar leads, with appropriately jazzy vocals over the top. Brilliant grown-up decadent lyrics complete the whole, an album that never fails to make me smile and listen deeply.
A new purchase and a singer who is new to me. Early impressions are favourable. A style and voice which reminds of Annie Lennox.
And, no, I didn't buy it because of the cover. 
MDS posted:
A new purchase and a singer who is new to me. Early impressions are favourable. A style and voice which reminds of Annie Lennox.
And, no, I didn't buy it because of the cover.
MDS,are you sure that is spelt correctly ?
Pcd posted:MDS posted:
A new purchase and a singer who is new to me. Early impressions are favourable. A style and voice which reminds of Annie Lennox.
And, no, I didn't buy it because of the cover.
MDS,are you sure that is spelt correctly ?
Yeah. It's definitely "Annie".
Billy Gibbons and The BFG's - Perfectamundo.
With it's Cuban rhythms, ZZ Top it certainly isn't ................ nevertheless, an interesting diversion from the Rev. Billy.
The Stranglers - No More Heroes, original UK vinyl.
Following Steely Dan’s AJA with another great 1977 rock album from a band with a name starting with St. Lyrically definitely angry punks, with Cornwell snarling bitterly between more sensitive singing. Musically a combination of punk aggression and blues rhythms with Dave Greenfield’s swirling keyboards adding lovely textures. Looking back 40 years it feels like puck vocals over high energy rock music, some great songs by a band that can really play.
Bert Schurink posted:A great album. Where the guys once started in imitation of electronic music with a more traditional jazz trio type of approach, but now have integrated more and more electronics as well. But as they have done that in a tastefull manner, it’s a great album...
If 2016's Man Made Object, their first for Blue Note, was an exercise in consolidating past triumphs while signposting potential ways forward, then there can be no doubt that with A Humdrum Star" data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">GoGo Penguin have stepped into a version of that future. Ostensibly the title is a self-effacing reference to a Carl Sagan TV series "Cosmos," emphasising how small and insignificant our world is and by extension our own petty concerns are. The quote reads "We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."GoGo Penguin
band/orchestra
It's a quote that fits some in the jazz community's penchant for self-important navel gazing too of course—following the release of Man Made Object one or two of the more reactionary elements of the UK jazz scene questioned whether the group could even be called jazz. Its a debate that we can deal with quickly—asMats Gustafsson" data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Mats Gustafsson reflected in Sammy Stein's excellent book All That's Jazz: ..."there are actually huge numbers of great players and great music these days but I have no idea what to call their music...." GoGo Penguin are a beautiful blend of elements of jazz and improvised music with clear nods to modern classical, electronica and old school house music. Jazz fits as well as any descriptor but none is entirely adequate for a group that exists in the gaps between those genres. So why would a few conflate a personal view of a record with a declaration that music they don't like is somehow invalid as "jazz"? If we take genre purity to its logical conclusion, then we would never have moved beyond the harp, lute and descant recorder. Absurd yes, but no more ridiculous than defining jazz as something that must have roots in, say, the 'Great American Songbook,' Kind of Blue or even Bitches' Brew—however fine we may find some or all of these. Use what works, play what you enjoy, listen freely, discuss the music you like and ignore the rest. Life really is too short.
b.1964
woodwind
A Humdrum Star is a definite jump forward in the incorporation of electronic music into the GoGo Penguin sound and, like it or not, jazz. The signs were certainly there in 2016, when bassist
There is a rush to the opening trio of compositions that serves as a good weather-vane to your likely reaction to the record. The moody "Prayer," soulful piano underpinned by electronic rumble and effects, leading rapidly into the higher register chiming piano of "Raven" that starts in jazz before heading towards the sort of territory explored by Roni Size's Reprazent in the 1990s. Its neither entirely drum & bass, nor acoustic jazz, but it does include a great improvised piano solo from " data-trigger="focus" title="" data-html="true" data-original-title="">Chris Illingworth in a modern classical style, and is generally fantastic. The album's killer, the immense "Bardo," is better still. Illingworth's high register piano seeming to float over the bass and sub-bass rumble to give a remarkable sense of acoustic space. The track is currently getting attention in the UK from the likes of Mary Anne Hobbs on the BBC's enlightened 6music station, and is an extraordinary piece of music, quite possibly the best thing they have done to date. The use of piano over electronic beats has echoes of the mid-1990s progressive house of Brian Transeau or the more European take of Shazz on the French F-Communications label— although for the good of your continued membership of the jazz community it is probably best to keep this to yourself.
There is an increased confidence to the performance on "Strid" too, the audacious way that the piece jumps like a DJ's fader has been flicked to another tune and back. The structure is inspired by the way that fate can randomly intervene in our lives, specifically by a beautiful yet perilous stretch of the River Wharfe where Nick Blacka grew up. The piano led "Transient State" is perhaps the most similar to the style of previous albums but even here there is a greater assurance in the way that the rhythm shifts and crunches yet remains in keeping with the original theme. It also features some great cymbal work from
For GoGo Penguin, A Humdrum Star is the culmination of the musical development they have been building towards since their debut Fanfares appeared onTrack Listing: Prayer; Raven; Bardo; A Hundred Moons; Strid; Transient State; Return to Text; Reactor; Window.
Personnel: Chris Illingworth: piano; Nick Blacka: bass; Rob Turner: drums.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Bert. I only have the first two.
As soon as I saw your 'review' (
) I knew I had to put it on my wish-list.
C.
MDS posted:Pcd posted:MDS posted:
A new purchase and a singer who is new to me. Early impressions are favourable. A style and voice which reminds of Annie Lennox.
And, no, I didn't buy it because of the cover.
MDS,are you sure that is spelt correctly ?
Yeah. It's definitely "Annie".
Pirelli calendars are not what they used to be!
The Allman Brothers Band - Live Beacon Theatre New York 21 March 2009, recorded during a celebratory run, with Eric Clapton the special guest on this evening .