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:
Now Playing......
John Hiatt - Terms Of My Surrender
Streaming on NAS...... Taking John out for an afternoon, this is one solid album, love it!
MDS posted:nigelb posted:Lizz Wright - Dreaming Wide Awake
Just lovely!
Think I'll try one of her albums.
Try one, then try them all...... Lizz is fantastic, I don't think you will be disappointed....
PaulM160 posted:Stevee_S posted:PaulM160 posted:Stevee_S posted:
(26th January)
Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us
Released today so giving it a try on Tidal
curious to know what you think to this one Steve; I have had a very quick listen & it looks to have got the typical Calexico elements but it might take some more listens I think to see if it really grows & stays or whether it will remain on the fringes of selections.
Hi Paul, I've got the deluxe version going with seven 'bonus' tracks which turns it into a double album. I have to say I am disappointed with a first listen, it is recognisably Calexico of course but doesn't have that down and dirty hot desert vibe going which they nailed on their early albums. I think they are at their best when they get that Enrico Morricone thing going. As you say, it's going to take at least another listen or two to get what they are trying to do on this one. The bonus tracks are more promising than the album most people will get to hear.
thanks Steve, I thought it was just me
My double vinyl copy arrived today.
So far i've played the first two sides and actually like it musically - but i'm finding the mixing - mastering - recording, or whatever, very subduing. Is it just frustratingly compressed? The drummer is far too distant and muffled, the bass guitar is plugged into a bucket of mud with a incoherent distortion that subtracts from the music. I'll have another go with side 3 & 4 later : /
Debs
Now Playing.......
John Hiatt - Mystic Pinball
Streaming on TIDAL....... Continuing on with another of John's albums, great vocals & guitar........
Uncomplicated music to bring a smile to one’s face and unleash a foot-tappin jamboree.
.sjb
1998 - Vinyl - UK pressing...
Now Playing.......
Lizz Wright - Grace
Streaming on TIDAL........ Spending a little time with Lizz this afternoon, fantastic voice, songs, and music!
Review on NPR Website Here:
One of my favorite courses in grad school was "Theology and the Body." We spent the better part of a semester pondering the legacy of Western mind-body dualism and the hierarchical ways of thinking that it spawned, which elevated spiritual and intellectual pursuits (associated with masculinity) above physicality and embodied existence (associated with femininity) and was used to justify the strict discipline of fleshly impulses. It's a very old idea, but one that still holds currency among conservative religious groups concerned with governing how bodies are presented and paired. I've yet to find an artist less encumbered by these timeworn metaphysical debates than Lizz Wright, who's spent the last decade and a half fleshing out a worldview in which spirituality and sensuality dissolve into a tantalizing union.
African-American performers who came up in the church as she did, her father serving as pastor of a Holiness-Pentecostal flock in central Georgia, can sometimes feel the pressure to spell out whether they've remained in the fold or put such commitments behind them. But Wright, a sophisticated straddler of down-home blues, jazz, gospel, folk, southern pop and confessional singer-songwriter traditions, has never allowed for such simplistic distinctions. A couple of years back, she responded to an interviewer's question about the church's lingering influence on her music by reflecting on the "practice of 'feeling on purpose'" she learned there and has carried with her since. "You can't stop caring about having a real experience yourself," she explained, "and you can't stop thinking about what you're making other people feel."
On her sixth album, Grace, Wright translates with phenomenal fluency between inner awareness and outward demonstration, individual seeking and conscious communion, ecstasy and empathy. The achievement's all the more remarkable when you consider that this 10-song set is the fruit of her will to overcome the alienation she felt from her native region in this distressingly divided political climate. Before completing the album with producer Joe Henry, she took a road trip through the rural South, reacquainting herself with the people and places she came from. She told me that there was an urgency to the journey: "I need to remember what I know to be my home ...and the way people relate and the way Southern people work, the way they cooperate, the way they're in tune with the earth. I need to study that right now for my own well-being, because I know the truth. I know my life."
...
2013 - Box Set...
Skeewiff - Greatest Wiffs
Tidal. Man of Constant Sorrow is a great track.
seakayaker posted:Now Playing.......
Lizz Wright - Grace
Streaming on TIDAL........ Spending a little time with Lizz this afternoon, fantastic voice, songs, and music!
Review on NPR Website Here:
One of my favorite courses in grad school was "Theology and the Body." We spent the better part of a semester pondering the legacy of Western mind-body dualism and the hierarchical ways of thinking that it spawned, which elevated spiritual and intellectual pursuits (associated with masculinity) above physicality and embodied existence (associated with femininity) and was used to justify the strict discipline of fleshly impulses. It's a very old idea, but one that still holds currency among conservative religious groups concerned with governing how bodies are presented and paired. I've yet to find an artist less encumbered by these timeworn metaphysical debates than Lizz Wright, who's spent the last decade and a half fleshing out a worldview in which spirituality and sensuality dissolve into a tantalizing union.
African-American performers who came up in the church as she did, her father serving as pastor of a Holiness-Pentecostal flock in central Georgia, can sometimes feel the pressure to spell out whether they've remained in the fold or put such commitments behind them. But Wright, a sophisticated straddler of down-home blues, jazz, gospel, folk, southern pop and confessional singer-songwriter traditions, has never allowed for such simplistic distinctions. A couple of years back, she responded to an interviewer's question about the church's lingering influence on her music by reflecting on the "practice of 'feeling on purpose'" she learned there and has carried with her since. "You can't stop caring about having a real experience yourself," she explained, "and you can't stop thinking about what you're making other people feel."
On her sixth album, Grace, Wright translates with phenomenal fluency between inner awareness and outward demonstration, individual seeking and conscious communion, ecstasy and empathy. The achievement's all the more remarkable when you consider that this 10-song set is the fruit of her will to overcome the alienation she felt from her native region in this distressingly divided political climate. Before completing the album with producer Joe Henry, she took a road trip through the rural South, reacquainting herself with the people and places she came from. She told me that there was an urgency to the journey: "I need to remember what I know to be my home ...and the way people relate and the way Southern people work, the way they cooperate, the way they're in tune with the earth. I need to study that right now for my own well-being, because I know the truth. I know my life."
...
Seakayaker,
As much as I appreciate you, and others, providing websites" critics" feedback like Allmusic and others input, I would be much more interested in hearing what "YOU" actually think of the music. I, for once, no disrespect, cannot be bothered to read all that, preferring to have a good listen and make my own mind up.
Regards,
Tony
MDS posted:nigelb posted:Lizz Wright - Dreaming Wide Awake
Just lovely!
Think I'll try one of her albums.
Mike, my favourite LW album is The Orchard so you could start there as most of them are on Tidal (if you have it). But as has been said, most of her albums are wonderful so you can't go far wrong.
Now Playing......
Lizz Wright - Freedom & Surrender
Streaming on Tidal....... Continuing on with Lizz, she has one fine set of vocal cords and certainly is fine choice for a mellow Saturday afternoon........
Now Playing......
K. D. Lang - Ingenue
Streaming on NAS........ Continuing on with some simply beautiful mellow music on this Saturday afternoon/evening...... Listening to Lizz Wright sing 'Wash Me Clean' on the 'Grace' album prompted me to queue up this K. D. Lang album.
CD Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions
Now Playing.......
K. D. Lang - Absolute Torch and Twang
Streaming from NAS....... As Saturday evening arrives, the volume is creeping up and the beat is picking up with Absolute Torch and Twang. K. D. has such a powerful voice and can certainly perform some Texas swing. When she belts out 'Three Days' I want to put on the boots and get on out on the floor..........
CD David Bowie - The Deram Antology 1966-1968
Now Playing.....
Kid Creole and the Coconuts - You Shoula Told Me You Were...
Streaming on NAS......... Pumping up the volume while dropping back to '91 with Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Getting the toes tapping and feet shuffling.......
Now Playing........
Ernestine Anderson - Now and Then
Steaming on NAS........... Great voice, great backup singers, great saxaphone and that is just on the opening track "Jazz Street" ......
Shorty Rogers: Jazz Waltz.
Beethoven: Concerto For Violin And Orchestra Op. 61 - '34 rec.
szell/Vienna Phill + Bronislaw Huberman
Wow! What a violin playing! This is a great discovery! I was only aware that he founded the Israel Philharmonic but I had NO idea how good of a fiddle player he was. Seriously original free and quite lyrical with a right audacity and creativity. This is not a cookie cutter performance. His technique is personal and unique yet somehow fits well with Beethoven’s vertuosic personality. Original cadenza is equally entertaining and brash yet he’s pulling it off right out of sheer confidence. Tempo drops dramatically for the slow movement. Full of emotions ( for szell! ) but fiddle never gets a conventional cliche sappiness. The final movement is played overly *cute* in jest. Huberman is certainly not afraid to go out on a limb to get the right effect with suspenseful bravura cadenza!
