Ewemon,

Is Psychedlic Pill as good as the reports suggest?

Steve

Inspired by Tony's earlier choice. The Stone Roses - for the brief moment of time, the best rock band on the planet.

Second coming, not as good as the first but I still would like to have more bands like this around also today.

My Saturday morning listening from 8.00am.

Graham.

On Vinyl

Genesis - Selling England By The Pound

Never get tired of hearing this

Vinyl

On Vinyl

Dire Straits

ewemon, I couldn't find the link to to refresh the page,I downloaded the player but no joy getting the  Neil Young album even on the ora player site!

Hoodoo Man Blues [VINYL] DELMARK RECORDS.

This album arrived this week and has just blown me away. Junior Well's vocals are incredible, moving and confident. A young Buddy Guy accompanies Wells and shows his early mastery of electric blues guitar. This Chicago masterpiece, crackles with menace, Junior commands you to 'Snatch it Back and Hold It' at the opener before tearing it out of your hands and pushing it back in your face, this is a superb set where everything gels. Also, as if things couldn't get any better, the recording and SQ is awesome. I will be looking for some more from this label

(Steve J) ITS FANTASTIC.

Graham.

On Vinyl

Jean Michel Jarre - Rendezvous 

Vinyl

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Maria-Joao Pires (Piano), Claudio Abbado, Orchestra Mozart

Concerto for Piano no 27 in B flat major, K 595

Concerto for Piano no 20 in D minor, K 466

In my mind, Maria-Joao Pires could never do any wrong.  Over decades of listening to her one develops a trust and that just gets reinforced with every listen.

ewemon,

I can't see a box " "This audio stream requires a small plug in to be installed" it lists 3 points

1. Download installer.
2. Launch installer
3. Refresh page (that is what you click on) as this loads the album.

I can only see his one

To listen to the album, make sure you have upgraded your browsers to one of the following:

West Ham v Wigan on BBC Radio London.

It's not going brilliantly for us at the mo'

Yes ,That link you posted does not show a page previous to the add your email, I think i'll pass until it's out next week.

Graham, is the the Analogue productions 2LP 45rpm set or the standard reissue LP?

Sol Gabetta (Cello), Hélène Grimaud (Piano) 

Phantasiestücke for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 73 by Robert Schumann 

Sonata for Cello and Piano no 1 in E minor, Op. 38 by Johannes Brahms

Sonata for Cello and Piano by Claude Debussy 

Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor, Op. 40 by Dmitri Shostakovich 

In my mind, Hélène Grimaud could never do any wrong.  Over decades of listening to her one develops a trust and that just gets reinforced with every listen.  Ahem-political campaign announcement coming...

So who's this Abbado guy anyway?  Referring back to recent Mozart fiascos I just have to say that the guy waving the stick needs to give the right-away to the soloist in a concerto.  In non-concerto work, he may continue to stroke his ego where he is rightfully the boss.  Notice in the Pires album cover how she is slightly in front of him and placed rightfully front and centre.  Abbado should have had the same class to frame Grimaud in this same position (figuratively) and shown the same respect.

Now to Sol Gabetta - such a warm and invigorating cellist.  She is so full of life and one cannot help experiencing this in her playing.  I first started seeing Sol Gabetta on my radar in say the last two years for sure.  It was immediately the beginnings of a long and fruitful relationship into the future and it was through another pianist actually, Mihaela Ursuleasa, who tragically died this past summer who she played with and was a close friend.  

What Grimaud, Gabetta, and Ursuleasa all have in common is that they are (were) each thoroughbreds in there own right.  They do not do basics well but have a unique quality to some other difficult task exceedingly well.  In other words, they do not fit well in together with the masses.  All come with that indelible free spirit and intense focus and passion for what they do, that is, they interpret music per there own nature.  Yes, in doing so they divide opinion, especially to those who get offended by such freedom, confidence and strength.  They do not or could not just play music and go through the motions like so many others.  It is almost like the hardest, most talented worker in a union cannot survive as they will get singled out and picked on because they are different and tend to make the mediocre group look bad.

As I have suggested many times in the past, I respect any musician with integrity and do not put them in tiers based of where in the spectrum they fit according to my views.  What I like to confer over is if this musician is true to him or her self?  What interesting ideas are they bringing to the table?  Are they open minded?  When they are willing to go against the grain to express a truth and when we allow our own selves to see and experience the music through there expression then I think we become more involved in a meaningful conversation.

Piano and cello duos are just about my favourite thing lately.  After losing a violinist from our trio about six years ago my focus had to turn to just the piano and cello.  So now I spend about half my time in working on this repertoire.  So this album is simply just a godsend for me and very inspiring.  My only frustration is that this wasn't recorded a year earlier as I was learning the Phantasiestücke last year and this would have proved very inspirational for me.

A wide and varied program was chosen representing some huge chestnuts in the repertoire.  What amazes me is how these two can pull off such a feat without having played together prior to maybe a year ago (compared to say a string quartet or chamber group who would work exclusively together from sunup to sundown and do nothing else).  What you get here though is more spirit and spontaneity maybe.  I think these two are a perfect fit together and hope this relationship continues on for a long time.  The balance of the recording is just about right to me as well.  Keep in mind though to that Schumann, Brahms, Debussy especially wrote for the piano so the pianist has a huge task of not overwhelming a single cello.  The piano score is so thick and complicated as it fulfills the role of a whole symphony orchestra really to the single line of a cello.)   Shostakovich was the lesser pianist and so his writing style was more equitable between the instruments (ie. the piano contribution is very sparse in comparison.)

Yes, I'm obviously biased about this but this is one of my favourite recordings this year and am very glad for it.  I have used up all my time already so won't even begin to attempt to write about the music or interpretation here.  That could go on and take days to unwrap.  So much to say but so little time to do so.

Hi Richard.

Its not the Analogue productions 2LP 45rpm set. It is a Roots Of Jazz reissue on 180gm vinyl. £11.20

Graham

On Vinyl:-

Steely Dan - Katy Lied