What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XIII)
Posted by: Richard Dane on 01 January 2017
2017 has arrived today, so time to start this thread afresh.
Last year's thread can be found here;
Wagner: preludes & overtures - Berlin PO/HvK. EMI/Angel Studio CD rip. Nice one.
Not as good as the last one, is my first impression...
Goldfrapp: Silver Eye. HD FLAC from 7 Digital. First listen and it's a good solid album, but not their best. My favs are still Black Cherry & Seventh Tree.
Dancehall, The Rise of Jamaican Dancehall Culture.
Late start to the evening with some chilled reggae.
Soul Jazz Records, curators of the best of Jamaican Music, have come up with a winning compilation of the finest Dancehall Reggae.
Eoink posted:ToddHarris posted:Hewitt's second Goldberg recording from 2015 on Hyperion...
Ooh, thank you, I love her 2000 recording, when this Mozart finishes I'll buy the newer performance, thanks again!
Downloaded, 24/96 FLAC, variation 23 playing now. As said I the previous post, I love her 1st studio recording, I think this will probably become an even firmer favourite. The separation of the voices is even clearer, and Hewitt's ability to bring out the dance in Bach is even greater here. A sheer joy. I owe you one Todd.
Hélène de Nervo de Montgeroult (1764-1836): Edna Stern (**piano)
Follow Edna Stern and you will have a interesting adventures. I sometimes think she must have been a precocious child with an imagination greater than that of Anne of Green Gables. As an adult she certainly hasn't lost any of this zeal for life.
What we have here is music from a relatively obscure composer (these days anyway) and Stern has chosen to play it on an 1860 Pleyel piano that is preserved today in the Paris Music Museum. The music is somewhat interesting at times. It has a sense of a very watered down Mendelssohn; however, not nearly as good. The piano has a sound that is somewhere between a piano and a harpsichord. In the end, it is like a visit to your Victorian grandmother's for cookies and milk in the afternoon.
I think the idea of Edna Stern playing Montgeroult is very interesting (to her... and us) and the stunning beauty of this magnificent 1860 Pleyel piano (the craftsmanship...not the sound) is very intriguing to me. Beyond the idea and the visual (given below) I suffer a little when I think if I would try to listen in the future (repeatedly) like I typically do with things I am in love with. One has to wonder if these artists shouldn't come to their senses with this and record these works twice like Schiff did with Beethoven recently? That is, why not make a second recording in the package with this music played on a proper modern day grand piano too? You will find out rather quickly who favours which and I would think that most would realize going forward that their is no artistic merit for recording on old instruments? It is very interesting but for me it is a one time listen. If I have both then i would listen repeatedly on a beautiful sounding instrument. Seems to me Stern has a 1940's Bechstein that sounds super wonderful and would have pleased me to no end.
Yusef Lateef - Psychicemotus. 1965. CD rip.
Horace Andy - Living In The Flood.
Finishing off this evening with some more reggae, this one from Horace, sometime collaborator with Massive Attack.
Issued in 1999, it represents his return to recording after several years layoff, and WHAT a comeback!
Highly recommended.
Nighty night. 
WAV rip of CD. Change of genre to to finish the night. If a band is going to go out, this is the way to go, a farewell gig with some of their greatest contemporaries, filmed by Scorsese. Guests including Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and many more do a few numbers each, culminating with a final rousing I Shall Be Rekeased, with everyone on stage, Dylan sharing vocals. Life affirming music, and my favourite live album ever. I've just noticed that the extended edition is now available on vinyl, that's on its what now.
Jan Garbarek: In Praise of Dreams
Jan Garbarek, tenor and soprano saxophones and/or synthesizers, samplers, percussion
Kim Kashkashian, viola
Manu Katché, drums
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzeb7paMftM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMCNzpxs7d8
Yusef Lateef Live at Pep's (vol 1), rec. 1964. CD rip
Because they are one bad-ass band...
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage, rec. 1965. BN 96/24 flac, nice 'mastering by Alan Yoshida and Robin Lynn at Blanche Dubois, April 2012'
A + 3 | WAV
(1988)
Darkwave style and Goth influenced, this is a band I enjoy listening to from time to time. This was their second album album verging on just the right side of melancholy.
"Mesmerized by the sirens is elegantly pained music: an assemblage of entrancing, blackly romantic sound paintings." - THE BOB.
"Sadly nostalgic of your loneliest days, gently disturbing music that sends your mind adrift on an ocean of reflection." - BSIDE.
A + 3 | WAV
(2012)
An antidote to the previous darkwave of Black Tape For A Blue Girl, this self-titled twenty minute EP is melodic, catchy and upbeat. On Bandcamp
50th Anniversary
CD 13 (no 4, 31 and 66) of the Cantatas box set.
Red Hot Chili Peppers. By The Way. On CD from 2002. I've really been groovin' on the sweet tubey tones of this album lately. Repeated plays today and has me thinking about springing for the vinyl which has almost double the DR of the CD.
