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;
Finishing the evening off with more Floyd covers, this time the Southern Rock jam band Gov’t Mule live. What a fine band they are.
Currently listening to this, the new release by Kroh. Went to see them play a couple of weeks ago for the EP release, and thought they'd raised their game nicely since the last time I saw them. Not quite my usual stuff, but 'Nemertean Girl' is currently making a nice change from the extreme Norwegian underground sampler I was listening to previously.
Why might anyone be interested? Well, a while back I remember seeing someone mention Kroh on here, so I thought I'd point out that they've got new material out.
This starkly beautiful collection of 13 tracks by Tunisian composer Anouar Brahem is his debut release for the ECM label. The album spotlights Brahem's solo oud pieces, which range from the meditative ("Sadir") to the propulsive ("Ronda"). This solo work is nicely augmented by stellar contributions from violinist Bechir Selmi and percussionist Lassad Hosni; Selmi is featured on the transcendent "Barzakh," while Hosni figures prominently on "Souga" and "Bou Naouara." The three musicians come together for the joyous dance number "Parfum de Gitane." Throughout Barzakh, Brahem and the others forge an appealing mix of Middle Eastern sonorities and jazz phrasing, an intimate sound perfectly suited to the clean and spacious ECM recording style. This is a great title for fans of both international music and jazz.(AllMusic)
Just finishing.....
Buddy Miller - Universal United House of Prayer
Placed this in the TIDAL queue the other day along with the "Shelby Lynne - Suit Yourself' album following the mention of LUTYENS. Gave the Shelby album a spin earlier and it was quite enjoyable having heard her perviously on the 'Just A Little Lovin' album.
Buddy is a little more in the Christian Rock direction, good vocals and musicians, the lyrics are just not my cup of tea.
arrived today. silly price though. my fault should have bought the whole 'Montreal tapes' set a long time ago :-(
enjoy
ken
Dave***t posted:
Currently listening to this, the new release by Kroh. Went to see them play a couple of weeks ago for the EP release, and thought they'd raised their game nicely since the last time I saw them. Not quite my usual stuff, but 'Nemertean Girl' is currently making a nice change from the extreme Norwegian underground sampler I was listening to previously.
Why might anyone be interested? Well, a while back I remember seeing someone mention Kroh on here, so I thought I'd point out that they've got new material out.
Thanks Dave that was possibly me, I'll pick it up on bandcamp.
Haim Ronen posted:
didnt know about this guy -- hmmmm... definitely worth checking out. thanks.
enjoy
ken
Now Playing.......
Joe Sample - Old Places, Old Faces
Joe Sample (piano, Fender Rhodes), Charles Lloyd (tenor saxophone), Dean Parks (guitar), Jay Anderson (bass), Ralph Penland (drums), and Lenny Castro (percussion).
Joe is simply wonderful on the piano, a great album!
Dark side of the moon – the original one
Now Playing.......
Jon Balke - Siwan
Jon Balke (composer, conductor, keyboards), Amina Alaoui (vocals), Jon Hassell (trumpet, electronics), Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche (violin), Helge Norbakken (percussion), Pedram Khavar Zamini (zarb), Barokksolistene: Bjarte Eike (violin, leader), Per Buhre (violin), Peter Spissky (violin), Anna Ivanovna Sundin (violin), Miloš Valent (violin), Rastko Roknic (viola), Joel Sundin (viola), Tom Pitt (cello), Kate Hearne (cello, recorder), Mattias Frostensson (double-bass), Andreas Arend (theorboe, archlute), and Hans Knut Sveen (harpsichord, clavichord).
This is a beautiful album. If you were going on a long cruise and and you were limited on what you could bring for music, this would be one of the albums making the trip.
From a review by Michael Baily in All About Jazz:
The focus of Siwan is not one of strict musical scholarship, but rather the imagining of what music would have sounded like at a certain place and time lost to antiquity. That time and place is medieval Andalusia, the southern most region of Spain, where Muslim, Christian, and Jewish intellectual cultures mingled unmolested before the Spanish Inquisition. Balke's studies of the history and writings of the region revealed a thematic universality among the Sufi poets and the Catholic and Sephardic mystics, a fact clearly evident in the texts chosen for this special recital: literary works as seemingly diverse as the martyred Moor Al- Aallaj's "Thualthiayat" and San Juan de la Cruz's (St. John of the Cross), ecstatic "Todo ciencia trascendiendo" ("Rising Beyond All Science").
For this ambitious project, Balke assembled an equally ambitious set of artists. Central to the recording are French-Moroccan singer Amina Alaoui and violinist Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche. These two musicians are the Eastern herbs that give Siwan its most potent Moorish notes. Next in the mix is the liquid mercury tone of trumpeter Jon Hassell, who approximates with brass what M'Kachiche achieves with gut strings. As necessary to this musical image as in Latin jazz is the percussion provided by Helge Norbakken. The wrapping of this musical gift is provided by the guidance of Balke and Bjarte Eike's Barokkosolistene, providing the Western element to this recording.
So much of the musical alchemy today is attempted and achieved with strokes too broad to be trusted or enjoyed. What Balke and his predecessors Garbarek and Potter achieve is a thoughtful rendering of imagination: what the historic music received from the past may have sounded like when the original artist tired of rote performance and began to improvise (a situation that certainly occurred). As a musical statement, Siwan stands as a monument to uncompromising ingenuity and art. This music is radioactively fine, searing with its beauty, inspiring in its sublimity.
Klemperer/Philharmonia: Schubert Symphony 9 - rec.1960
This, along with Toscanini/NBC set remain my fave for "The Great".
Evelina Vorontsova - Rachmaninoff
David Leisner - Favorites
Since I'm seeing the Frappsters tonight, better get going. The 2-CD 'special edition' of that wonderful debut album:
This is such a good version of these Bach works. It’s beutifully played and a fine recording too.
Goldfrapp: Silver Eye, on vinyl:
Vinyl:
