Wyatters delights (what are you listening to?)

[zeebras]

last weekend, my wive and i drove to toronto for a weekend visit. this is a 5 to 6 hour drive for us, so suitable road music is required:
uncle tupelo - anodyne
peter green/splinter group - destiny road
fred j eaglesmith and the flying squirrels - from the paradise motel
map of wyoming - trouble is
the supremes - ultimate collection
the beatles - revolver
the beatles - rubber soul
the byrds - live at the fillmore west february 1969
robyn hitchc o ck - respect
and coming in the mail within the next week or two are remastered and expanded editions of the first two colosseum albums.

[theallgolden]

i listen to the wonderful new stina nordenstam cd
titled the world is saved. beautiful, that.
and recommended to all who like björk, mark hollis, robert wyatt and maybe mum, or so.

further i enjoy holly golightly's new cd 'slowly but surely'. heartbreaking music.

[Max_Gate]

Several years ago I played Stina N. on high rotation until her little girl voice left me questioning my motives; the arrangements were deft, even compelling.

Now, taking advantage of a southern summer to paint four rooms of our house, I need music that survives playing on a spattered ghetto-blaster:

The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday;
Soft Machine - Four;
Bob Dylan - Live 1966;
Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2;
Art Pepper - selection of discs from The Complete Galaxy Box set (16 CDs).

The bumblebees need rescuing from the windows; the sheep are louder than human traffic. And music is in house - even if the political world sounds sharp.

Max Gate

[zeebras]

a hodge podge of musical delights resonating from the home stereo system:

the nice - here comes the nice
  a fantastic three cd set of their output on immediate records, plus singles and unreleased tracks. "ars longa vita brevis", their second record, was a very influential record for me as a young lad, and remains a mind blower for me to this day. the other stuff is great too.
love - forever changes
  for the last twenty plus years, i've been reading that this is a psychedelic masterpiece. last weekend i bought it. i dig it, and feel it's really going to get under my skin with repeated listenings.
tim berne - the shell game
radiohead - ok computer
zappa/mothers - weasels ripped my flesh
zappa - chunga's revenge
john cale - honi soit
john and beverly martyn - the road to ruin
chrysalis - definition
  this is a group lead by j "spider" barbour, a name hard core zappa fans will recognize from lumpy gravy. late 60's psychedelic weirdness, with intelligent, literate lyrics and imaginative arrangements.
the insect trust - hoboken saturday night
  a desert island disc FINALLY released on cd.

keep your lamps trimmed and burning.

[theallgolden]

love - forever changes

it is a masterpiece, surely. and not  only because of 'a house is a not a motel' which is one of my two fave guitar-solo-music-pieces.  short, precise and cut. escpecially the cut always fascinated me. the other fave is also a short one:  pop group's  fantastic 'colour blind'.

today once again coco rosie's la maison de reve delighted me on a long railway trip from nürnberg (nuremberg) to berlin.  further elliott smith's legacy 'from a basement on a hill' rotated. what a loss!  

[theallgolden]

i felt in love with michaela melian's cd baden-baden.

i found a web-page (www.barcodezine.com/revmichaelamelianba ... 122004.htm) from which i lend the following critic:

Michaela Melián was founder member of the band F.S.K., who were apparently the late John Peel’s second favourite band of all time. Baden Baden meanwhile is Melián`s first solo album, which comprises a mixture of clubby techno beats and ambient electronica. This album is definitely a grower, as Melián surrounds her strong, bass driven compositions with minimalist melodies that stay long in the memory.

The opening music box chimes of Brautlied are a good example, and this is followed by the slow building, resonant tones of Strasse, a tightly claustrophic track with multi-layered deep strings and a remorseless, unrelenting slow beat. On this evidence, Melián is certainly not one to pander to the commerciality of a welcoming atmosphere. The lengthiest track on the album, Panorama, follows, and again it makes for compulsive listening, as the mood is significantly lightened to allow for the use of strummed acoustic guitar and strings that are higher up the scale. Meanwhile, a throbbing bass line groove drags along a dull thudding beat as the track morphs from a pleasant ambient abode to a weird, drug-induced delirium.

My favourite track on Baden Baden has to be Ignaz Guenther House, which uses instrumentation that is already familiar to the album to produce further tense grooves, this time backed by eloping looped piano spills and a forever-evolving clacking beat. The title track keeps up the persistently dark mood of the album, until A Song For Europe (a Roxy Music cover) closes, with Melián’s curiously detached vocal making for intriguing listening.

Melián is certainly a woman of significant character and self-confidence, ably demonstrated on this debut. Baden Baden is one of those albums that is inexplicably good, although Melián's achievement is perhaps more understandable when armed with the knowledge that she also works as a visual artist.

i can't describe it better.

look, listen and vibrate.

[theallgolden]

this year was full of wonderful new music.

because of that circumstance i had not so much time to listening to old stuff.

now i do and it is once again a big pleasure to listen to captain beefheart and the magic band (spinning: the mirror man sessions).

[Max_Gate]

Perhaps it's the southern summer in the countryside, but I've been spinning (to) folk music:

Eliza Carthy: Angels & Cigarettes - my partner turned to me when she heard the words "I've given blow jobs on couches to men who...."  Searing disappointment delivered with a pink bow and the odd trip-hop glance.

Bob Dylan: Live, 1966 - again and again; there simply hasn't been a better version of 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue'.

Bob Dylan: O Mercy - which isn't half as moving, chewy, or goddam intelligent as 'Live, 1966' so no one will quote this album as evidence that age brings wisdom. But it is the only one of his mid-career albums I regularly play. As Margaret Atwood said (and it's true of Dylan's career) 'beginnings and endings are easy: it's the middle that's tough.'

Mark Hollis: Eponymous - listening to this is like watching an icicle melt: now now now no....Poised, perfect.

Hugh Hopper: 1984 - As a teenager I bought this at a record stall in a hippy market (I can still smell the incense and see the bamboo bins). Now the CD replaces that scratched gem. An electric bassist on steroids.

Max Gate

[Max_Gate]

I trust that some of you will share your listening with us. Until you do, here is this week's mixture - which is lean, because I've been out and about:

7 Hurtz - Electroleum: urbane and definitely out of place in a rural landscape; still, its approach to sound is sculptural and the pieces hang in the air the way a hawk hangs over a hill.

Joe Strummer - Global A Go Go: a middle-aged man who never left his youth. A class act from a class activist.

Montserrat Figueras - La Voix De L'Emotion: this is a voice that trips its way up my spine. No sugary Puccini: instead the pure water of Monteverdi with the kick of gypsy homebrew.

Max Gate

[Chairman_Mao]

I've been enjoying a couple of mixes that friends have done for me.  One is of Liz Phair who I had not heard at all.  Quite like some of it, anyone else know her?

The other is of Ron Sexsmith.  I only knew a couple of songs of his but am finding that I really like his early (mid nineties) stuff, which is rather Dylanesque.  Wouldn't mind catching him live.

Was also playing a lot of Elvis Costello in the lead up to seeing him live last Thursady (10/02/2005).  The range of his material is truly amazing.  The concert was top class too, 2 hrs 20 mins non stop with a good mixture of crowd pleasers, newer stuff and obscurities.

I also like the Dylan 66, must get it out.  I prefer the '64 though.

[theallgolden]

now:

the new ...and you will know us by the trail of dead - cd.

once again they released a fine one. maybe not so heavy stuff and the songs are not so epic as their last full length album ( the intermediate ep was fantastic. a little bit 'experimental' with electronics). i like this band.


before:

toog.  

(to safe you from my english:)
http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/review.php?review=646&q=

[StereoM]

Now playing:

Matching Mole - March

[Jaakko]

Frank Zappa - Joe's Corsage (pretty pretty ok)
Frank Zappa - Joe's Domage (pretty pretty bad)

and both were pretty pretty expensive too!

Jaakko

[Max_Gate]

I'm on an instrumental bender; anything with voice seems to irritate me these days. Perhaps I don't want to be reminded quite so directly of the human, preferring to let instrumental sounds build a bridge into the 'natural' world where human values are an irrelevance. What constantly plays, and rewards playing, is music from a few contemporary Estonian composers:

Urmas SISASK
Zodiak: Star Music for Piano
Zodiak Op. 50 (1994)
Der Weihnachtsstern Capella Op. 56 (1995)
Zyklus des Sternenhimmels für Kinder Cassiopeia (1975-77)
Das Sechseck des Himmels - Möwe und Wasser Op. 57 (1996)

Starry Sky Cycle performed by the composer, Urmas Sisask (piano)

Celestials: Flute Concertos by Peeter Vähi and Urmas Sisask performed by Peter Vahi


Erkki-Sven TUUR
Northern Lights (Jukka Linkola)
Flux
Exodus
Architectonics

- This is all meditative material that makes me feel humble, as if I was looking at the stars on a summer's night.

Max Gate

[jeffyd]

Stars "Set yourself on fire"
Hem "Eveningland"
Anthologie chanson francaise 1940-1945
Wyatt "Cuckooland"
A girl called Eddy
Floyd "Ummagumma"
Davis Coltrane Box