Music

This video is well worth the watch.  With no editing he creates a complete song on his own.  At 3:18 he even slows the whole thing down into slo-mo. [via- now with permalinks!]

I have it. I’ve listened to a couple of the tracks and it seems to be what I expected. I’ve put it on my iPod for listening tomorrow at work and on the ride home. I’ll post a review once I’m done listening to the whole thing.

I haven’t listened to Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide radio show in a while. In fact my music listening at work has stumbled to an all-time low recently. I noticed though that the online player for BBC Radio 1 has vastly improved. It takes up a whole browser window instead of being an annoying popup. This looked pretty ridiculous in Firefox. The Javascript is way more functional and by that I mean it actually works. It’s fantastic!

On Friday I couldn’t listen to music because for some reason my sound card wasn’t giving me any sound (one of the basic properties of a sound card). I just tried playing a sound and it worked. I’m not really sure what changed between Friday and now but I am glad that it works again. Now I can listen to last night’s Gilles Peterson show. One of the neat things about listening to his show is that I get to hear the news right before the show starts. It’s a little taste of the items catching the attention of the BBC once per week.

I mentioned that I had recently purchased new CDs on the weekend. Well here’s the list in no particular order:

• The Arcade Fire – Funeral (heard wonderful things about the band)
• K-Os – Joyful Rebellion (which includes Marcy’s favourite song – Crabbuckit)
• Elliott Smith – From A Basement On The Hill (his last album)
• Jill Scott – Beautifully Human (praised here)
• Gilles Peterson In Brazil (I can’t resist his compilations)
• Iron + Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days (supporting good artists)
• Amelie Soundtrack

So today I will be listening to music. I have the volume turned down low so I don’t miss any important conversation in our dev area.

Moving from one good album to another I bring you “Two Pages” by 4 Hero. I picked this album up back in 1999 and it’s still one of my favourites and I listen to it often. I once again turn to the AllMusic review of this album:

It’s nearly impossible to listen to 4 Hero’s Two Pages without thinking about the incredible success enjoyed by the jungle movement (and Roni Size’s New Forms LP in particular) during the four-year gap which separated Dego and Mark Mac’s second album from their third. With LTJ Bukem, the duo were one of the first jungle acts to desert hardcore for the astral drift of jazz-fusion atmospheres, and Two Pages is about as fusion-soaked as it gets.

The first of the two discs includes the more downtempo R&B, almost orchestral side of 4 Hero, quite indebted to jazz luminaries like Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith and Roy Ayers. Many of the instruments are live contributions, while vocalists as wide-ranging as poet Ursula Rucker and Digable Planets rapper Butterfly make appearances. The second disc is the dancefloor (read: tighter) half of the album, skirting through dense soundscapes of paranoid breakbeats.

As could be expected, more than two hours of music is way too much for listeners to work their way through, and a heavy editing job would have made this a stellar album instead of the flawed and somewhat bloated album it turned out to be. For drum’n’bass fans, the real highlights come with second-disc tracks like “We Who Are Not as Others” and “In the Shadows” — as it is, they’re so terrific as to nearly justify purchase by themselves.

I like that term fusion-soaked. I kind of agree with their complaint that this album is a lot of music to listen to. Often I find that I listen to a few key songs and then switch to something else. Most of those songs are in the first half of the album like “Loveless”, “Golden Age of Life” (love that choir), “Escape That” and “Universal Love”. They’re great tracks!

Now it’s onto The Cinematic Orchestra’s “Everyday” album.

One of my all-time favourite albums begins this way:

Closing of places of entertainment.
All cinemas, theatres and other places of entertainment are to be closed immediately until further notice. Sports gatherings and all gatherings for purposes of entertainment and amusement, whether outdoor or indoor which involve large numbers congregating together are prohibited until further notice. This refers especially to gatherings for purposes of entertainment. But people are earnestly requested not to crowd together unnecessarily in any circumstances.

That narrative is spoken overtop of the absolutely fantastic Fila Brazillia song, “A Zed & Two L’s”. The mix is by Coldcut, founders of the legendary Ninjatune label. I haven’t really been following Ninjatune’s path for a while but their old-time music (circa 1994-2001) still tickles my fancy every now and again.

This mix album is very solid from start to finish. It includes tracks by Fila Brazillia, Global Communication, DJ Food and the Asian Dub Foundation. That said, it’s very difficult to find any information about this album. I’ve never seen it in stores and it’s not mentioned on many of the discography sites that I visit. I’m glad I found it all those years ago.

I’ve had an odd musical relationship with Amon Tobin. I’ve seen him live in concert twice (described in some detail here). I’ve enjoyed him in all of his different configurations, whether as himself or as Cujo. I think I have most of his releases and I’ve listened to them extensively over the years. Ian mentioned to me that he has been using Amon’s songs as his Winamp alarm this week to some success. So I listened to Amon’s most recent studio recording, Out From Out Where, released in 2002. I still find that I enjoy the quieter, more introspective of the songs on the album like “Hey Blondie”, “El Wraith” and “Mighty Micro People”. I just can’t enjoy the drill n’ bass songs as much. I remember a time when I used to really get into that sound but that time is long since passed. I wonder what it is about certain musical styles that the interest you once had in them seems to fade away with time. What will my musical tastes be 5 or 10 years from now?

This album is kind of special though because it was the last album that I obtained before leaving for Seattle 2 years ago. I recall listening to it while falling asleep during my last few days in Michigan and also on the long plane ride. This album was the catalyst for making friends with some of the other interns. There are a lot of memories associated with this music.

I was listening to Gilles Peterson’s radio show yesterday and he had the remarkable Jill Scott on-air. Jill has a new album coming out soonish (her site says it’s out now) and I was so impressed by what she had to say. She’s an incredibly intelligent woman. She spoke about all kinds of things, like being bugged incessantly on the street about her new album (it’s taken 4 years), about how sex and love is portrayed in hip hop music currently (not exactly pleasantly most times) and how her marriage to her first husband was not the right thing for her. I’m going to try and get her album – the songs Gilles played (and he only plays good songs) were particularly great.

What I’m really trying to say though is that after hearing Jill on the show, I tried to think of all the other absolutely jaw-dropping amazing artists that I like that hail from the Philadelphia area. Apart from Jill we have The Roots, Kindred The Family Soul, Floetry, DJ Jazzy Jeff, King Britt and the list goes on and on. I really got into this music during my neo-soul period last year and their songs still stir my heart. I haven’t been able to keep up with my musical tastes of late but I’m hoping that that will change soon enough.

I’m fiercely proud of the music that I listen to. Spend five minutes with me and you’ll probably realize that immediately. It confuses me when people dismiss it out-of-hand. I’ve lost friends in the past who have used my music as an excuse as a reason for terminating the friendship. Personally I thought that was a flimsy excuse and really hiding other reasons but that’s for another time. For me, I’m just not satisfied in any way with what I hear on the radio and so instead of putting up with it, I seek out alternatives. I’ve been doing this 7 years now and as a result I have a huge, varied collection of music. There’s too much good music out there to sit down and listen to prepackaged content. Go out and discover something new!

Brian Eno changed my life. Or rather his music changed my life. No I’m not talking about his stint with Roxy Music but rather his solo ambient works. His minimalism is surprisingly full to the ear and it provides for excellent background music or foreground music. It all depends on my mood. Since I usually only listen to music while I’m at work it’s more the former than the latter but when I was in school I used to spend hours listening to Eno’s classics like the Ambient Music series, Discreet Music, The Pearl (with Harold Budd), Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks and many many others. I remember when I went to see Pearl Jam back in 2002 with Jeff that I was amazed to hear them playing a Brian Eno song while we were exiting the arena. It seemed like the perfect recessional music. Brian Eno’s music brings me tranquility, introspection and curiosity. It’s amazing that something that sounds so simple can bring all of those emotions and more out of me.

I find a very similar feeling when I listen to Erik Satie’s works. His Gymnopedie’s give me shivers but when you look at the music it’s so simple – a few chords and a very straightforward melody. How can something like that sound so wonderful? I think it’s primarily because you don’t need complexity to deliver an effective sound. Sure you can have complexity and succeed – J.S. Bach’s music (”Ahhh, Bach!”) is a very good example of this but too often I think that artists like to pour complex sounds into their production studio sessions and hope that the end result will be something a) coherent and b) brilliant. Sadly either of those two qualities are missing in much music. This usually results in a) dissatisfaction and b) confusion on the part of the listener.

I’m a fussy music listener. Songs that will enthrall me one day will bore me the next. It takes something really special to last more than a few months in my playlist. Brian Eno’s music has been a constant fixture in my listening schedule for several years now and I don’t really see that changing. Unless I have a massive shift in my listening tastes (it could happen), Brian Eno is with me to stay.

I remember reading about this when it started:

In an abandoned church in the German town of Halberstadt, the world’s longest concert was coming two notes closer to its end Monday: Three years down, 636 to go.

[…]

The concert began Sept. 5, 2001 — the day Cage would have turned 89. The composition, originally written to last 20 minutes, starts with a silence, and the only sound for a first 1 1/2 years was air. The first notes were played in February 2003.

After debates in Germany about what exactly “as slow as possible” could mean — anywhere from a day to stretching on infinitely — the group of German music experts and organ builder behind the project chose the concert’s 639-year running time to commemorate to the creation of the city’s historic Blockwerk organ in 1361.

It’s not immediately clear why they would choose 639 apart from the fact that 1361 + 639 = 2000 but then they started the concert in 2001 and when the concert is finished, in 2640 (if we’re still alive), that year is nothing special either.

I wonder if there will be a DVD-type of product available at the end of the concert and will the ClearChannel patent still apply? I wonder if this be a big deal in 2640 when the last note (or beat) is measured out? What measures are in place to ensure that everything progresses smoothly beyond our lifetime? If they miss a note, do they have to start over? If they’re late (but still get it), how does that effect the timing of the next measure/line/etc.? These are the questions that the musician in me has to ask.

If there was ever a song that makes me fall in love with music each time I hear it, it would have to be “Purrfect” by Funki Porcini. It’s from the 1996 album “Love, Pussycats & Carwrecks”.

Funki Porcini has a very interesting sound. He can be very sweet and soft and he can also be rambunctious and loud. Each has its place but I definitely prefer the softer music. This is one of those songs and combines a solitary trumpet (muted), a drum machine, keyboards and a cat purring.

It was this kind of music that first got me interested in music from Ninjatune. Somewhere along the line they lost me.

I now have the newest Badly Drawn Boy album and boy am I loving it. Forget what I said about there not being much good music this year. This album makes up for that.

Badly Drawn Boy

I’ve liked Badly Drawn Boy for a number of years now. Andrew introduced me to his first album, The Hour Of The Bewilderbeest in 2000. I listened to it a lot and I’ve picked up his other albums over the years – the About A Boy soundtrack and Have You Fed The Fish? from 2002. I think About A Boy is one of the best soundtracks, composed by a pop artist, that I’ve listened to. It almost made me want to see the film (almost mind you).

I was listening to last week’s Gilles Peterson Worldwide radio show yesterday and Gilles played one of the tracks from the new album, Another Devil Dies. I wasn’t even aware that there was a new album coming from BDB (fanboy’s acronym for Badly Drawn Boy) so I looked and found it with relative ease. The downside? If I wanted to buy the album locally I have to wait until July 27th.

The Badly Drawn Boy website has been redone to reflect the release of this album and although it’s a little difficult to navigate it offers some great content. Damon (the man behind the mask) discusses his thoughts about the album here and here. He says (and I had to copy the text found at those links into a text editor so that it would be easier to read):

It’s that ambitious and it connects – with songs about passing on good fortune, looking after your friends, encouraging the basic humanity in all of us, and always finding the love that makes us more than monkeys. To let the sunshine in.

I agree with his appraisal. It’s definitely an upbeat piece of music.

My favourite track has to be This Is That New Song. It’s such a sweet song. Damon says this about the track:

This Is That New Song emerges, even on first listen, as a crowning achievement. Heartfelt and moving it’s laced with the kind of of a confidence no musician has a right to have four or so years into his career.

I definitely think it is a “crowning achievement”, not only of this album but of the whole body of Damon’s work. The way the lyrics and strings blend together is really something to behold.

One of the things that I do love about Badly Drawn Boy is that he includes the lyrics to each of his songs. Here are the lyrics from this song:

And if I knew the answers
I would tell you now
Just what would be the chances
That I could show you how
If I knew where all the tears were coming from
Add up all the years that you’ve been gone
This is that new song
I told you about twenty years ago

Do you know what true romance is
And could you show me now
Just what would be the chances
That I could tell you how
If I new where all the tears were flowing to
I’d guide them to a river
Where I’d swim with you down stream
This is that old dream
I told you about twenty years ago

And could you hold me now

Simply an amazing song. I’ve been listening to it all day.

So I guess I don’t really need to say that I enjoyed this album. Even during the first listen it struck me that this sounded so similar to older Badly Drawn Boy material and yet it sounded so new at the same time. It would be easy for Damon to fall into a rut of sounding like himself but he’s decided to go in a direction while still holding onto the essence of his earlier work. I think that’s the sign of a true artist.

R&B music legend Ray Charles dies.

“Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby.”

Rest in peace, Ray.

Man how I love this show. I hadn’t listened to it in quite a while but then I was in the car by myself a few Thursdays ago and I was set again to listen to some good soul/deep house arranged by the talented Jason Palma. I’ve downloaded a lot of the past shows from this year and listening to them made me realize that I’ve missed quite a few great concerts this year already. I don’t know – concerts just don’t seem to interest me anymore but I would make an exception for Fila Brazillia, DJ Shadow, Boards of Canada and Gilles Peterson. I just wish that Jason Palma would update his archived shows quicker. It’s almost June and the most recent show available is still May 6th. I suppose I shouldn’t nitpick too much; at least he provides the shows online unlike some other DJs (*cough* Gilles *cough*).