Faust - 71 Minutes (compi rec. 1971-3, double album first released 1988)

Been revisiting this classic compilation of late, containing some of Faust's most invigorating offcuts from their original existence.  The material on 71 Minutes was first released on two single LPs in 1986 and 1988, which at the time was the first album-length unearthing of crucial missing material by the iconoclastic legends (rather like The Velvet Underground's VU and Another View, also released in the 80s).  This double album compiled Munic & Elsewhere and The Last LP together but dropped two tracks, which would later be reissued on BBC Sessions+ (link below).

71 Minutes takes in every angle of the classic, brain-frying Faust sound: lengthy, hypnotic improvisations like Munic/Yesterday (aka Munic A, aka Willie The Pimp, etc), Knochentanz (aka Munic B, Munic/Other) and Chromatic are immediate highlights.  The shorter, dada-influenced pop songs gone insane are represented by Baby, 25 Yellow Doors and an instrumental version of Giggly Smile from Faust IV.  There's also an alternate version of J'ai Mal Aux Dents from The Faust Tapes.  In between, all manner of engrossing little sound experiments flesh out the Faust legend, such as the 'Party' tapes, the gorgeous Das Meer and the elegaic documentary collage of 60s-70s upheaval in Germany that closes the collection.  Utterly essential, boundary-pushing krautrock from the masters.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: BBC Sessions+

Tomasz Stańko Quartet - Suspended Night (2004)

Second album by Stańko's "Polish Quartet" of the 2000s, or, as the three younger musicians became known outside of Stańko's employ, the Marcin Wasilewski Trio.  It was an inspired combination that produced three great albums of spacious exploration, both rooted in classic post-bop jazz and completely up to date, a forward-looking example of the modern ECM aesthetic.

The album's predecessor had no track titles at all - this one at least starts out with a named piece, the lovely opener Song For Sarah, before embarking on the Suspended Variations, just numbered I - X.  The first of these lays out the template in fine mid-tempo form, highlighting each musician in turn, then journeys through sublime group telepathy in uptempo (like II, V, and VIII) and wispy, becalmed modes (III, IV, VII) and more to complete one of Stańko's most rightly celebrated late-period albums.

link

pw: sgtg

Tomasz Stańko at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland
Purple Sun

TWET 

Balladyna
Freelectronic in Montreux
Bluish
Bosonossa And Other Ballads
Matka Joanna 

Wolność W Sierpniu - Freedom In August
Dark Eyes
Wisława
Polin

Michael Jones / David Lanz - Solstice (1985)

Merry Christmas, everyone!  Hope you're having a good one, and getting some time to relax and reflect.

Here's a nice mellow half-hour in the company of two pianists associated with the Narada new age label, in a side-each split LP from 1985.  First up is Michael Jones, turning in a lengthy improvisation around Good King Wenceslas, then turning Carol Of The Bells into an extended snowfall of gentle arpeggios.  David Lanz's side takes in the Greensleeves-variant What Child Is This, then closes the record with his Improvisation On A Theme of Pachelbel's Canon.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted featuring Michael Jones: Amber

The Hilliard Ensemble - Transeamus (2014)

Sticking with vocal music today, but slimming down from full choir to a distinguished quartet.  The Hilliards drew their forty-year career to a sublime close with this album, giving it a fitting title alluding to travelling on.  Conceived as a return to their roots, the album is a programme of English motets and carols from the 15th century, with only four composers known for sure, the rest anonymous.  As expected from this esteemed ensemble, all of these fourteen pieces are deftly performed, starkly beautiful and perfectly captured in the ambience of the St. Gerold monastery in the Alps.  Relax and enjoy an hour of pure timeless bliss.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Perotin

The Lamentations Of Jeremiah

Codex Speciálník

The Norwegian Soloists' Choir / Oslo Sinfonietta - As Dreams (2016)

On the album cover above, you can just about make out the full quote from The Tempest that this choral collection takes its name from.  The introduction to the liner notes sets out how these seven pieces are meant to be linked: "they are permeated not only with their own era, but with times that we can imagine lie in front of us."  The five composers chosen are all known for their transformative, spellbinding sound, and make for a bewitching hour of choral music, sometimes accompanied, sometimes acapella.

The two works by Per Nørgård that make up a third of the runtime are my definite favourites here.  His Drømmesange (Dream Songs), with the choir accompanied by steady percussion, is an accessible start to the programme, with its gently lilting, folky melodies; Singe die Gärten, mein Herz is taken from his 3rd Symphony.  From there, there's a good mix of shimmering, atmospheric material (Alfred Janson's Nocturne; Kaija Saariaho's Überzeugung) and more avant-garde ventures into fractured phonemes (Helmut Lachenmann's Consolation II, Iannis Xenakis' Nuits and the closing Nuits, Adieux by Saariaho).  A highly recommended immersion in 20th-21st century choral music.

link

pw: sgtg

Manu Katché - Neighbourhood (2005)

Active since the 80s as a high-profile session musician, French drummer Manu Katché had only released one other solo album prior to this beautifully relaxed ECM session.  He was no freshman to the label, having played with Jan Garbarek throughout the 90s, and it's Garbarek who is the main instrumental voice here, in fine form.  The rest of the lineup was Tomasz Stańko's "Polish Quartet" of the time - minus the drummer, of course.

The ten tracks here, all composed by Katché, only raise the temperature a few times - for the most part, Neighbourhood is a wonderful, laid-back immersion in pure group dynamics.  When the album does start to groove, it's with a taut, understated funkiness that makes Katché's deft touch endlessly enjoyable, as on Number One, Lovely Walk, No Rush and the catchy Take Off And Land.  The rest is pure heaven for a rainy afternoon and a beverage of choice.

 

link

pw: sgtg

Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear (1976)

After their two breakthrough studio albums cemented them as Berlin-school pioneers of spacey, gaseous electronic ambience, Tangerine Dream were perhaps keen not to paint themselves into a corner, and began to diversify their sound.  Recording back in Germany for the first time since signing to Virgin, their first version of Stratosfear was produced by Nick Mason, then scrapped in favour of a band production.

The title track, with its guitar arpeggio introduction and more neatly-defined structure, began to point the way forwards to the more electronic-prog hybrid of late 70s TD.  More acoustic guitar was to come in the brief, baroque flavoured side one closer The Big Sleep In Search Of Hades, and 3AM At The Border Of The Marsh From Okefenokee was even more atmospheric, with Froese adding chilly wisps of harmonica.  There's still plenty of Franke sequencing, in this track and in the lengthy closer Invisible Limits.  Stratosfear might be one of the briefest TD albums, but it packs in plenty of creative little twists that make it an intriguing sleeper album in their classic era.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Max Richter - Voices (broadcast premiere) & Infra (recorded live, 10 Dec 2020)

Another concert broadcast, this time bang up to date with a special international simulcast last Thursday for Human Rights Day.  Max Richter's new work Voices uses as its narration parts of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and this live recording took place in London's Maida Vale Studios.

First up is a condensed version (only two of the linking "Journey" segments are performed) of Richter's 2010 work Infra, written in memory of the 7/7 attacks on London in 2005.  With just strings, piano and electronics, it's a lovely stark and sombre experience that sets the stage for the main event.

Voices is also condensed, but only in its instrumental forces compared to the album version - all ten parts of the work are performed.  The aforementioned narration is also joined by crowdsourced samples of people reading extracts of the Declaration in different languages, and the instrumentation is again based on strings, solo violin and piano.  This is fleshed out by wordless choral voices and a soprano part (the lengthy Chorale is a definite highlight), and other sampled environmental sounds.  Richter in the preamble discussion notes the influence of Schubert, particularly Winterreisse, but the gentle, accessible mode of expression is recognisably Richter.

After the performance, the broadcast continued with Richter introducing half an hour of music that has inspired him.  I've left this in, as they were all great choices: Bob Dylan, Thomas Tallis, Abdullah Ibrahim (aka Dollar Brand), Kraftwerk and Charles Ives.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Sleep

James MacMillan - Seven Last Words From The Cross / Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (2019)

Concert recording from February 2019, in which Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan celebrated his 60th birthday conducting two of his major works with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and percussionist Colin Currie, who's made a couple of appearances on these pages before.  As a prelude to his own music, MacMillan chose Arvo Pärt's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten, with its solemn bell tolls caught up in the swirl of the gorgeous orchestral parts.

Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (1992) is based on a plainchant piece that bears that name, and it's a percussion concerto originally written for another Scottish player, Evelyn Glennie.  Currie here describes his extensive percussion rig and the various voices used throughout the piece, then turns in a storming performance.  The propulsive energy of the work reminded me in places of Steve Martland.  The second half of the concert is given over to MacMillan's epic cantata Seven Last Words From The Cross, commissioned by the BBC in 1994.  In its sections, the work covers the gospel texts tackled by numerous other composers over the centuries - Sofia Gubaidulina is one who's appeared here - and is a stirring, engrossing journey.

link

pw: sgtg

Vangelis - Opera Sauvage (1979)

One of three releases in a busy 1979 for Vangelis, Opera Sauvage was his third soundtrack for French nature documentarian Frédéric Rossif (link to the first, Apocalypse Des Animaux, below).  By this point, the gorgeous, gossamer sheen of Vangelis' palette of synths and electric piano was at its height, and these seven pieces work wonderfully as an album in their own right.

The understated pulse of L'Enfant could be seen as a precursor to Chariots Of Fire, and in fact this album is quite literally a precursor to that more famous soundtrack - director Hugh Hudson started out by using L'Enfant and Hymne as working music, and both pieces remained in Chariots Of Fire, although one in a different form and the other given to a brass band.  On Opera Sauvage, in between those two tracks is the album's longest and my personal highlight, the beautifully meditative Rêve with its slightly bluesy/jazzy electric piano lead.

I'm not really aware of the content of Rossif's TV series Opera Sauvage, but it may well have been partly avian-themed given the bookends on side two here.  Mouettes (gulls) is a brief synth piece and the multi-section Flamants Roses (flamingos) features Jon Anderson on harp, setting up the full-on collaboration to come.  In between these two pieces are Chromatique, which gives more interesting instrumental variety in its guitar textures, and the suitably evocative Irlande.  One of Vangelis' most accessible records of his classic era, and I reckon one of the very best.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux

Antarctica
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Harold Budd 1936-2020

 

R.I.P. Harold Budd, 24 May 1936 - 8 December 2020

 

Harold Budd, ambient/modern classical musician and composer, has died at the age of 84 after decades of creating some of the world's most sublime music.

Posts at SGTG:

The Oak Of The Golden Dreams

The Plateaux Of Mirror

The Pearl

Music For Three Pianos

 

And here's another I never got around to posting before: The Serpent In Quicksilver/Abandoned Cities.  Usual password, sgtg.  It's a compilation of a typically gorgeous, languid EP and an LP of two darker ambient ventures.  Thanks Harold for so much wonderful music.

Arild Andersen - Clouds In My Head (1975)

Sticking with ECM for the moment, but heading back into the 70s for another legendary bassist, here's the debut album as leader by the always prolific Arild Andersen, in an all-Norse quartet.  Starting off with the bright swing of 305 W 8th Street (singer Shiela Jordan's NYC address where Andersen once stayed), the intricate, melodic bassline that takes flight makes it unmistakeable whose album this is right from the off.

From there on, there's gentle, reflective material like Last Song (placed second, natch) and the gorgeous Song For A Sad Day (Knut Riisnæs taking a leaf from Garbarek's book, perhaps even more so in the title track).  The mellowness is interspersed with more uptempo tracks like Outhouse, which brings to mind The Windup from Belonging in its tightly-wound theme, the pensive Cycles, and the closing blast of The Sword Beneath His Wings, which was featured in Anderson's firey Molde set of 1981 (link below).  Jon Balke is a perfect, sympathetic pianist throughout, and Andersen's compositional and playing talents make this a lovely record to return to over and over.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Shimri

Green Shading Into Blue
Molde Concert
and featuring Arild Andersen:
Afric Pepperbird
Triptykon
Popofoni
In Line
Bluish

Achirana

Aaron Parks - Arborescence (2013)

Mentioned this album when recounting the chance meeting of Aaron Parks and Yeahwon Shin that led to Lua Ya, so about time I posted it.  Arborescence was the second appearance on ECM (Lua Ya came out a few months before it) for Parks, born 1983 in Seattle, and his first album of solo piano.  It's an impressionistic, highly evocative set of improvisation-composition pianism, that almost seems to unfold like a forest-reverie concept album.  The album title feeds down into the track titles that start with Asleep In The Forest, Towards Awakening and so on, with later tracks named Squirrels, Branches and River Ways.

Parks' style occasionally bringing Keith Jarrett to mind in the way that some of the initially hesitant sounding tracks unfold, and spin off from jazz, blues and Satie-era classical music.  Arborescence is a gorgeous collection of pieces that are endlessly enjoyable, and mostly mellow and reflective.  The most the temperature gets raised is in the rolling arpeggios of In Pursuit, and in the brief, jittery movements of Squirrels.  Beautiful stuff.

link

pw: sgtg

Geoff Sample - Bird Songs & Calls (2010)

Bought this little book and accompanying triple-CD set from a closedown sale in a popup bookstore a few years back, and didn't give it much attention until recently when I felt like listening to something a bit different.  Ripped the discs - 229 tracks over three and a half hours, that's got to be a record for this blog! - and gave it a listen; then decided it was definitely worth sharing.

Geoff Sample is an English naturalist/ornithologist/sound recordist who's been releasing CDs of birdsong going back to the 90s, and also pops up on BBC radio programmes now and then with some of his recordings.  Here, he narrates the songs and calls of British birds grouped into their habitats, spending about ten to fifteen minutes in each section: House & Garden, Farmland, Hedges & Scrub and so on, all the way through to Rocky Coast.  The third CD is different - it's a guide to recognising bird song, from the simplest to the more complicated.  The book cross-references the CD tracks with brief descriptions of each bird, its migratory patterns, when best to find it etc.

The two main CDs are a really enjoyable listen - the various bird sounds, coupled with Sample's unobtrusive narration in the pleasant burr of his Northumbrian accent, actually make the first disc in particular a quite relaxing experience.  The second CD maybe not so much - some of these feathered performers are loud!  Nevertheless the whole thing is a very well put together, great-sounding immersion in birdsong.

Disc 1 link

Disc 2 link

Disc 3 link

pw: sgtg

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Orphée (2016)

Jóhann Jóhannsson's move to the distinguished ranks of Deutsche Grammophon for his first studio album in a few years was meant to start a new chapter in his career as a modern composer.  Instead, it was a coda - after only a couple more soundtrack releases, he suddenly died aged just 48.  The wintry, elegaic tones of Orphée, inspired by Jean Cocteau's film of the same name and the myth of Orpheus it was based on, took on an even more sombre air in hindsight.

It's a beautiful album, with 15 short tracks (only two breaking the four-minute mark) built on simple materials for maximum melancholy and atmosphere.  Given Jóhannsson's considerable body of soundtrack work beforehand, it's perhaps no surprise that some of this music sounds particularly filmic, especially the opening Flight From The City with its piano motif gradually built upon.  Several tracks are centred around strings, and little production touches like understated electronics and effects, and the ghostly radio samples of a "numbers station" add variety.  Then all instrumentation is absent for the sublime closing track, performed by acapella choir.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Fordlandia

Eberhard Weber Colours - Little Movements (1980)

Second album by Eberhard Weber's Colours collective - third if you count Yellow Fields, as a reissue box set did - and fast becoming my favourite Weber album, possibly overtaking even the more gentle, hushed Fluid Rustle.  After four minutes of atmospheric ambience, the opening Last Stage Of A Long Journey develops into a gorgeous, sedate feature for Rainer Brüninghaus' piano and Charlie Mariano's flute (then Garbarek-like sax).  The twelve-minute Bali also starts with a gentle, wispy drone, before bursting into life with Brüninghaus' repetitive piano figures, and developing in multiple sections.  You can tell it's a Brüninghaus composition; he's well on the way to his own masterpiece Freigeweht with material like this. 

Some more cyclical piano arpeggios introduce A Dark Spell, which develops into a great feature for Mariano to soar freely, especially in the uptempo end section.  The title track starts with an odd clash of sounds in the accordion-like synth and clatter of percussion, held together by Brüninghaus' piano as John Marshall continues to roll around the kit before it all settles into another gorgeous track.  Then 'No Trees?' He Said is a joyous, upbeat closer.  This whole album is a pure delight from start to finish.

link

pw: sgtg

Eberhard Weber at SGTG:

Yellow Fields (link also includes Jan Garbarek's Paths, Prints feat. Weber) 

Silent Feet

Fluid Rustle

Ralph Towner's Solstice: Sound & Shadows

Pat Metheny's Watercolors

Jerry Hunt - Lattice (1996 compi, recordings from late '70s)

A collection of fascinating music and utterly bizarre sounds, even by the standards of the more outer limits of this blog.  Texan avant-gardist, teenage occultist (he'd remain influenced by John Dee's "Enochian alphabet" for structuring his music), instrument builder, electronic manipulator, video artist and compellingly physical performer Jerry Hunt (1943-1993) just becomes an increasingly fascinating figure the more you read about him.  There's a tribute website here with plenty of reading material - for now, here's an introduction to what he sounded like.

This CD collects an LP from 1979 and one side of a three-artist release from the same year, both released on Hunt's independent label Irida.  First up is his piano piece Lattice, from the "Texas Music" compilation.  It's about the only thing here that really qualifies as music in the traditional sense; a jittery, spidery exploration of dynamics and resonance of piano tones that Hunt recorded with bells attached to his wrists.  Brought to mind Charlemagne Palestine's early piano work at points.

The remaining four tracks, all derivations of his Cantegral Segments series, are the real introduction to Hunt's weird, frequently discomforting soundworld.  Transform (Stream) is based around manipulations of vocal sounds (I'm simplifying Hunt's sui-generis, ultra-technical to the point of near-incomprehnsible liner notes as best I can): whistling, groaning, gurgling and odd clattering noises and faint electronics make up its nine minutes.  

 

Cantegral Segement 18.17 again takes vocal input as its basis, sounding like a lo-fi, homebrew version of a John Cage/David Tudor/Gordon Mumma experiment.  Transphalba is the longest track and possibly the highlight of the collection, performed on "lip-vibrated aerophone", "solo mechanical instrument" and electronic manipulations of same.  The closing Volta (Kernel) returns to vocal sounds.  Utterly unique, weird and compelling stuff.

Jerry Hunt's "Four Video Transformations" - ends with Transform (Stream)

link

pw: sgtg

Grachan Moncur III - Evolution (1964)

Blue Note session recorded 57 years and a couple of days ago, at a time when the label's most ambitious players and composers were reaching beyond hard bop for something spacier and more cerebral, but still hugely enjoyable and durable over the years.  This was the first album as leader for trombonist Grachan Moncur III (b. 1937, NYC); he wouldn't record many more with his name at the top, which is a shame, as this is a great record.

Four lengthy tracks allow everyone to stretch out on these imaginative pieces all penned by Moncur, who is supported by Lee Morgan on trumpet, Jackie McLean on alto sax, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Bob Crenshaw on bass and Tony Williams on drums.  Album opener Air Raid is a multi-section mid-tempo tune where Hutcherson is particularly good at supplying the atmospherics, then the title track is an eerie, pedal-point dronepiece.  The album's second half contains the more upbeat selections: the aptly named The Coaster has twists and turns aplenty around a great melodic theme, then Monk In Wonderland is a fun tribute to the jerky rhythms favoured by its titular figure.

link

pw: sgtg

Roedelius - Piano Piano (1991)

Whether you read that album title as an indication of musical dynamics ('soft, soft'), or just that Hans-Joachim Roedelius' touch on the titular instrument was so good he named it twice, this is a sublime album.  Released in 1991 on the Italian label Materiali Sonori, these nine tracks of solo piano bear all the hallmarks of the master of melancholy melody.  A couple of the longer ones meander a bit, but always in the nicest way possible, along the paths and across the fields of rural Europe that Roedelius' more reflective music conjure up.

On the CD version, Materiali Sonori added three bonus tracks: one of them 15 minutes long, and the other two back down to a compact three minutes.  In contrast to the album proper, there are subtle synth shadings added to these extra pieces.  In the lengthy In der Dämmerung, actually, they're not all that subtle at all to begin with, sounding like a particularly odd counterpoint or out-of-sync overdub at first, but it all starts to make sense after a few minutes.

link

pw: sgtg

Roedelius at SGTG:
Kluster 1970-1971
Cluster & Eno
Jardin Au Fou
Live In Vienna
Curiosum
Lustwandel
Wenn Der Südwind Weht
Offene Türen
Apropos Cluster
Inlandish
Qua
Rufen
Fragen
Tasten

Imagori

Eberhard Weber Colours - Silent Feet (1978)

Eberhard Weber's Yellow Fields band (minus Jon Christensen, who presumably had a hundred other ECM sessions to attend) coalesced into Colours in the late 70s.  They produced two albums under this moniker, of which Silent Feet was the first (the other's coming up next week).  John Marshall was now on the drum stool, laying down a neat mid-tempo shuffle for Weber, Charlie Mariano and Rainer Brüninghaus to move around in on the great 18-minute opener, Seriously Deep.  Mariano's solos are a particular standout on this memorable epic of jazz-prog.

The two remaining tracks are 12 minutes apiece, with the title track starting out as a meditative feature for Weber and Brüninghaus, before Marshall kicks it into gear for the album's most joyously upbeat stretch.  Eyes That Can See In The Dark then establishes a suitably nocturnal atmosphere, with subtle percussion and Mariano's wood flute.  After a few minutes of this static ambience, Marshall and Brüninghaus take it into the home stretch, including a gorgeous piano spotlight for the latter and more of Mariano stretching out.  The legendary bassist-composer of course provides the supple joints for the whole body of Colours to move as one.

"...and to the cat he has given silent feet and eyes that can see in the dark"

- Richard Adams, Watership Down, Chapter 6: The Story of the Blessing of El-ahrairah

link

pw: sgtg

 

Eberhard Weber at SGTG:

Yellow Fields (link also includes Jan Garbarek's Paths, Prints feat. Weber)

Fluid Rustle

Ralph Towner's Solstice: Sound & Shadows

Pat Metheny's Watercolors

Koichi Watanabe - Electronic Music 1979-1980 (2002 compilation)

Three electronic explorations from this Japanese artist, about whom there seems to virtually no information online* - at least on English-language sites.  Bit of a mystery one, then; this compilation just caught my eye as a cheap addition to a Discogs order.  The only information given on the back of the album is that these pieces, each around 20 minutes in length, were recorded in Tokyo in 1979 (track 1) and 1980 (tracks 2-3).

Given the recording years, and perhaps because I've been listening to so much early 80s electronica lately, I think I was expecting a bit more high-fidelity sheen to Watanabe's music.  Quite the opposite is true: his tracks here, named Amoebas, Caimen and San-Youchiyu, are murky, echo-laden soundscapes reminiscent of '76-'77 Throbbing Gristle at their calmest, '71 Cluster or perhaps even Kluster.  The last track is a bit more melodic, and will appeal to fans of Conrad Schnitzler.  Definitely worth hearing if you like lo-fi, exploratory electronics.

link

pw: sgtg

* The usual caveat applies here, namely that I'm not exactly an exhaustive googler, and may well have missed something...

Between - Stille Über Der Zeit / Silence Beyond Time (expanded edition 2007, orig. rel. 1980)

The most high-profile entries in Between's compact discography are arguably And The Waters Opened (1973) and Dharana (1974).  Those two frequently crop up at the margins of krautrock 'must have' lists as prime examples of their jazz/kraut/world-fusion sound, with group mainstay Peter Michael Hamel also fairly well known in his own right.  I went for this one from the very end of their career for no other reason than it was more readily available than the others (almost all of these 2007 reissues seem to be out of print now), and it's an absolutely gorgeous album.

The sound of Silence Beyond Time has virtually nothing to do with krautrock of any shade, except maybe Popol Vuh at their most acoustic, and is based on piano, acoustic guitar and wind instruments (Robert Eliscu had played with Popol Vuh; Roger Janotta made some obscure appearances on ECM/Japo).  If anything, Between on this album sound more like a less jazzy/more classical-influenced Oregon, or Azimuth without the electronics.  After a brief opening track based on minimalist piano figures, the most atmospheric track Two Alone By The Waterphone is an early highlight.  Percussion when it appears is minimal, either bongos or, on the lengthy Indian-influenced Das Molekül, tabla from guest musician Pandit Sankha Chatterjee.  The baroque-inspired winds earned that track the working title "Telemann in India".  

 

On Side Two of the original album, the title track was written just before the death of Hamel's father, to whom the final track is also dedicated; it starts as a meditative tribute with wordless voice, before picking up speed with another minimalist piano part.  Peaceful Piece is a lengthy group improvisation; it's followed on the CD reissue by two further improvisatory tracks that didn't appear on the original LP, and are a fair bit looser and wilder than the LP tracks, so perhaps didn't make the cut for that reason.  The album proper concludes with another beautiful piano and voice based piece, and a sublime guitar/flute/bass trio that was the last ever Between recording.  Very highly recommended.

Original LP cover

link

pw: sgtg

Tomasz Stańko - Balladyna (1976)

As per last week's post, Tomasz Stańko's TWET lineup was mostly retained for his first appearance on ECM, with only Peter Warren switched out for Dave Holland.  And it's the legendary bassist who sparks this album into life, with the propulsive riff that kicks off the aptly named First Song.  Stańko and Szukalski are united on a catchy theme, before going off on some incendiary solos.

The more atmospheric Tale follows, giving Edward Vesala his first feature on his signature range of percussion.  Then there's a Vesala composition, Num - it's a bit more spidery and exploratory as per the darker-hued material on TWET, but never fully loses sight of the great melodic theme that it sets out.  The album's first side concludes with a brief duet between Stańko and Holland.

Side Two comprises three tracks, all composed by Stańko.  The title track is the kind of solemn dirge that would become Stańko's stock in trade when he returned to ECM almost two decades later.  Last Song is more free and firey again - but it's not the actual last song: that's the closing Nenaliina, another great atmospheric feature for Vesala to star in.

Original LP cover

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland
Purple Sun

TWET
Freelectronic in Montreux
Bluish
Bosonossa And Other Ballads
Matka Joanna 

Wolność W Sierpniu - Freedom In August
Dark Eyes
Wisława
Polin

Tod Machover - Spectres: Music For Large Ensemble And Computer Sounds (1986)

Two works by Tod Machover (b. 1953, NY) dating from 1984, during his period at IRCAM in Paris.  Although the album title might be expected to refer to all its contents, only one of these is for ensemble and computer - first up is Nature's Breath, purely for orchestra.  Named after a Taoist saying about the force of wind producing other sounds in nature, it's an enchanting piece that concerns itself with "unity between diverse materials", and centres on a long, unfolding melody line whilst the three main sections respectively explore harmony, timbre and rhythm.

Spectres Parisiens is even more engrossing, played by the ASKO Ensemble conducted by Peter Eötvös against Machover's taped part from IRCAM, realised on the 4X digital synth.  Machover doesn't go as far as calling this spectral music, but it definitely touches on some of the techniques used by the French spectralists.  Again, Machover is interested in "many diverse elements [which] are accumulated and eventually unified", apparently a driving force in his overall musical thinking.  As trailered in the bio note for this CD, his next project was an opera based on Philip K. Dick's VALIS - must get hold of that sometime.

link

pw: sgtg

Tomasz Stańko - TWET (1974)

Dark and skronky free jazz from Eastern Europe at its most inspired.  Tomasz Stańko assembled a great band here with American bassist Peter Warren, Finnish percussion wizard Edward Vesala and fellow Polish jazz avant-gardist Tomasz Szukalski on saxes and bass clarinet.

The first of two lengthy tracks, Dark Awakening features Warren either clunking ominously or bowing a deep drone, whilst Vesala adds several odd sounds (and even occasional vocals) to his unique drumming style, giving the horn players the perfectly bizarre backing to take flight against.  The title track is in a similar vein; loads of space, especially for Szukalski to bounce off of Stańko, and Warren mostly sticking to an ominous upward plod like a jazz Geezer Butler.

There's lighter material on TWET too, with Mintuu Maria featuring Stańko at his sweetest and most melodic for this period, and the closing Night Peace featuring little bell sounds from Vesala.  In between those is Man From North, another lengthy exploratory vehicle.  All in all, one of the most satisfying albums of Stańko's early career.  He'd land his first ECM date not long after with almost the same lineup - that's coming up next week.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Jazzmessage From Poland
Purple Sun
Freelectronic in Montreux
Bluish
Bosonossa And Other Ballads
Matka Joanna 

Wolność W Sierpniu - Freedom In August
Dark Eyes
Wisława
Polin

Tangerine Dream - Cyclone (1978)

Been on another big TD binge these last few weeks, and worked through the Virgin years until I got to this - supposedly the 'black sheep' of their classic era.  Time to give it a fair hearing with fresh ears? Absolutely.

Tangerine Dream at the end of 1977 saw their stable lineup of the last six years fracture, with the final departure of Peter Baumann.  Edgar Froese and Chris Franke returned to the studio the following January, adding drummer Klaus Krüger and multi-instrumentalist Steve Jolliffe.  The English-born Jolliffe's association with TD actually predated their first album, so he was effectively rejoining the band.  The sessions by their own accounts were a bit of a try-anything blank slate, with competing voices for the overall direction.  Then Jolliffe decided to sing...

Cyclone remains one of only a tiny number of TD albums with vocals.  And to be honest, Jolliffe's weird, often effects-laden voice suits the electronic prog sound of Cyclone pretty well.  The lyrics are no more or less nonsensical than on any number of prog classics you could name, and do help establish a fantasy-sci-fi atmosphere.  In the middle section of Bent Cold Sidewalk, Jolliffe's wind instruments add another fresh colouring to the TD palette.  Then for the side-long closer Madrigal Meridian, Froese, Franke and Krüger got their heads down and turned out a classic sequencer-based epic that solidified the Berlin school-prog hybrid they would perfect on the following year's Force Majeure.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)
Encore
Force Majeure
Tangram
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

David Tudor - Microphone (1978)

More from David Tudor, whose electronic music we heard a few weeks back.  This work was a simpler proposition: just point two shotgun microphones at an array of loudspeakers and mix the resulting feedback into alien sounds, using a processor again designed by Tudor's colleague Gordon Mumma.

Microphone was originally designed for the Pepsi Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka, with 37 speakers in a rhombic grid and headsets given to visitors in order to listen in.  This later version, recorded for an LP on the Cramps label's Nova Musicha series, features two half-hour-long renderings of Microphone.  Low growls, high-pitched whines and many other variations of processed feedback flit through the mix, come to sudden stops or fritter away into new sounds.  Crank it up loud.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Three Works For Live Electronics

Scott Walker - Scott 3 & Scott 4 (1969) plus BBC Proms Tribute 2017

These two classic albums from 1969, plus Scott Walker's wider discography, always find regular rotation in my listening habits in the last couple of months of the year, so here's some long overdue posting of Scott 3 & 4 - with a bonus tribute concert from three years ago.

By the time the 60s entered its final year, the former Walker Brothers idol had released two solo records of increasingly ambitious songwriting and arrangement, his own songs dotted between covers notably by Jacques Brel.  For Scott 3, the three Brel covers were placed right at the end of the album, leaving the rest to his most mature songwriting yet, including timeless classics like Copenhagen and Rosemary.  Wally Stott's string arrangements were still sumptuous and classy, but the dissonant drone at the album's outset pointed to even more ambitious music to come.

Walker released no less than three albums in 1969, the second being a contractual commitment to his TV show - but he was saving his own material for his masterpiece.  Originally released under his birth name of Engel, and probably sinking without trace for that reason on initial release, Scott 4 was Walker's first release of all-original material.

 

And seriously, what to even write about this clutch of ten songs without a single dud among them.  Starting your record with a setting of Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal to a Morricone-eseque arrangement might seem like an audacious move - following it up with nine more perfect songs with slimmed-down arrangements just makes for one of the greatest albums ever made.  If this post happens to be your first encounter with Scott 4, I envy you beyond description.

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is a longtime Scott Walker champion who'd worked with him in 2001, and had taken part in the "Tilting and Drifting" concert at the London Barbican in 2008.  Cocker therefore must've been an obvious choice for this BBC Proms tribute to the 1967-1970 music of Scott, which took place in July 2017.  

 

For this concert, Jarvis was joined by fellow British artist Richard Hawley, US singer-songwriter John Grant, and Susanne Sundfør from Norway.  Each singer takes two songs in the spotlight, and turn about thereafter, all coming together for the closing Get Behind Me.  Providing the sumptuous backing to seventeen of Walker's finest songs are the Heritage Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley.

Scott 3 link

Scott 4 link

Proms Tribute link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Nite Flights

Climate Of Hunter

Tilt

Soused

Mathias Eick - Midwest (2015)

Third album as leader for Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick, and probably one of the finest ECM albums of the last decade.  For me, it gets in to such esteemed company as Wisława for much the same reasons: having an inspired lineup playing at the top of its game on some superb compositions.

Eick's inspiration for this album was a tour of the US where he travelled through the rural Midwest.  Struck by the landscape's resemblance to his native land, he wondered if early Norwegian immigrants to the area had thought the same.  To translate this migratory concept into music, Eick scaled back the more contemporary sound of his breakthrough album Skala, and added folk violinist Gjermund Larsen.

 

The result was an inspired coupling of Eick's lyrical, Chet Baker/Kenny Wheeler inspired melodicism with an earthy folkiness that really makes these wide-open-space melodies stick in your brain, and rewards repeat plays.  Jon Balke's beautifully understated piano and the rhythm section of Mats Eilertsen/Helge Norbakken are the perfect foil to Eick and Larsen's soaring melodies.  Highly recommended.

link

pw: sgtg

City Of London Sinfonia/Truro Cathedral Choir - The Fruit Of Silence At Truro Cathedral (2019)

Music of quiet, austere beauty, recorded a year ago this week on a tour by the London Sinfonia.  Whilst exploring the acoustics of some of the UK's legendary cathedrals, they arrived at this Gothic Revival one in Cornwall and were joined by Truro Cathedral Choir.  The ensemble and choir perform at varying locations around the cathedral, to fully exploit its natural resonances.

The programme alternates between choral music and chamber music, taking in 20th and 21st century composers from Peteris Vasks (whose twice-performed piece in different versions gives the concert its title), Eric Whitacre, and Russel Pascoe to John Tavener and Dobrinka Tabakova, whose Centuries Of Meditations suite is the stunning closer (her string quintet Organum Light is another highlight).  Even though he's just represented here by instrumental music, the influence of Arvo Pärt casts a long shadow over all the composers of the choral works.  If you like Pärt, prepare for 70 minutes of heavenly sounds.

link

pw: sgtg

Dobrinka Tabakova - String Paths (2013)

Debut album of music by Bulgarian-born, London-based composer Dobrinka Tabakova (b. 1980, Plovdiv).  This superb ECM New Series release focuses on Tabakova's works for strings, written between 2002 and 2008.

First up is Insight, intended to blend the sonorities of a string trio so that they sound like a single instrument - it's a great opener.  Next is a concerto for cello and strings, that emphasises the lead instrument's grounded quality, like "a ship trying to anchor itself".  This is followed by Frozen River Flows, which brings Gubaidulina to mind in its use of accordion, although the inspiration was a Messiaen organ work transcribed for accordion, as well as the titular flow of water underneath ice.

Suite In Old Style, which was being performed at the Lockenhaus Festival where Manfred Eicher discovered Tabakova's music, takes in influences from baroque music and architechture; she described it as "a conversation I wanted to have... with Rameau".  To close, the string septet Such Different Paths gradually introduces the instruments in pairs, passing melodic lines around until the solo violin soars above them.  More music by Tabakova coming up on Monday.

link

pw: sgtg

Conrad Schnitzler - Blau (1974)

Early Schnitzler in his second solo LP, comprising two side-long tracks.  Die Rebellen Haben Sich In Den Bergen Versteckt looks forward to the increasingly rhythmic electronics that Schnitzler would produce in the late 70s - early 80s, clanking its way forwards whilst other synth burbles are overlaid until a mournful-sounding guitar figure is introduced.  

 

Jupiter is more appropriately cosmic, with Schnitzler's synths floating around in a dark, gaseous echosphere, and what sounds like a wordless vocal towards the end.  According to Asmus Tietchens' liner notes, Schnitzler's old Kluster bandmates Moebius and Roedelius are featured on this album - I'm not entirely sure where though, it all sounds like classic early period Schnitzler to me.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Grün
Con
Consequenz
Contempora
Con 3
Congratulacion

Con-Struct (Pyrolator)

The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall (rec. 1953, first 12" LP release 1956)

Recordings from a bop dream team in concert at Toronto's Massey Hall on 15 May 1953, with some later bass overdubs.  Bird & Diz, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach - what more to say, really, about a lineup like that?  The audience might have been diminished due to being scheduled against a boxing prize fight, but this a heavyweight championship in its own right.  Six classic tunes give everyone a chance to land punches, from the opening swing of Perdido, a red hot Salt Peanuts where Gillespie's clearly having fun, to a lengthy Hot House where Mingus and Roach stretch out, and more.  An essential landmark in 50s jazz.

link

pw: sgtg

Richard & Linda Thompson - Pour Down Like Silver (1975)

A new box set was recently released taking in all of the albums (and more) by this legendary pairing in British folk, so here's my favourite album of theirs.  Just about to take a break from music, as they'd converted to Sufi Islam, Richard & Linda Thompson's new spritual embrace was encapsulated in the gorgeous centrepice of this album, Night Comes In.

Beat The Retreat and Dimming Of The Day were further sublime expressions of spiritual longing, but the sardonic wit of Thompson's songwriting up until then wasn't entirely absent.  The opening track Streets Of Paradise was particularly good on that score, and the album as a whole still features plenty of his brilliant guitar playing.  Always inspired by Scottish music, Thompson ends the album with a cover of James Scott Skinner's fiddle tune Dargai.  Pour Down Like Silver was the most stripped-down sounding of all of Richard & Linda's albums, and the bare-bones sound (filled out where necessary, most distinctively by John Kirkpatrick's accordion playing) suits these starkly beautiful songs well.

link

pw: sgtg