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March 8, 2007
György Ligeti, A Cappella Choral Works. Genre: Choruses, Sacred (Mixed voices), Unaccompanied; Choruses, Secular (Mixed voices), Unaccompanied; Choruses, Secular (Women's voices), Unaccompanied;
A vast audience received its first exposure to the music of György Ligeti through Stanley Kubrick's use of his haunting "Lux Aeterna" (despite the composer's lack of consent) in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. This collection--part of Sony's invaluable Ligeti edition--places "Lux aeterna" in the context of Ligeti's other a cappella choral works, which together provide an overview of the evolving phases of one of the 20th century's most intriguing composers. In his booklet notes to the disc, Ligeti recalls the influence of Bartók and Kodály on his early folkloric compositions, from arrangements of traditional material to free, polyrhythmically inflected inventions on Hungarian folk texts, a format that allowed him some degree of experimental freedom from the strictures of "socialist realism" before he fled the Hungarian Communist regime. The breakthrough "Lux aeterna" is a classic example of Ligeti's trademark technique of "micropolyphony," enveloping the listener in mesmerizingly dense textures of cloudlike harmonies. From Ligeti's late period comes a triptych of "Hölderlin Phantasies." Their 16-voice polyphony transcends the simplistic distinction between tonality and atonality to explore "new kinds of half diatonic, half chromatic harmonies." The resulting sound world of fragmentary, dislocated epiphanies mirrors the unfathomable richness of the great visionary poet to uncanny effect. Throughout, the acoustical balance and conviction of the London Sinfonietta Voices give vivid shape to Ligeti's genius. - Thomas May, Amazon.com
Rhys Chatham, Die Donnergötter . Genre: Rock music -- 1971-1980; Rock music -- 1981-1990; Avant-garde (Music);
This NY-born composer began as a classically trained prodigy, but by 1975, Chatham was fusing the overtone-drenched minimalism of John Cale and Tony Conrad with the relentless, elemental fury of The Ramones. It was an inspired amalgamation; the textural intricacies of the avant-garde colliding with the visceral punch of electric guitar-slinging punk rock, and with it Rhys created a new type of urban music. Raucous and ecstatic, this sound energized the downtown NY scene throughout the late '70s and early '80s, prefiguring the No Wave movement, and casting a huge influence over the subsequent work of Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth. This release contains all of Chatham's best work of the period, vividly documenting those glorious years in the life of a city and a milieu in which the raw, the sophisticated, and the danceable merged, and a new era of rock was born. Includes 32-page book (accompanying the CD version), rare photos, plus essays by Chatham, Tony Conrad, and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, as well as artwork by famed visual artist Robert Longo. "Blue Oyster Cult and Kiss might've made noises about guitar armies, but it took composer Rhys Chatham to actually deploy one. And there's no other way to say this: it rocks." - Magnet
The Decemberists (Musical group), The Crane Wife. Genre: Rock music -- 2001-2010; Alternative rock music;
Capitol raised a few eyebrows when they signed indie stalwarts the Decemberists. There's nothing blatantly commercial about the Portland quintet, from Colin Meloy's quavery voice and hyper-literate lyrics to the band's wide-ranging music, which encompasses baroque pop, prog rock, and dozens of other styles. Then again, he did once sing, "I was made for the stage," and those who've seen the group live know this to be true. Sure, they're storytellers, but they're entertainers, too--just not in the Top 40 sense. Never ones to play it safe, their major label debut takes its inspiration from a Japanese folk tale. It travels from the Replacements-style balladry of "The Crane Wife 3"--which joins words like "Each feather it fell from skin/'Til threadbare while she grew thin" to the melody from "Here Comes a Regular"--to the ELP hoedown of three-part epic "The Island" to the haunting duet between Meloy and Laura Veirs on "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)." It's an impressively eclectic effort that somehow manages to avoid sounding scattered. Co-produced by Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie) and Tucker Martine (the Long Winters), the Decemberists' fourth full-length is richer, less immediately catchy than its predecessor (there's nothing as bouncy here as Picaresque's "Sixteen Military Wives"). It's also a deeper work that resists snap judgments. Some records hit you over the head with their brilliance, others need time to percolate. Time will tell if The Crane Wife is the Decemberists' best album--it's certainly their most ambitious so far. - Kathleen C. Fennessy, Amazon.com
Sam Cooke, Portrait Of A Legend, 1951-1964. Genre: Gospel music; Soul music; Rock music -- To 1961; Rock music -- 1961-1970;
The word legend is tossed around too casually today. It seems to be applied in liberal doses even to one-hit wonders. Sam Cooke, and his body of exquisite work, is one performer truly deserving of the title legend. This CD, "Sam Cooke, Portrait of a Legend" does a fine job in putting the best of Sam in one CD.
There are quite a few Sam Cooke compilations out there but I think this one does as good a job as any in actually providing a portrait that extends beyond just his better known hits. Cooke, the son of a preacher and like many of his fellow 'soul-singers' started his career in Gospel. Cooke's gospel roots are evident in many of his great hits, including Bring it on Home to Me and A Change is Gonna Come. However, most Cooke compilations do not contain selections of his time as a lead singer with the Soul Stirrers, a Gospel Group...
The CD contains excellent liner notes prepared by peter Guralnick. Guralnick [has written] a biography of Cooke [Dream Boogie] and these notes reflect his deep interest in the man and his music.
This is an excellent compilation. It does Cooke proud. - Leonard Fleising, Amazon.com
Built to Spill (Musical group), Keep It Like A Secret. Genre: Rock music -- 1991-2000; Grunge music
Most guitar heroes make their mark by doing something extravagant, like playing with their teeth or with their instrument in flames. Doug Martsch of Boise, Idaho's Built to Spill has acquired his guru status by simpler means--he combines his trippy, meandering guitar style with classic pop structures. Martsch also wins points for singing about small-scale moments as well as huge moral abstractions, from watching TV to contemplating the center of the universe. By subtly balancing the forest of dense guitars with Martsch's oddly prosaic yet uncannily beautiful singing, Built to Spill hold the rare achievement of making music that's rooted yet allows you to fly. "Time Trap" begins with a harplike guitar line floating above a heavy wave of distortion, drifts into a reggae pattern, and eventually rises to the high step of musical theater. The charming and funny "You Were Right" decides once and for all which of the classic-rock clichés ring true. "You were wrong when you said, 'Everything's going to be all right' / You were right when you said, 'We're all just bricks in the wall.'" It is a richly deserved analysis from alt rock's heroic Everyman. - Lois Maffeo, Amazon.com
Karen Dalton, In My Own Time. Genre: Blues (Music) -- 2001-2010; Popular music -- 2001-2010
The late Karen Dalton has been the muse for countless folk rock geniuses, from Bob Dylan to Devendra Banhart, from Lucinda Williams to Joanna Newsom. Legendary singer Lacy J. Dalton actually adopted her hero's surname as her own when she started her career in country music. Karen Dalton had that affect on people - her timeless, aching, blues-soaked, Native American spirit inspired both Dylan & The Band's 'Katie's Been Gone' (on The Basement Tapes) and Nick Cave's 'When I First Came To Town' (from Henry's Dream). Recorded over a six month period in 1970/71 at Bearsville, In My Own Time was Dalton's only fully planned and realized studio album. The material was carefully selected and crafted for her by producer/musician Harvey Brooks, the Renaissance man of rock-jazz who played bass on Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and Miles' Bitches Brew. It features ten songs that reflected Dalton's incredible ability to break just about anybody's heart - from her spectral evocation of Joe Tate's 'One Night of Love', to the dark tragedy of the traditional 'Katie Cruel'. Known as a great interpreter of choice material, Dalton could master both country and soul genres with hauntingly pining covers of George Jones' 'Take Me' and Holland-Dozier Holland's 'How Sweet It Is'. - Amazon.com
Talking Heads (Musical group), Talking Heads '77. Genre: Rock music -- 1971-1980.
Though they were the most highly touted new wave band to emerge from the CBGB's scene in New York, it was not clear at first whether Talking Heads' Lower East Side art rock approach could make the subway ride to the midtown pop mainstream successfully. The leadoff track of the debut album, Talking Heads: 77, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," was a pop song that emphasized the group's unlikely roots in late-'60s bubblegum, Motown, and Caribbean music. But the "Uh-Oh" gave away the group's game early, with its nervous, disconnected lyrics and David Byrne's strained voice. All pretenses of normality were abandoned by the second track, as Talking Heads finally started to sound on record the way they did downtown: the staggered rhythms and sudden tempo changes, the odd guitar tunings and rhythmic, single-note patterns, the non-rhyming, non-linear lyrics that came across like odd remarks overheard from a psychiatrist's couch, and that voice, singing above its normal range, its falsetto leaps and strangled cries resembling a madman trying desperately to sound normal. Talking Heads threw you off balance, but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy. The music was undeniably catchy, even at its most ominous, especially on "Psycho Killer," Byrne's supreme statement of demented purpose. Amazingly, that song made the singles chart for a few weeks, evidence of the group's quirky appeal, but the album was not a big hit, and it remained unclear whether Talking Heads spoke only the secret language of the urban arts types or whether that could be translated into the more common tongue of hip pop culture. In any case, they had succeeded as artists, using existing elements in an unusual combination to create something new that still managed to be oddly familiar. And that made Talking Heads: 77 a landmark album. - Allmusic.com
Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar. Genre: Jazz -- 2001-2010.
When so much jazz is recycled or reissued, a new Ornette Coleman album is cause for celebration. But Sound Grammar, the free-jazz legend's first release in a decade, is special even by his lofty standards. Coleman was 75 when this live-in-Italy set was recorded in 2005. But he sounds pluckier than he has in years. Pared down to its eloquent basics, the music has a rare combination of beauty, power, lift, and melodic immediacy. With two bassists providing contrasting textures and internal drama--Greg Cohen plucks his acoustic instrument while Tony Falanga bows his--Ornette plays with his usual songful brilliance on alto saxophone and also sounds great on trumpet, a secondary instrument on which he usually demonstrates yeoman skills. (He also dabbles on violin.) Sound Grammar could be better engineered--the astute catchall drumming of Ornette's son Denardo Coleman is too far back in the mix and the basses frequently don't have enough presence. But this album stands with Ornette's best. Two of the songs, "Turnaround" and "Song X," are remakes; the rest of the material is just as good. - Lloyd Sachs, Amazon.com
Cat Power (Performer), The Greatest. Genre: Rock music -- 2001-2010
If you are an artist at a crossroads/ "maturing point" in your career, it's a great idea to seek out the original musicians who played on music you adore and that inspire you greatly-it's the opposite of what Rick Rubin does with the old folks. The results, however, are often lackluster; it can just be too hard to forge a connection in a short period of time with studio dudes twenty to thirty years older than you. Chan Marshall, who took just three years between albums this time, returned to Memphis to record with many of the architects of Southern soul music at Ardent Studios on The Greatest. And from the first and titular tune, a mournful and gorgeous ballad with swelling strings, backing singer and shimmery guitar accompaniment that tells the tale of a boy who wants to become a great boxer, it's clear that the results of this experiment are uniformly awesome. The sultry-voiced artiste sounds fully at home within these songs, these lovely analog Southern sounds that bridge black and white musics. It's not like she's on a trip of trying to be Aretha or anything; besides, the arrangements on all the songs are different. The loping, fiddle-accented "Empty Shell" sounds like the Unholy Modal Rounders backing Bobbie Gentry. All the songs are pretty, slow and melancholy; there's nothing like "He War" on here. We are not in the habit of quoting press releases, but it's hard to beat this line from the Matador one-sheet: "If Alex Chilton were today a beautiful young woman, he'd sound like this." Amen, or something. - Mike McGonigal
Devendra Banhart, Rejoicing In The Hands. Genre: Rock music -- 2001-2010;
Simply stated, it is a stunner, form start to finish. Banhart's Muse may be furiously active, but she is tender all the same. The sonic ambience on this disc is breathtaking. [producer Michael] Gira and Banhart brought the master tapes back to Brooklyn for some minimal and tasteful overdubbing - a guitar track here, a cello or trumpet there, a piano ghosting through the mix in another place, some spare drumming, hand percussion or vibes somewhere else. Over it all, though, is Banhart's reedy tenor and edgy, angular guitar playing with its hypnotic insistence carrying the tunes from deep in the interior of his image and sound world to the fore, where listeners can encounter and engage with them. Elements of blues, ragtime, Appalachian rural styles, country music, European and Celtic folk songs: all weave in and out of one another in a seamless yet crackling whole, each of them serving their role in articulating Banhart's sublimely prismatic, loopy vision. Singling out tracks or quoting from his words would amount to nothing more than sacrilege. This music is simply rendered, to be sure, but unspeakably profound and mercurial; it's funny, warm, heartbreaking, and evocative of another place and time. There are glimpses here of Greil Marcus' "old weird America," the all-but-visible inner terrain that informed certain spiritual, social, and aesthetic elements in our culture. Banhart's music is utterly unselfconscious and poetic. Rejoicing in the Hands is a whole - each song an inseparable part of an offering for listeners to be, quite literally, enchanted and even awed by. - Allmusic.com
Marco Antonio Solís, Trozos De Mi Alma. Genre: Popular music -- Latin America; Songs, Spanish;
Marco Antonio Solís is without question one of the most important figures in the rise of Mexican and Latin music to world prominence during the last two decades of the 20th century. Born in Michoacan, Mexico, Solís was only 12 when he formed his first group, Los Hermanitos Solís, with brother Joel. He was still a teenager when he formed Los Bukis in the early '70s. Over the course of the next two decades, Los Bukis came to profoundly influence the norteńo and tejano music of Mexico and the southwestern United States. - Amazon.com
Roxy Music (Musical group), Roxy Music. Genre: Rock music -- 1971-1980;
One of the most powerful and important debut albums of all time, along with The Velvet Underground And Nico, The Stooges, and Beefheart's Safe As Milk. Roxy Music brings an edge with sophistication to the music. Part progressive, part early rock n' roll, part experimental, this material is almost unclassifiable. "If There Is Something" is powerful and hypnotic. "Virginia Plain" is like quirky new wave pop that brings to mind XTC, Devo, and The Cars, 5 years before such a thing existed. Phil Manzanera shows he can make some ear splitting noise on guitar, equivalent to Robert Fripp, though with his own trademark on cuts like "Chance Meeting" and "Ladytron". Andy Mackay may well be the coolest rock n' roll sax man of all time. Paul Thompson's drumming is powerful and solid throughout. Your 80's loving yuppie friends that think Roxy Music is about smooth product like Avalon need to hear this one instead; it will probably clear the room! - John Spokus, Amazon.com
Ennio Morricone, Morricone Kill. Genre: Motion picture music -- Excerpts;
In composing the scores for the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone with their sparse arrangements, eerie tunes and unorthodox instrumentation (bells, church organs, harmonicas, slashing Spanish & electric guitars), Ennio Morricone at once revolutionised film music and from as far away as his base in Rome made the American western his own. Morricone's theme for The Good The Bad & The Ugly is arguably the most famous piece of music ever recorded for film. Director and composer are inseparable; the coordination of action and music such as to prompt some scholars to compare Leone's films to opera; images and sounds that are rich, solemn and often startling. On 'Morricone Kill' the achingly beautiful melodies for Leone's 'A Fistful Of Dynamite' establish the magical Morricone atmosphere; the programme comprising three beautiful cuts from this film along with selections from lesser known westerns all of which are charged with extraordinary music. - Darla Records
Fred Anderson, On the run: live at the Velvet Lounge. Genre: Jazz -- 1991-2000;
When Fred Anderson entered his seventies in 1999, the Chicago-based tenor sax veteran showed no signs of slowing down. His avant-garde improvisations were as passionate and arresting as ever, and he kept busy owning and operating a Windy City jazz club called the Velvet Lounge. Recorded at his Velvet Lounge in March 2000, this generally excellent CD finds a 71-year-old Anderson leading a piano-less trio that boasts Tatsu Aoki on upright bass and Hamid Drake on drums. Both are fellow Chicagoans, and both of them enjoy a strong rapport with Anderson on extended inside/outside performances such as the 18-minute "Tatsu's Groove," the 19-minute "Smooth Velvet," and the 16-minute "On the Run." Like John Coltrane, Anderson can be long-winded - and like Coltrane, he is such a wealth of creativity and imagination that his excesses can easily be forgiven. Those excesses, in fact, can even be enjoyable if you are among Anderson's die-hard devotees. Throughout the CD, Anderson never sounds the least bit inhibited; of course, being uninhibited is easier when you're playing at your own club. At his Velvet Lounge, Anderson is in the driver's seat. He doesn't have to worry about a club owner complaining that he doesn't play enough overdone standards, he isn't asked to feature predictable Sarah Vaughn clones who haven't a fraction of Sassy's soulfulness, and he doesn't have to explain his music to a booking agent who fails to comprehend avant-garde jazz. On the Run: Live at the Velvet Lounge is Anderson on his own terms and his own turf - he's calling the shots, and for listeners, that's a very good thing.
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