Category: Music

I was going to write an obituary to Ali Farka Touré, the amazing Mali guitarist, farmer, and village leader who passed away last month (and whose death is just being made public this week). I was beaten to it by a friend in the radio industry who wrote: “Malian musician Ali Farke Toure has died. I play his music a lot at the station, which is how I was introduced to him. It sucks that this great musician played for so many years and I had to actually go work at a radio station to learn about him. We should have two moments of silence: one, for the passing of Farke Toure, and another, for the humungous blinders that shut America off from most world music.”

I feel the same way and feel as though I’m part of the problem. I’ve known of Touré’s music for at least ten years, since the 1994 release of his Grammy-winning collaboration with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu. But I haven’t proselytized him the way I have other musicians like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Youssou N’Dour, or even Kathryn Tickell. I haven’t even put his music on a mix.

There is a great remembrance of Touré on Blogcritics today which gives some impressions of the man himself; well worth reading.

Harp Magazine: The True Confessions of Neko Case. Great article about the production of Neko’s latest, long-awaited Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which dropped today. More once I get a chance to actually listen to the album.

At Art of the Mix: Sting Sundries. This one goes back a ways: 18 years, to be exact.

I was just getting started in pop music and was discovering the wonder of the b-side. Since I only listened to a handful of artists and since Sting’s 1987 release “…Nothing like the Sun” was in the process of rocking my world, I was seeking out Sting singles for the b-sides. I found two: the 12″ vinyl of “We’ll Be Together” and the CD3 of “Englishman in New York.” I subsequently went crazy trying to figure out how to get the CD3 to play so I could tape it. You could buy an adapter to make it a 5” disc, but the adapter wouldn’t work in my parents’ CD player so I had to beg friends to let me see if it would play in theirs. I finally managed to tape the songs and in my infinite wisdom sold the CD3 some years later. At least I still have the vinyl.

I filled half a 60 minute tape with Sting rarities and shared it with Fury, who filled the other side with Dream of the Blue Turtles era b-sides and cuts from the Eberhard Schoener album Video Magic. I was hooked. I still have the tape.

Fast forward: many b-sides and the Internet later, I’m still missing five of the songs on the original tape in digital form but decided to release an updated version anyway with some newer rarities added in, including prototype cuts from Strontium 90, the band in which Sting met Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, and a 1978 single from Sting with a backing band called the Radioactors. For those missing five songs, including the ten-minute version of “Up From the Skies” recorded in the studio with Gil Evans’ band, I’ll have to keep looking.

So much to write about and so little time! I’ll update about Lisa’s new car later, but for now here’s a completely indecipherable list of what’s on my iPod today:

1. Stafrænn Hákon, “Tætir rækju” (Skvettir edik á ref)
2. Anonymous 4, “A mundi domina” (A Star in the East)
3. David Byrne, “U.B. Jesus” (Look Into the Eyeball)
4. Loretta Lynn, “Little Red Shoes” (Van Lear Rose)
5. The Breeders, “Mad Lucas” (Last Splash)
6. Jane’s Addiction, “Up the Beach” (Nothing’s Shocking)
7. Vic Gammon, “Bring Us In Good Ale” (The Tale of Ale)
8. Peter Gabriel, “Stigmata” (Passion)
9. Pavement, “Starlings of the Slipstream” (Brighten the Corners)
10. Grandaddy, “Gentle Spike Resort” (Concrete Dunes)

Here we go again, with a journey down the twisty little roads of my iPod:

1. Sloan E-52s, “Son of a Preacher Man” (2001-2002)
2. Yo La Tengo, “Autumn Sweater (Remix by Kevin Shields)” (A Smattering of Outtakes and Rarities)
3. Billy Bragg and Wilco, “Ingrid Bergman” (Mermaid Avenue)
4. Steve Reich Ensemble, “City Life III ‘It’s been a honeymoon – Can’t take no mo’” (City Life)
5. Tom Waits, “Lost in the Harbor” (Alice)
6. Elvis Costello and the London Symphony Orchestra, “Tormentress” (Il Sogno)
7. Pulp with the Swingle Singers, “My Body May Die” (Randall and Hopkirk Soundtrack)
8. Early Music Ensemble of London, “Christe, Qui Lux Es” (Guilliame de Machaut), Music of the Gothic Era)
9. Run-DMC, “My Adidas” (Raising Hell)
10. Cat Power, “Back of Your Head” (Moon Pix)

This is why pressing Shuffle on any musical device I own is a little dangerous.

I pressed play on the new Arab Strap and was immediately transported—to the standout track on the last Reindeer Section album, a song called “Whodunnit.” Surprising? Not really. The guest vocalist on that track, which was a prickly pear among the mannered (and wonderful) songs from Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody’s Scots supergroup, was Aidan Moffat, the vocalist for Scots band Arab Strap. And once you hear Moffat, you never forget.

As on that release, with The Last Romance it’s that voice that hits you first, that unmistakable Scots slur that lies somewhere between Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas after a bender. Moffat has one of the great distinct voices in indie music right now, on first listen a mix of mumble, weird Scots, and hangover-perfect enunciation. The great part is that in spite of the apparent defects, Moffat is a master of delivery, with impeccable phrasing, emotionally expressive diction, and a well-concealed melodic sense that leaves the songs stuck in your head long after they’ve stopped playing.

Of course, the other half of Arab Strap, multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton, has a lot to do with the memorableness of the songs. Songscapes as bleak as anything in Mogwai or 1980s-era The Cure drift around Moffat’s woozy vocals in the desperately driving “If There’s No Hope for Us,” the opening depressive waltz “Stink,” or the bitter rocker “Speed Date.”

But the record isn’t one-note simple. The cautious optimism of “Don’t Ask Me to Dance” has the scope of a Peter Gabriel uptempo ballad with lyrics that could be by Johnny Cash, while the acoustic “Confessions of a Big Brother” is positively tender even through the bitter confessions of the narrator’s failings. And “There Is No Ending” is a fine ending indeed, complete with major key, a horn section, and one of the greatest declarations of love ever: “If you can love my growing gut/My rotten teeth and greying hair/Then I can guarantee I’ll do/The same as long as you can bear.”

It’s early in 2006, but this is definitely one of the top releases of the year.

Also published on Blogcritics.

Yes, there’s quite a backlog of music posts here today, but this one is a twofer. I hadn’t subscribed to KEXP’s Live In Studio podcast before this week, but the first show I downloaded, an instudio by Black Angels, makes me wish I had subscribed a long time ago. The music is raw, fierce, and urgent in all the right ways. (I previously wrote about Black Angels in January.)

The best indie radio station ever also has a podcast of individual song downloads from emerging artists, the Song of the Day podcast.

The above is the logic behind a new contest sponsored on iTunes by Universal/Motown, who are distributing Prince’s forthcoming 3121. Everyone who buys Prince’s new single “Black Sweat” or its b-side “Beautiful, Loved, and Blessed” from iTunes—as I did yesterday—is entered in a sweepstakes. The winner gets an exclusive private concert by Prince at His Royal Badness’s home (“or other location selected by Sponsor”). Pretty badass prize, especially if Prince is as far atop his game as “Black Sweat” suggests. It’s funky without the self-consciousness that marred Musicology for me. (via Blogcritics)

Courtesy our good friend Mr. Greene, a pointer to an (unfortunately non-downloadable) goodie, a pointer to a cover of Radiohead’s “Just” (from The Bends) by DJ Mark Ronson that features an R&B horn line and some seriously funky guitar playing, together with a quite respectable vocal from Phantom Planet’s Alex Greenwald.

My only complaint: the cover loses something of the edgy vitriol of the original but doesn’t fully embrace the funk that the instrumental choice seems to want to bring. Otherwise one of the better Radiohead covers out there.

Missed in the shuffle of the big snowstorm, my Las Vegas trip, food poisoning, etc. was this article in the Globe on February 12 about Schoenberg and Beethoven. The link between the two is a lot clearer in a monumental work like Gurrelieder, which we’re performing starting tomorrow night at Symphony Hall.

The first orchestra rehearsal was today. As always, singing with the BSO is a real privilege, especially with a show like this one where they are being stretched beyond their normal comfort zone. (While the Gurrelieder is romantic, it’s also extremely difficult.) It’s also interesting to make the case that 20th century music evolved from the late High Romantic works rather than growing as a new, separate thing; some of the melodic passages in the piece have a harmonic quality that presages the austere intervallic language of Copland (in both his popular and obscure works). It should be a good concert—even if the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is only singing about 18 minutes of it.

Not much to add to this week’s low post count, other than that I’m finally starting to feel a bit better. And oh yeah: quailtard! quailtard! quailtard!

1. 1. “This, gentlemen, is a death dwarf…,” William S. Burroughs, Call Me Burroughs
   2. “No Girl So Sweet,” PJ Harvey, Is This Desire?
   3. “Near Wild Heaven,” R.E.M., Out of Time
   4. “False Ending,” Yo La Tengo, Electr-O-Pura
   5. “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” Frank Sinatra with Bono, Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
   6. “The Science Fiction Film,” Woody Allen, Standup Comic
   7. “Looks Like I’m Up Sh*t Creek Again,” Tom Waits, The Early Years
   8. “Down By the River,” David Rhodes, Plus From Us
   9. “On the Road to Mandalay,” Frank Sinatra, Live in Australia with the Red Norvo Quartet

1. “The Messenger,” Daniel Lanois, For the Beauty of Wynona

(And yes, I know the Yo La Tengo is a repeat. But do me a favor and don’t tell my iPod, OK? It’s just seen me order a replacement for the G4 laptop and it’s a little edgy.)

(And, oh yeah. How weird a world is it when I look at the headline “Man Shot by Cheney Leaving Hospital” and think Oh my god he’s at it again! Where are the dangling modifier police when you need them?)

I can’t top Zalm’s witty deconstruction of this week’s Grammy winners, so I’ll just shut up and post my Random 10:

1. “False Ending,” Yo La Tengo (Electr-O-Pura)
2. “Ocean Size,” Jane’s Addiction (Nothing’s Shocking)
3. “Martha’s Foolish Ginger,” Tori Amos (The Beekeeper)
4. “A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze,” Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise)
5. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” U2 (Rattle & Hum)
6. “2. Section 1,” Steve Reich (Music for 18 Musicians)
7. “San Francisco Waitress,” Eberhard Schoener and Sting (Video Magic)
8. “Language is a Virus,” Laurie Anderson (Home of the Brave)
9. “Drilling,” Minus the Bear (Menos El Oso)
10. “Walk Around My Bedside, Roscoe Holcomb (High Lonesome Sound)

I got a fan notification email a while back that Sonic Youth were working on a new album, which is always cause for celebration, especially after the last two (Murray Street and Sonic Nurse were real career high points). But I had totally missed a more interesting piece of news: back in October, Pitchfork reported that Jim O’Rourke, who was an official Sonic for the last two albums and played on others including NYC Ghosts & Flowers and SYR3, has officially left the band … to focus on directing films?

Personally I think the last bit is a canard, given that Jim is visibly active in the music business (he produced Beth Orton’s long overdue album, out yesterday). But you never know.

Coming next month: Neko Case’s new album, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. I couldn’t be more excited if tomorrow was the first day of school. (Yeah, I was that kid.) The good news is that Joey Burns and John Covertino of Calexico, who made Blacklisted so spectacular, are returning. The really interesting bit is that The Band’s keyboard player Garth Hudson is also on the record; according to his site he is playing on four tracks. Hope he brought the Lowrey with him.

The first thing that I thought on reading the liner notes for the new Hilliard Ensemble recording of the works of Nicolas Gombert was, What a bad time to record the music of a Catholic composer who was sentenced to hard labor for molesting choirboys. The first thing
I thought when I listened to the first track was, Wow, the Hilliard Ensemble sounds amazing. When did they add a bass?

In fact, this recording represents yet another turn in the evolution of the Hilliard Ensemble, one of the longest running early music ensembles performing today. Joining long time members Rogers Covey-Crump, Gordon Jones, and countertenor David James are tenor Andreas Hirtreiter (who has augmented the ensemble on two of their previous three recordings), Steven Harrold (who performed on the Hilliard’s chart-topping Morimur and their splendid 2004 recording of Machaut motets), and bass Robert Macdonald. It is the latter’s presence who is most spectacularly felt on the recording, as the trademark lush sonority of the Hilliard Ensemble gains a new and welcome depth of tone.

And the bass presence is needed on the title work, Gombert’s monumental Missa Media vita in morte sumus. The mass is a musical elaboration or “parody” of Gombert’s own motet, “Media vita in morte sumus,” which leads off the recording, and both mass and motet share a richly ornamented polyphony that is seamlessly rendered by the Hilliard Ensemble. There is very little space in these compositions; they are densely ornamented and constantly in motion, never settling or resolving. Gombert became famous (prior to being sentenced at hard labor in the galleys for “gross indecency” with a choirboy) for his highly complex and rich writing, which was published all over Europe during the time that he served as unofficial court composer to Emperor Charles V of Spain. Gombert’s unparalleled imitative writing and skillful use of dissonance is particularly striking in the closing motet, “Musae Iovis,” where sudden changes of tonality, meter, and rhythm that would be at home in a Tallis or Gesualdo composition are put to service in an evocative memorial to Josquin, Gombert’s teacher. This motet is the greatest revelation on the disc and makes a solid case for Gombert’s rediscovery. The Ensemble’s vocal performance, as always, is superbly nuanced and expressive while maintaining the same purity of line and heartrending perfection of phrasing that has characterized all the group’s recordings for ECM.

The Hilliard Ensemble is forever inimitable, for a very simple reason that was once outlined to me by a good friend and conductor who worked with the early music ensemble, the Suspicious Cheese Lords, in which I once sang. He was helping us improve our performance of Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah, and told us that our tempo was too slow. “Well, we’ve been listening to the Hilliard recording…” I ventured. He cut me off. “Ah, but they’re not human. No mere mortal could hold phrases for that long, that perfectly.” Listening to this latest recording it becomes perfectly clear that he was right. Even with a few guests along for the ride, even performing long suppressed compositions that fell through the cracks between Josquin and Palestrina, the Hilliard Ensemble is still the closest thing on record to an out of body experience.

Also posted at Blogcritics.