EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 55, Issue 01 This issue's topics: Current listening (5 messages) Frequent Spins What's on these days .... Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:29:09 -0400 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Current listening Stuff I've been listening to a lot lately, in no particular order: Team Metlay - Bandwidth I like this album a lot - I think I'd like it just as well even if I didn't know the people involved. Initially I was only so-so on some of the tracks, but I quite like all of them now. Terry Riley - The Harp of New Albion Highly recommended for those who find alternate tunings too academic. This is a collection of piano pieces played on a piano (yes, a REAL piano) tuned to a scale devised specifically for the pieces. I like to put it on and just let it run. It evokes images of the Outer Banks, isolation, and the sea in the winter. Angelo Baladamenti - Soundtrack from "Twin Peaks" Baladamenti's music keeps me reminded that keeping one's musical materials clean and to the point makes it easier to come up with a coherent musical vision. Pat Metheny - As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls - The First Circle A supreme melodist, excellently backed up by Lyle Mays, who is damn good no matter what he says. "As Falls..." is an absolutely tremendous example of classical development techniques used in a manner that doesn't stand up and scream "Hey, I'm using a classical technique!" "The First Circle" uses a meter which I still haven't managed to count out properly because I always get too caught up in the music. Tears for Fears - Tears Roll Down Okay, so they're pop artists. Sue me, okay? Lots of good techniques and tools there, and just fun to listen to. So there. Steely Dan - Aja Outstanding playing on this album. Complex tonalities, killer arrangements. Full of Good Stuff. Weather Report - Heavy Weather Nice Prophet and Arp 2600 work from Zawinul, and a great example of tight ensemble playing. Dave Brubeck - Two Generations of Brubeck - "Brother, the Great Spirit Made Us All" Dave Brubeck with 3 out of 4 of his sons, a killer harmonica player, electric violin...yow! Not out on CD yet, though I keep hoping. "Forty Days" features dynamite Rhodes playing, "Blue Rondo a la Turk" *rocks*, and "Thank You" the the best damn piano solo I've ever heard, period. Yuji Takahashi - John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano A fine job on some very interesting music. I find it very calming and abstract. Even Metlay, who has a fairly low tolerance for academic exercises, likes it. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 13:24:48 EDT From: The Radio Gnome Subject: Re: Current listening On Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:29:09 -0400 Joe McMahon said: >Terry Riley - The Harp of New Albion > Highly recommended for those who find alternate tunings too academic. If you want alternative tunings that *rock* check out Rhys Chathams "Die Donnergotter" or stuff by Glenn Branca. Andy Wing ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 14:08:23 -0400 From: idealord Subject: Re: Current listening > > On Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:29:09 -0400 Joe McMahon said: > >Terry Riley - The Harp of New Albion > > Highly recommended for those who find alternate tunings too academic. > > If you want alternative tunings that *rock* check out Rhys Chathams > "Die Donnergotter" or stuff by Glenn Branca. > > Andy Wing > The thing about Branca though, is that his recordings don't capture that massive wall of guitar orchestra sound. I've heard a couple of live recordings off of the radio that blew away any record I've heard from him... And now, it seems like he's into the minimalist trippppppppppppp............ Jeff Harrington idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 14:29:02 -0400 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: Current listening >And now, it seems like he's into the minimalist trippppppppppppp............ "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Knock, knock." "Who's there?" "Philip Glass." -- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 09:50:47 PDT From: metlay Subject: Re: Current listening Joe McMahon recommends: >Yuji Takahashi - John Cage: Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano > A fine job on some very interesting music. I find it very calming and > abstract. Even Metlay, who has a fairly low tolerance for academic > exercises, likes it. Rowr. My own current recommendation for music from a "famous academic" that is actually worth owning and listening to is David Borden's new release on Linden Music, "Cayuga Night Music." I put it on last night and listened to it all the way through, and was totally stunned by its beauty. Forget The Endless History of Hocketing Parts 1 through 647, this is one SWEET album by a man who has a set of tools he knows how to use and a vision he knows how to express in his music. Metlay sez check it out, yowza. On another note, Linden's previously-most-recent release, Jim Aikin's "Light's Broken Speech Revived," is (insert all frantic disclaimers and politically correct warnings here to avoid misrepresentation of opinions as value judgements etc etc etc) a major stinkeroo. I found it almost as unlistenable as Terenzi's "Music of the Galaxies", but it was too annoying to bore me. Metlay sez save yer bux, it's hurl bait. -- mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Wow, now my hand's all sticky! Yum." (metlay's wife) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 11:55:59 -0500 From: Arne Claassen ISE Subject: Frequent Spins Hm... Skinny Puppy -Last Rights -Rabies The classic synth-industrial noise. Very rich analog sounds. Either you love it or you hate it. Utah Saints -Utah Saints In my opinion the most musical of the techo-dance genre. Especially the tracks that have not made it onto charts. Dave Brubeck -Time out The original Dave Brubeck quartet. Just to remind me that electronic music isn't everything and that i'd be doing Jazz if i could play better than program. Einstuerzende Neubauten -Tabula Rasa Ever hooked up drum triggers to some rocks, or played on sheetmetal. These guys make music with what they find, not with samples they can steal. Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 09:48:36 -0400 From: BITNET list server at AUVM (1.7f) Subject: File: "EMUSIC-L LOG9308B" To: Joe McMahon True industrial for the ones that this appeals to. Nine Inch Nails -Pretty Hate Machine I know, this guys teenage angst has been overpublicized and is almost classified pop, but i still consider it the best dance industrial and it's one of those things i need a fix of once a day. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Arne F. Claassen | | | | "It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion" | | finger for PGP public key | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- . ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1993 09:15:06 CDT From: Gregory Taylor Subject: What's on these days .... YMO - the Technodon remixes/Technodon. Since I'm going to be heading off to Tokyo [for the ICMC. Cashed in a bunch of frequent flyers.] and then travelling for a week, it seemed only proper to start pitching more Japanese stuff on the plate. A friend returned from Japan with the new "remixes" EP just this weekend; three so-so minor retreads from Tei Towa [Dee-Light] and a really interesting Goh Hotoda ambient 15-min version of "Nostalgia" from Td, which is now the opening theme for my radio program. The other Japanese representation is currently Susumu Hirasawa/P-Model. The new P-Model ["Big Body"] isn't, I think, quite up to the g*dlike status of their last whizzy analog retrofest that I've already spent too much time raving about. I comfort myself with listening to Japan's own Midge Ure [Hirasawa], doing his solo turn in this odd kind of lush Japanese synthesized stuff crossbred with this wierd kind of Celtic/folkie turn. Plunderphonics - Plexure. When done in random shuffle, this drives large numbers of my co-workers to near distraction. Oswald's powdering of the signifiers of pop music and their reconstitution into a blistering rush of noise works on the ears like the pickled ginger one eats between pieces of sashimi - it cleanses the palate. My wife, who's not the one for identifying little snippets of Metallica and Weather Report and g*d knows who milliseconds at a time, initially pronounced it to be a big bath of undifferentiated noise. Now, she occasionally seems to almost enjoying its ah...eccentric rhythms. It always seems silly to me that the world's adolescents assume that any concensual hallucination like "cyberspace" would just naturally sound like their favorite Front 242 release [or Tangerine Dream, for that matter]. *This* disc is the real soundtrack to a high-speed cruise of the global data village. Kaaija Saariaho - a la Fumee/du cristal. KS is and remains one of my very favorite electroacoustic composers. This disc gives us a Kronos performance of her string quartet/computer piece "Nymphea" that blows away the performance of it that I heard, and lets us hear a little of her strictly orchestral writing. Yum - my favorite kind of difficult listening. (traditional) - Chamber Music from Java. This disc's precise title escapes me. It's a recent World Music Library release of Gadhon - a kind of central Javanese "chamber" ensemble composed entirely of the soft-playing instruments. Back in the days that I was trying to hammer out some serious gender at Cornell and more recently at UW as a suling player, I've always wanted to try this kind of stuff. This is a wonderful recording of it - and really the first one you can find without buying Indonesian cassettes. Thomas Ko:ner - Permafrost. Very long, slow electronic piece which, if phase vocoded out the kazoo [quite likely how they're made, actually] may well turn out to be Brahms string quartets stretched to excruciating length. The artifacts of whatever process it is have a nice kind of grit. While TK may be going for ambient industrial menage [certainly I think that his last "Teimo" went for the gong version of it bigtime], this one has a kind of calm to it that I find really appealing. It works really well at the threshold of audibility/interest. The "extended infinite repeat" cycle this week has seen "Neroli" nudged aside after 3 or 4 weeks by the new Point recording of Gavin Bryars' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet." In short, the opening section is pretty much a rerecording of the Obscure Music version, with Michael Reismann's conducting all but erasing the interesting stopping and starting based on the tramp's uneven voice on the tape loop. There's a new re-harmonised second section that's very beautiful, a huge middle section that adds the usual Bryars orchestral palette of his larger works [gongs, choirs, etc.], and a final section which has Tom Waits singing along. While it works okay, I find that the inclusion of Waits on this recording does a nasty job of undercutting what I hear as the "sincerety" of the piece. Your mileage may very. But at 74 minutes of endless repititions and ebb and flow, I'm not really complaining. Hmm. Not much synthesizer stuff. That'll change, since Alan Crawford is going to be doing a collaborating on an upcoming RTQE "synthpop" show, and I'll have to get hard at it to match *his* skills. Gregory ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************