Category Archives: music

sharon van etten – remembering mountains

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The opening and title track of a very beautiful compilation of recordings by different people of unheard Karen Dalton-penned songs, released in May this year on Tompkins Square Records. You can find it HERE.

And here are the lyrics and chords, handwritten by Karen. Karen’s melodies for the songs were not included, which is why this is more a record of collaborative compositions than straight covers. And it’s fascinating for that – you can certainly hear the debt all the participants owe her in their own work.

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fleurmach on the wrong rock show

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TRACKLIST

The Dears – Summer of Protest
Siri Karlsson – När Mörkret Faller
Triakel – Torspar-julaftas-våggvisa
Istapp – Snö
16 Blåsare Utan Hjärna – Instrumental
Vaaralliset Lelut – Katselen Hiukan Ympärilleni
BLK JKS – Summertime
Blackmilk – Summer Eye
Sambassadeur – Ice and Snow
The Cardigans – Slowdown Town
Hello Saferide – I thought you said summer is going to take the pain away
Carolina Wallin Pérez – Pärlor [Kent cover]
Säkert! – Isarna
Sofia Jannok – Snölejoninna
Die See – Somersdag
Johannes Kerkorrel – Somer
The Knife – Reindeer
Vacum – Den Sista Vintern
Detektivbyrån – Om Du Möter Varg
Anna Von Hausswolff – The Hope Only of Empty Men
Arne Domnérus & Gustaf Sjökvist – Largo
Ghost – Here Comes The Sun (Beatles Cover)
Chris Letcher – The Sun! The Sun!
Jessica Lea Mayfield – Standing in the Sun
The Cure – Hot! Hot! Hot!
The Brother Moves On – Shiyanomayini
Karen O – Indian Summer

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Hosts: Botha Kruger & Rosemary Lombard

siri karlsson – with love to mankind

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My new favourites out of Stockholm are this duo, and their album The Lost Colony.

According to their website (where you can also watch their videos and stream music):

“Siri Karlsson is a duo that have always gone their own way and broken with established standards. With one foot rooted in mystical folklore and the other constantly in search for new influences, they manage to create a highly personal expression. With vocals, alto saxophone, piano and key fiddles they create an unorthodox hybrid of folk, psychedelia and progressive.”

 

maurice ravel – miroirs

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I can recommend Ravel’s piano works as suitable accompaniment when hurtling through the dark across unfamiliar country in a high-speed train.

Miroirs (“Reflections”) is a suite for solo piano written by French impressionist composer Maurice Ravel between 1904 and 1905, first performed by Ricardo Viñes in 1906.

Around 1900, Maurice Ravel joined a group of innovative young artists, poets, critics, and musicians referred to as “Les Apaches” or “hooligans”, a term coined by Ricardo Viñes to refer to his band of “artistic outcasts”.

To pay tribute to his fellow artists, Ravel began composing Miroirs in 1904 and finished it the following year. There are five movements, each dedicated to a member of Les Apaches:

1. “Noctuelles” (“Night Moths”) – Dedicated to Léon-Paul Fargue

2. “Oiseaux tristes” (“Sad Birds”) – Dedicated to Ricardo Viñes

3. “Une barque sur l’océan” (“A boat on the Ocean”) – Dedicated to Paul Sordes

4. “Alborada del gracioso” (“The Alborada Gracioso’s Aubade”) – Dedicated to Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi

5. “La vallée des cloches” (“The Valley of Bells”) – Dedicated to Maurice Delage.

Pianist: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet

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laurie anderson’s new film, “heart of a dog”

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“And finally I saw it: the connection between love and death, and that the purpose of death is the release of love.”

laurie anderson heart of a dogHere is a review, and here is the trailer for Laurie Anderson’s new film, Heart of a Dog, which premiered in September. I really hope I get to see it somewhere on a big screen.

And Robert Christgau had this to say about the soundtrack:

The soundtrack to a film I missed is also Anderson’a simplest and finest album, accruing power and complexity as you relisten and relisten again: 75 minutes of sparsely but gorgeously and aptly orchestrated tales about a) her beloved rat terrier Lolabelle and b) the experience of death. There are few detours—even her old fascination with the surveillance state packs conceptual weight. Often she’s wry, but never is she satiric; occasionally she varies spoken word with singsong, but never is her voice distorted. She’s just telling us stories about life and death and what comes in the middle when you do them right, which is love.

There’s a lot of Buddhism, a lot of mom, a whole lot of Lolabelle, and no Lou Reed at all beyond a few casual “we”s. Only he’s there in all this love and death talk—you can feel him. And then suddenly the finale is all Lou, singing a rough, wise, abstruse song about the meaning of love that first appeared on his last great album, Ecstasy—a song that was dubious there yet is perfect here. One side of the CD insert is portraits of Lolabelle. But on the other side there’s a note: “dedicated to the magnificent spirit/of my husband, Lou Reed/1942-2013.” I know I should see the movie. But I bet it’d be an anticlimax. A PLUS

EDIT 6/11/15. And here’s a beautiful interview with Anderson about the film:

moses taiwa molelekwa – darkness pass

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NOTES BY ROBERT TRUNZ
“Back in 1994 during the Outernational Meltdown recordings, in the early hours of the morning after we had finished one of the many late night recording sessions, Moses and I were the only ones left in Downtown Studios, Jo’burg. We were hanging out together, with Moses seated at one of the pianos whilst I settled down on the floor next to him. It was there that I first heard him playing solo piano.
Moses took me on a journey that lasted almost 3 hours, a journey that, for somebody who is normally not particularly enamoured by the piano, expanded my horizons and revealed a depth of Moses that few people have probably ever had the privilege to encounter.”

Read more about this recording HERE.

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robyn hitchcock – the ghost in you

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Another wonderfully pared-down, intimate cover by Robyn Hitchcock, this one of the Psychedelic Furs’ hit from 1984. It appears on Hitchcock’s 2014 album, The Man Upstairs.

“Hitchcock has a thing for ghosts, and it’s indicative of his knack for interpreting other artists, and storytelling in general, that he’s able to funnel his own obsessions through songs he didn’t compose.” (Pitchfork)