Craig,
I have a cheapo FM MP3 transmitter in my car. A month or so ago I loaded up a 4GB SD card with all the Fela I had so I've been listening to Fela every day on the commute to & from work. However, my transmitter is cheap and apparently defective as it never remembers the last track it played and always starts with the first song on file every time it is powered up. I've lived with this 'feature' for a while and am generally in the habit of starting the car and then pushing a couple buttons to get the thing into random mode and onto some other song other than the first. For some reason the last couple weeks I've neglected to do that and as it turns out the first song (T.D.T.M.N. Parts 1 & 2) from that particular album (Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense) is the one that I've been listening to every single time I've been in the car lately. My two son's didn't really appreciate the lack of musical diversity in the mornings when I had to drop them off at their
Back from Mississipi road trip this afternoon. Feel like my legs have forgotten how to walk and I don't want to get in a car for at least a week - but it's kind of satisfying to have a real US-scale road trip behind us (MI-IL-MO-AR-MS-AL-TN-KY-IN-MI), and it has given me a more concrete sense of where a bunch of stuff actually is. (Trouble with plane travel is I find that the places I've been to are kind of psychologically isolated from one another, with just time in the abstracted space of a plane interior between them and no sense of the connecting space).
Listened to lots of podcasts of Radiolab and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me in the car as well as my wife's blues and gospel playlists and my younger daughter's Florence and the Machine and Imogen Heap. Last album from my music to be played (somewhere at the north end of Indiana) was this one, still a classic:
By the way, 12k records has an end of summer sale on. Close to 50% off.
And thanks BN for the DiN sampler link - nice to come home to a freebie.
I'm not generally a fan of vocal jazz standards, but the arrangements, and some playing, by John Dankworth, not long before his death last year make this a class apart from similar albums. Maybe something here for AAJ DOTD, Johanpwll?
This is as much the late John Dankworth's album as it is his vocalist daughter's. Made just before the composer's death in February 2010, it's devoted to the standard songs he always wanted to record with her, and framed by the creative jazz/classical arrangements that were his signature sound. The final vocals were added after his passing, which may be why these ethereal performances are some of Jacqui Dankworth's most affecting recordings particularly amid the swoony strings and Tim Garland's soprano-sax lines on the title track. A central sequence of similarly soft, low-lit slow songs (I'm Glad There Is You, A Love Like Ours, My Foolish Heart, Blame It on My Youth) dominate. But the arrangements keep gently twisting the music away from schmaltz, the vocals are devoted and revealing, and the sound of John Dankworth's graceful alto-sax on the strutting The Man is a delicious finishing touch
Beirut on NPR first listen. This one isn't grabbing me so far. The NPR review waxes lyrical about how over-instrumentation has turned into restraint and maturity - but what endeared Gulag Orkestar to me like no other Beirut recording since was bound up with the ramshackle sense that everything could collapse at any moment. In restrained mode it doesn't seem to me to harness chaos as effectively.
Comments
Great find, Greg!
ETA:
- I think the time limit will run out in a few hours.
Far from the best written biography I've ever read, but it's interesting.
Craig
(url=>amz)
I have a cheapo FM MP3 transmitter in my car. A month or so ago I loaded up a 4GB SD card with all the Fela I had so I've been listening to Fela every day on the commute to & from work. However, my transmitter is cheap and apparently defective as it never remembers the last track it played and always starts with the first song on file every time it is powered up. I've lived with this 'feature' for a while and am generally in the habit of starting the car and then pushing a couple buttons to get the thing into random mode and onto some other song other than the first. For some reason the last couple weeks I've neglected to do that and as it turns out the first song (T.D.T.M.N. Parts 1 & 2) from that particular album (Teacher Don't Teach Me Nonsense) is the one that I've been listening to every single time I've been in the car lately. My two son's didn't really appreciate the lack of musical diversity in the mornings when I had to drop them off at their
(url=>amz)
(url=>discogs)
eMu used to have it, sadly they do not and neither does Amazon. Such a good album.
(url=>amz)
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - s/t
Highly recommended for those that like psychedelic pop/trip hop and the like. Thom in particular. (Where is thom?)
Craig
Looking forward to the whole album.
(url=>amz)
This is my summer album. I just LOVE-LOVE-LOVE Bubbley Kaur's voice.
Listened to lots of podcasts of Radiolab and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me in the car as well as my wife's blues and gospel playlists and my younger daughter's Florence and the Machine and Imogen Heap. Last album from my music to be played (somewhere at the north end of Indiana) was this one, still a classic:
By the way, 12k records has an end of summer sale on. Close to 50% off.
And thanks BN for the DiN sampler link - nice to come home to a freebie.
I borrowed this from my local library, not sure I'd buy it or download it though
I'm not generally a fan of vocal jazz standards, but the arrangements, and some playing, by John Dankworth, not long before his death last year make this a class apart from similar albums. Maybe something here for AAJ DOTD, Johanpwll?
Guardian 26.08.11
(url=>amz)
Just got this, sounds great.
$2.49 at 7-Digital.
Beirut on NPR first listen. This one isn't grabbing me so far. The NPR review waxes lyrical about how over-instrumentation has turned into restraint and maturity - but what endeared Gulag Orkestar to me like no other Beirut recording since was bound up with the ramshackle sense that everything could collapse at any moment. In restrained mode it doesn't seem to me to harness chaos as effectively.
-- and --
- Growing, growing and growing !
- Bandcamp.
(url=>amz)
(url=>amz)
Ghosts of the Dust Bowl by Cliff Dweller. Free download - highly recommended. See bandcamp thread for description.
ETA: At the start of this I was thinking hmm, this is quite interesting. By the end it had me hooked. Will be listening to this more.
Alone Alone by Hungry Ghosts
ETA: track 7 is gorgeous.
This starts to grow on me after the first few tracks.
(url=>amz)
Fantastic.