This is free and kind of entertaining. Starts out as kind of jazz with metal episodes and trained-sounding operatic female vocals, then becomes more operatic metal, but with acoustic bits and some didgeridoo. At its best when being quirky rather than overwrought, but varied and inventive enough to be fun.
Piano trio of Hess, bassist Anders Christensen, and drummer Mikkel Hess. For fans of Marcin Wasilewski Trio recordings, especially "January." Also, this sophomore release is nothing like their debut, 2009's "The Champ," which had Hess on organ and Wurlitzer, and was more upbeat than the quiet ambiance of their 2014 release.
- "The work of James Tenney (b. 1934) as a composer, theorist, performer, and teacher, is of singular importance in American music of the past four decades. He is by nature a quiet, almost publicity-shy musician, but his musical and theoretical works are steadily becoming widely known, despite the fact that few have been published and only a relatively small number, to this date, are readily available on recordings. This recording is a reissue of the 1992 Frog Peak/Artifact CD, the first recorded collection of James Tenney's music of the 1960s. Many of the pieces on this CD were realized at Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1961 to 1969, where Tenney used Max Mathews's digital synthesis program that eventually became Music IV. This software became the model for many of the common computer music environments of the last forty years, and was the first system of its kind available to composers. Tenney's pieces from 1961–64 constitute the first significant and developed body of computer-composed and synthesized music by an American composer."
Tenney was a very young composer when he wrote these pieces. He was working with a new medium, a technology that was still being developed, and a new aesthetic. It is perhaps easy to overlook the importance of the latter in the light of the tremendous technical and historical importance of these pieces-but it is characteristic of Tenney that he was not content just to explore the sonic and technical capabilities of a new technology. To this day, his work from this period remains an important example for composers who work with new technologies: the new world of "computer music" needed a radically new definition of music itself.
-A late 2013 release that I think I'm finally going to write about. Definitely one for the Brian Blade Fellowship fans. Deaton's group sinks right into that sound and clearly knows how to move in that medium. I've been listening to it for the better part of, I dunno, six months (?), and I keep thinking it'll wear thin on me, but I still myself enjoying it.
-Nice ensemble work that has hints of chamber jazz as it does its (modern) straight-ahead thing. A remarkable album. Features Ingrid Jensen and Jon Hamar.
-Captivating mix of Brazilian, pop, folk, and rock. Cortes has a nice unfussy vocal delivery. Tons of different kinds of guitars on this album, plus cello and oud. Really really good.
Currently on sale for $3.99 at amazon; they've had some good stuff over there recently. In the last couple weeks I've gotten Vampire Weekend, Mumford and Sons, this and uh... Skrillex.
- "The Night Has Many Hours completes the trilogy New York-based guitar-wizard/composer Kleier began with KlangenBang and Deep Night, Deep Autumn. For this episode he is joined by Annie Gosfield and Joan Jeanrenaud. He writes: I have always enjoyed the works of fiction writers who have main characters that reappear in sequential novels, especially noir masters like Raymond Chandler, Walter Moseley, and William Gibson.
For these three CDs, I have thought of my own guitar playing and the sound world it occupies as a character who shows up repeatedly in a myriad of musical situations, with each variation somehow related to the last one. For the first part of the trilogy, KlangenBang, my musical character dealt with concert performance, improvisation, and song form. In Deep Night... this character explored a dark world of electronic manipulations and sinister development.
For this final episode, the guitar player character investigates the concept of variations in ambience. These ambiences might include those found in urban chaos, cold and icy winters, deserted alleyways, dark subway tunnels, rolling California hillsides, or even an occasional quiet pool of beauty...
- Innova Recordings 2009
Ambient Jazz Ensemble wrote music for the worldwide hit film Filth starring James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent and written by Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting). Filth hits US cinemas in May 2014
Gilles Peterson Very wicked will play for sure !
Atjazz This is an incredible collection, I've only listened for a few moments and I'm hooked. This is going to be my soundtrack to the summer....
Charles Waring Mojo Magazine reminds me of David Axelrods orchestral stuff
Jimpster / Jamie Odell This is so bloomin' lovely !
Ambient Jazz Ensembles sound is inspired by a mix of Brian Eno, Gil Evans and Weather Report. From the offset Eyes Wide Open takes us on an glorious orchestral, slightly jazzy direction. Think Pat Metheny Group meets David Axelrod with a modern electronic twist. The horns, brass, strings and synths play off each other to create beautiful soundscapes. The Journey, showing the funkier side of Suite Shop, flirts with chorale music at its peak. The aptly titled Quiet Hero does
exactly what it says on the tin: gorgeous tranquility in a Massive Attack Teardrop kind of way which then builds in booth mood and intensity climaxing in electronic orchestral heaven, definitely one for festivals, sunsets and rises, epic moments personified. And then we confidently exit the Suite Shop Never In Doubt and roll the credits. Writer, Colin Baldry, is not short of Genius !
Neil Cowley (Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, Neil Cowley Trio) plays keys on all 10 tracks alongside strings and a brass section featuring Finn Peters whos played with Bill Frisell, Sam Rivers and DJ Spinna
Rather good, streaming on Bandcamp and on E Music UK
Finishing Crooked Fingers' 2011 album, "Break in the Armor" (described more than once as the band's best album to date) got me in the mood to listen again to the first Crooked Fingers I ever heard, 2003's "Red Devil Dawn" (thanks to emusic way back when) which was also described at the time as the band's best album to date.
"Why This Album is Still Great in 2013: There is a timeless essence to both the quality of the music and Eric Bachmanns voice on Crooked Fingers breakthrough album Red Devil Dawn. The latter could be why so many critics penciled Bachmann in as the spiritual offspring of Tom Waits and Neil Diamond. Red Devil Dawn is an American lullaby, that is at turns gritty yet sweet; somber yet hopeful. Bachmanns vocals waver across the landscape of a world filled with lonesome guitars and heartbroken trumpets. Considering how fantastic Crooked Fingers last two albums have been, Forfeit/Fortune (2008) and Breaks in the Armor (2011), Red Devil Dawn could very easily have been released this year and incurred the same welcome response. For those who missed this album the first time around, it has aged well, with nothing having been lost aside from time. Its a gorgeous record thats ragged and familiar; its like getting drunk with a poem." - from Fuzzyheadphonez.com
Seismology by Olan Mill / Keung Mandelbrot
Hibernate doing well what it does best.
Brighternow, I think you'll maybe like this judging by the first track.
The FlinnEngdahl regions (or FE regions) are a division of the Earth into seismic zones. In seismology, it is the standard of localizing earthquakes. The scheme was proposed in 1965 by Edward A. Flinn and E. R. Engdahl. The first official definition was published in 1974 and a revision in 1995. Borders of the FE regions may differ from political boundaries. For instance, the FE region 545 ("Northern Italy") also includes parts of France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. After the 1995 revision there are 754 FE regions, subsequently numbered from 1 to 757 with three gaps (172, 299 and 550) at dissolved regions. The regions are grouped into 50 larger seismic regions.
Comments
The Butcher's Ballroom by Diablo Swing Orchestra
This is free and kind of entertaining. Starts out as kind of jazz with metal episodes and trained-sounding operatic female vocals, then becomes more operatic metal, but with acoustic bits and some didgeridoo. At its best when being quirky rather than overwrought, but varied and inventive enough to be fun.
Great Pub Rock - group disbanded, joined the Motors, the Tyla Gang and The Rumour.
The Steampunk Album That Cannot Be Named For Legal Reasons by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing
(Not living up as a whole to the charm of the track "Charlie", which drew me to it from a compilation)
Future Sequence 4
(Still trying to sift some of these huge free comps down to a mangeable size)
Topology & Trichotomy - "Healthy"
Chamber music ensemble joins forces with an inventive piano trio. Beautiful music with flashes of sharp teeth.
My brief review...
http://www.birdistheworm.com/topology-trichotomy-healthy/
Or just skip all the words and go listen on Bandcamp...
http://trichotomy.bandcamp.com/album/healthy
Nikolaj Hess - "Spacelab"
Piano trio of Hess, bassist Anders Christensen, and drummer Mikkel Hess. For fans of Marcin Wasilewski Trio recordings, especially "January." Also, this sophomore release is nothing like their debut, 2009's "The Champ," which had Hess on organ and Wurlitzer, and was more upbeat than the quiet ambiance of their 2014 release.
Review early next week.
- "The work of James Tenney (b. 1934) as a composer, theorist, performer, and teacher, is of singular importance in American music of the past four decades. He is by nature a quiet, almost publicity-shy musician, but his musical and theoretical works are steadily becoming widely known, despite the fact that few have been published and only a relatively small number, to this date, are readily available on recordings. This recording is a reissue of the 1992 Frog Peak/Artifact CD, the first recorded collection of James Tenney's music of the 1960s. Many of the pieces on this CD were realized at Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1961 to 1969, where Tenney used Max Mathews's digital synthesis program that eventually became Music IV. This software became the model for many of the common computer music environments of the last forty years, and was the first system of its kind available to composers. Tenney's pieces from 1961–64 constitute the first significant and developed body of computer-composed and synthesized music by an American composer."
Tenney was a very young composer when he wrote these pieces. He was working with a new medium, a technology that was still being developed, and a new aesthetic. It is perhaps easy to overlook the importance of the latter in the light of the tremendous technical and historical importance of these pieces-but it is characteristic of Tenney that he was not content just to explore the sonic and technical capabilities of a new technology. To this day, his work from this period remains an important example for composers who work with new technologies: the new world of "computer music" needed a radically new definition of music itself.
Jacob Deaton & the Tribulation Band - "My Home"
-A late 2013 release that I think I'm finally going to write about. Definitely one for the Brian Blade Fellowship fans. Deaton's group sinks right into that sound and clearly knows how to move in that medium. I've been listening to it for the better part of, I dunno, six months (?), and I keep thinking it'll wear thin on me, but I still myself enjoying it.
Listen/Purchase on his Bandcamp page...
http://jacoballendeaton.bandcamp.com/album/my-home
Steve Tresler Group - "Center Song"
-Nice ensemble work that has hints of chamber jazz as it does its (modern) straight-ahead thing. A remarkable album. Features Ingrid Jensen and Jon Hamar.
Juliana Cortes - "Invento"
-Captivating mix of Brazilian, pop, folk, and rock. Cortes has a nice unfussy vocal delivery. Tons of different kinds of guitars on this album, plus cello and oud. Really really good.
Michael Tanner - Nine Of Swords, NYOP @Bandcamp, Water Bowls, Singing Bowls, Temple Bells and some Cymbals, 54 minutes.
Elvis Presley - Elvis Presley
The Appleseed Cast - The End of the Ring Wars
Thanks, Jonahpwll. You're right - this is really, really good.
Richard Pinhas - Washington-Silver spring LIVE Solo Set June 2014
http://www.richard-pinhas.com
Roger Kleier - El Pocho Loco Theme
- Roger Kleier (guitar), Annie Gosfield (sampling keyboards), Trevor Dunn (bass), and Ches Smith (drums).
Currently on sale for $3.99 at amazon; they've had some good stuff over there recently. In the last couple weeks I've gotten Vampire Weekend, Mumford and Sons, this and uh... Skrillex.
- "The Night Has Many Hours completes the trilogy New York-based guitar-wizard/composer Kleier began with KlangenBang and Deep Night, Deep Autumn. For this episode he is joined by Annie Gosfield and Joan Jeanrenaud. He writes: I have always enjoyed the works of fiction writers who have main characters that reappear in sequential novels, especially noir masters like Raymond Chandler, Walter Moseley, and William Gibson.
For these three CDs, I have thought of my own guitar playing and the sound world it occupies as a character who shows up repeatedly in a myriad of musical situations, with each variation somehow related to the last one. For the first part of the trilogy, KlangenBang, my musical character dealt with concert performance, improvisation, and song form. In Deep Night... this character explored a dark world of electronic manipulations and sinister development.
For this final episode, the guitar player character investigates the concept of variations in ambience. These ambiences might include those found in urban chaos, cold and icy winters, deserted alleyways, dark subway tunnels, rolling California hillsides, or even an occasional quiet pool of beauty...
- Innova Recordings 2009
Ambient Jazz Ensemble wrote music for the worldwide hit film Filth starring James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Jim Broadbent and written by Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting). Filth hits US cinemas in May 2014
Gilles Peterson Very wicked will play for sure !
Atjazz This is an incredible collection, I've only listened for a few moments and I'm hooked. This is going to be my soundtrack to the summer....
Charles Waring Mojo Magazine reminds me of David Axelrods orchestral stuff
Jimpster / Jamie Odell This is so bloomin' lovely !
Ambient Jazz Ensembles sound is inspired by a mix of Brian Eno, Gil Evans and Weather Report. From the offset Eyes Wide Open takes us on an glorious orchestral, slightly jazzy direction. Think Pat Metheny Group meets David Axelrod with a modern electronic twist. The horns, brass, strings and synths play off each other to create beautiful soundscapes. The Journey, showing the funkier side of Suite Shop, flirts with chorale music at its peak. The aptly titled Quiet Hero does
exactly what it says on the tin: gorgeous tranquility in a Massive Attack Teardrop kind of way which then builds in booth mood and intensity climaxing in electronic orchestral heaven, definitely one for festivals, sunsets and rises, epic moments personified. And then we confidently exit the Suite Shop Never In Doubt and roll the credits. Writer, Colin Baldry, is not short of Genius !
Neil Cowley (Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, Neil Cowley Trio) plays keys on all 10 tracks alongside strings and a brass section featuring Finn Peters whos played with Bill Frisell, Sam Rivers and DJ Spinna
Rather good, streaming on Bandcamp and on E Music UK
Breaks in the Armor by Crooked Fingers
Finishing Crooked Fingers' 2011 album, "Break in the Armor" (described more than once as the band's best album to date) got me in the mood to listen again to the first Crooked Fingers I ever heard, 2003's "Red Devil Dawn" (thanks to emusic way back when) which was also described at the time as the band's best album to date.
Seismology by Olan Mill / Keung Mandelbrot
Hibernate doing well what it does best.
Brighternow, I think you'll maybe like this judging by the first track.
- Yup ! - Gorgeous first track, Thanks GP.
Re: FlinnEngdahl: - Wiki
ETA:
Brand new "name your price" from Yann Novak, a master of subtle ambient drones :
Love Runner by Mollie O'Brien and Rich Moore
Good toe-tappin' stuff (a lot of it possessing an enjoyable vintage sound) from Tim O'Brien's sister and her husband.