Currently streaming on Spotify. Don't know how I missed this 2013 folk collective release, but it's excellent. I mean, what could be better - four voices and four fiddles from Eliza Carthy, Bella Hardy, Lucy Farrell and Kate Young. Very very good selection of traditional songs from both sides of the Atlantic as well as some more modern surprise choices.
- "American cellist Tom Cora (1953-1998) had a career that was tragically brief, but within the course of a few decades, he managed to radically re-imagine his instrument in profound fashion, pushing headlong into terrain that traversed free improvisation, jazz, experimentation, and punk rock. Yet Cora didn’t settle within any of these fields. He was far too transformative an artist for that. Instead, he played the role of wildly inventive aural alchemist. Most musicians play within genres; Cora created them from seemingly disparate elements. His discography reads like a who’s-who of international innovation, and to every collaboration in which he participated, he brought a powerful creativity and persuasively unique voice that elevated whatever material he touched. Cora was a fundamental member of some impossible essential ensembles, including Curlew with saxophonist George Cartwright and Alabama Wildman guitar phenom Davey Williams, Third Person with percussionist Samm Bennett, and amusingly ambidextrous Skeleton Crew with the avant, string-bending genius, Fred Frith. And if anyone needs proof of Tom Cora’s own genius, they need look and listen no further than his recordings with anarchic pioneers the Ex. Cora’s albums with them contain some of the most exhilarating, intelligent and sweepingly gorgeous material ever heard in the realm of punk. That’s right, it took a cellist to make some of the most furious thrashers ever committed to tape.
Cora got his start in 1979 when he moved from his native Virginia to New York City, where he promptly fell in with the experimental scene. He and Shockabilly’s Eugene Chadbourne teamed for the exceptional 2000 Statues and the English Channel (1979 Parachute Records), and soon Cora was in thick with the fertile Downtown scene. He joined Cartwright and bassist/producer Bill Laswell in Curlew, and appeared on several of their albums, including the eponymous Curlew (1981 Landslide Records), North America (1985 Moers Music), Live In Berlin (1988 Cuneiform Records), Bee (1991 Cuneiform Records) and A Beautiful Western Saddle (1993 Cuneiform Records). Throughout the early 80s, Cora was perfecting an aggressive, modern style that utilized harsh playing styles, impressive theatrics, deafening amplification, and electronic processing. In short, he was attacking the cello as if it were an electric guitar.
In the early 80s, Cora also had an amazing stint with Fred Frith. Skeleton Crew was a delightfully inventive duo, in which Cora and Frith played an array of instruments, many of them homemade or custom built, using all of their limbs — arms and legs. The result was an amazing avant-garde octopus of sound, documented on the LPs Learn to Talk (1984 Rift Records) and In the Country of Blinds (1986 Rift Records), the latter featuring the renowned electric harpist, Zeena Parkins. Cora’s collaboration with Bennett in Third Person was equally inventive, as the two added a different, third musician for each performance; participants included Parkins, Don Byron, Chris Cochrane, and Marc Ribot. There are a couple of live albums, including The Bends (1991 Knitting Factory Records) and Lucky Water (1995 Knitting Factory Records).
Cora worked with an array of artists throughout the 80s and early 90s, and while a number of his recordings are difficult to find, they’re worth tracking down, and feature a bevy of improv talent, with appearances by John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Butch Morris, Hans Reichel, and Cora’s wife, Catherine Jauniaux. The highlight may be his efforts with The Ex, Scrabbling at the Lock (1991 RecRec Music) and And the Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders (1993 RecRec Music). Both are classics of experimental rock, elevated by Cora’s searing, soaring performances. Tom Cora’s performance idiom was memorable. The cello is the stringed instrument with the range closest to that of the human voice, and Cora taught his instrument how to speak, shout, scream, murmur, babble and squeal in entirely new languages. His discography merits wide aural scrutiny."
Well, that's a very fine album. Surprised to be reminded that's John Abercrombie on guitar, I don't know there's any other album where he's so restrained. Have been thinking about Lloyd since this NYT profile last week - I guess his new album comes out today.
I just love the way Lloyd talks about music and creativity, spiritual new agey-ness and all. I see he's going to be in Minneapolis on July 1, a day or two before our Wisconsin camping trip. Scheming....
My daughter is graduating in Cleveland next month, and we are going to have dinner at Nighttown, which is similarly a great jazz + dining spot. Christian McBride is there the night before the grad ceremony. More scheming....
The main prob with the Minneapolis scheme is that we are going to have a (small) car full of camping gear!
Comments
Cora got his start in 1979 when he moved from his native Virginia to New York City, where he promptly fell in with the experimental scene. He and Shockabilly’s Eugene Chadbourne teamed for the exceptional 2000 Statues and the English Channel (1979 Parachute Records), and soon Cora was in thick with the fertile Downtown scene. He joined Cartwright and bassist/producer Bill Laswell in Curlew, and appeared on several of their albums, including the eponymous Curlew (1981 Landslide Records), North America (1985 Moers Music), Live In Berlin (1988 Cuneiform Records), Bee (1991 Cuneiform Records) and A Beautiful Western Saddle (1993 Cuneiform Records). Throughout the early 80s, Cora was perfecting an aggressive, modern style that utilized harsh playing styles, impressive theatrics, deafening amplification, and electronic processing. In short, he was attacking the cello as if it were an electric guitar.
In the early 80s, Cora also had an amazing stint with Fred Frith. Skeleton Crew was a delightfully inventive duo, in which Cora and Frith played an array of instruments, many of them homemade or custom built, using all of their limbs — arms and legs. The result was an amazing avant-garde octopus of sound, documented on the LPs Learn to Talk (1984 Rift Records) and In the Country of Blinds (1986 Rift Records), the latter featuring the renowned electric harpist, Zeena Parkins. Cora’s collaboration with Bennett in Third Person was equally inventive, as the two added a different, third musician for each performance; participants included Parkins, Don Byron, Chris Cochrane, and Marc Ribot. There are a couple of live albums, including The Bends (1991 Knitting Factory Records) and Lucky Water (1995 Knitting Factory Records).
Cora worked with an array of artists throughout the 80s and early 90s, and while a number of his recordings are difficult to find, they’re worth tracking down, and feature a bevy of improv talent, with appearances by John Zorn, Zeena Parkins, Butch Morris, Hans Reichel, and Cora’s wife, Catherine Jauniaux. The highlight may be his efforts with The Ex, Scrabbling at the Lock (1991 RecRec Music) and And the Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders (1993 RecRec Music). Both are classics of experimental rock, elevated by Cora’s searing, soaring performances. Tom Cora’s performance idiom was memorable. The cello is the stringed instrument with the range closest to that of the human voice, and Cora taught his instrument how to speak, shout, scream, murmur, babble and squeal in entirely new languages. His discography merits wide aural scrutiny."
Awake by High Aura'd & Mike Shiflet
I love Light In The Attic.
The Internet is awesome because I was thinking of a review or essay I read about this a long time ago and all I remembered was that it was by an otherwise known author, and it talked about driving around England with this on repeat, and I was able to find it, in Spin, by Dave Eggers: https://books.google.com/books?id=mOL9JKjjbdcC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA48&ots=Ynxswi8xpe&focus=viewport&dq=driving+around+england+listening+to+youth+and+young+manhood+over+and+over&output=html_text
Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason - Sólaris
Neil Young- Zuma
Craig
Various Artists - Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records
I won tickets to see Christian McBride but ended up not being able to go.