Cowboy Junkie's new one - Renmin Park. $4 on Amazon's deal of the day. Sounds great, a sort of husky, sleepy sort of vocals and music perfected by the CJ's.
I commented in the Amazon thread that the first track cuts off at about 10:21. I sent a message to Amazon and they agreed and credited my $3 (which I immediately reinvested in the new Cowboy Junkies album...!) If your first track is bad, contact CS.
I know they have a bit of a bad rep around here, but I really enjoy their updated take on Jersey rock. On first listen I'm enjoying the new album, which seems a bit more understated than The '59 Sound.
Nah. Like I said at the time, I agree they were not #1 for 2008, but I did have them in my top 10. As for the best of the decade, reasonable minds and all!
I forgot to mention yesterday that I also used NPR's First Listen to preview the upcoming Chemical Brothers and Stars releases. Very excited about both!
EDIT: Holy carp, that Kings Go Forth album is awesome!
Miguel Frasconi uses a menagerie of glass objects to create music from a uniquely imagined tradition. These objects are struck, blown, stroked and otherwise coaxed into vibration. Miguel has worked with the likes of renowned composers, John Cage, Brian Eno and James Tenney, and his studies have ranged from the music of Indonesia to the Fluxus movement. Denman Maroney plays what he calls hyperpiano, which involves bowing and sliding the strings with steel cylinders, Tibetan prayer bowls, rubber blocks and CD cases to create a unique sonic vocabulary. Denman also uses a system of temporal harmony based on the undertone series that allows him to improvise and compose in several tempos at once. With their release of Gleam, these two visionary musicians come together to take the listener through a dream like landscape of otherworldly sounds. - Porter Records
The album is a bit uneven for me. A little over half the tracks are excellent bouncy indie pop, while the remainder are really unmemorable. I feel like if this album had been an EP it would be getting raves, but there is just a bit too much unfleshed out filler.
Staying on the playlist of life changing, I just queued this one up. '94-'96 was a time in my life marked by upheaval, self-discovery, regret, and hope. Entroducing is one of those albums that captured all of the those experiences and served as the door that let me walk into another life. It is the most cherished album in my collection.
Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey - somebody mentioned this in a review of Sleigh Bells and prompted me to dig it out of storage - this, on cassette around 90-91, qualifies for me as one of those life changing things.
Still available for the incredibly low price of $3.99 (2 discs/35 tracks). Really nice collection. Not every song is a winner, but there's lot of great material and it's for a good cause.
@amclark2, My misspent late teenage years featured The Land of Rape and Honey as part of the soundtrack when we'd break into unfinished homes and partake in obscene amounts of illicit drugs. Point of interest, You Know What You Are was playing when I was chased down by a police dog in a field behind the development.
Shooter Jennings and Hierophant. Sometimes progressive, sometimes psychedelic fuzz. And every once in a while Stephen King pops in for a bit of paranoia. So totally not what I except from someone named Shooter Jennings.
Edit: I am so proud of my retarded self that I was able to insert an image finally.
With an entrance that displays the cold reaches of a surrounding, creeping fog, Fabio Orsi's 'Winterreise' is an immediate, enchanting production, reaching with the building swells of instrumental openness, and climactic ascendance. Fabio Orsi is an Italian electronic musician, reknowned for his work in the combination of the languages of popular tradition, and the avant-garde, while using field recordings, found sounds, guitar, piano, and synthesizer. After releasing on such labels as Digitalis Industries, A Silent Place, Last Visible Dog, Preservation, Low Point, Small Voices, and Ruralfaune, Orsi contributes his new work here to the Japanese label Slow Flow, for their second CD release.
Throughout the nearly 50-minute release, 'Winterreise' proceeds through hollows of inward movement, amounting in sonorous reaches to the realism of the field recordings of the natural world within, soundtracked by a delicate, free richness. With no less than mythical symbolism leaning in through the natural above, there is little left without a nonplussed pacification, while still proceeding to the far limits of overcoming interference. Orsi's 'Winterreise' breathes just as easily as it gives way, in ultra exception of impressionism into the listeners' ears, not only, but into their surroundings, and resting there within them, with unembellished grandeur Slow Flow
Comments
Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss
I like Mike Doughty's solo work a lot, but it pales in comparison to his stuff with Soul Coughing.
Craig
Giving Jason Moran's Ten, which comes out tomorrow, a "first listen". I like it so far.
Correction, it comes out next week.
Schumann: 200th Birthday Celebration!
Grabbed this Thursday as an AMZ special, finally queuing it up. Maybe it'll wash away the dirty that is the work day-night-day. :-/
I commented in the Amazon thread that the first track cuts off at about 10:21. I sent a message to Amazon and they agreed and credited my $3 (which I immediately reinvested in the new Cowboy Junkies album...!) If your first track is bad, contact CS.
The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang
I know they have a bit of a bad rep around here, but I really enjoy their updated take on Jersey rock. On first listen I'm enjoying the new album, which seems a bit more understated than The '59 Sound.
Craig
I've now moved on to:
Kings Go Forth - The Outsiders are Back
Hopefully that begins to repair my shattered image!
Craig
I forgot to mention yesterday that I also used NPR's First Listen to preview the upcoming Chemical Brothers and Stars releases. Very excited about both!
EDIT: Holy carp, that Kings Go Forth album is awesome!
Holy Carp!
EDIT: (so as to be within thread rules)
Earth - 2
thom - The album gets better with each listen, too. Shouldn't be surprised though, Kings Go Forth are from that neo soul hotbed known as Milwaukee.
To remain on topic:
Sleigh Bells - Treats
Sometimes the blogs get it right, and this is most certainly one of those times.
Craig
1. don't like this
2. kinda like this
3. might really like this
4. not sure again
5. skipping right by because I'm not in the mood.
Now Dum Dum Girls, to mention something else well blogged, I seem to love. That was like:
1. eh, what's the big deal, I don't really care for this.
2. I listened to it once and I can't get these songs out of my head.
3. ok, love this album.
Like The Wolf - Uncut by a Jigsaw
Reminds me of a more polished Johnny Dowd working with Kevin Breit. Good stuff.
Goldie - Timeless
Miguel Frasconi -Song + Distance
- And continuing with this freshly ripped from Porter Records:
Miguel Frasconi - Gleam
Here We Go Magic - Pigeons
The album is a bit uneven for me. A little over half the tracks are excellent bouncy indie pop, while the remainder are really unmemorable. I feel like if this album had been an EP it would be getting raves, but there is just a bit too much unfleshed out filler.
Craig
Lifeforms by The Future Sound Of London
One of a handful of albums that completely and irrevocably altered my listening perspective.
Entroducing by DJ Shadow
Staying on the playlist of life changing, I just queued this one up. '94-'96 was a time in my life marked by upheaval, self-discovery, regret, and hope. Entroducing is one of those albums that captured all of the those experiences and served as the door that let me walk into another life. It is the most cherished album in my collection.
/emo
EP1 by Federico Crespo
Stripped Minimalist House pairs well with a quad vanilla latte and a Benadryl hangover.
Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey - somebody mentioned this in a review of Sleigh Bells and prompted me to dig it out of storage - this, on cassette around 90-91, qualifies for me as one of those life changing things.
Stroke: Songs for Chris Knox
Still available for the incredibly low price of $3.99 (2 discs/35 tracks). Really nice collection. Not every song is a winner, but there's lot of great material and it's for a good cause.
Giant Cloud - Old Books ep - a great use of an amie buck.
Whitacre: Choral Music by Elora Festival Singers
Truly beautiful music.
Shooter Jennings and Hierophant. Sometimes progressive, sometimes psychedelic fuzz. And every once in a while Stephen King pops in for a bit of paranoia. So totally not what I except from someone named Shooter Jennings.
Edit: I am so proud of my retarded self that I was able to insert an image finally.
Poulenc's Figure Humaine by The Sixteen
Octagon by String Trio of New York
Unbind by Suite Unraveling (thanks, amclark)
Couperin's Le
Fabio Orsi - Winterreise
The Unmistakable Man by River City Extension
Americana with horns: a mix of Avett Bros., Billy Bragg, XTC and Mighty Mighty Bosstones.