Blogging, Books, Cats, Music, Mayhem
Update: Sam actually likes his sweater. Or, at least, it chills him out. He’s an anxious cat and gets really anxious when we have a lot of company over (as one does when it’s holiday season).
He has a “thunder shirt” that chills him out substantially but it’s been misplaced. Meg knitted this for fun a while back and we found that Sam will happily wear it pretty much all day. He’s also very good at slithering out of it when he feels like it.
Is Shakespeare mandatory for a well-rounded secondary education? After more than 400 years, it’s reasonable to ask whether the canon is due for an overhaul, or to be chucked out of the window entirely. Continue reading “Shakespeare, yea or nay?”
We got a bird feeder a few months ago. Dollar for dollar it provides maximum return on entertainment budget.
The past few months have been a little less productive in terms of finding new music, but there’ve been a few gems I’ve been wanting to blog about.
Steve Lawson is a prolific solo bassist out of the UK who has an enormous back catalog on Bandcamp. I picked up a subscription to the “Steve Lawson Listening Club” a while ago and still haven’t quite made it through everything. Recently Steve was diagnosed with a low-grade lymphoma and has been undergoing chemo and promoting the subscription more actively to help with costs and engage with fans while dealing with cancer.
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As mentioned, his catalog can be a bit daunting so he’s put together a few “Best of Steve Lawson” compilations to help spark discussion and serve as an intro to his music. I think they’re fantastic and a great place to start if you enjoy melodic, bass-heavy, often instrumental tunes. Don’t know Steve personally, but he also comes across as a person I’d quite enjoy hanging out with given the opportunity. Maybe I’ll get the opportunity someday, but in the meantime I feel like I’ve gotten a good glimpse of his soul via his music – and there’s a lot of beauty there.
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Encourage you to check it out and spring for the digital albums or yearly subscription if it appeals to you.
Not too long ago I stumbled on Mdou Moctar via Bandcamp and have had an ear out for more music in that vein. A friend on Twitter happened to mention Etran de L’Aïr, which gives me much the same vibe.
Their Agadez release from February this year is full of bright, joyous songs with infectious melodies. According to the Bandcamp description “Etran de L’Aïr play in a pan-African style that is emblematic of their hometown, citing a myriad of cultural influences, from Northern Malian blues, Hausa bar bands, to Congolese Soukous… Agadez retains all the energy of a party.” Sounds about right!
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Brian Jackson is probably best known for his work with Gil Scott-Heron, which might have something to do with the fact that 1) that work was fantastic, and 2) he’s not exactly a prolific solo artist. Case in point, he released This is Brian Jackson in May this year, which is his first solo album in more than 20 years.
To the extent any album is worth a 20-year wait, I suppose this one is. It’s a nice blend of jazz, funk, soul and more that sounds contemporary and classic at the same time. You could’ve released “Little Orphan Boy” in the 80s and it would’ve sounded right at home. Sounds great today, too. Let’s hope we don’t need to wait until 2042 for the next album…
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Automatic‘s Signal (2019) caught my ear a while back with the track “Suicide in Texas.” That record’s been in rotation since, so I was pleased to find that they’d released a new album last month Excess. It’s full of sparse, synth-y goodness with deadpan vocals, but strangely engaging energy. Like an old person, I ordered the CD and actually popped it into my car’s CD player immediately for the round-trips driving our resident teen to driver’s ed. It’s a great commute album, and I keep summoning it for workday music too.
If you’re a Gen X’er with a love of 80s minor key, unrushed synth-pop this will scratch that itch without sounding derivative or repetitive.
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Happy Sunday listening. Got a recommendation for me? Hit me up in the comments. I’m always on the hunt for new or new-to-me music.
I’ve got a few bones to pick with Spotify, but “fake artists” isn’t one of them. Since I’ve been critical of Spotify’s business model of late, I figured I should be fair and give a counter-point to the “Fake Artists Problem Is Much Worse Than You Realize” post making the rounds.
The basic complaint is this: Spotify apparently pays for “fake” artists to create tracks for its service that it can seed into playlists. Why? Because these “fake artists” presumably work for hire, so Spotify doesn’t have to pay out royalties.
Sounds kinda sleazy, right?
I would agree, except for one thing: Users don’t seem to care.
A lot of Spotify users seem to use the service for background music or aren’t very picky about what they listen to. They’re not trying to listen to Ella Fitzgerald or Soundgarden or XTC and getting served up “fake” artists.
They’re asking Siri or Alexa to “play some jazz” or just searching for a playlist and taking what’s served up.
If you’re a subscriber and you ask Spotify to play XTC’s Skylarking, then you get Skylarking. (Assuming, of course, that Spotify has it in their catalog.)
Spotify is just taking advantage of the fact that a lot of its user base isn’t very discerning about music. Or its “fake artists” are cranking out some decent music, or both.
I care a lot about supporting artists and seeing to it they can make more art. If you love Aimee Mann’s music, or Eliza Rickman’s, or Robyn Hitchcock’s, etc., then it’s in your best interest to figure out how to slide them some money for their work.
But… a lot of people just aren’t that picky about music. I don’t understand it myself, but there are actually humans aren’t fanatic about music. Or maybe they really just love any kind of music and it doesn’t matter to them if it’s Miles Davis or Bob’s Royalty Free Band churning out a music-like substance in a basement for $50 an hour.
If that music-like substance is good enough for users, if they’re not too discerning and are happy to slap on a Spotify generated playlist that is seeded with royalty free music, it’s hard for me to be too upset with Spotify.
That’s not to say Spotify is on the side of angels. When users specifically choose music on the service, Spotify should be paying better royalties. (And labels should be paying up, too.)
If the “fake artists” situation really sticks in your craw, then… curate your own playlists on Spotify. Or stop using the service if it really galls you, but what Spotify has done here is take advantage of the fact that lots of users simply don’t care.
Spotify isn’t obligated to set its system to offer the most expensive stuff by default. It’s there if you search for it and (as far as I know) Spotify isn’t playing any dirty tricks like the old compilation CDs that had popular songs… as played by some studio band to sound like the songs but weren’t the ones you heard on radio. I’m sure lots of GenXers can relate to that one.
There’s a lot of royalty free music produced for use in radio spots, television and movie production, DJ sets, sampling… and on and on.
If you ran an all-you-can-eat restaurant, you’d probably advertise something spendy to bring people in – and then try to get them to fill up on breadsticks and salad to keep costs down. If they don’t eat that and ask for the spendy stuff, you serve it. But trying to keep costs down is reasonable as long as you’re not telling the customer they’re getting one thing and actually giving them another. So if you’re advertising crab puffs made with real crab, and serve Krab Meat(TM) “made from real ocean creatures,” that’s not cool.
When Spotify starts serving up “Miles Davvis” studio band when users search for “Miles Davis,” that’s a legit bone to pick. The “fake artists” thing, not so much.
A question popped up yesterday on Ask Metafilter for recommendations of instrumental rock, pop, electro, whatever “just no vocals” from the past 5 years. Highly recommend checking out the entire thread, but I thought I’d post my own responses here for posterity. Continue reading “Instrumental throwdown: Check these out”
Two discs from the back catalog to talk about today, In a Space Outta Sound by Nightmares on Wax and Forgotten Library from Buckethead.
The entire album is a fantastic trip, but “I Am You” is a must-listen cut that brings a lot of intensity to an otherwise chill album. In a Space Outta Sound is a downtempo journey into laid back beats, sparse (but excellent) vocals and dabbling with textures to draw the listener in. This is the type of album that I like to put on before bed to wind down and clear my mind.
Available on Bandcamp, strongly recommend giving it a spin and letting it work its magic. Make sure you’re able to give it its due and a full listen in one sitting.
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A few years ago I bought Buckethead’s full digital discography on Bandcamp. At the time, that was 269 releases. I’m still working my way through that collection.
With that sort of output, you might wonder whether Buckethead’s “Pikes” and other albums could possibly be that good. I’ve definitely found a few that aren’t to my taste, but his discography has far more hits than misses.
Case in point, Forgotten Library. This one reminds me a little bit of Metallica’s Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All period, minus the vocals. Buckethead splits his time between acoustic and electric on this album, with very little filler. There are a few grunchy bits but they’re minor. Absolutely worth a listen for anybody who appreciates guitar shredding.
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(Ratings follow a slightly modified Robert Christgau scale.)
Yesterday I was watching the first episode of Fargo season two and got a little trip back to the 70s. The episode features a hefty snippet of Billy Thorpe‘s “Children of the Sun,” a song I don’t think I’ve heard or thought about since the 80s. What a ride.
It was a little unsettling to realize I’d completely forgotten about this song that I loved as a kid. I’d never have thought to go looking for it if not prompted by Fargo.
“Children of the Sun” is a perfect specimen of Rock music in 1979. Just this side of over-produced, it’s nearly seven minutes of glam-flavored rock opera with a sci-fi theme, early synths, highly processed drums and sing-along harmonies.
The song would have been great for people trying to sell expensive stereo equipment. It’s full of effects that swoop across the left/right channels and try to evoke a spacey, futuristic feel. Or what we thought would be the feel of the future way back in the late 70s, anyway. (Audiophiles of the 70s would be horrified to learn how much music is played on single speaker devices and earbuds instead of towering quad speaker systems…)
The full album, Children of the Sun, is hard to come by. After initial release it went out of print and was partially re-released as Children of the Sun…Revisited. The full album hasn’t been released on CD outside Australia and used copies of the CD list on Discogs starting at nearly $150. (It can be found online through Totally Legitimate Means, however, if you really want to hear the original release.) Vinyl fans can pick it up for much less, probably $8 including shipping if you’re not super-picky about the condition of the sleeve, $20 or so if you want to find a near-mint edition.
I’ve given the full album a listen and it’s OK. Has some high points, and some clunky bits. But “Children of the Sun” is an epic track. Take the seven minutes and find a great set of headphones and give it a listen.
Herbie Hancock recorded 31 albums during his stint with Columbia Records & CBS/Sony Japan from 1972 to 1988. I know this because it’s on the copy of the back of the box set, Herbie Hancock: The Complete Columbia Album Collection 1972-1988. I picked up the set as an impulse buy while record shopping in NYC a few years ago, in a jazz shop featuring a vast selection that felt amazing and intimidating simultaneously. Amazing because it contained an enticing wealth of records difficult to come by elsewhere, and intimidating to a jazz novice like me, unsure what treasures to gather from the dragon pile of jazz riches.
Hancock’s complete Columbia output was an easy choice. Though I’m not well-versed in jazz, I’d already spent time with some of his albums and wanted to go deeper. So I nabbed this one along with several other albums at the store and had them shipped back to me, but it’s been sitting patiently and waiting for me to muster the courage to dive in and try to make my way through all 31 albums. Now it’s time. This is the first post in a series, one for each album on the Complete collection. (It contains 34 CDs but three albums in the series span two discs.)
Full disclosure: my ear is primarily attuned to genres like classic rock, 80s and 90s alternative, 50s and 60s oldies, and so forth. Sadly, my exposure to and interest in jazz is much more recent, so I have an uncultured palate when it comes to jazz and a lot of other music.
My assumption, when a work of music outside my comfort zone doesn’t grab me, is that the failure is mine and not that of the artist or the music itself. Writing about music is one of my ways of trying to think about it carefully, rather than trying to pass judgment.
Sextant is the first album in Hancock’s Columbia adventures, and also dovetails with some of his early work with electronics and synthesizers. The album consists of three tracks, “Rain Dance,” “Hidden Shadows,” and “Hornets.”
“Rain Dance” strikes me as the kind of noodling Pink Floyd were doing while finding their way in the post-Syd era. It’s got a beep-boop-y vibe and never quite resolves into what seems like a real composition.
The next track, “Hidden Shadows” is more approachable and invites repeat listening. It’s still dissonant in sections, but overall captures my attention and has strong moments where I can get wrapped up in the music before getting jammed up by an improv gone into the weeds.
What would have been side two on LP is consumed entirely by “Hornets,” which splits the difference between “Shadows” and “Rain Dance.” Nearly 20 minutes long, this one is not as challenging as “Rain Dance” nor as approachable as “Hidden Shadows.” It has strong funk overtones and I can imagine that spending more time with it would unveil some hidden wonders.
Whatever commercial aspirations Columbia might have had for the album, it’s hard to imagine expecting Sextant to fly off record store shelves. The songs are too long for radio play and full of dissonance. This strikes me as an album that will only work for folks deep into avant-jazz.
Notably, Hancock shook up his crew and went into the studio for the next album (Head Hunters) with only one holdover from Sextant (Bennie Maupin, who plays an impressive array of wind instruments). We’ll pick that one up in a future post.
Overall, I plan to give Sextant a few more spins, but don’t expect it to be in regular rotation.
It’s Saturday and the sky has finally opened up over Durham. After a really good deluge this morning, it’s dreary, drizzly and a perfect day to stay in and listen to records. To make the most of it, you have to choose the right music for the mood. Lucky for you, I’ve got five suggestions that go perfectly with watching it rain while nursing a cup of coffee on Saturday morning.
One of my top 100, Hollywood Town Hall is a perfect album for a rainy day with its downbeat masterpieces and lush melodies. “Crowded in the Wings” is always a welcome tune, but it hits different when the weather is overcast and glum. The guitar that closes out the song has a country blues feel that just doesn’t match a well-lit sunny day.
And the album is full of rainy day imagery. “Waiting For The Sun,” “Clouds,” and “Settled Down Like Rain,” are all perfect for cloudy skies and staying inside.
One word to describe Fumbling Towards Ecstasy? Mesmerizing. McLachlan’s voice has a siren-like call that cannot be denied. The songs on Fumbling have an ethereal quality that allows McLachlan to wrap you in her voice and offer you shelter. They’re the kind of songs you have to close your eyes and just feel the waves crash over while feeling every note.
Slow, sensual and sleepy, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is like the welcome memories of quiet times spent with good friends. It’s equal parts longing and fulfillment, and demands the listener slow down and be present in this moment. As she sings in “Elsewhere,” the album befits a quiet day, “the time and in-between, the calm inside me, in the space where I can breathe…this is heaven to no one else but me, and I’ll defend it as long as I can.”
If you’re the type to cherish a rainy day, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy is there to help you defend it as long as you can.
Khruangbin‘s 2015 full-length debut, The Universe Smiles Upon You, is captivating. The album is a mostly instrumental fusion of global music from Thai funk to psychedelia, dub, soul, rock, and much more. “The Man Who Took My Sunglasses,” gifts us some languid surf-toned guitar over a slow-cooking soul base (and bass).
“White Gloves” and “People Everywhere (Still Alive)” break out some background vocals that are just enough to hum along to without overpowering the peaceful, easy feeling that serves as a foundation for the entire album. A little wah-wah guitar supports “August Twelve” and turns up the heat, but never quite gets so heated that it ruins the overall vibe of the LP.
Released in 2010, but recorded in 2003 shortly before Cash’s death as part of the American sessions with Rick Rubin, Ain’t No Grave is a bittersweet and beautiful selection of Cash recordings. It almost feels sacrilegious to put any of Cash’s American series on the stereo without giving them full attention. This isn’t background music, this is The Man in Black handing down the wisdom of the ages and you best pay attention.
Even as Cash was counting his days, his grappling with mortality feels redemptive and not at all maudlin. Even though I don’t share Cash’s faith, it comes through clearly and sweetly in these songs.
Mostly composed of covers (excepting Cash’s “I Corinthians 15:55”), American VI is a sparse affair. Mostly Cash’s voice, guitar and some piano and other touches, it’s a perfect accompaniment to staying indoors and pondering life.
Another entry in my top 100 albums, Disintegration is the ultimate rainy day album. Glacial, majestic and masterful, Disintegration is a minor-key masterpiece that feels like storm clouds gathering.
“The Same Deep Water as You,” might even be a little too on the nose, starting with muted thunder and the sound of rain. But, for my money, it’s just what you need to fully embrace the weather. And who listens to The Cure when it’s sunny out, anyway?
On the off chance you’ve stumbled on this post and haven’t listened to Disintegration in its entirety, you need to stop and go do so immediately. Or at least the next time you’re gifted with a thunderstorm and some time to truly enjoy music.
I’m always eager to hear what other people enjoy listening to. If you have rainy day albums you can’t live without, or just rainy day songs, drop me a comment and share.