Winter is coming...

...and we all need company.

Hildur Guðnadóttir - Without Sinking (2009)
















Without Sinking has been my repeat album for the last couple months. Hildur is a classically trained cellist who creates magnificent soundscapes made of clouds:

"I wanted to have open space for single notes and let them breath, like single clouds in a clear sky. As a contrast I also wanted create denser and heavier compositions which were more thundercloud like. I like the way clouds form, how many tiny droplets can form such dense forms and then slowly evaporate into thin string-like forms."

Beautifully layered cello makes up the bulk of the album, creating atmosphere that just takes control of your senses. Really one of those albums you just kinda sink into, eyes closed, pondering the incredible beauty/horrible sadness of everything.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wzjvuojtcgw

Uakti - I Ching (1994)















Another from the beloved Brazilian quartet. Takes you to a faraway place of primordial drums and hoppy xylophones, soothing woodwinds, shit is good. The fist 8 or 9 tracks were composed based on the I Ching (Cage?) but I don't really know what that means.

http://www.mediafire.com/?gezk2yvjnm3

Phil Ochs - The Early Years (2000)











Phil Ochs was one of that lovely bunch of 1960s protest singers. Anti-war, pro-civil rights, pretty much what you expect topically, but man can this guy work words. Somewhere between poetry and witty narrative, his lyrics have the kind of authenticity (real talk) that, unlike so many from his time, doesn't feel tired or cliche today.

But you know how it goes with the good ones...

"In mid-1975, Ochs took on the identity of John Butler Train. He told people that Train had murdered Ochs, and that he, John Train, had replaced him. Train was convinced that somebody was trying to kill him, and he carried a weapon at all times—a hammer, a knife, or a lead pipe"

The Early Years collects recordings from 1963-1966. The files are .m4a.

http://www.mediafire.com/?hzqmdqnzjj0

Arthur Russell - Another Thought (1994)














This picture is broken this is not the actual album cover i am not going to fix it

"This was a guy who could sit down with a cello and sing with it in a way that no one on this Earth has ever done before, or will do so again." - Phillip Glass

The second cellist (and second Glass collaborator...) today, Arthur Russell was a composer, disco artist, and part of the ultra hip of 1970s New York. Another Thought is a posthumous collection of recordings from the end of Russell's life (I meant to upload his opus World of Echo but apparently half the album has disappeared from my computer....). Mostly cello/vocal tracks, the album is Russell's weird pop side with hints of disco and, at times, it almost sounds like contemporary dubstep...

http://www.mediafire.com/?tljtyznjny2

Bad Religion - No Control (1989)















When I was 14 or 15 I bought a shirt with the Bad Religion 'logo' on it and when my dad saw it he was all like "you can't wear that to school, ur gonna offend nice people" and I was all like "HEY FUCK YOU GOD" and I wore the shirt to school and kept my middle finger up high the whole time.

Whatever may have happened in the last decade, Bad Religion are still pretty much like the best band ever. This album, along with Suffer and Stranger than Fiction, were pretty crucial to my teenage outlook on the world, besides being musically awesome. Good listen if you're ever feeling the horror of modern society particularly acutely.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ndtyn4ckwtw

Plus, Bad Religion inspired a whole new generation of musicians to sing loud and sing proud...

The Origami Patrol - Supernova + (2004)












http://www.mediafire.com/?iwzdmyvimmt

Goodnight Mercedes Sosa...

Mercedes Sosa died yesterday. There's not really anything to say that can do justice, so I'll share some of what she gave to the world, along with a couple other Nueva Cancion favourites.




Mercedes Sosa - Canciones con Fundamento (1965)

Sosa's second record, Canciones con Fundamento is a collection of Argentine folk songs.

http://www.mediafire.com/?zyminnfzndj

Mercedes Sosa - 30 Años (1994)

Not usually one for compilations, but its kind of hard to summarize a career of forty-odd albums... so here's a compilation (the quality on this is kind of crappy, I ripped it from my parents' CD when I was like 13 and thought 64kbps sounded like a lot...at least the file is small).

http://www.mediafire.com/?djmyjzkq0jh

Violeta Parra - Últimas Composiciones (1967)


Violeta Parra was one of the founders of Nueva Cancion chilena. She committed suicide in 1967, hence the name of the album. The first track, "Gracias a la Vida," was covered and popularized by Sosa.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ewifhjwm5zh





Victor Jara - Pongo en tus manos abiertas (1969)

I've been meaning to upload some Victor Jara for a while, and if I get around to it, more will follow. Jara was another of the leading lights of Nueva Cancion chilena. He was also a political activist, and well, a communist. When Pinochet seized power in Chile in 1973, Jara was arrested, tortured, and executed. I mention his manner of death because it tends to weigh heavy on my mind when I listen to his music. His message (or at least what my one year of Spanish classes allows me to understand of it) is always one of hope and faith in humanity. I'm getting a little cheesy here, but his life and his music serve as reminders to me that human beings are capable of both beautiful and terrible things.

http://www.mediafire.com/?mwwzrkjznwh



Goodnight Mercedes Sosa.

High school music.

These are things I used to listen to a lot but don't really listen to anymore but was recently reminded of and remembered how amazing they are and now I am listening to them again:

Mount Eerie - No Flashlight (2005)

















Man Phil Elverum is a great dude. I don't know him personally or anything, but I bet he's a pretty a great dude. Here's the album he made after he realized Mount Eerie was a way better name for his projects than The Microphones. That was a good call. I like Phil Elverum a lot.

This one sounds more like the Microphones than later Mount Eerie stuff. PERSONAL, QUIET, FUZZY. Stuff about moons and mountains, and no one has ever asked what does mount eerie mean?

http://www.mediafire.com/?oqhyqyymndr

Phil Elverum is such a great dude that he also made a separate release of just the drum tracks from No Flashlight. I hear he meant for other people to use them to make music, but I just smoked bowls and listened to them:

Mount Eerie - The Drums from No Flashlight (2005

http://www.mediafire.com/?nnittkdonnj

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - BROOM (2006)














One of those "check out my brother's friend's band" things, I ordered this album through a myspace message and it came with a thank you note with a hand-drawn portrait of Boris Yeltsin on it, which I think is pretty cool. Still can't decide whether the name is just obnoxious or the best thing ever.

SSLYBY (fun to try and say) are like somewhere between Weezer and Beulah, solidly lovable indie pop about pretty girls we used to go out with.

(Ok well ten seconds of internet search reveals that they signed to polyvinyl and have put out another album. Way to go dudes.)

http://www.mediafire.com/?hm1otmmi4fj

Jean-Claude Vannier - L'Enfant Assasin des Mouches (1972)














One of my first forays into less pop/rock type stuff, walking around listening to this album a lot made the world feel really strange (disturbing) to me for a while. Vannier did arrangements and production for French popists like Francoise Hardy, Johnny Hallyday, and most famously for Gainsbourg's zenith of beautiful creep, Histoire de Melody Nelson. L'Enfant Assasin is some kind of concept album with a little bit of everything.

Oh man, from allmusic: "This set is the terrain where soundtrack music, classical music, gauche pop, hard rock, French café music, Middle Eastern modal music, vanguard musical iconoclasty, and sound effects collide, stroke, and ultimately come into union with one another -- often in a single cut. This music is alternately violent, garish, tender, elegant, silly, and gritty."

Well those are some words. This is an album:

http://www.mediafire.com/?o4ojzzlzyzz

Bill Holt - Dreamies (1972)















Bill Holt was working for a Fortune 500 company and then in 1972 he realised that the world was just way too trippy so he quit his job and recorded an album with an acoustic guitar and a lot of electronic things. Dreamies is a gorgeous acoustic folk album full of layered harmonies and other things that soar mixed up with sound collage of the experience of living through the late 1960s/early 1970s. It really is something.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jz1xk4y5jx5

(Personal anecdote: few months ago, took some acid, thought to myself "Dreamies is a trippy album and I haven't listened to it in ages and never on serious drugz, this'll be great." So I put it on and lay back with my cats, the opening minutes are great. As I'm listening though, it gradually comes back to me that the album has a pretty general sense of regret and despair, samples dealing with the failure of the hippies to really do anything, the arms race, personal darkness. Kinda trapped me in a bad place and I couldn't muster the will to change it. So, moral of the story: as appropriate as it may seem, not to be listened to in oversensitive states. Second moral of the story: when in bad places, put on Buena Vista Social Club and things will become better.)


This one's a bit more recent, couple people have been bugging me about it for a bit though:

Peter and the Wolf - The Ivori Palms (2007)













I'm just going to copy what I wrote about his other album, Lightness, when I put it up:

"There are only a handful of albums I've listened to more than Lightness, and it still gets me every time. Peter and the Wolf is the chosen pseudonym of one Brian Redding Hunter (known simply as Red Hunter, which is a cool name). On Lightness, Hunter presents a series of oh-so pretty folk tunes, mostly telling tales of his past loves both good and bad. But Hunter never sounds bitter; he knows every relationship was well worth it, even if it didn't work out. These songs are heart-warming and charming. In fact, they practically radiate a comforting warmth that makes Lightness a perfect listen for a winter's day, or just any day you don't feel up to going outside. It's a happy sadness. Mostly guitar, piano, lots of oohhs and aahhs, and every kind of percussion except drums, the album sounds like it was recorded in a cabin in the mountains, or else beside a campfire.

In addition, Hunter apparently has a pretty big rep for incredible live shows. He's showed up on stage with 20 back-up singers, played shows on rooftops, on islands only accessible by boat, in graveyards, and instead of a tour bus, he used a sailboat for his last tour."

Man do I write some stupid things. Ivori Palms is a bit fuller in terms of instrumentation and percussion, more life than love lyrically, actually has a couple of songs I don't much like, but overall pretty fucking amazing. The cover's pretty cheesy, and I hear Hunter's kind of an asshole in person though. FIGURES.

http://www.mediafire.com/?wdlzjnuzw2u

Also Montreal has the greatest church bells. And crazy big fires:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2009/08/19/montreal-plateau-fire.html

ok well there were two other huge ones over the summer but I can't find links for them.

Some more months later...

Sometimes I am listening to things and I just urgently need to share them with other people. Here are some of those things:

Phillip Glass and Uakti - Aguas de Amazonas (1999)

















Uakti is a Brazilian instrumental quartet known for making their own instruments. Apparently Phillip Glass really liked them, so they made an album. IT ACTUALLY SOUNDS LIKE A RIVER! No joke.

Phillip Glass and Uakti - Aguas de Amazonas

Istanbul Oriental Ensemble - Grand Bazaar (2006)














This is traditional Turkish gypsy music according to allmusic.com. Personally, I like to think it's what they played at nightclubs in 15th century Istanbul. Also reminds me a lot of the amazing soundtrack to HBO's Rome series.

Istanbul Oriental Ensemble - Grand Bazaar

Labi Siffre - Remember My Song (1975)















This is the man who gave us the rhythm track to Eminem's "My Name Is" (It's from this album's opening track). I don't really know much else about him, apparently he was openly gay and sang lots of songs about all the fucked up shit in the world. Either way, on Remember My Song he's just smmooooooth, sometimes funky, sometimes delivering a hearty meloncholy unto my soul, but always moving somewhere good. ("Down" in particular is just plain emotionally destructive.)

Labi Siffre - Remember My Song

Various Artists - The Art of Field Recording Vol. 2 (2008)















Similar to the amazing Goodbye, Babylon and American Primitive sets, The Art of Field Recording collects recordings of early 20th century folk, bluegrass, spirituals, gospel and the like. I quote: "The four discs are arranged by theme (Survey, Religious, Accompanied Songs and Ballads, Unaccompanied Songs and Ballads), and are comprised exclusively of field recordings, provoked and captured in living rooms, churches, front porches, backyards, graveyards, and parlors across the Southeast, Midwest, and Canada."

Basically pretty incredible. One of the best parts is that they left a lot of the pre/post-performance banter in along with other random sounds of life. Gives a nice feeling of really beeeiiinnggg there. I haven't found Volume 1 anywhere, which is a shame.

Various Artists - The Art of Field Recording Vol. 2, Discs 1 & 2

Various Artists - The Art of Field Recording Vol. 2, Discs 3 & 4

Six months later...

...I decided to upload some things. So here's a bunch of things.

Arborea - Arborea (2008)
















Lovely duo from Maine playing very pretty folk. Mixes a contemporary free folk sound with 60s English folk. Helena from Espers features on two tracks, and the whole album has a very Espers-y feel, though maybe a little less heavy on the 'magical forest' vibe. Been listening to this before bed pretty regularly recently, one of the better things I've heard come out of 2008.

Arborea - Arborea (2008)
http://www.mediafire.com/?g3ywmrhmngc

Claude Debussy - 12 Etudes (piano: Mitsuko Uchida) (1990)














Mitsuko Uchida is, I think, my newfound love. Everything I have heard from her has absolutely blown me away. These pieces are technically supposed to piano exercises, but the absolute perfection with which she plays makes them a joy to listen to. Not just incredibly precise and full-sounding, but vibrant and exciting, she is a god damn goddess of the piano. More Uchida will follow later.

Claude Debussy - 12 Etudes (piano: Mitsuko Uchida) (1990)
http://www.mediafire.com/?ydyj0me20zm

Kosmos - Soundtracks of Eastern Germany's Adventures in Space (2005)















Pretty self-explanatory... soundtracks from German sci-fi movies from the 60s and 70s. Awesome.

Kosmos - Soundtracks of Eastern Germany's Adventures in Space (2005)
http://www.mediafire.com/?quztnwktzm5

Lee Ranaldo - Maelstrom From Drift (2008)















One of the benefits of having been part of Sonic Youth is that you can put something like Maelstrom From Drift out and still have it get some pretty decent press. Basically an album of odd noises, half-drones, sounds that just might be a guitar but you can't really be sure, beatboxing, and someone exclaiming loudly "blazah!" Lee Ranaldo has fun.

Lee Ranaldo - Maelstrom From Drift (2008)
http://www.mediafire.com/?0dv2ytaywkm

A Hawk and A Hacksaw - Darkness at Noon (2005)












Former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes redefines the term 'multi-instrumentalist.' At various live performances, I have seen this man simultaneously play the accordion, a keyboard (with his feet), cymbals (drumstick strapped to his head) and a variety of other percussion instruments (shakers attached to his feet, drumsticks attached to his elbows, tambourine strapped to his head). Dude's fucking crazy. He also used to have a great beard, now has reduced it to a great mustache. On Darkness at Noon Barnes throws together traditional folk musics from anywhere that's got one. Eastern European, Latin American, olde English vibes all show in this dizzying, beautiful swirl of old world song. It's just fantastic.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw - Darkness at Noon (2005)
http://www.mediafire.com/?mjtmjnzotyk

Circulatory System - Circulatory System (2001) + Inside Views (2001)

Circulatory System is the brainchild of former Olivia Tremor Control songwriter Will Cullen Hart. Following the OTC's decision to go on indefinite hiatus, Hart decided to hole up in his Athens, GA home and focus on painting. Slowly he began to turn out new songs and, recruiting the help of most of the members of the OTC as well as The Instruments' Heather McInstosh and Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum, produced Circulatory System's self-titled debut.

Much darker and gloomier than anything from the Olivia Tremor Control, and lacking the more experimental musique concrete parts of the OTC, Circulatory System is an incredible collection of pretty, trippy tunes. Pretty much one of my favourite albums, it's the kind of thing that you never get tired of hearing. It's fucking incredible.


















Following the release of Circulatory System, Hart decided to "remix" the album. Here's the description of Inside Views from www.cloudrecordings.com:

"Cut and paste style fragments, demos and animation derived from pieces of the circulatory system album. These elements are spliced, electronically altered and juxtaposed for a reinterpretation of the sounds. The result is a peek into the sonic architecture of their album.
(set your CD player to 'shuffle' mode when playing this recording)

- reanimation by will h.

(each CD case has a unique bird picture.)"

Inside Views rearranges the original album into a whole new entity, and is equally incredible. It sounds amazing when played in sequence, but it becomes even more fascinating when shuffled. Every time you listen it's basically a different album, and no matter how you order the tracks it always sounds cohesive, and it is always beautiful.

Hart's paintings are also pretty incredible. Check them out here:
http://www.cloudrecordings.com/artwork.html

Circulatory System have also been working on a new album for about as long as anyone can remember. It's been due to come out for about the last four years, but keeps getting pushed back. However, last April, member John Fernandes wrote:

"i just posted some new music on the circulatory system myspace page.
progress is now being made on the record, a possible 'side one' has been put together with help from charlie of 63 crayons.
hopefully the new album will be released this fall."

So here's hoping... and here's music...

Circulatory System - Circulatory System

Circulatory System - Inside Views

Buy the albums here.

(Also, I realised the links are a bit confusing so the album covers are now download links as well.)

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians (1974-1976)

From Wikipedia:

"The piece is based around a cycle of eleven chords. A small piece of music is based around each chord, and the piece returns to the original cycle at the end. The sections are aptly named "Pulses," and Section I-XI. This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger ensembles, and the extension of performers resulted in a growth of psycho-acoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". A prominent factor in this work is the augmentation of the harmonies and melodies and the way that they develop this piece. Another important factor in the piece is the use of human breath, used in the clarinets and voices, which help structure and bring a pulse to the piece. The player plays the pulsing note for as long as he can hold it, while each chord is melodically deconstructed by the ensemble, along with augmentation of the notes held. The metallophone (unplugged vibraphone), is used to cue the ensemble to change patterns or sections.

Some sections of the piece have an ABCDCBA structure, and Reich noted that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written."

Music for 18 Musicians is pretty fucking fascinating. Basically layer after layer of sound is added and repeated over and over and over and and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and suddenly it changes! and over and over and over and over and over and over and over etc.

It may sound silly but its actually incredible. I don't know, either you're into it or you're not, just give it a listen and try and keep it on past the first few tracks. It's worth the risk of wasting 10 minutes listening to something you don't dig, because if it clicks, it can be mindblowing.

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians

Buy the album here.