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Post by jk on Oct 8, 2021 10:22:41 GMT
I have this "women composers" thread down the road at EH. Actually, it's my third -- I locked the other two for personal reasons but then decided such a thread was unmissable, hence the new one. My most recent discovery is a living American composer, Sarah Kirkland Snider. Ms Snider (year of birth unknown) is perhaps best known for three large-scale works centring on the human voice. The first, Penelope (2010) for female voice and chamber orchestra, is (to quote her wiki page) "an orchestral song cycle based on Homer's Odyssey, imagining the Roman epic as told from the perspective of Odysseus's wife, Penelope." It's a fascinating musical journey. You can hear the entire song cycle * here*. If you'd prefer just one song, try the last one, "As He Looks Out to Sea": www.newamrecords.com/albums/penelope
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Post by jk on Oct 27, 2021 21:05:29 GMT
Funny how one's tastes change over the years. It's taken me nearly four decades to come to appreciate Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You". From the opening rap onwards, it wasn't my musical scene at all, not at the time of its release in 1984 and not until well into the next millennium. That's when I was converted to the wonders of disco and became more open to danceable stuff by the likes of Ms Khan. I recall the singer-guitarist in the semi-professional receptions band I played in in the late '80s to mid '90s had the opening rap down pat. Most impressive! (Not that we ever played the song.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Feel_for_You
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 27, 2021 21:30:36 GMT
Funny how one's tastes change over the years. It's taken me nearly four decades to come to appreciate Chaka Khan's "I Feel For You". From the opening rap onwards, it wasn't my musical scene at all, not at the time of its release in 1984 and not until well into the next millennium. That's when I was converted to the wonders of disco and became more open to danceable stuff by the likes of Ms Khan. I recall the singer-guitarist in the semi-professional receptions band I played in in the late '80s to mid '90s had the opening rap down pat. Most impressive! (Not that we ever played the song.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Feel_for_YouI used to LOVE doing that "Chaka Khan ... Chaka Khan" bit as a little kid, even though I had no idea from whence it came...
It is, of course, a Prince song from his 1979 debut.
How about his acoustic guitar demo of it from the winter 1978-79?
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Post by kds on Oct 28, 2021 12:29:56 GMT
I tend to listen to a lot of Blackmore's Night in the fall, the renaissance / folk / rock just fits the season very well IMO. And, this little ditty is quite appropriate for Halloween too
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Post by jk on Nov 4, 2021 16:08:40 GMT
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Post by jk on Nov 6, 2021 15:52:47 GMT
This is for a friend of mine who's hurting right now:
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 6, 2021 15:58:24 GMT
I love the guitar sounds on that recording--and a lot of the rest of it, too, with the main exception of Frank's cartoonish bass voice. Though I always felt like once they hit the refrain--"I'm not sat - is - fied," etc.--it lacks the punch the parts imply. It feels soft in a way I can't quite describe, not punchy, percussive. (They needed Murry Wilson in there to guide them! )
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Post by jk on Nov 6, 2021 22:45:54 GMT
I love the guitar sounds on that recording--and a lot of the rest of it, too, with the main exception of Frank's cartoonish bass voice. Though I always felt like once they hit the refrain--"I'm not sat - is - fied," etc.--it lacks the punch the parts imply. It feels soft in a way I can't quite describe, not punchy, percussive. (They needed Murry Wilson in there to guide them! ) Freak Out! was released as a single LP in the UK (I bought it in mid '67). They dropped "Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder" and "Any Way The Wind Blows" to fit the first US LP onto one side. Then they faded out "Trouble Every Day" during the harmonica solo and crammed it onto side two with all of "Help..." and all of "Return...". I thought it was real value for money! And I still prefer that format.
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Post by jk on Nov 7, 2021 12:26:44 GMT
I love the guitar sounds on that recording--and a lot of the rest of it, too, with the main exception of Frank's cartoonish bass voice. Though I always felt like once they hit the refrain--"I'm not sat - is - fied," etc.--it lacks the punch the parts imply. It feels soft in a way I can't quite describe, not punchy, percussive. (They needed Murry Wilson in there to guide them! ) For a while in 1969 I was obsessed with the "greasy" reworking on the MOI album Cruising with Ruben & the Jets and played it incessantly on the piano to the exclusion of anything else (and probably drove everyone nuts in the process). I just love what happens just after 2:40! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_with_Ruben_%26_the_Jets
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Post by B.E. on Nov 14, 2021 0:20:46 GMT
I listened to my Ricky Nelson greatest hits compilation a few times today and it occurred to me that "You Are The Only One" might have inspired Neil Young to write "Wonderin'" for his '50s throwback album, Everybody's Rockin'. In particular, the melody and lyric: "what'll I do if you leave me" (which I misheard initially as "what'll I do if you need me"). Doesn't it kinda sound like he took that line and wrote a song around it?
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Post by jk on Nov 24, 2021 18:36:47 GMT
It was seeing heart-breaking footage of Laika the Russian space dog last night on a TV programme about the Red Army that made me turn again to this Sovietwave Spacemix.
According to commenter S R a year ago, Sovietwave is "Nostalgic for a future that never came. One day comrades, one day"...
In this alternative Soviet universe, Laika is a heroine. A mongrel plucked from the streets, she died mere hours after take-off through overheating. Don't go to her wiki page, it will just make you cry. To quote commenter Bathysphere from a year ago. "Some say that on clear nights when the atmospheric electromagnetic ducting is just right, you can still pick up Laika's transmissions lovingly encouraging us in our aspirations for space travel."
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Post by jk on Nov 26, 2021 9:10:11 GMT
And here's a mix I'm listening to a lot these days (and basking in the thirty-year-old footage). At least this one doesn't start me sobbing. This wondrous Vaporwave mix comes courtesy of uploader b r h m. Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music partly defined by its slowed-down, * chopped and screwed* samples of smooth jazz, elevator, R&B, and lounge music from the 1980s and '90s (see link below). This mix is accompanied by evening scenes filmed in 1990 in the streets and shops in and around the Tokyo district of Kabuki-chō, which I located after identifying Koma Stadium (now demolished). Fascinating -- and the kaleidoscopic musical canvas complete with squelching synths is a fitting match: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave
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Post by jk on Dec 5, 2021 20:45:10 GMT
Recently I've been exploring the music of Jade Warrior, a band of great originality that never got the break they needed. From their 1974 album Floating World, this is "Mountain Of Fruit And Flowers" (RIP Tony and David Duhig): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_World_(Jade_Warrior_album)
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Post by jk on Dec 12, 2021 9:39:42 GMT
Late Saturday afternoon and early evening are pretty slack on Dutch and UK radio, so instead I played two of my CDs in a row (a very rare occurrence these days): Pink Floyd's second...
...and The Who's third (plus bonus tracks):
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Post by jk on Dec 26, 2021 12:59:46 GMT
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