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31 March 2008
Whatcha listening to?→[More:]Please tell me what musics you're listening to lately. Thank you!
p.s. I am listening to She & Him, Kathleen Edwards, the Run Fatboy Run soundtrack, the House MD soundtrack, The Pretenders (random selections), and some old Robert Palmer.
Beach House "Devotion," Creature "No Sleep At All," Elf Power "In A Cave" and Funkadelic "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow" have been in heavy rotation.
Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull
Ornette Coleman - The Shape Of Jazz To Come
Pat Metheny & Ornette Coleman - Song X
Cecil Taylor - Looking Ahead (thanks for the head's up, box!)
The Dirtbombs - We Have You Surrounded
Black Mountain - In The Future
And rolling around my head right now are a whole bunch of songs by X, since we saw them play last night: "The New World", "Johnny Hit And Run Pauline", "Your Phone's Off The Hook (But You're Not)", etc.
Anthony Bourdain. My landlady is listening to ghostly water in the pipes (actually she isn't, since she said to me today that things have 'got better' with the water usage. we're not doing a damned thing different. damned if i know)
Today I was listening to Santana. Even Michelle Branch with Santana. Love those two pop-y songs she did with Santana. I'm Feeling You and The Game of Love.
This week I've been listening to a lot of Motown and soul. Everything from Brenton Wood to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas to The Drifters.
Yesterday I was listening to a dumb, but catchy, song by Akira the Don called, "Oh What a Glorious Thing".
I like it so far, box, but I haven't had much time to live with it. Bill Frisell plays on it, believe it or not. It's as slow as, say, The Melvins, but not nearly as sludgey. A much cleaner sound, with sort of a southwestern tinge to it.
Nothing at this moment but I've been digging around at Archive.org lately, downloading dusty old jazz and ragtime stuff. I found the original recording of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin himself with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and listened to that on my walk to work this morning.
Whatever my bf is watching on youtube, in the other room. He likes paranormal, weird, conspiracy, kind of stuff (actually I like it too, just not quite as much). Now it's some British woman talking about "they had access . . ." Oh, it's about Margaret Thatcher's conflicts with unions . . . I may go and join him, it sounds interesting.
At work lately, I've been listening to the new Nine Inch Nails album(s), Ghosts.
On the way to work, I've been listening to podcasts of WFMU (Best Show and 7 Second Delay, though the show seems on hold for the time being) and This American Life. BTW, TAL just had a fascinating and disturbing episode called (if I recall correctly) "The Audacity of Government."
The rather spiffing new Cinderpop album, the new REM, Black Keys (produced by Danger Mouse who has removed all the rawness but still left a really strong album), an old Keren Ann album, Be Your Own Pet, Elbow, Young Heart Attack
Kathleen Edwards is *amazing* live. I've seen her a few times - the first at The Borderline in London when she was promoting her first album. She was in a belligerent mood after the band's bus was clamped and their gig profits had to go on getting the clamp removed. One of the best gigs I've ever seen. Her new album is really strong, too. Hopefully she'll be in the UK sometime this year.
I put all the music on my work computer (part of my cd collection and every random thing I've ever downloaded) into alphabetical order by song title. It's been weeks, but I'm finally up to the word "Mexican" (only two songs: Mexican Boyfriend by Shivaree and Mexican Sausage Link by Chignon). I've discovered some stuff I didn't know I love (Crying's What You Need by Future Conditional) and deleted lots and lots of things there's no reason to ever listen to again.
Pulp. . .Common People. . which I just discovered, a decade or so late. . .the Shatner version came up on my iPod (thanks whoever from here) and I decided that there must be something that was based on. . .
So, now, I have downloaded it and listened to it a few zillion times. . .
bmarkey and I must be on the same wavelength. I've been deeply digging that Earth record for a couple of weeks now, and I'm going to see The Dirtbombs tonight. Small world.
Here's my take on The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull: It's pretty. No, really. It sounds pretty. It's not sludge, it's not drone, it's not mere stoner instrumental wank. It's glacially paced without being dirge-like. It's roomy and expansive without being knob-twiddling. Its simple and repetitive melodies unwind and recombine in fugue-like figures that skitter from keyboard to guitar to bass and back. It's heavy without being LOUD. It's background music for a space western. It's great "driving late at night alone" music. It's the soundtrack of glaciers melting. Me likey.
danf, let that song introduce you to more stuff by Pulp and the solo album by Jarvis Cocker. Great, great stuff- acerbic, funny, sometimes smutty pop music... you'll love it.
danf, let that song introduce you to more stuff by Pulp and the solo album by Jarvis Cocker.
Yeah I first saw him in the Cohen movie. . and assumed he was Joe Cocker's son, since all the other people in that movie seem to be sons and daughters of whoever, but of course I learned differently in a short time.
Right now I'm listening to my nephew play some tunes on his acoustic guitar, in the living room of his little house in Charleston, South Carolina. The Spanish moss hangs heavy off the limbs of an enormous live oak that grows in his front yard. Azaleas are in bloom. Mighty fine, all in all.
BOP pretty well hit the nail on the head, re: Earth. Ordinarily I'm pretty allergic to things this slow and repetitive (the Melvins drove me out of a record store once), but there's enough forward motion to keep the music in motion. Plus, it's absolutely gorgeous. I know the term "darkly hypnotic" is overused critspeak, but it actually applies here. I wanna make the movie that has this soundtrack.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
