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artifact Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus" (Mute/Anti, 2004)
03/23/05
The double album has sung a siren song for pop musicians down through the years, with most running aground on the rocks of overreach. Yet Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds have painted their masterpiece with Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, a sprawling two-disc set that summons more compelling thoughts and feelings than most bands can manage over an entire career.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 01:27:11 am
encounter Chris Whitley, February 2005
03/23/05
The smoke is in the air, the wine on the table. Chris Whitley is in a manifesto mood as the singer/guitarist crafts yet another roll-up on the couch in his apartment in New York's West Village. "Love and death, that's what this record is about," he declares. "That's what all art is, or should be, about."
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 01:22:24 am
artifact Henri Dutilleux's Complete Orchestral Works (Chandos, 2000)
03/23/05
The series of Chandos recordings comprised in this set present the finest summation yet of octogenarian French composer Henri Dutilleux's sublime art. Although only a few years older than his Gallic antipode Pierre Boulez, Dutilleux has pursued a very personal, poetic muse -- one utterly contemporary yet often at odds with the sort of formal constraints embraced by Boulez and his postwar peers. But even Boulez has come more Dutilleux's way in recent years, not only cultivating a more fluid outlook but recognizing the increasingly individual character of Dutilleux's post-Debussyian brand of impressionism.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 01:18:48 am
disc script Kronos Quartet: Peteris Vasks, String Quartet No. 4
03/23/05
{unpublished notes to the 2003 Nonesuch release} No expression can ring true without incorporating its opposite -- to recognize the light, you must perceive the dark, and vice versa. The music of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks resonates with life's hopeful ideal as well as its often more tragic reality -- and, in this, his work not only has more immediate impact but more staying power than so many strictly black or white sounds. As the best music always does, Vasks' compositions reveal shades of gray, gradations of emotion bred from a resolute coalition of heart and mind.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 12:53:51 am
disc script Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Cinemage"
03/23/05
{originally published as liner notes to the 1999 Sony Classical release} "Cinemage": It's an intriguing syncretism and the ideal title for this album, a collection of pieces that Ryuichi Sakamoto composed mostly as aural accompaniment to visual events -- but that exist on their own as pure music, evocative and compelling without any external program. "The Last Emperor," "Little Buddha," "Wuthering Heights" and "Forbidden Colors" (from "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence") are some of Sakamoto's most renowned themes, each evidence that he is one of the more memorable melodists working today. And these compositions -- along with the epic "El Mar Mediterrani" (written for the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games) and the rarely heard "Replica" (which originated on Musical Encyclopedia, one of Sakamoto's genre-defying solo albums) -- are an ideal introduction to the art of a composer who revels in the polyglot Zeitgeist that marks the end of our century.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 12:32:50 am
onstage Doves, Bowery Ballroom, New York City, March 2005
03/18/05
Making great records is a wonderful thing, and the history of pop music is full of studio-bound wizardry. Yet it's at least one elusive measure of a worthy, enduring rock band that while it may sound good on record, the group attains an altogether more thrilling dimension on stage. The Manchester, England, trio Doves launched the first round of its U.S. tour at lower Manhattan's Bowery Ballroom, and the show was indeed thrilling, with the band's songs given a visceral rush only hinted at on its atmospheric recordings. Even the grayest songs from the band's new, third album -- Some Cities, which bowed last month atop the U.K. album chart -- took on new luster in the flesh.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 09:37:25 pm
studio arcana Bill Laswell
03/18/05
{text and discography revised/expanded from a profile originally published in the Billboard Encyclopedia of Record Producers, 1998} Although he's still hard at work cultivating his studio tan, Bill Laswell was one of the world's most fearless and fertile musical alchemists at his incredibly prolific, decade-long peak from the late-'80s to late-'90s. A master catalyst, he juxtaposed disparate international players to create unheard of combinations of sound and sensibility -- from searching post-jazz hybrids and fierce fusions of rock with hip-hop to dogma-free African field recordings and indescribable out-of-this world music. To Laswell, music really is a universal language, and in his heyday, he had few peers in the bringing together of great musicians from around the world for true cross-cultural communion. Voicing his credo in the mid-'90s, Laswell told me, "Ultimately, musicians are not about instruments, and making records is not about equipment. It's about people. It's about ideas. It's about expression."
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 09:32:32 pm
gray zone Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs"
03/18/05
Reportedly, research has determined that people who make lists accomplish more than those who don't. When it comes to the ever-popular magazine lists of the "greatest" this and "best" that, though, such rosters -- at least the committee-led, corporate publishing type -- may not necessarily be the most productive, or enlightening, thing.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 08:52:35 pm
onstage Evan Ziporyn & Gamelan Galak Tika at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, New York City, November 2004
03/18/05
Seemingly serving as Zankel Hall's surrogate programmer, composer John Adams was given the run of Carnegie Hall's underground venue again for his alternative "In Your Ear" festival. Adams curated Zankel's opening festivities in 2003 to some acclaim. His longtime record company -- the eclectic Nonesuch -- has also become a key supplier of cross-cultural artistry to Carnegie, as the hallowed hall strives to lend its offerings a new-century slant. "In Your Ear" eschewed the Western classicism that dominates Carnegie's upstairs space in favor of world music and jazz. Saxophonist Joshua Redman and Iranian composer/spiked-fiddle virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor were among the attractions, along with composer-instrumentalist Evan Ziporyn and Gamelan Galak Tika.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 08:38:45 pm
artifact "Astor Piazzolla in Portrait" (BBC/Opus Arte DVD, 2005)
03/18/05
In the 1990s, there was such an international renaissance for the music of Astor Piazzolla -- the pioneering master of tango nuevo -- that it's perhaps easy to take him for granted now. Piazzolla (1921-92) single-handedly revitalized the tango. The Argentinean composer and virtuoso of the bandoneón (a small button accordion) injected classical complexity and jazz spontaneity into a form that had grown staid and formulaic in its half-century move from bordello to dance hall. Death threats from those invested in the old ways didn't deter him, and Piazzolla saw his revolution eventually influence not only a new generation of tango artists but top classical and jazz musicians.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 08:33:32 pm
artifact Ingram Marshall's "Evensongs" (New Albion, 1997)
03/18/05
As masters far-flung as Schubert and Ives well knew, sentimental reflection need not be an intellectual liability. Nostalgia and the inherent sadness of passing time can be fount for some of the most affecting, and most acute, music. Mining memories, personal and collective, is at the heart of what an artist does, after all. "Searching the past to understand the present" is how composer Ingram Marshall puts it.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 08:30:55 pm
artifact "Frank Black Francis" (SpinArt, 2004)
03/18/05
As with many innovations embraced by popular culture, it may be hard to remember how radically disarming the Pixies were in the late '80s. The Boston quartet's surreal songs took sexual and religious fetishes -- not to mention space aliens -- as abiding subjects. And those demented tales were made uncommonly infectious, thanks to the band's avant-rock stew of bent folk tunes, ironic surf pop and screaming guitar noise. The Pixies' temperate verse/explosive chorus dynamics were used as a stencil for hit bands from Nirvana on, although the group broke up before it could ride the '90s alternative wave. Having turned down previous offers to cash in on a golden reputation, the Pixies put fractiousness aside for a lauded, lucrative reunion tour. A "greatest hits" CD/DVD heralded the tour, but the Pixies haven't recorded any new material, other than an Internet-only track, "Bam Twok," and a feedback-laced cover of "Ain't That Pretty at All" for a Warren Zevon tribute album. Yet we have the new double-disc set Frank Black Francis. Pixies singer/songwriter Frank Black -- a/k/a Charles Thompson, who first assumed the nom de guerre Black Francis -- has juxtaposed his earliest demos with extreme makeovers of Pixies material.
Posted by bradley bambarger
at 08:29:28 pm
encounter The Scorpions & the Berlin Philharmonic, 2000
03/15/05
{originally published in very truncated form in Guitar World magazine in 2000} It's the day after the Scorpions' big concert with the Berlin Philharmonic, and lead guitarist Matthias Jabs is in something of a triumphal mood. Playing with the world's most august orchestra at the World Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany -- the heavy-metal veterans' hometown -- was obviously a career highlight. In keeping with the prestige of the occasion, Jabs is trying to be diplomatic in rebutting the many criticisms that preceded the event, particularly those of the Berlin Philharmonic's music director. But the ever-youthful Scorpion can't help himself and reverts to rock'n'roll shorthand: "What I have to say to Claudio Abbado is, `Go fuck yourself.' He's probably just upset that we didn't ask him to participate."
Posted by admin
at 06:25:22 pm
listen to this John Lurie
03/15/05
{Saxophonist/composer/painter John Lurie recommends five great records, listed below, following the intro. This piece was originally published in 1998, when he and his Lounge Lizards were still active.} Beyond hipster enclaves in New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo, the name John Lurie will likely be recognized as belonging to the actor who played wiseguy characters in Jim Jarmusch's mid-'80s cult classics Stranger Than Paradise and Down By Law. Night owls might also know Lurie as that guy who took his celebrity pals like Tom Waits and Willem Dafoe on absurd angling expeditions in the "Fishing With John" series running on the Independent Film Channel. Soundtrack buffs might realize that Lurie composes film scores, as in those for the Jarmusch films and such indie hits as Manny & Lo -- as well for the occasional Hollywood blockbuster, like Get Shorty. But not nearly enough will know that Lurie is a saxophonist or that his band, the Lounge Lizards, has been one of the most engaging jazz collectives of the past two decades. Of all Lurie's pursuits, though, the Lounge Lizards is one the closest to his Bohemian heart, and he has put out the group's first new studio album in nine years -- the bewitching Queen of All Ears -- on his own label to prove it.
Posted by admin
at 06:14:31 pm
unsung Kenny Wheeler's "Gnu High" (ECM, 1975)
03/15/05
One of the jazz world's true unsung heroes, composer/trumpeter Kenny Wheeler has cultivated a highly personal, poetic voice over the past three decades-plus, simultaneously tapping and transcending tradition. His masterful series of albums for ECM typifies his art of abstract romanticism, the playing possessing an uncommon purity and the writing a timeless appeal. Blessed by deep, lyrical compositions and searching, apposite improvisations, Wheeler's 1976 ECM debut, Gnu High, has come to be a touchstone in modern jazz -- a testimony to the artistic efficacy of thoroughness in conception and spontaneity in execution.
Posted by admin
at 06:00:04 pm
dialog Pierre Boulez, 1998
03/15/05
{originally published as part of a series marking Deutsche Grammophon's 100th anniversary; a postscript from 2005 appears below the Q&A} Pierre Boulez has gone from enfant terrible to elder statesman over the course of his five decades as composer, conductor and deep thinker about music. Yet even though some of the polemical zeal of youth has been tempered with time, he still relishes his role as missionary for the modern. For CBS/Sony, Erato and, for the past two decades, Deutsche Grammophon, Boulez has created a peerless baedeker to the sound of the 20th century, covering precursors Wagner and Mahler; and on to Schoenberg, Berg and Webern; Stravinsky and Bartók; Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen; Ligeti, Birtwistle and, of course, Boulez.
Posted by admin
at 04:46:51 pm
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