Donna Coleman - Piano Sonata No. 2 (Charles Ives)
Donna was my regular teacher during the period 2009-2012. She helped me reinvent my piano technique after I developed intersection syndrome (a kind of RSI) in both my arms. Learning from her has deepened my understanding and love for the piano and music in general. This recording of Ives' most well-known piano work is made all the more significant for me knowing how deep Donna researches and considers everything.
Brian Eno and David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
I've only just started listening to this, but I'm enjoying the playful strangness on this album. It keeps it from becoming over self-concious. Talking Heads was a band I was into in highschool; I remember being struck by how strange they all looked and sounded . . .
Dr. John - Locked Down
I love Dr. John's album Gumbo, everytime I hear it it makes me feel good . . . Locked Down might not be so straight-down-the-line funky, but I think the rhythm-section playing and overall production is fantastic.
Magnet - Steve Magnusson
To me this sounds like an album that has been laboured over, in the best possible way. The attention to detail, in the playing and production, makes this album an instant favourite of mine.
Showing posts with label Things of Inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things of Inspiration. Show all posts
Friday, May 3, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Things of Inspration, Pt. 2
Recently at one of tutorials I run at Monash Unversity, a student asked me about my music collection. I don't think very much of it, as it's grown as I've come across more and more music, but nevertheless the student asked if I could start a list of my listening so that he might be able to track down new things to check out.
A new one in this series of posts will hopefully be up every week or two.
Recent listening:
James Blake - Overgrown
I enjoy Blake's first record a lot. I like it's "roughness." At first listen the new album seems a little too polished for my taste, but it's growing on me.
Craig Taborn - Chants
Taborn is one of my favourite improvising pianists, and I'm loving this album. I've heard some of the music before on bootlegs from Europe and NY, but it's great to here that repertiore brought together under one album.
Daniel Barenboim - Piano Sonatas No. 31 and 32 (L.V. Beethoven)
Although I find Barenboim's renditions a little boisterous, I'm currently in a period of learning more and more about composers I'd only previously taken a token interest in. I was inspired to check out these piano sonatas after reading some of Richard Taruskin's The Oxford History of Western Music in Five Volumes (see my series of posts with an identical label).
Claudio Arrau - Piano Sonata No. 21 (F. Schubert)
See blurb above, although I love Arrau's playing.
Bjork - Biophillia
Not a new album, but I still love the unexpected turns this album contains, the holistic approach Bjork has to music making, and the production.
Lee Konitz/Lennie Tristano - The Complete Atlantic Recordings, Subconcious-Lee and Palo Alto
I'm on another binge of learning Tristano/Konitz. So far it's been Subconcious-Lee, Background Music, April, 317 East 32nd, Wow and Hibeck. Simply amazing music, to my ears.
J-Dilla - The Lost Scrolls
Not too much to say about this . . . gets me everytime.
More soon . . .
A new one in this series of posts will hopefully be up every week or two.
Recent listening:
James Blake - Overgrown
I enjoy Blake's first record a lot. I like it's "roughness." At first listen the new album seems a little too polished for my taste, but it's growing on me.
Craig Taborn - Chants
Taborn is one of my favourite improvising pianists, and I'm loving this album. I've heard some of the music before on bootlegs from Europe and NY, but it's great to here that repertiore brought together under one album.
Daniel Barenboim - Piano Sonatas No. 31 and 32 (L.V. Beethoven)
Although I find Barenboim's renditions a little boisterous, I'm currently in a period of learning more and more about composers I'd only previously taken a token interest in. I was inspired to check out these piano sonatas after reading some of Richard Taruskin's The Oxford History of Western Music in Five Volumes (see my series of posts with an identical label).
Claudio Arrau - Piano Sonata No. 21 (F. Schubert)
See blurb above, although I love Arrau's playing.
Bjork - Biophillia
Not a new album, but I still love the unexpected turns this album contains, the holistic approach Bjork has to music making, and the production.
Lee Konitz/Lennie Tristano - The Complete Atlantic Recordings, Subconcious-Lee and Palo Alto
I'm on another binge of learning Tristano/Konitz. So far it's been Subconcious-Lee, Background Music, April, 317 East 32nd, Wow and Hibeck. Simply amazing music, to my ears.
J-Dilla - The Lost Scrolls
Not too much to say about this . . . gets me everytime.
More soon . . .
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Things of inspiration . . .
Firstly:
Something about Debussy's transition around 1.36; from such a serene section into a sort of disorientating and foreboding section really knocks me out. Harmonically, I get the sense that by stretching the boundaries of tonality Debussy is able to make harmonic transitions without explicitly leading the listener through a series of cadences and the like. The same hits me at 3:00, where overlapping harmonies allow the more 'tonal' passages to gradually emerge without recourse to weather-beaten harmonic progression.
There are moments in the second movement that remind me of Stravinksky (melodically) and Carter (textually).
Where the tune slows down but swings more! There's an amazing sense of broadening in many of the cuts from these sessions. Sure, the solos are also fantastic, but it really feels like, so often, the most joyful passages are in the final choruses of collective improvisation.
4:35! Warne Marsh is someone I've come to late, but it knocks me out how hard he pushes himself in improvising through classic harmony. Reminds me of Wayne Shorter in it's intensity and self-editing.
Something about Debussy's transition around 1.36; from such a serene section into a sort of disorientating and foreboding section really knocks me out. Harmonically, I get the sense that by stretching the boundaries of tonality Debussy is able to make harmonic transitions without explicitly leading the listener through a series of cadences and the like. The same hits me at 3:00, where overlapping harmonies allow the more 'tonal' passages to gradually emerge without recourse to weather-beaten harmonic progression.
There are moments in the second movement that remind me of Stravinksky (melodically) and Carter (textually).
Where the tune slows down but swings more! There's an amazing sense of broadening in many of the cuts from these sessions. Sure, the solos are also fantastic, but it really feels like, so often, the most joyful passages are in the final choruses of collective improvisation.
4:35! Warne Marsh is someone I've come to late, but it knocks me out how hard he pushes himself in improvising through classic harmony. Reminds me of Wayne Shorter in it's intensity and self-editing.
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