🎵 My week in music (week #47 2022)
The posthumously released album HOME.S. by Esbjörn Svensson was on repeat a lot this past week. Beautifully introspective and meditative. And this backstory by Ted Goia made it even more worthwhile.
(Via @artkavanagh)
🎵 My week in music (week #45 2022)
A lot of Claude Debussy, Herbie Hancock and Joe Farrell this past week. Made me wonder when Apple is finally going to publish their music app for classical music… I hope it will also be useful for browsing their jazz catalogue.
🎵 Listening to Claude Debussy’s beautiful Three Nocturnes before sleeping. It has been a very long time since I listened to it from the beginning until the end. So mesmerising and soothing…
📚🎵 Currently re-reading: Hearing and Writing Music: Professional Training for Today’s Musician by Ron Gorow
Philosophical, theoretical and practical: easily the best book on music theory I know.
🎵 Sunday morning Jazz-Funk vibes with this great 1975 album 900 Shares of the Blues by Joe Farrell, Mike Longo & Ron Carter.
🎵 Giving the highly anticipated new album And I Have Been… by Benjamin Clementine a first listen, while enjoying a cup of coffee. So far, I like it.
🎵 My week in music (week #43 2022)
The opening track Who gives a thought on Brian Eno’s FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE was on repeat a lot this week. And The Knife’s Full of Fire got me through the last part of a cycling workout.
🎵 Recording voice-overs for an upcoming soundwalk. First time I put the pre-amps of my new Allen & Heath mixer interface to the test, and so far I like their sound very much.
🎵 My week in music was pretty all over the place…
🎵 Weather Alive, beautiful new album by Beth Orton. Introspective, atmospheric, her best album yet.
🎵 Such a great and timeless song..! Moonlight Mile by The Rolling Stones.
🎵 Great album, great backstory:
In the 1970s, Jamaica, and in particular its reggae musicians, developed a love affair with Japanese motor bikes. Honda bikes were eulogised in Big Youth’s ‘S90 Skank’ […] whilst their rival was lauded on Shorty The President’s ‘Yamaha Skank’
🎵 This song by the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan is one of the best and most intense examples of Qawwali / Sufi devotional music.
🎵 The Amsterdam based Radio Garden project keeps getting better and better! From time to time, I like to stroll the globe in search of otherworldly tunes and these new curated playlists are of great help!
🎵Enjoying a much needed short holiday at the coast (and arrived just in time for the incoming heat wave). Woke up with this great album by Mexican cellist Mabe Fratti. Apple Music incorrectly labels it as New Age, I would rather label it experimental dreampop.
🎵 Andrew Bird - Inside Problems ★★★★
Great new album by Andrew Bird, harking me back to the great days of his debut Armchair Apocryphia!
🎵 I finally found some time to edit the field recordings I made during our recent trip to Chalcidice, Macedonia, Greece 🇬🇷. I especially liked the intriguing, otherworldly sounds of the Eurasian scops owl at night!
🎵 Since my recent purchase of a Bansuri, I like to study Indian classical music from time to time. The melodic framework of the raga is often deceptively simple, but can become pretty complex while performing. The flute music of Hariprasad Chaurasia is a perfect example of this.
🎵🥾Made some beautiful field recordings of this morning’s dawn chorus. This spot is one of the last breeding grounds of the grutto (black tailed godwit), and luckily they were very boisterous today. It’s our National Bird, but unfortunately they’re also a near-threatened species…
🎵 Fat Freddy’s Drop - Boondigga
Love this song, one of their best songs. Still have to see them live sometime…
🎵 Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) ★★★★
To me, Japan is one of the best New Wave bands that ever existed. Calling them a New Wave band doesn’t do them enough justice though, because of their sophisticated sound and of course David Sylvian’s great voice.
🎵 Two Pages by 4Hero (1998) ★★★★★
This is perhaps one of the best albums of the 90s, but I somehow missed it at the time, or for some crazy reason may have forgotten about it. A classic that still sounds remarkably contemporary today.
🎵 I recently added a new musical instrument to my collection: a traditional Indian Bansuri flute, and I’m very eager to learn to play it! I like the adventurous process of discovering a new instrument and all of its beautiful sounds and hidden secrets.
🎵 Finally took the time to edit and upload the field recording I made a few months ago in stiltegebied De Meije. Apart from normalising, there wasn’t much to edit, though. This series of ‘silent’ recordings is gradually turning into an interesting side project…
🎵 Hear & Now - Don Cherry (1976) ★★★★
Jimi Hendrix meets Miles Davis meets Gong meets Free Jazz meets Fusion. ❤️