What are you listening to?

[mongers]

Jethro Tull - Songs From the Wood

Well just to retaliate, I shall listen to Heavy Horses. 

[PDH]

I see you and raise:

Jethro Tull - Pibroch (Cap in Hand)

[Josephus]

Jethro Tull...Minstrel in the Gallery

[The Minsky Moment]

Albert Dailey - Textures (1981)

Piano trio again - with good simpatico between Dailey and bassist Rufus Reid, originally classically trained.

The highlight of the album is the last track, featuring a very rare recorded appearance by Brooklyn legend Arthur Rhames.  Rhames was most famous as inspiration to Vernon Reid of Living Color and played electric guitar in various power trio formats in the 1970s.  He also played piano - the track Rachmaninoff of Giant Steps is available on Spotify.  he was good enough to get a pianist gig with Larry Coryell when Coryell's career was going strong.

On this album, however, Rhames, plays tenor saxophone . . . the man was a bona fide musical genius, but bad luck, bad timing and some personality quirks resulted in very spare recorded documentation.

By the end of the decade, both Dailey and Rhames would be dead from AIDS.  Rhames was only in his early 30s, Dailey mid-40s.

[mongers]

Tracy Chapman - Her first album.

Man this brings back some memories, as when I was doing sound, light and video work this was often the tear down album played over the PA at the end of the night. 

I guess it was 'the' album of that year. 

[mongers]

801 - Live.

Love this album, they released a live album of their 3rd and last gig and it sound superb.

Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno on a holiday from Roxy formed a 'super group' with other well known musicians, rehearsed for a few weeks in summer, did a gig in East Anglia, the 2nd was at the Reading Festival and this last gig was in London's QE Hall on the Southbank, always loved the acoustics of that venue.

Worth a listen if you like experimental mid-70s rock, as it fights a gallant rearguard against the Punk onslaught. 

I think the version I have is the extented remastered version.

[garbon]

Rebekah - Keep It A Secret

[Duque de Bragança]

Seems appropriate for Macron/Jupiter

Symphony X - Twilight in Olympus

Smoke and Mirrors track

[garbon]

Meek Mill feat. Drake - Going Bad
French Montana feat. Drake - No Stylist
Travis Scott feat. Drake - Sicko Mode

[Syt]

Star Wars The Old Republic had some amazing soundtracks for its locations. My favorite remains this piece for Coruscant's Grand Plaza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pzYkJWR1WI

It's heavy reliance on violins always reminds me of the old movie scores of Miklos Rozsa (Ben Hur, El Cid, Ivanhoe, Quo Vadis, etc.).

The Rebuilt Jedi Enclave theme from KotOR2 falls into the same category: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__gLIyeQYDU

Those themes feel like they have fallen out of time, because they're not what you would hear in modern movie soundtracks, but hark back to an earlier age of movie making (ca. 20 years before A New Hope).

[Syt]

Music related, NYT has an article about Laibach.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/11/arts/music/laibach-north-korea-sound-of-music.html?action=click&module=Features&pgtype=Homepage

This Provocative Band Played North Korea. Now They've Made an Album About It.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia — On a recent afternoon, Ivan Novak, a member of the Slovenian rock group Laibach, went for a walk in the hills overlooking the country's capital, Ljubljana. In between stops to pet passing dogs, he explained what it was like when Laibach became the first Western band to perform in North Korea.

In 2015, the group made headlines around the world — many bemused — when they played a show in the insular, communist country that consisted mostly of over-the-top covers from "The Sound of Music."

An album of the same name featuring some of those songs — including "Maria," reworked to ask, "How do you solve a problem like Korea?" — has just been released as a final document of the trip.

The technical setup for the Pyongyang show, held in a theater next to the headquarters of North Korea's secret police, left a little to be desired, Novak said.

"There was one plug for everything," he said. Its cord had to be stuck down with tape so people didn't trip over it.

North Korea's censors turned up during rehearsal to listen and demand changes, he added. "They kept telling us the songs had to be quicker: 'Happy tune! Happy tune!' "

Officials also asked if Laibach's lead singer, Milan Fras, could be dropped from the show, Nokav said, partly because his voice — a deep growl — sounded uncannily like Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current ruler Kim Jong-un, singing and might disturb the audience. (After negotiation, Fras ended up performing.)

"We didn't mind," Novak said of the censorship. "They're very sensitive about music. They want it to always be nice, and upbeat."

Novak continued to recount memories from the tour, making the whole process of playing North Korea sound so enjoyable and interesting that it didn't sound as if the band had been in one of the world's most repressive nations.

"Of course it's a totalitarian country," Novak said, with a shrug. "But which country is not totalitarian nowadays?"

Laibach was a surprising choice for North Korea. Since forming in 1980 in Trbovlje, a mining town, when the country was part of Yugoslavia, they have been one of Europe's most provocative bands. They started out playing bombastic industrial music, appearing on stage in old army uniforms and making heavy use of symbols and poses that suggested fascism or extreme nationalism.

Laibach is the German name for Ljubljana, used by occupying German forces and collaborators in World War II, and some in 1980s Yugoslavia thought the band were Nazi apologists or right-wing extremists. The authorities banned them from performing under that name.

"In the time of socialism, they almost provoked a revolution," said Marina Grzinic, a Slovenian philosopher who has written about Laibach since the 1980s. "They wanted to force us to think about our history," she added. "It was necessary to be shocking, to shake everything up, to force people to think."

Alexei Monroe, an academic who has also written extensively about the group, said, "They wanted to explore the relationship between art and totalitarianism." Laibach used totalitarian symbols, taking them to absurd extremes as a way of mirroring society and showing where it might be headed, he said.

Novak said the band wanted to cover "The Sound of Music" long before they visited North Korea. Learning that North Koreans love the movie gave them an excuse. "It's one of the few American films they're allowed to watch. They learn English with it, apparently," he said. It was a way of communicating across the cultural and musical divide, he added.

He denied there was any provocation behind the choice. "Climb Every Mountain," for instance, was not intended as a call for the North Korean people to rise up, he said. "It's a purely sexual song," he added, before going into a long explanation of the Freudian aspects of "The Sound of Music."

"What's the point in going to North Korea to destroy the system that is going to change by itself anyway, slowly?" Nokav said. "They live a life they believe is the best possible life, most of them."

If he wanted to provoke anyone with the trip, it was Westerners who are willing to believe anything about North Korea, he added.

A few hours after the walk, Novak went to a "Balkan sushi" restaurant in the middle of Ljubljana for dinner. "It's raw meat, basically," he said. "I'm a vegetarian, but here I eat meat."

Novak was joined by other members of the band, including Fras, who spoke in a high-pitched voice, completely different from the rumbling bass of his singing style, and Boris Benko, a singer who also took part in the North Korean trip.

"I thought that by going we'd learn something about North Korea," Benko said. "But actually when you go there, you realize you'll never know anything. Because you're never sure. Is this real what we're seeing? Is this staged? You're always questioning."

Isn't that a lot like watching, or meeting, Laibach? Benko laughed, and avoided answering the question.

Meanwhile, here's their cover of Opus's Live is Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB9lObWclFQ

[Syt]

The album cover of The Sound of Music:

[garbon]

Prince - Right Back Here In My Arms

[The Minsky Moment]

Vijay Iyer Trio - Break Stuff (2014)

Very tight trio recording featuring all originals bar one Thelonious Monk cover. The title is misleading, although drummer Marcus Gilmore is often active, the feel of the session is carefully programmed and directed.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAh1dQu_pg

Walk Away Renee--Left Banke great public school prog rock.  Sound quality low