Albums you've been listening to lately

[zuludelta]

Apollo Nove - Res Inexplicata Volans - Res Inexplicata Volans is producer Apollo Nove (a.k.a. Apollo 9)'s debut solo album. But make no mistake, he's no musical neophyte, having worked on albums by an eclectic collection of Brazilian and international artists which include lo-fi chanteuse Cibelle (who sings on a couple of tracks on the album) and hip-hop group Planet Hemp. The music on Res generally falls under the electronic lounge genre. Nove occasionally updates the bossa nova sound with some creative downtempo flourishes, but overall, he doesn't stray too far from the tried and true chillout aesthetic. Good record to listen to while sipping a cold beer on a hot afternoon. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the album title translates from Latin to "Unexplained Flying Thing," which is the entry for UFO in the Lexicon Recentis Latinitas (the Vatican's modern Latin dictionary... don't ask me why the Catholic Church needs updated Latin terms for pop culture phenomena).

Media Links:
Traz Um Alívio (feat. Tita Lima)
Mr. Right Now (feat. Cibelle)
Inexplicata (feat. Céu)

[Verfall]

Opeth -The Watershed

Saw them live again last Friday, this time as the headliners so I got a full set. I am still in awe quite frankly. I have not words for how amazing this band was live. Nothing. Nada. It was that good. As for the album, this is the song that has been stuck in my head every day for over a week now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQlTFr1vy1o

[GhostMachine]

Opeth -The Watershed

Saw them live again last Friday, this time as the headliners so I got a full set. I am still in awe quite frankly. I have not words for how amazing this band was live. Nothing. Nada. It was that good. As for the album, this is the song that has been stuck in my head every day for over a week now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQlTFr1vy1o

I generally hate bands with death metal style singers, but that song rocked.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I generally hate bands with death metal style singers, but that song rocked.

I'm in agreement with GM here (gotta love the opportunity to call someone "GM" without an open campaign, eh what?), but I will go further by saying that, on principle, I strongly dislike the death metal growls.  Mikael Åkerfeldt has such a nice voice when he allows it to sing naturally, and the band itself has such a tight, inventive, progressive metal sound that I cannot help but feel that 'tis a shame Opeth seems to bow to death metal expectations with the growling nonsense.  Damnation is a stellar album (i.e., without the usual growls), and I would be able to say the same about many of their other albums if I could stomach listening to Åkerfeldt belch out his otherwise satisfying lyrics.  :(

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

P.S. I'm exceedingly glad, nevertheless, that Verf had the opportunity and the strength to see this band despite his injury. :)

[ow_tiobe_sb]

While I'm huffing and puffing, I might as well mention a Boston prog band that I truly admire: Polaris.

This fledgling prog-power band features the incomparable vocals of Olivia Berka (think Melissa Etheridge or Janis Joplin on FILL IN ILLEGAL SUBSTANCE HERE) and the guitars of T.J. Bellerive and Ian Schultz (I've begun a correspondence with Ian, who was nice enough to send me a copy of the band's first album, Seven Feathers, with my order for The Human Illusion EP.).  The band is currently on hiatus, but you may find some sample tracks available on the Polaris MySpace page (link available above).  The band blends heavy metal with some non-obtrusive prog tendencies, including a number of acoustic tracks reminiscent of good ol' 70's prog rock.  :thumbup:  Enjoy!

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[Verfall]

I generally hate bands with death metal style singers, but that song rocked.

I'm in agreement with GM here (gotta love the opportunity to call someone "GM" without an open campaign, eh what?), but I will go further by saying that, on principle, I strongly dislike the death metal growls.  Mikael Åkerfeldt has such a nice voice when he allows it to sing naturally, and the band itself has such a tight, inventive, progressive metal sound that I cannot help but feel that 'tis a shame Opeth seems to bow to death metal expectations with the growling nonsense.  Damnation is a stellar album (i.e., without the usual growls), and I would be able to say the same about many of their other albums if I could stomach listening to Åkerfeldt belch out his otherwise satisfying lyrics.  :(

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

P.S. I'm exceedingly glad, nevertheless, that Verf had the opportunity and the strength to see this band despite his injury. :)

See I actually quite enjoy death vocals, particularly ones like Mikael's and Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy. Guttaral yet not totally incoherent. Baying of the Hounds from the Ghost Reveries album shows him doing exactly that.

And I'm glad too I was able to go. I now get bi-weekly Cortisone shots to the spine and am on a much higher dose, but longer lasting , pain killer that has me down to moderate pain levels. Finally started sleeping again  :thumbup:

[Ephemeris]

I've been listening to Riot's Fire Down Under recently.  They're an underappreciated band of the early 80's..

Swords & Tequila
Fire Down Under
Feel The Same
Altar Of The King

[zuludelta]

Cibelle - The Shine of Dead Electric Leaves: Cibelle Cavalli is one of Brazil's great young talents. Although their music is nothing alike, I'd go so far as to say that her career trajectory mirrors that of Brazilian thrash metal-group Sepultura, in that they both gained considerable international attention before fully establishing themselves in the local music scene. Cibelle's music is an eclectic mix of lo-fi, jazz, electronica, lounge, samba, and that São Paulo staple, bossa nova. Her husky vocal tone is reminiscent of many a lo-fi/trip-hop vocalist (Canada's Esthero is the first comparison to come to mind), but it's her phrasing that really sets her apart. Highlights of the record include the tracks Green Grass (an excellent cover of the Tom Waits original), London, London (a cover of the song originally written by Brazilian folk-singer/political activist Caetano Veloso), and Phoenix. 

Media Links:
Phoenix
Green Grass
London, London

[zuludelta]

Gary Granada - Pagsamba at Pakikibaka: Gary Granada is a Philippine folk-singer/songwriter. He's had a fair bit of success performing and recording, both in the Philippines and in Philippine expatriate communities, particularly in Japan and Hong Kong, even earning himself a somewhat incongruous but nonetheless profitable gig writing and performing the main theme to an ad campaign for Asian food and beverage giant San Miguel Corporation back in the mid-1990s. 1989's Pagsamba at Pakikibaka (which translates into "Worship and Social Activism), recorded on a shoestring budget with minimal production values, finds Granada doing what he does best: writing and singing heartfelt (almost naive) lyrics representative of the common Filipino's confusion at the increasingly hectic pace of life brought on by urban development and the encroachment of Western values and ideals.

Granada manages to touch on an impressive number of topics despite the album's brevity (the record clocks in at just under 30 minutes), from land reform on "Ang Lupang Ito (This Land)," to urban poverty on "Bahay (House)," to the Philippines being caught (at the time) between the push-and-pull of American capitalism and consumerist excess and extreme Marxist-Leninist socialism on "Kanluran (The West)."

Each song on the record is book-ended by Granada talking about the inspiration for the lyrics. This is a good thing for most listeners, especially those who are interested in how the songs came about but personally, my enjoyment of the album suffered a bit because of this. Granada, at the time of the album's recording, was a committed Christian Socialist (hence the album's title), and I found that my disagreements with some of the views he expresses in between songs detracted from my appreciation of his songwriting, even when the songs have nothing explicitly to do with his beliefs and politics. Still, the knowledge that Granada would later on become a more progressive religious pluralist, social activist, educator, opponent of unregulated economic globalization, and vocal supporter of open-source software development helps me overlook the somewhat overly simplified world-view of his early days as an activist.

Anyway, it's a solid record overall, and one of the better folk albums I've heard in a long while.

Media Links:
Bahay ("House")
Ang Lupang Ito ("This Land")
A Syllabus for Peace Education: a slideshow and recorded lecture (mostly in English) that Granada gives on his speaking tours. You can download the hour-long lecture here

[qazwsx]

sigur ros- Complete giberish but very relaxing

Dark knight soundtrack- No explanation needed for this one

[zuludelta]

The Jeff Healey Band - Hell To Pay: One of my favourite guitarists of all time (right up there with Dimebag Darrell, Steve Vai, Hendrix, Marty Friedman, and jazz-great Django Reinhardt), Jeff Healey passed away earlier this year from cancer, at the all too young age of 41. I was 10 years old when I first heard the warm tone of Healey's overdriven Stratocaster, and it was love at first listen. And that was before I learned that Healey had been blind since infancy, and played guitar in a most unorthrodox fashion.

1990's Hell To Pay was the album that catapulted Healey to guitar stardom and mainstream music attention, with his excellent cover of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and the bluesy pop-rocker "I Think I Love You Too Much." 

Like many of his fans, I felt a slight twinge of disappointment when Healey shifted to the trumpet as his primary instrument and hot jazz as his musical genre of choice at the turn of the new century, but it didn't take me long to warm up to his new musical direction.

I just felt like digging out my old cassette and listening to some vintage Healey today for some reason, though.

Media Links:
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I Think I Love You Too Much
Angel Eyes (an early televised performance of the carrier single song from his debut album)

[zuludelta]

Emiliana Torrini - Love In The Time Of Science: Emiliana Torrini Davíðsdóttir holds the somewhat dubious title of being Iceland's second most famous musical personality behind Björk (third, probably, if you count Sigur Rós as a collective "personality"). 1999's Love In The Time Of Science, produced by Tears for Fears' Roland Orzabal and Alan Griffiths, is Torrini's first international release (she had released three Iceland-only albums prior) and it was something of an under-the-radar hit. Part of that, I'm sure, was due to novelty and the international music community's burgeoning interest in Icelandic popular music thanks to Björk's work, but the most of the songs on the record are actually pretty solid late 1990's electronica-tinged mood music (quite a departure from Torrini's earlier competent, but ultimately unremarkable, alterna-pop stylings).

People coming into this record expecting to hear Björk v2.0 just because Torrini comes from the same locale will probably come away disappointed (or satisfied, depending on their opinion of Björk's music). While the phrasing similarities are there (a coincidental by-product of the transition to English by the Icelandic-speaking singers), Love In The Time Of Science has more in common with the club-ready releases by UK artists Morcheeba and Lamb than Björk's more left field albums.

Love In The Time Of Science is one of those rare, somewhat recent, pop records that aren't simply singles padded with fillers and throwaway tracks. Sure, there are weaker songs littered among the obvious radio-ready candidates, but even those stand strong enough on their own. Personal highlights of the record are "To Be Free," "Baby Blue," "Unemployed in Summertime," and the musically upbeat but somewhat lyrically dour "Tuna Fish."

Recommended for fans of lounge, trip-hop, and downtempo.

Media Links
Tuna Fish
Baby Blue
Unemployed In Summertime
To Be Free     

[Jakew]

2 new album's I recommend:

Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires (if you like Foals, The Rapture, that electro disco cowbell stuff).

Plastic Little - Welcome to The Jang House (if you like Spank Rock).

[Kommando]

Katorz by Voivod, which was finished post mortem following the instructions of guitar tracks recorded by the late Denis "Piggy" Belanger.

[zuludelta]

The Herbaliser - Very Mercenary: Herbaliser (the British duo of Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba in real life) is one of the more popular acts signed to alternative music label Ninja Tune. They're jazzier and a bit more hip hop-oriented than their more popular labelmates such as Kid Koala or Wagon Christ (both of whom are more into experimental drum 'n' bass) but nobody'll mistake their music for standard, run of the mill club drivel either. 1999's Very Mercenary, in my opinion, is their strongest record, showcasing a well-balanced blend of funk, acid jazz, and hip-hop (with some excellent vocal pieces featuring Jean Grae/What? What?), with a distinct "spy/James Bond" vibe.

Media Links:
Mission Improbable (feat. What? What?)
Starlight (feat. Roots Manuva)
The Sensual Woman

[zuludelta]

Kevin Yost - One Starry Night: Philadelphia-native Kevin Yost is one of the more commercially successful proponents of acid jazz and deep house, although he's probably more famous in Europe and Asia than in North America. A skilled musician in his own right, Yost is more well known for his abilities as a producer and DJ. He's lent his talents to literally hundreds of club singles and dance compilation albums. One Starry Night, in my mind, represents Yost at his best, fusing jazz instrumentation with cool atmospheric house beats. The album retains its dance roots, but it works just as well if listened to in a more contemplative fashion, a rare and difficult feat to accomplish in a genre that's dependent on repetition and overt simplicity. If you've never listened to a real "house" record before, Yost's work is a good place to start, and One Starry Night is a sterling example of his brand of intelligently-constructed house music.

Media Links:
If Only She Knew
Love (Interlude)   

[Mr. Hamrick]

For whatever reason, I have been listening to "Blond on Blond" and "Highway 61 Revisited" by Bob Dylan

Do I need to link anyone to info about these two classic album?

and also the soundtrack to "I'm Not There" . . . which is a bunch of Bob Dylan covers that accompanied the movie.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Wuthering Heights - The Shadow Cabinet (2006): Good ol' folk/power-prog metal fun as only the Danish can do it.  :huh:  ^_^  :thumbup:

Manticora - The Black Circus, Parts 1 (Letters) and 2 (Disclosure) (2006-2007): Progressive speed metal (more speed than progressive, really) with hints of the carnivalesque and symphonic.  These albums offer up more gothic darkness and doom from sunny Denmark.

Axiom - Alpha-Omega (EP) (2006): What this album lacks in production value it makes up for in pure prog-thrash metal energy.  This California trio offers tool-on-amphetamines numbers on its hard to find seven-track debut EP.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[zuludelta]

Stuart Hamm - Kings Of Sleep: Stuart Hamm is one of those virtuoso musicians who's practically unknown outside of the bass guitar-playing community, and even within that already limited segment of the population, he doesn't have the visibility and instant recognition associated with the instrument's more famous proponents, such as Sting, Rush's Geddy Lee, Primus' Les Claypool, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Flea, Motorhead's Lemmy, or heck, even Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. 

From a purely technical standpoint however, I think Hamm is pretty much at the top of the 4-string game, right up there with the all-time bass greats like Jaco Pastorius and James Jamerson. I was exposed to 1989's Kings Of Sleep at a crucial point in my childhood (I was in Grade 5, IIRC), right about the time that I decided that I wanted to make music and not just spend most of my waking hours listening to it. And while I never did have any sort of success as anything but a music hobbyist (unlike my older brother, an entirely self-taught guitarist & singer who's been playing paying gigs since he was 12), the record implanted in me a deep appreciation of the bass guitar's role in modern popular music.

I'd always been taught that bass guitar, a lot like rhythm guitar, when played well in the service of an ensemble piece, shouldn't stand out and call attention to itself unless the song actually calls for it to do so. But listening to Hamm really blew my mind (although I suppose at 11 years old, my mind was pretty easily blown) because here was a guy who played ridiculously intricate bass lines that gave me finger cramps just listening to them, and yet never seemed to overwhelm the rest of the rhythm section or the more traditional lead instruments (unlike, say, Flea, whose aural dominance pretty much cast a sonic shadow over everyone in RHCP save for perhaps Anthony Keidis' uniquely nasal vocal delivery). Kings Of Sleep isn't just a good bass guitar record, though. It's a good record, period. Unlike the bulk of the virtuoso instrumentalist records that came out during the late 1980s/early 1990s, Kings Of Sleep isn't just something that's liable to be of interest solely to the obsessive notes-per-minute counter or the student of technique... The songs are well-structured and above all, great to listen to.

Personal favourites on the album: Kings of Sleep, Prelude in C, Count Zero, Terminal Beach

Media links:
Count Zero
Kings of Sleep   
Terminal Beach (I couldn't find a Youtube video of the original, but the guy playing it in this video has pretty much got it down note for note, and he even plays a slowed down instructional version in the second half of the video for those of you interested in learning new ways to contort your extremities)
Prelude in C (again, no vid of the original, but I'm pretty sure the guy in this video is doing Hamm's bass arrangement of Bach's piano... from the sound of it, it looks like he even borrowed Hamm's chorus pedal settings)

[Jakew]

Free The Robots - Free The Robots EP

Free The Robots - Yoga Flame http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=mD7fMneOrAo

[zuludelta]

Neat link Jakew... bouncy stuff, sort of sounds like the stuff you'd hear on SomaFM's Groove Salad channel.

[Jakew]

Yeah, I recommend Free The Robots ... he's like a poppier, relatively unknown DJ Shadow.

This guy is also cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing him live:

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Flying Lotus - Beginners Falafel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_qcP_W__r8

[zuludelta]

45 King - Grooves For A Quiet Storm: 45 King, more popularly known under his nom de producteur "DJ Mark the 45 King" or his "civilian" name Mark James has been a mixing board mover & shaker for at least 20 years now, although he's never really gained any real notoriety or outright fame, even when it became in vogue for producer DJs to start releasing full-length albums during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Despite his own low-key nature as an artist, chances are you've heard his production and mixing board work on at least a few top 40 releases; his production credits include work for Queen Latifah (on her debut album All Hail the Queen), Lisa Stansfield (on the popular "Been Around The World" 1991 remix), C&C Music Factory (the "Do You Want to Get Funky?" 1994 remix), Jay-Z (on 1998's "It's A Hard-Knock Life") & Eminem (on the worldwide chart-topping 2000 single "Stan").

Given his hip-hop heavy resume, 1996's Grooves For A Quiet Storm is surprisingly laid-back and jazzy. And although the record is targeted towards DJs, mixing engineers, and studio professionals looking for samples to punch-up their productions rather than commercial listeners, it actually stands up well on its own as a self-contained album. Sure, most of the "songs" are just 2 to 3 minute extended acid jazz breaks meant for sampling and as backing tracks, but they're still eminently listenable and "groove-able." I can see any self-styled "bedroom MC" with Audacity installed on their PC & a decent mic having a great time fleshing out full songs from the tracks on this record.

Media Links:
I don't think any of the tracks on Grooves For A Quiet Storm are on YouTube, so here instead are two videos of 45 King doing what he does best:
45 King working with 45 RPM records on two turntables (see if you can name all the samples!)
45 King giving a Mix Clinic

[rain]

Jedi Mind Tricks - Legacy of Blood

I'd go on about it and it's innovative use of samples but ... just check it out. It rocks

[zuludelta]

Handsome Boy Modeling School - So... How's Your Girl?: Long-time producers and sound engineers Prince Paul and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura's collaboration become something of an underground hip-hop hit when it was released in 1999. Intended as a humourous jab at high profile hip hop artists-turned-self-proclaimed-fashion industry bigwigs like P. Diddy and Jay-Z, So... How's Your Girl? pokes fun at the irony of mainstream hip-hop movers and shakers, whose commercial successes have largely been built on the perpetuation of machismo-drenched chauvinistic imagery and lyrics, dabbling in the arguably effete world of high fashion, modeling, and GQ spreads. 

So... How's Your Girl? isn't just good for the odd chuckle, however. Dan The Automator (you may have previously heard his work on the Gorillaz) displays his trademark tight production while at the same time covering more experimental and abstract territory on a few tracks. Not every track is a success, but part of the enjoyment I got from listening to the record comes from analyzing which cuts worked and why. The guest artists featured on the album, culled not only from the hip-hop community but from TV, pop music and experimental music scenes as well, are pretty impressive for a minor label release.. Del The Funkee Homosapien shows up on a couple of tracks, Kid Koala contributes a track, Cibo Matto's Miho Hattori collaborates with Beastie Boys founder Mike D. on the engaging "Metaphysical," Moloko's Roisin Murphy does an absolutely winning performance on "The Truth," and even Sean Lennon (John Lennon's kid, who I think was dating Miho Hattori at the time) collaborates with SCTV and SNL veteran Don Novello (as his alter-ego Father Guido Sarducci) on the moody "Sunshine."

A good album if you can find it.

Media Links
The Truth (feat. Roisin Murphy of Moloko and J-Live)
Metaphysical (feat. Miho Hattori and Mike D.)
Sunshine (feat. Sean Lennon, Money Mark, Father Guido Sarducci, Josh Hayden & Paula Frazer) 
Look At This Face (Oh My God, They're Gorgeous)