One review­er describes Holy Fuck as “strange­ly melod­ic and pulse pound­ing free-form fusion of the heavy chug and groove rock of Trans Am and the quirk­i­ness of Beck rolled into one mes­mer­iz­ing view­ing and lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ence.” Well, I don’t know if you can form any plau­si­ble impres­sion from that descrip­tion, but it’s fair­ly accu­rate. A more com­pre­hen­si­ble way of describ­ing this Toron­to band is to say that they try to dupli­cate, live, using phys­i­cal instru­men­ta­tion, with­out pre-tap­ing or splic­ing, the sounds that you would think could only be done by com­puter. I think they achieve this admirably, judg­ing from the record­ing I have of their epony­mous debut all­bum. Here, band mem­bers Bri­an Borcherdt, Gra­ham Walsh, Mike Bigelow, Loel Camp­bell, Kevin Lynn, Glenn Milchem, Rob­bie Kuster, Matt Schulz are joined by Lau­rence Cur­rie and Dave Newfeld (of Bro­ken Social Scene). Some­thing like this should be seen live. I haven’t had the chance to, yet, but a hint of it can be seen in the videos avail­able on their Myspace site.

17311. (Elvis Costel­lo) The Very Best of Elvis Costel­lo and The Attractions
17312. (Nico­lae Guţǎ) Select­ed Roman­ian Manele Songs
17313. (Bohuslave Mar­t­inů) Sym­pho­ny #1
17314. (Bohuslave Mar­t­inů) Inven­tions for Large Orches­tra [Invence Sym­fon­ická sklad­ba o 
. . . . . třech vĕtách]
17315. (Ján Šim­bracký) Con­grati sunt inimi­ci nostri
17316. (Ján Šim­bracký) Ange­lis suis man­davit dete
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Li Xiang-Lan

Between the two World Wars, Shang­hai was one of the most cos­mopoli­tan and sophis­ti­cated cities in the world. It was also one of the world’s hotspots for Jazz. The great jazz bands toured there, and there was a con­sid­er­able pool of local tal­ent. Pre-emi­nent among the local artists were the “Lounge Divas”, female singers who owed their orig­i­nal inspi­ra­tion to Amer­i­can stars like Bil­lie Hol­i­day and Bessie Smith, and to Euro­pean cabaret singers like Edith Piaf, but who qui­ckly devel­oped their own, indi­vid­ual styles. Among the great­est of these divas were Li Xiang-Lan, Bai Kwong, Chang Loo, and Chow Hsuan. All had glo­ri­ous voic­es. I recent­ly acquired a fas­ci­nat­ing 2‑cd set. The first cd has the orig­i­nal record­ings from the 1930’s. The sec­ond has mod­ern remix­es of the same songs, done up to suit the cur­rent taste for dance music in Asia. I have no objec­tion to these. The dance remix­es are per­fectly legit­i­mate, and rea­son­ably well done. But the orig­i­nals are far more inter­est­ing. They take you on an amaz­ing jour­ney to a place and era lost in dim light and a haze of cig­a­rette smoke.

A num­ber of years ago, I was walk­ing across the plaza of Toronto’s City Hall. Designed in the 1960’s by Finnish archi­tect Viljo Rev­ell, it’s a pleas­ant place, filled with skaters in the win­ter (when the orna­men­tal pond is frozen), and music con­certs in the sum­mer. On this par­tic­u­lar occ­ca­sion, a Big Band was play­ing music from the 1930’s and 1940’s. Fold­ing chairs had been set up in the plaza, and there was a rea­son­ably large crowd enjoy­ing the music. When I sat down among them, I noticed that almost every­one there was a) very old, and b) Chi­nese-Cana­di­an. I turned to a dig­ni­fied-look­ing elder­ly cou­ple, and asked them why so many Chi­nese had come to this con­cert. With a twin­kle in his eye, the man said: “This is the music of our youth. We lis­tened to this in Shang­hai, when we were just mar­ried.” Lis­ten­ing, now, to Chang Loo singing “All the Stars in the Sky”, I think I can under­stand what that twin­kle in his eye was all about.

17251. (Carl Maria von Weber) Sym­pho­ny #1 in C, J.50
17252. (Carl Maria von Weber) Sym­pho­ny #2 in C, J.51
17253. (Carl Maria von Weber) Music for Schiller’s Turan­dot, J.75: Overture
17254. (Carl Maria von Weber) Music for Schiller’s Turan­dot, J.75: March
17255. (Sandy Scofield) Dirty River
17256. (Sán­dor Kalla und seine Zige­uner Kapelle) Kulacs Restau­rant: Berühunte Umgarische
. . . . . Zige­uner­Lieder und Immer­grüne Melodien
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17142. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in E‑flat for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, Op.12
17143. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in F for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, Op.22
17144. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in G for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, Op.65
17145. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in G for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, Op.35
17146. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in E for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, [incor­rect Op.36]
17147. (Johann Nepo­muk Hum­mel) Trio in E‑flat for Piano, Vio­lin and Cel­lo, Op.83
17148. (Mary O’Hara) Mary O’Hara’s Ireland
17149. (Sandy Scofield) Ketwam
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17059. (Lui­gi Boc­cheri­ni) Quin­tet for Gui­tar and Strings in E Minor [arr. of Piano Quin­tet G.407]
17060. (Lui­gi Boc­cheri­ni) Quin­tet for Gui­tar and Strings in C “La Riti­ra­da di Madrid”, G.453
. . . . . [arr. of Piano Quin­tet, G.409]
17061. (Vish­wa Mohan Bhatt) The Best of the Cord, Vol.2
17062. Game­lan Semar Peg­ulin­gan from the Vil­lage of Ketewel, Bali, Record­ed by Wayne Vitale
17063. (Alfred Schnit­tke) Con­cer­to Grosso #3 for Two Vio­lins and Cham­ber Orchestra
17064. (Alfred Schnit­tke) Con­cer­to Grosso #4 [aka Sym­pho­ny #5]
17065. (Lu Chun­ling) Eight Mas­ter­pieces of Jiang­nan Folk Music [Jiang nan si zhu ba da ming qu]
17066. (Franz Shrek­er) Over­ture to Men­non [Vor­spiel zu ein­er grossen Oper Mennon]
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Foer­ster (1859–1951), a con­tem­po­rary of Janáček, does not share his fame out­side of the Czech Repub­lic. His long life encom­passed every­thing from the pomp and waltzes of Franz Josef’s Rak­ousko-Uher­sko Empire to the begin­nings of the Com­mu­nist regime. He was a close friend of Mahler and of Tchaikovsky. His oeu­vre includes five sym­phonies and five operas, as well as litur­gi­cal and cham­ber music. You can hear some sam­ples of his work in a brief arti­cle on the Radio Prague web­site. Like his friend Mahler, Foerster’s life was haunt­ed by the deaths of friends, fam­ily, and a child. He sought solace in his Catholic faith, and was instru­men­tal in reviv­ing the old Slavon­ic mass.

All I have to rep­re­sent him, in my col­lec­tion, is his Fourth Sym­phony in C minor, Op.54, sub­ti­tled “East­er”. It cer­tainly shows a mas­tery of the orches­tra. His influ­ences are obvi­ous, and in a curi­ously chrono­log­i­cal sequence. The first move­ment sounds like Schu­bert, the two mid­dle ones are very Dvořák, and the last one dis­tinctly Mahleresque. But the sym­phony is no mere pas­tiche or imi­ta­tion. The rich poly­phonic tex­ture is etched out with a small orches­tra, each instru­ment giv­en a clear and dis­tinct role. It is deeply emo­tional music, drift­ing effort­lessly between lyri­cal nos­tal­gia and tragedy. All these qual­i­ties are hall­marks of Czech music, and it is remark­able to me that he remains obscure in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world.

Adden­dum, added June 14, 2007: While in Prague, I picked up a vinyl of two piano trios by Foer­ster, one in F Minor, Op.8, and one in B, Op.38. They are fine pieces, and con­firm my impres­sion that he deserves more seri­ous lis­ten­ing out­side of his home­land. Both of the trios have very del­i­cate feel­ings, and fine melodies, though the lat­er one is notice­ably more melan­choly. Has any com­pose ever got­ten more cheer­ful with age? Per­haps Ralph Vaugh­an Williams.

17026. (Yothu Yin­di) Freedom
17027. (John Adams) Vio­lin Concerto
17028. (John Adams) Shak­er Loops
17029. (Hot Hot Heat) Elevator
17030. (Johannes Brahms) Hun­gar­i­an Dance #1 in G Minor for Piano Four-hands
17031. (Johannes Brahms) Hun­gar­i­an Dance #2 in D Minor for Piano Four-hands Read more »

Even with­in the fab­u­lous cor­nu­copia of West African music, el hadj N’diaye’s Xel (2001) is a excep­tional trea­sure. N’diaye takes a jour­ney beyond the famil­iar mbal­ax beat of Senegal’s pop­u­lar music to explore more var­ied ter­ri­tory. Some of the rhythms and gui­tar work could have come out of a Clap­ton album. But they are blend­ed per­fectly with African drums and balo­fon. The balo­fon solo on the song “Casa di mansa” is par­tic­u­larly beau­ti­ful. This is a trag­ic song about the ill-fat­ed seces­sion­ist move­ment in south­ern Sene­gal, sung in French and Eng­lish. Most of the songs on the album are sung in Wolof, Senegal’s pri­mary lan­guage. But the emo­tions in them are so pow­er­ful that you have the odd feel­ing that you under­stand every word. “Yoon wil”, “Xale bi” and “Yu sew yii” moved me in par­tic­u­lar. This entire album com­bines a refine­ment and pre­ci­sion of per­for­mance with intense emo­tions: bit­ter­ness, sad­ness, yearn­ing, remorse. I will play this album over and over again, and I’ll do my best to find more of N’diaye’s work.