If you’re accustomed to the jaunty rhythms and vocal stylings at Canadian pow-wows, then the music from the New Mexico pueblos will seem a bit languid and monotonous to you. But the Garcia Brothers were good musicians, and their Green Corn Dance is quite appealing.
I’m listening again, with pleasure, to L’amour est sans pitié, a 1990 album by the interesting Canadian rocker Jean Leloup. Leloup (“The Wolf”) is a stage name for Jean LeClerc, who was born in Quebec, but spent his childhood in Togo and Algeria, returning home at age fifteen. After an apprenticeship in the Quebec rock scene, he briefly found some national and international success with this album, which has songs in both French and English. He combined rock with rai elements long before anyone else was doing this in North America, and his lyrics are clever. I’m told that a subsequent album, Le Dôme, which was not as widely distributed, is even better. I haven’t found a copy yet. I understand that he subsequently published a philosophical novel called Noir destin que le mien, which I haven’t seen.
18199. The Music of the Uygur Ethnic Group [We Wu Er Zu: Zhong Guo Shao Shu Min Yin
. . . . . Yue Ji Cheng]
18200. (Francis Poulenc) Sinfonietta
18201. (Cao Yurong) Ting Er Hu, Ting Di Zi: Er Hu Liu Xing Pian [erh hu works]
18202. (Benjamin Britten) Suite for Violin & Piano, Op. 6
18203. (Benjamin Britten) Elegy for Solo Viola,1930
18204. (Benjamin Britten) Sonata for Cello & Piano in C, Op. 65
18205. (Benajmin Britten) Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, for Oboe Solo, Op. 49
18206. Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye: Min Ye Guo Cui [The Moon Night Of Spring River And
. . . . . Flowers and Other Fujianese Classics]
Read more »
I love Goodwill stores. Where else are you going to find a vinyl pressing of Bruce Willis’ rock band, or a biography of Telly Savalas? And you occasionally find something that’s actually valuable or useful. Yesterday, I paid fifty cents for a two-disk recording of the calls of about three hundred birds of my region, keyed to the page numbers of Peterson’s Field Guide, the bible of birding on this continent. I was surprised at the number of calls that I recognized. But I was disappointed to find the Whiskeyjack (Wiisagejaak, in Cree) missing. How could they ignore the impudent trickster? It’s distinctive song is usually described as “whee-ah, chuck chuck”. It also whistles and screeches on occasion, or sings a charming “whisper song” when mating.
[Photo of a Whiskeyjack taken by Aarre Ertolahti in Lappe, fifteen miles west of Thunder Bay. Originally published in Canadian Sanomat, a Finnish-language newspaper in Northern Ontario.]
Not to be confused with the Salt Lake City band of the same name, this Canadian band put out two albums of fairly decent alt-rock before they broke up. I have vague memories of an enjoyable evening at some club (in Montreal?) which is confirmed by the fact that my tape of their first album, Wheedle, is signed by all the band members. I must have bought it from them.
Alan Tam [谭咏麟] was, along with Leslie Cheung, a big name in Hong Kong cantopop during the 1980s. All I have is a cassette made in HK, with no English on it. The songs are all “laid-back” ballads that would satisfy any Perry Como or Barry White fan. The ones I like best on the tape are “水中花” and “擁抱”, strictly on the basis of the smoothness of the singing. Not for anyone who has a low threshold for mush.
Listening to A Taste of Throbbing Johnson, an amateurishly produced indie tape that I somehow acquired in 1999 or 2000. Just the bare tape in a blank case, so no names to go on. It has a mildly amusing audio skit at the end. A total mystery… someone must have given me the cassette, perhaps a street busker or someone I met in a club, but I can’t remember who or under what circumstances. I accumulate a lot of music that way, which tells you something about my life. No trace of the band anywhere on the web. It’s not bad music, tho.
This lineup of Daniel Ash, Kevin Haskins and Glenn Campling was an ephemeral intermediate stage between Bauhaus and Love And Rockets. The Album Pop (1984), which I have only in a poor quality copy, was one of two cassette-only configurations of songs taken from seven and twelve inch vinyl singles. The songs are moody and surrealistic, quite interesting, and very similar to the fine work that subsequently appeared on Love and Rockets’ Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. I have no idea where you could find this particular item, but the 1998 CD compilation Everything! must contain the same tracks.
This is an interesting British techno group from the 1990’s. Dubnobasswithmyheadman (first album, 1994) makes me want to step into my time machine and visit the London clubs around that time. Most of the club stuff from that era hasn’t worn well ― listening to the average Chris Sheppard compilation can be pretty painful. But Karl Hyde (vocals), Rick Smith and Darren Emerson made a creative mélange of techno-house-dub-funk that can still be played without embarrassment. The vocals actually fit in to the mix, rather than simply being a kind of hallelujah chorus thrown in so you can remember which set you’re listening to. But the strongest element is its progression, the necessary build-up of emotion, in this case starting with harsh cynicism (“Dark and Long”) through contemplative (“Mmmm Skyscraper I Love You”), recharging (“Spoonman”) and climax (“Cowgirl”). This must have made for one of those deliriously satisfying dance floor experiences that the club scene was all about. I have a different mix of “Dark and Long” labeled “Dark Train Mix” on the entertaining compilation UK Tribal Gathering ’95.
The second album, Second Toughest In the Infants (1996) shifts to what came to be called “Progressive House”, influenced by the multi-layered art-rock of the seventies, but retaining the danceable techno beat. There are audible hints of Yes and Genesis. As in the first album, many of the songs are dark and moody. The re-release of this album includes a bonus track of “Born Slippy .NUXX”, which had widespread exposure through the film Trainspotting. I also have “2 Months Off [King Unique Sunspots Vocal Mix]” and “King Of Snake [Fatboy Slim Remix]” on two different Sheppard collections. These songs appear on later albums, which I’ve never heard.
18062. (Oscar Peterson) A Tribute to Oscar Peterson Live at Town Hall [with Neils-Henning
. . . . . Ørsted Pederson, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis, Benny Green, Roy Hargrove, Shirley Horn,
. . . . . Milt Jackson, Lewis Nash, Clark Terry, Stanley Turrentine, Manhattan Transfer]
18063. (Oscar Peterson & Ben Webster) Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson [with Ray Brown
. . . . . and Ed Thigpen]
18064. (Oscar Peterson) A 75th Birthday Celebration [Canadian exclusive release]
18065. (John Blow) Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell
18066. (Henry Purcell) “Why should men quarrel?”
Read more »