InternetFM.com

Hand Curated Radio

You are here: Home / Archives for Music / New Age

New Age

Song Of The Day – “Speak To Me/Breathe/On The Run/Time” by Pink Floyd

by

 PinkFloydDarkSo Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon hit its 40th anniversary this past week,  and not only did most of us know upon first hearing it that it was a classic, but it has also held up awfully well over the years.

The anniversary got me thinking about some of my favorite records from 1973. Back then, a new record was a much anticipated event. Sure, I still look forward to some new releases (like the new Bowie album, coming out this week), but with the advent of downloaded music, it’s nearly impossible to have a cultural moment anymore just by releasing a new record.

That’s because nobody experiences new music at the same time anymore. We all listened to radio back then; making it more likely we’d all experience a new record roughly at the same time. However with the internet as the primary channel for music distribution, music is either leaked early or streamed before the release date to build hype. As a result, people tend to experience a new song or album at different times. (The new Bowie album has been streaming on iTunes for over a week.) And when you finally get a copy of the record after hearing it online, it somehow lessens its impact.

The early ‘70s was the height of what would end up being the era of classic rock radio. And I still regularly turn to so many of the great albums that came out that year, records like Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, A True Star, The Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup (which most people hated back then), Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies, David Bowie’s Pin Ups, Gentle Giant’s Octopus, The World Is A Ghetto by War, Foreigner by Cat Stevens, Led Zeppelin’s Houses Of The Holy, The Doobie Brothers’ The Captain And Me and even Chicago VI.

And, of course each of the ex-Beatles was in the early stages of a solo career. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr each released a career-best album in 1973 with Band On The Run and RINGO respectively. Meanwhile George Harrison and John Lennon were hardly slouches with their albums Living In the Material World (by George) and Mind Games (by John) either.

Neil Young’s Time Fades Away and Lou Reed’s Berlin were both totally misunderstood and much maligned when new in 1973, and I can remember initially not liking them much either, but each is rightly recognized as a classic today.

So, no matter how many times they get around to re-releasing them, or how many multi-disc permutations they can manage to squeeze out of a classic album over the span of 40 years (immersion editions anyone?), we still seem to always come back to the original.

OK, so now I toss the ball to you…what were your favorite albums from 1973?

Song Of The Day – “The Holy Drinker” by Steven Wilson

by

stevenwilsonIf you thought that the progressive rock dinosaurs that dominated the musical landscape of the 1970s were all but extinct today, think again. Sure, bands like Yes and Jethro Tull are still churning out the classics on stages around the world, but in recent years the prog-rock scene has seen a full on rejuvenation starting in the ‘80s with Metallica, whose brand of progressive metal made them superstars and in the ‘90s when The Mars Volta rose out of the ashes of the punk band At The Drive In to dress their music in proggy clothing.

Over the last decade, there’s been a plethora of full-on prog bands like Porcupine Tree, Dream Theater, 30 Seconds to Mars, Coheed and Cambria, Muse and even Radiohead and The Flaming Lips, who have folded elements of progressive rock into their arsenals and kept the genre fresh and alive.

And then there’s Steven Wilson, the studio wunderkind who is known as much for his 5.1 surround mixes of the King Crimson and Jethro Tull back catalogs, as for his numerous recordings under numerous names.

Perhaps, Wilson is best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of Porcupine Tree. But his involvement with that storied group is just the tip of the iceberg, an iceberg that includes groups like Blackfield, which he formed with Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen, and No-Man (originally named No Man Is An Island (Except The Isle Of Man)) with fellow musician and vocalist Tim Bowness. And if that wasn’t already enough, there’s also  IEM, or Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, which Wilson formed to explore his love of krautrock, Bass Communion in which he focuses his attention on ambient music and Storm Corrosion, a collaboration with Mikael Åkerfeldt, who is the front man of Opeth.

Porcupine Tree started out as a duo of Wilson and his school friend Malcolm Stocks. After a series of singles and cassette only releases, Porcupine Tree became a proper band with the addition of Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin and Chris Maitland. Numerous releases followed including Up the Downstair, The Sky Moves Sideways, Signify, the live Coma Divine, Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun before Maitland left and was replaced by Gavin Harrison in 2001. The following year, Porcupine Tree released In Abstentia and followed it with Deadwing (an album inspired by a film script written by Wilson and Mike Bennion), the live DVD Arriving Somewhere, Fear Of A Blank Planet and the double disc The Incident.

By 2008 Wilson began his solo career with the release of Insurgentes, followed by Grace For Drowning, a deluxe CD and Blu-ray release from 2011 with the individual parts named “Deform to Form a Star” and “Like Dust I Have Cleared From My Eye.”

Today’s Song Of The Day, “The Holy Drinker,” comes from Wilson’s just-released The Raven That Refused To Sing (And Other Stories), whose six extended compositions are based on the supernatural. You can hear the influence of Gentle Giant and Return To Forever all over this album, especially in the mellotron-drenched opener “Luminol,” in the fusion guitar solos of “Drive Home” and in the stop-start precision of “The Holy Drinker.” The album was engineered by Alan Parsons, whose guitar solo lights up today’s Song Of The Day.

 

Wilson’s current band includes Guthrie Govan on guitars, Marco Minnemann on drums, Nick Beggs on bass guitar, Adam Holzman on keyboards and Theo Travis on woodwinds. With the exception of Govan, all of the rest of the band members played on Wilson’s last album and the tour that supported it.

Wilson will be touring the U.S. this spring with former Frank Zappa sideman, Chad Wakerman filling in for Marco Minnemann on drums.

Song Of The Day – “Jumping Jack Flash” by Ananda Shankar

by

anandashankarEast certainly met West on Ananda Shankar’s eponymously titled first album from 1970.

Shankar’s father was the Indian choreographer, Uday Shankar, while his more-famous uncle was the master sitar player, Ravi Shankar. Although, Ananda also became famous for playing sitar, he did not study under his uncle, but rather studied traditional Indian music with Lalmani Misra at Banaras Hindu University. Shankar was first exposed to Western sounds when he traveled with members of his famous family, as they performed on concert stages across America during the 1960s.

The concept for his debut album was simple, meld Western rock sounds with the traditional music of Shankar’s homeland, India. To this end, Shankar moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s and fell in with the west coast rock crowd, jamming with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and many others. This led to him forming a band for his debut album for Reprise that included session great Jerry Scheff (Elvis Presley) on bass, and Paul Lewinson on moog synthesizer, that along with Shankar’s droning on the sitar, provided an extra layer of space to the soundscapes.

The album mixed popular rock songs of the day like The Doors’ “Light My Fire” and today’s Song Of The Day, The Rolling Stones’ “Jumping Jack Flash” with contemporary classical Indian music composed by Shankar himself. It was produced by Alex Hassilev, who was an original member of the folk group The Limeliters (along with Lou Gottlieb and Glenn Yarbrough) during the 1950s and ‘60s.

While his version of the two rock songs do seem somewhat novel (in a very cool way) today, the classical Indian cuts on the record are the real reason to tune in, especially the 13-minute “Raghupati” which was used many years later as part of the soundtrack to the video game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, and the entrancing “Metamorphosis.”

His second album, “Ananda Shankar And His Music” was a jazz-funk affair released in 1975 that has since become a much sought after record for club DJs. Shankar continued to make musical soundscapes combining his sitar playing with electronics throughout the 80s and 90s until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1999. His music was used extensively several years ago throughout the short-lived NBC situation comedy “Outsourced.”

For those interested in hearing more, the album “Ananda Shankar “was reissued on CD several years ago by Collector’s Choice Music.

Song Of The Day – “Moon/Light” by Herbie Hancock and Foday Musa Suso

by

herbiehancockfodaymusasusoIn West African culture, a griot is a musician and storyteller who holds all of the keys to the history of his people. It is the griot’s place in society to share that history through music, entertainment and poetry. The kora is a 21-string instrument that is the chief instrument accompanying a griot. Foday Musa Suso was born in Gambia and is a direct descendent of the inventor who invented the musical instrument over four hundred years ago.

Now anyone who’s ever heard the music of the kora, no doubt, has fallen under its spell. It is a string instrument that has the player handling rhythm, harmony and melody at the same time, similar to the sitar, but the sound of the kora is more mystical in its feel and majestic in its sound.

Back in 1983, I went to see Herbie Hancock perform at the Pier (which was a small outdoor venue) in New York City. Hancock was riding high, particularly in the lower east side dance circles, with his electronic hit “Rockit,” which was one of the first fusions of jazz and hip hop music. Its one-of-a-kind MTV video, directed by Godley and Crème (of 10cc fame), helped to fuel its success, winning a Grammy Award in the process. It was a great show, complete with the “Rockit” mechanical robot legs straight from the video right there on stage, along with such luminaries as Bill Laswell on bass and Grand Mixer D.S.T. on the turntables.

The hit renewed my interest in Hancock, who I had already admired greatly for his work with Miles Davis and his essential solo work, particularly the albums “Speak Like A Child” and “Head Hunters.” My interest led me to discover today’s Song Of The Day from the five-star, 1985 album, “Village Life,” by Herbie Hancock and Foday Musa Suso.

“Village Life” is a high water mark for all involved. The album was recorded in Japan over three days in 1984 with Bill Laswell accompanying Hancock on production duties. At the time of its release, it kind of stuck out like a sore thumb compared to Hancock’s recent hip-hop infused output. Indeed, this is a somewhat more meditative affair, and a straight-up duet album with Hancock playing a Yamaha DX-1 synthesizer (detuned to match the tuning of the kora) and drum machine, and Suso on the kora, talking drum and vocals.

Musically, the album is completely captivating, but sold poorly because Hancock’s recent converts were expecting more music along the lines of “Rockit.” That doesn’t subtract from the fact that this record is truly one of those mesmerizing records that certainly opened my ears up to world music back in 1984, and is still worthy of a far bigger audience today.

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Talaps Theme” by William Parker

by

williamparkerDifficult listening doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s all about perception, and given the ability to just let it all wash over you with an open mind, difficult listening can be real easy.

Case in point is bassist William Parker’s 2007 free jazz album Petit Oiseau. Parker has one of the best working bands in Jazz today. Along with longtime percussionist Hamid Drake, Parker acts as the catalyst of The William Parker Quartet, driving the proceedings with his percussive approach to the double bass and sustaining the tension between saxophonist Rob Brown’s sharp tones and trumpeter Lewis Barnes’ muted beauty. Even when the band is seemingly going off in different directions (as they often do), there’s a potent and powerful force of unity that keeps the proceedings together, making the material on this album drive like mad.

Parker was influenced by such free jazz disciples as Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor. Coming up, he studied with well-known bassists Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis and Wilbur Ware, and was Cecil Taylor’s go-to bassist during the late seventies and throughout the 1980s, where his percussive style of playing fit right in with Taylor’s exploratory ways on the piano.

Parker provides the heart beat to the New York City lower east side Improvisers’ Collective, which he formed with his wife, dancer Patricia Nicholson. Together they’ve presented the Vision Festival — kind of like a Pitchfork Music Festival for all things free and experimental — since the early 1990s. Artists who have performed over the years at the annual June festival include David S. Ware, Sam Rivers, Frank Lowe, William Parker, Hamid Drake, Nicole Mitchell, Rob Brown, Kidd Jordan, Henry Grimes, Marc Ribot, Chad Taylor, Rashied Ali, Joe McPhee, Fred Anderson, Matthew Shipp, Billy Bang, Roscoe Mitchell, Steve Lacy, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power and numerous others. Parker also leads a big band called Little Huey Creative Orchestra.

Today’s Song Of The Day is one of Parker’s shorter compositions, from an album that is not so far out as to be off-putting – just right for the novice just getting interested in this groundbreaking artist.

Song Of The Day – “The Magdalene Laundries” by Joni Mitchell

by

jonimitchellturbulent

“Turbulent Indigo” was Joni Mitchell’s last great album. That’s not to say that all that followed wasn’t any good, it’s just that “Indigo” was her last consistently good album from beginning to end.

Coming in on the heels of a trio of experimental records on the Geffen label – “Dog Eat Dog,” “Chalk Marks In a Rainstorm” and “Night Ride Home” – that featured electronic textures and somewhat dated layered production, “Turbulent Indigo” returned Mitchell to Reprise records with a more stripped down straight-ahead sound that peeled back the atmospheric electronics of the previous records in favor of more organic instrumentation akin to records like “Hejira.”

Thematically, the album was her state of the world circa 1994, and her world was not a pretty place to live in. Once again, Larry Klein played bass and produced, but the couple’s marriage came to an end during the sessions resulting in their divorce after twelve years of marriage.

To match the title, Mitchell delivered her most turbulent set of songs in a long time including “Sex Kills” which dealt with such social injustices as violence, global warming, sexuality in consumerism and AIDS with its repeating chorus, “And the gas leaks, and the oil spills…And sex sells everything, and sex kills.”

The song, “Not To Blame” speaks about domestic violence with its harrowing opening couplet “The story hit the news from coast to coast/They say you beat the girl you loved the most.” Although Mitchell has denied it, the song was supposedly about Jackson Browne and Darryl Hannah’s tumultuous relationship.

The album’s opening track “Sunny Sunday” dealt with the topic of suicide, and today’s Song Of the Day is the gut-wrenching “Magdalene Laundries” dealing with the suffering and abuse of “fallen” women who were sent to the Magdalen Asylums at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church for being promiscuous or pregnant out of wedlock.

“Yvette In English” was co-written by David Crosby and features the soprano sax of Wayne Shorter as does several other songs on the record. And Seal sings with Mitchell on the James Brown cover “How Do You Stop.” The record may seem like a depressing affair by my description, but this two-time Grammy winner was one of her most inspiring records in many years, and like I said before, her last consistently great record.

Song Of The Day – “Wings” by Tim Buckley

by

timbuckleyMy sister is seven years my senior, and growing up she was my biggest musical influence introducing me to artists and albums I would have never otherwise discovered at such a young age. And so it was back in 1972 when she brought Tim Buckley’s album “Goodbye And Hello” home when I was eleven years old.

To be honest, it took me years to actually get into Tim Buckley because the combination of his ethereal brand of psychedelic folk music combined with my young age made the music somewhat incomprehensible to me, and it was enough of an obstacle to keep my interest in his albums distant at best. Meanwhile, she continued to follow Buckley’s career adding Buckley’s Lorca and Greetings From L.A. albums to her collection. At the time I felt that Lorca was unlistenable, but I did, in fact, learn to like the more rock oriented Greetings album.

Fast forward about eight years, and I finally really began to understand the cosmic wonder of Buckley’s music, and began to enjoy his unique way of singing. Over the years, I began to seek out as much of his recorded output as I could, and especially came to love his exceptional 1969 albums Happy Sad and Blue Afternoon. Further cementing my appreciation of Buckley was his wide-eyed and super-psychedelic performance of “Song To A Siren” from The Monkees TV show.

One of the few albums I never owned before today when I went shopping in a used record store (and had only heard parts of), was Buckley’s eponymously titled debut record from 1966. With a band that included Lee Underwood on guitar, Van Dyke Parks on piano, harpsichord and celeste, Billy Mundi (from Mothers Of Invention & Rhinoceros) on drums and James Fielder on bass,Buckley’s debut was a much more straightforward pop and rock affair than what was to follow, including great songs like “Understand Your Man,” “Aren’t You The Girl” and today’s Song Of The Day.

What gets me about “Wings”, as well as the rest of the record, is the whole late ‘60s audio mise en scene happening in the instrumentation and production. It all comes right down to the band’s secret weapon, Van Dyke Parks, who was an in-demand session musician (The Mothers Of Invention Freak Out – they also asked him to join the group, The Byrds’ Fifth Dimension) before working with Buckley. He would later go on to co-write and work on The Beach Boys’ legendary Smile album and Judy Collins’ Who Knows Where The Time Goes, whose instrumentation makes it a piece with other albums of the day from Fred Neil and Tim Hardin.

Rhino Records’ collector label, Handmade, released an expanded version of this album last year featuring the mono and stereo versions of the album, plus 23 previously released recordings made around the time of the sessions for the album.

Song Of The Day – “Requiem For John Hurt” by John Fahey

by

rainbowrecordsjohnfaheyrequiaI buy most of my music these days on line. I either purchase from Amazon where I can take advantage of free shipping, eBay where I can score clean copies of used records or directly from record labels like Polyvinyl and Third Man Records.

Earlier today I got a rush and went down to a small independent record store in Barrington, Illinois called Rainbow Records with my friend. I had been to Rainbow once before on Black Friday Record Store Day and thought the store was pretty cool, so I made a mental note to come back again sometime.
Rainbow Records is owned by a fellow record geek named John Thominet, who is the fifth owner of the store that began in the 1970s. While there, I picked up a few used records including Tim Buckley’s first album (which I’ve never owned on vinyl) and a 1970 live double album by The Butterfield Blues Band. I also purchased The Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls Live” (Houston Texas 1978) which is seeing its first release on vinyl, and a reissue of John Fahey’s 1968 album “Requia and other compositions for guitar solo.”

I had been interested in the Fahey album, because I love his solo guitar playing and it also includes an experimental four-part piece called “Requiem For Molly” which takes up most of side two and is not unlike The Beatles’ “Revolution No. 9” with solo guitar interspersed throughout the montage. Today’s Song Of The Day is the album’s lead-off track that pays tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, who had at the time recently passed away. John Fahey on this track: “He was in his quiet way, a very great man, and I deeply mourn our loss of him. So, I wrote this requiem for him, about him, but I play it the way Charley Patton would have played it.”

But I got a lot more than records during my visit to the store…I got a great atmosphere and the feeling of community (similar to that of our weekly vinyl gathering at a local bar), but in a record store setting with people of all ages. There were a couple of teenagers at the store who were buying records that I generally take for granted because I’ve had them for so long. Through their eyes, records like an original pressing of Steely Dan’s “Can’t Buy A Thrill” and The Clash’s “Sandinista” were real finds. I really dug the genuine enthusiasm coming from these young record collectors…they reminded me of…well, me…

With the store’s owner and my buddy John also chiming in on the conversation, we were having a great time together. And with prices that are comparable to what I normally spend on eBay for records, that feeling of community, my friends, is something you can’t possibly get on line.

Song Of The Day – “Easy Money” by King Crimson

by

Nothing can match the rush you get from hearing a newly remastered version of a record you’ve lived with for nearly 40 years, especially if the remastering job is done right. It’s all about the nuances you never knew were there that magically appear, making something that had been so ingrained in your memory sound brand new again. Such was the blissed out rush I experienced this morning on my way to work when I listened to the just re-released King Crimson album “Lark’s Tongue In Aspic.”

In the ever changing world of Crimson lineups, this one came to be after the tour for the album“Islands.” Fripp immediately turned his attentions to assembling live tapes from the tour, resulting in the clunker of an album “Earthbound.”  Then he began to focus on developing a new edition of King Crimson. Jamie Muir was a percussionist who came into Fripp’s orbit via a recommendation by a writer from the British music tabloid, “Melody Maker.” Fripp thought his playing was interesting, but rather busy.

Around the same time, Fripp also spoke to Bill Bruford who had just completed the recording of “Close To The Edge” with Yes. Bruford was tiring of his tenure with Yes believing he’d gone just about as far as he could go within the confines of the group and their ever burgeoning fame. Fripp liked Bruford’s playing and decided to ask both Muir and Bruford to join Crimson.  The two-drummer lineup was filled out with John Wetton on bass and vocals (who decided to leave his gig with the band, Family, to join as lead vocalist) and David Cross on violin. This was the most experimental lineup of the group yet, and unfortunately, they were only together for one tour and the recording of the album.

When the band was to tour in support of the newly released “Lark’s,” Muir abruptly left the group to reacquaint himself with his spirituality. It’s a shame too, because not only did Muir add some of the most unusual percussive colorings to the mighty Crimson, but he was said to be a visual dynamo spitting fake blood and running all over the place. The new reissue also includes a DVD with all of the video footage that exists of this lineup — two songs from the then-unrecorded “Lark’s” record and an extended improvisation – taken from a taping they did for the German TV show “The Beat Club.”

Lark’s Tongue is indeed one of Crimson’s most difficult records, featuring extended instrumental workouts like the title track (performed in two parts at the beginning and end of the record) and “The Talking Drum.” The vocal tracks include the live staple “Exiles,” “Book Of Saturdays” and today’s Song Of The Day, shining a light on the dynamic vocals of John Wetton.

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Jack’s Lament” by Danny Elfman from “Nightmare Before Chiristmas”

by

Halloween is in the air…and so is the greatest Halloween and Christmas film ever made! Tim Burton’s “Nightmare Before Christmas” has become a modern-day classic. The film had a ten-year gestation period and was released in October of 1993. The soundtrack was composed and mostly performed by Danny Elfman, who was a member of the new wave band Oingo Boingo from 1976-1995. The band had their own Halloween-themed success with their minor hits “Dead Man’s Party” and “Weird Science”  (from the film of the same name). Elfman met Burton while working with Paul Reubens on “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure,” and has scored numerous Burton films including “Beetlejuice,” “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “Batman Returns,” “Mars Attacks,” “Planet Of The Apes,” “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory,” “Corpse Bride,” “Alice In Wonderland,” “Dark Shadows” and the recently released “Frankenweenie.”  Elfman’s other credits include composing the “Simpson’s Theme,”  and music for “Pee Wee’s Playhouse,” “Desperate Housewives” (theme), “Milk,” “Spider-Man,” “Men In Black,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Dick Tracy” and many others. Pay close attention to the orchestration on this track, that’s where its magic fully lies. Elfman’s vocals are wholly theatrical and full of emotion. This song would later be covered by All American Rejects when the superb soundtrack was re-released with a bonus disc of rock covers for the deluxe edition a few years ago.