Popular Music - December 2014

Tori Amos

• Little Earthquakes
• Under the Pink
• Boys for Pele
• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• To Venus and Back (both discs)
• Strange Little Girls
• Scarlet's Walk
• Scarlet's Hidden Treasures
• The Beekeeper
• American Doll Posse
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin
• Midwinter Graces
• Night of Hunters
• Gold Dust
• Unrepentant Geraldines
• Audience bootlegs: Melbourne 15 November 2014, Adelaide 16 November 2014, Perth 18 November 2014 

John Farnham - Age of Reason
Live - Awake: The Best of Live
Midnight Oil - 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Something for Kate - Beautiful Sharks
U2 - Songs of Innocence
Megan Washington - There There
Y Kant Tori Read - Y Kant Tori Read

Well, as you can see I went on one of those binges... In one mad week I went through every Tori studio album, including both the orchestral album Gold Dust and the before-she-was-famous Y Kant Tori Read band's single self-titled album, which I hadn't listened to in quite a few years. The latter does have its poor moments (I may never, ever come to terms with her embarrassing attempt to rap) but it also has some pretty good ones.

And no, I don't own a genuine copy. There are rare exceptions to my commitment to buying proper, physical versions of my music, and one of them is when something costs hundreds of dollars, might still be fake and none of the money will go to the artist.

I finally listened to my free U2 album, spammed across the world by Apple. And frankly it was difficult to care one way or the other. Inoffensive wallpaper on first listen. I will certainly give it another go, and pay more attention than I did on this first occasion.

And for Christmas, by request, I received There There.

I already flagged my interest in Megan Washington's new album in my entry for September, in which I said not to wait for the review. Well here's the review: I love it. This is one of the finest straight-up pop albums I've heard in a long time.

The truth is I don't really fall in love with that much of what is usually thought of as pop music. Much of my preferred music can be found in shops under labels like 'Alternative'. There certainly are pop acts I like hearing on the radio (not that I listen much nowadays) or on television, but rarely does that enjoyment translate to wanting an entire album's worth of material. Not unless it's a hits package further down the track.

But There There is a pop album that I was eager to own. The melodies are wonderfully smooth, and delivered in Washington's sultry voice they become a heavenly mix of sweetness and sorrow. On one level the songs are pretty simple, but it actually takes a fair bit of skill to sound this effortless. The lyrics aren't plumbing the profound depths, but there's a lot of wordplay which seems to be all about building sounds as much as meaning, making the vocals oscillate.

There's probably no better demonstration of that than the song which first got my attention, and which became one of those relatively rare songs that I played obsessively for a period. Any time I can play a song 6 or 7 times in a row, I know it's got to me.

So here's "My Heart Is A Wheel".

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The spreadsheet tells me I listened to 101 pop recordings this past year. Which is an increase on the previous year (73), but still down on the couple of years before that (134 and 116).

Obviously, having obsessive Tori Amos binges takes away time for listening to other things. Another interesting factor, though is that I've actually being making more use of Spotify to explore music that I don't own, and I'm not counting that in my total even if I listened to an entire album. If the album didn't make it into my library, that is - there were several new acquisitions based on listening to the album on the service first, including There There and Thrice's Major/Minor.

I'm still working, intermittently, on fully completing the list of the pop music that I own so I know just what is buried in the dark corners. Maybe 2015 is the year. If so, it may well still take a while to listen to it all, and there's always a growing list of other things to explore. Current interest is in the British band Elbow. Stay tuned for developments!

Classical Music - November 2014

Bach, J.S. - Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält (If God the Lord is not with us)
Beethoven - Piano Trio, op.11 (violin version)
Brahms - Horn Trio
Chopin - Mazurkas, opp. 6 and 7
Chopin - 3 Nocturnes, op.9
Dvorak - String Quintet No.2
Haydn - Symphony No.87
Holmboe - Concerto No.12 (for trombone)
Thomas Linley the Younger - Ye Nymphs of Albion's Beauty-Blooming Isle
Rachmaninov - 12 Songs, op.21
Schumann - Cello Concerto
Sibelius - Night Ride and Sunrise
Vivaldi - Confitebor tibi, Domine

At the time of writing, my attention has been firmly off classical music for a while and so yet again I find it difficult to say anything. The vast majority of these pieces were first listens, and while I'm sure I enjoyed these they seem to have had a limited impact at this distance. I do seem to have snatches of both the Sibelius and Schumann works in my head (new and near-new, respectively).

But instead I'm drawn to the pieces I do know. The Brahms, with its mix of the two archetypal kinds of horn music, part romantic melancholy and part hunting calls. And the Chopin, the music of a young man of 20 or 21, moving out into the world to make a name for himself. These pieces were most likely written around the time that Chopin was in Vienna, moving from his native Poland towards his ultimate home in Paris. They're arguably the start of a new phase in his works, and are among the earliest of the solo piano pieces to have a regular home in the repertoire.

And very good they are, too.

Popular Music - November 2014

Tori Amos

• Midwinter Graces
• Unrepentant Geraldines
• Audience bootlegs - Adelaide 16 November 2014, Brisbane 21 November 2014

The Badloves - Holy Roadside
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Alex Lloyd - Watching Angels Mend
Aimee Mann - Bachelor No.2
No Doubt - The Singles (1992-2003)
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

I really don't have a lot to say about these, and I'm not going to force it. But I will say two things.

Firstly, Watching Angels Mend is a very nice little album that it was a pleasure to reacquaint myself with. It was Alex Lloyd's biggest commercial success. I'm minded to explore his other work. I have a feeling that his first album might have been the most daring, but it's worth confirming that rather than just relying on vague memories from the radio.

Secondly, The Official Fiction proved itself invaluable on an emotionally difficult day. I've spoken at least once before about the album's unique qualities, it's combination of intensity and brightness, and I was very grateful that I had added it to my iPhone before going on a journey during November. It once again showed why it needed to be in my music library.

Classical Music - October 2014

Beethoven - Piano Trio No.3 (op.1/3) 
Brahms - Cello Sonata No.1
Bridge

• Summer
• Phantasm
• There is a Willow Grows Aslant a Brook
• Vignettes de Danse
• Coronation March
• Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance) - orchestral version 

Chopin

• Introduction and Polonaise Brillante for piano and cello
• Rondo in C, op.73
• Variations in A, 'Souvenir de Paganini'
• Polonaise in G flat
• Nocturnes in E minor and C sharp minor (Lento con gran espressione)
• Mazurkas in D, C (op.68/1) and F (op.68/3)
• Waltzes in A flat, B minor (op.69/2), D flat (op.70/3), E, E flat and E minor

Debussy - 2 Dances for harp and orchestra
Dvorak - Nature, Life and Love (In Nature's Realm, Carnival and Othello overtures)
Grieg - Piano Concerto
Haydn - Symphonies 85 and 86
Holmboe - Concerto No.8, 'Sinfonia Concertante'
Holmboe - String Quartet No.1 
Janacek - Violin Sonata
Mozart - String Quartet No.18
Schumann - Piano Trio No.3
Shostakovich - String Quartets 7 and 13
Sibelius - Pohjola's Daughter
Vivaldi - Beatus vir in C, 1720s version

I've left this commentary far too late and I didn't have a clear idea at the time of compiling this list as to what I might talk about.

So let's start off by going with the obvious attribute: quantity. The exploration of the young Chopin continued, with a focus on things that had no intention of making his name with. Most of these pieces were published after his death after being presented to friends or admirers. Only the Introduction and Polonaise Brillante has an opus number from Chopin's lifetime, and his own comment on it was "nothing to it but dazzle".

But the young Chopin certainly knew how to dazzle.

I also continued with my re-visitation of Bridge's orchestral works, and this CD (volume 3 in the Chandos series) was arguably the most attractive yet with its mix of large- and small-scale works. Summer is a fine work indeed, and I was already impressed with Phantasm the first time around.

The other thing that stands out here is Dvorak's trilogy of overtures, which I listened to a considerable number of times, both together and separately. The pieces were first performed together, and are clearly linked with one musical motif in particular recurring in all of the quite different pieces (as a main theme in the 1st and 3rd, and as key part of the central contrasting section in the 2nd). While the pieces are moderately popular as fillers on Dvorak programs and their quality is recognised, it's surprising how infrequently the pieces are kept together these days on CD or in concert. I'm therefore quite pleased that I found a box that had them together (performed by Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic). The colour and variety in these works is a testament to Dvorak's skill as a composer.

Popular Music - October 2014

Tori Amos

• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• Night of Hunters
• Unrepentant Geraldines

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
Blur - The Best of
Deborah Conway - Bitch Epic
Patty Griffin - 1000 Kisses
Alanis Morissette - Jagged Little Pill
Roisin Murphy - Overpowered
Nichole Nordeman - Woven & Spun
Something for Kate - Leave Your Soul to Science
Thrice - Major/Minor
Washington - Insomnia
Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

Apologies for the delay. Life was sufficiently interesting after the end of October for me to not get around to completing this post.

Which is a pity, because the music was rather interesting. There are no less than 3 new purchases on this list, although (as is typical for me), only one of those is a recent release, the others being from 2009 and 2011.

The first is Two Suns, which I had decided a while ago to purchase on the strength of iTunes clips. As The Haunted Man has come to impress me more and more, it seemed desirable to get to know Bat for Lashes' previous album as well. And it's pretty good. It's perhaps a little grander and more romantic in mood, and has a few more beat-driven songs, but it's recognisably from the same skilled musician who can create quite a lot from only a few elements.

The second is Major/Minor, which I picked up after listening to a few Thrice albums on Spotify and deciding it was worth picking up their last two (I've yet to purchase Beggars). I don't really feel that I've listened to this one enough yet to comment much on it, other than to observe that it is definitely louder and more aggressive than a lot of The Alchemy Index (my previous exposure to this band, and an album I've mysteriously failed to talk about much) but the songs seem well constructed.

The third is Thom Yorke's new album, which I found out about by complete accident via a classical music message board a few weeks after it quietly was released for download via bittorrent of all things. It didn't take me very long to become hooked on the freely available single,'A Brain in a Bottle', and after that it wasn't a difficult decision to purchase the album given how cheap it was... although the traditionalist/dinosaur in me would still dearly love to have a CD in my collection rather than just an image in iTunes to remind me from time to time that this exists.

The album's length (about 38 minutes), the fact that you're really not getting that many full songs and the weirdly experimental 'There Is No Ice (For My Drink)' might all have provided incentives for Yorke to drop the album cheaply and with minimal marketing, but buried in here are a couple of the most moving songs he's done. For me the most impressive is 'The Mother Lode', which somehow succeeds during the main vocal sections in evoking a bright, chirpy big band number from another era while consisting of little more than glitchy beats.

Classical Music - September 2014

Bach, J.S.

• Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (My soul magnifies the Lord)
• Wer nun den lieben Gott läßt walten (Whoever lets our beloved God rule)
• Was frag ich nach der Welt (What do I ask of this world)

Beethoven - Piano Trios 1 and 2 (op.1/1 and 2)
Brahms - Piano Quintet
Brahms - String Sextet No.2
Bridge

• The Sea
• Dance Poem
• Dance Rhapsody
• Norse Legend (orchestral version)
• 5 Entr'actes from 'The Two Hunchbacks' 

Chopin

• Piano Sonata No.1
• Rondo in C minor
• Rondo a la Mazur
• Variations on a German national air
• Variations in D for piano duet
• Polonaises in G minor, B flat, A flat, G sharp minor, B flat minor
• 3 Polonaises, op.posth. 71
• Mazurkas in G, B flat, G (op.67/1) and A minor (op.68/2)
• Funeral March in C minor
• 3 Ecossaises
• Contredanse in G flat 

Debussy - Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Debussy - Nocturnes
Dowland - In darkness let me dwell
Dvorak - Symphonies 7 and 8
Dvorak - String Quartet No.7 
Haydn - Symphony No.84
Holmboe - Concerto No.3 (for clarinet)
Holmboe - Benedic Domino (from Liber Canticorum)
Mozart - String Quartets 16 and 17
Poulenc - Oboe Sonata
Rachmaninov -  Songs, op. 8 and 14
Rachmaninov - Did you hiccough, Natasha?
Schoenberg - Pelleas and Melisande
Schumann - String Quartets 2 and 3
Shostakovich - String Quartet No.2
Sibelius

• Lemminkäinen Suite
• The Dryad
• Dance-Intermezzo

Simpson - Symphony No.10
Telemann - Tafelmusik Volume 1
Vaughan Williams - Silent Noon
Vivaldi

• Dixit Dominus, RV 594
• Domine ad adiuvandum
• Cur sagittas, cur tela

Having very recently listened to the last few pieces of Chopin solo piano music that I hadn't touched in recent years (I have the box set by Vladimir Ashkenazy), I went slightly Chopin-mad. Mostly, this was because I wanted to get a clearer idea in my head about the chronology of those works not published with opus numbers in Chopin's lifetime. There are a few publications from his youth, and also various works that were not published until after his death. It seems that in quite a few cases these were things he wrote out for friends and acquaintances as personal gifts.

So essentially, part of September became about listening to teenage Chopin, particularly on one weekend. It is actually quite astounding just how quickly Chopin developed into a first-class composer. It is true that most of the focus here is on sounding brilliant rather than being profound, but my goodness, it is brilliant. By the time he was 17 or 18, Chopin was already dazzling.

Beethoven seems to have taken a little longer to really get going. In August I listened to the earliest Beethoven now in my collection, the piano trio WoO 38, and to be honest it was a bit pedestrian. But in September, I reached the opus 1 piano trios. The improvement from the earlier piece is considerable.

Another highlight of this list would have to be my introduction to the Lemminkäinen Suite (well, to three-quarters of it as I'd previously heard The Swan of Tuonela. Up until recently I've known very little Sibelius beside the symphonies, but with my recent purchases I'm feeling that I just want to hear even more. I can well understand why his orchestral music tends to dominate recordings of his output, though, because right now I think he might just be the finest orchestrator of them all. The sense of colour and mood in these pieces is amazing.

Popular Music - September 2014

Tori Amos

• To Venus and Back (Venus Orbiting disc)
• Strange Little Girls
• Unrepentant Geraldines

Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
Beyonce - Beyonce
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part
Toni Childs - Union
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Paula Cole - This Fire
Sheryl Crow - Tuesday Night Music Club
Gotye - Making Mirrors
Moloko - I Am Not A Doctor
Radiohead

• The Bends
• Amnesiac
• Hail to the Thief

Seal - Human Being
Sixpence None the Richer - This Beautiful Mess
Sons of Korah - Shelter
Washington - Insomnia

A couple of years ago,  I wrote about Washington's debut album and expressed my disappointment. I also mentioned that I had bought Insomnia at the same time. And now I've finally listened to it.

That gives you some idea about just how long things can sit in the listening pile, if they're not my primary focus for some reason at the time of acquisition.

The silly thing is that I suspected, even then, that it would be better than I Believe You Liar, and yet that apparently didn't induce me to open up the CD and confirm that suspicion. Well, the suspicion is finally confirmed. Insomnia is considerably better because it showcases Washington's finest weapon - her voice - in a way that the first album never did. Double-tracked vocals and thickening of texture is now the exception, not the norm. The arrangements get the hell out of the way and let you listen to the bittersweet sound of a voice that sounds a little sad even when it's upbeat.

I've in fact left listening to Insomnia so long that Megan Washington (now with first name intact) released her next album about the same time, and from first samples THAT sounds like it might be even better. But please, don't wait for the reviews from me...

This month was also the first time in a surprisingly long while that I listened to Moloko's I Am Not A Doctor. An absolutely fascinating album, this. It seems to have been the band's least commercially successful album. In many ways it's also the one that I would expect to like the least, as it's full of music that Wikipedia tells me is called "trip hop" and "drum and bass" and other things that I wouldn't head towards in a store.

It's also a really consistent album that's a fantastic listening experience.

I think one of the reasons it's so excellent is that it's thematically pretty consistent. From the opening track and single 'The Flipside', it's an album that openly acknowledges how weird and strange it is by including references to bending the mind. Hypnosis and possession come up in the lyrics on multiple occasions. This is an album that is intentionally taking you on a 'trippy' experience and tells you that you're powerless to resist.

 

Now, I might not be in the mood all the time for being told how my will is going to be overridden by a bunch of skittering beats, but if it's going to be done it should at least be done with flair and imagination. And Moloko delivers.