Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Re: Recommended Music

Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree and others including production credits with Opeth , Caravan , king Crimson reissues etc has recently released his 2nd solo album ' Grace for Drowning ' on CD + Bluray . Saw him live in London last week and some of the stuff sounded even better live .

Heavier and almost jazzier than the 1st album ' Insurgentes ' .

Details and samples here : http://www.gracefordrowning.com/

More general info : http://www.swhq.co.uk/index.cfm

He even has a free iPhone app at the moment .

Touring U.S currently .

M

Listened to the JayHawks new CD Mockingbird Time Rounder Records tonight. They have not released a ablum for sometime definitley worth a listen it has alot of soul.It's well recorded and sounded quite good some of my favorites were Hide Your Colors, Tiny Arrows, MockingBird Time and Pouring Rain At Dawn. I saw them in person sometime ago and had a ball good to have them back.

I'm ripping all my piano collections at present - i.e. discs played by one pianist but of more than one composer. Judging from how many I have already done, and what is left, I think there will be well over 1000 CDs just of this sort of collection.

It is making me not want to buy any more CDs, because I am realising all the amazing things I own but haven't listened to for years, sometimes decades. Has anyone else had this feeling after ripping?

Hi Nic,
Yes...absolutely. Back in 2005/6 when I first went with SB3, I ripped about 20,000 tracks. Novelty factor was huge and I had it almost always on random. Not because I don't like album format but because it was throwing tracks at me that left me wondering "who the heck is this...this is great".
I'd look at the system or screen and see that it was track 9 of a CD that I last played in 1989.

That excitement lasted for a number of years. Now I'm pretty good on what I have so am more prescriptive about what I choose.
Compare that to both the ignorance of what I had in the racks and on the shelves plus the difficulty in evert picking anything when just staring at spines.
Instant access to anything is awesome.

Btw...that is a lot of piano

Importing my proper studio albums into Sooloos and browsing the collection via the Control:10 has allowed me to delve more deeply into my collection and complete (buy) the collections for missing albums of my favorite artists. Paradoxically, because it identifies the "pick tracks", it can Swim through a semi-focused walk of genres or mini-genres. I don't think dealers understand this aspect of Sooloos functionality but really it only works on large or semi-large CD collections.

CD suggestion: Max Richter, 24 Postcards in Full Colour. Georgous collection of 24 short tracks, presumably composed all over the world. Modern 21st century classical that never fails to entertain!

Yup. And when you consider the main single-composer discs, including at least 15 complete Beethoven Sonata cycles, about two shelves of Schumann, all recordings ever made of Stockhausen, three recordings of Cage's 4'33" and everything in between, it really starts to get quite eye watering.

To quote my wife "Can't we just sell it all? It would be a deposit on a house."

I am tending to go the other way. I am aware of some artists I do not have everything of, and have always tended to be completist and buy it all. But looking now at what I do have of these artists I am realising that I already have such a huge amount that it would be really silly to go further just to have the 10th live recording of so-and-so a piece. Basically it's cup is 9/10 full...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cgdc

Hi all, I stumbled on this show, BBC Radio 3 Sunday afternoon.
The link has all the Music listed and it was just amazing.

I came in halfway through Miles Davis.....wow
Try any of the Music below, you wont be dissappointed Chris
--:--
Miles Davis � My Funny Valentine
Performers: Miles Davis (trumpet), Herbie Hancock (piano), Ron Carter (bass), Tony Williams (drums)

SONY BMG 1211 --:--
Claude Debussy � Clair de Lune� from �Suite bergamasque
Performers: Martin Jones (piano

NIMBUS N15160 --:--
Fr�d�ric Chopin � Nocturne no 2 in E flat major
Performers: Daniel Barenboim (piano)

DG 4314862 --:--
Ray Charles � Let the Good Times Roll
Performers: Ray Charles/Count Basie Orchestra feat Joey DeFrancesco (organ)

CONCORD 7230026

Philip Glass
Arvo P�rt � F�r Alina
http://www.last.fm/listen/artist/Philip%2BGlass/similarartists
http://www.last.fm/music/Philip+Glass

Agree on the Aarvo Part, but isn't his music a little wistful and wintery for someonne living in sunny California?

Actually, I'm a global trotter, and it's not always sunny in California. Also the weather doesn't dictate what music I will listen to on a given day.

I agree with what Philip Glass said about Minimal Piano Works, Volume II (2002).
http://www.philipglass.com/music/recordings/minimal_piano_works_2.php

"Some of the works are are specified as music from the category 'minimal music', and other have some characteristics from this music. In minimal music I got a sense of looking at a beautiful sculpture from 3 different angles, the sculpture is still the same, but the interpretation is different. In the minimal music, or the minimalistic related works, repetition (notes, figures, systems) is the base of composition. The tension in this CD is what a composer can create with many notes as in Ten Holt and with hardly any notes as in P�rt.

"The playing direction for F�r Alina is marked "calm, exalted, listening to one's inner self." This tender solo piano work, written in 1976, is regarded as P�rt's first piece in his new tintinnabula style and we hear his characteristic low drones with triadic harmonies floating in the high register in free time. The piece was written originally as a gift for a young Estonian girl who was on her own in London. With F�r Alina, P�rt has often said since, he began to find his voice as a composer: "This was the first piece that was on a new plateau. It was here that I discovered the triad series, which I made my simple little guiding rule." Abandoned, with this new beginning, were the experiments with serialism that had marked his work of the 1960s. Composition, for P�rt, had become a process of self-discovery, and his first requirement was clarity. Arv�; P�rt says about his music: " I could compare my music to white light which contains all colors. Only a prism can divide the colors and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener".

"Variationen zur Gesundung von Arinuschka, written in 1980 by Arv�; P�rt is a beautiful piece, very solitude and simple from structure. The main theme in a minor is slowly climbing diatonic one octave higher and then descending to the notes in which the piece started. P�rt is using only quaver and semi-quavers, by which he creates an almost religious atmosphere. In the Variations he uses several techniques from the minimalists such as: moving patterns, hardly moving (almost no development) and is rather easy to follow. For some listeners P�rts music is more religious than minimal music. One of the most interesting trends in new music since the 1940s is the use of silence. From the Zen inspired prepared piano work of John Cage we started to value silence and space as an integral part of a musical composition. Much like blank space in a Chinese landscape painting it offers a space for us to enter. This trend has continued as composers including Arv�; P�rt find ways to merge Western linearity with the cyclic and static states of much Asian music. The success of P�rt validates the notion that the aural beauty of acoustic instruments, silence, simplicity and a strong personal style are highly valued in the world of new music."

Have a wonderful holiday season.

Hadn't spotted it 'til yesterday but Kate Bush has released her new album in 24/96 as well as on CD. I hadn't picked this up at all, I suspect because the incumbent online stores (Amazon etc) seem to be wholly focused on MP3.

Hopefully others will follow.

John McLaughlin and the 4th Dimension - To The One

It's not "A Love Supreme" but if you want to check out bass articulation, slam and speed combined with some potentially splashy cymbals then the drummer on this has what you need. And it's nicely foot-tapping.

Sun City Girls - Funeral Mariachi

Something genuinely original and musical at the same time. "The Imam" worked for me.

Enjoy.