Ruth Theodore - Worm Food

You must listen to this. It's English folk music, but definitely not of the finger-in-one-ear variety.

Hampshire-based singer Ruth Theodore writes angry and trenchantly witty songs where the personal and the political are entangled like a bouquet of barbed wire. It's not just the songs, though, brilliant as they are - it's Theodore's extraordinary voice. Best tracks in this collection are "Grounded" and the raging "Rash" (it really defies description: think Joni Mitchell meets Crass).

More information at http://www.ruththeodore.com/.

Downloads from All About Jazz - Itmos / Hallo Gen / Sam Sadigursky

I wrote previously that I don’t prioritise jazz http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/07/jazz-library-bbc-radio-3-tim-berne.html, and then I didn’t listen to any for over 2 months, which proves the point. These are a few random downloads from All About Jazz. I didn’t enjoy two of them but the other more than made up. One out of three ain’t bad, I suppose.

“Silence” by piano/guitar duo Itmos is gentle, pretty and slightly sad, the sort of music you might play when your cat has died. Not my cup of tea.

Also NMCOT was “Slap” by Hallo Gen. Rainer Theobald’s band talks a good game – their MySpace site boasts an unfeasibly large array of influences including Stockhausen - but this sounds like standard issue fusion, and I don’t like fusion. (It’s comforting to find, at long last, a musical genre or sub-genre I really don’t like. Though you are welcome to try to convince me otherwise if you think fusion is the best thing since sliced bread.)

Much better is the beautifully subtle “Such Fruit”, from Sam Sadigursky’s second collection of poem settings (sung by Becca Stevens). There is an especially good moment when the rhythm shifts and the whole song seems to open out.

Download at http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/jazzdownloads.php.

Dexys Midnight Runners – Searching For The Young Soul Rebels

Having listened to this again and realised how wonderful it is, I’ve been racking my brains to try to work out why I missed out on it when it was first released in 1980. I really liked “Geno”, which was of course this version of the band’s big hit, but I wasn’t really interested in seeking out any more. I suppose it was partly because Dexys were soul, or at least soul-influenced. Their relationship to soul was like UB40’s to reggae (you have to believe me, UB40 were quite credible back then). But I was (sort of) into reggae at the time and not into soul.

The other thing was that there was something tribal about Dexys and their fans. But the same applied to The Fall and I was a member of the Fall tribe. The unwritten rule with these allegiances – as I recall, it was similar with the Jam’s harcore followers – was that you could appreciate other tribes’ music in a detached way, but no more. So I didn’t really “get” Dexys. Until now. Because the one attitude you don’t want to listen to this album is cold detachment.

I could go on and on and on about the two songs which bookend this record alone, “Burn It Down” and “There There My Dear” (the latter SO doesn’t do what it says on the tin) - magnificent, angry, bitter but strangely consoling (it’s the brass, I think). I haven’t got time to go through the whole record in detail, or at all, which is a shame but there it is. But I’ve got to mention “The Teams That Meet In Caffs”, which is unsung both in the sense that I’ve never heard it mentioned before (so I’m doing it now) and in the sense of being instrumental (just over four minutes - how did they make Kevin Rowland shut up for that long?) It was hearing this on the radio in the car last year that first prompted me to seek this out.

There is only “but”. Listening to this makes me acutely aware that I know nothing about the soul music which inspires it. I really need to check it out. If there’s time...

Oh, finally, BTW, hats off to the Daily Mail for giving this away as a freebie (as part of its Eighties series). But a band named after an illegal drug (not to mention one or two rude lyrics)? This isn’t the Daily Mail I know.

Dvorak - Symphony No 9 (From the New World. Or the old Hovis advert)

There is a song by The Fall (“Just Step”, on Hex Enduction Hour) which begins “When what used to excite you does not”. That is exactly how I feel about this music. Like Sibelius’s First Symphony, it was one of the first classical records I bought. (the late Vernon Handley and the LPO, I think). Unlike the Sibelius, or Dvorak’s American Quartet, which I listened to and loved a few months ago, none of it gives me any sort of thrill, of discovering anything new. Maybe the well-remembered tunes make this too comfort zone, familiar and reassuring.

God's in his heaven, all's well with the world

The financial world may be in meltdown, and Richard Wright may have shuffled off his mortal coil to join Syd at the Great Gig in the Sky, but I bagged my free copy of Dexys Midnight Runners' "Searching For The Young Soul Rebels" with yesterday's Daily Bile.

El Hijo de la Cumbia – “El Ventana Esta Abierta”

Cumbia from Argentina, courtesy of the now sadly dormant Fat Planet. Crunchy, smoky and dubby (says my tasting notes). It’s interesting but rather amorphous, and at over 20 minutes perhaps a bit long. But then again perhaps the bus into work on a Monday morning isn’t the best time and place to listen to this sort of thing. Though listening to it in the evening it sounded much better. Definitely worth another listen.

Download at http://www.fatplanet.com.au/blog/?tag=cumbia.

Beethoven – Cello Sonata in D, op 102 no 2

I heard some of this sonata a couple of months ago http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008/07/beethoven-cello-sonata-in-d-op-102-no-2.html and had to listen to it again.

When I heard it before I didn’t hear any of the first movement, and the first time I heard it yesterday I thought how unremarkable it was for late Beethoven. That’s entirely relative of course: it’s still unmistakably Beethoven and therefore highly remarkable in absolute terms. On second hearing it is clear how much is packed into something less than 7 minutes long (and that includes an exposition repeat). The second movement is also great, but it somehow doesn’t feel like a late work. It’s the last movement which amazes: with obvious exceptions like the Grosse Fuge this sort of contrapuntal music isn’t the sort of thing you associate with Beethoven.

The performance (via Classic Cat) is of course nowhere near as good as the Rostropovitch-Richter one but it’s free so I’m not complaining. I’m tagging this as “classical” although my MP3 player is telling me it’s blues.

Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – Bwyd Time

Wales isn’t the land of my fathers, but it’s the land of my in-laws and I spent a very pleasant weekend in Swansea last month. While I was there I picked up a local magazine, whose music correspondent is Richard James, formerly bassist with Nineties Carmarthen band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. He has just got funding for a thesis on the effect (presumably negative) of Methodism on Welsh folk music. This looks interesting.

Reading the article made me want to revisit GZM’s music so I gave “Bwyd Time” a spin. It was released in 1995 and I bought it – because I was intrigued by anything psychedelic - and played it obsessively for a while. But coming back to it a decade later – oh dear, am I turning into a Grumpy Old Man? - the overall feeling is how ANNOYING a lot of it is. Starting with the pseudo-pagan sleeve, with pictures of the band dressed as wizards. Or is it druids? And the stupid jingles at the start and the end. The fatal weakness was the fey, weedy, hello-clouds hello-sky whimsicality of some of their lyrics and music - “Miss Trudy”, “Oraphis Yn Delphie” and “Iechyd Da” are the worst offenders, while the musically crunchier “Paid Cheto Ar Pam” deserves to get off more lightly. But occasionally it works: the best track on the record is James’s haunting, Barrettesque “Eating Salt Is Easy”.

On side 2 (why is there a side 1 and a side 2, I wonder, when I doubt if this was released in vinyl or cassette format?) things get darker and sometimes more interesting. For example, the slow, menacing “Blood Chant” gets the musical full monty – violin, flute, fluty synths (presumably they couldn’t find a mellotron), organ a la Pink Floyd circa 1967 (Farfisa, I thought, but the sleeve says Hammond) and, of course, sitar – but it is too repetitive, to the point where hypnotic tips into boring. Better is the unhinged, superficially poppy but unsettling “Game Of Eyes”.

A bit disappointing overall, but not a complete waste of time.

See also:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/gorkyszygoticmynci/

Bach, baile, Boulette Russe etc

In between CDs I have been listening again to some of the downloads I’ve enjoyed recently. Here are some thoughts.

J S Bach – Violin Partita No 3 – music of grace, joy and no little sensuality.

La Boulette Russe – Pas Cher! –How can something so musically ramshackle and incompetent can be so enjoyable? Best track is “Les Mechants”. There is a version of “Leo” on YouTube, but it’s rubbish and not worth bothering with.

Carioca Funk Club – “Inside Flaming Hotz” – Life-affirming and totally barking (literally, in one place). This is what I listen to if I need cheering up.

Mutamassik – “Doun Doun” and “BCH GYP” from That Which Death Cannot Destroy – intriguing, but I’m finding it a bit elusive at the moment.

Sorry about the lack of links: Blogger won’t let me add them at the moment.

Sibelius – Symphony No 2

This used to be an old favourite of mine, and I think it still is, although my heart hasn’t been in it the last couple of days. You notice immediately how far Sibelius has come since the First Symphony (see http://terrapinlistens2.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html). The most impressive thing (for me) about the first movement is its efficiency – of doing a lot with relatively little basic material. The second movement is probably my favourite among Sibelius slow movements – you actually get the feeling that it is there to do some serious work, as opposed to providing a charming interlude.

The final movement doesn’t carry the same emotional charge with me as it used to, although the laaavly theme does raise the hairs on the back of my neck still. But now I find the going-round-in-circles-in-D-minor bits annoying. We KNOW it’s going to go back to D major. Especially the second time around.

The recording is Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia – as with the First Symphony the brass is amazing throughout.