'Listening' Category
Cultus Sabbati – Garden of Forking Ways
I’m not really in the habit of writing reviews at the moment, but having bought this I was determined to break my critical silence. What or who are Cultus Sabbati? They’re a group from Australia, who maintain closely-guarded anonymity and are practitioners of magick rituals involving vocals, guitars, home-made electronics, and massive amplification. The rituals [...]
Indie-pop fun
If you like your indiepop fast, jangly and slightly lo-fi, you might enjoy Trevor Sensitive and the Locals - their debut album is out now, called Sensitive and is getting lots of play in these quarters. They’ve also got a session on Mark Whitby’s show this month on Dandelion Radio.
A black metal find
Aficionados of black metal, drone metal, doom metal, “griefcore” and whatever other metal genres have sprung up in the last fifteen minutes might like to investigate Vasculum. The group/artist’s page has a few songs for download – I like it very much, but then I would. The Vasculum manifesto is, apparently, no audience engagement – [...]
The Ravel L.H. concerto and reflections on posture
Seeing Bavouzet perform Ravel’s Concerto pour la main gauche at the Proms last Friday was an immensely inspiring experience. His technical assurance was such that he made the flashier, more mercurial runs and fiendish final cadenza seem like a spontaneous outpouring. I had some serious goose-bumps several times during Bavouzet’s performance, which more than made [...]
Spotification
Blogging has properly fallen by the wayside recently. Hey ho. Lots of good stuff going on in real life which tends to detract from time available for internet-type things. I’ve been playing about with Spotify Premium and for the first time I’m starting to think that it’s a potential life-changer, even for an inveterate record [...]
Listening In: Catching up!
Thanks to the wonders of my internet service provider’s internationally-based call centre staff, I had no internet access for weeks. And, as I’m a creature of habit, once I get out of the habit of doing something, it takes quite a lot of effort to get back into the swing of things. Logging my listening [...]
Listening In: Whatever you want, whatever you need…
Echo & The Bunnymen – Think I Need It Too I, Ludicrous – The Museum of Installation Kurtág – 9 pieces for solo viola Kurtág – Hommage à R. Sch. Schumann – Marchenbilder Echo & The Bunnymen – Think I Need It Too Morton Feldman – For Samuel Beckett Morton Feldman – Something Wild: Music [...]
Listening In: Oh no, man, I haven’t got the time-time
A busy day at the chocolate teapot factory, coupled with the fact that my trusty Smart car was at the garage for a service meant that I got no listening at all done on the commute to and from work – as my Land Rover has no stereo in it – and very little listening [...]
Listening In: More Zuma
Today I are been mostly listening to: Soler – Fandango (Aapo Hakkinen) Neil Young – Zuma (several times, again) Haydn – assorted piano sonatas (Marc-André Hamelin, thanks to a recommendation by James Rhodes) Honegger – Symphony no. 2 That be it.
Listening In: A festival of Shaky
Today has been a Neil Young day. I have these occasionally. If I’m in the mood for the raven-voiced grumpy old Canadian’s brand of lumpen country-rock, I find I end up listening to a lot of it. So, I’ve gone through the following albums: Zuma (almost four times) Tonight’s The Night Mirrorball I’ve now got [...]