LOTW (Listen Of The Week)?

[Dusty Chalk]

Listen of the week? Mine was the new O.S.I. -- I really dig it. It's not Chroma Key, but you can tell that it's got something in common with them. Killer track is "Bigger Wave". I love the combination of electro and guitars -- of course. But I also dig the combination of "groove" and "headbanging" rhythms. Makes for a unique combination, methinks.

Also really digging the new Placebo. Glad they got over it and got back together.

Feel free, also, to discuss whatever else you've been listening to for the past week, in traditional "Tunesday" thread mode.

[MasterCylinder]

For some reason, John Wetton's CHASING THE DRAGON has had my ear for the last ten days.............then I go home and watch Hackett's DVD,THE TOKYO TAPES, which has much of the same material.........all very good.

[bobsticks]

When I'm at home lately, which is an increasing rarity, I can't seem to get ohGr's Sunny PsyOP out of the player. The former frontman of Skinny Puppy has produced a dark album, predictable in its desolation and electronic thrash and discord...

[ForeverAutumn]

Listen of the week? ... feel free, also, to discuss whatever else you've been listening to for the past week, in traditional "Tunesday" thread mode.

Nice thread Dusty. I don't know about the rest of you, but I got tired of posting the same old listens on the Tuesday thread. Maybe an overhaul to reviewing just one or two listens is what's needed to get Tuesday's hopping again.

This week, I've been spinning the new Three Days Grace disk, One-X. I was really excited about this one and have been anticipating it's release for months. There are a couple of outstanding tunes on this disk that fall into the same core sound of their first CD. But then on other tracks they start to sound too much like Nickelback. I am soooooooooo sick of Canadian rock bands trying to sound like Nickelback. Even Nickelback sounding like Nickelback has become tiresome. Blech!

Anyway, the tracks that are good are really, really good. The rest is mediocre. This doesn't really compare to their debut s/t CD which I love. One-X has only had three spins so far. It'll be interesting to see, after a few more spins, whether the rest of it grows on me or whether I just tire of it.

[Davey]

Been listening a lot to "Dogs" by Nina Nastasia lately. Love this CD. Quite a debut. The followup "The Blackened Air" is kind of smokey, folky, alt-country leaning music, with Steve Albini crafting a wonderfully evocative soundscape for her beautiful songs to live and breathe in. Lots of shimmer to add to the odd tales and metaphors. Gentle, yet sardonic, and sometimes biting lyrics. The debut was just on the tiny Socialist Records label and went out of print almost as soon as it was released, back in 2000. So became kind of a mystery ater she became more well known with the release of the excellent "The Blackened Air". But Touch and Go reissued it a couple years ago, and I just picked up a used copy a couple weeks ago, and it is a bit less eclectic, and not as folky as the second, nor as quietly introspective as the third, but still very loveable. In some ways I think it's her best. A bit more jazzy at times. The acoustics are really nice in all of them, and lots of room for the natural dynamics. She's a big favorite of Steve Albini, so he does a great job recording, especially the cello and acoustic basses. Love the musical saw too. Nice touch. And Albini works with Steve Rooke to master them at Abbey Road, just like the very nice Electrelane records he does that I also love.

I had a dream about a dog
I was walking
In an amusement park
With people all around me

We rode the roller coaster rides
And he was laughing as we
Jumped in the sky
And I saw that I looked just like him

It's a dog's life
I wanna lead a dog's life
Run in the woods, dig a hole
Just him and me

[Troy]

Yeah, that OSI is the best album I've bought in a while. For me the track "Once" is the mind-blower. I love the way it relentlessly pulses and plucks along, building by layers until it's a thick swirling tapioca of sound. Fantasic rhythm and pace for driving.

[Snowbunny]

Oh, this should probably be here:

http://forums.audioreview.com/newrep...reply&p=147919

Hey Dusty, remember when I first came to this board I thought you were a school teacher?

[Swish]

It's going to be seeing a lot of my cd players in the coming weeks. Great stuff.

Swish

[Dusty Chalk]

Nice thread Dusty. I don't know about the rest of you, but I got tired of posting the same old listens on the Tuesday thread. Maybe an overhaul to reviewing just one or two listens is what's needed to get Tuesday's hopping again.

Yes, that was exactly the intention.

Hey Dusty, remember when I first came to this board I thought you were a school teacher?

Yes...yes I do. Now you know better, right?!?

When I'm at home lately, which is an increasing rarity, I can't seem to get ohGr's Sunny PsyOP out of the player. The former frontman of Skinny Puppy has produced a dark album, predictable in its desolation and electronic thrash and discord...

I love that album. I love the staggering swaggering grooviness that Mark Walk puts on much of that. I'm trying to remember, but there was another album that he did right around the same time, and I used to listen to those all the time. (wanders off, looks it up) Nope, that was Welt, never mind.

[Dusty Chalk]

Definitely listen of the week, contender for listen of the year, quite possibly listen of the decade:



Camille, Le Fil

I got so into it, I wrote a review over at amazon.com.

This album is wonderful. First of all, and foremost, the foundation of any album is the music, and this album has catchy songs from beginning to end -- perfect little pop gems that are exactly as long as they need to be, no longer, no shorter. One should be in love with the human voice to fully appreciate this album, as it is used not only for the lead instrument, but percussive, harmonic, and many other instruments -- including "raspberry" as a percussive element -- but personally, the human voice is my favourite musical instrument, and I am very enamored of Camille's, specifically. Her timbre reminds me of a place somewhere between Kate Bush's high young-girly voice, Bjork's fearless vocal gymastics (although, not quite yodeling), and perhaps Mike Patton's sheer insane versatility. The overall production is somewhat sparse, with only the occasional bass, piano, drums and whatnot accompanying her multi-layered voice. She sings in French, so for those of you who feel you must understand the lyrics, this may not be for you. I don't understand French, and I do feel I am missing something, as she strikes me as clever enough to write interesting lyrics with the occasional brilliant turn of phrase, but I guess I will just have to learn French. She's also very adventurous, and without confidence, experimentation can fall flat on its face, but Camille has so much charisma it brings a tear to my eye. I would recommend this album to fans of Todd Rundgren's A Capella, Jean-Michel Jarre's Zoolook, Beth Gibbon's Out of Season, and the works of Les Paul and Mary Ford (e.g., "Mr. Sandman").

For some reason, there are different reviews for all the different copies of this disk. On one of the other reviews, someone wrote simply "...sounds like a little girl turned loose in a studio..."

Actually, now that I think about it, that's kind of true. One just has to decide for one's self whether or not that's a bad thing. I do realize it might be for some people, but to me, I truly enjoy the occasional wide-eyed innocence/innosense/?sp. Especially when it's carried off with the bravado this recording is....erm...with which this recording is carried off...erm...whatever...

[ForeverAutumn]

In the future, can we start a new thread each week? I really hate having to start at page 20 and work my way backwards to find the new posts on an ongoing thread. I know it's not a big deal, but just a little pet peeve of mine.

I've been spinning John Denver a lot this week. Not much new to say about him. Man, that guy could sing. I'm still saddened by the loss.

[Davey]

Back to 1997 for me with some of the future Califone guys. There's a Star Above the Manger Tonight. Probably written half a novel about these guys already, so maybe I'll just turn it over to good ol Piero Scaruffi to set the stage ...

Chicago's Red Red Meat started from similar premises but evolved towards a more intellectual exploration of music. Red Red Meat (1992) and Jimmy Wine Majestic (1993) unleashed the dirty, feverish and unstable vibrations of all the blues irregulars of the past (the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart, Pussy Galore, etc), but the atmospheric Bunny Gets Paid (1995) veered towards desolate free-form "pieces" that felt like scarred remnants of pop songs. This, in turn, led to the abstract framework of There's A Star Above The Manger Tonight (1997), replete with synthesizer and other sophisticated arrangements, which was, de facto, a postmodernist exercise in stylistic deconstruction, bordering on trip-hop and ambient music while retaining the cacophony of Captain Beefheart and Pussy Galore.

Red Red Meat guitarist (and original founder) Tim Rutili, drummer Ben Massarella and bassist Tim Hurley set out to further investigate this unfocused sea of sounds as Califone. The brooding acid-blues sound of their Roomsound (2001) and Quicksand Cradlesnakes (2003) absorbed jazz, post-rock, samples and loops into the canon of blues depression and gospel ecstasy.

[Dusty Chalk]

In the future, can we start a new thread each week? I really hate having to start at page 20 and work my way backwards to find the new posts on an ongoing thread. I know it's not a big deal, but just a little pet peeve of mine.

If you hit the little button on the main RR page, it will take you straight to where you left off (as long as you're signed in). Did you not know that?

And: this thread only had 7 posts, I didn't feel like spreading myself too thin.

[Dusty Chalk]

So Califone used to be Red Red Meat? Would this be a good place to start, or Bunny Gets Paid (for Red Red Meat -- I'm already started on Califone)?

[audiobill]

This week there have been several highlights:

Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People -- this one is still giving me great joy. What a great jumble of styles.... "Shampoo Suicide" is my current favourite from the album.

The Kinks Are The Village Green Society -- Pure classic story-telling. All time faves.

Grey Delisle's The Graceful Ghost -- If you dig country, you have to give this vocalist a chance. This is my chillax disc of the week.


Also, gave two RR group comps compiled by Davey and Mike a spin. Great work guys!! The transitions from track to track are very impressive.

Cheers,

audiobill

[Stone]

The Kinks Are The Village Green Society -- Pure classic story-telling. All time faves.

It doesn't get much better than that. Nice one.

For me, I've been listening to a lot of new stuff, but after a family discussion about Blue's Clues, I pulled out this:



I don't think I had listened to it in a couple years, but it is a very nice album, and really is enhanced by Fridmann's production. It's not one of my faves of the '00s, but has some very nice and fun pop songs.

[ForeverAutumn]

If you hit the little button on the main RR page, it will take you straight to where you left off (as long as you're signed in). Did you not know that?

I did not know that. Thanks for the tip.

And: this thread only had 7 posts, I didn't feel like spreading myself too thin.

Oh sure, it only has 7 posts now. But it's young. Look at Bernd's "spinning" thread...on it's 18th page already!

[Davey]

So Califone used to be Red Red Meat? Would this be a good place to start, or Bunny Gets Paid (for Red Red Meat -- I'm already started on Califone)?

Depends on how resourceful you are to a certain extent, and how much you like that sound. None of their records are in print anymore and Bunny copies get some pretty good cash. That one is my favorite, but I'm kind of a patient guy and had it on my djangos alert list for quite awhile before snagging a cheap copy. Looks like Jimmywine Majestic and There's a Star are both available used for pretty cheap at places like amazon marketplace. I prefer the Tim Rutili dominated sound on Bunny and the later ones after guitarist Glenn Girard got fed up and left, but Jimmywine has some excellent stuff, and many prefer the earlier sound. I like the looser and more experimental feel of the later ones. But it's all good to me.

How do you like Black Tape for a Blue Girl? I just picked up Remnants of a Deeper Purity recently and it's good. Maybe a tad pretentious, but that title track does rule.

[Dusty Chalk]

I love Black Tape for a Blue Girl. Too much reverb, though; other than that, medigs.

[Pat D]

We drove down to Saint John yesterday to meet my wife's nephew and his wife, who were coming off a cruise ship to see the sights. And we had a really nice few hours with them.

While the ladies were shopping for the kids (who weren't along!), I dropped into Backstreet Records and looked around a bit--not much classical. But in the stack of classical LPs, there it was, an old Fine Arts Quartet recording of of a couple of Mozart's "Haydn" quartets, K. 421 and 465 ("Dissonance" quartet), on a Concert-Disc CS-227. And only 97 cents! Well, I only have a few of their recordings, but the Fine Arts Quartet always played wonderfully. They weren't as dramatic as many, but they were very precise even in rubatos, and they shaped each note and phrase very nicely. Not only that, the sound is fabulous. It perhaps harks back to an older way of playing, but it's very enjoyable, definitely the best of the week.

The FAQ did as fine a recording of the Debussy and Ravel Quartets as I've ever heard, too. I haven't yet heard them over the Signature S2's.

I picked up a few other things, too, and I've listened to a couple already:

Verdi Overtures, conducted by Giuseppe Sinopoli, on Philips Eloquence.4681832. This is a worthy enough addition to my collection of overtures.

Who Do We Think We Are? Turtle Island String Quartet, on Windham Hill Jazz 01934 10146-2.

I must say doing the listen of the week is a lot easier than putting together a whole list. Good idea, Peter.

[Dusty Chalk]

Thanks! And nice to hear from you, too, as always -- you're always listening to interesting things.

[Mike]

For me it's Sol Seppy - Bells of 1 2, a female vocalist in the folk/pop/electronica style, it's a really nice album from a lady branching out on her own, I think I read somewhere she's worked with Sparklehorse in the past.

She's got that kind of delicate little girl lost voice matched with lots of acoustic instruments like piano and cello it's an album which you can come back to and each time and hear something fresh.

Cheers
Mike

[PDK]

This past week has found me listening to some releases from the past six months. Probably the best (and most listened) is The Kooks: Inside In/Inside Out. Highly recommend if you like your music to be British pop inspired by XTC. Others this week include: Giant Drag (excellent cover of Wicked Game), the Paddingtons (breakneck and ragged Babyshambles influence), and the latest Zutons and Dirty Pretty Things releases. I'm going to have to dig out See How We Are from X over the weekend to hear Fourth of July a few dozen times next week...

[ForeverAutumn]

This past week has found me listening to some releases from the past six months. Probably the best (and most listened) is The Kooks: Inside In/Inside Out. Highly recommend if you like your music to be British pop inspired by XTC. Others this week include: Giant Drag (excellent cover of Wicked Game), the Paddingtons (breakneck and ragged Babyshambles influence), and the latest Zutons and Dirty Pretty Things releases. I'm going to have to dig out See How We Are from X over the weekend to hear Fourth of July a few dozen times next week...

There's a latest Zutons? I'll have to look into that. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Snowbunny]

HEAD'S UP!

I was just thinking about where that saying came from. LOOK OUT!

There's a new Ed Harcourt. Don't think its out here yet.

LOTW for me was The Beatles - Rubber Soul

What must it have been like to have heard this for the first time when it was originally released?

Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood
You Won't See Me
Nowhere Man
The Word
Michelle
Girl
In My Life

All those great songs and its not even a Greatest Hits? Did anyone really need the drugs?

Hippy Friday!

Snowie