I know there are many threads about playing now or special genre recommendations. But some genres have no thread and others just list collections or playing now lists, so this is meant for very special musical quality mainly., focused on newer, but also older releases of any genre.
I start with this one, it’s special if you love the slightly unconventional aside of the mainstream. She has several good albums already, this is her Blue Note debut and the best one besides „peace beyond passion“ imo.
Please write at least a line if you post an album, not just cover posting.
Fantastic sound track, fantastic sounding, play track 5,8,10,11, 12, 13 to start, I didn’t get further so far. It grooves in large parts and is a spherical soundscape in others. Just a current surprise.
Currently in an Anoushka Shankar phase, unfortunately although she lives in London, she hardly ever performs here and when she does it sells out in minutes. This album on DGG slips in and out of the classical tradition, more in than out.
Brilliantly co-written and produced by Nitin Sawhney. I’ve seen him a few times as he was musical director of Akram Khan Dance for some years and sometimes performed. He was central to one called Confluence, here:
The album and dance are closely linked, not just by Sawhney, but also several of the musicians are in both, Ian Burdge on cello and Bernhard Schimpelsberger on udu. They were both created around the same time.
The Akram Khan Company is one of the world’s leading contemporary dance companies. We’ve seen every show since Akrah Khan did his first one man show as a graduate intern on the South Bank about 25 years ago. Contemporary dance and physical theatre is hugely collaborative between different dancers, actors, musicians, designers, artists and more from all over the world. One of the last shows we saw featured some of the world’s leading freestyle rock climbers and a high-wire guy.
The vocalist in that show was Nicki Wells, an amazing singer, who we saw most recently in an Indian/Chinese company called Aakash Odedra, for which she composed and performed. She’s a minute in the promo video. This show was a massive success.
To us regulars this show was a little bit derivative, with strong influences from Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan (UK), Sidi Larbi (Belgium) and Lin Hwai-min (Taiwan). Most music and dance is a bit derivative, as long as it’s not imitation.
A bit like opera co-productions, a lot of contemporary dance shows and companies are co-sponsored by multiple venues around the world, so there has to be international appeal.
Three pieces this morning linked by their their unusual darkness, in particular the opening movement of the Mozart g-minor piano quartet, which we heard a few months ago and is Mozart being way ahead of his time, and the Dance of Death in Sh’s second piano trio, composed during the German invasion in 1943 and dedicated to his close friend who I think was killed by Stalin.
The other link is that they are all recorded at Potton Hall in Suffolk, which has a very clean and intimate acoustic for chamber music.
I thought of this one seeing the thread title. The “book” appeals to me, depicting an interracial relationship. The music has some strong melodies that haunt me, and the musicians’ playing and the arrangements are excellent. Engineering is top-notch.
How do you explain the connection between this minimalist synth album from Seattle and a shop in Hackney Road, East London? Walked past on Monday and I still don’t get it.
An artist collective, currently,shut down, which (or part of them) in the US also made a few electronic records, part of them resides in that building in the UK? But for an explanation of the distance between the two (or is only the label US based?) you probably have to ask them
I bought the album in a shop in Paris called Souffle Continu, this place in Hackney is near a record shop/label specialising in electronica called World of Echo. Next time I’m there I’ll ask. Maybe they know.
