Santiago Quartet – Language of the Heart

Tags

Argentinian Music, Astor Piazzolla, Cressida Wislocki, Johanna McSweeney, Jonathan Hennessey-Brown, Julian Rowlands, Language of the Heart, Music review, Rowan Bell, Santiago Quartet, Tango Music, Will Todd

Argentina and England; music the powerful language of the heart

Happenstance took me to a concert given by the Santiago Quartet, some weeks ago. The programme was exactly what is on this CD. Captivated almost from the off, (the strange, almost sax like, edge of sexy, edge of pain violin squeals were an initial shock) I was swept away by the vibrancy, intensity and playfulness of this music, moving without hesitation between rapid extremes of exuberance, ecstasy, mischief and melancholic longing.

I knew nothing of Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla. His ‘Four Seasons of Buenos Aires’ yes give the occasional nod to Vivaldi’s, but are of Paizzolla’s time and space. This is a fusion of tango, with its insistent rhythms and call to dance, with that inner reflectiveness, – be STILL and listen which is the heritage of classic concert music. That tension between still listening and – no – dance, move, whilst you can – we have such a little time to inhabit dynamic physicality was quite electrifying

The music inhabits emotional extremes, flickering instantly between oppositions, and is both intensely of its place, Argentina, but also draws the inheritance and influences from both classical music, modern classical music and jazz. It is utterly delicious.

Astor Piazzolla and Bandoneon

So to Santiago Quartet – 2 violins, ( Rowan Bell, Johanna McWeeneey) a viola, (Cressida Wislocki) a cello (Jonathan Hennessey-Brown) – joined on the Piazzolla pieces by a bandoneon (Julian Reynolds) They played with delight, intensity, sensitivity and passion, music which obviously spoke to their heart.

As well as the Beunos Aires Four Seasons, there is an altogether darker and more unsettling piece, Anxiety. I was not surprised, on racing away to buy the CD which was on sale at the concert venue, that this particular piece was one written after the composer had had serious health problems. The track Oblivion speaks both of faith and identity and was written as a film score with connections to a play by Pirandello

The final piece, by English composer Will Todd, could not be more different. The mood is far more restrained, internalised, and infused with both a very English melancholy and a final accepting quietude. This was a piece commissioned by the cellist’s mother. It also moved me intensely, though in a different way. Gone was the need to dance, the yearning was towards something transcendent.

I was even more pleased I had surrendered to the need to buy this CD from the Quartet, after the concert, and not waited to buy later on line – a percentage of the profits bought from the musicians themselves goes to MIND. The cellist, introducing one of the pieces, spoke movingly about personal history with mental health, and the importance of music ‘The Language of the Heart’ Not only the title of the CD, but the place all the music here inhabits, and the place the musicians interpreted from, and spoke from the composers’ hearts, their own hearts, to ours, listening

Santiago Quartet – Language of the Heart UK
Santiago Quartet – Language of the Heart USA

And…to those who might have noticed my absence – pressure of work, dear hearts, has meant for some time that I have time to read or to write about what I am reading, but rarely both. The amount which MUST be reviewed (those ARCS) is Everest like now, and no matter how much I try to tell myself I cannot open another book without addressing that must-be-reviewed pile, the flesh is weak, very weak indeed. All of us who pride ourselves (alas! pride!) on maintaining our own particular reviewing style and standard just can’t surrender to doing something simpler and less intensive than what we normally do.

I may (or may not) manage to get the odd to be reviewed pile marginally reduced over the coming weeks and months – the challenge then becomes remembering backlogs (goes scrabbling for ginkgo biloba)

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Stephen Sondheim – Sunday In The Park With George

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Bernadette Peters, James Lapine, Mandy Patinkin, Music review, Musical Theatre, Stephen Sondheim, Sunday In The Park With George

The extreme pleasure of Patinkin and Peters on a Sunday In The Park With George

Including a You Tube link to an excerpt from the original Broadway Production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday In The Park With George, in a recent post, reminded me again of the magnificence of the music.

I saw this in a stunning production at the National, with Maria Friedman as Dot/Marie and Philip Quast as Georges/George, and have heard both albums made from productions – this Off/Broadway /later Broadway, starring Mandy Patinkin and Bernadette Peters, and a later UK revival which transferred to Broadway with Daniel Evans/Jenna Russell and have to say that for my money the Americans win hands down, heart open, ear sweet.

Stephen, Bernadette and Mandy, back in 1984, when rehearsing for the original production. Can more than 30 really have passed?

To my ears and viscera the later British CD gains more of the dialogue, and yes, Russell is easier to hear the wonderful lyrics with, as Peters at times flounders in managing the fiercely rapid fire sung lyrics, particularly in that fizzing, dizzying opening track, however, I am more aware of Evans and Russell as musical theatre performers. By contrast, Patinkin and Peters make me feel as if I am relating to Georges/George and Dot/Marie. These two, though clearly immaculate in their technique and craft, seem to sing from within the characters they are playing.

Sunday In The Park With George is my very favourite Sondheim musical – witty, intense, audacious it takes as its inspiration the 1884 painting by the pointilliste Georges Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and follows the story of the painter himself , through using his writings and ideas about art, and his artworks, and some of the major events of his short life, and the invention of the lives and identities of the people painted in that picture – most particularly, the woman in the foreground on the right hand side of the painting, with the monkey on a leash. As Dot, Seurat’s model and lover. Act 1 takes place over the two years from 1884-1886 which it took Seurat to paint his picture, which now hangs in Chicago

       A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat 1884

Act 2 takes place 100 years later. George is a fairly successful installation artist, someone much more commercially driven, working the corporate world, part creative, partly with the wily cynicism of one who schmoozes but has lost his creative way through trying to second guess which way artistic fashion is heading. George is presenting his latest work, and installation structure, Chromolume Number 7, built on an initial inspiration from the pointilliste and chromolume ideas of Seurat. Marie, George’s elderly grandmother, close to dying reflects on her memories of her French born mother, Dot, and is a conscience, a beacon and ultimately a re-awakener of George’s lost truthful creative voice

Sondheim’s shimmery, weaving music, dabbing and sparkling provides a kind of musical pointillism

The album does stand on its own, but inevitably has much more bite if you know the staged musical.

Now the quality is not wonderful, but there is a Youtube video (with Spanish subtitles) of the entire original Broadway production, with Patinkin and Peters, also, without subtltles, and unfortunately cut into the usual small sections, more or less all the songs can be found from that production

I particularly love the two harmonious end of Act 1 and end of Act 2 ‘Sunday’ numbers, set against the all at sea quarrelsome dissonance of the opening Act 2 number, ‘It’s Hot Up Here’. Taken together, these reminded me of Rossini’s operas where there is often a kind of waspy, frenetic, deranged chorus piece with every character snarling confusedly, slightly deranged, and an ultimate, wonderfully uplifting harmonious and beautifully balanced resolution

Peters rather breaks the listener’s heart repeatedly with her vulnerability and generous heart quality. And Patinkin is a revelation, a very fine singer indeed, as well as actor

My only cavil for this album is the inclusion of one of the numbers, Putting It Together, presented not by Patinkin – it is an edgy, angst ridden, cynical and vituperative piece, interrupted by dialogue, in context. Instead, it is presented as a typically ‘musical theatre’ show stopper type piece, by a quartet of singers, none of whom belong in this production. It is, to my ears, glitz without heart or context. The final piece, although beautiful, again misses much – Peters in a tribute concert at the Carnegie Hall reprising one of the big Sunday chorus numbers. Which is somewhat different from the intensity coming out of the inhabitation of characters in relationship with each other, singing those numbers .

Stephen Sondheim – Sunday In The Park With George Amazon UK
Stephen Sondheim – Sunday In The Park With George Amazon USA

Jacques Loussier Trio – Vivaldi The Four Seasons

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Andre Arpino, Jacques Loussier, Jacques Loussier Trio, Music review, The Four Seasons, Vincent Charbonnier, Vivaldi

Lacking the plangency and heart thrill and squeeze of the original………and yet…….

The Jacques Loussier Trio – Jacques himself on piano, Vincent Charbonnier on bass and Andre Arpino on drums, here bring their jazz interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – two instruments to provide what an orchestra does, in terms of melody texture, tone and harmony, and with a much stronger emphasis on rhythm, with that third instrument being percussive.

Many years ago, in the brief period when I stopped listening to classical music by safely long dead composers, I came across a jazz version of The Four Seasons – no idea who by, I had mistakenly thought it must be Jacques Loussier, due to his connection with Jazz Bach – but I’ve recently come across this definitely Loussier version. And very fine it is too

I do have to say that the original orchestral piece, with the richness of the different tones brought by more instruments, and the dominance of melody and harmony which classical music has, over overt rhythm, is full of much more visceral, heart, soul, spirit grab than a jazz version is likely to be, for me. Classical pieces (well certain classical pieces, if well performed, and Four Seasons is one) seem to unlock my tear ducts, and I will listen, tears (without obvious simple, named emotion behind them) will pour down my face, and I will feel the music stretching itself as if into the fascia of my body. Not a cerebral response, not a ‘this is pleasant’ response, but a kidnapping, a taking over.

Anyway, this, I do like a lot, it is marvellously pleasant, and I nod along, very happily, tapping my feet, thinking all sorts of things. It is bright, it is skilful, musical, playful, inventive. And I am very happy for all those things. I do not want to be kidnapped and held hostage all the time. I can admit to being very fond of this CD. It is not the madness of the coup de foudre of falling in love, which Vivaldi’s original is for me.

Warmly, not madly, besottedly, taken out of my senses and transportedly, enjoyed. I do think there may be something particularly supernatural about the violin and its powers…………

Jacques Loussier Trio – Vivaldi The Four Seasons Amazon UK
Jacques Loussier Trio – Vivaldi The Four Seasons Amazon USA

John Fordham – The Knowledge: Jazz

Tags

Book Review, Jan Garbarek, Jazz, John Fordham, Music review, Sidney Bechet, The Knowledge: Jazz

I say I don’t like the genre called jazz….and yet,…..and still…..

These sorts of statements are fatal as of course I have jazz music in my collection (mainly Jan Garbarek) and there are pieces of music which are definitely jazz embracing which I adore (Rhapsody In Blue), not to mention singers and musicians who bring their jazz roots into other areas (Ella Fitzgerald, Wynton Marsalis) and demonstrate – as jazz aficionados delight in reminding me – their extreme musicality and sophistication. AND I have been known to go to jazz concerts!

So it would be true, in my case, to say that I could appreciate a helpful and kindly guide to identify what it is that I do like in jazz music, and open this out for me, offering other little staging posts along the way, and possibly introducing me to unexplored new directions, highways and byways.

Now I do believe John Fordham may be that helpful and kindly guide. Fordham writes beautifully, and is erudite, engaging and clear about his passion for Jazz. Currently jazz critic for The Guardian, he rather got me in the introduction, explaining his own early revelation of being grabbed by jazz…

I can hear a surging rhythm, powered by the hiss of a drumbeat flickering on a cymbal and the heartbeat of a deep and steady bassline, that made me want to dance for the first time in my life. I can hear a trumpet being played as if it were a seductively cajoling tone. I can hear a piano played with a strange, jarring clang, as if the notes of the chords are being clashed too close together. And I hear the entwining melodies of several musicians merging into one voice, even though there are ragged edges to the music that suggest they just thought it up as they went along. I think I fell in love with jazz because it sounded just like life, as it’s lived and improvised from moment to moment: imperfect declarations of wonderment or love, fevers of anguish or anger, cool confidence in a sauntering walk, despondency in the purple tones of a slow blues

Jan Garbarek

Okay, okay, I have rolled over and surrendered – it’s as if Fordham has opened a door.Especially when he reminds me that what I often DON’T like in some of the `live jazz’ concerts I’ve been to – the improvisation (it often seems, to my untutored ear to be indulgent and meandering) exists within the genre which always spoke to me, from childhood – classical music. Those consummate musical geniuses, Bach and Mozart, to name but two, were not only improvisers themselves – but left space for live musicians, playing their works, to `deviate’ and introduce their own cadenzas! So, perhaps, when I say `I don’t like jazz and the boring improvisations, I should really say that the particular musician, on a particular night, isn’t really saying anything which connects to my ears, heart, mind and guts.

Sidney Bechet

Yet here I am, now listening to Sidney Bechet, riffing away and improvising over a New Orleans jazz version of Summertime. And, hey I have suddenly discovered that I seem to like New Orleans jazz and am delighted by Bechet. And how did I get to Bechet…….why Fordham reminded me how that cool, spacious and Garbarek melancholy Norwegian sax (it’s the sax, the gorgeous, dirty, blue, longing filled sax) takes American free-form jazz and links it with his own traditions. Or, to quote Louis Armstrong ‘Jazz is what you are’ And Garbarek was inspired by Coltrane, so another journey beckons. (Bechet, as I discovered, was also a master of the clarinet)

Fordham’s slim, jammed full of goodies book is excellently structured. He gives the reader a breathlessly fast whistle stop jazz history tour, from origins to now, and then backtracks by breaking down each genre/movement in jazz, introducing us chronologically to the visionary innovators. He looks ahead to jazz’s future journey, provides a glossary to those confusing terms, and even a listening guide, which thanks to YouTube, streaming and all means that it gets possible, in the comfort of home to dip and pick and shimmy and mix hearing a track here and a track there – hence the Bechet.

This is a brilliant book!

John Fordham

I do have one serious (makes frowning face) criticism of this book, but it can’t prevent recommendation. Some daftie (all style over content) has decided it would be no doubt a cool and groovy idea to have a few pages which are coloured pale grey, rather than white…and to text them with white, rather than black, type. I almost flung the book, hard across the room. The only way to render this readable was to raise the book to eyelevel and hold it horizontal to my eyeline rather than the normal vertical reading of a text. Klutz! Idiot! Did they think this was `jazzy?!!. (Curiously this is LESS problematic on Kindle’s ‘Look Inside’ version. Occasional typos also litter the text – Jan Gararabek at one point! Fortunately there are not TOO many of those wretched white on pale grey pages, but each is an aberration to the idea that form and function should together be a thing of beauty.

‘The Knowledge’ is a series of slim, short books on various topics written by specific experts in their fields, eg ‘Red Wine’ I would like to offer myself as an author of a forthcoming book which they could publish, called, simply, The Knowledge: Liqueur Filled Dark Chocolates. I do hope the commissioning editor of the series is reading this, so that we can discuss how much and precisely which chocolates I am going to suggest they send me for my research………….

I received this for review from Amazon Vine, UK. Any chocolates consumed in the writing of this review were my own

The Knowledge: Jazz Amazon UK
The Knowledge: Jazz Amazon USA

The Broken Circle Breakdown (Soundtrack)

Tags

Bjorn Eriksson, Bluegrass, Broken Circle Breakdown Soundtrack, Country Music, Johan Heldenbergh, Music review, Veerle Baetens

Stands alone as a CD or hooks the memory of those who loved the film

I’m not a genre admirer of bluegrass music, but this CD might make me think I could become one!

Hooked into it on the back of the Belgian film which this is the soundtrack from The Broken Circle Breakdown  I headed over to buy this pretty instantly, worn out by having to go to YouTube, again and again, in order to play trailers to hear tracks again.

So now the music is merrily (and heartbreakingly) playing, and dissociated from those stunning performances in the film where the tracks are in a different, progressive order and each track is telling the story of what is happening for Elise and Didier, I can settle to form a musical relationship with the CD.

This title is one of the purely instrumental tracks, Sand Mountain. Be patient, as the repeated, languid opening phrase, which then hangs silently for a beat or two (up to 44 secs in) then springs into hootenanny toe tappy jig, leaving the listener ebullient with all the steely twangs!

I have focused on the You Tube excerpts of the tearbreakers on my film review, but here is a bouncier vocal and instrumental (Country In My Genes)

Within the film itself my focus was on vocal performance from Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh. Baetens has a sweet, fragile voice working particularly well on the stick a knife into the heart tracks, though there is a lovely openhearted freshness in her rendition of bouncier numbers like Country In My Genes, whilst Heldenbergh has more textures in his voice, rich, full, even a little rough and burly on the Bruce Springsteen number Further On Up the Road,and lighter, more tender, without the grit in his duets and accompanying numbers with Baetens, as befits the way the music is used to explore their relationship as individuals who sing love songs with each other.

Divorced from the film, it is the quality and texture of the marvellous musicians that I’m now drawn to engage with: the weavings, the riding a horse trot and bounciness of the rhythms of the faster numbers, trotting, cantering galloping Yeeeee —-Haaar! so that sitting to listen is hard, the listener forced to toe tap, arm shake and finally give in and jig and skip. Finally (because of the different order of tracks in film and CD) you are allowed to rest, catch your breath and and hear how tender and soulful Bjorn Eriksson’s guitar, and the viols or mandolines of Geeart Waegeman and Nils de Caster can get.

The purely instrumental tracks are a wonder and delight of flying, flirty weavings, call and response, back-chat and breathless virtuosity

Within the film itself the movement of the music is one of steady darkening, the fizz and ebullient, show-off daredevil champagne tracks occurring earlier, and the steadily painful tracks of loss and despair and loneliness inevitably charting the sad journey of the film.

The CD mixes this up , and this is indeed a much better arrangement for a stand alone.

Who knows, I may find myself wanting to don that cowboy hat and become a country gal after all!

The Broken Circle Breakdown Soundtrack Amazon UK
The Broken Circle Breakdown Soundtrack Amazon USA

June Tabor – Ashore

Tags

Ashore, Folk Music, June Tabor, Music review

Authentically musical, authentically from the heart

June Tabor’s voice is quite a magical one.  The absolute reverse of technologically manipulated all surface no substance muzak, Tabor sings in a way which draws the listener into their own heart and soul. Her voice is both a clear channel for emotion, and deeply engaged with that. She doesn’t ‘perform’ emotion, she enables the emotion in the music to express itself, rather than expressing her own emotion. Her style is therefore that of surrender to the music and words, so that the listener can engage directly with the music, the language, and the musician serving the music.

I’m a big fan of music which is reflective, and initially was a little disappointed at the tracks which showed another side to Tabor – the French songs, which are more upbeat and playful, and also the tracks, such as the wonderful Selkie, and The Brean Lament, where in part she speaks rather than sings the narration, but I’m slowly coming round to the variety. This is the sort of music which you can imagine listening to, sitting in a snug little pub, somewhere on the Hebridean isles, whilst a storm outside is raging, and Tabor and the musicians take you into the deeps of the sea, and where the sea meets the land.

For me the long opening and closing tracks, Finistere and Across The Wide Ocean, express this most sublimely, and, without anything else, make this 5 star Even if a certain Bank does get in the way a little whenever Tabor sings the word Santander in ‘Finistere’!

Ashore Amazon UK
Ashore Amazon USA

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Penguin Cafe Orchestra

Tags

Dada, Fusion, Music review, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Simon Jeffes

Happiness Is A Warm Penguin!

Well what can one say. Penguin Café Orchestra are a musical smile! Taking repetition, minimalism and excellent musicianship out of the high reflective, internalised experience of, for example, Philip Glass, this places such music under a warm sun, a beach umbrella, a brightly coloured fruit and punch cocktail in hand, where the days are filled with splendour and playful happiness. The musicians who comprised the original Penguin Cafe Orchestra cohered around composer and musician Simon Jeffes. Since Jeffes death the music still goes on

How can you not smile at music with such absurd titles as `Pythagoras’ Trousers’ and `The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas’ ? This isn’t the sort of music that I normally fill my days with, preferring deep intense reflective musical journeys, but sometimes one just has to get one’s face out of the numinous and giggle at musical high spirits!

Difficult to categorise this music – Amazon have it filed under Rock, I’ve also seen it categorised as New Age – 2 genres which would seem to be diametrically opposed really!

IMO it is neither; perhaps a new category Musical DaDa Or Music of The Absurd, to steal categories from Art and Theatre. This music is deliciously silly, a stream of bubbles and celebratory balloons

Telephone and Rubber Band and Cutting Branches For a Temporary Shelter are particularly broad smile inducing! Numbers 1-4 is the closest the Penguins come to `blue’ – sweet and lyrical – like watching the sun set while you know that as soon as that happens someone is going to light a fire and start waving sparklers to announce a mellow party. And those dancing fleas are pretty laid back!

I’m looking at the humble rubber band with a new respect, and bow down to the masterful rubber band virtuoso of Penguin Café Orchestra. Begone pale violin and cello. Classical pieces will henceforth be scored for rubber band.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Penguin Cafe Orchestra Amazon UK

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Penguin Cafe Orchestra Amazon USA

Philip Glass – Glassworks

Tags

Classical music, Glassworks, Music review, Philip Glass, Philip Glass Ensemble

Romantic tone poems, lush and lyrical

Glassworks is a beautiful thing, gentler and more reflective than the vibrant, glittering repetitions which are typically associated with Philip Glass.

In Glassworks, only 2 of the pieces, Floe – like a first sudden moment at the start of a tropical dawn chorus – and the brass section sax rich shining Rubric, have the fierce edges. The other 4 pieces are more simple, flowing, watery.

There’s a typically Glass like circling quality to the whole CD – the opening track ‘Opening’ simply keyboards, for all the world a whisper away from the slow movement of one of the great Romantic piano composers, is echoed again in ‘Closing’, where the piece has become more textured by a chamber orchestra taking it up.

Glass’s typical repetitions, small builds and diminishings don’t feel meaningless in any way, there’s something really satisfying about being held in a structure which changes slowly. ‘Opening’ has the lovely muted grey violet quality of dusk.

Floe starts plangently, softly, and then explodes into edgy texture, rushing piccolo, sax, horns, its like a thousand cicadas wiring up for the day, and there’s something very thrilling about it. Just as you think your nerve endings can take no more of the texture and vibrancy, the track settles back into a breathing space for itself and then whirls off again to its resolved climax

Islands moves back into something more flowing and haunting, slightly melancholic, even a little menacing, with strings in a minor key, odd snatches of melody which feel as if they belong to ‘Psycho’ or ‘North by Northwest’!

Rubric, is the most jazzy, riffy of all the pieces. I found myself responding to it in that head nodding way of marking the rhythm that often seems to happen when people listen to jazz!

Facades is simply beautiful. It probably has the most shifting melody going more quickly to new places, melancholy and soulful, strings and sax, played sweetly and sadly.

An expanded version of this 1990 album has been re-issued with several additional tracks, which does exist as an mp3 – I only have this, shorter album as CD, so am used to its more contained musical shape. The expanded version does have a much more appealing cover pic though (illustrated here)  Unless you were a Glass Fan you really might be offput by the unappealing brown cover replete with Glass a scowling. It says ‘Don’t Buy Me!’

The tracks on this version reviewed here are:
1. Opening 2. Floe 3. Islands 4. Rubric 5. Facades 6. Closing

Glassworks Amazon UK
Glassworks Amazon UK

June Tabor and Oysterband – Ragged Kingdom

Tags

Folk Music, Folk Rock Fusion, June Tabor, Music review, Oysterband

Electrification and melancholy benefit from each other

I saw June Tabor and Oysterband in concert when they were ‘previewing’ what would be tracks from this album.

I went to that concert because of Tabor, but ended up also being seduced by Oysterband as well. Tabor’s dark, brooding voice still reaches most deeply and soulfully I think on the very simply accompanied The Hills Of Shiloh, and/but she is equally at home as chanteuse with the driving rhythms of Oysterband, and a more folk rock fusion. From the exciting opening track Bonny Bunch Of Roses the listener is taken unstoppably through Tabor and Oysterband’s John Jones duetting on Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and Son David.

Here is that exciting, driving, opening track – which they also used to open the gig – I could barely keep seated!

It’s probably wrong to expect a studio album to quite reach the excitement of a live concert, but Jones’ voice seems a touch more exposed, on piano high notes in the studio, against Tabor’s powerful, but never straining vocals, specifically on Love Will Tear Us Apart. Notes which seemed to be pushed through only through felt emotion from Jones in that live performance here seems almost to be the result of technical strain on Love Will Tear Us Apart, though in the tight duetting on Dylan’s Seven Curses Jones soars freely, and he is beautifully tender with Tabor on the closing track The Dark End Of The Street

However, here is a beautiful, un-strained rendition of Love Will Tear Us Apart filmed at Union Chapel London, which I think matches the two voices brilliantly. A little gem, for all broken lovers

Highlights for me are the excitement of the opening track, the aforementioned The Hills of Shiloh, the dynamism and vibrant excitement of If My Love Loves Me – particularly Ian Telfer’s violin, the folk/religious ballad The Leaves Of Life, contrasting again, the driving, punchy beat and some beautiful acapella from Tabor and Oysterband.

But, hey, on subsequent plays, I found myself adding more tracks as highlights!

Oysterband and Tabor seem to spur each other enjoyably on. My big regret on this album is the non-inclusion of a couple of numbers from the live show – an electrifying performance of Jefferson’s Airplane’s White Rabbit and Velvet Underground’s All Tomorrow’s Parties (admittedly the latter one featured on the previous album with June Tabor , and as they were then called, The Oyster Band, 21 years ago) both proving Tabor can out Nico Nico and out Slick Slick. Her voice is truly amazing, and Oysterband have just the energy to match it. Rock’s loss has been Folk’s gain, with Tabor. She could I think sing almost anything .

I love the dark and painful reflective melancholy of Tabor’s vocals, but the drive imposed by Oysterband’s more urgent music works as a brilliant accelerator to Tabor, and she imposes a discipline and restraint well on them, so the balance point between the two is wonderful, electrifying.

Ragged Kingdom Amazon UK
Ragged Kingdom Amazon UK

Jocelyn Pook – Untold Things

Tags

Jocelyn Pook, Music review, Soundtrack, Untold Things, World music

Frankly weird, a mash-up, but definitely haunting

I had never heard of Jocelyn Pook, till a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video of a piece of `sacred style’ Western choral singing composed by her, very much in Early Music polyphony mode (which I love)

Alas, this was a while ago and I can no longer find that particular clip

However I also love the strange atonal, dissonant singing and ululations of Arabic music. And it turns out that Ms Pook, best known for film and TV sound tracks, (Eyes Wide Shut, by all accounts propelled her to a wider audience) works with a fusion of Western classical, and strands of world music which clearly pull in threads from the Balkans, the Middle East, India, and she also incorporates more modern, electronic techniques – reverb, sampled sounds. And then there is a rich and sumptuous vein of high romantic and lyrical use of Western classical strings, lush and emotional.

And, on this particular album  some up-beat, tabla driven rhythmic numbers, which invite the listener to groove, move and sway

This shouldn’t really work, somehow it does! Personally I found the more dance upbeat numbers were not quite as alluring as the other tracks, missing the stranger, more unusual quality of the other, intensely emotional tracks.

The YouTube embed is of Requiem aeternam, a track from another Pook album Flood
Untold Things Amazon UK
Untold Things Amazon USA