Ten More Albums

Continuing the mini-reviews of ten albums from my collections of CDs, cassettes and vinyl albums. One needs something to do during the orona virus lockdown. As always, comments are welcome, and of course I'll post other topics about music (and art) as they come up.

Along These Lines (Steve Barsotti)
Musique-Concrete along several lines: microsounds and granular synthesis, ambient soundscapes of field recordings, and a culmination in a distorto-Merzbow noise-blast. At the North Seattle Listening Club (2013), the latter piece led to a discussion about how music of this type is put together compositionally, given its obvious (intentional) lack of melody, harmony, or rhythm. My own take on this is that density can be the prime mover for this kind of piece; another club member argued (based on a previously heard, unidentified piece) for the importance of timbre.

Aromates (Abed Azrié)
The throaty vocals (sung in Arabic) sometimes seem harsh in contrast to the understated accompaniment of qanun (zither), nay (flute), ambient synthesizers and whispered rhythms on percussion. A closer listen reveals that that may be the point: a listener more familiar with the genre would probably know that the words are the most important part: it’s poetry, after all, and this recording is (no matter how different an aesthetic experience) more akin to rap than to the ambient music that it seems to be at first. Listening to the accompaniment is a pleasant experience: it winds around itself in heterophonic textures, complementing the up-front vocals, and is scented with occasional quarter-tones that do not create dissonance in this context. The total experience of this is both easy and difficult at first, and it’s quite unlike anything else.

The B-52’s
In which rock music (or 80’s “new wave”) sits back, drinks a beer, and has a good long laugh at itself. Why do we always take music so !@#&!! seriously?! As always, “Planet Claire” and “Rock Lobster” are hilarious, and I still don’t know what to say about that intentionally bad rendition of the pop standard “Downtown”… Pop meets dada. Some wild vocal pyrotechnics too.

Brandenburg Concertos (J. S. Bach, played by Musica Amphion conducted by Pieter-Jan Beldar)
There are several reasons that these 18th-century works are still considered some of the greatest masterworks of music: dizzying complexity, aesthetic balance and harmony, mathematical perfection, the sheer enthusiastic beauty of it all. Each piece is different, adding variety; yet each is similar, adding continuity if they’re all played together. (I don’t know if anyone has ever commented on the overarching formal structure that appears when they’re all played in order: reduction of instruments from large to small ensemble to strings alone, then repeat beginning with a different ensemble; the two pieces for strings alone begin with the same theme.) Some listeners have commented that this music can be exhausting because there’s no “punctuation” – true, each unfolds in a relentless stream of notes, but to me at least it’s that bubbling perpetual motion that forms much of the joy in these pieces. Played on 18th-century instruments, these sparkle in the way they would have to Mr. Bach and his audience.

Look What I Found (Tom Baker Quartet)
Compositions and improvisations (is there always a difference?); jazz from the shadows of classical music, understated, sharply delineated, mysterious, impressionist, anti-ambient. Many moments jump-cut to others, leaving the piece to unfold in fragments – which always connect up at the end, and the extreme ranges and timbres of the instruments are explored. The closer you listen, the more you understand.

The Lost Sonatas (George Antheil, performed by Guy Livingston)
Back then, the earlier sonatas were the most shocking modernism; nihilist punk-rock for the dada age. The later sonatas (numbers 4 and 5) were tamer and more classical, as if backing up and apologizing for the earlier indiscretion. Listening now: there’s not that much difference. They’re all rhythmically interesting, often lyrical, often catchy, sometimes dissonant but not in a surprising way. Hints of Gershwin and Prokofiev drift in and out with boogie-woogie. And, after all, it’s just piano music. Not that that’s a bad thing: Sonata no. 5 in particular is an epic masterpiece that should be admitted to the canon of great piano works.

Mister Heartbreak (Laurie Anderson)
Pop music that isn’t pop music. Absurdist tragicomic poetry. Beautiful voice, but often without melody. We still don’t know quite what this is all about, forty years later, and that’s still the fun of it.

On the Banks of Helicon: Early Music of Scotland (Baltimore Consort)
Exploring the intersection between folk music and the nascent European “classical” tradition. Catchy dance rhythms, achingly beautiful pentatonic melodies, and an occasional raucous bagpipe all bespeak of centuries of musical custom; contrapuntal details and refined vocals indicate a more academic approach; and intimate performances bring to mind chamber music from later centuries. Some of the musical numbers are reminiscent of the songs in Shakespeare’s plays, in their Elizabethan settings. This is a gorgeous recording, to be savored more than once.

Soliloquy (Phillip Arnautoff)
An extended solo for harmonic canon: the grand uber-zither of Harry Partch invention. Here it produces a meditation of tones, played in folk-like melodies and sweeping glissandi, never quite resolving into the familiar major or minor scales but always lingering somewhere near. Seemingly both intimate and infinite. Quite beautiful.

Symphony no. 4 / Chinese Songs (Kalevi Aho, performed by Tiina Vahevaara, soprano, and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vänskä)
The Symphony: Sardonic dark carnival meets tragedy, in the manner of Shostakovich; with brooding strings, a hilariously sinister tuba solo in the sherzo, and subtle counterpoint and interplay of rhythms throughout.
The Songs: Atmospheric neo-impressionism, subtler (and more effective) than standard cutesy chinoiserie. Some of these appear to begin as folk songs, but then the melodies wander into unexpected directions. The whole piece stands in lovely contrast to the much darker Symphony.

So that's it for the music, for now. For another type of discussion altogether, check out the new sister blog of this one (it's about books, words, and random stuff about linguistics) and my new website about my books (yes, there's a book of this blog!).