Venus Hum - Mechanics & Mathematics Live

 Venus Hum - Mechanics & Mathematics Live - Part 1

 Venus Hum - Mechanics & Mathematics Live - Part 2

 

It’s hard to review a concert DVD. I mean, it’s a concert. A DVD is just going to remove one of the most important elements of a live music show; the shared experience of partaking in a musical event. Even the best concert DVD’s (for the best, watch Blur’s “No Distance Left To Run”) lack that certain something. You can see the crowd, you can hear them, but where’s the delinquent tosser swinging his pint around, arms flailing? Where’s the obscured view? Where’s the aching back, nurtured through hours of standing up and not moving very much? Hmmmmm… maybe the DVD is a better option after all?
Venus Hum have been around for 10 years or so. Comprising of Annette Strean, Kip Kubin and Tony Miracle this little trio might not be that well known to you, especially outside of the US. You might have seen them if you ever saw the Blue Man Group live, as they supported and played with them on their Complex tour. But they pretty much sit under the radar. But that has never stopped them consistently producing some of the finest, melodic and interesting electronica to have ever come out of the US. Which is surprising for an act hailing from Nashville, TN, the home of country & western.
So, the DVD. Well, this is no ordinary concert DVD. As in, it’s not an amalgam of a few shows from a long running sell out tour. This is a film of a one off gig, played at a small, intimate venue in Cincinnati, OH called The Monastery, an old church converted into a recording studio and performance space. A small crowd and a close, intimate experience for those attending. The first 20 minutes or so are dedicated to a short interview with the band, interspersed with snippets of footage from rehearsals.
The rest of the DVD is the show and a lovely event it is. Most of the “Mechanics & Mathematics” album is covered along with tracks from their previous long players. From a synth geeks perspective, there’s not as much synth geekery to take in, save for an ARP 2600, Roland System 100m, a Space Echo and some other random bits and bobs. This is a heavily laptop based show with some rear projections going on. Tony Miracle seems more than happy with his very old Evolution MK149. Mine now languishes in the loft. But this is all a blessing. Why? Well, for once you can concentrate on the music. There’s no flashy technology going on here. It’s two guys, Ableton Live (and Logic, I think), and the amazing vocals of Annette, seen here sporting a rather school mistress-y look which is quite a contrast to her previous guises. She’s still hot though!
This is a lovely DVD of a great little gig, the intimacy of which is superbly conveyed by the camera work. The music “does the talking”, the projections mere frilly, but effective edging. For once, a live DVD that’s more about the music than anything else. The band’s desire was to get their live act noticed by many more people. This DVD does that job perfectly. Stay tuned after the credits for an excellent impromptu and completely unrehearsed version of “Alice”. No sequencing, just guitar, keys and a soaring vocal. Quite exquisite.  From: https://www.failedmuso.com/venus-hum-mechanics-mathematics-a-concert-film-by-neil-smith/

 

 

Meat Puppets - Backwater

There’s an axiom when it comes to writing, which is to tell the truth. Even if you’re writing fiction, even if a character or narrator is lying, it’s important for the “voice” to come from a truthful place. That’s what people connect to, as opposed to the artifice and posturing and marketing and bullshit that we all put up with much of the time. The same is true of all art, of course: truthfulness is essential for connection.
These thoughts play around in my mind while listening to Too High To Die. There’s a core truthfulness and integrity to this band’s sound and songwriting that shines through.  Which is to say that I’d be absolutely astonished if the Meat Puppets started writing songs like “Backwater” or “Evil Love” with the intent of, “Hey guys, I think these are the ones that really gonna pop on rock radio and MTV’s Buzz Bin!”
Which is also to say that truthfulness is a core reason why those songs and Too High To Die is great. It helps of course that the album is wildly rangy and eclectic, consistently interesting and surprising. It flitters between melodic grunge and country, roots, and blues-inspired rock in a way that gets better and better every time I throw it on.
“Backwater” is arguably the band’s biggest hit, though Meat Puppets never achieved the massive commercial success of some of their contemporaries. “Melodic grunge” is the best way to describe it, though you can also feel a little country influence. It’s also a well-constructed and tight song with a really nice grungy hook. Like many, I probably heard of Meat Puppets for the first time by way of Nirvana’s Unplugged performance on MTV. Kurt Cobain brought a few members of the band on stage and the entire crew performed the Meat Puppets’ songs “Lake of Fire” and “Plateau.”
While “Lake of Fire” was originally released on Meat Puppets II, back in 1984, it also appears on Too High To Die. If you’re like me, and you’ve listened to Nirvana’s Unplugged… uh, many times, it’s really interesting to think about the versions of “Lake of Fire” and “Plateau” in comparison to one another.  In any event, Meat Puppets’ “Lake of Fire” is a wildly original song, another spin on country-ish grunge, this time with a quieter bent (and a mix of acoustic and electric guitars).
The more I listen to Too High To Die, the more I’m taken with “Evil Love.” There’s much about it that could have been a hit 1980s pop song, but it’s processed through the unique sensibilities of the Meat Puppets, making for an incredible original creation.  From: https://popthruster.com/2023/04/08/meat-puppets-too-high-to-die/

Ebb - Confess

Erin Bennett is the front women of the music group Ebb an “Art Rock”group of five women and one guy who spend their time writing their own music and telling their own stories. We appreciate her taking some time to share her words with us.

Q How did Ebb get started? What was the common thread that brought the band members together?

Well, its a bit of a long story, to be honest. I suppose the shortened version would be: In 2005 Dog, Kitty, Suna and Nikki were touring the US in their band MT-TV. I met them all in Alabama where I was living at the time, (I am originally from Texas.) We became instant friends and I joined their crew as a tech and soundy. In 2008, MT-TV returned to the UK and their bassist, Amanda, drummer, Jo and I formed an alternative/rock trio called Syren. I had been in a relationship with Jo pretty much since meeting the group. Syren toured the UK and Europe from 2008 until 2010 and then went into the studio to record our 2nd album. In the meantime, Dog, Kitty, Suna, Nikki, and the rest of MT-TV were living communally in Scotland working on various other projects, like filming, having given up music….or so they thought.
In 2012, Jo, to whom I’d been married, died unexpectedly of a rare type of Breast Cancer and Syren instantly ceased to be. Amanda was too distraught by the loss of Jo to carry on in music and I was intrinsically left with no band and nothing to focus on in my time of immense grief. But only a few months after Jo’s death, friends of mine in a band called Hawkwind, reached out asking if I’d be interested in opening for them at The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. But I had no band, right? So I appealed to Dog to come and play bass with me, thinking we could do an acoustic set. In Dog’s words, he saw it as an opportunity to give me something to concentrate on and help me out of the pit of my grief which was truly killing me. So he built a band around me recruiting Suna and Nikki on backing vocals and keys respectively and getting a local drummer to sit in for that specific gig.
In doing that one show, Dog, Suna and Nikki found the potential to heal from the sudden end to their musical past and knew also that it would be a great form of rehab for me. So we started writing and rehearsing and found a permanent drummer in Anna who Dog found at Napier University in Edinburgh studying for her BA in popular music. In 2015 Kitty joined the band, having previously been our mixer. Since 2016 we’ve worked and toured endlessly to find our place in music as a band. We’ve gone from performing simply under my name with all the others effectively being a backing band, and playing power-pop and heavy rock. We released two albums under the ‘Erin Bennett’ banner, but when the worldwide lockdown happened in 2020 we put our heads down and really focused on what type of music we wanted to make. What type of music made us feel, ya know?
We were lucky with the lockdown, in as much as, we all live communally in Scotland in an old hotel we’ve done up. Eventually, and quite organically, we settled on what we do now, which is being described as art/prog/rock; and rebranded, essentially, to form ‘Ebb’ which was initially short for ‘Erin Bennett Band’…but now stands as a metaphor for our movement away from our past and into our future as new people and new musicians. Our debut album ‘Mad & Killing Time’ which we released on November 1st, 2022, is the result of being locked down together in Scotland for 18 months and I believe, in this album which has received some stellar reviews, we have found ourselves as artists, musicians and as a band.

Q How does the band writes its music, there seems to a lot of elements are they usually the product of one person or a collaborative effort?

It really depends. A lot of the time, I will write a song on an acoustic guitar and bring it to the band. We will all get together and add our own ideas to the piece with Dog, who produces all of our stuff, having the overview to add or take away anything that doesn’t ultimately serve the song and the emotions behind it. Sometimes, though, Dog, Nikki, and Anna will be jamming and a musical piece is written that I then write a tune and lyrics for. And then there are also times when we are just messing around in rehearsal and something grows. So I guess it truly is a collaborative effort. Because even if I go and write a whole song from start to finish on my own and bring it to the band, everyone is affected by the song differently. And Dog’s job is to take everyone’s individual emotional reaction to a song and polish it into something that can be universally absorbed and understood and that happens to always come out as art/prog. So without everyone in the band, the music we put out wouldn’t be what it is.

From: https://paperphoenixink.com/2024/11/14/interview-with-erin-bennett-of-musical-group-ebb/

The Byrds - Eight Miles High

On December 22, 1965, the Byrds recorded a new, self-penned composition titled “Eight Miles High” at RCA Studios in Hollywood. However, Columbia Records refused to release this version because it had been recorded at another record company‘s facility. As a result, the band were forced to re-record the song at Columbia Studios in Los Angeles on January 24 and 25, 1966, and it was this re-recorded version that would be released as a single and included on the group’s third album.
The song represented a creative leap forward for the band and is often considered the first full-blown psychedelic rock recording by critics, although other contemporaneous acts, such as Donovan and the Yardbirds, were also exploring similar musical territory.  It was also pivotal in transmuting folk rock into the new musical forms of psychedelia and raga rock.
During his time with the Byrds, McGuinn developed two innovative, experimental, and very influential styles of electric guitar playing. The first was “jingle-jangle” – generating ringing arpeggios based on banjo finger picking styles he learned while at the Old Town School of Folk – which was influential in the folk rock genre. The second style was a merging of saxophonist John Coltrane‘s free-jazz atonalities, which hinted at the droning of the sitar – a style of playing, first heard on the song “Eight Miles High.”
“Eight Miles High” is often cited as the first psychedelic rock song, as well as a classic of the counterculture era. “Of course Eight Miles High was a drug song. It does refer to the altitude of that flight, but it was a deliberate double entendre.” —David Crosby. McGuinn’s groundbreaking lead guitar playing on “Eight Miles High” saw the guitarist emulating free form jazz saxophone as influenced by John Coltrane, and in particular, Coltrane’s playing on the song “India” from his Impressions album. It also exhibits the influence of the Indian classical music of Ravi Shankar in the droning quality of the song’s vocal melody and in McGuinn’s guitar playing.  The song’s subtle use of Indian influences resulted in it being labeled as “raga rock” by the music press.
According to Roger McGuinn: “Eight Miles High has been called the first psychedelic record. It’s true we’d been experimenting with LSD, and the title does contain the word “high”, so if people want to say that, that’s great. But Eight Miles High actually came about as a tribute to John Coltrane. It was our attempt to play jazz.”
“We were on a tour of America, and someone played us the Coltrane albums Africa/Brass and Impressions. It was the only music we had, for the whole time on the bus. By the end of the tour, Coltrane and Shankar were ingrained.”
“There was one Coltrane track called India, where he was trying to emulate sitar music with his saxophone. It had a recurring phrase, dee da da da, which I picked up on my Rickenbacker guitar and played some jazzy stuff around it. I was in love with his saxophone playing: all those funny little notes and fast stuff at the bottom of the range.”
“The previous year, 1965, we’d been on a trip to England. It was our first time on a plane, and I had the idea of writing a song about it. Gene asked: “How high do you think that plane was flying?” I thought about seven miles, but the Beatles had a song called Eight Days a Week, so we changed it to Eight Miles High because we thought that would be cooler. Some DJs did the sums and realized that, since commercial airliners only flew at six miles, we must have been talking about a different kind of high. And all the stations stopped playing it.”  From: https://m100group.com/2021/06/09/innovation-with-the-byrds-eight-miles-high-ideo-and-david-kelley-neo-demarcoian-banter/

The Neptune Power Federation - Emmaline

The Neptune Power Federation – Le Demon D’Amour: The Australian hard rockers return with this, their fifth album. I reviewed their last album, “Memoirs of a Rat Queen”, and found it to be an enjoyable, if not entirely addictive slab of rock n’ roll. I have to admire the rather ridiculous names, (band members have names like, “Jaytanic Ritual” and “Search and DesTroy”), costumes and larger than life persona. You know what? The accompanying blurb says that love songs have been commandeered by “soft rockers, bed wetters and the introvert crowd”. This is an album that seeks to reclaim love songs with a little more…ahem…balls, if you will. Very much in the spirit of the late 70’s and early 80’s, can The Neptune Power Federation accomplish this mission?
It is pretty fair to say that on average, my preferences are for music of the heavier variety, but I do have an abiding affection for hard rock as my entry into the more subterranean tunes. As such, my youth was spent listening to my dad’s AC/DC, Queen, Rainbow and old Judas Priest records, and that is very much the blueprint for the music contained within. These are big, bold anthems, with hook-laden chorus’ and sizzling guitar solos. The clean female vocals from lead lung-abuser, “Screaming Loz Sutch” add a whole element to proceedings, with her voice having a really impressive range and some real power. Whether on the power-balladry of “My Precious One”, or the funk-rock odyssey of “Baby You’re Mine”, her delivery is at a career high.
In between the hard rock skeleton, there’s still plenty of pleasing approaches here that mark the out as their own thing. Some lovely keyboard flourishes here and there, but essentially the star of the show for me is the inventive guitar work, which manages to produce riffs in abundance, along with some solo work that weaves its way into the memory. There’s plenty of grit to be found here too – “Emmaline” could easily have been a Danko Jones number, with a stack of swagger and some particularly fuzzy axe work. Closer, “We Beasts of the Night” has all the overblown strut of a prime Meatloaf number, is none the worse for it.
So, what to make of this album as a package then? Well, in many ways it’s an album that can feel a little out of time, but there really aren’t any bands producing material like this anymore, certainly with the confidence and arrogance that The Neptune Power Federation do. It’s pretty infectious, that’s for sure – whether that be due to the simple but effective song writing, or just the delivery I’m not sure, but then again pure rock n’ roll transcends in depth serious analysis: the essence is surely, if it feels good, it is good.  From: https://avenoctum.com/2022/03/01/the-neptune-power-federation-le-demon-damour-cruz-del-sur/

Secret Friend - And Ever

Secret Friend is the nom de plume of Thailand-based songwriter and recording artist Steven Fox. Formed in 2012, Secret Friend’s first album, Time Machine, was recorded in Los Angeles with Linus of Hollywood (a/k/a Kevin Dotson) producing, and Willie Wisely and Kelly Jones on vocals. The follow-up, Sleeper, takes Secret Friend in a different direction – a fusion of acoustic guitar-based pop melodies with electronica and psychedelia production. The album features guest artists including Bradley Dean Whyte, Jones, Linus of Hollywood, Steve Eggers, Wisely and Wyatt Funderburk.  From: https://bigtakeover.com/news/album-premiere-blue-sky-by-secret-friend

Secret Friend is a new all star collective that includes Willie Wisely, Kelly Jones, Linus of Hollywood, and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. Organized by Australian songwriter Steven Fox, Time Machine is rooted in classic 70’s singer songwriter pop. Wisely has a cadence like James Taylor here, but the rich melody and backing make the opener “Who Am I?” a sure-fire hit. “Starting Today” is another gem with sweet harmonies, and “Never Before” has subtle strings and lyrically falls into Gilbert O’Sullivan territory. Wisely’s “Oblivious” is a note perfect pop ballad and Kelly Jones “He’ll Never Know Me” is the jazzy answer to the narrative. Each musician helps make this LP a success. Foxs’ songwriting is very much like Andrew Gold, albeit with a modern POV. Many great songs here — it makes my Top Ten list for 2013 easily! A delectable slice of adult piano pop heaven.  From: https://www.powerpopaholic.com/2013/01/charlestones-secret-friend.html

Beth Orton - Central Reservation

When Beth Orton released her debut album, Trailer Park, it revealed a singer-songwriter with not only raw acoustic sensibilities, but it also offered a snapshot of London’s vibrant electronic scene. The album offered Orton a chance to explore her newly found voice, express her love of folk, and tip her hat to the landscape she had grown up in.
"I had an entire life before I became a singer, but around about the time I found out I could sing, I was very drawn to singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake," Orton recalls. "But I was also going out clubbing. I was part of a whole world here in London that had nothing to do with folk music. For me it would have felt disingenuous to make a purely folk record."
The immense success and positive reception of that debut gave Beth the confidence she needed to step wholeheartedly into the genre on her follow-up record, establishing herself as one of the great modern folk singer-songwriters.
Central Reservation, released in 1999, is an all-in, strings-laden album featuring guitar, bass, violin, cello, viola, and even a traditional Greek lute known as a bouzouki. With stunning keys and some deeply intimate themes, Central Reservation was a sublime counterpoint to the macho musical landscape of the nu metal and hip hop of the time.
With guest appearances from Ben Harper, Dr. John and Ben Watt, Central Reservation is a beautiful, steady album, perfect for those moments when you just need to turn the dial, the lights and your nervous system down and tap into the soft, subtle, poetry of this wild human life.  From: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/doublej-classic-albums/beth-orton-central-reservation-mel-bampton/103688134

Grant Lee Buffalo - Lone Star Song

Grant Lee Phillips once said that he originally intended Lone Star Song to be about conspiracy theories concerning the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but he got a little carried away with the events of the Waco Siege and the song evolved. A lot of the lyrics can be interpreted as both:

"They had him nailed up to a T with a T for Texas."
- JFK was the first Roman Catholic US president. He was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
- David Koresh was believed by his followers to be the second coming of Christ, therefore being revered as the human embodiment of the Messiah.

"His disciples with artillery they held the fort inside."
- The "disciples with artillery" are JFK's secret service agents. Right after JFK was shot, one of them jumped onto the limousine and tried to regain control of the "fort inside."
- Koresh's "disciples" firmly believed that Koresh was the second coming of Jesus Christ, and therefore believed that God was speaking through him. God wanted them to stay in the compound, so they stayed to defend the 'fort? with ample ammunition.

"And by the time the story broke down at Dealey Plaza."
- JFK was shot in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, where "our story broke."
- The first message from Koresh is relayed over KRLD Radio in Dallas on February 28, 1993, the day the compound was first raided by the ATF.

"We'd already covered the smoke, read the TV guide."
- It seems that just as soon as these incidents occurred, the media had already broadcasted "smoke," or disasters, across the nation, on TVs, radios, newspapers, etc. So all one had to do was "read the TV guide."

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/grant-lee-buffalo/lone-star-song

"For me Texas exists in in this sort of mythological way, and what I was writing about was largely Texas the myth, the Texas I've come to know through movies and recent events in history. I started writing that song focusing on the JFK assassination and all of the weird conspiracies that surround that assassination. All of it begins to sound very myth like. I started it from that point, and then maybe two or three weeks later this thing happened in Waco that I'm sure you're familiar with (the David Koresh-Branch Davidian-FBI holocaust) so the song sort of took a different direction at that point. I sorta wanted to talk about two stories within one song but all of it is a sort of a myth, or a collage of myths. It wasn't long after the Waco incident that I heard it emerged on television, that there was a sort of a television drama that came out, and soon the OJ Simpson story will be told - in many ways it's being told right now, but a dramatization will feature. I'm just perplexed by that. It's so important in America, America is such a dreamland." Source: Things Grant Always What They Seem, Rave Magazine, December 1994

From: http://www.homespunarchive.com/comments/mjm.htm

BraAgas - Mi Suegra

BraAgas is an all female quartet created in 2007 after the split-up of the band Psalteria. The first two albums were hard to define genre-wise. “The first album called No.1 was a mix of everything – medieval and folk songs as well,” says Katka Göttlich (Katerina Göttlichova). The four members of BraAgas have been playing for a long time. In addition to the previously mentioned Psalteria, the musicians played in other bands. “Our experiences from other bands have merged here – for me and Karla it was the Psalteria band, for Beta it was Gothart. Michaela had been sometimes the guest in different groups (e.g. Krless) before BraAgas originated,” says Göttlich.
The fact that the band was formed by professional musicians helped them record albums immediately and also with touring. Live playing is one of those things BraAgas can do really well. Their third CD, Tapas, is the result of their live concert art. The band won the music competition Česká spořitelna Colours Talents at Indies Scope Festival organized by Indies Scope Records and the Colours of Ostrava Festival supported by Česká spořitelna. The recording of an album was part of the Česká spořitelna Colours Talents prize. “The second one called No.2 – Media Aetas was purely medieval and the album Tapas has already nothing to do with ‘medieval times’. It’s an album containing songs which we have discovered and adapted and also those few ‘hits’ which we’ve taken the liberty to modify; those that the listeners of world music will definitely recognize.“
The four musicians play mostly ethnic instruments and historical replicas. Many guests helped them at the studio and there were also some electronic elements. Thanks to the electronics, a new modern sound was developed for Tapas, which was produced by David Göttlich and Petr Koláček. Tapas includes songs from various parts of Europe, including Spanish, Balkan, Nordic and Italian sources, originally dating back to anywhere within a thousand year time span, interpreted in a very modern way. Current members include: Katerina Göttlichova on lead vocal, cittern, guitar, bagpipes, shawms; Alzbeta Josefy on vocal, davul, darbuka, duf, riq; Karla Braunova on vocal, flutes, recorders, clarinet, shawms, chalumeaux, and bagpipes; and Michala Hrbkova on vocal, fiddle, cittern.  From: https://worldmusiccentral.org/2017/01/09/artist-profiles-braagas/

Lyle Lovett - Live in Dublin 1989

Among the country artists whose music has been labeled 'new traditionalist,' Lyle Lovett is surely the least bound to country-music traditions. The Texan singer and songwriter, who performed at the Beacon Theater on March 18, fuzzes the ordinarily sharp distinctions between country and more urbane pop-rock styles of performance. Onstage, he wears his bushy hair in a tangled post-punk cockscomb and addresses the audience in a tone of deadpan irony.
Although many of his songs deal with loving and losing in an earthy country vernacular, a streak of perverse sexual humor runs through lyrics that tend to portray women as voracious wild animals. And Mr. Lovett's mild-mannered folkish crooning, which shows almost no traces of a Southern rural twang, stands in sharp contrast to his lustier upbeat songs that have strong roots in Texan swing and the blues.
At the March 18 concert, Mr. Lovett performed with an ensemble that included, in addition to an excellent rhythm section, three horn players; a cellist, John Hagen from Austin, Tex., and Francine Reed, a spectacular blues singer from Phoenix who has become a vital staple in his musical entourage. The range of the instrumentation handsomely showcased the stylistic contradictions of Mr. Lovett's music. Embellished with Mr. Hagen's beautiful long-lined cello playing, ballads like 'Closing Time' and 'If I Had a Boat' acquired an extra edge of poignancy. The horn section also gave a brawling, guttural intensity to songs like 'Cryin' Shame,' from Mr. Lovett's bluesy new album.  From: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/26/arts/review-country-lyle-lovett-s-song-styles.html  

Dalila Kayros - Animami

When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What about music and/or sound drew you to it?

In my childhood, I used to sing Italian pop songs mixed with nonsense freestyle lyrics. My passions were music and video games. Lots of songs and sounds drew me into this life. I love many different music genres, and every one of those has something special that motivates my desire.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

I usually dream with sound, even songs! Most of them are on my albums. When I listen to music, new dimensions appear in my mind, and my imagination vibrates. Sound shapes the world around us.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

I work on my inner self-growth, training my awareness. This kind of approach in life reflects the evolution of my artistry.

Please tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist.

Personality is a never-ending development process. From that perspective, identity must be considered fluid. It’s too important to be in constant evolution. My identity is not perfectly defined, so I consider myself a being in progress. That’s why my music has so many influences. Variety is the spice of life!

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

The key ideas behind my approach to music and art are: Letting my mind be able to express my deepest feelings and putting everything under the guidance of my intuition. Most important are listening to music, reading about different subjects, and paying attention to the soundscape I am involved in.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

From my perspective, music has to be a timeless portal to an imaginary future. When that future turns present, then past, it becomes a tradition. There's no contrast between originality, innovation and timelessness and perfection, but I think they are great companions regarding a piece of art. I'd like to add one more ingredient to the "magic formula", which is the artist's deep soul.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools? and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

The main instrument throughout my development has been fostering my culture and living the life I want to live at all costs. Will and constancy are the essentials. The most promising strategy for working with such instruments is finding a way to be happy with yourself, despite all difficulties.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

I love composing concept albums. After choosing the topic of interest, I start my research. Later I let my mind work intuitively by speaking the language of creativity through the archetypes of the inner self. In the case of my last release, Animami, I worked with the electronic musician Danilo Casti. We found the right sound to better express the concept. The music composition process was very collaborative in different ways.  Before recording and composing the whole album, we experimented a lot together by releasing a few live EPs of real-time compositions. That was very intense and useful to dig deeper into the research of our new sound.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Creating music alone is a "mystic trip", and I love it. But every process needs to be powered and renewed through multiple sights. Both solitary and communal activities have the same importance, so being aware of when is the right moment to go private or collaborative is the key.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

My creative work is related to the human inner world. As music is culture, it has the role of connecting people through the grammar of the soul and spirit.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music - both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

The process of composing music is a kind of "magical" activity. During the music composition process, a part of me related to the past dies. A new album means a new me. A new me means that an old me has to die. By experiencing that, I can say death and loss are doors to a new rebirth. On the other hand, during a concert, I feel a great connection to other people and the world around me. In that case, I think I'm experiencing the core of life.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

The connection between music and science is undeniable. Science means research. Sound research expands the borders of musical genres, allowing the constant evolution of that art. Science means innovation as well. In terms of new technologies regarding sound processing, producing and listening stuff, the music grows at the same level as science. As the medium influences the composition of a piece, we cannot think about music without thinking about the medium. So the medium is deeply influenced by science.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

There is not such as a big difference between making a great cup of tea and writing music if you love what you are doing. But you may prefer one particular thing more than everything because it makes you feel your soul connected with your body and your blood as red as never, ever after! That's the music to me.

From: https://15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-dalila-kayros-syk/page-1/

The Seldom Scene - Muddy Waters

The Seldom Scene made a series of landmark albums in the early- to mid-'70s that climaxed with Live at the Cellar Door, a glorious set of 23 songs from the band's broad repertoire. To those familiar with the band's earlier albums, classic pieces like "Rider," "City of New Orleans," and "Small Exception of Me" will be familiar. The initiated will also know that these songs sound just as fabulous live, and that no one would want to miss the seven-minute version of "Rider." A number of tasty items also make their debut here. Mandolinist John Duffey sings a lovely version of Dylan's "Baby Blue," while guitarist John Starling offers a sterling take of Carter Stanley's "The Fields Have Turned Brown." The band's spacious sound, with Tom Gray's ever-present bass and Mike Auldridge's ringing dobro, reproduces well in a live setting. Likewise, the Seldom Scene's trademark three-part harmony loses nothing outside of the more rarified air of the studio. The group, it should be noted, also has a keen sense of humor. The band's old-timey parody of "Hit Parade of Love" is guaranteed to offend anyone addicted to the high-pitched, whiney brand of traditional bluegrass. As if to make up for such effrontery, respectful renditions of "Georgia Rose" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" are also offered. Arguably, the Seldom Scene never got any better than this. Live at the Cellar Door is a progressive bluegrass classic, and sounds as fresh and alive today as it did in 1975.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/live-at-the-cellar-door-mw0000203934#review 

The Nields - Check It Out

We Nields have never had a number one hit single on the radio, nor have we appeared on National TV on a late night talk show.We’ve never ridden on a tour bus and we’ve (sadly) never had action figures made to resemble our personages. Nevertheless, in the 8 years of our existence, we feel we’ve lived the full gamut of a rock and roll career worthy of a VH1 Where Are They Now? special. For the first seven years, we were widely touted as The Next Big Thing, which was fun for awhile, though we tired of well meaning friends saying, “I had an idea for you!You guys should be on Conan! If you went on Conan, you’d be famous!”(Courteously, we’d thank each one of these good people, saying, “Yes, what a fine idea! Why didn’t we think of that earlier?” While inside we were tempted to grow bitter and cruel, self-mocking and depressed. But we fought this temptation with all our might!) As obedient Next-Big-Things-To-Be, we left our homes in February, 1996 to chase the Rock and Roll Dream in our sweet Dodge Ram Van, Moby, all the while fantasizing about traveling in a tour bus. We played in venues ranging from beautiful theaters, gorgeous outdoor festivals to little scummy clubs redolent with beer and excrement, with dressing room graffiti that would make Marilyn Manson blush.
We wrote what we hoped and prayed were catchy sell-out hit singles only to have our record company A&R guy and our publisher tell us they were merely “more cerebral Nields songs about teen agers.” Rats! we cried. By the fall of 1997, our van, Moby, began a slow and excruciating death march across Texas. News from the home front was that our record company, Guardian, was about to fold. When we called them, concerned for their health, they said, “What are you doing talking to us on the phone?! Get back on the road–we need you to keep promoting Gotta Get Over Greta.” “But we have so many new songs!”we whined. “We want to make a new record. Or two.” “Tough,” they said kindly but with tough love.”We’re busy trying not to become a nonentity. Your petty concerns distract us. Meanwhile, go to California where we have a gig for you that will make you famous, put you on TV and in magazines and get you a tour bus. ”Obediently (for we were nothing if not obedient!), we flew to California to become famous, finding ourselves in the Bloomingdale’s at the Stanford Mall, performing a song about a teen age prostitute to a group of extremely nervous and self conscious fifteen-year-old-winners of an amateur model search (as well as the losers-they weren’t so happy either.) Curiously, this did not directly lead to our fame and fortune, or even a mention in Seventeen Magazine. For the rest of the fall, we played all over the North American continent. In late October, 1997, we took a break in Sewickly, PA to learn the backlog of new songs we’d accumulated. This was the smartest thing we’d done in years. For when the record company did fall, and we found ourselves with no van to travel around in, in that darkest hour between 1997 and 1998, we looked around the room at each other’s dear faces and shrugged. Someone said, “We can still play.” Well, play we did. We hunkered down at Sackamusic Studio in Amherst and spent the next third of a year recording the 13&1/2 songs on ‘Play’, determined to create something that would make our fans proud of us. On June 13, 1998 we held a fundraising concert called Jam for the Van and bought a new van (Nessie, the Loch Ness Vanster) to replace Moby, and that same month, we signed a record deal with Zoe/Rounder/Mercury/PolyGram on the theory that if one record company buys you lunch, four must feed you for at least four meals.  From: https://nerissanields.com/how-play-came-to-be-and-how-we-came-to-play/

The Grass Roots - Let's Live For Today

The Grass Roots was originated by the writer/producer team of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri as a pseudonym under which they would release a body of Byrds/Beau Brummels-style folk-rock. Sloan and Barri were contracted songwriters for Trousdale Music, the publishing arm of Dunhill Records, which wanted to cash in on the folk-rock boom of 1965. Dunhill asked Sloan and Barri to come up with this material, and a group alias under which they would release it. The resulting "Grass Roots" debut song, "Where Were You When I Needed You," sung by Sloan, was sent to a Los Angeles radio station, which began playing it. The problem was, there was no "Grass Roots." The next step was to recruit a band that could become the Grass Roots. Sloan found a San Francisco group called the Bedouins that seemed promising on the basis of their lead singer, Bill Fulton. Fulton recorded a new vocal over the backing tracks laid down for the P.F. Sloan version of the song. The Bedouins were, at first, content to put their future in the hands of Sloan and Barri as producers, despite the fact that the group was more blues-oriented than folk-rock. However, the rest of the group was offended when Fulton was told to record their debut single, a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of a Thin Man," backed by studio musicians. When that single, released in October of 1965, became only a modest hit, the Bedouins -- except for their drummer, Joel Larson -- departed for San Francisco, to re-form as the Unquenchable Thirst. Sloan and Barri continued to record.
Amid the machinations behind Where Were You When I Needed You, no "real" Grass Roots band existed in 1966. A possible solution came along when a Los Angeles band called the 13th Floor submitted a demo tape to Dunhill. This group, consisting of Warren Entner (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Creed Bratton (lead guitar), Rob Grill (vocals, bass), and Rick Coonce (drums), was recruited and offered the choice of recording under their own name, or to take over the name the Grass Roots, put themselves in the hands of Sloan and Barri, and take advantage of the Grass Roots' track record. They chose the latter, with Rob Grill as primary lead vocalist. The first track cut by the new Grass Roots in the spring of 1967 was "Let's Live for Today," a new version of a song that had been an Italian hit, in a lighter, more up-tempo version, for a band called the Rokes. "Let's Live for Today" was an achingly beautiful, dramatic, and serious single and it shot into the Top Ten upon its release in the summer of 1967.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-grass-roots-mn0000070773#biography 

Shawn Colvin - Orion in the Sky

The first Shawn Colvin album I listened to, A Few Small Repairs (1996), was the commercial breakthrough, and though following by a full five years, the next, A Whole New You (2001), was the pop-oriented follow-up. But Fat City is a project of a very different context. Following her Grammy-winning debut Steady On (1989), Fat City features an artist not yet widely known to the average radio listener, yet also prominent and respected enough to earn guest appearances from musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, and Richard Thompson. These musicians had realized what everyone else was in the process of discovering: that Colvin is a seriously good songwriter.
Fat City opens with “Polaroids,” perhaps the most obviously folk song on the album by virtue of its repeated acoustic guitar progression and its storytelling. (The delineation between pop and folk is, to my ears, pretty vague most of the time.) It’s a compelling piece, weaving a lyrically beautiful story of an inevitably fading intercontinental relationship. From a musical standpoint, I enjoy the way the music of the verses tenses toward the end, but not at the end, returning to the steadier, calmer progression for a few more bars after. Featuring also a beautiful guitar solo on, evidently, Weisenborn Hawaiian guitar (I don’t believe I’ve seen that credit on an album before), “Polaroids” is an effective start to what proves to be a very good album.
There are a number of highlights here. After the comparably subdued “Polaroids,” Colvin kicks up the tempo with the country rock-styled “Tennessee,” an engaging track featuring prominent banjo and the aforementioned Richard Thompson on electric guitar. One prominent element of this album, perhaps first on clear display here, is that Colvin’s vocal performance is terrific. She seems especially engaged with the material, and the sound is very much as if the performance is live, guitar in hand, leading the band behind her. I don’t know how producer Larry Klein actually recorded this album, and given the litany of session men providing the instrumentation Colvin was most likely not working with a full unit at any time, but it feels that way and that’s what counts, because it creates a tangible energy that takes the material at times to another level.
“Round of Blues” is a winner too, a driving composition with an airy, breezy chorus that not only engages on its own, but also works wonderfully as a lead-in to a fantastic harmonic bridge. It’s a favorite, as is “Orion in the Sky,” a six-and-a-half-minute track that earns its length with a poetic lyric and a hell of a climax in the last couple minutes.  From: https://friendlyfiremusic.tumblr.com/post/128108736178/shawn-colvin-fat-city-1992-harrison-reviews

Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is A Star

This song is about how everyone is equal and how people try to change themselves to be what the media wants them to be. For black individuals, it can be about how we try to change ourselves to "act white" but in the end the system brings us down, yet we bring ourselves back up with the help of our people. This was released as a double-A-side single with "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." The single went to #1 in the US, so under Billboard methodology at the time, the chart position is attributed to both songs combined. Like many Sly & the Family Stone songs of this era - "Everyday People" and "Stand!" among them - "Everybody Is A Star" has a message of togetherness and self-worth. These songs were set against joyful melodies that kept them from sounding preachy. They went over very well at live shows where a sense of community formed. The nonsense chorus ("ba pa-pa-pa ba...") actually makes a lot of sense - it's about the power of music, which can speak without words. In this case, the rhythmic syllables play against horn lines in a very similar fashion to Otis Redding's 1966 track "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song).”
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sly-the-family-stone/everybody-is-a-star

Remember how, in my post on “Everyday People,” I joked how it would be kind of impossible to see Sly Stone as one of the titular everyday people, given all of his talent and how his music was topping the charts? Well, he figured out a way around that conundrum, because of course he did. If Sly Stone, the star was everyday people, then it could only follow that everyday people were also stars!
Compared to the hard, dark funk of “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” — which with it shared a 45RPM single, “Everybody is a Star” was a relatively normal slow soul song, full of lazy horns, glowing organ and of course the trademark vocal trade-offs between Sly, Rose Stone, Larry Graham and Freddie Stone.
But, of course, it is gorgeous, and the “everybody is a star” message still resonates in the social media era, maybe even more than it did in the late 60s. And, on top of all of that, “Everybody Is A Star” has a tremendous hook that takes over the back half of the song. With a great arrangement that stopped the song for each and every one of those “ooooooooohs,” “Everybody is A Star” never got out of second gear, but they were smart enough to know it didn’t need to. And so while — technically — “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” was the song that got the credit for topping the charts, it probably wouldn’t have gotten there without “Everybody is A Star.”
As it turns out, “Everybody is A Star” was probably the last gasp of Sly Stone’s utopianism, as the toll of drugs and stardom and drugs sent him spiraling inwards — hell, the flipside of the single (which we’ll discuss tomorrow, duh) was literally about him dealing with, well, everything.
And, of course, both songs — plus “Hot Fun in the Summertime” — were going to be the anchor for Sly & The Family Stone’s much anticipated follow-up to Stand!, due out in 1970. But, of course, that follow-up never materialized, and all three songs made it to the epochal Greatest Hits album, instead.  From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-2260-sly-the-family-stone-everybody-is-a-star/


Belly - Silverfish

Belly’s King was recorded by engineer/producer Glyn Johns at Compass Point studios in Nassau. Johns had worked on Let it Be, Let it Bleed, Stage Fright, Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin (just to take the five biggest titles from his discography). Working with a guy like that was an extremely unusual move for an alternative rock band in 1995, when every record label just wanted Andy Wallace or, if he wasn’t available, one of those Lord Alge brothers with that new-fangled drum sound of theirs. Johns was as old school as it got, and his work on King made it stand out a mile. Johns encouraged the band to record the album live: two guitars, bass and drums, all together, all bleeding into each other. Even the vocals. “Any band that can play a gig can play live in a studio,” he’s said. “There was no backup plan.”
This was not standard industry practice in 1995, and in 2016 is practically unheard of. When you record this way, every microphone contains ambient sound as well as the direct sound of whatever instrument the microphone is primarily picking up. Bass goes into the guitar mics. Drums go into the bass amp mic. Everything goes into everything else. Fine, if the band can play well. But because nothing can be edited independent of any other sound source, it’s a method of recording that forces you either to not make mistakes, or to make them and live with them.
King is full of mistakes. It’s a document of a band, and a band that were, for all their many virtues, not Steely Dan. Donelly’s voice cracks. Chris Gorman’s drums threaten to fall apart on Seal My Fate and Silverfish. Gail Greenwood hardly gets on a one in 45 minutes. Real-time fader and pan-pot moves are plainly audible. It sounds great. I wouldn’t want to hear it mixed any other way.
This sound is perfect for the set of songs Donelly had written (largely in collaboration with Tom Gorman). Less surreal and sinister than the songs on Star, King tracks like Judas My Heart and The Bees still demonstrate that quality of prime-era Donelly: a gorgeous, indelible melody coupled with a lyric that seeks to hide its vulnerability behind images and symbols, the urge to be plainspoken and honest fighting with the urge to protect oneself.
At this point, the record’s slower, more interior-looking songs – The Bees, Seal My Fate and Silverfish – are my favourites, but if sparkly, guitar-heavy pop is more your thing, King has plenty of that, too. Red, Super-Connected and Now They’ll Sleep are all neglected White Album-ish classics, and the title track is a grindy, initially unpromising grower that halfway through suddenly becomes something else entirely.
Star is the record that Belly will be remembered for, and it’s obvious why. Its best songs are extremely portable. Taken out of their context and played on the radio or placed on a iTunes playlist, Gepetto and Feed the Tree sound just wonderful. Star has some great second-tier material, too. Dusted. Slow Dog. Sad Dress. White Belly. I love them all. But King? King is timeless. King is its own thing.  From: https://songsfromsodeep.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/king-by-belly/

Planxty - Johnny Cope

Most of us probably first heard the epic six-part Johnny Cope as it opened Planxty’s third album, “Cold Blow and a Rainy Night”, but Johnny’s journey starts much earlier than that. The tune is strongly associated with Irish traditional music, but actually began life in Scotland. The song sung by Planxty originated with Adam Skivring, who wrote it in 1745 to lampoon Sir John Cope, commander-in-chief of the English forces in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans at the start of the 1745 Jacobite uprising, where he was very decisively defeated by Bonnie Prince Charlie. If the lyrics are any judge, he was more than a bit of a coward about the whole thing, although the court martial did find otherwise. There are opinions that the melody was derived from an even earlier tune, rather than composed by Skivring. However, for the sake of containing the article, let us put this as the starting point of Johnny Cope’s march from Scotland.
The trail of Johnny Cope’s passage can be traced to page 19 of the second volume of James Aird’s 1792 collection of Scotch, English, Irish, and Foreign Airs, where a four-part version is found that bears quite a strong resemblance to the current favourite setting. Aird published his collections in Glasgow, and prominence was given to Scottish melodies, and in addition the title refers to an event of significance to the Scottish, so the tune surely started life in Scotland. The question then becomes, how did this Scottish melody become so paradigmatically Irish?
The tune shows up in one of the early Irish bagpipe music collections, O’Farrell’s Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (“Being a Grand Selection of Favorite Tunes both Scotch and Irish etc”), in Vol 3, page 51, published between 1804 and 1810, where it is almost identical to the setting in Aird’s, and this may be the first instance of the tune found in a primarily Irish context. However, there was a lot of “borrowing” (nowadays we would likely call it plagiarism) and O’Farrell did label this one as “Scotch”, so it’s unlikely that it was thought of as Irish, yet. The melody appears again in Scotland, this time in the Edinburgh Repository of Music, vol 2 p. 30, published around 1818. This is once again a four-part setting, however there are significant differences, and especially the fourth part in this version has changed significantly.
Another setting of the tune is found in Howe’s The Musician’s Companion part 2, p. 49, published in Boston in 1843. This one is a bit of an oddity, and features a whopping eight parts. It’s worth noting this version because it shows that the tune had spread to America. Also curious is the note that it is “A favorite English Air.” Back in Scotland we find the Ross’s Collection of Pipe Music, where a martial version of the melody is presented in five parts, published around 1869. In the 1880s, James Kerr published twelve volumes of music, four of them called Merry Melodies, which include jigs, reels, and other lively tunes. Volume 3 contains a two-part version of Johnny Cope.
We’ll now check back in with Irish music collections, and start with largest collector of Irish music, the Chief himself, Captain Francis O’Neill, collector of music, and Superintendent of the Chicago Police. In O’Neill’s Music of Ireland (published 1903) we find tucked away in the Marches and Miscellaneous section, a curious two-part tune called Johnny Cope. In his Irish Music (published 1915 and arranged with piano harmonies), we find a reprint of a version published in a mysterious collection called The Repository of Scots & Irish Airs, with a note from O’Neill regarding the Irishness of the tune: “A footnote in Wood’s Songs of Scotland states that this old air originally consisted of one strain. The chorus or burden of a silly song, adapted to it was the first strain repeated an octave higher. The simple air although claimed as Scotch is in the Irish style and known all over Ireland. The above setting without the harmonization was copied from, ‘The Repository of Scots and Irish Airs’ – printed in 1799.” This setting is listed as being in March time.  From: https://rushymountain.com/2017/10/06/johnny-cope/

Carole King - Really Rosie - Side 1

Really Rosie is a musical with a book and lyrics by Maurice Sendak and music by Carole King. The musical is based on Sendak's books Chicken Soup with Rice, Pierre, One was Johnny, Alligators All Around (which comprise 1962's The Nutshell Library), and The Sign on Rosie's Door (1960). Sendak based the story on a demonstrative little girl who used to sing and dance on the stoop of her building, whom he observed while he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn. The show follows a typical summer day in the life of the Nutshell Kids, a group of several neighborhood friends, including Pierre, Alligator, Johnny, and Chicken Soup from the Nutshell Library books, and Rosie and Kathy from The Sign on Rosie's Door. Rosie, the self-proclaimed sassiest kid on her block of Brooklyn's Avenue P, entertains everyone by directing and starring in a movie based on the exciting, dramatic, funny (and slightly exaggerated) story of her life.
A half-hour animated television special aired on CBS TV on February 19, 1975. It was directed by Maurice Sendak, animated by Ronald Fritz and Dan Hunn of D&R Productions Inc., with Carole King voicing the title character. King was ultimately selected as the voice of Rosie when casting directors had difficulty selecting a child actor whose voice could complement the pre-recorded songs. An album of the songs by King and lyrics by Sendak is available on Ode Records. In the animated special, only the first seven songs and Really Rosie (Reprise) were showcased.
Sendak expanded the piece for London and Washington, DC stage productions in 1978, and an off-Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch with designs by Sendak, which opened on October 14, 1980, at the Westside Theatre, where it ran for 274 performances. During its off-Broadway run, the lead role of Rosie was first played by a then-12-year-old Tisha Campbell-Martin. Midway through the run, Tisha left the cast and was replaced by cast member and "Rosie" understudy Angela Coin, age 10. Angela also sang the role of "Rosie" on the cast recording.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Rosie 

Chicago - Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon

The first question to understanding the rock suite Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon is defining “suite.” A textbook definition is a good place to start. A suite is defined as a composition “made up of a number of movements, each like a dance and all the same key or related keys.” Suites originated in France in prototypical form and reached their apex in Germany during the Baroque era of the 17th century. The tempos of the movements quickened and slowed to give the dancers variety. Jimmy’s main inspiration from the Baroque era was Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. In the liner notes to Claude Bolling’s “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano” (a very sweet album), Bobby Finn wrote about the “great fluctuation of mood within the movements” and the “constant dialogue between the jazz and classical elements which seem to fight, to interrupt, to stimulate, to mimic, and even to embrace each other.” It is easy to also think of Ballet with this description. Jimmy’s own invention and synthesis could be recognizable across the centuries if Bach could attend a Chicago concert or listen to Chicago II.  
Each movement in a suite is enhanced by the contrasting movements around it, the beauty and grace of Colour My World are made more wonderful by the intricacy and complexity of West Virginia Fantasies. Each of the movements has its own feel and identity, the whole bigger than the sum of its parts because of the contrasts and relationships. In Baroque style, movements may have changes between complementary keys. In this rock suite, key changes are handled in more than one way. Sometimes they are modulations using pivot chords (a chord that is found in both keys) or the key changes using measures with no chords as transitions. Time signature changes abound as well, a characteristic feature of many Chicago tunes. This constant dynamism of key, tempo, time signature, and texture, provides an energy that keeps ears perked and blood racing, something that everyone can feel whether or not one has any background in music theory. In essence, Jimmy makes his challenging composition accessible to a very wide audience without compromising what is complex and technical.
In Make Me Smile alone, we hear three different keys. The introduction is in the key of Ab, modulating to C minor after the chord of Absus4 acts as a pivot chord. The key shifts again to E minor in the B section. Terry’s guitar solo in this section kicks off with a fiery 16th note riff that is something that jazz fans might recognize as originating as a classic horn riff, similar to Lee Morgan’s trumpet solo in Moanin’ by the Jazz Messengers. The key changes again for the last four measures, back to Eb to segue into So Much To Say, So Much To Give. In this transition between the first two movements, the woodwinds and brass give the mood a rather forlorn quality. This second movement of the suite features Robert Lamm’s only lead vocal in the suite, his excellent performance perfectly capturing the impassioned plea of the lyrics. Throughout Ballet, the vocals and instruments express a full range of human emotion through music, perfectly symbolic considering the theme and subject of the suite.
The next two movements, Anxiety’s Moment and West Virginia Fantasies together form a mid section of the suite. The communion between Lee Loughnane’s trumpet and Walter Parazaider’s flute in West Virginia Fantasies holds a uniqueness not just in Chicago’s repertoire but in rock and roll overall. Their perfect execution exposes their formal training at DePaul University and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Lee trained on trumpet with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Walter was a clarinet protege of the CSO’s clarinetist Jerome Stowell. (I do wonder if Lee learned his valve vibrato on his own or from one of his professors!) When Walter comes in on flute, he’s playing in harmony with Lee; then their parts diverge into counterpoint, two independent melodic lines. This approach is echoed by Terry Kath’s guitar and Robert’s organ in the next section of the movement. Writing for a band such as Chicago, a veritable rock orchestra, surely must have opened up the possibilities of what the writers, particularly Jimmy and Robert, could put on paper. Not only did a composition this technical have to be executed in the studio but on stage as well, and Ballet is no mere jam session.  
The transition to Colour My World is a dramatic one. The tempo is taken down, the time signature shifts to a triplet feel in 12/8, and the change from brass and woodwinds to a simple acoustic piano provides for a beautiful shock. Again, Jimmy’s training and instincts as a writer inform the modulation to the key of F with C7 as the pivot chord between the last measures of West Virginia Fantasies to the opening arpeggio of Fmaj7. The arpeggios flow over unexpected changes inside and outside the key. Jimmy further proves his gift for melody with his direction of the flute solo, quite different from Walter’s own sometimes avant-garde style even though it is one of his most famous solos. Still, Walter brings his own warm, breathy tone and expressiveness directly from the soul. As a whole, Colour My World, often unfairly characterized as maudlin, is sophisticated pop perfection.
The suite finishes with the grand finale of To Be Free and Now More Than Ever, featuring the highly rhythmic strumming that is quintessentially Terry Kath, the horns blowing full bore, showing just how wedded Jimmy’s horn arrangements are to the essential melodies and identities of the tunes. Now More Than Ever reprises Make Me Smile, acting as a bookend and building to a jubilant conclusion. For the final measures, Jimmy’s trombone appropriately takes the fore in a proudly accented solo, a grand finale of his epic composition.  From: https://hornbandreviews.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/jimmy-pankows-opus-ballet-for-a-girl-in-buchannon-by-stephanie-carta/

Animated Music Videos - Ape School - Wail to God / Chelou - Halfway to Nowhere / Cuushe - Airy Me / Mumiy Troll - Moshka / Tenacious D - Classico / The Bobby Lees - Be My Enemy / Trash Talk - The Great Escape

 Ape School - Wail to God

 

 Chelou - Halfway to Nowhere

 

 Cuushe - Airy Me

 

 Mumiy Troll - Moshka

 

 

Tenacious D - Classico

 The Bobby Lees - Be My Enemy

 

 Trash Talk - The Great Escape

 

Ape School is the moniker of Michael Johnson, a multi-instrumentalist studio wiz based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was previously a member of the indie rock bands Holopaw and Lilys. He made his debut as Ape School in 2009 in association with Ninja Tune.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ape-school-mn0001061374#biography

The “Halfway to Nowhere” video was made with illustrator Polly Nor, whose work explores female sexuality, insecurities, past pains, and future desires with a frankness and dark sense of humour that’s rarely seen in the media. Guts, hair, dirty rooms, devils and sensory greenery are recurring images in her work, and her video for Chelou (created with animator Andy Baker) includes them all. “The story follows a woman trapped in a grotesque and devilish manifestation of her subconscious,” says Nor. “Lost in this strange place, she’s led to confront her demons and make peace with herself.”  From: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/33775/1/chelou-halfway-to-nowhere-polly-nor-video

Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi, better known by her stage name Cuushe, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer from Kyoto. She is based in Tokyo. She is one half of the duo Neon Cloud along with Geskia. In a 2012 interview with Dazed, Cuushe cited "musician friends, movies, and sadness" as her top 3 musical inspirations. Colin Joyce of Pitchfork wrote, "The wispy-voiced Tokyo songwriter is nominally a dream-pop act, indulgent in the stirring static and hushed whispers that have become requisite for the genre."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuushe

Taking their name from a character in the famous children's books of Tovi Jansson, Mumiy Troll have become one of Russia's most popular and critically acclaimed contemporary pop/rock acts of the '90s and 2000s. Centered around the offbeat romantic lyrics and intelligent, charismatic presence of songwriter and frontman Ilya Lagutenko, the band has developed separately from the rest of the Russian music scene, opting to work with foreign producers and recording the majority of it’s work in England. Although experimenting with different musical genres over the years, Mumiy Troll have developed an idiosyncratic sound placed halfway between traditional Russian rock and Brit-pop.  From:  https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mumiy-troll-mn0000984476#biography

Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo formed in Los Angeles in 1994 by the actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass. Their music showcases Black's theatrical vocal delivery and Gass' acoustic guitar playing. Critics have described their fusion of vulgar absurdist comedy with rock music as "mock rock". Their songs discuss the duo's purported musical and sexual prowess, their friendship and cannabis usage, in a style critics have compared with the storyteller-style lyrics of rock opera. Prior to the release of the 2001 debut album Tenacious D, the duo had a three-episode TV series released on HBO between 1997 and 2000. The series came about after they met David Cross on the LA music scene and Black featured in episodes of Mr. Show with Bob and David. The band befriended the musician Dave Grohl, which began a relationship between Grohl's band the Foo Fighters and Tenacious D. Towards the end of the 1990s, the duo supported large rock acts such as Weezer, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Beck.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenacious_D

The Bobby Lees are an American rock music group founded in 2018 in Woodstock, New York. The band comprises vocalist and guitarist Sam Quartin, bassist Kendall Wind, drummer Macky Bowman, and guitarist Nick Casa. The band's name originates from a hallucination experienced by Sam Quartin, in which she believed she saw a ghost named Bobby Lee. The song Bobby Lee, from their debut album, was written based on this experience.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bobby_Lees

Trash Talk got their start playing DIY venues in Northern California more than a decade ago. They've since gone on to play their hardcore punk in front of crowds at music festivals like Coachella and Camp Flog Gnaw. The music they play is fast. It's loud. Very aggressive. Think along the lines of Black Flag or Suicidal Tendencies with a bit of thrash metal thrown in.  From: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889433987/hardcore-punk-band-trash-talk

 

 Ape School

 

Chelou

Cuushe

Mumiy Troll

Tenacious D

The Bobby Lees

 

 

Trash Talk