What are you listening to? July 2017

[Unsomnambulist]

Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997)

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Queens Of The Stone Age - s/t (1998)

 

[Pops]

Lotus Ash - The Evening Redness

 

[axolotl]

Robert Glasper Experiment ~ArtScience (2016)

 

[Ojai Sam]

^
How did you like it, Axo?

The Smothers Brothers - "It Must Have Been Something I Said!" (1964)

 

[axolotl]

^
How did you like it, Axo?

I liked it. It wasn't what I would say is my typical style, but it resonated at some level with me.

The musicianship is good. I wasn't expecting 14 songs at five minutes apiece, though. The CD runs over an hour by 10 minutes.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Ty Segall - Fried Shallots (2017)

 

[lpfreak1170]

The Boomtown Rats - The Fine Art Of Surfacing


Really good album. Diamond Smiles is great.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

The Mars Volta - Frances The Mute (2005)

 

[JazzyRandy]

Rich Brown - Abeng _2016_

though Brown's use of his fretless electric bass as a lead voice favorably recalls Jaco Pastorius' tenure in Weather Report, Abeng is more intensely colored by the music of Brown's past and current associates, namely Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dapp Theory, and Steve Lehman (to name a few). These 21st Century influences are most evident in the brainy, plugged-in nu-fusion of "The Etymology of Ouch," "Achilles and the Tortoise," and "Mahishmatish." Drummer Larnell Lewis' playing on these tracks, and really throughout the entire album, is utterly astounding.

 

[axolotl]

Hank Mobley ~ Workout (1962)

 

[Markonomicon]

311 "Universal Pulse"

 

[axolotl]

Steven Bernstein ~ Diaspora Blues (2002) [Tzadik]



The Jew demanded that the chazzan, through his music, make him forget his actual life, and that he elevate him on the wings of his tunes into a fantastical paradisiacal world.... The main basis of Semitic and Jewish music is the minor scale which, at a very late date, came to be considered of a melancholy character by the Anglo-Saxon only. ~ Abraham Idelsohn

Steven Bernstein: trumpet and slide trumpet
Sam Rivers: tenor sax, soprano sax, flute
Doug Mathews: acoustic bass, bass clarinet
Anthony Cole: drums, tenor sax

I set myself up not to like this, but it won me over quickly. It is avant-garde, it is modal, it is elegiac. It is never tawdry or cliched. Of special note is the percussion of Anthony Cole, who holds everything together with measured beats and sparse fills, if that makes any sense.

I actually give it :3.75: stars, with an option for higher stars. It is reminiscent of ECM New Jazz.

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Sons Of Kyuss - s/t (1990)

 

[Pops]

Fatso Jetson - Cruel & Delicious

 

[axolotl]

Herbie Hancock ~ Takin' Off (1962)

 

[Pops]

Bong - Live at the St. Mary's Old Church and Burial Grounds

 

[Mattafett]

On vinyl

 

[axolotl]

Chris Brokaw ~ Wandering as Water (2003)

 

[Unsomnambulist]

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)