Ever listened to an album by a band that was so good, you bought other albums by the same band, thinking they would all be good? Wasn’t it disappointing when they weren’t?
That was the fear which fueled my reluctance to explore the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich.
Kronos Quartet introduced me to Shostakovich’s Quartet for Strings, No. 8, and it rocketed to the top of my favorite classical music works on first listen. (Kronos’ Black Angels is an essential album for anyone who wishes to explore the repertoire of the 20th century.)
I loved the Eighth Quartet so much, I didn’t want to spoil it by potentially being disappointed by the other 14 quartets in his catalog. Of course, I would turn out to be wrong.
I call any disc that contains Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 14, 23 and 8 as a "piano student album".
Those three sonatas — the "Moonlight" (No. 14), the "Appassionata" (No. 23) and the "Pathetique" (No. 8) — are standard repertoire for any degree-seeking music major concentrating on piano performance. And more than likely, you’ll find all three pieces offered for budget prices by every major classical label.
I bought the Vladimir Ashkenazy disc because it was on sale.
With that flurry of writing from the last two weeks, I think I’m caught up with everything about which I wanted to write.
So that means I have to go out and find new stuff, or go ahead and write about stuff I’ve been putting off. Till I decide either way, I’ve got a few things occupying my playlist, and I’ll write about them in better detail later.
Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere. As much hype as there is surrounding this album, Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse make a great pairing.
Zoobombs, Vamos a Baillar. This band is still a lot of fun.
Supercar, 16/50. I stopped myself from exploring the band’s earlier years because it was too expensive to be so invested, but it looks like I’ll probably end up spending that cash anyway.
Dmitri Shostakovich, The String Quartets (Fitzwilliam Quartet) The Fitzwilliam cycle was recommended to me as the best interpretations of Shostakovich’s quartets, and while the Kronos recording of the Quartet for Strings, No. 8 made me fall in love with the piece, the Fitzwilliam performance has plenty more fire.
In order to determine whether I want to expend the calories to review an album, I have to listen to it in part or on whole. I’m at the point in my life where I don’t want to spend time subjecting myself to an album where I end up having no opinion about it. Having no opinion about something is worse than having a negative opinion about it. At least with the latter, there’s fodder from which to write.
At times, I end up spinning an album from an artist I like, thinking I’ll feature it but ending up with the dreaded lack of opinion. And I could have spent that time listening to something I do like.
So I’m going to make the Slush Pile an occassional review round-up. I may not have an opinion about something I encounter, but it still leaves some sort of impression.
"The Pills Stopped Working" is the pinnacle track on Hem’s third studio album, Funnel Cloud. It also effectively kills the album.
Having mastered a lyrical, pastoral style of songwriting, Hem had only one way to challenge itself — write something in a quick tempo.
The two songs sporting this newer, extroverted style — "Too Late to Turn Back Now" and "The Pills Stopped Working" — mark the midpoint of the album. It’s a welcome change the band handles incredibly well.
There’s a bit of Engrish word play happening when UA and Kikuchi Naruyoshi bill cure jazz as a "standard jazz" album.
Indeed, there are jazz standards on the album, but the strictly acoustic setting — not a pop hook or an exotic sample to be found anywhere — makes it a "standard jazz" album.
In classic UA fashion, she once again challenges her listeners by making another seismic creative shift. It’s fitting with the big band abandon of Sun and the avant-garde electronics of Breathe.
Like Number Girl or fra-foa, the sum of Supercar was greater than its parts. The chemistry between the band’s four members — Nakamura Koji, Furukawa Miki, Ishiwatari Junji and Tozawa Kodai — gave Supercar a forceful presence as a unit.
Now that unit has disbanded, and it’s a challenge for a listener (that is, me) to see past the whole and to appreciate the individuals.
Ishiwatari and Tozawa have gone onto production and session work. Nakamura embarked on an impenetrable electronica project named iLL. Furukawa, on the other hand, picks up where Supercar left off.
Mirrors, Furukawa’s debut solo album, features the mix of British rock and electronica that fueled Supercar’s muse.
I can appreciate from where Love Psychedelico comes. The duo loves their classic rock, but there’s little point in slavishly recreating that era’s low-tech sound. So they indulge in the convenience of a drum machine or the cleanliness of a studio environment.
And it’s not like they’ve written bad songs.
But it wasn’t evident just how much gets lost in the studio till Love Psychedelico recorded some performances at Budokan for its live album, Live Psychedelico.
The band is on fire from the start, and the songs possess an energy lacking on their original recordings.
I’ve been using eMusic as something of a preview and back-up service. I’ll download an album on eMusic, and if I like enough, I’ll buy a CD and use my download from eMusic as a back-up in the unlikely chance something goes awry with the CD.
Some stuff I don’t feel too attached to get a CD, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it. (I may not love it …)
I’m usually a big fanboy when it comes to the works of Wayne Horvitz and Robin Holcomb. But I’ve been spinning the latest releases from both composers, and I just don’t feel it.
Horvitz released Whispers, Hymns and a Murmur on John Zorn’s Tzadik label back in February, while his first recording with his new ensemble Gravitas Quartet followed in June. Holcomb released John Brown’s Body also in June and also on Tzadik.
I considered this avalanche of releases a boon, until I listened to all three discs.