Category: Reviews

On the playlist, or disruption

I spent most of December listening to the titles on the last On the playlist round-up because I was summoned to Honolulu for a family emergency. In short, my dad passed away.

It’s a saga I detail over at VexVox, but I pretty much flew out to Hawaiʻi at a moment’s notice, bringing only my most recent purchases. I wasn’t really in the frame of mind to shop for music — not that it stopped me from heading to Book-Off at Shirokiya in Ala Moana — so growth of the backlog was somewhat mitigated.

In fact, only two of these titles are actual physical purchases.

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On the playlist, or need more workout music

New job + workout inertia = 10-lb. gain.

August is no month to be working up a sweat in Austin, because thirty seconds outside will do that for you. So I opted to skip the gym for that entire month. But a slight change in my workout schedule managed to throw off my eating habits, and in due time, I packed on 10 pounds in the span of a summer.

So I’ve been hitting the elliptical machine mighty hard since September, which has staved off the gain but has not promoted any weight loss.

This past month has been following something of a new music theme, which is not conducive for thirty minutes at 160 strides per minute. So I need some new workout music because I need something other than Tokyo Jihen’s Sports to mark my pace.

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The Slush Pile, or adjustment period redux

It’s been three months since I started my new job, and I think the upheaval of such a change is just starting to settle down. (Evident in the fact I’ve made a virtual avalanche of posts.)

The job is busy enough to keep me off of social media for most of the day, and I actually like the fact I’m writing on my own time. Of course, it’s usually at 3 a.m. on those nights when I conk out on the futon too early.

The backlog, however, has gotten bigger these past months. I was proud when I managed to get it under 60 hours a few months ago. It’s sky-rocketed back up to 80.

So it’s time to clear out the slush pile.

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Duran Duran: Seven and the Ragged Tiger (Special Edition)

By the time Duran Duran recorded Seven and the Ragged Tiger, the band had turned into international superstars. Touring kept them out of the studio, which meant little in the way of archival material.

The special edition of Seven and the Ragged Tiger does not hold any surprises for diligent fans who snatched up the singles boxed set from 2004 or the 12-inch compilations from the late ’90s.

"Is There Something I Should Know?" suffers from something of an identity crisis. US fans probably associate the track with the band’s self-titled debut, which shoe-horned the track in a 1983 reissue that came in the wake of the success of Rio. (I, for one, keep expecting to hear it after "Careless Memories".)

The track appears as a bonus, along with two versions of the B-side "Faith in This Colour". Of course, there’s "Secret Oktober" and the dance mix of "The Reflex", which is far superior than the album mix.

Very familiar territory for the schooled Duranie. That leaves the videos, which is where the true value of this reissue lies.

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Duran Duran: Duran Duran (Special Edition)

Here’s how far I’ve fallen as a Duranie: I didn’t know there was a controversy surrounding the expanded reissue of Duran Duran’s self-titled album.

Yes, I thought it was odd the camera clicks at the start of "Girls on Film" cut out, and I thought I just made a faulty rip to my computer, until I discovered it was actually on the recording itself. I shrugged it off as a bad pressing but didn’t think too much of it.

I still have the remastered version of this album from 2004, and my aim in purchasing this reissue were for the extras — demos and videos.

Then I read EMI’s statement admitting to the glitch and standing by it. Andy Taylor, who left the band twice, gave his indignant reaction, and given what I know about Duranies, I didn’t bother to comb any Internet fan communities to gauge the consumer outrage.

Me? I’ve bought this damn album multiple times, and I have no shortage of versions to which I can listen. I’m not lacking in "Girls on Film" or "Planet Earth".

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Alarm Will Sound: a/rhythmia

When I was studying music in college, the history course emphasized the evolution of harmonic language, from the dominance of the perfect fifth in the Middle Ages to the unresolved cadences of Richard Wagner.

Then in the 20th Century, the harmonic language broke down. Dissonance was in, and at the time, it seemed that history would be rebooted to chart the evolution of dissonance.

It’s ten years into a new century, and it’s too soon the determine what the 20th Century really contributed to that continuum. The general sense seems to indicate dissonance was a dead end. If the 20th Century rebooted anything, it was the approach to rhythm.

Alarm Will Sound understands this idea, and the ensemble dedicated an entire album exploring it. a/rhythmia sounds like a total mess, and yet, the musicianship required to navigate through its rhythmic right angles is supernatural.

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Natalie Merchant: Leave Your Sleep

As far back as her days with 10,000 Manaics, Natalie Merchant sought a more catholic (note the small "c") approach to her writing. But within the confines of her alt-rock star persona, these gestures tended to come off as awkward.

(You can’t convince me "Jealousy" is a convincing soul performance.)

But on her first album in seven years, Merchant finally does what she should have to achieve that more eclectic sound — ditch rock entirely.

Leave Your Sleep is a sprawling collection of poems set to Merchant’s music, which veers from reggae to klezmer to Celtic music and beyond. Employing more than 100 musicians, Merchant lets the needs of the verses dictate the direction of the music, not the other way around.

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On the playlist, or requiem for the compact disc

For the first time in its 20+ year existence, Waterloo Records laid off eight of its employees. When I worked there, the Internet was just starting to ravage the recorded music industry, but Waterloo managed to stem the tide by offering remarkable customer service.

Well, it’s hard to provide that service when your customers are dwindling. I number myself among the dwindling.

Digital downloads have made it easier for me to be a choosier CD buyer. My modus operandi now is to download albums from eMusic for a fraction of the full CD price. If I feel passionately enough about an album to want it in a physical format, I’ll buy it.

As I get older, the bar gets set higher. In the past, I would gamble on those purchases I could imagine selling back to the store after a year. (I still have to do that with EMI and Universal titles, since they’re not carried on eMusic.) I’m not a betting man these days. It’s also harder finding albums that really grab me.

In essence, I’m following the consumer pattern of an older listener — someone not as willing to gamble on new artists. (But are you really new if I heard you the first time under the name Duran Duran?) And yet I think my consumption has Increased.

I’ve also migrated mostly to listening on my computer, where I am most during the day. My car is the last outpost where the CD reigns, and my commute is a lot shorter with the new job.

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On the playlist, or anime soundtrack mania!

I was glued to my TV set when [adult swim] aired Death Note and Serei no Moribito, and I’ve since acquired both series on DVD. After watching them again — multiple times in the case of Moribito — I developed a hankering to listen to the music.

The Evil Sharing Networks provided, and for most of the month of June, my playlist was dominated by Kawai Kenji, Taniuchi Hideki and Hirano Hirohisa. I barely paid attention to anything else.

And honestly — I think they’ll continue to dominate so long as new releases in 2010 continue to be a wash.

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Benjamin Britten: War Requiem / Sinfonia da Requiem / Ballad of Heroes (London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Richard Hickox)

War Requiem by Benjamin Britten has always been a work I wanted to hear when I first read about it in a textbook during high school. Back then, CDs were replacing vinyl as the listening medium of choice, and War Requiem was too lengthy to fit on one disc.

For a student on a limited income, a double-disc set was beyond my budget. Eventually, I would forget about it.

Alex Ross devotes a chapter of his book The Rest Is Noise to Britten, which got me thinking about War Requiem again. Armed with 12 eMusic download credits, I finally got to listen to the piece 20 years after learning about it.

So how is it?

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