Posts tagged ‘cds’
Buying (classical) music online, digitally
Posted on | August 16, 2010 | No Comments
For the past 6 months, I’ve been listening to classical music almost exclusively. (There’s a much longer post – or maybe a series – about that in the works.) Toronto, like most major cities, is definitely under-supplied with bricks & mortar classical CD stores now. The deep structural changes in the music business over the past seven or eight years have wreaked havoc on what I’m told was once a vibrant classical record store culture. And while these changes have actually resulted in more and better-recorded music being available in the global market, you won’t find most of it in Toronto retail. (New York, I discovered during a visit earlier this year, is not much better.)
What’s left now is L’Atelier Grigorian, a small specialist classical and jazz CD store (very well curated but unfortunately expensive), HMV’s flagship store on Yonge Street (whose classical department upstairs focuses more and more on Naxos, Brilliant and other budget releases), and the classical sections in stores like Soundscapes (whose classical buyer is either myopic or schizophrenic, or both; it appears that only a small selection from mostly major labels gets brought in – surprising in a store that is so ‘indie’ in all other genres). There are classical departments in an ever-shrinking number of second hand CD stores in Toronto but they’re typically not really worth visiting.
Naturally, my eye has drifted online. Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and its various independent sellers have generally been a good, speedy – and cheap source. ArkivMusic (with its very useful catalogue containing syndicated reviews from Fanfare and other premium online review sources) is also very good (though pricier on average, and shipping can take a while).
One of the more exciting options these days is buying music digitally. While I remain deeply skeptical about iTunes (or anything that comes in a low-ish quality and with DRM), there is now an increasing number of credible and accomplished indie labels selling high-resolution digital files directly. In some cases, these are actually higher-resolution than a CD – up to actual studio master quality (SACD resolution or better). Even though I don’t have equipment that would easily allow me to play back high res audio files like that, it’s exciting to imagine that – as computer-based audio becomes cheaper and less niche-y – it’ll be possible one day to fully enjoy a studio quality master at home.
First up in the classical digital download offerings has to be Linn Records. Founded as an off-shoot of the Scottish high-end stereo manufacturer in the early 80s, Linn Records is a boutique audiophile label that is slowly emerging with a limited but excellent catalogue of classical recordings (as well as forays into jazz and singer/songwriter material). I’m a big fan of some of Linn’s Baroque releases, such as the truly outstanding and unanimously well-reviewed Bach Mass in B minor by the Dunedin Consort, a Scottish group that performs this work with one-to-a-part voicings (only one singer for every voice in the choral parts – this has the distinct advantage of showing off Bach’s intricate part-writing and illuminates the music’s overall architecture).
Other Linn releases I love are by various other Scottish Baroque players, many of whom have made big names for themselves in their various specialties since (and, sadly, moved on from Linn Records as a result). Particularly wonderful recordings are by the Palladian Ensemble (featuring the wonderful Rachel Podger, my favourite Baroque violinist) and by Pamela Thorby (who plays the recorder). Thorby’s Garden of Early Delights, performed together with Andrew Lawrence-King on harp and psaltery, is one of the loveliest selections of early Baroque music I’ve heard, beautifully played and recorded with an immense clarity, resonance and a width of sound stage second to none.
In fact, the audio quality of Linn’s work – there’s an interview with Linn’s chief producer/engineer, Calum Malcolm, here – is outstanding on every release. I’ve now bought and downloaded 320 kbps MP3 versions of a number of releases, and everything is breathtakingly well recorded.
Linn offers its own Adobe Air based download manager application, which works very well. The only complaint I have is about the somewhat awkwardly done digital booklets (they are PDFs of the print versions, so the pages are out of order in the PDF) and poor MP3 metadata. This latter issue is somewhat inexcusable for a download store – and while I understand that my 320 kbps MP3s are at the low end of Linn’s offerings and price point, there really is no reason why I should have to spend 10 minutes after every download importing and re-working the metadata in iTunes to ensure that it’s complete and accurate.
Another excellent digital music seller is Hyperion Records. Hyperion is primarily known for its outstanding efforts in chamber music, Lieder and the pre-classical repertoire. Its greatest claim to fame so far is probably the complete edition of Schubert Lieder (something I aim to own – and listen to – one of these years…).
Hyperion offers digital downloads either as VBR MP3s (targeting 320 kpbs) or FLAC (FLAC is generally emerging as the audiophile download format of choice – I grab FLAC where I can for archiving and down-convert to 320 kbps MP3s for the time being, in the interest of portability).
I’ve bought several excellent digital selections from Hyperion Records. Particularly enjoyable have been releases by Stephen Hough, an English pianist whom I admire greatly (and who also has an always intriguing and occasionally amusing Twitter presence). His Mozart Album is a wildly successful recital of Mozart and Mozart-inspired music, and I highly recommend it. I’ve also grabbed two very special Rossini releases – the Soirées musicales song cycle and an otherwise out-of-print edition of the String Sonatas in their original chamber version played by Elizabeth Wallfisch and ensemble.
Downloading from Hyperion is less convenient than Linn Records because Hyperion doesn’t offer a download manager (it references a few on its website, but alas – I use Google Chrome and none of the Firefox plugins support my browser) so you have to actually download each file separately. On the plus side, though, Hyperion’s metadata-labeling is superb and I have no completeness or accuracy concerns to report.
As I build my classical library, lingering doubts remain after every digital-only purchase. “If only I had bought the CD instead. What if MP3 or FLAC aren’t the last word yet for digital audio? If I owned the CD, at least I could re-rip it at a future date into whatever format will then be de rigueur.”
For right now, convenience wins out. 320 kpbs MP3s sound quite wonderful to my ears on most equipment (barring, perhaps, my main stereo in the living room, where they sound merely somewhat above acceptable but lack the fullness and depth of my CD player), and their portability-to-audiophile-to-economy ratio on a 160GB latest generation iPod is quite excellent (especially with one of these line-out iPod dock cables for the car).
There are other classical digital download options. Notably, Deutsche Grammophon offers some 3,500 of its releases, as well as some of the Decca catalogue (both now owned by Universal Music) as 320 kbps MP3 downloads. I haven’t tried this yet, but at first glance, the online catalogue seems somewhat confusing (you can always trust the corporate behemoth to create the dodgiest e-commerce offering). I was a little sad to see that the DG website doesn’t offer all of the newly merged Universal classical labels – I would have liked to be able to access the Deutsche Harmonia Mundi catalogue in this way, as it contains many gems I’d like to get my hands on digitally. Finally, I’m keen to see whether Harmonia Mundi itself, the fantastic French indie classical label, has digital sales plans of its own. Now that would be something…
An octet with four people
Posted on | July 17, 2010 | No Comments
In 2005, the Emerson String Quartet released an album of Mendelssohn’s string quartets which also included a version of the octet. Instead of partnering with another string quartet, though, they recorded it by themselves, taking great care to make it sound like a real ensemble of eight (I was particularly interested in their idea of rotating chairs).
These two videos explain the process and are an interesting micro-documentary.
Part one:
Part two:
The CD is also entirely worth owning, even if it is a little expensive:
Listening to: Peter Gabriel, Scratch My Back
Posted on | April 16, 2010 | No Comments
A review of Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back (2010)
It’s a tricky business, doing covers of well-known and well-loved songs. Perhaps not when you’re Keith Jarrett or Brad Mehldau and you can fall back on a long-established tradition of converting the day’s popular songs into improvised jazz, a process by which they become ‘standards.’
But when you’re the éminence grise of politically conscious progressive rock, the expectations are high. You can’t just go ahead and perform the songs in ways reminiscent of their original arrangement. You need to add something significantly new and insightful, shine a different light on them, make them your own. (Why this should be required is an interesting question, and – somewhat ironically – the rule only seems to apply to those who have proven themselves capable songwriters. Nobody expects Michael Bublé to add penetrating new insights to Frank Sinatra’s songs.)
The starting point for this collection was, as Gabriel says in the short but eloquent sleeve notes, to perform songs by others that he loves, and to use no drums or guitars. Setting a deliberate constraint like that is an interesting and useful artistic conceit – brushing up against the limits of the constraint helps clarify the vision (it’s a useful trick in all sorts of creative situations – try it some time in a meeting).
The end result is twelve tracks (53 minutes) of mostly quiet, stark beauty – some of the songs are very different from the originals, most are successful as covers, some are entirely outstanding and all shine a light on the original that wasn’t there before.
The songs are set orchestrally, arranged and orchestrated by John Metcalfe, sometimes with piano, and all the instruments are acoustic. The CD is beautifully recorded, obviously with a great deal of care and skill.
Here are my thoughts about each track:
David Bowie’s ‘Heroes‘ receives a tentative, cracked-voice, minor-key makeover. Without the 1970s German prog rock ‘motorik’ beat we know from the original, it becomes a lot more pensive and fragile sounding. The orchestra builds to a crescendo, Gabriel’s voice shifts up an octave into his ‘power range’ and, somehow, magically, this becomes a Peter Gabriel song. It ends suddenly, a little surprisingly, and in so-doing elegantly answers the question of how to end songs without a fade: just stop.
Paul Simon’s ‘The Boy In The Bubble‘ is next. This is a tough song to cover without drums. The original is so vividly and memorably marked by the concertina, Bakithi Kumalo’s fretless bass and Vusi Khumalo’s booming, elastic drums that it’s hard to make the connection at first. Curiously, and I think somewhat unfortunately, Peter Gabriel opts for a slight piano arpeggio to provide the rhythmic backing, slowing the track down to the ‘slow mo’ of the lyrics. Most disconcertingly, he re-chords much of the song, often creating discomfort between the melody and the backing. This does create (in me, at least) an interesting tension between what I’m expecting and what I’m getting. And of course the harmonies eventually resolve, but only after a fairly uncomfortable four minutes. I oscillate between thinking it’s genius and hating it. I suppose that makes it a good cover.
Elbow’s ‘Mirrorball,’ from 2008′s outstanding The Seldom Seen Kid, is an obvious choice because Gabriel’s and Elbow singer Guy Garvey’s voices are actually quite similar, and the original already has an orchestral backing in the chorus. I think this is well done but ultimately, perhaps, one of the lesser covers here. It does demonstrate, though, just how much Peter Gabriel has influenced the current ‘new wave’ of prog rock. You can easily hear it in Elbow, TV on the Radio, and many others. (The vocal similarities between Gabriel and Garvey are coincidental to the quality of the cover, the songwriting similarities aren’t – and that’s what makes Gabriel easily inhabit this song.)
I’m not familiar with Bon Iver’s ‘Flume,’ but it’s evidently a brilliant song and eerily Peter Gabriel like. This is perhaps the one track that could most easily pass for a Peter Gabriel original here (and I think that’s great praise). Part of what makes this arrangement so successful is that we’re used to hearing Gabriel’s voice paired with dense horn arrangements. While they’re typically synthetic pads, it is a sound he’s favoured for a few decades so ‘Flume’ sounds familiar to us sung by this voice with this backing. It would not be out of place on So or Us.
Talking Heads’ ‘Listening Wind‘ from 1980′s Brian Eno produced Remain in Light is one of the best covers I’ve ever heard, period. A satisfyingly quivering, squirming and twitching call to anti-colonial resistance in the original, Gabriel’s version here lifts it into the realm of essential listening for our troubled, war-torn 21st century. The swirling string arrangement sounds at times like the Kronos Quartet, a the ‘free trade zone’ in the lyrics suddenly sounds like everything you’ve ever heard about Baghdad’s Green Zone, sad and threatening at the same time.
‘The Power Of Your Heart‘ is a new Lou Reed tune. It doesn’t appear to be available on any Lou Reed releases yet – according to Google, he’s been playing it live for a few years, and it’s been recorded for a Cartier advertising campaign (but I couldn’t find it on that website, either; just on Youtube). This is a beautiful piece of song craft and suits Gabriel like a glove. It has the stateliness, the grace of his older slow songs, like ‘Don’t Give Up,’ while not exactly sounding like a Peter Gabriel original. The thoughtful arrangement gives is a 21st century Tin Pan Alley sheen that’s quite lovely.
Next up is Arcade Fire’s ‘My Body Is A Cage,’ a long-time favourite of mine and beautifully done here. It’s been re-chorded, too, but much more gently than ‘The Boy In The Bubble.’ I love the drama of the orchestration – it has a dark, movie-like scoring that suits it very well. What’s curious is that the Peter Gabriel version drifts between menace and fragility while the original is agonized, spiritual and seeking. There’s quite a contrast between the two, yet both versions shed light on the lyrics in entirely legitimate ways. I also love the ending: around minute 4:45, Gabriel introduces a choir in one of those incomparable Peter Gabriel moments of quiet, poignant beauty which – I think – elevates his version above the original if only for the subtlety and complexity of the orchestral arrangement.
I don’t know The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book Of Love,’ but this version makes me want to seek out the original (something all good covers should do). With lyrics that gently make fun of the silliness of romantic love’s gestures, words and songs, this doesn’t immediately jump out as something that would be a natural fit for Peter Gabriel. But the various Gabriel shows I’ve been to over the years revealed a gently funny man with a quiet sense of humour and a great deal of humanity. ‘The Book Of Love’ is a beautiful lighter moment on Scratch My Back.
‘I Think It’s Going To Rain Today‘ by Randy Newman is stylistically similar to the Lou Reed cover. It’s pensive, and the piano backing – recorded at a resonant and slightly wooly distance – makes it sound almost like a Schubert Lied. I don’t think it’s terribly successful, but it’s not very problematic either in the greater context of the record. It’s a resting point of sorts, and at just over 2 minutes it hasn’t been given enough time to reveal any magic it may hold.
Regina Spektor’s ‘Après Moi,’ on the other hand (another one I’m not familiar with in the original; Youtube to the rescue once more) seems very problematic to me. Here, the bigness of the arrangement makes what’s merely banal in the original overblown and unwieldy. It sounds a lot like one of those faux agony moments in many modern musicals – something by Andrew Lloyd Webber, perhaps. I also find the Peter Gabriel arrangement oddly pompous, adding circumstance where the original had very little, and I’m not sure of the interpretive intent. I’ve never been a big fan of Regina Spektor (in fact, I sold or gave away her first two CDs after owning them for a couple of years and never warming to them). And that thing she does in the chorus where she explains ‘après moi’ by immediately following it with ‘after me comes the flood’? Ham-fisted in the way the actors on CSI always explain everything in ‘casual conversation.’
I don’t have much to say about ‘Philadelphia,’ the Neil Young song. I feel similarly about it as I did about the Randy Newman tune discussed above. It’s quiet, to the point, and provides another resting point. ‘Quietly elegant’ might be the best way to describe it. I suspect that repeated listens will reveal more of it than I’ve discovered so far.
Finally, there’s Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)‘ which – without the rapidly picked guitar and high-pitched agony of Thom Yorke’s voice – is quite different. What I like here is that Peter Gabriel deliberately strains his voice near the top end of his register to achieve a similarly pained effect. I really like the instrumentation here, the piano and orchestral palette chosen are interesting and engaging. There’s a lightness and theatricality to the cover that the original doesn’t have and that Radiohead themselves only learned after recording ‘Street Spirit.’ I’m quite fond of this.
All the artists covered on Scratch My Back will also cover a Peter Gabriel song each, to be anthologized on a future CD called, presumably, And I’ll Scratch Yours. Some of these covers are currently being released on iTunes as song pairs (one Peter Gabriel song covered by someone else coupled with Peter’s cover of that artist’s song).
All told, I think Scratch My Back is one of the better cover records by a major artist I’ve heard. Its predominantly pensive and somber mood leaves me unsure of whether this will become a staple on my iPod, but I know there are songs here that I’ll prefer in this version over the original – and there are one or two I’ll prefer to skip over entirely. As always, the quirks may bring me back to this more frequently than I think. I’m learning this about great records: it’s the quirks that make them great.
Listening to: Madagascar Slim, Good Life Good Living
Posted on | January 4, 2010 | No Comments
A review of Madagascar Slim’s Good Life Good Living (2009)
Sometime in September or October 2009, I woke up – as I always do – to the sounds of CBC Radio 1. I’m not always sure why I listen to it, but it has something to do with all other options on the dial being much, much worse. Andy Barrie, the host of ‘Metro Morning,’ has a sort of dignified, grown-up way about him, a seemingly sincere desire to pander to my shrinking highbrow demographic, and so I get my tax dollar’s worth every morning between 6 and 7. Very occasionally, Metro Morning plays music; to introduce something the editorial team has deemed worthy of our rarefied ears. That morning, I encountered Madagascar Slim, an exceptionally talented Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist, originally from Madagascar.
Now, Madagascar isn’t a geography I’m familiar with musically, despite having lived in Southern Africa for 20 years. This was perhaps a sign of South Africa’s disconnection from the rest of the region (culture, like foreign currency, wasn’t allowed to flow freely during the Apartheid years, and rebuilding regional relations since has been slow). In terms of widely recognized African music, West Africa (Mali, Senegal…) and South Africa itself always seemed to dwarf everyone else’s output, especially since the Western market for ‘world music’ isn’t known for its ability to differentiate sounds or appreciate the subtleties of regional inflection.
Madagascar, the world’s 5th largest island, had been a proudly independent seafaring monarchy for centuries before being invaded and colonized by France in the 1880s. It was a crucial trade gateway between East Africa and Southeast Asia, and – perhaps this is purely in my head – some of these influences can be heard in Slim’s music. For me, the recognizable elements are similarities to a certain South African ‘folk’ – I hear early Johnny Clegg (when he was still playing with his original band, Juluka) and Vusi Mahlasela. There’s a simple lyricism with very distinct Southern African elements here (I would call them kwela rhythms, but I realize that that’s just nomenclature). There’s also a “Latin” tinge, perhaps echoing the deep influence salsa, son and cumbia have wielded in other African coastal economies (such as Senegal, whose music is deeply influenced by Latin American sounds imported by sailors). While I can’t really hear an Asian influence, I sense elements of European folk song – evidence, no doubt, of the missionary colonialism present everywhere in historical Madagascar; this is similar to Waldemar Bastos from Angola, say. In this sense, Madagascar Slim’s music is an amalgam of his country’s history and geography.
Known as a Canadian world music guitar virtuoso, Slim also has another set of influences. Much has been made of his early discovery of Hendrix and his desire to play Jimi’s and B. B. King’s music. And certainly, there are tracks on Good Life Good Living (such as the cleverly named ‘Take Me Home (Slight Return),’ the name an homage to Hendrix’ ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’) that feature electric, blues-inflected guitar work. In essence, though, this is largely an acoustic, melodious, low-key affair that’s a lot less austere than a blues record, and it has absolutely nothing in common with West African ‘blues’ like Tinariwen, Ali Farka Touré or Boubacar Traoré. (I find myself wondering whether the “Malagasy kid discovers Hendrix, takes up guitar” origination story is maybe one of those self-perpetuating PR myths that don’t really serve to shed any light on an artist’s work but rather obfuscate the complexities of heritage and the richness of influence.)
There is much on this CD that is both immediately accessible (for someone open to world music) and benefits from repeated listening. Slim is an outstanding acoustic picker (witness the instrumental ‘Neny Malala,’ for example) whose simple picked chords propel everything here. There’s a heaviness of spirit here, a sadness of love and loss, underscored by strong and simple harmony vocals (‘Fankahalana’). Since I don’t understand the Malagasy lyrics and don’t have access to the CD cover (bought it on iTunes), I can’t say if it’s longing for lost love, home or a resolution of Madagascar’s complicated politics and poverty, but it’s touching in its simplicity and earnestness.
There’s one moment that borders on a misstep: ‘Take Me Home,’ a beautiful melody and a perfectly executed mid-tempo number, is apparently about every immigrant’s nightmare of living abroad, away from home, and about being sent home, deported. Suddenly, in the middle of the song, there’s a very Canadian voice (presumably meant to belong to an immigration official) announcing Slim’s deportation. It’s jarring… presumably deliberately, but uncomfortable nonetheless. At the end of the track, we hear a female voice waking the singer from his nightmare. It puts this track uncomfortably close to the ‘novelty song’ category. On the other hand, it’s these idiosyncrasies that make us remember and cherish certain albums, so I’m choosing to interpret it this way.
All is well the minute the next track comes on – a rollicking party of a song called ‘Sitaka’ that blends Malagasy roots, Quebec folk (or maybe Zydeco?) and intersperses it with a beautifully executed 12 bar blues seemingly out of nowhere. It’s effortless and demonstrates why Slim is in high demand as a sideman in Toronto’s blues scene.
I can wholeheartedly recommend this if you’re at all interested in world music. It’s one of the freshest things I’ve heard in a while, particularly since African music on CD has become so heavily oriented towards West African desert blues in recent years.
Madagascar Slim’s Good Life Good Living is available on iTunes, Amazon.ca, and Amazon.com. He also had a self-released (?) earlier album called “Omnisource” that is out of print and has sketchy availability.
Listening to: The Neville Brothers, Yellow Moon
Posted on | December 3, 2009 | No Comments
A review of The Neville Brothers’ Yellow Moon
Sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, I became interested in Daniel Lanois‘ music. Here was an enigmatic producer who had worked with Brian Eno, U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, Jon Hassell and Bob Dylan. For each, he had forged important, sometimes career-changing records, yet somehow he had put his own unmistakable stamp on each record. Regardless of genre differences, it’s quite possible to immediately identify a Daniel Lanois produced album when you hear it. It’s a very specific style: there’s a groundedness, a deep connection to all archetypal American music, a solid base in folk, funk and the blues, an earnest honesty, a certain electronic sheen- slightly industrial, but never jarring, a lo-fi hiss, a generous and well-balanced depth of field, a core musicality that shines through everything. Above all, Daniel Lanois has a deep repect for each performer’s musicianship.
The Neville Brothers – best known to most listeners because of brother Aaron’s unusual high tenor – had a patchy history of local New Orleans success prior to constituting themselves as an R&B outfit in 1975. Commercial success, however, remained elusive through subsequent studio and live albums. In 1988/89, they teamed up with Daniel Lanois and his then-engineer Malcolm Burn (now a renowned producer in his own right) to record what would become their career-high.
A deeply unique record in many ways, Yellow Moon is an atmospheric CD. Full of percussion, Lanois’ trademark dark synth pads and Charles Neville’s saxophone, the sound is a sort of lo-fi funk with a strong pan-African identity. There’s a definitive version of ‘A Change is Gonna Come’ here, two out-of-left-field but excellent Dylan covers (‘With God On Our Side’ and ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’) and a number of brilliant self-penned tracks.
While the radio single ‘Sister Rosa’ sounds slightly dated today due to its ‘early rap’ vocals, the most outstanding piece of music here is of course the title track. ‘Yellow Moon’ is a brilliant piece of sophisticated, bluesy, swamp-reggae, carried by Hammond licks, a tireless, lively bass line and propelled by Aaron’s plaintive, longing vocal.
Is she hid out with another? | Or is she trying to get back home? | Is she wrapped up in another’s arms? | Or is the girl somewhere all alone?
Like all the best pop music, this is pure emotional pain wrapped in transcendent musical beauty. It’s the kind of song that you have to play again and again when you first hear it. The sort of song that you’ll have in your headphones, late at night, and suddenly you’re standing in the middle of your living room swaying, with your eyes closed. The rest of the record – which is truly excellent, fantastic even – does fade slightly against the bright shooting star of this song. It’s a traditional R&B track at heart, something Sam Cooke might have written, timeless and traditional despite its electronic touches. Lanois, as always, finds how to be the conduit for this music and elevates great R&B to become part of the canon of classic American music, transcending the genre.
The Dylan covers mentioned above are quite incredible, too. ‘With God on Our Side’ becomes a gospel meditation, all low synth pads – the music itself is self-effacing here, almost not there at all – as a frame for Aaron’s heartfelt vocal. It’s a genuine surprise to hear this song – part of the core folk repertoire – so significantly transformed here. The Nevilles make it their own. ‘The Ballad of Hollis Brown’ is a lo-fi blues track, a dark, driving story song with an excellent slide guitar. Both tracks are great examples of how Aaron Neville’s voice, so fraught with adult contemporary meaning post Linda Ronstadt and one too many Christmas albums, can sound organic and authentic in the right context.
The Nevilles also do a version of A.P. Carter’s ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,’ at first glance a hard-to-believe pick. But in the context of Lanois wall of amorphous synth sounds and a simple heartbeat thud as the backbeat, the brothers’ four-part harmonies affirm what you already know: American music really vanquishes racial boundaries and is rooted in a single sound. Johnny Cash and Elvis knew this, and so do the Neville Brothers and Daniel Lanois.
Hearing Yellow Moon 20 years after it was released continues to be a great joy. For those of you who don’t know it, this anniversary is a good time to get acquainted with a classic of the American repertoire.
Listening to: Diane Birch, Bible Belt
Posted on | November 21, 2009 | No Comments
A review of Diane Birch’s Bible Belt
It almost didn’t happen, my finding out about Diane Birch. My friend and coworker P. and I decided to visit our local Sunrise Records yesterday, on our way back from lunch. You know, two old people looking at CDs. And while I was mildly interested in seeing that Rodrigo y Gabriela have a new release out, the store guy kept telling us about what he was playing on the speakers: Diane Birch. How she was the new Norah Jones, “if this next song doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will,” that sort of thing. He was an older guy, too. And he was zeroing in on the only demographic that still buys CDs. It was a job well done, really, until he started telling us about how good-looking Diane Birch is. Neither of us could quite figure out why that should be a deciding factor, but I dutifully took a look at the CD cover where she appears dressed like Twiggy and gazes back at us with serious big eyes. I wasn’t buying it, or anything else for that matter.
P., on the other hand, rolled the dice and bought it. And so, back at the office, I made a copy, just to see if my on-the-spot judgment had been wrong.
And it was. Diane Birch is quite amazing, and this is a great record. The bio on her website summarizes the story to date: born in Michigan, spent her life in Southern Africa until she was about 10 (her dad was a missionary pastor), returned to the US, learned to play the piano, grew up, moved to LA to become a film composer, supported herself playing standards on the piano, learned to sing, learned to write songs, got a record deal, moved to New York. That’s the really short version. But since she’s only in her mid-20s, perhaps it isn’t really much longer than that.
The record is a remarkably likable blend of 70s female singer-songwriter styles with some pure r&b thrown in for good measure. Music people like to classify things by offering comparisons, and I’ve been thinking about that since yesterday. Everyone is comparing her to Norah Jones. There’s certainly something to that idea: she’s a singer-songwriter who got a young start, sounds mature beyond her years, plays a style that’s not “of her generation,” and uses authentic-sounding retro instrumentation. So that’s certainly one legitimate point of comparison. But it’s lacking in some core ways: this is the album that Norah Jones could have made instead of The Fall, her own new outing (which I’m not done listening to yet, but it certainly didn’t seem to provide the same level of immediate emotional resonance this has).
Other points of comparison might be Katie Melua (same clarity of voice, but Diane Birch has 1000% more substance and writes her own songs), Joss Stone (there’s some serious r&b singing going on here – Diane Birch is not in Joss Stone’s league but then again, that’s neither her game nor how she’s being marketed), or perhaps some of those white British retro-r&b singers, like Adele or Duffy.
The marketing bio on her website draws careful historical comparisons to Laura Nyro, Karen Carpenter and classic AM radio. I won’t comment on those alleged parallels, but this is big, friendly music with accessible melodies that had me humming more than once. The playing is tasteful and thoughtful throughout – she’s surrounded herself with the cream of the crop of New York session musicians, and the collective experience shows.
Ultimately, though, Diane Birch’s voice is the real star here: not too high, not too low, not too gritty – she has an everywoman voice, like Carole King perhaps. The most beautiful thing about her voice is that she never oversings, never strains, never becomes shrill. She displays a remarkable economy in her vocals that’s both admirable and really surprising in a singer so young. Her phrasing’s impeccable, too. Like other singers who don’t think of themselves as singers primarily, she knows how to shape her vocals with a self-effacing restraint that complements her music beautifully.
The songs are lovely, open, accessible and likable by the broadest cross-section of listeners. They are the sorts of songs you catch on the AM radio of your mind when driving on your imaginary California freeway. Another reviewer has said that the record should have been shorter by about three tracks but couldn’t really say which ones should have been cut. I’d counter that perhaps they all belong there. There really isn’t a weak song here. Even the slightly indulgent ones are charming and somehow work as part of the whole.
I, too, didn’t really want to like Diane Birch. I think her label’s marketing is not doing her justice, and the cover images (often the first and only thing you have to go on in a record store) produce some very strange cognitive friction. But the music is – unequivocally – glorious and deserves to be heard and loved.
Listening to: The Beatles Stereo Remasters
Posted on | November 8, 2009 | 1 Comment
Is there a more valuable, interesting and diverse catalogue in popular music than this one? In twelve records, the Beatles changed the entire face of music several times over, imprinting their songs on our culture in a way that transcends generations, politics, location and taste preferences.
I think of music as belonging – at the very highest, surface level – to one of two categories: music bought by music lovers, and music bought by people who don’t buy music. People who don’t buy music may listen to the radio or encounter music in other ways in their daily lives, but they never purchase music. Their CD collections, even when they are adults, consist of roughly 15 CDs, most of which were birthday presents from well-meaning but misguided friends. You’ll find an alarmingly high density of artists like Queen, Dire Straits and Hootie and the Blowfish in their CD shelves; also U2, Coldplay and maybe an older Radiohead CD that’s a little dusty.
The Beatles are the one act that consistently and powerfully transcends both types of musical public. The fact that their career together was so short and eventful, of course, contributes immensely to this: even people who aren’t particularly interested in the biographies of musicians know, in broad terms, the story of John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Beatles created their own archetypes.
The music is peerless in more ways that I can enumerate here. I’m not going to describe each record because – if you haven’t – you simply need to hear them all. Even the Beatles’ throw-away album filler tracks are extraordinarily evolved compositions, well-produced and fabulously entertaining.
The remasters, so memorably released on 09-09-09, are tastefully and carefully done. They are subtle in ways that other remasters are not: following a careful audio restoration process that took several years to complete, they are not just louder but provide new insights into the music. As a general rule, it does feel as though audio cobwebs have been removed. Where the previous, 1980s CD reissues sounded tinny, thin and frequently harsh, these sound full, balanced and well-rounded while never lulling you into a false sense of security. There’s more space here, better stereo imaging, more depth of field. The vocals are clearer and have less sibilant distortion. And McCartney’s Höfner bass is a revelation on most pieces, as these new editions finally do it justice and allow it to anchor the music properly, something the old CDs never managed to convey.
I have spent many days listening to the Beatles remasters over the last two months, and there have been any number of new discoveries and insights. I’m particularly impressed by the many ‘new’ album tracks that I wasn’t as aware of before. I suppose this is a good illustration of how the 1980s CDs gave me listening fatigue. I feel as if there are many songs that I’m really only encountering fully now that I have the remastered discs.
For example, I’ve enjoyed Magical Mystery Tour tremendously, including such album tracks as ‘Blue Jay Way’ and ‘Your Mother Should Know,’ neither of which I had consciously encountered before. I’ve also reconnected with Let It Be, which – contrary to popular opinion – I think is the better record in the Phil Spector version (rather than McCartney’s revisionist release from a few years ago). For example, I think that ‘I Me Mine’ is an extraordinary song that should get far more attention than it does.
On the whole, the remasters have brought the Beatles into the digital age, made them digitally listenable, and have provided countless hours of enjoyment. The subtlety and skill applied in the creation of these new versions cannot be praised too highly.
I think this is essential music, and every household even remotely interested in popular music should own these records. You will find that they transcend age, taste and personality differences.
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Despite the ongoing controversy over the remaining Beatles’ reluctance to see their music released digitally, a digital version of sorts will be released just in time for Christmas:
I simply bought the individual CDs on the day of release, instead of the box set. I felt that I didn’t particularly need the box and the poster.
Finally, there’s also The Beatles in Mono, a box set of the original ten or so records that were released in mono. It appears that the Beatles themselves only attended the mono mixing sessions of their LPs. EMI has made these mixes available as a separate limited edition box set whose packaging is more elaborate and historically authentic. I’ve heard some of them and can’t say that I was all that impressed. They are great-sounding remasters, too; it’s just that I’m used to the Beatles in stereo.
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About
Carsten Knoch
Attentive music listener, reader, vegetarian, affordable audio hobbyist, software and services professional, vision enabler, instigator, product manager, marketer, thinker, writer, blogger, tinkerer, Internet dweller since 1992
Teabowl is my blog about music, vegetarian food, books, art and life.
Teabowl's sister blog Changebowl discusses technology, community, design and business.
