Sunday, 15 May 2011
First Listen: Kate Bush, 'Director's Cut'
Bush is best known for her canonized 1985 album Hounds of Love. It's tempting to call that record a turning point in pop: It's as weird as it is catchy, as intelligent as it is danceable. And it's only gotten better with age.
Four years after Hounds of Love, Bush released The Sensual World, on which the uncompromising singer did something out of character: She compromised. The album's title track was conceived as a distilled version of Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's Ulysses. (If you're like me and just couldn't make it to the end of Ulysses, you may remember the passage from Sally Kellerman's impassioned reading in the Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School.) When Bush approached the Joyce estate about using actual passages from the book, the estate declined, leaving Bush to paraphrase the text as best she could. (So Dangerfield got the thumbs up, and Bush didn't? Who says the man didn't get any respect?)
In the eyes of fans, The Sensual World hardly suffered from the limitation, but "good enough" never sat right with Bush. So, more than 20 years later, she asked again — and this time got the answer she was looking for.
The opportunity to remake the song motivated Bush to tinker with other entries in her discography. The result is Director's Cut, a collection of 11 revamped songs that made their first appearances on The Sensual World and 1993's The Red Shoes. With new words and vocals, "The Sensual World" has been re-christened "Flower of the Mountain." Bush re-recorded all of her vocals and the drums, but left most of the other instrumentation untouched, including Eric Clapton's guitar in "And So Is Love." (Okay, so she's made a few mistakes here and there.)
For those familiar only with Hounds of Love, Director's Cut is bound to open eyes. It's less energetic, hardly danceable, and it at times resembles the work of Bush's duet partner Peter Gabriel. But give the songs time. Let Bush's songwriting sink in. Just like her, you'll find yourself wanting to return to them.
Otis Hart @'npr
Hear 'Director's Cut' In Its Entirety
Another of the missing blog posts...
JPBarlow John Perry Barlow
I expect a new anti-porn campaign based on it's being shown to lead to terrorism. http://is.gd/TGcZUr
William Burroughs & Brion Gysin - Destroy All Rational Thought
Documenting "The Here to Go Show" , a commemoration of the lives of Burroughs and Gysin, which took place in Ireland in 1992. Featuring one of the last interviews William Burroughs gave as well as previously unseen footage of Burroughs during the 50s and 60s. The Master Musicians of Joujouka, lifelong favorites of Burroughs and inspiration to many, provide a soundtrack.
(Thanx Dave!)
Here is another post that blogger lost t'other day...
William S. Burroughs’ Wild Ride with Scientology
WSB/Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology
(For very regular Exile visitor Frank-R in Paris!)
Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds - Gorilla Rose (2011- Albumstream)
Gun Club co-founder, gunslinger for The Cramps and six-string stylist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the legendary Kid Congo Powers named his new album Gorilla Rose after the artist/performer. As a teenage boy, Powers met Gorilla Rose in the emerging LA punk scene of the ’70s through seminal weirdo band The Screamers. While editing his fan club newsletters at a haunted Hollywood house, a teenage Powers was also exposed to the sounds of Neu, Nico, Billie Holiday and Goblin’s soundtrack to the film Susperia, and along with Gorilla Rose, these past influences found their way into the Kid’s new full-length.
To record the album, Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds grabbed producer Jason Ward and hightailed it back to the magik gymnasium at The Harveyville Project, a high school in Kansas and also the scene of the crime of their much acclaimed 2009 release Dracula Boots. Kiki “El Coyote” Solis on bass and Ron “The Cap’n” Miller on drums, along with new Pink Monkey Bird Jesse “The Candyman” Roberts (The Ruby Doe) on guitar, keys and vocals, firms up Kid Congo’s squawking flock.
Brandishing thirteen all-original, glam-tastic compositions, Gorilla Rose blasts off with the ’60s Chicano rock influences of explosive dance anthem “Bo Bo Boogaloo.” That’s just the start of a wild ride through funky but chic decadence, slip sliding rockabilly, teenage punkdom, mystic krautrock, baby-making sleaze, the best bad peyote trip you ever took and even a velvety call from the beyond. Finding inspiration in the past is what Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds do best. On this 2011 sonic trip, the Kid brings his past into the present and names it after someone flamboyant and inspired: Gorilla Rose.
(soundstagedirect)
Bo Bo Boogaloo
Goldin Browne
Bunker Mentality
At The Ruin Of Others
Bubble Trouble
Catsuit Fruit
Our Other World
Hills Of Pills
Flypaper
Injun War Crimes
Lord Bloodbathington
Lullaby In Paradise
Gorilla Rose
ALBUMSTREAM
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Scots mausoleum with longest echo hosts Kronos Quartet
A US classical quartet are to stage a concert in a Scottish mausoleum which has one of longest lasting echoes of any man-made structure in the world.The Kronos Quartet will perform to a handful of fans at Hamilton Mausoleum in South Lanarkshire.
The show will also be broadcast to a larger audience at Glasgow's Royal Concert and streamed online.
It is part of a wider music festival being curated by the world-renowned string group.
The Kronos Quartet, who has worked with Tom Waits and David Bowie, has been performing a unique mixture of rock and classical music for almost 40 years.
The San Francisco-based musicians were drawn to the Hamilton mausoleum venue, the last resting place for the Dukes of Hamilton, when they heard about its famous long lasting echo.
Violinist David Harrington said: "When you have 15 seconds of overlaying sounds it is much different from any other concert hall you would ever play in."
"We have never played in a mausoleum before and we have certainly never played in an acoustical environment like this."
Longer reverberation
Hamilton mausoleum has hosted concerts and musicians before. Jazz musician Tommy Smith recorded an album there.
The Kronos Quartet show is just one part of the wider music festival taking place over the weekend which will showcase a range of musicians and musical styles.
Sven Brown, director of music for Glasgow Life which runs the city's musical venues said: "The thing about the Hamilton event is that it was never meant to happen and is purely down to the fact that David got off the plane in Glasgow and immediately asked about the mausoleum.
"People had talked about it. It is mind-blowing to think there is not another room on the planet that has a longer reverberation time than this one."
He added: "You really want to hear either the plucked string of the voice float in the air and when you started translating that to floating in the air for 12 seconds you suddenly realise that there is an opportunity for them, the Kronos Quartet, to do something extraordinary."
Earlier this month the Kronos Quartet was awarded the 2011 Polar Music Prize, Sweden's highest music honour.
@'BBC'
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