Intriguing Musicians

Here's a critic's list of 40 musicians to listen to in the near future: "they play by their own rules, and they grab your attention." I'm only familiar with three of them, so I've got some listening to do. Let me know if you try any of these out.

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai

On late-night cable one night, some time around 2003, I came across Jim Jarmusch's film Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. It's a strange and gorgeous movie starring Forest Whitaker (how can you not like Forest Whitaker?) as a hitman for a minor mobster.

The movie's music, the first film that RZA scored, is a major character unto itself, and the film score is one of those albums that I've been listening to again and again for about 15 years now. I don't remember where or how I got it, but I got the Japanese version, which has the original score, plus two Wu-Tang songs that aren't actually in the movie. The soundtrack released everywhere but Japan has a lot of great hip-hop from the movie, but not the score. If you're going to find this album, find the Japanese score version. Trust me.

Five albums in seven sentences

Roar, the 2010 EP from Dirty Gold, may be the ultimate summer album (especially the song "California Sunrise"). I wish these guys put out a full album!

The Beginnings Stages of..., the debut album of Dallas's Polyphonic Spree, contains one of my most joyful memories.

The Live version of Bjork's Vespertine is even more transcendent than the studio original.

I know it dates me to recommend My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, but for many many people my age the album never gets old. Don't even consider listening to it on your laptop--it needs decent speakers at a bare minimum.

I'm not a huge fan of LCD Soundsystem per se, but I sure am a huge fan of Sound of Silver.

Music: Year of Hibernation

Right now Youth Lagoon's newest album is getting a fair amount of attention, and rightly so.

But on a rainy Sunday when we're stuck inside all day, it's his first album, 2011's The Year of Hibernation, that I could listen to over and over.

Got my mind on my music...

I've been listening to--and thinking a lot about--classical music lately. It seems I'm not the only one.

Here is an essay in The Guardian about a number of Classical traditions and what they have in common. You'l learn a lot from this one.

Here, also in The Guardian, is a love note to classical music and a plea to younger people to experience it. It's "not exclusive or elitist," Brigid Delaney writes.

Here, in a place other than the Guardian, is a more nuanced--and acceptably elitist--essay on the problem with so many superficial discussions about "what's wrong" with classical music.

Enjoy the reading! Or don't, and just go enjoy Simone Dinenrstein's recording of the Goldberg Variations.

Music: Mozart's Divertimento, K.563

This is the best, most exquisite Mozart piece you've (probably) never heard. It's as good as all the famous ones.

I've been listening to this CD for around 10 years now, a 1990 recording with Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, and Kim Kashkashian.

Just don't think of it as background music.

Music: Muchacho

Imagine an album written by Leonard Cohen, dark and poetic and yearning, but then reimagined by Dwight Yoakum--all that swagger and yodel. Then get the album on major pain medication to mellow it out. That's Muchacho, by Phosphorescent. Phosphorescent is the band name for Mathew Houk, an Alabama boy who moved to Brooklyn. Listen to this album when you've just fallen in love, just broken up, are going on a road trip, or are stuck inside for days. And then listen again and again.

Music: Blue Lines

When it comes to albums I can listen to over and over and over, there's nothing even in the same spectrum as Massive Attack's 1991 debut Blue Lines. I got it on cassette (because that's how you mostly got music then), and I think I literally listened to it every day for about 18 months. I wore out the cassette tape and had to replace it. And then a few years after that when my cassette player broke and I shifted to CD, Blue Lines was among the first I bought. I wouldn't surprise me to learn I've listened to this short--only nine songs--album a thousand times.

Blue Lines navigates like no other album the deep grey areas where soul, hip-hop, psychedelia, reggae, and R&B overlap. The term "trip hop" was pretty much invented for this group. They've gone on to have a long and always-interesting discography. Their most recent album was released in 2010.

Here's a Pitchfork retrospective review of the album that does a really good job of contextualizing Blue Lines.

Personal and almost-sad note: when it comes to narrowing down a "favorite band," the two contenders are Massive Attack and Bjork. And I've never seen either of them live (though I did go to a Sugarcubes concert in high school so I guess that kind of counts for Bjork).

Music: ( )

Sigur Ros's 2002 album ( ), commonly referred to as "the bracket album," is one of those I can listen to over and over and over again. It's intense. A few things about it:

  * There's some music great for listening to on a drizzly grey day. This album, however, is the best album there is for listening to during a nighttime storm.

  * The lyrics are sung in a made-up language called "Hopelandic." They don't "mean" anything.

  * I have a strong memory of NPR using track four as interstitial music connected to the World Trade Center attack. In my mind, they played a snippet on September 12, 2001. Since the album was't released until over a year later, I guess that's not possible. Maybe it was for an anniversary piece? Maybe it was another Sigur Ros song, but my mind has replaced it? Maybe it was another tragedy? Whatever the inaccuracy of my memory, I still associate the song, one of my favorite songs in the history of everything, with the sadness of that day. And the first four songs are considered the happier half of the album.

Music: Lisbon

The Walkmen had been on my radar for a long time. I was visiting a friend in New York City some time between 1997 and 1999, I don't remember which specific visit. One night he took me to a bar to hear a band called Walkmen. I remember that I liked the venue, that I thought the band was pretty good, and that the lead singer didn't sound anything like Bono, but still gave off a Bono-ish feeling. His voice was loud and strong and gravelly.

Over the next few years I came across The Walkmen from time to time. I first heard the song "We've Been Had," and then listened to their first few albums once or twice as they came out. I liked them, but I didn't think they were necessarily anything special.

And then I heard Lisbon, their 2010 sixth album. Lisbon is more than good--it's transcendent. The guitar and the vocals, which had always been a good match, suddenly sounded like they were meant for this moment. I don't think Lisbon is a great social album; it's not made for listening with a group. But whatever isolated mood you're in, be it a quiet funk or a nervous energy, Lisbon is an album you should try.

Teddy Abrams in Louisville

Photo PBS. He's wearing a leather jacket, so you know it's cool.

When it comes to answering the question "how do we keep Classical musical relevant?" the answer seems to be, in so many words, "hipsters."

  * Kevin Yu designs a high-tech tuxedo shirt for musicians.
  * The Prometheus Chamber Orchestra plays conductorless, sometimes in a soup kitchen.
  * Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National, also writes classical music for the Kronos Quartet.
  * Danielle Kuhlman, member of the local River Oaks Chamber Orchestra, plays a horn with a pink bell and also plays with a quartet called Genghis Barbie.

But for all these cool and outsider sorts of innovations, there's also the centuries of tradition and ritual that many classical musicians and programmers don't necessarily want to give up.

A great way to see these two sides work together is to follow PBS's series Music Makes a City, about the new 27-year-old director of the Louisville Orchestra. Each episode is short, only about 6 minutes. And it's exciting. Give it a try, even if you don't think you like Classical music. Especially if you think you don't like Classical music.

(CVHS students: I never tire of talking about and advertising R.O.C.O. Ask me about this amazing and innovative local orchestra any time.)

Music: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots

Rather than get into conversations about "best" or even "favorite" albums, I prefer to think of it in terms of "albums I never get tired of listening to." They don't necessarily expand my way of thinking about the world, and I don't necessarily get more and more out of them with each listen. Some have some sort of emotional connection that places it at a certain time in my life, and others just seem to get along with me really well.

When I think about albums I never get tired of listening to, one of the first to come to mind is always The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002).

"It's Summertime" and "Do You Realize" are the types of songs that just might make you cry. They're melodic and happy but in no way superficial. But the gem is--of course--the song about Yoshimi. "Her name is Yoshimi. She's a black belt in karate. Working for the city, she has to discipline her body."

Listen to this album for a lush and melodic trip through a fantasy land and your own melancholic emotions. Or don't. But I will, again and again.

Study tip: pick some study music

For students who want to increase efficiency or productivity, my first piece of advice is always to choose some study music. It should be instrumental. It should be neither too fast nor too slow. It should have no other emotional associations for you.

Once you choose your study music, stick with it. Play it every time you sit down to study or do homework. Do not listen to other music when studying or doing homework. After a while—it doesn’t take long—habit energy takes over. You’ll no longer actively hear the music, but you won’t be easily distracted by other sounds. Your brain will recognize that it’s homework time when it hears the music (think Pavlov’s Dog) and will calm down. You’ll even be able to put yourself in the mood to do homework if you weren’t before—and who’s ever in the mood to do homework?

If you're looking for recommendations, try Kid Loco's soundtrack to The Graffiti Artist. 

If classical music puts you to sleep..

If classical music puts you to sleep, then you might be excited about Max Richter's new piece. "Sleep" is an eight-hour piece (apparently the longest classical composition ever) that's meant to be played while people sleep. The premiere will happen at an overnight performance where the audience will listen in beds, presumably asleep.

(By coincidence, I put on a Richter album last night to help me fall asleep. I can vouch for this guy's talent.)

Why is the timpani player smelling his drum?

Here's a quick rundown of some funny questions you might like to read before going to a classical music concert.

If you do go to one, let me know! I love to talk about concerts, but rarely get the opportunity.

Monet isn't enough

Here is some really great advice about how to listen to contemporary classical music, which is often very difficult and very un-pretty. (I spent a few hours last night trying out some living composers I'd never heard of before. I hated all the music, but I'm glad I listened.)

Change "music" to "contemporary art" and switch a few composer names to artist names, and the same advice is also really good for looking at new and difficult contemporary art.

Music review

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For only the second time ever (the first in 1960, conducted by Klein himself), Yves Klein's "Monotone-Silence Symphony" was performed last week in New York. It's exactly what the name describes: musicians playing a single note for 20 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of silence. This performance didn't include nude women dipped in paint and literally thrust up on a canvas while the music was being played, but it seems the performance was a hit anyway. I wish I could have been there. Klein has been a favorite of mine for a long time.

Update: classical music is actually good for your heart

if you're a mouse.

Art is good, but you may want to avoid classical music

for your own safety.

This week Brahms caused a fistfight and Bach caused a fatal heart attack.

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