Elina Duni Quartet from Albania

Born in Tiran, Albania (but coming from Bern, Switzerland, where she lived for the last 20 years), Elina Duni,  a beautiful voice and nice modal jazz and folk music blend...  on ECM.

Must say...  Elina is also an handsome young woman.

WJAAS - Yukata

Japanese solo-shots, wearing yukata(s):-)

Fukuoka

Kyoto

Friends

Klaus - Stefano - Reinhard

Doxy's Karlheinz Stockhausen

Doxy is reissuing some superb recording by the old "Beton Music" master... Klavierstuck from 1958 and... yes, Beton Music from 1952... Mantra from 1970.

The quality of both recording - talking about old Deutsche Gramophone's skilled masters - and music is REALLY impressive.

Mantra is... INCREDIBLE,  plainly said... as  also Hasegawa-san agrees:-)

▼

• Design – William Reuter Design
• Electronics – Ole B. Ørsted
• Liner Notes – Reinhard Oehlschlägel
• Piano – Rosalind Bevan, Yvar Mikashoff

Notes▼

Composed in 1970, Stockhausen’s “Mantra” is a duet for piano written for the Donaueschingen Festival. It is Stockhausen’s first completely scored piece after a long string of largely improvised compositions. Here both pianists play ring-modulated pianos, cymbals, and a wood block. One player is also controlling a recording of Morse code. The purpose of this composition was to explore the idea of a musical “mantra”. The repetition of sounds are intended to place both the audience and the musicians themselves into an altered state of consciousness, thus changing the concert performance into an interactive event where the composer and listener are equals.

Double (2 x 45 rpm discs) 180 gram HQ virgin vinyl - ltd. numbered edition 500 copies worldwide.

I got one.

... ah, those Telefunken M-10...

Karlheinz Stockhausen... the Man from Sirius, as he defined himself shortly before his death.

Robbie Basho's Archives... more Cedar Rapids' gig - Live at the Natural Deli Restaurant - July 21st, 1978

Robbie at his very, VERY best... confident, smooth chatting and kidding with audience (listen to Robbie's love for cowboys hats joke:-))) and AWESOME playing,  more than ever... it's REALLY intriguing hearing for the very first time from Robbie himself the story about "the" mighty Mexican-made "before Mexicans made instruments only for tourists" 12 strings guitar "bought from a sailor for two hundred bucks"... previously only read on an old Frets' magazine interview, eons ago...

Robbie Basho plays 4 songs at the Deli Natural Restaurant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa---including the never before released piece "Omar Khayyam Country"!!!

This "mini concert" of 4 songs was performed on July 21,1978, the night before he played at Sinclair Auditorium in Cedar Rapids, a gem also available to Basho's scholars.



Thanking people at Yahoo Basho Group, Kyle Fosburgh (love your site, Kyle!!!) and Steffan Junghans-Basho (same, indeed, Steffan...)

Superb!

Enjoy, pals.

... ah, forgettin': I found some music sheet in TAB form handwritten by Robbie's himself, taken from my old guitar mentor Maurizio Angeletti's long-deleted and out-of-print book... he played with, met and hosted Robbie in early '80s when he briefly visited Italy.

Will scan and share, VERY soon... stay tuned. 

Back to the Roots - Spinnerette

If you're a records merchant or when going at your local, humble second-hand record fair or to Utrecht's or Milan/Novegro's vintage records heavens... here is the solution to check records conditions on the fly, folks... also coming with USB-vinyl downloading-friendly feature.

Cool!

My friends' friends are my friends Dept. - Beth Orton's "Sugaring Season" on ANTI

Beth was dueting on last Bert Jansch's "Black Swan"... she, sort-of got Bert's blessing and esteem and... well, I loved since then her smooth, yet lightly sand-papered, beautiful voice.

On her last disc, she's not giving us a perfect disc, actually... only, like only a limited number of (best) artists can do, with two or three songs she gives a dignity to the whole recording....

"Candle", "Mistery" but most of all "Poison Tree" are all acoustic guitars, double bass, and haunting melodies and airy, ethereal, yet gravely voice... and  last song is also blessed by a William Blake's poem.

Beth is someway on an early Joni Mitchell's path, only hinting... and on "Poison Tree", you imagine at next bar Bert himself coming for a duet, while you imagine Danny Thompson on double bass... a Pentangle revamping...

The disc is also old-timey in its length... only barely 38 minutes, like some Bert Jansch's and other '70s discs... BUT with the above songs, it's WELL worth buying and enjoying!

You won't regret.

P.S. - recording is also fine and mastering is Greg Calbi's... vinyl comes as a plus with complimentary full disk for driving enjoyment, too.


...

... more chez Tim...

Tim is a volcano... full of energy and always looking for the VERY best...

Here below the new rig... a trial, possibly vs. his mighty, ultra-exotic WE 16A... which combo will win?!!

.






.. thanking Angelo's video and Lencoheaven superb forum... (IMO) among THE best Forums around, actually... with Joe Roberts' new Blog and Tim's Blog, of course: both quite recently added as audio Web broadcastings...

Head-to-head... 15A vs. 16A

WOW, Tim... the quality of WE 15A is pouring also from my (shitty) Mac's speakers:-)))

LIGNOLAB from Bochum, Germany

Superb manufacturing... clever and intriguing ideas, someway Jean Hiraga and Le Cahier de l'Audiophile's hinted: Sato horns, Onken W and Western Electric 825 bent horns for DIY speakers building... and last but not least, solid CNC machined bronze casing for classic Denon DL 103...

Western Electric 825 horn...

Sato horn

The cool seismic table...

Bronze body for DL 103

(Sand-filled) Onken W and Sato horn...

Worth browsing  site and VERY interesting and performance promising products!

A very skilled manufacturer.

"Oh Lord, I'm slipping" or my friend L. finished his Western Electric 86 amp's restoring

Bravo!

Enjoy the humurous, joyful, ironic and classy happiness of L... a true masterpiece considering this beauty was a shitty pigeon-shit rusty cage only few months ago:-)!!!

A labour of love and still singing after 77 years... in STC triodes glorious sound.

Bravo, indeed L

Melville's Moby Dick B-day

... without forgettin' Silvia Boschero's "Moby Dick", on RAI Radio 2;-)

Breaking news from Japan!

Hoping things will get better and not worsening...

End of the World, Maya-style?!?!

Bass' bass? Double-bass at its VERY best!

Would like to say I do not "use" some disc or disk as an audio/sonic test... unfortunately and unshamedly, nope:-)... I'd be a liar...

It happens, quite seldomly...

Nonetheless I don't feel so guilty, as - it happened several times - through "sonics" I very often arrive to "music" and vice-versa, getting near to something which I'd not even knew: classic, ethnic, avantgarde... whatever.

Anyway - also if I already wrote about this very disk, I guess it worthwhile returning on topic - on Tord Gustavsen Ensemble's "Restored, Returned" on ECM 2107 (2009), on track 2 "Way In", at about 2,30 m from start... is... WOW!!!

You'll find the gem, the nugget, the shiniest "Bass' Bass" recording you ever wished...

It's a solo... but "what" a solo!

Matt Eilertsen's double-bass is... simply AMAZING!

This handful of notes represents - it's my STRONG opinion - the Zenith of double-bass reproduced sound, ever... hype?

No!

How I'd wish same precious, masterful engineering was also made available on Scott LaFaro, Steve Swallow and - most of all - Hugh Banton's playing and recordings!

Matt's double-bass is an awesome mix of the best of the VERY best;-) - i.e. an heavenly blending of  fingering whooshes and related noises on fretless board, of wood soundboard, body cavity and resonances... a LOT OF resonances and deep, deeeeep low end... maybe - I guess - his "E" low-string is tuned down to a "C",  like Glen Moore (of Oregon) does!

Also a seldom heard decay, some clothes rubbing on correctly sized instrument body and presence, breathing with nose and mouth, ALL placed in a so lively and "right" recording space....

Simply superb!

I invite everyone into double-bass to join in and enjoy this very disk...

A masterpiece.

... almost forgetting: the whole disk is also worth a listen, of course;-)))

Stash

The Pop Prince, or simply Stash - formerly (artist/painter) Balthus' son,  but, then, Prince Stanislaus Klossowski de Rola - friend of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, exotic dandy and lover, actor, musician and aristocrat and... well he knew and knows everyone counts, from Roland Topor to Arrabal, Brian Jones to Syd Barrett to John Lennon and many (non-passed away) others - was an hedonist gentleman who REALLY lived rock music and Swingin' London... and beyond...

... sure a man ALWAYS at the right place at the right moment.

Thanking (beloved) Mojo magazine for the extract...

... and Stash's dad:-)

Morton Feldman - "Crippled Symmetry: at June in Buffalo" on Frozen Reed

Superbly timeless music...

... and a recording to par.

A review by Richard Pinnell

Where in life we do everything we can to avoid
anxiety, in art we must pursue it. This is difficult. (Boris Pasternak)

We want the Exact and the Vast; we want
our Dreams, and our Mathematics. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Aeon Flux (2005)

The Movie

... not bad for the overall dark mood and superb digital tricks & effects... and - most of all - Charlize Theron is soooo...

Jailhouse Rock - a book by Susanna Marietti & Patrizio Gonnella

Jailhouse Rock - 100 musicisti dietro le sbarre
 

ISBN: 9788862312622 - Editore: Arcana

"Dallo strepitoso concerto di Johnny Cash nella prigione di Folsom all’arresto della Allman Brothers Band al completo, da Greg Lake che finisce al fresco per aver nuotato nudo in piscina a Chet Baker che viene lasciato a svernare nel carcere toscano della città di Lucca, da Bon Scott entrato in riformatorio da ragazzino per un furto di benzina a Johnson Righeira che si è fatto cinque mesi di carcere preventivo a Padova prima di venire scagionato da ogni accusa di droga: storie di musicisti che hanno attraversato i cancelli della prigione, da colpevoli o da innocenti, per un lungo o per un breve periodo, una volta o tante volte. Le carceri statunitensi, quelle inglesi, francesi, italiane, giapponesi, le carceri sudamericane o quelle africane. Chi ha vissuto tra gli scarafaggi e chi è stato trattato come si conviene a una rockstar, chi ha avuto clemenza e chi è stato torturato dai propri carcerieri. E ancora i Sex Pistols che sbeffeggiano la regina, Ozzy Osbourne arrestato per una pipì fatta nel posto sbagliato, Joan Baez che si batte contro la guerra in Vietnam, Leadbelly due volte carcerato e due volte graziato per il modo in cui suonava il blues, Víctor Jara che nello stadio ridotto a prigione dai militari golpisti verrà brutalizzato a morte. E poi James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Keith Richards, Roberto Vecchioni, Tupac Shakur, i Dead Kennedys, Fela Kuti, Jimi Hendrix e molti altri grandi artisti finiti in carcere di qua e di là dell’oceano a seguito di tante vicende rappresentative dell’ambiente più trasgressivo del nostro mondo."

It's a cool book of (police) id-pixes and short stories about 100 musicians and artists imprisoned in the last decades...

WOW!

News from ECM / Arvo Part's "Mangime Parti" (Playing Part) 2-DVDs

Playing Pärt  Arvo Pärt making music with students of the music school © 2012 International Arvo Pärt Center Minor Film Universal Edition, Vienna Directed and filmed by Dorian Supin 2-DVD, 276 minutes 16:9, Stereo Subtitles: English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Estonian Regional code: all zones Booklet in English and Estonian ECM New Series IAPC-1

In 2011 the Old Town Music School of Collegium Educationis Revaliae and the International Arvo Pärt Centre together staged a student concert of works by Arvo Pärt in Tallinn's Swedish St Michael's Church. This double DVD package is a recording of the concert and the rehearsals plus a conversation between Nora and Arvo Pärt.

Donald Fagen's new effort

STEELY DAN's co-founder new 2012 solo album, his first in 6 years! 

Includes a cover of Isaac Hayes' "Out Of The Ghetto".

We'll listen to it... always looking for (next)  "The Nightfly"

Dani Joss - Liquid Photography (2004)

Dani Joss: Liquid Photography

Liquid Photography constitutes Dani Joss' first personal musical endeavour, a musician already known from his part in project S.ink.

...

Imaginary soundtrack music has always been one of my favourite types of instrumental music and Joss' Liquid Photography plays a role in a personal life soundtrack.

...

As a solo artist, Joss focuses more on the possibilities of digital synthesis, crafting slow building, stately swatches of sound which have enough narrative impetus to sustain the listener's interest.

Dani's site

Cool music, indeed!

From Thessaloniki, Greece...

Memory Lane Dept. - my very own Soft Cell's "Non Stop Erotic Cabaret"

Webzines and (paper) magazines reviews are OK... nothing wrong in reading about a new disc or artist and gambling a deal on Amazon or at yr. local record-shop... but entering a shop or listening at the radio or at a friend place a song, ONLY a single song and being captured and hooked is MUCH more powerful stuff, don't you?

It happened - to yours truly and to virtually anyone - several times...

My memory goes to a (much) younger me, in London for the second time, ever... it was 1981... everything was brand new and shiny to me... my pilgrimage to the places of music... Manchester Square for EMI headquarters, Abbey Road studios, Denmark Street for those tiny, cool guitar shops, the place where Bert Jansch and John Renbourn recorded in mid '60s... Neal's Yard and Monthy Phyton's and organic whole-foods, near Covent Garden...Transatlantic records in Marylebone High Street, Collet's for folk discs, Ivor Mairant's and his superb vintage and luthier-made acoustic guitars... and Tottenham Court Road's hi-fi salons... Naim, Linn, Rogers... Quads!!! ... all was so shiny and intriguing and worthwhile... I had the same orgasm-like two weeks the year before, in eyes-wide-shut-mode;-)

... and girls... GIRLS, so "different" from my school classmates...

London really was a dream for a younger me, back in the early '80s... went there a dozen times, BUT never had those intense emotions, then...

One day, it was around Oxford Street, I entered a shop, t-shirts and sweaters, I guess and an handsome gal, the clerk, was at the counter, making order of garbled sweaters.

... some music was in the air...  electronic, yet with rhythm, and an high-pitched angel-like voice... weird, unheard melody, I was hooked... the folkie, young acoustic guitar player and lover, the Pentangle's fan... gone!

Almost immediately I asked the young lady about the title and artist/group... she looked at me like I was a guinea-pig in a laboratory, Columbus looking at the native in the new found land;-)

She whispered: "Soft Cell"... the song was "Tainted Love"... shortly after, while still chatting, you know: "Where do you come from?" and the like... another song come from the loudspakers in the shop... talking about "Sex Dwarfs" and related stuff...

Kapooow!!!

I was out again the crowdy, traffic jammed Oxford Street, but the chilly air and pale sun were different...

In a few minutes, I was in a record shop, to get my brand new copy of  "Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret": I was  proud and happy...

It was 1981... in London, and my (young) D.N.A. changed.;-)

... I still cherish and listen to this record and love Marc Almond's voice...

... still luring disco dollies to a life of vice...

Hoarding

Aaaaaargh... hoarding!!!

It's "me" and "my" story, folks!

Only... I really own more, I mean MUCH more vinyls:-)

Thanking Giovanni Presutti and his great, above pix, from his recent "Dependency" in galleries, now.

Giovanni Presutti's site