Thinking about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson: Chapter Beginnings
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I’m thinking about Lorraine Hunt Lieberson today, perhaps because Peter Sellars’ production of Handel’s Theodora has just appeared on CD, and its music has been resounding through our house for days… More
Mid-Year Playlist
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The following songs were all released this year, all on full-length LP’s. The exception, however, is the track “You and I,” which features Richard Hawley accompanied by The Arctic Monkeys (listed here as The Death Ramps)–a collaboration which I hope will yield more. Some of these songs appear on albums I’ve reviewed here already; the… More
The Art of Making, Alma Flamenca
“Pieces of wood, love, knowledge and 299 hours of work, condensed in a 3 minute film.” Director & VFX – Spiros Rasidakis, Dimitris Ladopoulos Director of photography – Nikos Mexis Editing – Yiannis Kostavaras Sound Design – Nikos Tsines Guitarist & Composer – Edsart Udo De Haes Guitar Maker – Vassilis Lazarides lazarides.com via Deep… More
Dreadful Impressions: Dictaphone’s “Poems From A Rooftop”
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Dictaphones became popular circa 1910, through the Columbia Gramophone Company, as a way of transcribing speech. Using wax cylinders, which by this point had been replaced by disc technology for most sound recording, these devices, resembling elaborate hookahs, were the last vestiges of Alexander Graham Bell’s revolutionary discoveries in sound fidelity. Some still claim that… More
The Art of the Effortless and Other Loveable Offenses: Three Reviews
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I am wary of sincerity. Is it because I am incapable of appearing to possess it even if I feel possessed by it? I joked with a friend recently that I am capable of competing with almost anything but the hint of sincerity. Its place in art necessarily troubled given that by definition the creative… More
They Went On–Who’s Afraid Of Richard Dreyfuss?
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Another finished RPM Challenge and more shameless self-promotion! I’m currently listening to Damien Jurado’s new album Maraqopa and Guy Capecelatro III’s North For The Winter. More
RPM Challenge 2012 Part III
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After having one of my songs featured on the first 2012 RPM podcast (I’m about twenty minutes in, the penultimate piece), They Went On (an odd moniker for a one-man band, I know) is glad… More
RPM Challenge 2012 Part II
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The RPM Challenge continues. Into the second week and I’ve got five unnamed rough tracks. I’m unclear exactly how things are shaping up, as I’m too in the middle of it to get a clear sense of direction. I do notice a piano-driven impulse on these, and I’m enjoying some experimentation with mini-moog. I got in… More
RPM Challenge 2012
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Each year musicians from around the world challenge one another to compose and record an album’s worth of material (10 songs or 35 minutes of music) in the month of February (this being a leap year, we get an extra day). This is not a competition, but rather a community effort to push ourselves into… More
2011 Playlist
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A few words on year-end lists: Those who make them feel important for doing so. More
Ain’t None Bad As Tom Waits
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A friend of mine who’ll remain unnamed often tells a Waits story (most likely apocryphal, as if there were any other kind of Waits story) worth re-telling: This friend, see, is coming off a bender in LA–uncertain, for instance, of how he’d arrived in LA in the first place. He is certain only that someone has… More
Laura Veirs – Life is Good Blues
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A sneak peek at an acoustic session with Laura Veirs coming in our October issue. More