Änglagård

I started using Last.fm seriously yesterday and it brought me very quickly to an excellent prog rock band from Sweden, Änglagård. Expect mellotron and superb arrangements on their album Epilog.

Tool, Vicarious

I cannot believe this blog does not yet feature some of the last album.

MDK

Yay! I just got offered "MDK," Magma's best album. I used to have this album on magnetic tape, with Agitation Free "II" on the other side. Listen to "MDK" over the sound module at Prog Archives.

To me who listens music almost solely on the MacBook or on the iPod Shuffle, a physical CD is of almost no interest. Worse, living abroad means that if I ever pack back home one day, I will have to move the CD with me; a CD is small but you have to multiply this to everything in life, and it soon amounts to tons of stuff.

The only advantage is that the CD can be put in the hi-fi and the hi-fi has a clock-timer thingee. In brief, I can wake up with Magma. I love it. Thanks B and G!

Whisplash 2007

I am now done with posting Overkill videos. The last one made a point: you can still play good thrash metal from the 1980s in 2007. Here's another proof: Metallica's “Whisplash” at Werchter. The audio-only version has really good sound.



“Sick of the Studio” was good news for the people who lived close to the tour locations, and good news for people who have seen and joyed Metallica live. Their Reading concert a few years ago was good, even though they were touring “St Anger”. Metallica are rightfully sick of the studio: their recent studio stuff is interesting, but it is not good (“Vulturous” has potential, which lasts 15 seconds and then dies in useless vocalisations and a monotonous arrangement). But their tours are still good! And I think that “S & M” carried the insight that their old stuff is good enough to enjoy several cycles of innovative recycling. Thrash has many lives.

On a different topic, the cable that goes from my computer to the hi-fi is badly damaged and I get sound through only one speaker (left). The funny thing is that it gives me the opportunity to listen to records in a different way. Caravan's “Golf Girl” in mono is funny, because the horn at the beginning is completely killed, it's only guitars, drums and vocals!

Notes from the week

• Blackfield, “II” is not bad. Now I can see where Opeth is coming from (some tracks are very similar as far as the general harmonics are concerned, especially if you listen to Opeth's acoustic masterpiece).


• Faith No More, “The Real Thing” is quickly importing from the CD. Let's see. Isn't “War Pigs” a song by Black Sabbath? HA–I knew it!


• My longlasting love story with French hard rock from the eighties continues: I just bought H-Homb, “Attaque” on iTunes (the funniest band ever), and Trust, “Répression” is now the most listened album in my library, right after…


• … The Chemical Brothers, “Dig your Own Hole” -- because this album is simply one of the best electronic music albums I have ever heard.

To be listened together

• “Moonchild” (King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King, 1969)
• “Dissolving Clouds” (Biosphere, Dropsonde, 2006)

As soon as you will have been through the instrumental part in the former, you will not be able to miss the link with the latter.

A fantastic link over 37 years of music.

Wyatt in Paris

You will have to read French. The videos, however, feature Wyatt answering the audience in English. The website posting the links is the best resource I know about Robert Wyatt, Soft Machine and progressive rock in general.

His theory of art and his views on the current crisis within the music industry are just right on spot. His explanation of jazz-rock (in his case bebop and rock) and is also a fantastic reading of his work. Finally, his character is refreshingly humble, good-tempered and glowingly happy.

Watch it just to feel better about ageing, humanity, life, politics, music and the rest.

BBC Reviews

BBC Experimental now has a syndication feed, featuring:

• The last Fripp & Eno. In line with The Equatorial Stars.
• The last Robert Wyatt. In line with Cuckooland.

Five favourite albums (Part 1: Soft Machine and David Sylvian)

I should not play this game (especially at 3am), but I am starting to identify my favourite albums with greater precision.

The first one is clearly Soft Machine, Third. Every note on this album has left a mark in my mind. “Facelift” and “Slightly All the Time” are my ideal representations of, respectively, tortured and groovy electrified jazz music. “Moon in June” is the prelude to Robert Wyatt's foundational album, “Rock Bottom.” (produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason). “Out-Bloody Rageous” shows how to compose and play in the idiom of Steve Reich, with added jazz-rock style. The remastered 2007 edition of Third has extra live tracks (Facelift was already live on the 1970 Columbia recording). I listen to it almost every night.

The second one is David Sylvian, Gone to Earth. If memory serves, I discovered it after drifting from Brian Eno to Brian Eno & Robert Fripp, then to Robert Fripp & David Sylvian, and finally to David Sylvian. The album shocked me as the best ambient album I had ever listened to, even if Brian Eno's experimental work had been my first introduction to the genre. I remember listening to it looped when reading my courses for the preparation of my brevet des collèges (the BEPC, a French equivalent to the GCSE which we take when sixteen).

The third album will be a King Crimson album from their first period, which started with In the Court of the Crimson King and ended with Red. I yet have to pick my favourite Crimson album. I have only little clue about the fourth and fifth ones, but they will probably feature Brian Eno and perhaps Harold Budd at his side, King Crimson's Robert Fripp, Robert Wyatt (solo) and David Sylvian.

Followers include Pink Floyd from their first psychedelic period (Animals is so amazingly brilliant), new ambient composer Biosphere for his 2004 album Autour de La Lune based on the French radio archives of Jules Vernes, post-rock band Tortoise for understanding Brian Eno so carefully, and Frank Zappa, for being Frank Zappa, the Boris Vian from the eighties.

Jazz tracks

Two tracks from my secret list of favourite jazz tracks ever:

• Herbie Hancock, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” on his amazing live with Chick Corea (An Evening With…, 1978)
  
  
• Mike Ratledge, “Slightly All the Time,” on Soft Machine's Third album (1970)
  
  

The video supply for these tracks is not that bad, thanks in particular to the jazzheads who are spending their days downloading from the French National Audiovisual Archives (INA) and uploading them on Youtube instead.

It is obvious that you should not trust live recordings to reflect album performace, but I think they will give you a pretty good idea. Third has been remastered in 2007, while the Hancock/Corea live was already perfect on first take: you can hear some slight humming over the piano at some point, but nothing critical like in Gould's Variations for instance.

Weekend bootlegs: Soft Machine and Metallica

Two excellent live bootlegs for this weekend:

• The “Hazard Profile” live by Soft Machine, recorded at two different places in the UK. I am listening to this live jointly with the remastered versions of Six and Seven, which do not have Robert Wyatt's imagination, voice and creativity as Soft Machine's first three albums, but which stay very good progressive rock albums.
• The “Sick of Werchter” live by Metallica, recorded in Germany this year. A lot of old classics from Kill'Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All. They even played Orion! I need to say that this live is by far the best live bootleg I have heard from Metallica, and the second best live after the S & M album.