From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V5 #3 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Saturday, January 2 1999 Volume 05 : Number 003 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Michael Stipe [neal copperman ] Re: albums of the year [neal copperman ] Re: Albums of the year/Hologram of Baal (LONG!) [neal copperman ] Re: Tim's Review of The Church [neal copperman ] Re: the Raincoats, Placebo [neal copperman ] Re: artists/fans [neal copperman ] Re: Beth Orton, etc... [neal copperman ] Re: no output from k.b./love-hounds [neal copperman ] Re: Kitchens of Distinction [neal copperman ] 1999 ["Drew Harrington" ] redecorating Apartment Life [neal copperman ] Re: Tim's Review of The Church [Dirk Kastens ] Re: albums of the year [Dirk Kastens ] Re: Beth Orton, etc... [Dirk Kastens ] Re: 1999 [Heidi Heller ] sib on cbc [desmond in a tutu ] 1998: The Year In Music [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1999 23:37:39 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Michael Stipe >---Stuart Myerburg wrote: >> > >> just saw an R.E.M. Behind the Music special on VH-1 and Michael Stipe >> was talking about his "queerness" and said he felt forced to talk >about >> it after much media speculation. He implied this happened at least >4 or >> 5 years ago. > >I don't THINK so, unless I'm WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more out of it than I >thought. Unless maybe me means he began five years ago to talk to his >goldfish about it or something. ("Bubbles, I think you should sit >down.") heh, sometimes it takes as long as 5 years to figure out what Michael Stipe is saying! neal np: Jennifer Kimball - Veering From The Wave (was never a Story fan, and after a handfull of listens, well, I won't miss this when I send it to Marion. There are a few tunes that I actually notice, but most of the time this disc just floats right by me.) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:11:28 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: albums of the year At 10:03 PM +0100 12/28/98, Dirk Kastens wrote: >Mari Boine Band - Balvvoslatjna (Room Of Worship) >Deep pulsating rhythms, dense sounds and Mari's stunning voice >create a mystic atmosphere. What's the scoop on this? I haven't seen it mentioned before. What label is it on? Is it more like Gula Gula? neal np: dubstar - the stars ep ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:13:33 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Albums of the year/Hologram of Baal (LONG!) At 9:13 PM +0000 12/29/98, Tim wrote: >They sound like I >imagine softly tapping a thousan silver goblets of honey would sound, while >underneath "radiotronic" noises hum like those (Indian?) bowls you rub >around the edges with a metal rod). Those are Tibeten singing bowls. Aren't they cool? I bought one for my brother-in-law last year, after driving my friends up the wall by playing with them for 45 minutes in the store. My parents were not at all taken with them either. I think it made mom's teeth ring or something. neal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:17:28 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: My 1998 Favorites At 10:01 AM -0500 12/29/98, ABershaw@aol.com wrote: >Most anticipated 1999 release: Cindy Lee Berryhill's next studio album. I wasn't anticipating this until now. What's the scoop Alan? I hadn't heard anything of Cindy Lee doing any recording. Has she started? Do we have a tentative list of songs? Personally, I think she should record them all live. I guess I can almost imagine the selection, since she's been playing an albums worth of "new" songs for years, including some that best any of her previous output ("She Won't Even Try" and "Family Tree" immediately come to mind.) Any hints on what part of 1999 we can be expecting this? When's Joy's album officially come out too? neal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:45:58 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Tim's Review of The Church At 12:34 AM +0100 12/31/98, Dirk Kastens wrote: >At 14:07 30.12.98 -0800, C. K. Coney wrote: >>Love and Rockets I immediately thought that the music of The Church is >exactly >>the direction where I would have liked L & R to go (but Daniel Ash and >company >>never went that way.) Thanks for turning me on to this very cutting-edge >band! > >And he never will as it seems, since Bauhaus are reunited these days. >I also loved L & R and Tones On Tail. What does the new Bauhaus sound like? I liked the original well enough, but particularly liked all the non-Peter Murphy side projects, including the Jazz Butcher and the ones above. My interest in Peter Murphy decreased on each album (pretty quickly), so that I lost interest in him while the others were still putting out interesting music. (Though I didn't follow L&R all the way to now either.) np: still ratsy ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 00:25:08 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: the Raincoats, Placebo >There's not much going on here, so inbetween mailing out late Xmess tapes I >might as well lay some musical eggs on people's brains. > >First off: the Raincoats. I've never seen them mentioned here on Ecto >except when I bring them up, so it's always worth pumping them. I've only recently been exposed to the music of the Raincoats, and am still absorbing it. I found two of their discs in the throwaway bins (buy 10, get 5 for free). Odyshape and "looking in the shadows" were actually in the pile of things I wanted. The difference between the two albums is quite striking. I've only given a brief listen to each, so Don's comments were probably much more thought out. On first listen, I found Odyshape veering towards unlistenable, but unlistenable in such a way that I figure once I manage to stretch my ears around it, the music will be very intriguing. The vocals and violin practically grate. I tend to make sampler tapes while I'm listening to music. Basically, a snapshot of whatever I've had in the player over the last few weeks. I had such a tape in my car on my recent week-long vacation to Southern Utah, and it had one song ("Family Treat") from Odyshape and another ("Pretty") from looking. As expected, the jarring sounds on Treat started to fall into place after repeated listens. Pretty was easy enough to listen to from day one, though I kept trying to recall who it actually was. It sounds like a lot of fairly quirky women singers. Now that I have these "ins" to the albums, I'll have to go back and give them a listen. neal np: My Roots Are Showing - Natalie MacMaster ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:28:16 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: artists/fans At 3:16 PM -0500 12/29/98, jfrancis@villagenet.com wrote: >I'm very curious about the artist/fan dynamic and what this relationship >means. What, perhaps goes through the artists mind as fans gush over >them, and the artist is left to wonder, "why all this fuss about me?" >As Kate B. has said..."Enough about Kate! ; she's not that interesting" Seems like we all know about the fan side of the artist/fan dynamic. And it always made a lot of sense to me that fans were interested in the people themselves. Me, I'm interested in the drive to create things, how the things (music, literature, art) grew inside and then out of the artist, and the process that it took for the art to unfold. I'm always in total awe watching movies where you see an artist at work, like in Crumb, where a representation quickly emerges from a few scattered lines. It's practically magic. Or in that Jane Siberry documentary where she is at the piano and plays the entire song The Walking, which she has worked out as music and a melody, but no words. The song is completely there already. It's breathtaking. On a vaguely related note, does anyone have any idea about the germination of Ra is a Busy God. It intrigues me that this grew from an instrumental and yet works so well as a song with lyrics. Did Happy have some of the lyrics worked out earlier, but the song didn't quite gel at the time? Or did she write it purely as an instrumental? And if so, why did she feel it needed lyrics? Does she often work like this? Did any of her previous songs start as instrumentals? Returning to the artist/fan dynamic. I don't have any clue how the artist perceives it. Most of my relationships have been with performers who have only a limited amount of success, and aren't subject to the same sort of personal probing as larger artists. (hmmm, that was quite illuminating) neal ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 00:33:36 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Beth Orton, etc... At 11:07 AM -0800 12/28/98, Eponine wrote: >Since Beth Orton's new CD is getting SUCH great press, I decided to >finally unwrap and listen to 'Trailer Park' which I bought last summer. > >Anyway, I listened to 'Trailer Park' in the car on the way to work this >morinig. I thought the first song was GREAT. Then as the CD >progressed, I found myself becoming more and more detached from the >music until by the time I got to work I was almost really glad to turn >it off. When "Trailer Park" came out, it got a lot of discussion around here. While there often isn't a total agreement on things around here, it seems like the bulk of the sentiments were very split on this album. Which kind of makes sense, since it's a strange mix of quite folky and oddly electronic. Some of the songs seem very poignant (to me), while others pretty uninteresting. So I think your reaction is pretty standard. I just gave my first listen to the Best Bits EP earlier this evening, but it didn't sink in much. (Listening and e-mailing always seem a bad combo to me. I pay more attention to the latter and very little to the former.) >However, I am rather preoccupied with a stressful personal >situation, so it could just very well be that nothing would have >"grabbed me" this morning. Since so many Ecotphiles seem to like her I >will certainly give her another listen. Seems like it might be a good idea to just stick something on a shelf that doesn't strike immediately. Lots of times, a return listen months later sheds new light on things that didn't seem appealing at the time. The sampler tapes I mentioned in my other post do some of the same tricks for me. And shuffling too. Sometimes an album just doesn't sink in at all, but individual pieces of music, when isolated from the environment of other similar songs, suddenly jump out. And with that song as an introduction to the album, it suddenly opens up for me. Does anyone else listen like this? >My local record store called to tell me two of the Happy CDs I ordered >came in: 'Equipoise' and 'Happy Rhodes'. What he means by "Happy >Rhodes" I can only guess is either the 'Volume I' or the 'Volume II'. I >am worried that I won't like them, especially in my present state of >mind. I have ten days to decide. I wish I hadn't gone overboard and >ordered so many (four). I ordered: 'Rhodes I', 'Rhodes II', >'Rhodesongs', and 'Equipoise'. Sigh. I always go overboard. I'm sure you won't have any trouble unloading them on the list if you end up not liking them. Especially since they are all going out of print. In fact, I'm kind of surprised you were able to get them at all. neal np: still natalie macmaster now reading: well, just finished Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth last night, and haven't selected a new book yet. Not the most uplifting of New Year's Eve activities. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:09:51 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: no output from k.b./love-hounds At 2:35 PM -0800 12/28/98, Old Spice wrote: >I agree with you what you say, but not with what you seem to mean. You >seem to be suggesting (taking the rest of your post into account as >well) that any artist who lacks the foresight (or perhaps the >conviction) to die young inevitably suffers a diminution of creative >power. I agree that this often appears to be the case, but I believe >(in the first place) that the cause of this is success, not age; and >in the second place, that Kate has proven herself the exception to >this rule, rather than, as you (and indeed not a few of her >fair-weather fans) opine, an example of it. Sometimes I wonder if it's not success or age, but just however much an artist has in them. One of my absolute favorite books is The Bone People by Keri Hulme. It's been something like 10 years since that book came out, and it was her debut novel which had taken a long time to write too. Since then, a smattering of essays, stories and poems have been printed, but they mostly seem to come from the same time frame. The follow-up novel gets put off year after year. Now, my respect for her would not decrease at all if it turned out that the only book she had in her was The Bone People. After all, most of us don't have even one masterpiece in us. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of this in music, but I can't seem to think of any at the moment. (Ralph Ellison of The Invisible Man fame is another example that seems to apply in literature.) >The emotional stability that began to rear its ugly head in _TSW_ and >seemed to have grown to full maturity in _TRS_ was not what I went to >Kate for. I had a similar experience. The Dreaming may be my favourite album of all time. (I"ll admit that Hounds is as good or better, but, like Charley, TD hit me so hard when I first heard it that HoL couldn't have the same impact following it. If I had heard it first, it very well might have.) TSW seemed like such a letdown after such heights that I didn't think all that much of it at the time. Years later, I found that it is full of brilliant songs. True to Kate's style of songwriting, and just as interesting a step in other directions for the music. (The mediocre production did nothing to help sell this album though.) I think TD and HoL are in your face brilliant, while TSW is much subtler, and yes, more mature. But in many ways it was equally as experimental. The use of the Trio Bulgarka is haunting and was a typically bold move. So maybe, in Charley's view, it just took me a while to reach the point where Kate was already. TRS - well, it didn't do much for me. And to be honest, after a handfull of listens, I put it away and haven't listened to it since. It's something I've been meaning to return to after time and expectations have been put behind me. I remember flashes from it, though I thought it was also done a disservice by The Line, The Curve, THe Cross. (Unfortunately, it's in storage until July.) >How much harder for Kate to continually reinvent herself artistically; >to reevaluate her relationship to her art with every new foray. For us >to demand that she continue recycling husks of her greatest creations >is to demand that she be true to her fansí desires, not to her own art. That's fine, but it's in relationship to her fans that her music is going to be judged. Since there is no absolute to judge musical genius by, the only alternative is to look at the effect it has on the individual listener. So if the fan doesn't embrace every twist of an artists career, it only means that the two aren't agreeing. That's why I dislike temrs like "fair-weather fan" and "flavour of the month". They seem to assume absolutes that don't exist, and elevate personal opinions to a level of truth. (Wouldn't Kitchens of Distinction, or THe Church for that matter, qualify as most people's definitions of flavors of the month?) >Iíve never yet found room for Eric Clapton in my musical universe, so >I canít comment on him, but to refer to Prince as a "vh-1 commercial >crap artist" is to open oneself to charges of musical timidity and >provincialism, jfrancis. It's probably easy to overlook all the risks Prince has taken if you flip on VH1 and see a string of his hit videos. >Prince, like Kate, is an artist whose >relationship with his fans and the public at large remains in flux, >precisely because he is unwilling to coast along the easy paths that >are familiar and smooth because he laid them, simply because thatís >what his fans want from him. Prince has earned my respect for exactly >the same reason that he continues to disappoint so many people: his >love of experimentation and artistic growth is greater than his fear >of failure. It seems really amazing the number of huge hits Prince has had despite this attitude. Seems like every few years he gets written off, and every few years after that, he has a huge hit. >> no offense. >> I rarely post. > >Yes; I donít recognize your name. But you should post more: the lack >of posts from people who feel as you do is exactly _why_ Ecto seems >cliquish and sickly sweet. There are an awful lot of cooks for a broth >that doesnít seem to get stirred up much. It gets said over and over again, but ecto needs negative opinions as much as it needs rave reviews. How else can you put things in perspective? How does anyone's opinion take on any depth if it only consists of what they like? Besides, I see a lot of stuff I consider pretty bland enthusiastically embraced by a lot of people, and it's important to me to see it put in perspective by others. If anything, ecto seems less sweet than it did years ago. The charge of cliquishness comes up repeatedly too. I don't really get it, except that there are a few of us that post a lot, and respond to each other. But I don't see it as exclusionary. I don't understand why, in the last few years, many new people have wandered in and seem to feel welcome, while a handful of people seem to feel left out. Usually the charge seems leveed after a post or two which go ignored, or opinions that are disagreed with (even in the "sickly sweet" world of ecto, people's feelings do get hurt). In this case, the charge was thrown out in what appears to be a first post, so it can't have been any of the reasons I mentioned. can you enlighten me at all? neal np: dubstar - the stars ep ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 01:42:23 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Kitchens of Distinction At 11:49 AM +0000 12/30/98, Tim wrote: >Patrick's miserable stories remind me of Morrissey anyway, whose tendency >towards homoeroticism is more interesting simply because it is so vague and >unsubstantiated. I recently bought Hatful Of Hollow (The Smiths) and the way >he runs "This Charming Man", "How Soon Is Now?", "You Handsome Devil" and >"Hand In Glove" together suggests some sort of conceptual thread which, if I >were to guess, details some formative experience. The fact that this is >being sung by an otherwise apparantly heterosexual male makes it more of an >ilicit thrill Wait a minute. Morrissey's homoeroticism vague and unsubstantiated? An "apparently heterosexual male"? I thought Morrissey had always been considered gay (though I recall for a while he was calling himself bisexual, then asexual, then avowed celebate, then ...). For me at least, The Smiths were the first band that I really new were gay. And I hardly ever notice. Also, if I remember correctly, Hatful of Hollow was a collection of singles, wasn't it? Not sure on that. The Smiths released so many singles and then bound them up repeatedly into different albums that it's hard for me to construct how they might have been designed to go together. Of course, there is so much thematic connection between their songs that it should be easy to come up with that thread. In fact, you can find it on the first Smiths album, which has This Charming Man and Hand In Glove on it. Also very strongly visible on Meat is Murder, which is full of unpleasant childhood recollections. I think The Smiths seems to be more about late teens/early 20's, while MiM is about younger childhood. (TS came out in 1984, MiM in 1985, and I don't have Hatful of Hollow on CD to see the date on it.) neal np: ratsy - the subway songstress years ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 09:41:17 -0800 From: "Drew Harrington" Subject: 1999 > In addition to Prince's new push of 1999 Ammusingly, "1999" was the first song I heard this year. Primus closed their annual New Years Eve "Freak Out" with it as their only encore. In addition to the advertisement thing, I think "1999" is going to be the most covered song of the year. Drew ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 10:08:50 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: redecorating Apartment Life Something I read while travelling was about the re-release of Ivy's Apartment Life, which I remember raised a few eyebrows in confusion when it appeared on a recent new releases list. Seems that they got some popularity from the song "This is the Day"'s inclusion in the flick There's Something About Mary. However, by the time of this success, the album (which came out in 1997) had already disappeared and Ivy had been dropped from Atlantic. (Another short lived casualty in the short sighted world of major labels.) So, the new release is Sony re-issueing Apartment Life in a slightly remixed form. The review I read said 4 songs have been remixed with varied results. "This is the Day" is perkier, and both it and "Back in Our Town" sound better. "I've Got a Feeling" adds a not particularly necessary trip hop beat, and "The Best Thing" is stretched out and destroyed. The review concludes by saying that the remixed version probably isn't necessary for the few people that bought the first one, but is a good buy for anyone who didn't. Neal (Ok, and now I'm really done!) now shuffling over: Robin Holcomb - Robin Holcomb (one of my favorite purchases of the year, even if it did come out in 1990) Horse - god's home movies ratsy - the subway songstress years ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 20:22:45 +0100 From: Dirk Kastens Subject: Re: Tim's Review of The Church At 01:45 02.01.99 -0700, neal copperman wrote: >What does the new Bauhaus sound like? I liked the original well enough, No idea. I saw a special on Arte (German/French culture TV channel) on their reunion tour that featured interviews with the band. What I heard were only old songs. They just released a remastered best-of album and the original albums are going to be re-released. Maybe a new album will follow. Dirk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 20:22:47 +0100 From: Dirk Kastens Subject: Re: albums of the year At 01:11 02.01.99 -0700, neal copperman wrote: >>Mari Boine Band - Balvvoslatjna (Room Of Worship) >>Deep pulsating rhythms, dense sounds and Mari's stunning voice >>create a mystic atmosphere. > >What's the scoop on this? I haven't seen it mentioned before. What label >is it on? (P) 1998 Lean (C) 1998 Sonet/Verve This is a German pressing that has been released on the Antilles label. You can try to get some information from lean.as.@pemail.net I don't know if the e-mail address is correct. It's printed on the cover. >Is it more like Gula Gula? I would say that it's more like the 1994 release Leahkastin/Unfolding. The focus is now on the band (Mari Boine Band). The other members are involved in the song-writing and the instruments have more room. In contrast to Gula Gula there are almost no keyboards. For me Balvvoslatjna is the best of Mari Boine's albums. Dirk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 20:22:49 +0100 From: Dirk Kastens Subject: Re: Beth Orton, etc... At 00:33 02.01.99 -0700, neal copperman wrote: >Seems like it might be a good idea to just stick something on a shelf that >doesn't strike immediately. Lots of times, a return listen months later >sheds new light on things that didn't seem appealing at the time. The >sampler tapes I mentioned in my other post do some of the same tricks for >me. And shuffling too. Sometimes an album just doesn't sink in at all, >but individual pieces of music, when isolated from the environment of other >similar songs, suddenly jump out. And with that song as an introduction to >the album, it suddenly opens up for me. Does anyone else listen like this? Yes, although compiling a sampler tape is a lot of work. I recently recorded a sampler for a friend with two CD players and a mixer, where each song faded into the other. You can't stop until the last song has finished and while one song is playing you have to decide which one to take next and if it will fit. I was very satisfied with the result and I've listened to it many times. The compilation starts with some instrumental and electronic stuff (Peter Gabriel, Tangerine Dream) then mainly focusses on female vocals (Tori Amos, Joy Askew, Laurie Freelove, Dar Williams, etc.) and finishes with male vocals (Kevin Gilbert, The Fixx). Before I started the recording I was forced to listen to many of my CDs again where I rediscovered some great "new" songs. Dirk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 13:44:06 -0500 (EST) From: Heidi Heller Subject: Re: 1999 I was actually quite disappointed not to hear the song even once on New Year's eve! I'd expected to be overwhelmed by it, yet it wasn't played a *single* time! Heidi On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Drew Harrington wrote: > > In addition to Prince's new push of 1999 > > Ammusingly, "1999" was the first song I heard this year. Primus closed their > annual New Years Eve "Freak Out" with it as their only encore. In addition > to the advertisement thing, I think "1999" is going to be the most covered > song of the year. > > Drew > > ********************************* Heidi Heller Heller Information Services, Inc. 301/255-0500 mailto:billing@his.com mailto:ho@his.com ********************************* ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 14:55:28 -0500 From: desmond in a tutu Subject: sib on cbc so, did any canuck 'philes tape that jane siberry concert which was broadcast on the cbc's radiosonic program over the holidaze? i'd be most interested in a copy if you did... woj >LIVE Canadian Radio Broadcast from 'Child' TOUR 1997! >(Vancouver performance) >December 26, 1998 >10:30 pm across Canada >will be aired on CBC-FM-RADIO 2 >('RADIOSONIC' - 'Coast-To-Coast') >http://www.radiosonic.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 15:31:44 -0500 From: meredith Subject: 1998: The Year In Music Hi! Okay, so I'm attempting to throw my top 10 into the fray. As I've been reading the lists that people have posted here already, I'm realizing that there's a lot of stuff that came out in 1998 which hasn't yet found its way into my collection (and yes, I know people will find that hard to believe). It's odd, so much stuff came out this year, but I've been having a hard time finding 10 to round out a "best of" list. (In fact, I've been working on this list for 4 days.) Here's what I did get to know and appreciate. I can't even begin to rank them this year, so I'm not even going to try. TOP ALBUMS Susan McKeown, _Bushes And Briars_ Traditional Celtic music with Susan's distinctive twist. It's brilliant through and through. Susan McKeown and Lindsey Horner, _Mighty Rain_ Susan bookends 1998 with a second wonderful CD, this time with the amazing multi-instrumentalist Lindsey Horner. Sparse arrangements of traditional and original tunes, and even a couple Bob Dylan songs, and over all of it is Susan's incredible voice. Contains what could be the new definitive "Danny Boy", and a couple originals which sound like trad classics already. Yum. Tori Amos, _From The Choirgirl Hotel_ I often joke that Tori could record herself reading the phone book and I'd buy it. Well, with this album I know that's definitely true. The direction her music has gone in isn't what I would have expected, and even more unexpected to me was how much I love it. Seeing the songs performed live with a full band only added to my appreciation of them -- for instance, I despised "Raspberry Swirl" until I saw it live (though I still don't like "She's Your Cocaine" very much). She's a goddess. :) Happy Rhodes, _Many Worlds Are Born Tonight_ It didn't take me as long to get into this album as others have reported it took them. What decided me was when I finally had the chance to sit down and listen to it through headphones. Yowza. Happy is coming into her own as an artist, and while I don't think her path and that of widespread commercial success are headed toward a convergence, artistically she's continuing to become more and more important. This is a great album. The Nields, _Mousse_ My favorite band puts together a collection of demos and songs they haven't gotten around to recording anywhere else. The middle third of this disc, from "Living It Up In The Garden" through "Dictator" is simply incredible stuff, and more than makes up for the questionable material later on (i.e. some songs were never meant for general release, and now we know why :). If the middle 6 songs were to replace the songs I really don't like on _Play_, we'd have a candidate for album of the decade here. Oh well. That's what tape decks are for. :) Rachael Sage, _Smashing The Serene_ Intelligent Ani-fied Greenwich Village pop. Instrumental twists that make you sit up and take notice, with lyrics that reward you for doing so. Very, very tasty. Cowboy Junkies, _Miles From Our Home_ The only album I bought this year that I immediately put on infinite repeat. I think I listened to it 5 times that one night. It's a bit more produced than I would ever have expected from the Junkies, but considering that the one treacly potential-top-40-sounding song has a repeated chorus of "that fucker up there", I know their hearts are still in the right place. :) Sarah Slean, _Universe_ Yeah, it's an EP, so what? Sarah Slean exhibits all the markings of a great artist. I'm looking forward to following her career as it develops. Perhaps the endless comparisons to Sarah McLachlan and Tori Amos are unfair, but they're aptly descriptive. I just hope she takes her career more in Tori's direction than that of her namesake... Pamela Means, _Cobblestones_ Pamela Means is one of those people everyone on earth should know about, especially fans of Ani DiFranco, whom she emulates and sometimes even surpasses in ability. She's got that folksinger earnestness that could get cloying after a while, but she manages to avoid falling into that hole by distracting us with her nonstop guitar attack and sometimes smirking lyrics. This second full-length album shows a maturation as a songwriter, and even includes some tracks recorded live, which is where she really shines. Highly recommended. _Cry Cry Cry_ A wonderful set of cover tunes from two of the most important voices in contemporary folk music (Dar Williams and Richard Shindell), plus the best backup singer in the genre (Lucy Kaplansky). Their version of The Nields' "I Know What Kind Of Love This Is" is even better than the original, and that alone is enough to merit the disc a place on this list. Never mind that Richard Shindell sings James Keelaghan's brilliant "Cold Missouri Water" as though it were his own, and their "Fall On Me" (yes, the REM song) could be a hit if the right curiosity-seeking outlets got hold of it. I hope this project spawns a sequel! HONORABLE MENTIONS: Ani DiFranco, _Little Plastic Castle_ As usual, Ms. Defazio makes a few production decisions I emphatically disagree with (LOSE the mariachi band, PLEASE!) and shows a few signs of making haste in the studio, but it's still a fun record. The 12-minute album-closing "Pulse" is worth the price of admission in itself. I haven't been motivated to listen to it in months, though. Bruford/Levin, _Upper Extremities_ Were it not for Chris Botti's pure, clean horn sound all over this, I probably wouldn't like it as much as I do. David Torn's guitar work is sometimes a bit too over the top, but Tony Levin's bass and stick work more than make up for it, and Bill Bruford is just a wonderful drummer. This is a great album of -- what? Prog/jazz/fusion instrumentals? Whatever it is, I like it. SONGS OF THE YEAR (i.e. the songs I can't listen to only once at a sitting): Sarah Slean, "Weight" (_Universe_) Five seconds into this, I knew Sarah Slean was going to be a keeper. I usually listen to this a minimum of 3 times in succession. The Nields, "Monster" (from _Mousse_) I was *so* happy they recorded this! Performed live only twice before the rest of the band confessed to Nerissa that they hate it (and I was lucky enough to be there both times), this is the brightest gem on _Mousse_. Lyrically it's not Nerissa's finest hour, but musically ... even Don liked it! ;) It will peel the paint off of walls at forty paces. Dangerous to listen to while driving, as you might find yourself doing 85 and having no clue how you got there. Listen to this song and tell me The Nields are a folk band. I dare you. Susan McKeown, "In London So Fair" (From _Bushes And Briars_) It's a wonderful story, and performed live with just a bass and bodhran accompaniment it's great, but the guitar work on the recorded version makes me hit "repeat" every time. DISAPPOINTMENTS OF THE YEAR: Susan Werner, _Time Between Trains_ This is probably her finest collection of songs, but as the album goes on I find I'm wanting more and more to shout "dammit, just SING!!!". Susan Werner has one of the most incredible voices going today, and she doesn't use it to even a fraction of its potential on this disc. That fact just ruins it for me, and makes it completely unlistenable. Which is a shame, because "Like Bonsai" is one of the most effecting songs ever written, and "Movie Of My Life" is an absolute scream in concert. Oh well. I'll just have to keep trading those live tapes, then. :) The Nields, _Play_ I felt really let down by this one. There are some songs I skip over all the time ("Nebraska", "Hush Before The Heartbreak"), but then again, some I absolutely love ("Georgia O", "Snowman"). The biggest disappointment was "The Train": a totally stupid production decision routed Nerissa's vocals through some sort of megaphone-like filter, and thus the most get-up-and-grooviest song they're currently performing live is completely unlistenable on disc. The caliber of the songwriting isn't as high as on previous albums, but I guess that's to be expected on a nationwide release. When I want to listen to a Nields album, I'll pick _Mousse_ or _Bob On The Ceiling_ before this one. Heather Nova, _Siren_ Like many people here, I found this to be *way* too bland and mainstream for my tastes. I listened to it maybe three times. A couple of the songs worked better in concert, but that wasn't enough to save this one for me. Joni Mitchell, _Taming The Tiger_ I was able to get completely through this once. BORing! Some albums I have difficulty with at first, but I get the feeling it'll be worth it to try again. I don't get even an inkling of that with this one. One of the few discs I own that I'm actively considering selling back. Emm Gryner, _Public_ After all the hype about her here on ecto, I was amazed by how bland and boring this disc is. I guess I just don't Get her (like I don't Get Imogen Heap). BEST LIVE SHOWS OF THE YEAR: (For those keeping score at home, I saw The Nields 11 times, Veda Hille 10 and Susan McKeown 8 in 1998. Eeep!) Veda Hille in my living room, 11/20 What can I say - I feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity to host my supreme musical goddess in my home. I just wish I hadn't been so addled (with what Veda so quaintly termed 'hostess anxiety') at the time - she played pretty much her entire new to-be-recorded album, and I don't remember hardly any of it! Waaah. Tori Amos' Sessions taping, Sony Studios in NYC, 11/14 I couldn't see Tori except through the monitor when the camera was in my sight range behind me, but I was one of maybe 200 people in a room seeing her perform without all the annoying light show nonsense, and it brought back memories of the glory days of the _LE_ tour when you could actually sit quietly while she was playing and not be the only one paying attention. Sessions At West 54th will be devoting the entire hour to Tori on February 6 - I'm impressed! Veda Hille and her Very Nice Band at the Acoustic Studio in Stamford, CT, 11/21 So the night after Veda did her solo gig at my house, she got back together with the band and proceeded to subvert every notion in the Fairfield County Folk Audience's J.Crewed little heads. 90% of the audience literally fell over one another trying to flee as soon as it was over... and Veda loved every minute of it. It was the band's tightest performance of the entire week, and the sound was *perfect*. Veda was having the time of her life, and it really showed through. Incredible. Cowboy Junkies/Over The Rhine at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, NY, 10/9 I've liked the Junkies for 10 years, but this was my first time seeing them live. Where the hell have I been?!? OTR were nice (though I liked them much better that time at the old Knitting Factory), but the Junkies simply blew me away. Margo Timmins is a goddess. Can't wait to see them again! Mary Margaret O'Hara at St. Anne's in Brooklyn, 10/23 I've seen many an artist much more with it and together on stage, but that's not what M2OH is about. It was a rare evening of musical stream-of-consciousness, and I feel privileged to have been a part of it. The Nields' Jam For The Van, Hatfield, MA, 6/13 What do you do when you're a touring band and your main mode of transportation dies? Get your fans to buy you a new van! Get them all to come to your hometown and entertain them with almost 3 hours worth of their favorite songs. Never mind that it's raining small domesticated animals -- you're under a roof, everyone's got room to dance and you're the band that knows how to have more fun than you can shake a stick at. The totally acoustic blizzard show at the Iron Horse in December of '96 will never be supplanted as my favorite live music experience ever, but excluding that this reigns as my favorite Nields show so far. Susan Werner at the 12th Step Coffeehouse in Stratford, 6/20 I'm sure Susan herself will never rate the experience highly, but she soldiered through and delivered a really great show for a decidedely unappreciative audience in a rather imposing-looking church. Then she took us to the karaoke bar. I don't think I'll ever look at the world in quite the same way again. ;) Sequentia's _Ordo Virtutum_, Lincoln Center Festival, 7/10 IMO, there is nothing as soul-wrenchingly beautiful as Medieval polyphony sung by a choir of female voices. To be in the church where that is happening is pure magic. Sequentia did a fully staged performance of Hildegard von Bingen's _Ordo Virtutum_, widely considered to be the first opera, with period musical accompaniment. It was simply incredible. Sadly, Barbara Thornton, founder of Sequentia and member of the ensemble for this performance died a few weeks ago. I hope the ensemble chooses to continue on. What they're doing is too important. MUSICAL DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR: Rachael Sage See what I said above about _Smashing The Serene_: keep an eye on this one. She's another I'm looking forward to following as her career goes on. Many multitudinous thanks to Hillary Jackson for introducing me to this woman's music! MUSICAL ABERRATION OF THE YEAR: Rufus Wainwright I think I've said more than enough on that subject here already. ;) Finally, here's a list off the top of my head of the albums I haven't had a chance to get this year that I know I'll probably like: - -- Jonatha Brooke, _10 Cent Wings_ - -- PJ Harvey, _Is This Desire?_ - -- Eliza Carthy, _Red Rice_ - -- Margot Smith, _Taste_ - -- Shotgun Wedding, _A Big World Of Fun_ If I ever get off my butt and pick any of these up, y'all will be the first to know. :) +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V5 #3 ************************