From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V5 #30 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Tuesday, January 26 1999 Volume 05 : Number 030 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Another belated best of '98 [Krys ] Re: ecto-digest V5 #29 [LilWhirl@aol.com] Swiss authorities shut down Web music site [stunning@tezcat.com] Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music [Greg Bossert ] Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music [neal copperman ] Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music [Andrew Fries ] Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music ["Joseph S. Zitt" Subject: Another belated best of '98 Since Greg snuck in with his faves, I thought I'd post a late one too. Not 10 albums, because I didn't buy that many. The following are in no particular order: Madonna - Ray of Light The last Madge album I bought before this was Like A Prayer, she sort of lost me for a while but IMO this is the best thing she has ever done. Fab production, great songs and Madge's voice is better than ever. H - Ice Cream Genius I cheated a bit on this one as it's a reissue! What can I say? Those who already have it will know what I mean when I say that this album is totally complete in itself and gets better after every listen. Beautifully layered sounds, strong on percussion, gorgeous melodies and H's marvellous silky voice. Genius indeed. Judie Tzuke - Secret Agent This album was a long time in the making and just squeezed into the latter part of 1998. Jude hasn't done an album as good as this since Wonderland. Everything from the scary rock of "Bully", with shades of Kate Bush (really!), to the poignant and beautiful "Mother" (the strings on this track are outstanding), and daughter Bailey guests on two tracks. Like Madonna, Jude's voice gets better all the time. Some new production ideas work really well and the vocoder effect on "Where My Heart Used To Be" - an obvious single - were recorded way before Cher's massive hit was even released. If you love a beautiful voice, great melodies and fabulous musicianship go buy it now! Marillion - radiat10n OK, so most people here know I'm a huge Marillion fan, but this really is a superb album, and very "now". While the likes of Radiohead get more exposure than they could wish for, Marillion remain filed in many folks' "where are they now" bins with the tired old prog rock tag. Prove yourself wrong and buy this album (plug ends). Happy Rhodes - Many Worlds... Although not as entranced by Happy's new one as I have been by previous releases, there are some wonderful songs on this album, and her lyrics remain honest and thought provoking. Not enough of a showcase for her vocals IMO but still a very good album. Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel To me this was disappointing after the epic excellence of Boys For Pele (I'm probably in a minority here), but nevertheless there are some fabulous stand out tracks (Raspberry Swirl, Jackie's Strength, Spark) and I love the way Tori constantly changes her approach to her songs. Production amazing. Cornwall's adopted daughter smashes the mould once again. If only I had a Kate album to review.... :) Love and peace, Krys XXXXXXXXXX ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 12:18:48 EST From: LilWhirl@aol.com Subject: Re: ecto-digest V5 #29 not sure if she is chinese.....but i am thinking Mia Doi Todd. sparse, joan baez like.... anyone else know? - -d In a message dated 1/25/99 1:58:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, owner-ecto- digest@smoe.org writes: << Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 02:31:56 -0600 From: Kay S Cleaves Subject: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music Hey folks! Alright, this is an odd request, but anyways... I've been expanding my collection globally (no, seriously!) and was wondering, are there any Chinese or Chinese-American ectophilic or recommended rock artists out there? I've seen lots of talk around here about Japanese artists and I've managed to locate some of those, but China seems to be keeping its music to itself. I've found lots of music done with traditional instruments, but nothing with a more modern feel to it--I know there must be something coming out of Taiwan, or even the R.O.C. Any ideas? - --Kay _________________ >> ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 12:32:41 -0500 From: stunning@tezcat.com Subject: Swiss authorities shut down Web music site Swiss authorities shut down Web music site by Mary Lisbeth D'Amico MUNICH (IDG) -- A Switzerland-based Web site that publishes song lyrics, was shut down by police after a group of U.S. music publishers brought a criminal suit against it. The case points out yet again the thorny intellectual property issues that go with the free dissemination of information over the Internet, especially music. The site, called the International Lyric Server (ILS) makes available the words to some 100,000 songs, from hard rock to show tunes. But all were published without the permission of the songs' creators or copyright owners, according to the National Music Publishing Association, (NMPA) which is sponsoring the suit against ILS on behalf of a group of music publishers. The District Attorney in Basel, Switzerland ordered the seizure of the servers and the contents of the ILS database as evidence in the suit, according to an NMPA statement. Users who try to access the site receive the news that the server is "temporarily shut down." Neither the ILS nor the Basel District Attorney's office could be immediately reached for comment. The plaintiffs - a group of music publishers that includes EMI Songs, Estefan Enterprises, peermusic, Warner-Chappell Music, and Windswept Pacific Entertainment - first filed suit against ILS in November, 1998, according to the NMPA. Soon after, a Swiss court issued a temporary injunction barring the site from publishing certain songs. But early attempts to negotiate a settlement using licensing agreements failed, according to the NMPA. An ILS representative stated in writing that the Web site was not willing to stop distributing the songs nor to close the server. It also refused to cooperate in licensing discussions unless it was guaranteed concessions from the copyright owners, the NMPA said. ILS founder Pascal de Vries said in an interview with the New York Times that he was merely organizing the lyrics, which were submitted by the site's users. "For us, it was just a kind of discussion database, not something to harm the music-publishing companies," de Vries told the Times. "They think that they have lost millions through our server," he continued, "but they have to prove this, and they didn't prove it yet." The ILS is asking its followers to sign a petition in support of the Web site, and said it would keep users informed at to what happens in court. It also promises to have large parts of the site up and running again shortly. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 17:00:56 -0800 From: Greg Bossert Subject: Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music Kay S Cleaves wrote: > > Hey folks! > > Alright, this is an odd request, but anyways... > > I've been expanding my collection globally (no, seriously!) and was > wondering, are there any Chinese or Chinese-American ectophilic or > recommended rock artists out there? I've seen lots of talk around here > about Japanese artists and I've managed to locate some of those, but > China seems to be keeping its music to itself. I've found lots of music > done with traditional instruments, but nothing with a more modern feel to > it--I know there must be something coming out of Taiwan, or even the > R.O.C. Any ideas? there's certainly a wealth of musical tradition in asia to serve as fodder for new "world" music, but the nature of the music has made it less easy to integrate into western popular styles. african and south american musics were a bit easier to assimilate, due to their strong rhythmic basis (though sadly, most "world music" has failed to capture the strong cultural context of these rhythms). the "new" celtic and balkan styles are eased by their song/tune vs. ornamentation/improvisation style, which makes them particularly suited to adaption into popular music. the asian (and middle eastern/north african) musical traditional does not suffer from the western separation between "classical"/academic and folk/traditional, which leads to rich but complex styles that rely heavily on the listeners' familiarity with fundamental musical ideas and traditions. the semantic significance of melodies, non-european tunings, and variable rhythmes and tempos don't mix well with either rock/pop or trance/dance. in short, it's hard to incorporate asian musical ideas into western music without losing something important. erk, apologies for pontificating, but having spent some time in China and Japan looking for that blend and failing to find it, it's something in which i am particularly interested. someone who is emphatically NOT chinese is exiled tibetan Yungchen Lhamo, whose albums "coming home" and "tibet, tibet" are available on realworld -- traditional buddhist music and vocals with her vocals multitracked and ambient/trance production values. realworld has an impressive variety of chinese and other asian musicians, often working with western musicians but in a more folk/trad instrumental vein. i'm still listening for something that puts, for example, the amazingly expressive and alien er-hu playing i heard in the prc into a electronic setting. the chinese popular music i heard in guangzhou was mostly atrocious top-40 pap, though there was some interesting punk out of beijing. and japanese pop, well, yow. i am a totally rabid bonnie pink fan now, but she's far closer to the cardigans than to anything like japanese traditional musuic... - -- greg bossert 650-933-6431 -- - -- silicon graphics, inc. bossert@sgi.com -- - -- i have never been afraid to change -- Happy -- - -- the circumstances of the world -- Rhodes -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:02:20 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music At 5:00 PM -0800 1/25/99, Greg Bossert wrote: >Kay S Cleaves wrote: >> I've been expanding my collection globally (no, seriously!) and was >> wondering, are there any Chinese or Chinese-American ectophilic or >> recommended rock artists out there? While reading Kay's original request and the first part of Greg's reply, I immediately was thinking of Yungchen Lhamo too, cause I just saw her yesterday! I had missed her recent Santa Fe show, but took advantage of killer airfares to spend the weekend with Jeff Hanson in Phoenix. With no real advertising or advance warning, we stumbled across a poster in a bookstore for her show at the Scottsdale Public Library. I don't know what her albums sound like, but live she was breathtaking. She's probably around 5 foot 4, and easily had 4 feet of hair. She was a striking figure on stage in front of an alter with a large candle, flowers, a picture of the Dalai Lama and traditional Tibetan art on the walls behind her. She sang unaccompanied for roughly an hour. While I've seen people do an occasional a cappela number during a set, I don't think I've ever seen someone do a whole concert that way. She had some of the most amazing voice and breath control I have ever seen. She effortlessly sang complicated vocal passages while hardly moving her mouth at all. While she didn't move her feet much, her upper body, in particular her arms and hands, performed an elaborate dance to compliment the music. Sometimes they moved with the melody line, sometimes they hinted at some sort of rhythm that perhaps drove the song but wasn't present. In fact, there were often long gaps between the "verses" of the songs which were bridged by the silent hand music. In fact, the only way to be sure the songs were ended was to notice when the hands stopped singing/dancing. She introduced each song in soft spoken broken English that was very endearing. She left Tibet 8 years ago, walking over the Himallayas with her child. On a somewhat different note, about the only thing I can think of that I own that is distinctly Chinese is Sola's album Blues in the East. I think this is a remarcable album, though I'd have to know someone's taste well before recommending it. Liu Sola is a classically trained Chinese singer, and she's teamed up with Bill Laswell and the Axiom crew for one of their typically mind boggling outings. Mixing Chinese Opera with blues, rap, dub, and jazz, it's a fascinating and difficult album. Collaborator's include: Wu Man, Umar Bin Hassan, James Blood Ulmer, and Henry Threadgill. (I found a cheap used copy of this in Phoenix and showed it to Jeff, who didn't bite.) Wu Man appears on a number of Axiom releases, as well as a few Kronos Quartet discs, most notably the amazing (Chinese) Ghost Opera. Sola also appears on the Axiom Ambient collaborations. Let us know if you find anything interesting! neal np: Uncertain Pleasures - Mary Coughlan ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 16:30:59 +1100 From: Andrew Fries Subject: Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music In a message "Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music" on 25/Jan/1999 22:02:20 neal copperman says: > While reading Kay's original request and the first part of Greg's reply, I > immediately was thinking of Yungchen Lhamo Not to get onto the political soapbox or anything but I suspect Yungchen would be ... uh... disappointed to be included in the discussion of Chinese music, seeing how she lives in Australia, granted the status of political refugee on the account of Chinese invasion of Tibet. But let's forget about splitting hairs about nationalities - her voice and technique are pretty amazing and she's well worth checking out, for any reason. - ------------------------------------------------------ Resistance is not futile. - ------ http://www.zip.com.au/~afries/hall.html ------- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 22:59:32 -0700 From: neal copperman Subject: Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music At 4:30 PM +1100 1/26/99, Andrew Fries wrote: >In a message "Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music" on 25/Jan/1999 >22:02:20 >neal copperman says: > >> While reading Kay's original request and the first part of Greg's reply, I >> immediately was thinking of Yungchen Lhamo > >Not to get onto the political soapbox or anything but I suspect Yungchen >would >be ... uh... disappointed to be included in the discussion of Chinese music, >seeing how she lives in Australia, granted the status of political refugee on >the account of Chinese invasion of Tibet. I thought Greg made it pretty clear that she was by no means Chinese, so I didn't bother to reiterate that. Though I guess I could have said something less misleading than that she occured to me in relation to Chinese music. I figured, like Greg, that if you are interested in the music of China, you would probably be interested in hearing the music of Tibet too. neal np: The Hantarah 4 (Japanese noise) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 00:01:05 -0600 (CST) From: "Joseph S. Zitt" Subject: Re: Looking for ectophilic Chinese music I was expecting a chorus of voices to shout "Faye Wong!" in unison as soon as this question was asked. Hmm... - - ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------- |||/ Joseph Zitt ===== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \||| ||/ Maryland? = <*> SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List <*> = ecto \|| |/ http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt ====== Comma: Voices of New Music \| ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V5 #30 *************************