From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V10 #155 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Saturday, June 5 2004 Volume 10 : Number 155 Today's Subjects: ----------------- I finally get around to reviewing PG's _Up_ on Amazon [Ethan Straffin ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 01:06:21 -0700 From: Ethan Straffin Subject: I finally get around to reviewing PG's _Up_ on Amazon Just in case you're interested... Ethan - -- With 354 reviews already available for you to choose from, it hardly seems worth adding to the chorus...were it not for the fact that this is a musical experience like no other. Was 11 years too long to wait? Perhaps. This doesn't change the fact that the tag-team of "No Way Out" and "I Grieve" will rip your guts out if you've ever lost someone to the grim reaper -- then somehow stitch them back together. Likewise, "Darkness" and "Signal To Noise" are hardly easy listening, but to miss the silver lining within their lyrics is to tragically miss the big picture. Gabriel has always had a knack for releasing not just albums but full-fledged Events, and this is no exception. As others have pointed out, _Up_ is to some extent a return to the sounds and themes that Gabriel explored before _So_ made him a star -- but coupled with everything he's learned since then about how to use a very well-equipped studio to get his messages across. He reportedly recorded something like one hundred songs before settling on the final track list for this album, and it shows: only one ("My Head Sounds Like That") strikes me as anything even remotely close to filler. _Up_ really does live up to its title, even if you may need a 12-volt flashlight and a pickaxe to figure out how. If you find that it needs some sweetening, then try this: get a hold of "Burn You Up, Burn You Down" (this album's catchy, funky B-side that sounds kinda like "Big Time," only much better) and the extended remix of "The Tower That Ate People" (the track from _Ovo_ and the _Red Planet_ soundtrack that brought the house down on the second leg of the "Growing Up" tour), insert them after let's say "The Barry Williams Show," and burn yourself a dangerously good 78-minute disc that will take you through pretty much every emotion that you've got to spare, leaving you exhausted but strangely exhilarated. Someday, someone from my own generation may come along to equal what Gabriel has done within his career, and with _Up_ especially. But I'm not holding my breath. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 10:54:10 -0400 From: "JoAnn Whetsell" Subject: RE: Seattle ectophiles: 6/6 Veda Hille/Mary Lydia Ryan show! My first thought was: I am so there! Then I remembered I had a committment on the 6th and was so disappointed. But it was changed to today, so again, I AM SO THERE! I'm pretty excited as this will be my first concert in Seattle (I moved to the city 2 weeks ago Sunday) and probably my first concert in Washington state since moving here in August. Anyway, I hope to meet some local ectophiles there. Could someone email me offlist and help me out with bus directions? Thanks. JoAnn >From: Neile Graham >To: >Subject: Seattle ectophiles: 6/6 Veda Hille/Mary Lydia Ryan show! >Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 16:00:02 -0700 > >Whoo hoo! > >--Neile > > >>Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 23:32:52 -0700 >>Subject: Upcoming Veda Hille / Mary Lydia Ryan >>From: Mary Lydia Ryan >>To: neile@drizzle.com >> >>Hi Neile, >> >>It's been a very long time since we have spoken... I am bringing >>myself back to musical life 3 years and 2 children later (with two >>very very sweet boys.) And in the midst of making my comeback I >>have booked a local Seattle show with Veda Hille and thought you >>might be interested, and perhaps can spread the word. >> >>For all the details you can check out this link to my website. >> >>http://sites.bandweb.com/see2.tpl?cid=108528269765200&evtid=1085001918216779 >> >>if for some reason this link doesn't work you can copy and paste it >>and that should take you there. Otherwise here is the quick >>synopsis: >> >>Sunday, June 6th >>2 pm doors open >>3 pm music >>Location: 125 31st Ave. East / Seattle, 98112 >>for more information: http://www.marylydiaryan.com >> >>I hope all is well with you and your writing and musical loves... >> >>All my best, >> >>Mary Lydia > > >-- >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Neile Graham .... neile@sff.net/@drizzle.com ... >www.sff.net/people/neile >Les Semaines: A Weekly Journal ........ >www.sff.net/people/neile/semaines >Editor, The Ectophiles' Guide to Good Music ........... >www.ectoguide.org >Workshop Administrator, Clarion West ................ >www.clarionwest.org - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Getting married? Find great tips, tools and the latest trends at MSN Life Events. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 17:26:10 +0000 From: jjhanson@att.net Subject: Upcoming KD Lang Release Was browsing new release information on the net and came across a very interesting sounding album from kd lang-- Hymns from the 49th Parallel--songs form the Canadian songbook. Interesting tracklist: . After the Gold Rush (Young) 2. Simple (lang/Piltch) 3. Helpless (Young) 4. A Case of You (Mitchell) 5. The Valley (Siberry) 6. Hallelujah (Cohen) 7. One Day I Walk (Cockburn) 8. Fallen (Sexsmith) 9. Jericho (Mitchell) 10. Bird on a Wire (Cohen) 11. Love Is Everything (Siberry) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 18:23:37 -0700 (PDT) From: karen hester Subject: still struggling with pj harvey's uh huh her help me, please. the main predecessors i hear are 'wicked tongue', the abrasive not-particularly-melodic extra track on her last album, and the pared back and powerful 'to bring you my love' (the song, not the album). the music is all very similar instrument-wise - grungey guitars, distorted voice, care that things not be perfectly in tune, casual strummy bits, so that even though the simplicity and focus is similar to 'to bring you my love' (the album), there isn't the variation to cast identity onto the individual songs. it feels a bit like cd-rs i've made of her b-sides, except the looseness and murkiness here might be the result of lots of effort rather than a short recording period. dunno - haven't read any press. i've got something akin to faith in pj's music - other than 'stories' i've never been bored by her, and i can still admire that album and understand how it can be the favourite of many people. every album before 'is this desire' mesmerised me and ended up amazing me; that feeling wasn't always immediate, so I've got hope here :) 'it's you' and 'cat on the wall' and 'shame' and 'the letter' are my favourites right now. there are a few short scrappy song-snippets which annoy me - short unfinished pieces work if you need breath from the intensity or ornateness of the surrounding music (I like the mini-songs on Throwing Muses albums), but the intensity here is just abrasiveness and loudness, not power. right now, that is. my mind is changing. my feet are beginning to tap. my fingers pause mid-type to tap out the beat. 'the end', dedicated to vincent gallo, gives no clues - when it comes to throwaway instrumentals, this one comes out tops. there are some seagulls. mangey bastards. surely this album has been released somewhere else in the world - please tell me how much you love it, and i'll learn to love it :) karen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 21:54:50 -0400 (EDT) From: "Donald G. Keller" Subject: ky/mudville Kristeen Young Mudville Pianos, New York City June 2, 2004 Before I find an excuse to put it off, I thought I'd make Neile Graham green with envy and tell you all about seeing Mudville and Kristeen Young on the same bill. I knew for several weeks that Kristeen was playing this show, and was to be preceded by a band called Mudville (in the midst of a once-a-week-for-a-month residency); but it wasn't until Neile's rave review of Mudville's album that I decided to go earlier and give them a try. (As a rule, I don't go to see bands I know nothing about; the number of times I accidentally see an interesting band is quite small.) Though trip-hop is not an automatic score with me (I never have "gotten" Lamb, for example), Portishead is one of my favorite bands, and I've seen shows by Ruby and Sneaker Pimps (as well as The Ecstasy of St. Theresa), so I know that this sort of thing can work in live performance. Mudville certainly has enough equipment to do the job: at least four keyboards (played by two guys, one doubling on guitar), drums, bass (played by band mastermind Ben Rubin), and Marilyn Carino on vocals. They took =forever= to set up, and my impatience (remember I was waiting to see Kristeen Young after them) probably had something to do with my subsequent reaction. The set began with "Perfect": a scrap of orchestral sample, a slow hypnotic drumbeat, spare notes from bass and keyboard, big soulful voice. (My first impression of the latter was that she formed her vowels just a =tad= too much like Beth Gibbons of Portishead. Not a major issue, however.) The familiar trip-hop mix, and I liked the sound a lot. But somewhere around the middle the sample had gone away, and I felt the song had foundered a bit: a little shapeless, structurally? Hard to say. But towards the end the sample swelled into the foreground for a strong instrumental coda, and I was with them again. That was a microcosm of the set: for a song or more at a time they would lose me, and I wasn't sure why. Part of it may have been that when the harmony got less dissonant (I like my trip-hop downbeat and spooky), the music drifted into a more r&b sort of style I found less compelling. At other times they hewed closer to the flavor I preferred, and I really enjoyed it. My attention was grabbed plenty by "Othello," for example, which has a very peculiar beat that seems to count out to 6/8; but all the parts (bass, drums, keyboards, vocals) are syncopated differently so they hit each others' offbeats. A riveting listen. It was one of several songs that were in triple time, unusual for this style: trip-hop tends to stick pretty much to 4/4. I can say with reasonable certainty that they also played "The Hero of the World," "Stoned," "Poets on Parade," and "Surfer Girls," and ended with a long, jammy number whose bassline kept changing (and, to continue the theme, some variants I thought worked much better than others). I should also note that their musicianship (including vocal chops) was excellent, so any reservations of mine could be due to the songwriting...or more likely my lack of sympathy for some of the songs. The attentive reader may wonder how I know the titles of songs by a band I was hearing for the first time (no, they didn't announce them). I was acutely aware that I probably wasn't giving the band a fair shake on this first acquaintance (any artist thrown into a comparison, warranted or not, with Kristeen Young is at a disadvantage with me), and so I bought both of their CDs and have been listening to them a fair bit. I like the four-song EP very much (except for the fairly bland acoustic finale), and am finding the full-length album quite good so far. I'm definitely intrigued if not quite yet convinced, so I'll keep listening. And I'm seriously considering going back to see them next week for the last show of their residency. Watch This Space. I'm not going to spend a long time talking about Kristeen Young's set; most of it featured songs from her new album =X= (which you can order from her new website www.kristeenyoung.com -- the lyrics are there as well), and I'm hoping to get to a full review of the album where I'll discuss the songs in detail. Short version: if you like her previous albums you'll like =X= as well, and like their predecessors the new songs are striking in live performance. It's been a great pleasure to see Kristeen play again after she spent a year playing in Europe. For the third show running she was wearing her new favorite dress, made from a =Penthouse= magazine banner sewn diagonally in a spiral (if this description makes no sense, there's a photo of it at steeoui.de/Music/Kristeen_Young/News.htm). In addition to the new songs, she's kept the perennial "Touch Tongues" in the set, much to my delight: from first performance to this most recent, it's never failed to slay me. She also did a nice version of "Devil Girl" (the only older song included on =X=), plus an even newer song, "Dead Wrong," in her dissonant verse/melodic chorus style; it's a very solid number. For the finale this time she dusted off another old reliable, "Have You Ever Worked with Anything HI-TEK?" It's been at minimum several years since she's performed it, and it was a kick to hear it again. But she added a wrinkle: remember that old Dylan video where he had bits of the song lyric on placards which he'd toss aside as the lyrics passed? Kristeen had done that with her lyrics (which are quite odd, as her fans will remember). It was drop-dead hysterical -- I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I really hope she does it again. Lastly, thinking back on Mudville...it struck me during the evening that Kristeen's "Touch Tongues" as well as the newer "Lies" and "GodDamn You, You Scenesters!" are in a style quite similar to Mudville's, but to my mind are much stronger and more innovative. Which reminded me of a thought I've had before, that Kristeen has the imagination and the compositional chops to make a mark in electronica/trip-hop, but she clearly loves rock and pop too much. ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V10 #155 ***************************