From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #303 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Thursday, January 12 2012 Volume 16 : Number 303 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Faves of 2011 (pt 2) [Adam Kimmel ] Re: Talitha MacKenzie [Was: Recent changes to the Ectophiles' Guide] [Nei] attn: new york and d.c.! [katherine ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:30:56 -0800 From: Adam Kimmel Subject: Faves of 2011 (pt 2) Sorry, a rather belated follow up to my top music of 2011 (in no particular order and, natch, IMHO). Florence & the Machine/Ceremonials: A big-hearted slice of epic, sprawling, stirring stuff. It doesn't have the immediacy of her debut, but that works in its favour. It has style, it has soul and it's good, good fun. PJ Harvey/Let England Shake. A major curveball from Polly, and her best album since "To Bring You My Love". I felt the subsequent releases were a bit generic, and after dabbling in a new vocal style with "White Chalk" she applies it to haunting, mesmeric effect with this unique dream of an album. The Decemberists/The King is Dead: In which the band eschew the progrock leaning of recent years (which, actually, I really liked) and embrace a simpler guitar-led Americana sound, with REM's Peter Buck guesting and providing his best work for a while. Anna Calvi/Anna Calvi: Another wide-open, epic sound. I saw her open for Carina about three years ago and being mightily impressed. Next thing I know she's gone mega, and deservedly so. Think PJ Harvey, circa "To Bring You My Love", as produced by David Lynch. Noah and The Whale/Last Night on Earth: Intelligent, breezy pop: fun fun fun. It brought a big smile to my face, which gave my cheeks cramp. Van der Graaf Generator/A Grounding in Numbers. Wow. After their underwhelming previous album, this came as quite a shock, a real "WTF?" listen. Slabs of noise, slithers of instrumentals, jarring time changes and Hammill's still-mighty voice. Three guys in their 60s turn in a challenging, contrary album and don't look back. Brilliant. Radiohead/King of Limbs: dismissed by a lot of the critics, but I surprised myself by actually liking this, which serves I felt as a "The Story So Far" kind of album, encapsulating their recent style somewhat more digestibly. Context is all: I first listened to it on a train through a grey and rainy East London on the way to a funeral, and it justb&.it just belonged. Eliza Gilkyson/Roses at the End of Time: I always find her albums a bit patchy but when she hits the mark, she really does hit it. Here, despite some songs slightly overstaying their welcome and at least one worthy dud ("Vayan El Norte") therebs some brilliant, beautiful stuff here and some of it ("2153") is blisteringly funny. Her musical take on Yeats' "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" is a wonderfully funky, loping blues that somehow makes apocalypse sound quite fun. Tom Waits/Bad As Me: I'd fallen out of love with Waits recently, finding his recent albums very samey. Somehow, though, this one got through to me. Thoroughly enjoyable in a stomping, acerbic, rusty-Tin Pan Alley sort of way. Thea Gilmore & Sandy Denny/Don't Stop Singing. Thea was approached by the estate of Sandy Denny to put music to a sheaf of lyrics that they'd found. The result suffers a bit from a sameyness of tone and tempo, but there are loads of achingly beautiful moments, and I do feel that she manages to put more heart and soul into one track, "Long Time Gone", than Laura Marling does her entire album. Bubbling Under: The Leisure Society/Into The Murky Water: They're not going to set the world alight, but this is fun, funny, beautifully accomplished and somewhat eccentric. Feist/Metals: I want to like this more than I do and certainly more than I thought I would. I loved it on first listening, but the love kind ofb&.peaked, and I didn't get as much nutrition out of it as I'd hoped. The Antlers/Burst Apart: a rather dream-like, swoony album, comparable (IMHO) to Wild Beasts' plaintive musings, but a bit more expansive and blessed with a skewed sense of humour ("Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out"?) Least Fave: Joy Formidable/The Big Roar. Yepb&sorry, guys, I'm not feeling the love, here. Hard to believe an album works so hard and makes so much noise and still bores me. Thanks if you've read this far! Now, let's see how Mayan 2012 is going to be. Adam K Adam K ____________________________________________________________ TRY FREE IM TOOLPACK at http://www.imtoolpack.com/default.aspx?rc=if5 Capture screenshots, upload images, edit and send them to your friends through IMs, post on TwitterB., FacebookB., MySpaceb", LinkedInB. b FAST! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:05:26 -0800 From: Neile Graham Subject: Re: Talitha MacKenzie [Was: Recent changes to the Ectophiles' Guide] Thanks for the update, Paul! I didn't look far enough when I put her entry together. It's really interesting how wide her range has grown. - --Neile On Jan 10, 2012, at 10:00 PM, Paul Blair wrote: > On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 4:18 AM, The Ectophiles' Guide > wrote: > >> Latest changes to the Ectophiles' Guide >> >> 08 January 2012 >> New Guide entries added for: >> ... >> * Talitha MacKenzie >> ... > > > Now this is fascinating as I was just thinking to myself the other day, "I > wonder what ever happened to Talitha MacKenzie?" So when I saw the > ectoguide mailing I thought I'd missed something new mentioned on ecto. > > As far as I can see, however, there's still nothing mentioned past 1996. I > got curious and found this on Wikipedia: > > "In 2004, MacKenzie flew to Hollywood to sing with Dessislava Stefanova and > the Bulgarian Women's Choir on the soundtrack of the blockbuster film > *Troy > *. She used the proceeds to set up her own record label, Sonas Multimedia, > in order to release her music in both CD and digital download formatb&. > > "In 2007, MacKenzie began to release digital download-only singles via > Sonas Multimedia. The first of these was "Wind Chases The Sun" (released > February 10, 2007) which was an original MacKenzie country ballad dealing > with the plight of Native-American political prisoner Leonard > Peltier > . > > "Two more download singles were made available on March 25, 2007. "Family > Tree" (described as a pop single) was another MacKenzie song written as a > musical conversation between a father and daughter as they prepared for a > summer vacation of research into the family roots. "Amazing Grace" was a > more traditional work - a MacKenzie vocal arrangement of the popular > hymnb&On > April 26, 2007, MacKenzie released another download single *Indian Summer* - > a fusion of ragtime and Old Timey > music incorporating elements of country swingb& > > "On July 22, 2007, MacKenzie released her fourth album *Indian Summer* which > celebrated the connection between Celtic and American cultures and explored > her own roots on both sides of the Atlantic." > > According to her website, she is also working on a new album, *Global > Sequence.* ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:37:23 -0500 From: katherine Subject: attn: new york and d.c.! I'd go over everyone playing this Chickfactor series but it'd probably just make sense to copy-paste the lineup: http://chickfactor.com/2012/01/cf-2012-for-the-love-of-pop/ April 6 & 7 at Artisphere in Arlington, Virginia (tickets not on sale yet) DC APRIL 6: STEVIE JACKSON (excellent guitarist-singer in Belle & Sebastian, the one who wrote a tune called chickfactor, natch. Mr Jackson has a new solo release titled (I Cant Get No) Stevie Jackson; on the cover of chickfactor #12 with Janet Weiss) FRANKIE ROSE (Bay Area pop wunderkind and former member of Vivian Girls / Crystal Stilts, on Slumberlands roster; cf due to interview her!) HONEY BUNCH (early Slumberland act featuring super-talented Velvet Crush fella Jeffrey Underhill; interviewed in chickfactor #11) DOT DASH (awesome D.C. pop group featuring Terry Banks of Tree Fort Angst, Saturday People and glo-worm; featured in chickfactor #15) DC APRIL 7: BLACK TAMBOURINE (legendary D.C. noise-pop group starring chickfactor co-founder Pam Berry, Slumberland boss Mike Schulman, Brian Nelson and Archie Moore from Velocity Girl, among many other bands; they have not performed live since 1991!!) LILYS (early Slumberland genius songwriter Kurt Heasley is back for this special D.C. reunion festival; cf tried to interview him but alas) FAN MODINE (NC via NYC ace songcrafter Gordon Zacharias will be performing FMs first show since 1998; cf interview imminent) LORELEI (early Slumberland D.C. powerhouse act featuring Matt Dingee, Stephen Gardner and Davis White) April 10, 11, 12 at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York (tickets on sale here): BROOKLYN APRIL 10: BLACK TAMBOURINE (legendary D.C. noise-pop group starring chickfactor co-founder Pam Berry, Slumberland boss Mike Schulman, Brian Nelson and Archie Moore from Velocity Girl, among many other bands; they have not performed live since 1991!!) SMALL FACTORY (first show since 1995 by the amazing Providence, RI pop group featuring Dave Auchenbach, Alex Kemp and Phoebe Summersquash, cover girl of chickfactor #1) VERSUS (smoking hot NYC trio back to the lean, clean lineup of suave brothers Edward and Richard Baluyut and the one and only Fontaine Toups, cover girl of chickfactor #6) THE LOIS PLUS (erudite Olympia singer-songwriter Lois Maffeo will play with Heavenly / Talulah Gosh / Would-Be-Goods guitarist Peter Momtchiloff; this is their first show together since 1997; Lois shared the cover of chickfactor #5 with Rebecca Spinane; Momtch in chickfactor #2) BROOKLYN APRIL 11: THE AISLERS SET (seminal Spectorific Bay Area pop combo led by Linton, interviewed in / cover of chickfactor #13; first show since 2003) PIPAS (unmissable London-Brooklyn electropop duo Mark Powell and Lupe Nunez-Fernandez will play their first show since 2008; interviewed in chickfactor #14) BRIDGET ST JOHN (legendary British folk-pop artist whose early recordings were released by John Peel, who basically started a label for her; interviewed in chickfactor #12) THE LEGENDARY JIM RUIZ GROUP (Minneapolis jazz-pop god will play in NY for the first time since 2002 with Emily Ruiz, Charlotte Crabtree and Alison Labonne; interviewed in chickfactor #9) BROOKLYN APRIL 12: STEVIE JACKSON (excellent guitarist-singer in Belle & Sebastian, the one who wrote a tune called chickfactor, natch. Mr Jackson has a new solo release titled (I Cant Get No) Stevie Jackson; interviewed in chickfactor #12) HONEY BUNCH (early Slumberland act featuring super-talented Velvet Crush fella Jeffrey Underhill; interviewed in chickfactor #11) A GIRL CALLED EDDY (NY singer-songwriter Erin Moran has the kind of songs that would make Karen Carpenter weep and the kind of voice that should make Burt Bacharach sit up and take notice; interviewed in chickfactor #15) THE SOFTIES (super-soft ultra-pop duo Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragias first show since 2000; Tiger Trap and All Girl Summer Fun Band featured in chickfactor #4 and #15) BROOKLYN: Three-day pass $70. Single tickets $25 in advance, $27 at the door. DC not on sale yet! ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #303 ***************************