dcl

Tord Gustavsen, 2016 release What was said. "However unorthodox all this cross-translation seems, Tander makes it sound completely natural. Her intimate, lyrical voice is equally at home in both languages, as well as singing wordless vocalise and improvising. Gustavson still plays the piano as his main instrument, but has augmented it with discreet electronics and occasional synthesizer bass, while Vespestad provides percussive textures or timekeeping as required. So the group is a true trio, not just a vocalist with accompanists.

Zsófia Boros, her rendition of Egberto Gismonti's Celebração de Núpcias .

This came to my attention in the brainpickings blog. " one of the last standing idealists in our world — a countercultural force of lucid and luminous optimism, kindred to Walt Whitman, who wrote so passionately about optimism as a mighty force of resistance and a pillar of democracy."

@dcl I'd like to second that. Welcome back David. You've been missed! Gentlemen, it's been quiet here at the house for a while. However, upon the arrival of new music, the John McLaughlin recording, I thought it would seamlessly flow like a tranquil tributary into the stream of quiet. Described elsewhere as "it's at once spiritual, soulful, and free of earthly constraints...lyrics offer a fountain of emotionally free yet disciplined praise, affirmation, and petition; the ghostly guitars and rumbling tablas erect a lush harmonic floor that moves the tune in the direction of jazz, though it never fully arrives...a complex, slowly unfurling groove. It's alternately moody, earthy, and painfully tender." , it awakened the audio system. Very nice, melismatic unction for times of trouble. My wife commented afterwards, "It reminds me of Baaba Maal", not the most encouraging of spontaneous reviews–she has unflattering memories of a Senegalese singer Baaba Maal concert I thought we should take in. 🙉 My unction dried & flaked off. This Hans Zimmer concert aims to reinstate music "we" can "turn it up" appreciate.😉

Looks intriguing. I got started on Philip K. Dick in college, the class Science Fiction & Religion, in the Philosophy Dept. (not my major). I've not seen the series. Cracking open the yellowed pages:

Stretching "new release" to "release much lesser known", hopefully "new" to enjoy. Perhaps you are, like my wife, a fan of the drummer Peter Edward Baker.?

German film score composer and record producer Hanz Zimmer's works are notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements.

Not Charlie Hunter's most recent release but this duo setting sounds like a guitar-Hammond B3/bass-drum trio/quartet, thanks to Hunter's eight-string guitar (five treble strings, three bass). "That doesn't mean that Hunter's playing sounds gimmicky -- on the contrary, his virtuosity makes this duo album sound like a nice, conventional guitar trio date. Percussionist Leon Parker is a bit more active than most jazz drummers, and that works out very nicely in this context, especially on the Latin-tinged "Mean Streak" and on Parker's own "Belief." There are also fine interpretations of the old jazz chestnut, "You Don't Know What Love Is," and of Brian Wilson's "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)." Hunter's funky "The Spin Seekers" harks back to his work with T.J. Kirk. This is a wonderful, warm, rewarding album."

Elephant9, Norwegian progressive/neo-psychedelic/jazz-rock trio. Long track with changes along the way–hang in there.

THE MORE LOVING ONE Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast. How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me. Admirer as I think I am Of stars that do not give a damn, I cannot, now I see them, say I missed one terribly all day. Were all stars to disappear or die, I should learn to look at an empty sky And feel its total dark sublime, Though this might take me a little time. W.H. Auden

"...a ruminative, elegiac album far... In some ways, Cohen's move toward a more classical, ambient sound makes sense, as he is recording material specifically with the ECM stylistic tradition in mind. Cohen also composed these songs in the wake of his father's death, and the trumpeter's grief seems to permeate everything on Into the Silence. He even bookends the album with the funereal "Life and Death," in which he moans, Miles Davis-like, through muted trumpet, his band in a slow march beside him...The group members have an organic, focused intensity as if they hang on each phrase together. This intensity is well matched by the production, which sounds typically warm and full of natural reverb, as if recorded in a church instead of Studios La Buissonne in Pernes-les-Fontaines, France. Other tracks, like the slowly rolling "Dream Like a Child" and the quietly discordant "Behind the Broken Glass," also benefit from this group interplay, with Cohen leading his band through ambient soundscapes that, much like one's emotions after the death of a loved one, are supple and sad one minute, and sharp and tangled the next."