11 June 2013 (Day 162) – Thinking Music

I return to work after a long weekend mentally refreshed.  I need to be.  My Manager has written the shells for three policies we’re developing and wants me to review them.   An article I’ve written for a professional journal has returned from the editor and I need to review his changes and attend to the issued raised.  And then there’s the usually stuff that I handle.  It’s time for thinking music and I know just where to go:

(# 422) Frank Zappa and the Ensemble Modern – The Yellow Shark (1993)

The last album released during Zappa’s lifetime also happened to be one of his very best.  In true Zappa fashion, he doesn’t play a note on it.   This is not all that surprising because this is one of his classic music outings, the album containing live recordings of a variety of Zappa classics and new material performed by the Ensemble Modern in  Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna in 1992.  Zappa was involved in the rehearsals process but was too ill to perform at (or even attend many of)the shows due to the cancer that eventually claimed him.  He was able to introduce one of the performances in typically humorous manner which is included here, but the real star is the orchestra.  The first half of the album is thrilling stuff, even for a rock pig like myself.   The closing track, G-Spot Tornado, is nothing short of magnificent, a track played at full throttle, and which is ranked by many Frankophiles as among his very best tracks.  The remaining tracks, from Food Gathering In Post Industrial America 1992 through to Get White sounds very much like a suite for a movie documentary that might be a bit too eclectic and fragmentary for many tastes.  If you’ve considered buying a Zappa classical album, fret no more.  This is definitely the one to get.

(# 423) Keith Jarrett – The Koln Album (1975)

This is one of the greatest and most dramatic live albums ever released.   It is a recording of a magnificent improvised solo jazz performance and so none of the tracks have formal titles, just part numbers.  What’s amazing about this album is that owing to problems with the piano provided at the venue, Jarrett ended up playing from only a small section of its keys.   Listen carefully and at times you can squeaks from the keys, of Jarrett hitting its pedals and, most significantly, his grunts of satisfaction as he hits a sequence that he likes.  Incredibly,  the first couple of tracks do not sound like improvised music at all, however, the last couple of tracks prove the audience was listening probably too intently as both end to agonising silence until the dawning realisation that the pieces had ended.

(#424) The Grateful Dead – Live/Dead (1969)

This is another of the greatest live albums ever released.  It is also the album to start with for anyone wanting to dip their toe into either their large catalogue or the thousands of bootleg taps out there.  The centrepiece of this album is, unusually, its opening cut, a hypnotic 23 minute version of Dark Star which many Dead critics claim has never been bettered.  Largely instrumental, the track never seems to run out of steam and the delicate interplay between the guitars, keyboards and bass is sublime.  This runs straight into a marvellous version of Saint Stephen something that was not possible on the original vinyl release.  The same applies to the next two tracks, The Eleven and Turn On Your Love Light, the latter sounding very much like the Allman Brothers.  The album ends with a magnificent 7.30 minute feedback excursion titled Feedback which, at times, almost sounds like an ambient music before concluding with the bands traditional set closer And We Bid You Goodnight.

(# 425) Sigur Ros – (   )  (2002)

A mysterious sound opens this album leading into a beautiful ballad.  None of the tracks have titles.  None of the lyrics make any sense because these are sung in the band’s invented language which it calls Hopelandic.  But none of this matters.  On this album, each track, combining piano, Jonsi’s voice, keyboards, understated drums and weird effects or found sounds is meant to be contemplative, stately and melodic.   Each track is long and slow until the seventh track when the tempo is lifted.  Then we arrive at the absolutely stunning eighth and final number.  Initially it reverts back to the slow tempo of the first six numbers seemingly incorporating musical motifs from the preceding tracks.  As it proceeds, the tempo starts a gradual increase driven, it seems, by Jonsi’s impeccably controlled vocals.  The intensity increases until it explodes into a jarring two minutes of controlled guitar chaos that borders on heavy metal until it comes to a screeching halt.  The same mysterious noise from the start is the last sound heard, suggesting this is a continuous piece of music intended to be played on a loop.  It is in my mind their masterpiece.