What Rock/Pop/Jazz-rock/Fusion/Prog/Experimental etc album are you listening to?

[teamsaint]

Just back from our second time seeing the Talking Heads movie directed by Jonathan Demme. First time last weekend was in IMAX and was terrific whereas tonite was ‘standard’. Still pretty impressive though. Fabulous sound!

Only problem was that the audience felt too inhibited to get up and dance. Maybe next time…

Wouldn’t mind seeing that, PG. Never really fell completely in love with TH as was more or less mandatory at the time, but a fine, important and influential band for sure, who managed to be part of the invention of both punk and post punk at the same time.

Never met anybody else whose favourite TH song is Houses in Motion, but there must be some out there.

[RichardB]

Wouldn’t mind seeing that, PG. Never really fell completely in love with TH as was more or less mandatory at the time, but a fine, important and influential band for sure, who managed to be part of the invention of both punk and post punk at the same time.

Never met anybody else whose favourite TH song is Houses in Motion, but there must be some out there.

It's certainly one of my favourites (especially for the late Jon Hassell's contribution on trumpet), and I would say Remain in Light is by some distance their best album. I've seen that film a couple of times. My feeling is that it's beautifully put together and with an infectiously enthusiastic atmosphere but that they were past their best by the time it was made. After the aforementioned album their work had IMO neither the rawness of their first album nor the sonic inventiveness of the next three, which were made with gradually increasing degrees of collaboration with Brian Eno. I can see why Byrne et al might have wanted to strike out on their own and produce material that could more readily be performed live, but for me their subsequent work (including the film) had something missing. Has anyone seen Byrne's most recent concert film American Utopia? (directed by Spike Lee and based on a Broadway show devised by and starring Byrne) I found it highly contrived and uninvolving.

[Joseph K]

I posted this mix here a few years ago... I haven't listened to it in a while. Still sounds good.

Mixcloud

[Jazzrook]

Ian Dury & The Blockheads ~ 'Manic Depression', 1980:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=yaUrXIwj8io

JR

[Keraulophone]

Judee Sill and XTC fan here.

I've been fascinated by her since that mid-morning Radio 4 documentary revealed her troubled life to those who'd never come across her name.

'The Kiss' - especially in the live piano version released on a BBC recording - is a gem among her precious musical output.

[Bryn]

This subset seems wide enough to handle this: https://iklectikartlab.com/cheap-imi...resford-piano/

I'm currently listening to a stereo mix from a private ambisonic recording. It's the first time i have listened to this recording. Nicely evocative while presenting a different perspective from what I heard as an audience member, that night.

[Serial_Apologist]

This subset seems wide enough to handle this: https://iklectikartlab.com/cheap-imi...resford-piano/

I'm currently listening to a stereo mix from a private ambisonic recording. It's the first time i have listened to this recording. Nicely evocative while presenting a different perspective from what I heard as an audience member, that night.

Belated thanks, Bryn - only just noticed this!

[Serial_Apologist]

Tonight (Sat 7 October) on BBC2 from 8.35, series of programmes on women in Hip Hop and Soul, including amongst others Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, Ms Dynamite, Stefflon Don, Jorja Smith and Mary J Blige on Later with Jools Holland, and from 9.35 to 11.35 2 programmes on First Ladies of Hip Hop, both here and in the States presented by Neneh Cherry (daughter of Don, for all you jazzers). All about what and who they've been up against.

I've long been in two minds about Hip Hop as largely macho and disrespectful of women, while admiring Ms Dynamite and respecting Neneh Cherry, so this could be interesting, if not helpful.

[Jazzrook]

Some very rare footage of the Albert Ayler Quintet with Don Ayler, Michel Samson, Bill Folwell & Beaver Harris at the Sigma Festival, Bordeaux on 14, November, 1966:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=0KItOU5jBuk

JR

[Boilk]

Never met anybody else whose favourite [Talking Heads'] song is Houses in Motion, but there must be some out there.

I would say without reservation that Remain in Light (from which Houses in Motion comes) is TH's best album by far with or without the massive hit Once in a Lifetime. Probably a lot to with the soundworld created by Brian Eno's production and Adrian Belew's guitar & synth guitar work.

Also, If you like Remain in Light, you'll probably much appreciate King Crimson's subsequent but contemporaneous albums Discipline and Beat. Not only is Belew the guitarist but his lead vocal deliverance is IMO at times near-indistinguishable from Byrne's.

[Joseph K]

Radiohead - Kid A

[Serial_Apologist]

Tonight (Sat 7 October) on BBC2 from 8.35, series of programmes on women in Hip Hop and Soul, including amongst others Erykah Badu, Angie Stone, Ms Dynamite, Stefflon Don, Jorja Smith and Mary J Blige on Later with Jools Holland, and from 9.35 to 11.35 2 programmes on First Ladies of Hip Hop, both here and in the States presented by Neneh Cherry (daughter of Don, for all you jazzers). All about what and who they've been up against.

I've long been in two minds about Hip Hop as largely macho and disrespectful of women, while admiring Ms Dynamite and respecting Neneh Cherry, so this could be interesting, if not helpful.

The final part of this 3-episode series depressed me, frankly. With American female rappers coming to the forefront following lengthy interims of being overlooked in this male-centred genre, the impression one had, of women "finally" establishing their own careers and prominence while (or due to?) assuming all the objectifying stereotypes long derided in feminist quarters along with the macho posturing, represented a catastrophic capitulation. In any case the idea presented by some "new "feminists"" that women adopting the (un)dress codes once expected by page 3 of the Sun-reading males is fine because it is the women deciding to do this is frankly ludicrous and self-defeating. The English, or British women on the other hand are exploring musically more varied sources and directions, often critical of male and sexual/gendering normativisation and taking up vital political and cultural issues. I was delighted to see the success of Estelle but at the same time disappointed at the failure of local lass Speech Debelle to gain a widening following - being black and gay must still be thought a hurdle too far to followers of Hip-Hop - and the disappearance of Ms Dynamite, who represented so positive and engaging a presence ten years or so ago. The reasons for her leaving the scene were not explained, and I feel impelled to look further into this.

[RichardB]

I would say without reservation that Remain in Light (from which Houses in Motion comes) is TH's best album by far with or without the massive hit Once in a Lifetime. Probably a lot to with the soundworld created by Brian Eno's production and Adrian Belew's guitar & synth guitar work.

More or less exactly what i said a few posts back. I don't agree about Belew's vocals with that incarnation of King Crimson though. If David Byrne had fronted that band we would really have heard something, but Belew sounds to me too much like a generic American rock singer. I have to say though that KC's entire output is spoiled for me by all the vocalists (and most of the lyrics) being close to unlistenable.

[Serial_Apologist]

Who is George the Poet? An award-winning young black guy and advocate for new directions in music and poetry combined, coming from a background in Hip-Hop and Grime - genres whose limitations and deficiencies he is all too aware of and seeks to remedy on their own aesthetic terms. He might even have answers to many of the questions of interest of late: Where to with modern music? How without resort to aesthetic reductionism to inculcate critical thinking into the deprived lives and limiting ambitions of younger generations under the cultural sway of Hip-Hop and Gangsta Rap?

This was on Radio 4 yesterday: I have only just found it; it fills my heart with long-awaited hope that others will pick up on him, posing as he does answers to the right kinds of questions. I am mightly impressed, as you can tell!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001rgrq

[Serial_Apologist]

[...] women "finally" establishing their own careers and prominence while (or due to?) assuming all the objectifying stereotypes long derided in feminist quarters along with the macho posturing, represented a catastrophic capitulation. In any case the idea presented by some "new "feminists"" that women adopting the (un)dress codes once expected by page 3 of the Sun-reading males is fine because it is the women deciding to do this is frankly ludicrous and self-defeating.

Bless me if two women discussing this very issue didn't reach much the same conclusions on this morning's Start the Week, over on Radio 4 - right from the start!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001rgqg