Maria Muldaur – Cool River
As I mentioned in a comment on a recent Steenbeck post, Cool River by Maria Muldaur is a current earworm. The song haunts me. I listen to it in the car driving to and from work. There is a wistfulness and sadness that just moves me. I’ve always been affected by sad songs for some reason, even though I am a cockeyed optimist by nature. – marconius
Perfume Genius – Mr Peterson
Perfume Genius’ Mr. Peterson is one of my 2010 favourite songs, a shoo-in for Unsettling songs had it been published by then. It’s a very twisted love story of sorts. There’s not a lot I want to say about this particular song, I’m a bit ambivalent about it (the song itself is ambivalent too) At any rate, party music this is not. Here, for your further delectation, is a live version. – lambretinha
Maria Teresa – Lusofonia
‘Lusophone’ relates to the music and culture of Portuguese speaking societies worldwide, Maria Teresa is from Portugal, this is the title cut of her CD on the Le Chant du Monde label. – goneforeign
Best Coast – Goodbye
One of the (many) great things about the ‘Spill is the way you can build up quite a deep impression of someone – not just the music they like, but their other preferences and personality – and so have a fair idea of whether their recommendations are likely to appeal or not. So, I know Japanther well enough to know that anything he suggests will probably be my sort of thing, even when accompanied by phrases like “buzz band” and “West Coast pop” that normally have me running for the hills, and so it proves in the case of Best Coast. I simply love the album, which takes me back to the Good Old Days of Proper Singles (under three minutes, of course), and this is my favourite track – if only for the line “I lost my job, I miss my mum, I wish my cat could talk…”- abahachi
Moby Grape – 8.05
Summer of ’67 Moby Grape came to Reno for 2 nights complete with (horrors) a light show. Convinced this invasion from San Francisco posed an existential threat to our community’s moral fiber the local Police Chief went public against it with a threat a day appearing in the local press. His attempts to halt it failed however. First concert was a Friday & the next morning’s paper ran a story complete with a full page picture on the front page. Near the center of the photo was the chief’s daughter. I still have this superb image of her swaying, eyes closed, to this song. – fintan
Codona – New Light
Codona was a “world music supergroup” featuring Collin Walcott, Don Cherry, and Nana Vasconcelos. Following Cherry’s motto “when people believe in boundaries, they become part of them”, their nomadic, multi-instrumental music weaves many strands together into shifting, finely textured sound collages.
Walcott’s sitar dominates the 1978 track New Light, featured on a recent NPR playlist. Of the many moods here perhaps the most sublime (and earwormy) moment is when Cherry’s trumpet harmonizes the melody against the sitar at about 5:00 and Vasconcelos’ percussion lifts into a restless groove. – nilpferd
Thanks, as always, for your submissions! Remember: earworm@tincanland.com
Great mix of music again.
Particularly liked Cadona-”New Light”. Nice blend of instruments and tempo.
Had a vague memory of Moby Grape from the 60′s. Very much of it’s time.
I think everyone is aware of Maria Muldaur from “Midnight etc”. But “Cool Water” is a lovely song. Did you nom it for recommendations of songs about water Marconius?
Will be listening to them all again, I’m sure.
Nice stuff this week (as ever). Especially like Maria Muldaur and Moby Grape, but will give the others a proper listen later.
Thanks for posting them folks.
Big Moby fan here too. Still not rightfully judged, especially by the general public. ‘Bitter Wind’ and ‘Lazy Me’ are the equal of almost anything by Buffalo/Byrds IMO
yet another ace collection, thanks for the kind words Aba – the feeling is more than mutual (I wonder at times whether the ‘spill collective musical palette isn’t synchronising itself together, like a dormitory of teenage girls……sorry, that’s not the best image to conjure up…..erm…..) – the Best Coast album is great and has been my soundtrack to the second half of this endless summer (back up to 32 degrees today and the humidity is even worse than before!).
Loved the sitar sound on the Codona track too. I’ve got a couple of LP’s with Don Cherry playing various instruments – cornet, flute, trumpet….but none of them sound anything like this! Diversity is the spice of life and all that…!
Maria’s an old favourite, always good to hear again; hits this week were Best Coast’s fuzztastic three chord trick and Codona for Don Cherry, a fabulous musician and hugely missed … even saw him on an Ian Dury tour back in the ’80s. Cheers dears.
Pick of the week was Lusofonia for me. Just my kinda WTf sound. Best Coast had my feet tapping & the Maria
Muldaur was lovely in an old timey kinda way. Im saving Codona for a set down evening with a glass of wine or two & a jazz mix.
Enjoyed them all and will have to listen again. I nominated Cool River for something a while ago but it did not really fit – I just wanted to nominate it.
Interesting that one of the fellows in Codona is Don Cherry. Probably a fairly common name but here in Canada, Don Cherry is a well known hockey commentator, former coach of the Boston Bruins and known for being rather brassy, both in clothing and the way he talks. See a clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcerBrY816c
I’m pretty sure it is not the same Don Cherry in the band!
Nice list!
I enjoyed the codona most especially probably. I was working on a non-word thing as I listened, (well, don’t laugh, it’s a painting). And it felt like a very rewarding listen in these circumstances. There’s a lot going on there, but it felt quiet and contemplative throughout. I liked how it was constantly changing and surprising, but in a way that made sense as it was going along. The end was just rude/lovely.
Glad you liked! I meant to post a link to the NPR playlist which introduced me to it-
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129379409
Best of luck with the non-word thing. Do we get to see the results?
It’s the silliest thing…I’m doing a painting of the boys as a present for David’s birthday. NEVER YOU MIND that David is a very good painter and I can’t paint at all!! I’m having a ridiculously nice time painting them, though! I’m so involved in this silly picture. I’ll post it after his birthday if I can think of a playlist to go with it.
I was thinking about the sitar…it’s such a lovely sound, but I feel like, in some strange way, years of being called a hippy and vehemently denying any hippy associations have colored my appreciation of the instrument. Damn those beatles!!
I thought it was beautiful, here though. TIme for a course in sitar re-appreciation. (that was a sitar, wasn’t it?)
He starts off playing a sitar, the more dramatic phase later on includes a dulcimer with hammers.
I’ve had relatively little sitar exposure besides Miles Davis’ 69-72 period and things like this, so I guess I put it into the “groovy, man” category whenever I hear it, too.
I submitted Mr Peterson this week (Nov 3) only to learn I’d missed it way back here! (I was travelling) Well chosen lambi – sad to see no comments on it.
MY TAKE: A song about being seduced by a teacher who later kills himself leaves nowhere to hide for either the singer or the listener, but nothing fazes Seattle youngster Mike Hadreas. His debut album, Learning, raises the bar for do-it-yourself confessional bedroom albums so high that the rest of the kids in America might as well shut down their laptops and go do their homework.