Tag: acoustic guitar

[RIP] Leonard Cohen – New Skin For The Old Ceremony, 1974

I was deeply saddened to learn last night of the death of poet, novelist, and musician Leonard Cohen. For the countless fans that have connected with his music over the course of his 50 year long musical career, Cohen has served as equal parts companion and court jester, writing lyrics that were usually equal parts beautiful and cynical, mixing barbed love songs with enigmatic social commentary and plenty of self-deprecation. This was all packaged in his distinctively conversational lilt, a voice that I used to love to fall asleep to until I spent some time with his post-Songs From A Room work and realized just how biting and angry he was. Around the same time I started to suspect that his feelings towards women might be more complicated than I had thought–after all, he came of age in the 50s. All of this is to say that he wasn’t just the love-worn troubadour that the “general listening” CD collection staple The Best Of Leonard Cohen would have us believe. He was messy, cryptic, and seemed to contradict himself readily.

I wanted to share New Skin for the Old Ceremony today for a couple of reasons. It houses some of his more potent political songs, specifically “There Is A War” and “A Singer Must Die”—songs that are lyrically vague enough to be timeless, and as such feel apropos on a day as bilious as today. It also marks a turn in instrumentation for Cohen, incorporating new percussive textures, violas, mandolins, and jazz inflections—still minimal, but more orchestrated than the bare bones guitar-and-vocals of his previous records. From there, it’s easy to see a mostly straight line building up to the unabashedly synth-pop critic’s darling I’m Your Man. Finally, New Skin is the Cohen record to which I feel most attached: in particular, the brutally worded “Why Don’t You Try” has been a reproving reminder to ask uncomfortable questions about loneliness and codependency after every break-up I’ve gone through since I was a teenager. As with much of his music, New Skin offers new insights with every listen, so we’re all the more grateful for his large and generous body of work. Thank you for everything, Leonard.

Robbie Băsho – Bonn Ist Supreme, 1980

Hard to know where to begin with Robbie Băsho, as he did so much in his twenty years of making music before his life was cut short by a freak chiropractic accident. He went to military school, then pre-med. He painted, sang, played trumpet, played lacrosse, lifted weights, wrote poetry, and changed his name to Băsho after the Japanese poet. He went through phases of cultural and musical obsession, including Sufi, Buddhist, Hindu, Japanese, Indian classical, Iranian, Native American, English and Appalachian folk, Western blues, and Western classical “periods.” He “used open C and more exotic tunings and he developed an esoteric doctrine for 12- and 6-string guitar, concerned with color and mood. He spoke of ‘Zen-Buddhist-Cowboy songs’ a long time before Gram Parsons mentioned his vision of Cosmic American music.” He studied under Ali Akbar Khan. He pushed for a broader appreciation of the steel-string guitar as a classical concert instrument. He made 14 studio albums in 19 years. He wrote “a Sufi symphony” and another for piano and orchestra about Spanish and Christian cultures coming to America. He’s considered one of the geniuses of American folk and blues, and yet his name often gets lost in conversations about John Fahey, Leo Kottke, and Sandy Bull.

Although several of his studio recordings are among my favorite albums, I wanted to share this live recording because (unsurprisingly) there’s a specific rawness to it that I love. The master files have been lost, so this is a cleaned up version of a second generation tape, and it shows. Băsho lets himself pick up speed at the expense of precision, often bordering on sloppy, and he sings unabashedly in a voice that many have snickered about but that gives me chills. It’s terribly intimate, and the audience is all but inaudible excepting polite bits of applause. You hear Băsho talk a bit about his guitar tunings, about his 115 year old instrument, and banter a little in bad German. More importantly, Bonn Ist Supreme gives an overview of his dizzying range, incorporating his signature guitar raga style, American spirituals, a reworking of Debussy, blues, themes from Wagner’s Parsifal, and Celtic folk melodies. Sprawling and trancelike.

Carlos Maria Trindade / Nuno Canavarro – Mr. Wollogallu, 1991

Not really sure how to write about this one. Mr. Wollogallu is pretty slippery and there’s very little information available about it online. It’s split into two sections, with side A made up of songs written by Carlos Maria Trindade and side B of songs written by Nuno Canavarro, both Portuguese musicians, and both of whom contribute instrumentals through both sides. Songs range from the churning, Sakamoto-esque opener “The Truth” (which includes a sample from Network) to fourth-world, densely percussive “Blu Terra” with silvery sparse mood pieces in between, punctuated by spoken word samples. Somebody should make a movie just to have this as the score. Singular, transportive–this feels magical, in the truest sense of the word. Definitely an on-repeat record.

Bridget St. John – Ask Me No Questions, 1969

Peak British folk. Bridget St. John is most well known for the trio of excellent records she released between ’69 and ’72 on John Peel’s Dandelion label. This, her debut and the first in the series, is the most bare-bones and raw, with guitar that’s alternately sunny and somber. It’s also blessedly absent of the goofy optimism that made many of her peers less palatable (and, unlike many of its contemporaries, all the songs on it are self-composed). Her voice is remarkable not just for sitting in a notably low alto range, but for its consistency of non-expression, as if she preferred to let her androgynous bard quaver and her direct lyrics speak for themselves. The follow up to this record, Songs for the Gentle Man, is also worth seeking out, but it’s more padded out with instruments, and feels somehow less pure for it–I love how Ask Me No Questions is unabashedly moody, dappled with the occasional patch of sun (the eight minute long closing title track is dense with field recordings of birds and church bells). Perfect fall soundtrack.

Judee Sill – Judee Sill, 1971

Guest post by Cora Walters

The more I listen to Judee Sill’s music, and specifically this album, the more I come to think of it as a church. The perfect soundtrack for finding your way. Her earnestness and skill as a singer and lyricist certainly rank her among the sweet sirens of the seventies–Joni Mitchell, Vashti Bunyan, Karen Dalton, Linda Perhacs, Bridget St. John, Nico–but what sets her apart is her constant craving. Surreal parables swirl around, clutching to make contact or to make sense of the world and her place in it. Each song is a hymn of her own mystical making. Even at its most baroque (“The Archetypal Man”), twangy (“Ridge Rider”), or pop (“Jesus Was a Cross Maker”), she’s driftin’ and “lopin’ along” some serious terrain–the rocky road to salvation.

Vinicius Cantuária – Sol Na Cara, 1996

Wow! A favorite from the legendary Vinicius Cantuária. Sol Na Cara happened a few years after he moved from Rio to New York, and with it he helped usher in a slick new breed of electronically tinged “post-bossa.” Unlike so many of its less elegant peers, Sol Na Cara is subtle, sinuous, and never falls victim to the desperation of two-dimensional Starbucks flab. Even when Cantuária flirts with kitsch, as in the synth-squiggled title track, he’s too much of an aesthete to let his collaborators lead him astray from beauty. Oh, and about those collaborators: arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto, co-produced by Arto Lindsay, who mixed it at Kampo Cultural Centre, a studio owned by a Japanese master of calligraphy; with songs co-written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Caetano Veloso, and Chico Buarque, in addition to Sakamoto, Lindsay, and Cantuária himself, this is a dream team lineup, but the numbers don’t cloud Cantuária’s singularly beautiful vision. Lazy late summer perfection.

Mix: Winter (Indoors)

I made this mix for ambient indoor listening, thinking about the last few moments of winter and a little bit of thawing for spring. It’s heavy on vocals, folk, and acoustic instruments, so it may be more of a background listen. If you like it, download it here.

Tracklist:
1. 0:00 Arthur – Wintertime
2. 2:50 The Durutti Column – Sleep Will Come
3. 4:38 Bridget St John – Many Happy Returns
4. 6:51 Harold Budd – Albion Farewell (Homage to Delius, for Gavin Bryars)
5. 9:22 Connie Converse – There is a Vine
6. 10:54 Woo – Taizee (Traditional)
7. 13:06 Unknown – Pumi Song
8. 14:13 John Jacob Niles – Go ‘Way From My Window
9. 16:27 Clara Rockmore – The Swan (Saint-Saëns)
10. 19:19 Lewis – Like To See You Again
11. 23:41 Unknown – IV
12. 25:39 Patti Page – The Tennessee Waltz
13. 28:32 Gigi Masin – Parallel Lines
14. 30:57 Yasuaki Shimizu – Suite No. 2: Prélude (Bach)
15. 34:55 Donnie & Joe Emerson – Love Is
16. 37:55 Rosa Ponselle – The Nightingale and the Rose (Rimsky-Korsakov)
17. 41:11 Henri Texier – Quand Tout S’arrête
18. 42:43 Molly Drake – I Remember
19. 45:41 Virginia Astley – Sanctus
20. 47:40 Nico – Afraid
21. 51:11 Arthur Russell – A Sudden Chill

Milton Nascimento & Lô Borges – Clube da Esquina, 1972

21 tracks written and performed by members of the highly influential musicians’ collective Clube da Esquina. This record gained a massive following in Brazil, but doesn’t get enough love in the states in favor of tropicália and bossa nova. It’s a complicated record, effectively a patchwork of moods and styles; and it’s experimental and volatile to the core, evading traditional song structures (and even traditional song lengths). “Saídas e Bandeiras Nº 1” is 43 seconds of sunny, psychy guitar-pop, ending abruptly only to be picked up 11 tracks later…for a minute and a half. “Dos Cruces” is five and a half minutes of meandering, drum-studded ache, winding up to a paltry 45 seconds of blistering chorus, overjoyed to have finally arrived, only to be cut off there, too. Always leaves you wanting more. Check out the string interlude halfway through “Um Girassol da Cor de Seu Cabelo” for some Xenakis steeze, or “Pelo Amor de Deus” for wild organ glissandos. I found myself sobbing on the M train listening to “San Vicente” the other day. I think Lô Borges was like 19 when they recorded this thing. It’s a crazy ride.