Tag: england

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 63: Early Choral Music Special V

My newest episode of Getting Warmer on NTS Radio is the fifth installment in the annual Early Choral Music special. Entirely acappella and sacred, with a little bit more of a Spanish focus this year. I’ve listed the performers as the artist, and then the composers in parentheses after the song title. In full transparency, I’m neither an expert on this stuff nor am I at all religious–I just really love this music, and I think it makes an ideal winter hibernation soundtrack. I hope you like it too. You can download an mp3 version here. Stay warm, and happy holidays!

Previous early choral music specials: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018

Tracklist:
1. Sequentia – O Pastor animarum (Hildegard von Bingen)
2. Tonus Peregrinus – Missa Da gaudiorum premia: Sanctus (John Dunstable)
3. La Capella Reial de Catalunya – Sibil·la Valenciana: Gloria Tibi Domine (Bartomeu Càrceres)
4. The Cambridge Singers – Justorum animae (Orlando de Lassus)
5. Anonymous 4 – Ave Maria gracia plena (Anonymous, 13th century France)
6. The Tallis Scholars – Funeral Motet: Versa est in luctum (Tomás Luis de Victoria)
7. Discantus – O rubor sanguinis [Antienne] (Hildegard von Bingen)
8. A Sei Voci – Messe Vidi Turbam Magnam: Graduel [Exaltent Eum] (Gregorio Allegri)
9. The Tallis Scholars – Osculetur me (Orlando de Lassus)
10. Capilla Flamenca – De profundis (Sebastián de Vivanco)
11. Ensemble Project Ars Nova – O gloriosissimi lux (Hildegard von Bingen)
12. The Tallis Scholars – Missa Papae Marcelli: Kyrie (Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina)
13. Anonymous 4 – Codex Calixtinus: Portum in ultimo (Anonymous, 12th century France)
14. Capilla Flamenca – Quae est ista (Sebastián de Vivanco)
15. The Tallis Scholars – Motet: Sicut lilium inter spinas (Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina)
16. Discantus – Ave rosa novella (Anonymous, 13th century France)
17. Pro Cantione Antiqua – Missa Aeterna Christi munera: Kyrie (Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 51: Early Choral Music Special IV

My newest episode of Getting Warmer on NTS Radio is the fourth installment in the annual Early Choral Music special. Entirely acappella and mostly sacred, though I got a little wild and threw in a secular song from 16th century England. Also, to keep it extra spicy there’s some Hungarian and Bulgarian stuff in here too! I’ve listed the performers as the artist, and then the composers in parentheses after the song title. In full transparency, I’m neither an expert on this stuff nor am I at all religious–I just really love this music, and I think it makes an ideal winter hibernation soundtrack. I hope you like it too–if you do, you can download an mp3 version of it here. Stay warm!

Previous early choral music specials: 2020, 2019, 2018

Tracklist:
1. Sequentia – Kyrieleison (Hildegard von Bingen)
2. The Tallis Scholars – Qui venit (John Taverner)
3. Sequentia – Ora pro nobis, beate Nicolae (Anonymous, France)
4. Anonymous 4 – Motet: Puellare gremium / Purissima mater (Unknown composer, England)
5. Huelgas-Ensemble – Virgo sub ethereis (Alexander Agricola)
6. Anonymous 4 – Pia mater gratie (Anonymous, France)
7. Huelgas-Ensemble – Fortuna desperata (Alexander Agricola)
8. Sequentia – O Dulcis Electe (Responsory/To St. John The Evangelist) (Hildegard von Bingen)
9. Osnabrücker Jugendchor – Miserere mei, Deus (excerpt) (Gregorio Allegri)
10. Theatre of Voices – Ve Mundo (Philip The Chancellor)
11. Anonymous 4 – Novum Decus Oritur (Unknown, Hungary)
12. Tonus Peregrinus – Quam Pulchra Est (John Dunstable)
13. The Tallis Scholars – Requiem: Taedet Animam Meam (Tomás Luis de Victoria)
14. Taverner Choir & Players – Westron Wynde (Anonymous, England)
15. Discantus – Vox in Rama (Unknown, France)
16. Tonus Peregrinus – Sanctus (John Dunstable)
17. Chamber Music Ensemble Kukuzel – Bulgarian Lament (excerpt) (Ioan Kukusel)
18. The Tallis Scholars – Dona nobis pacem (John Taverner)
19. Westminster Cathedral Choir – Sanctus (Missa Cantate) (John Sheppard)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 40: Early Choral Music Special III

This month for NTS Radio I put together a third volume of early Western vocal music. Completely acapella and largely sacred, though I went a little ~crazy~ this time and threw in a couple of courtly love motets. I’ve listed the performers as the artist, and then the composers in parentheses after the song title. In full transparency, I’m neither an expert on this stuff nor am I at all religious–I just really love this music, and I think it makes an ideal winter hibernation soundtrack. I hope you like it too. You can download an mp3 version here. Stay warm!

Previous early choral music specials: 2019, 2018

Tracklist:
1. Anonymous 4 – Peperit virgo (Unknown composer, England)
2. Huelgas-Ensemble – Apostolo glorioso (Guillaume Dufay)
3. The Gesualdo Six – Te lucis ante terminum (Thomas Tallis)
4. Anonymous 4 – Je te pri de cuer par amors (Unknown composer, France)
5. The Hilliard Ensemble – Sabbato Sancto: Responsorium 3 (Carlo Gesualdo)
6. Tonus Peregrinus – Credo: Da Gaudiorum Premia (John Dunstable)
7. Theatre of Voices – In hoc anni circulo (Unknown composer, France)
8. Tonus Peregrinus – Beata viscera (Pérotin)
9. The Hilliard Ensemble – Ave regina (Walter Frye)
10. Anonymous 4 – Quant je parti de m’amie (Unknown composer, France)
11. Ensemble Organum – Répons: Hodie nobis caelorum rex de virgi nasci (Unknown composer, France)
12. Sequentia – Nunc aperuit nobis (Hildegard von Bingen)
13. The Cambridge Singers – Libera nos, salva nos (John Shepperd)

Cleaners From Venus – Going To England, 1987

A bit out of character (guitars!), but I’ve been thinking about Portland a lot this week, and Cleaners From Venus reminds me of biking around leafy Oregon residential areas in the spring. By 1987 the band had effectively became a vessel for Martin Newell’s oddball pop ethos, one which was fraught with contradictions. Sharp, smart, often really pretty pop songs recorded in ragged-edged irreverence; serious musicianship undercut by clownish interlude samples; distant, aching vocals suggesting alienation, followed by frenetic, jangling optimism–all this marked by Newell’s signature relentlessness. His enormous catalog and the consistency of his output in spite of having been largely ignored by the music industry until much later in his career suggest an incredible commitment to a sensibility that, in spite of drawing so heavily on nostalgic references, was still far ahead of its time. This is one of my favorite of his, and it hasn’t been printed since 2003. Enjoy!

Muslimgauze – Zul’m, 1992

Hard to know where to start. Muslimgauze was the moniker of UK musician Bryn Jones, who released over 90 albums in his short life (he died suddenly at 37 from a rare blood infection). As more of his recordings are still being unearthed posthumously, his discography is currently approaching 200 releases. The project originated with Jones’s support for Palestine in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as its nexus, but eventually expanded to encompass his sympathy for other conflict-ridden Muslim countries, and his belief that Western interests in natural resources and political gain were at the root of many of these conflicts.

He lived with his parents until his death, but was effectively living in his studio most of the time, often churning out an album a week for months on end. He was so obsessive about his music-making (and showed no regard for how little interest it generated during his lifetime) that he often said he didn’t have time to listen to anyone else’s music–yet he pulled from so many genres in such a prescient way that he must have been some kind of lightning rod for musical synthesis. His work incorporates elements of dub, techno, drum and bass, industrial, ambient, and traditional percussion borrowed from dozens of ethnicities. Most (and I say most lightly, as I’ve barely scratched the surface) of his music is built around that percussion–drum kits, drum machines, breakbeats, ethnic hand percussion, pots and pans–and tape loops, which he preferred over computers and samplers despite their much more laborious process.

Zul’m is on the more accessible side of what I’ve heard of Muslimgauze, and it neatly encapsulates much of Jones’s aesthetic. It moves slowly and decisively, building up to frothy climaxes that occasionally feel joyful in spite of the oppressive, clanking weight of the whole thing. Hypnotic stretches of percussion, looping, and vocal samples (in both Hindi and Arabic on this release). I think this was around the time that Jones was beginning to use more spaced out, expansive production, and you can hear that dubby quality working to terrific effect. Zul’m is dedicated to “the unknown Palestinians buried in mass graves in Al-Riqqa cemetary, Kuwait city.” Today we might also dedicate it today to the civilians of Aleppo, both the living and the dead.

Dolly Mixture – Demonstration Tapes, 1984

Really gorgeous, stripped-down new wave and punk-tinged pop rock recorded between 1979 and 1983 and then self-released as a double vinyl in 1984–the trio’s only full-length. Though Dolly Mixture’s sound hits a sweet spot between punk and girl-group pop (unsurprisingly, as the story goes that the band was born from a mutual love of The Undertones and The Shangri-Las), the three actively pushed back against Chrysalis Records’s attempt to market them as a girl group, keeping their sound loose and lo-fi and their songs short and sweet.

This is more rock-centric than what we usually post around here, but that’s what I grew up listening to, and I’ll always love it. Demonstration Tapes has an immediate appeal: swooning harmonies, sophisticated top lines, and a room-tone warmth slightly ahead of The Vaselines and Beat Happening. Disarming in how dry and direct (but still irrefutably pretty) it is. Good for fans of Marine Girls. Kurt Cobain would have loved this. I’m always surprised it doesn’t get tossed around more. Ideal late summer headphones music.

Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Penguin Cafe Orchestra, 1981

Arguably the definitive work from Penguin Cafe Orchestra, the project of UK-born composer and musician Simon Jeffes. Jeffes saw PCO as the ongoing soundtrack to a dream he had had while suffering from food poisoning in the south of France, as well as a vessel through which to explore his interest in “world” music, particularly African percussion. The ensemble’s music resists genre, though–you can hear Jeffes’s British proclivity towards the pastoral and an interest in folk music that splits itself between Western and non-Western traditions, but you can also hear a love for Reichian minimalism, a vaguely avant-garde quality that presumably compelled Brian Eno to release their first record on his Obscure label, Satie-esque piano ambling, flamenco, and even–going out on a limb here–the chug-a-chug forward momentum of Kraftwerk, for whom PCO opened in 1976 in their first major concert.

Penguin Café Orchestra moves comfortably between unabashedly beautiful (“Numbers 1-4,” “Flux,” “Harmonic Necklace”), cheeky (the famous “Telephone and Rubber Band,” based on tape loops of a telephone ringing tone, an engaged tone, and a rubber band), and the clever, all-purpose optimism that the best movie soundtracks happily exploit (“Air A Danser,” “Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter,” “The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas”). There’s a sense of déjà-vu to much of PCO’s discography, but it’s especially present here, and combined with meticulous musicianship (this album took almost four years to record), it makes for a deeply transportive listen–with the caveat that the destination isn’t always clear.

New Age Steppers – Action Battlefield, 1981

Second full-length from UK dub supergroup New Age Steppers. Incredible lead vocals from Arianne Foster, aka Ari-Up (The Slits), backing vocals from a teenage Neneh Cherry (The Slits, Rip Rig + Panic, work with the Notorious B.I.G., Youssou N’Dour, and Massive Attack, among others; also Don Cherry’s stepdaughter), bass from Crucial Tony (Dub Syndicate), and production by Adrian Sherwood (founder of On-U Sound, also the only consistent member in the N.A.S. lineup).

About as spacey as production gets, and more vocal-heavy than some of their other work. Mostly covers, including Horace Andy (“Problems”), Black Uhuru’s Michael Rose (“Observe Life”), B.B. Seaton (“My Love”), and the Heptones’ Leroy Sibbles (“Guiding Star”). Summer classic.

Gavin Bryars – The Sinking of the Titanic, 1990

A piece with a long, dense backstory, and many different iterations. As such, The Sinking of the Titanic feels very much like a living work-in-progress, just as contingent on the live performance as on composition, which is part of what makes it so special. Bryars explains the piece’s inspiration here and details its growth and performances here. The piece is a consideration of the sounds generated by the string sextet who played on the boat deck of the Titanic as it sank, and what the sounds would do if the music had continuously played into the water:

Bride did not hear the band stop playing and it would appear that the musicians continued to play even as the water enveloped them. My initial speculations centred, therefore, on what happens to music as it is played in water. On a purely physical level, of course, it simply stops since the strings would fail to produce much of a sound (it was a string sextet that played at the end, since the two pianists with the band had no instruments available on the Boat Deck). On a poetic level, however, the music, once generated in water, would continue to reverberate for long periods of time in the more sound-efficient medium of water and the music would descend with the ship to the ocean bed and remain there, repeating over and over until the ship returns to the surface and the sounds re-emerge. The rediscovery of the ship by Taurus International at 1.04 on September 1st 1985 renders this a possibility. This hymn tune forms a base over which other material is superimposed. This includes fragments of interviews with survivors, sequences of Morse signals played on woodblocks, other arrangements of the hymn, other possible tunes for the hymn on other instruments, references to the different bagpipe players on the ship (one Irish, one Scottish), miscellaneous sound effects relating to descriptions given by survivors of the sound of the iceberg’s impact, and so on.

Bryars began writing it in 1969 and recorded a 25 minute version of it in 1975 as a first release for Brian Eno’s Obscure Records (Eno himself produced the recording). After Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic’s wreck in 1985, Bryars dramatically reworked the piece to include additional sonic elements detailed above, as well as two children’s choral ensembles. The work was performed at the Printemps du Bourges festival in Belgium in 1990 in a Napoleonic-era water tower, with the musicians performing in the basement of the tower and the audience listening on the ground floor. The empty top floors of the tower acted as a giant reverberation chamber. For this recorded version of the live performance, Bryars added the sound of other ambient spaces, including that of the swimming bath in Brussels where the piece was performed “live” on a raft in 1990.

Prefab Sprout – Jordan: The Comeback, 1990

Guest post by Nick Zanca (Mister Lies)

Anyone who has heard Prefab Sprout’s music at length knows that they are a band with zero-percent middle ground. You’re either enamored by their theatricality and ebullience or you find it incredibly irritating – but that’s not to say they aren’t a taste worth acquiring. For those uninitiated, the band was at the forefront of the British “sophisti-pop” movement alongside Scritti Politti, The Blue Nile and Aztec Camera – meaning heavy use of MIDI programming and plenty of early digital production gymnastics. What set them apart from their peers was frontman Paddy McAloon’s consistently highbrow songwriting chops – which, at their best, were wittier than Stephen Sondheim and Cole Porter combined. Admired by the likes of Phil Collins, Arthur Russell, and Stevie Wonder (who would contribute harmonica on their song “Nightingales”), they are easily one of the UK’s best kept secrets.

On first listen, Jordan: The Comeback can be overwhelming – it’s deeply intricate, it covers a lot of ground sonically (gospel, samba, doo-wop and vaudeville) and plays more like a original cast album of a forgotten musical than a conventional pop record. For a songwriter who refers to himself in his own music as the “Fred Astaire of words,” McAloon dances around ambitious subject matter like nobody’s business – over the course of 19 tracks there are songs about the fall of Jesse James and the resurrection of Elvis before he assumes the character of God (!) on “One Of The Broken.” Along for the ride is the band’s longtime friend and producer, Thomas Dolby, contributing the technicolor digital synthscapes that act as the record’s constant.

This is an album full of surprises by one of my all-time favorites. Anyone who isn’t down to get cheesy might want to skip, but fair warning – you’ll fall head-over-heels for this album if you let yourself. Easily up there with Clube da Esquina or Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1 as one of the most rewarding deep listens over an hour long.

(For anyone who hasn’t dived into their work yet, I might suggest checking out their album Steve McQueen first as it’s a little easier to digest – but know that most of the Prefab die-hards I know consider Jordan to be the magnum opus, myself included.)