[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 38: Robbie Băsho Special

This month for Getting Warmer on NTS Radio, I made a mix in homage to the great Robbie Băsho, who makes some of my favorite fall listening. I did my best to incorporate both his classics and some of his less known moments, all of which evidence such an incredible range of musicianship and emotion.

Though Băsho’s life was tragically cut short by a freak chiropractic accident, he accomplished so much in his twenty years of making music and left us an impressive catalogue to celebrate. 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.

If you’d like to hear more, you can listen to two of his records here and here. You can download an mp3 of the mix here. Take it for an afternoon walk if you’re able. I hope you enjoy it.

“My philosophy is quite simple: soul first, technique later; or, better to drink wine from the hands than water from a pretty cup. Of course the ultimate is wine from a pretty cup. Amen.”

Tracklist:
1. Robbie Băsho – Redwood Ramble
2. Robbie Băsho – Cathedrals et Fleur de Lis
3. Robbie Băsho – Roses and Snow
4. Robbie Băsho – Twilight Peaks
5. Robbie Băsho – Rocky Mountain Raga
6. Robbie Băsho – Rodeo
7. Robbie Băsho – The White Princess
8. Robbie Băsho – Mehera
9. Robbie Băsho – Variations on Clair de Lune
10. Robbie Băsho – Salangadou
11. Robbie Băsho – Basket Full Of Dragons
12. Robbie Băsho – Sweet Medicine
13. Robbie Băsho – Orphan’s Lament
14. Robbie Băsho – Call on the Wind

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 37: Country Special

I made an all-country* special for my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. I grew up thinking I didn’t like country music because the woman who effectively raised me listened exclusively to the contemporary country radio station and it, uh, wasn’t very good. I didn’t get into the good stuff until I was 19 or so, and still regret being so late to the party. This is a mix of my favorite kind of Golden Age country: mostly from the 50s and 60s, swimming in reverb, warbly with ghostly backing choirs, hazy heatwavy pedal steel guitar, and some of the most gorgeously tortured vocals. I hope you like it! You can download an mp3 version here.

*For the purists, a few of these tracks aren’t strictly country, but are definitely country-adjacent!

Tracklist:
1. Slim Whitman – Cool Water
2. Brenda Lee – Break It To Me Gently
3. Patsy Cline – Lovesick Blues
4. Don Gibson – Sea of Heartbreak
5. Connie Francis – Tennessee Waltz
6. Wanda Jackson – One Teardrop at a Time
7. Waylon Jennings – Love’s Gonna Live Here
8. Houston Wells – All For The Love of a Girl
9. Dolly Parton – Gonna Hurry (As Slow As I Can)
10. Roy Orbison – Blue Bayou
11. Kitty Wells – I Can’t Stop Loving You
12. Patti Page – Dark Moon
13. Conway Twitty – It’s Only Make Believe
14. Billie Jo Spears – It Makes No Difference Now
15. Lonnie Donegan – Nobody’s Child
16. Loretta Lynn – Any One, Any Worse, Any Where
17. Jack Greene – There Goes My Everything
18. Ray Price – Crazy Arms
19. Brenda Lee – Fool #1
20. Charline Arthur – Please Darlin’ Please
21. Connie Francis – Second Hand Love
22. Sammi Smith – Help Me Make It Through the Night
23. Patsy Cline – Sweet Dreams (Of You)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 36

Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio, also marking my show being three years old! I tried to get slightly out of my wheelhouse with this one and be a little braver about mixing genres and moods, but it still feels very airy and spacey and summery to me. I hope you like it. Mp3 download is here if you’d like it. Flyer image by Eric Epstein.

Tracklist:
1. Sandy Salisbury – Come Softly
2. MJ Lallo – Before Brazil
3. Goddess in the Morning – Ucraine
4. UCC Harlo – Ceres
5. Yumi Murata – TOKIの音
6. CFCF – Closed Space
7. Enno Velthuys – In the Royal Woods
8. Annie Haslam – If I Loved You
9. Kissing the Pink – How Can I Live
10. Mouth Music – Hoireann O
11. Matt Bianco – Half A Minute
12. Masashi Kitamura + Phonogenix – ヴァリエイション・III
13. All In One – Rich Man, Poor Man
14. Sth Notional – Yawn Yawn Yawn
15. Björk – Come To Me

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 35: Summer Disco Special II

Hi! I’m still here, and still missing sharing music. The good news is that I just quit my day job to focus on food full time (scary, but cool!), and my plan is to continue blogging regularly once I’ve figured out how this whole new life format works. In the mean time, here’s my latest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. It’s full of what I want to listen to in the summer time: classic disco, funk, and soul. I hope you get a chance to listen to it en route to the beach, or at a barbecue, or that at the very least it makes you bop your head around a bit. You can download an mp3 version of it here. See you soon, thanks for being here 💙

Tracklist:
1. Jocelyn Brown – Somebody Else’s Guy
2. Melba Moore – Standing Right Here
3. Loose Joints – Tell You (Today) (Original 12” Vocal)
4. Bonnie Pointer – Free Me From My Freedom
5. Patrice Rushen – Never Gonna Give You Up (Joey Negro Re-Grooved Mix)
6. Family Of Eve – Having It So Bad For You
7. Phreek – May My Love Be With You
8. First Choice – Love Thang
9. Sybil Thomas – Rescue Me
10. Rose Laurens – American Love
11. Keiichi Oku – Heat Wave
12. Nile Rodgers – My Love Song For You

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 34

Hello! I’m still here, still up to my ears in food projects, still missing sharing music, and still very much looking forward to getting back to it. In the mean time, here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. This one is very spacey, with lots of reverb and a few psychy things. You can download an mp3 version here. Thanks as always for listening, and happy spring <3

Tracklist:
1. Gigi – Abay
2. Jun Miyake – Third Eye
3. Aragon – かかし
4. Francesco Messina – Comunicazioni Interne
5. Nuno Canavarro – Segredos M
6. Mychal Danna – Inanna
7. Bryan Ferry – Boys And Girls
8. Goddess In The Morning – 14
9. The Millenium – The Island
10. Yoshiaki Ochi – Dawning
11. Masayuki Sakamoto – Psy’chy
12. Quigley – If I Could Fly
13. Gigi – Guramayle (Slight Return)
14. Curt Boettcher – Lament Of The Astral Cowboy

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 33

Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. I was working on this as news was breaking about the fire at Notre Dame cathedral, so I was thinking a lot about sacred music and sacred spaces, but also about the hard lines we draw between devotional music and non-denominational music that still embodies some aspects of reverence for the divine, and what it means to enjoy music or other aesthetic remnants of religions that we don’t necessarily subscribe to or think are problematic. Some of this music is explicitly religious, and some of it isn’t. I hope you like it! You can download an mp3 version here.

Tracklist:
1. Skin – Blood On Your Hands
2. Roberto Musci – Lidia After The Snow
3. Kenji Kawai – 謡II (Ghost City: Chant II)
4. Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses With Hector Zazou – Eramu In Campu
5. Sœur Marie Keyrouz – L’Apostikhon de l’Office de Mercredi Saint (Prière de Marie-Madeleine) “Ya Rabbi”…
6. Sainkho Namtchylak – Haragannig
7. David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir – Kyrie Opening
8. Dead Can Dance – Wilderness
9. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – カライ・モーメ (さあ行きましょう、娘さん)
10. Urszula Dudziak – Po Tamtej Stronie Gory
11. Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir – Kalimankou Denkou
12. Dead Can Dance – The Host Of Seraphim
13. Jocelyn Montgomery With David Lynch – Alleluia
14. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Kleenex
15. Elena Ledda & Mauro Palmas – Sett’ispadas De Dolore

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 32

This month’s mix for NTS Radio is predictably a spring wish fulfillment dream–lots of lush, green sounds, animals, a Dip In The Pool song that sounds uncannily like Scritti Politti, Gal Costa doing a live version of “Volta” that makes me cry forever, and the original and excellent version of “Kokorowa,” which you may have heard covered by Love, Peace & Trance. I hope you like it! You can download an mp3 version here if you like it. Cover image is by Hirō Isono.

I also wanted to apologize for how quiet it’s been around here recently–I’m very much still here and appreciate that some of you have reached out to check in! I generally try to avoid too much cross-promotion, but I have a food project that has been keeping me unbelievably busy for the past few months and I’ve been struggling to keep up. I’ve been missing having music be an active part of my life and am very much looking forward to stepping back into it. Thanks always for reading and being here 💙

Tracklist:
1. Sally Oldfield – Night of the Hunters Moon
2. Waak Waak Djungi – White Cockatoo
3. Hajime Mizoguchi – A Giraffe And The Moon
4. Steve Hillage – Garden of Paradise (excerpt)
5. Pili Pili – Be In Two Minds
6. Killing Time – Kokorowa
7. Gal Costa – Volta (Live)
8. Katsutoshi Morizono & Bird’s Eye View – Imagery
9. Dip In The Pool – A Quasi Quadrate
10. Ryuichi Sakamoto – Dolphins
11. All In One – Come Live With Me
12. Today’s Latin Project – Danza Lucumi
13. Tomoki Kanda – Everybody Wants To Rule The World
14. Sunstroke – Nothing’s Wrong In Paradise
15. Taeko Ohnuki – 祈り (Inori)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 31: Early Choral Music Special II

This month for NTS Radio I put together a second volume of early Western vocal music (you can find the first volume, from last year, here). Technically some of this is toeing the line into the Baroque period. Completely  acapella and mostly sacred, though I think at least one of these songs are non-devotional love songs. 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!

Tracklist:
1. Sequentia – Quia Ergo Femina Mortem Instruxit (Hildegard von Bingen)
2. Sequentia – Virga Lesse Floruit (Anonymous)
3. Anonymous 4 – Sequence, Stillat In Stellam Radium (Unknown, 14th c. England)
4. The Gesualdo Six – Tenebrae Factae Sunt (Carlo Gesualdo)
5. Sequentia – Per Partum Virginis (Anonymous, 15th c. Aquitania)
6. Emma Kirkby & The Consort Of Musicke – Luci Serene E Chiare (Claudio Monteverdi)
7. Cantica Symphonia – Juvenis Qui Puellam (Guillaume Dufay)
8. The Tallis Scholars – Versa Est In Luctum (Alonso Lobo)
9. Ensemble Organum – Deo Gratias (Anonymous, 12th c. Aquitania)
10. The King’s Singers – Tibi Laus, Tibi Gloria (Orlande de Lassus)
11. Red Byrd & Cappella Amsterdam – Magnus Liber Organi: Alleluya. Pascha Nostrum Immolatus Est  (Léonin)
12. The Hilliard Ensemble – Ave Regina (Walter Frye)
13. The Cambridge Singers – In Manus Tuas (John Shepperd)
14. The Tallis Scholars – Responsorium: Libera Me, Domine (Tomás Luis de Victoria)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 30

Here’s my newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. This one is meant to be a peak autumnal soundtrack, with lots of warm folk, jazz, and psych. You can download an mp3 version of it here. Thanks for listening 💙

Tracklist:
1. Margo Guryan – Think Of Rain
2. Javier Somarriba – Contigo Llegaron Los Colores
3. Joni Mitchell – God Must Be A Boogie Man
4. Wendy & Bonnie – Children Laughing
5. Nadi Qamar – After Glow
6. Maki Asakawa – ふしあわせという名の猫
7. Once – Joanna
8. Affinity – I Wonder If I Care As Much
9. Linda Cohen – Arroyo
10. Mariangela – Memories of Friends
11. The Cyrkle – The Visit (She Was Here)
12. Judee Sill – The Archetypal Man
13. Quarteto Em Cy – Tudo Que Você Podia Ser
14. World Standard – Loving Spoonful
15. Robbie Basho – Orphan’s Lament
16. Psychic TV – White Nights
17. Colin Blunstone – Smoky Day
18. Mary Margaret O’Hara – You Will Be Loved Again
19. Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays & Nana Vasconcelos – Estupenda Graça

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 29: Halloween Special

Please enjoy this Halloween special of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. Featuring overtones, appalachian folk, Tibetan chant, a Delia Derbyshire side project, baroque psych, Kwaïdan, Throbbing Gristle, and lots more. You can download an mp3 version here.

Just a note that there are some things in here that are startling and disturbing, or at least I think so, so if you don’t like listening to scary things I would suggest giving this one a pass.

Tracklist:
1. Buffy Sainte-Marie – Poppies
2. David Hykes & The Harmonic Choir – Gravity Waves
3. Dorothy Ashby – The Moving Finger (excerpt)
4. White Noise – Love Without Sound
5. Karen James – Ghost Lover
6. Throbbing Gristle – Hamburger Lady
7. Ghedalia Tazartès – Une Voix S’en Va
8. Syd Barrett – Golden Hair
9. Monks of the Monastery of Gyütö – Sangwa Düpa (excerpt)
10. Geinoh Yamashirogumi – Osorezan (excerpt)
11. Tōru Takemitsu – II. Yuki (The Woman of the Snow)
12. Anna Homler & Steve Moshier – Sirens (excerpt)
13. Lead Belly – In The Pines
14. The Caretaker – My Heart Will Stop In Joy
15. Dead Can Dance – Wilderness
16. Dorothy Carter – Along The River
17. Jean Ritchie – The Unquiet Grave