Tag: uk

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 25: Summer Disco Special I

My newest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio is a mix of some of my favorite disco, funk, soul, boogie, and house. It’s meant for a day at the beach, a barbecue, or attempting to persuade your hydrophobic dog to swim in a creek with you. I hope you like it! You can download an mp3 version here.

Tracklist:
1. Soul II Soul – Back To Life (Acapella)
2. Taana Gardner – Heartbeat (Club Version)
3. Mtume – Love Lock
4. Brenda & The Big Dudes – Weekend Special
5. China Burton – You Don’t Care (About Our Love)
6. Greg Henderson – Dreamin’
7. Double Vision – Clock On The Wall
8. Guardian Angel – Last Funk
9. Band Of Gold – Never Gonna Let You Go
10. Wish & Fonda Rae – Touch Me (All Night Long)
11. Dusty Springfield – Baby Blue
12. Stevie Wonder – Love Light In Flight
13. Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth For Christ Choir – Like A Ship (Without A Sail)

Penguin Café Orchestra – Broadcasting From Home, 1984

Another dear favorite from Penguin Cafe Orchestra, a project spearheaded by 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” folk music, particularly African percussion. The project that didn’t exactly suffer from under-exposure, if their dozens of commercial song placements are any indication. Still, I think the music very much belongs here. Plenty of ink has already been spilled by much more knowledgeable people about the group, so without attempting to poorly explain what makes this music great, I’ll say that what I love about this record, as with much of PCO’s catalogue, is the way it challenges and subverts what background music is and what it can do.

Though the exuberant “Music From A Found Harmonium,” named after the discarded pump organ upon which it was composed that Jeffes found in an alleyway in Japan, is easily the record’s most famous track, I’m a huge sucker for more pared back moments like “Prelude & Yodel,” which milks little more than three string instruments for far more than the sum of their parts; and the heartbreaking “Isle Of View (Music For Helicopter Pilots).” Elsewhere are hints of reggae (“Music by Numbers”); baroque, as per usual (“Sheep Dip”); and the perfect Latin jazz riff “Heartwind,” co-written by none other than Ryuichi Sakamoto. Lofty, nostalgic, and unabashedly sentimental, but with enough warmth and playfulness to keep it precise and never saccharine. Razor sharp and meticulous musicianship from a group of musicians who, by this time, had fully locked into the ethos of what they were doing and how best to play with each other. I hope you have a great time with this.

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[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 24

Here’s my latest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. Breezy, summery synth pop and light funk, with a Bill Nelson alias, Sally Oldfield, a Bollywood moment, and a favorite from that World Standard record we all love. You can download an mp3 version here.

Tracklist:
1. Irv Teibel – Country Stream
2. Sally Oldfield – Mirrors
3. Hiroshi Satoh – Akanegumo-No Machi
4. Jacob Desvarieux – Emotion
5. A.R. Rahman, Chitra Sivaraman, Karthik – Nenthukitten
6. Orchestra Arcana – The Whole City Between Us
7. Fernanda Abreu – Você Prá Mim
8. Izumi Kobayashi – Coffee Rumba
9. Jah Wobble – Blowout
10. Yumi Matsutoya – 影になって (We’re All Free)
11. Di Melo – Se O Mundo Acabasse En Mel
12. Yasunori Soryo & Jim Rocks – Valley
13. Tim Maia – Nossa História De Amor
14. Patrick O’Hearn – Forever The Optimist
15. World Standard – 水夫たちの歌声
16. Yungchen Lhamo – Ngak Pai Metog

John Martyn – Piece By Piece, 1986

Edit: At the time of originally sharing this post, I was unaware that John Martyn had a history of perpetrating domestic abuse. I recognize the implications of embracing his work in light of that, and will do my best in the future to be more thorough in my research on the artists I write about!

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Piece By Piece is not for everyone. But what makes it such an exemplary slice of sophisti-pop, in my opinion, is that every time John Martyn toes the aesthetic line (is this too much saxophone? does this sound like late night lonely hearts suburban radio? are these lyrics actually just bad?), he redeems himself tenfold with startlingly gorgeous instrumentation and perfectly plump, high-gloss production. It continues to surprise after repeat listens, and is extra generous in headphones.

Backing up, though–for the unfamiliar, John Martyn was a British musician and songwriter who initially came up as a precocious folk scene giant but, as is well-evidenced here, branched out into much more exploratory territory. His body of work is as big as it is diverse, so much so that I still haven’t really wrapped my head around it. It’s been suggested that it was this very proclivity towards experimentation that kept him just shy of the mainstream success that he clearly deserved. He sadly passed away in 2009. He was a truly brilliant guitarist, he loved fretless bass, and his inimitable voice could turn from wistful sweet to inhuman growling on a dime.

While Piece By Piece might be an odd place to jump into his very rewarding discography, I think it’s appropriate in its own way. “Angeline,” for example, is exemplary of Martyn’s particular breed of strangeness: at first it seems like a Toyota dad ballad, but its repeating out-of-sync broken drum sample acts as a reminder that there’s got to be more, and sure enough, the “chorus”–which isn’t really a chorus at all–breaks open so pleasingly into gorgeous washes of reverb in which the vocals disappear into dissonant synth and vice versa. Oh, and for the fretless bass die-hards, it’s all over the record in spades. A deep purple and navy blue world of a record that feels so good to live in for 41 minutes: moody, wickedly smart sophisti-pop, with more and more to say for itself at every turn. Ideal night-time driving music.

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Guest Mix – Springtime by Nick Zanca

A springtime mix compiled in April of 2018 by Nick Zanca of Quiet Friend, whose recent debut you can hear and buy here. Featuring warm textural jazz, pastoral synth pop, and gorgeous choral accents. You can download an mp3 version here. Illustration by Guy Billout.

Tracklisting:
1. Iasos – Tropical Birds At Sunrise (Excerpt)
2. Cocteau Twins – Cherry Coloured Funk (Seefeel Remix)
3. Jon Lucien – Kuenda
4. Milton Nascimento – Travessia
5. The Small Choir of St. Brandon’s School – Bright Eyes
6. Jane Siberry – Map of the World, Part 1
7. Prefab Sprout – Nightingales
8. Gregorio Paniagua / Lucia Bose – Nana de Una Sola Rota
9. Eberhard Weber – Quiet Departures (Excerpt)
10. Sachiko Kanenobu – み空
11. Popol Vuh – Höre, Der Du Wagst
12. Gareth Williams + Mary Currie – Raindrops From Heaven
13. Chas Smith – After
14. Janet Sherbourne – Ivory
15. Pat Metheny + Lyle Mays – “It’s For You”
16. The Toronto Children’s Choir – Friday Afternoons, Op. 7: Cuckoo (Comp. Britten)

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 23

Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. If it isn’t painfully obvious, I recently revisited the 1993 version of The Secret Garden, something I watched obsessively as a kid. This time I was struck by its gorgeous soundtrack, the moody world it lives in, its textural depth, and, as is often the case with my childhood movies, its easy elision of colonialism. This mix is about the pastoral, in the British countryside sense but also seeing the pastoral elsewhere. It’s about the projection and fantasy of exotica, musical migration as a result of colonialism, escapism, and essentialism; and is somewhat of a continuation of this mix. It’s also full of birds, bells, and field recordings, because it’s spring, sort of. You can download an mp3 version here. Thanks for listening!

Tracklisting:
1. Fernando Falcão – Revoada
2. Jean C. Roché / Birds – Palmar
3. Toshifumi Hinata – Fire And Forever
4. Mecano – Hawaii-Bombay
5. Per Tjernberg – They Call Me
6. Zbigniew Preisner – First Time Outside
7. Francis Bebey – Forest Nativity
8. Virginia Astley – Sanctus
9. Kudsi Erguner & Xavier Bellenger – Rahat-Ul-Ervah: Le Repos Des Esprits
10. Virginia Astley – From Gardens Where We Feel Secure
11. Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy – White Nile
12. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Yvette Mimieux & Charles Baudelaire – To A Passer-By
13. Raul Lovisoni – Hula Om
14. Bridget St. John – Ask Me No Questions

Thomas Leer – Letter From America, 1982

Ideal “first day of spring spring” soundtrack, released on the legendary Cherry Red Records. If you like Martin Newell, you’ll love this. Aside from the obvious comparisons–a diligently lo-fi DIY ethos, jangly guitar, spronky synth pop, cassette culture, etc.–there’s a similar tendency to couch really pretty and smart songwriting in a playful, totally unserious affect. (For the record, Leer is much funkier.) A part of me wonders if Leer and Newell sold their brilliance short by taking this approach, but at the end of the day I think this was the most truthful language that they could speak. This wasn’t just the way they chose to tell their stories; it’s an important part of the story itself. His world is far from simplistic, though. More whimsical-sinister tracks like “Gulf Stream” and “Soul Gypsy” paint a picture of imagined travels through Leer’s warped version of the world. And that quietly smirking, scuffy, faraway-in-a-big-room thing (“Choices”) clearly evidences Leer’s love of krautrock, but Letter From America is sunsoaked and, well, accessible, or at least I think so.

Still, in spite of its lo-fi trappings, Letter From America (later issued as 4 Movements) is surprisingly dense and elegant up-close, almost sophisti-pop in sensibility. Tracks like “Tight As A Drum” are full of gorgeous washes of sound, with such thorough care for spatial depth that it becomes difficult to disentangle one instrument from the next. As such, be forewarned that this record really suffers in bad speakers–it actually took me a couple years to fully enjoy it, because it took me that long to listen to it in headphones and realize that it was a lot more than tinny, scronky, dude guitar pop (sry guitar dudes). Miraculously, Letter From America keeps opening up with increasing generosity and wit with every listen. Happy spring.

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The Tallis Scholars – Victoria Requiem, 1987

This endless, drizzly winter has put me in a major early choral music rut, and it’s been so good that I almost don’t want the sun to come out. If you’ve never stomped around slushy Brooklyn subway stations in too many layers listening to this stuff in headphones, I’d highly recommend it–it’s a very easy way to lend some potent saintly gravitas to whatever you’re doing and thinking about, however trivial. Along the way, I’ve decided that Spanish Counter-Reformation composer and priest Tomás Luis de Victoria’s requiem, written in 1605, is one of my favorites.

I will say that because this was written right along the outer edges of what’s defined as “early music,” it shows a lot of early baroque tendencies, which is to say that it’s lacking the stark, alien-sounding movements of really early polyphony, like Pérotin. This Requiem is more along the lines of the traditional, baroque kind of prettiness that sounds pretty familiar to 2018 ears. I don’t think that’s at all a bad thing, but if you’re after more brutal, ascetic medievalism, this isn’t it. This is gorgeous, gut-wrenching, deeply pleasurable harmonies all the way. It’s remarkably versatile, too–if you want to make whatever you’re doing at home feel very important and beautiful (reading! writing! washing dishes! brushing your dog!), pop this on. You won’t regret it.

Note that the first ten tracks are Victoria’s Requiem in its entirety, and the last track,  “Versa Est In Iuctum,” was written by Alonso Lobo, one of Victoria’s contemporaries. For more early sacred choral music, including more work by always great Tallis Scholars, see here, here, here, here, and here.

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[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 22

Here’s my latest episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. I was happy to be able to do this set live out of their LA studio! This was a collection of very reverb-heavy songs, mostly synthetic reverb. If you like it, you can download an mp3 version of it here, with the spoken segments cut out so you can listen to it as an uninterrupted mix. Enjoy!

Tracklist:
1. Ryuichi Sakamoto – Out Of The Cradle (Canon E-Magic 2000)
2. Franco Nonni – Aria
3. Above & Beyond – Good For Me
4. Gail Laughton – Pompeii 76 A.D.
5. New Child – Nataraji Bengawan Solo
6. Love, Peace, and Trance – Kokoro Da
7. Rüdiger Oppermann’s Harp Attack – Troubadix In Afrika
8. Kenji Kawaii – Nightstalker
9. Art of Noise – Ode To Don Jose (Ambient Version)
10. Veetdharm Morgan Fisher – The Great Lakes
11. Naomi Akimoto – Izayoi No Tsuki
12. Daniel Lentz – Requiem
13. Osamu Kitajima ft. Minnie Riperton – Yesterday And Karma

[Mix for NTS Radio] Getting Warmer Episode 20: Early Choral Music Special

Here’s my most recent episode of Getting Warmer for NTS Radio. This one is comprised of entirely early Western vocal music (technically some of this is toeing the line into the Baroque period), completely a capella, and mostly sacred, though at least one of these songs is a non-devotional love song. I’ve listed the composer as the artist, and then the performers 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. Hildegard von Bingen – O Lucidissima (Rosa Lamoreaux & Hesperus Ensemble)
2. Claudio Monteverdi – Ah Dolente Partita
(Emma Kirkby & The Consort of Musicke)
3. Pérotin – Plainchaint: Viderunt omnes fines terrae (Tonus Peregrinus)
4. Tomás Luis De Victoria – Kyrie (The Tallis Scholars)
5. Léonin – Viderunt Omnes, 2 Part Organum (Tonus Peregrinus)
6. Claudio Monteverdi – Donna, Nel Mo Ritorno (La Venexiana)
7. Unknown composer, 12th century Aquitanian monasteries –
Lux refulget (Sequentia)
8. Carlo Gesualdo – Sabbato Sancto, Responsorium 5 (The Hilliard Ensemble)
9. Walter Frye – O florens rosa (The Hilliard Ensemble)
10. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina – Motet Nigra Sum (The Tallis Scholars)
11. Pérotin – Beata viscera (The Hilliard Ensemble)
12. Unknown composer, 13th century England – Conductus:
O Maria stella maris (Anonymous 4)
13. Léonin – Pentecost: Repleti sunt omnes (Red Byrd)
14.Thomas Tallis – Spem in alium (Motet for 40 Voices) (The Tallis Scholars)