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Looper's Delight
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I like these listening lists, it's always a great source for new music. Last CD's I got: Sun Ra: With Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold: reissue of an extremely rare mid-60's Saturn LP. I actually have the LP, but the CD adds 45 extra minutes of better recorded tracks. This is the energy music side of the Arkestra, and Sanders, who was new to NYC at the time of this recording, is already sounding killer. John McLaughlin/Chick Corea: Five Peace Band Live and Return To Forever: Live at Montreaux (DVD). In hight school in the 70's, I idolized Corea, especially the RTF quartet stuff. I pretty much quit listening to him after the Elektrik Band's glossy FM overload, but these two releases have just been klicking my ass. Both of these are just killer, the new RTF seems to have a deeper pocket than they ever did in the 70's, and the 5PB is pure fusion, excellent musicianship and a lot of fire. Mulatu Astatke with the Heliocentrics: Mulatu is an Ethiopian musician/arranger/bandleader behind much of the excellent Ethio-funk of the 70's, and The Heliocentrics are a young British band with a vast 70's fixation. It's a perfect match, Mulatu's slinky grooves and strange modal melodies tastefully updated with touches of hip hop and electronics. Secret Chiefs 3: The Severed Right Hands of the Last Men (title is actually in Italian, but I don't have the disc with me and am too lazy to look it up). Speaking of 70's fixations, this is a soundtrack to an imaginary Italian horror film. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was a lost Morricone or Goblin rarity, even the recording quality fits with the era. Also, the new Tortoise is very nice, lots of cool distorted analog synths. But the majority of my listening lately has been stuff I've downloaded from avantgardeproject.org: an archjive of about 150 lp's of out of print academic electronic and 20th Century classical music. Lp's are transferred from vinyl with extreme fidelity, even the mp3 versions sound excellent, and it's really a wealth of interesting music. Material by Parmegiani, Berio, Subotnick, Kagel, Cage and many others, including composers I've never heard of, and I've been kind of obsessed with this stuff since college. Probably of special interest to this list are several late-70's Henry Kasier recordings. This archive is simply astounding, it'll take me weeks of listening to just make a first pass through this. Seems like I've been living in the past lately :-) Also, I should second Rick's recomendation of Nik Bartsch's Ronin, I have both of their ECM discs and they are incredible. It's like the concepts of 80's Krimson as played by a chamber-jazz ensemble. Great stuff.