Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Miles Davis: Prelude

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 06:57:28 -0700

As an addendum to my previous post, I've found a usable (i.e. under 20 minutes) edit of "Prelude" from Agharta, the electric-era Miles Davis tune that opened up a whole new area of music to me in 1991.

04 - Prelude

Miles Davis

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Fog Tropes on Leap Day

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:06:06 -0800

My knowledge of contemporary classical and experimental music is minuscule, but I have loved Ingram Marshall's Fog Tropes since Richard Kadrey plugged it in his 1995 novel Kamikaze L'Amour and it sounded interesting enough that I bought a CD of it. The piece consists of a tape of foghorns (from San Francisco Bay) and a score for live brass ensemble; it sounds mysterious and mesmerizing, haunting and soothing. For several months my daughter played it every night at bedtime. It is the piece that catapulted Marshall to a successful career as a commissioned composer*. Thus I made sure to attend the Cornell Electroacoustic Music Center's Leap Day Concert on Friday, which was to feature a performance of Fog Tropes with Ingram Marshall himself in attendance. The live group for this performance was a brass sextet; in his introduction, Marshall professed it a rare treat to hear a tuba playing along with the foghorns. It was a rare treat for me to hear Fog Tropes performed live at all, and I left with that feeling of having experienced real transcendence that is the gift of the very best art. (And I got to shake hands with Marshall, too!) Thanks to the iSound Player, I can offer Fog Tropes right here, as a stream or a free download (if the download doesn't work from here, then go here), and three more Ingram Marshall compositions as well.

Ingram Marshall

* Based on the program notes by Stephen Gorbos.

Send to a friend

Still trumpet time: Mark Isham

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:06:38 -0800

Continuing my thread of guys who have played brass instruments on David Sylvian albums, here is Mark Isham, as promised, from his first solo album, Vapor Drawings:

07-Men Before the Mirror

Mark Isham

That's Isham playing everything, unless there are some drums in there that I can't hear, which would be played by Peter Van Hooke. Vapor Drawings was released in 1983 on William Ackerman's Windham Hill label, which both brought New Age music into the mainstream and instigated the New Age backlash. A Sunday Doonesbury cartoon at the time lampooned New Age music by positing the album title Air Pudding--not very far removed from Vapor Drawings. Skimming through this album again I have a hard time finding a focal point in the music; it all seems like background music. It's no surprise, then, that in the intervening two decades Isham has built a career as a movie soundtrack composer, with dozens of titles in his œuvre and no signs of slowing down. He can rock out more than you'd think, though; I once saw him lead his band through a heavy fusion set at Washington's late Bayou nightclub. And of course his trumpet is always a delicious embellishment, as in David Sylvian's "Red Guitar"--

David Sylvian - Red Guitar

When you want that "trumpet heard from afar while sitting in an outdoor Parisian café at twilight, waiting for a lover who is not going to show, or mourning one who has just left forever" sound, Mark Isham's your man. How could I go on about David Sylvian and Mark Isham and not present the pinnacle of their partnership, the song that secured universal recognition of Sylvian's genius (if there is any justice in the world), the sublime "Orpheus"--

David Sylvian - Orpheus

"I wrestle with an outlook on life that shifts between darkness and shadowy light." Jackson Browne has apparently expressed in his lyrics every nuance of emotion that Bob Lefsetz has ever felt, but I get more out of that single line from David Sylvian than from all the Jackson Browne I've ever heard. I have to stop now, before this becomes the All David Sylvian, All the Time blog. But I do reserve the right to bring him up again. Soon.

Send to a friend

Trumpet time: Nils Petter Molvaer

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:45:26 -0800

Last week I remembered I like Steve Tibbetts, so I added a Steve Tibbetts station to my Pandora account. I was listening to it yesterday when I heard an unfamiliar Jon Hassell song. Or so I thought--it turned out to be by Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer, a former Tibbetts labelmate at ECM. I bought Molvaer's ECM album Khmer a few years ago, but I never took to it. The backing tracks sound like rudimentary techno and hip-hop loops, dooming the album to the fate of so many hybrids, i.e. not being as good as any of the individual genres that it combines. On the other hand, I did like his playing on one of Bill Laswell's Sacred System albums. But the song I heard on Pandora is from Er, Molvaer's 2005 album, and it's his best work yet. On several tracks he's obviously going for a Jon Hassell group sound, but his own tone and modalities are different than Hassell's. Then there's the song I can't stop playing, "Only These Things Count"--

04 - Only These things Count

Nils Petter Molvaer

That's Sidsel Edresen singing, with a voice like a cross between... Nico and Dewey Bunnell (of America)? And it's beautiful! (Now I'm tracking down her own albums.) The song feels like a thick down comforter with a golden brown velvet cover, draped over a sofa and just inviting you to plunge in, wrap it around yourself and luxuriate in the softness and texture. That's what I get from it, anyway. It also feels like a David Sylvian song, one of the ones with Mark Isham playing trumpet. The song it reminds me of the most is "Thalheim" from Dead Bees on a Cake:

04 - Thalheim

David Sylvian

Okay, that's not Mark Isham playing the trumpet, it's Kenny Wheeler playing the fluegelhorn. Not only that, Kenny Wheeler has been recording with David Sylvian just as long as Mark Isham has: both played on his first solo album, 1984's Brilliant Trees. That album initially disappointed me: I was so enamored with the electronic sounds of Japan that I had trouble accepting the mostly-acoustic instrumentation of Trees, and I didn't buy a copy for over ten years. I always liked "The Ink in the Well," though, and it features... Kenny Wheeler on fluegelhorn!

David Sylvian - The Ink In The Well

Coming up: equal time for Mark Isham.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend