One Cello x 16: Natoma - Zoë Keating

I have to admit, I've been holding out on writing because I've fallen in love with a few albums lately and haven't been able to do anything but listen to them and enjoy.  This is one of them.  I found her on Stereomood, but apparently a lot of listeners have found her on iTunes - she's been at the top of the classical music charts.  It's easy to hear why.  Her music is innovative and enigmatic.  Her list of awards is extensive and she's highly praised in her field.

The album title reflects her method of composition.  She is one cellist, using electronic sampling to create a full sound of multiple cellists.  Her music is highly repetitive, as one might expect with sampling, but at the same time full of variation and most surprisingly melody.  I've got "Sun Will Set" on repeat like a pop song.  Each track is a fully formed idea, each fragment is completely worked out, but never overhashed.  Zoë is brilliant cellist, but also a great orchestrator.

I've always found the cello to be a haunting instrument - my favorite classical works of all time are Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, so it figures that I wouldn't be able to resist what sound like a chorus of cellos.  It has the ambience of Arvo Pärt's Für Alina or Brian Eno's Music for Airports, but with a little more sound and as stated above, more melody to hold onto and remember after - see? haunting.

If you're not necessarily sure if modern classical music is for you - this album will change your mind.

Lungs (Special Box Set Edition) - Florence + the Machine

It's no secret that I've been obsessed with this Lungs since I first heard it almost a year ago now.  There are few albums where I love every song and will listen to the whole thing in its entirety after the third or fourth go through, but this happens to be one of them.  It appears that Florence and her marketing team, and in fact the entire listening public agree - this album had seven singles!  I'm itching pretty bad for her sophomore album and in the meantime I scour the internet for clues as to when I will finally hear it, or more often, I search for b-sides and covers to tie me over.  (On a sidenote - her cover of "Addicted to Love" has kept me satisfied for some months now.)  What especially interests me about this box set (in its many forms I've found on various websites) is what is (typically) the third album called Remixes, Covers, and Rarities.

It opens with a cover of Beyonce's "Halo" and Florence's powerful voice gives it new depth.  She also manages to hit those high ornamentations with grace.  Second, is "Hurricane Drunk," my favorite from the original album, this time acoustic.  It trades the pulsing beat of the chorus for an harp emphasis, which actually gives the song a much more fluid feel.  This would represent a washing flood after the actual storm, but still in keeping with the metaphor.  I'm reading into this one though, it was meant to be a simple acoustic version.

Then, there are three remixes, "You've Got the Love," "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)," and "Drumming Song."  Each are pretty good and given a solid dance beat.  "Drumming Song" becomes the most abstract and therefore the most interesting.  It is highly repetitive and her vocals are traded for multiple reworkings of the main drumming theme.

"Flakes" is another cover, this time by Mystery Jets, who also hail from London.  Florence floats on syllables, holding each one until the next one can no longer wait.  Underneath is a picked guitar riff, played almost in banjo style.  Intermittently a chorus enters singing like a wind.

I always love a good demo, especially if its a song I can't get out of my head.  "An Offering" is ok, but a little unnecessary here.  It's only an early version of "Rabbit Heart," already appearing in one version on this album, and its not much different from the version released on Lungs.  Likewise, "You've Got the Love" gets another spin.  At least this second showing is different enough that I need to hear it through.

"Cosmic Love" is quiet like "Hurricane Drunk" with a harp emphasis.  I've never been a huge fan of the harp sound, let alone in favor of its use in pop music, but hear I'm forced to the other extreme.  It's incredibly catchy and seems necessary to the song, which I love.

The last two songs are gems - originals by Florence, although I can see why they would be here instead of on the main album.  "Are You Hurting the One You Love" is another example of her ability to pick new and interesting percussion tracks and still not let it drown out her amazing voice.  "Swimming" shows her melodic abilities while not falling into the standard verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus form.

Always stunning, always captivating, everything she delivers is gold.  It is both a curse and a blessing to put out such a great album - it leaves me craving more, but I still can't stop listening.

All Rebel Rockers - Michael Franti & Spearhead

I can't get this group out of my head since the show a few days ago.  I'm a little jaded on "Say Hey" (only in my head and that ended once I heard it again), but this album has plenty of happy, feel-good numbers to keep my interest peaked.  Its a little bit of obvious pop/rock, classic summer sounds, reggae, hip-hop, acoustic guitar, electronics, and plenty of good beats among other things.  It was this mix and the fact that AllMusic says "All Rebel Rockers is the first record by Franti's Spearhead that captures the power and goodwill of the band's live shows" that made me pick up this album immediately and made me unable to put it down since.  Franti's political penchant is still visible here, but it is given a new voice - one of joy and love despite that which he protests.

If I had one complaint, it would be that the beginning is loaded with the upbeat songs and the album gets progressively more laid-back.  A better mix and juxtaposition of tempos and mood might have worked better for the album as a whole.  Either way, I can't stop moving to each and every song on this album and I guarantee it'll have the same effect on you.

Mount Wittenberg Orca - Dirty Projectors + Bjork

A collaboration between two of my favorite musicians?  Yes please.  All donations towards the National Geographic Oceans Society Project?  Even better.  Buy the album here.  Its well worth the money for both reasons.  There are videos and a letter from David Longstreth about the album too.

Rise Above - Dirty Projectors

Bitte Orca is an amazing album, if you haven't heard it - you need to.  This is the album preceding it.  I was hoping for the same unique sound and excellent writing and I think I got it.  I can't explain this music at all.  I've never really heard anything like it.  Its odd, but its not creepy.  The voices are slippery, slightly manipulated.  The sonic landscape is sparse.  The tempos, the melody are hard to follow.  They are irregular and often don't repeat, but the songs are not disjointed.  Each one feels complete and whole like they took each germ of an idea and realized it fully.  There is no danger of boredom - you have to listen to the entire song again to hear each part of it that got stuck in your ear.  Catchy hooks are not beat to death like a pop song, but they are definitely abounding.  The music is upbeat, but not bubble gum.  The lyrics are abstract and as stream of consciousness as the music.  Catchy stream of consciousness would be the best way to describe it I suppose.  I can't think of any other.  For those that enjoy music this definitely comes highly recommended, although still not as highly as Bitte Orca.  If their next album is that much better, I will be first in line to hear it.

Unfamiliar Faces - Matt Costa

Instantly poppy and ear catching, a simple piano hook draws you in and Costa's voice pulls the music forward.  Neither mundane, sleepy, or overemotional, these are the sounds summer is made for.  I'm not talking summer like Jack Johnson, also on Brushfire Records, which I thought this albums would sound like.  The laid back, surfer style does not exude from Costa and I was pleasantly surprised.  Even simpler, more expected songs contain just a little bit of bounce, enough for me to take notice and not instantly wipe the album from my hard drive.  "Mr. Pitiful" sounds like a show tune.  "Never Looking Back" could be sung around a campfire or riding your horse through the desert I imagine.  Musically, I really like "Emergency Call," with its full, choppy piano sound, bongos, and vocal melody, but so far the album is lyrically a little disappointing.  "Vienna" weirdly tries to apply a Brazilian bossa nova feel to a city totally unassociated with it, then he sings a little bit of German and I'm lost.  Perhaps there's something I'm missing.  Back to basic piano pop - the title track, a little better lyrically and I enjoy the way the piano winds around his voice at the end of phrases, at least in the beginning of the song.  The repetition of the chorus is bland and far too long.  I'm far too ready for "Cigarette Eyes" when it finally comes.  It occurs to me that Costa sounds a bit like someone pulled out of the 1960s and placed at a piano bar with some rhythm guitar to fill things out.  This song might prove to be the most rewarding to listen to again.  "Downfall" is something I've heard a million times.  "Trying to Lose My Mind" is exactly the 60s vibe I've been picking up and oddly enough he sings "Well I met a girl / she didn't like my song / She told me that old songs were better."  I guess he didn't listen.  "Bound" is an attempt at some dark blues, but I don't think Costa has the emotional range to pull it off.  I would guess he just likes that sound (thing Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks"), but it doesn't come close.  It seems the brightness that opened the album has decayed track by track.  I like "Heart of Stone."  This seems like his niche, his voice sounds like John K. Samson from the Weakerthans.  Its clever guitar picking matches his vocal style well and I would put this on the best crafted song so far.  "Miss Magnolia" had potential but his syllabic chorus sounds too much like Mungo Jerry.  Did I mention this album is from the 60s?  I may have been a few years too early in that estimate, but Matt Costa is a few decades late.

EP - Yawn

There are a few things of interest here.  First of all the website where I first heard this band - http://www.stereomood.com/.  Click your mood or activity and you're given an extensive playlist to fit it.  Most of the playlists overlap, but thats ok.  The  best part is that the music is taken from the best international music blogs (according to the "about us" section).  I've recently become hooked on a lot of bands I've never heard of before thanks to this site.  Now Yawn is a band apparently very brand new.  This EP, as far as I can tell, is only found on their website, but thats good news because its free.  Here is their website - http://yawntheband.com/Yawn/Yawn.html. With only five songs, their sound is clearly impressed into your brain.  "Kind of Guy" has got to be my first favorite.  Like all the songs, the rhythm is simple, repetitive, but the instrumentation is just uncommon enough and expertly matched together to really make the song stand out.  "David" reaches a kind of Beatles "Day in the Life" climax, but instead of presenting a contrast afterward, the song stay at the top and builds with layers and repetition.  "Empress" is a bit darker, more indie I suppose, but their use of percussion again makes it more interesting, the repetition welcome.  "Midnite" opens with electronic wanderings and echoing, overpowering the syllabic vocals, then lyrics, and distant shouts.  It becomes a little more trip-hop than I would generally listen to towards the end.  The whole EP is overall upbeat, easy to dance to and even if it were longer than 20 minutes, worth listening to multiple times over.

Then there was a contest to remix the album.  Making it even better to dance too, but in a different trippier way.  The winning results can also be downloaded from Yawn's website.  "Toys" remixed by GROOVEHAHN is given an electronic steel drum treatment which sounds pretty cool. "Kind of Guy" seems a little drained of the energy Yawn originally gave it when Alex Baez remixes it.  "David" becomes more stretched and ethereal, slightly creepy and many of the elements from the original are lost.  It might just be that this type of music is beyond my enjoyment, but while I'll always listen to the original EP, I don't think I'll take anything from the Remix EP.

Also available on their website are two Mixtapes for download.

Heartbeat (Kodo 25th Anniversary) - Kodo

I always thought of Africa when I thought of drumming.  This included products of the African diaspora like Brazil (Olodum), Cuban rhythms, etc.  This is a stereotype most people hold I would guess.  I was watching OvationTV, a station I only recently discovered and they had a special on Kodo.  This album is kind of a best of and contains many of the pieces performed by Kodo in that particular show.  I would say this group is much more of an act to see live.  There is a very important visual aspect to it including the movements and positions of the drummers, the size of the drums and how they are attacked, and additional dancers.  Some of that is lost in an audio recording, but the rhythms and melodies (played on on the fue and shamisen) are enough.

Kodo is a taiko drumming troupe.  Members begin as apprentices living within the Kodo village community until they are full time members.  This makes Kodo a very large, very tight knit, and very serious group.  They play traditional Japanese rhythms and melodies combined with compositions by contemporary composers and their own members.

Fool's Gold - Fool's Gold

Eight tracks make up the eponymous debut for this Los Angeles based band.  With an array of members and disparate genres as influence, Fool's Gold creates an interesting and engrossing sound.  Pitchfork describes them as "Afropop with a slight American influence" rather than Vampire Weekend which very obviously just appropriates Afropop sounds (here's the article).  The influence of the Talking Heads and David Byrne's love for Global Pop music is also apparent as well as what founding member of Fool's Gold, Luke Top, lists including, "African music: soukous music, East African music, Ethiopian music, Eritrean music, Touareg desert blues music," Krautrock and lots of American pop, specifically 80's dance music.

When asked if Fool's Gold is part of an international conversation, Top answers, "Most music is overlapping, so at this point, it's hard to say or pinpoint exactly what the ratio or the balance is. Everyone is taking from each other at this point."  Now some would argue that this is an easy way of privileged Western musicians justifying their theft of global musics.  Its hard to say and I would like to think that music is for the sharing and enjoyment of everyone, but in a time of strict action against online pirating, easily bent copyright rules, and large gaps between the economies of the "borrowed" music and the "borrowing" musicians this utopian ideal is not upheld by everyone.  Anyway, at the end of the article, the interview mentions that Indie rock has been incorporating African influences into their work and that there is a lineage associated with it.  Of course Fool's Gold doesn't see themselves as part of this line, but then again, no band does.  Each sees their own work as individual, inherent to their unique view and personality.  Both Luke Top and co-founder, Lewis Pesavoc, assert that they have been listening to world music their entire life.  Does the right to use the music of other cultures come from time then?  They also say that its their variety of choices within African pop that make their music more authentic.  This could be a valid argument.  They are more knowledgeable, most likely from so much time spent listening to and exploring world music, therefore their choices about which musics to borrow are more informed and less generalizing and stereotypical.  This discussion is always touchy since culture and economics come into play and I think it will not be resolved soon.  I always think that we will end up with a musical language so blended and mixed that world music will become one thing as they predict race will eventually end up as.  Cultural specifics will be a thing of the past and our experimentations with them now are the beginnings of this.

Swimming in Speakers EP - Swimming in Speakers

First post of May!  As far as I know, this is the only release for this band and it came out over a year ago.  Who knows if this duo from Saranac Lake, NY will eventually come out with a full length album, but it would be a nice surprise.  This EP is a mix of folk and electronic sounds.  At times like Bird and the Bee and then Gregory and the Hawk.  I like them better as the first.  Their sound is unique; their songwriting catchy.  Twenty minutes in the sonic imagination of Christopher Clarke and Meadow Eliz is well spent.

Stages: Volume II - Ryan Montbleau

This guy has an amazing voice.  Its unique, its soulful, and it reminds me of Stevie Wonder.  Typically he is touring and recording with the Ryan Montbleau band and all of those albums are great as well.  This time, he released a solo acoustic album.  The proceeds from purchasing this album go directly to recording their next studio album, due out in the fall.  I cannot wait.  Montbleau proves that a guitar is really all he needs to accompany his unforgettable voice.  The skilled picking and percussive sounds he derives from it perfectly compliment his blues-like melodies.  The lyrics are not depressing, more realistic, but always optimistic.  Do not expect Montbleau to blend into the large category of singer/songwriters out there now.  It is definitely a rare sound he accomplishes and as much as I love each album, they are an amazing band to see live as well.  The live shows better exhibit their jam band influences and will always leave you in a good mood.  Don't pass up an opportunity to see these guys in concert!

Some of my favorites songs made it onto this album including "Maybe Today," "75 and Sunny," "City," "Grain of Sand," "Quickie," heck I like them all.  "Duncan" is a Paul Simon cover.  Its a good choice and he plays it well.  Like Simon, Montbleau's musical interests vary widely.  According to JamBase, the Ryan Montbleau Band "weave a tapestry of folk, blues, rock-steady, country, cocktail music, rock, gypsy jazz and psychedelia that’s exciting, elegant and sometimes even elegiac."  It doesn't get any better.

IRM - Charlotte Gainsbourg

Never having heard of Charlotte Gainsbourg before, I guess I wasn't expecting much, just another indie chick in the vein of Feist, but not quite as good.  This album is much better and worth listening to in its own right.  Sonically, its very interesting, creating a lot of space (hear big drums, the low end of the piano doubled on bass) that makes you feel engulfed in sound, and spiced with a variety of percussion.  Beck influence and hand as producer is obvious in the experimental sounds and repetitive but flowing quality of each song.  Born in London, but raised in Paris, Charlotte links to her French upbringing with a song sung in French and French vocal sections scattered in other songs.

Overall, the album is an entertaining 45 minutes and well-crafted.  Its a little dry and mundane at some points, but at these moments it would redeem itself and present an interesting instrumentation or sound that would recapture my attention.

Dual - Éamonn Doorley, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Julie Fowlis, and Ross Martin

This album is in the vein of my recent (and not so recent) love of Celtic music, specifically from Ireland.  It is unique in that is contains a mix of both Irish and Scottish musicians and traditions, highlighting the differences and similarities between them.  These four musicians (Éamonn Doorley, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Julie Fowlis, and Ross Martin) have been playing together since 2003, two of them from Danú, another traditional Irish band I really like.  Amhlaoibh grew up on the smallest of the Aran Island, where Irish is the first language (a Gaeltacht), and Fowlis grew up in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, where Scottish Gaelic is the main language.  Both are primarily singers and as a result, the album is comprised of twelve songs, all with vocals sung in one of their native languages.

The album plays on many common threads the two cultures share, entwining characteristics from both traditions within many of the songs.  Track 6 and the beginning of track 7, are based on traditional tunes surrounding the life of a Scottish Irish soldier, centered in the middle of the album, perhaps to symbolize the meeting or overlap of the two cultures.  These traditional tunes, and many other on the album have been recorded by numerous Scottish and Irish groups alike.

As expected, this album features a traditional instrumental lineup - small pipes, flute, tin whistle, fiddle, guitar, bodhrán, keys.  All four musicians are skilled and very proficient on one, and most often multiple instruments. The instrumentals do not simply accompany the vocalists, and in fact both vocalists play instruments in addition to singing, but they are of equal importance and often mirror the vocal melody, follow it exactly, or one of the two and then continue the vocal idea in many only instrumental sections.  The voice is used as an instrument in the purest sense in these traditions. 

This is a video of the four performing the fourth track:

Harper Simon - Harper Simon

I won't pretend that I can listen to this album and not hope for Paul Simon material with a twist, after all, three of the songs are co-written by Paul himself.  However the music sounds more like Elliot Smith, especially the vocal quality.  Many of the songs, have a Midwest quality and a country swing.  Harper blends this with his folk sensibility, well-crafted lyrics, and an array of enlisted musicians including Petra Haden, Sean Lennon, and Steve Gadd among many others.