Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Asphalt Ribbons
Asphalt Ribbons was the band Stuart Staples was in before he was in Tindersticks. Asphalt Ribbons are basically a stripped down version of Tindersticks, although they replace all the horns and strings with an accordion, so it's not all lost. This is everything they ever released (which wasn't a lot).
Monday, February 28, 2011
Slapp Happy - Casablanca Moon/Acnalbasac Noom
Acnalbasac Noom was an album recorded by a band of avant-garde musicians trying to make pop music. They collaborated with Faust for the album but their record label rejected it. The switched labels and re-recorded it without Faust and released it as Casablanca Moon. Eventually the original album was also released under the title Acnalbasac Noom. Acnalbasac Noom is a bit more experimental while Casablanca Moon has a bit more pop sensibilities. It's fun to listen to the same album rerecorded by the same band.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Michael Nyman - The Kiss and Other Movements
A bit like a compilation album. The Kiss and Tango Between the Lines are the only new material Nyman wrote for the album. The rest of the tracks are taken from unfinished operas or film music Nyman worked on. Dagmar Krause (that chick that sang with Henry Cow and Art Bears and Slapp Happy and a million other bands) does half the vocals on The Kiss if that's any incentive.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Blurt - Pagan Strings
Ted Milton is a poet, puppeteer, and probably one of the better jazz punk musicians still working today. Blurt is his band, he plays saxophone in it. The music is pretty much repetitive post-punk instrumentation with Ted sometimes going all crazy free jazz in between verses. It's pretty neat.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Antoni Maiovvi - Shadow of the Bloodstained Kiss
Shadow of the Bloodstained Kiss is a sci-fi giallo movie about murder on the second moon of Jupiter. The movie doesn't really exist though. But it's soundtrack does.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Lucienne Boyer - Les Chansons Eternelles
Lucienne Boyer was a popular cabaret singer during the 1930s. Her most famous song, Parlez-moi d'amour, is totally in Casablanca, so you know she's good.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Art Ensemble of Chicago - Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City
Live album recorded shortly after the band's long-term bassist died. Their new bassist is really good though. The album is surprisingly straight-forward for the band, although there are still meandering free jazz sections scattered throughout.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Michel Legrand - I Love Paris
Just when you thought this blog was too Francophilic. This album is a collection of orchestrated songs (accordions and violins everywhere (Miles Davis is also part of the orchestra)) that are meant to reflect all the cool stuff about Paris. The songs are designed around each other so the album actually works way better as a whole than if you just listened to individual songs. This also might be my favorite Legrand album.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers - Teenage and Torture
New Shilpa Ray album holy shit I didn't even know she was working on one. This album contains a lot of re-recorded Beat the Devil songs but still a fair amount of new material. This album also has a much more cohesive feel than her previous album. There's still a few ballads here and there, but everything has a more abrasive, distorted feel that really helps the album. So even if you weren't a big fan of her other stuff, I'd still really recommend this.
L'Album des Six
Les Six were six (duh) composers that hung out with Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau (who was kinda like their leader but not really). They were super popular in France and even though they were BFFs they only composed one album as a group. This is that album.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Georges Auric - La Belle et la Bête (Adriano)
Full impressionist-inspired orchestral score to the classic Jean Cocteau film. The score was written before Auric had even seen the film, so it works remarkably well as a stand alone album.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Edith Piaf - The Rare Piaf
Compilation of Edith Piaf songs sung in English. Not the greatest of her songs (except for her interpretation of Les Feuilles Mortes which is like the greatest thing in the world(although you can also find it on several of her better albums)) but it's still really neat.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Ennio Morricone - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (And everything you could ever want out of it)
Here are 4 CDs worth of material from the soundtrack to The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. There's an expanded soundtrack, a soundtrack lifted directly from the film, and an album of unused songs Morricone recorded but never used for the film or any pressings of the soundtrack.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Pauline Paris - Le Grand Jeu
Pauline Paris is a cute chick that plays jazzy pop (or maybe it's poppy jazz), and while I'm usually not a fan of new poppy jazz (jazzy pop?) Pauline is actually pretty cute.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Zarah Leander
Nur Nichte aus Liebe weinen
And just for the record I do not like her more than Marlene. She is still really good though.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Isabelle Huppert & Jean-Louis Murat
Half cute French actress alert half that other guy alert. Jean-Louis Murat got Isabelle Huppert to record a weird experimental kinda chamber pop album with him. It's really neat.
Jeanne Moreau
Cute French actress alert! It's Jeanne Moreau, and she sings. She sings a lot. And yes that song from Jules and Jim is on here.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Shilpa Ray
Shilpa Ray is a cute little 100 pound Indian chick who has been compared to Janis Joplin and Ella Fitzgerald and a ton of other people even though I think her voice sounds less trained and bluesy (but it's still really good). She plays the harmonium and makes cool music that people describe as grinding blues and sleazy jazz filtered through punk. That's not entirely accurate but it's probably the best you can do. She used to be part of the band Beat the Devil but then they broke up and now she's in a band called Shilpa Ray & her Happy Hookers. Nick Cave likes her. I like her. You should like her.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Swing Tanzen Verboten!
Nazis and swing. What more do you want? The first two discs are about German propaganda swing music and the last two are about non-Nazi funded swing musicians who rebelled against the German suppression of swing music by playing in underground clubs and stuff like that. How much more awesome could this box set be?
Charlie and His Orchestra: Nazi Propaganda Swing
Swing in Occupied Europe 1940-1944
Swing in Belgium and France 1940-1944
Charlie and His Orchestra: Nazi Propaganda Swing
Swing in Occupied Europe 1940-1944
Swing in Belgium and France 1940-1944
And that's totally Edith Piaf reading Django Reinhardt's palm.
Noel Akchote - Cabaret Modern
Noel Akchote is a free jazz guitarist. He has done stuff with Derek Bailey and Fred Frith and J.G. Thirlwell. But this album is just him getting a bunch of musicians together and playing some old-fashioned cabaret songs. His free jazz background (and a lot of the musicians he got together are experimental or noise musicians themselves) sometimes shows through but not really enough to classify this as a free jazz or experimental album.
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