What are you listening to lately?

General discussion & socializing in a Lind-related vein.

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grant
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by grant »

I have a big weakness for Suzanne Vega's 99.9 F. It's sort of like folk-meets-Devo. (Especially "Blood Makes Noise".) The album came out at the dawn of the 90s... does it sound 90s? I don't really think so, but I'm not sure now.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

Currently: Simon and Garfunkel - Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

These two hardly produced a bad note between them. I find it hard to nominate my favourite S&G album, except that it's definitely not "Wednesday Morning, 3am", on which I think they were only just beginning to find their musical feet. From then on it was all uphill. Each album has something special to recommend it.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

Lately my CD player has been taken over by "Uncanny Valley", the new album by Melbourne's Midnight Juggernauts.

MJ, for want of anywhere else to pigeon-hole them, get classified as a "electronic indie-dance" band. It's true that most of the tracks have a danceable beat, but I hate most dance music and yet I love this album. They sound nothing like Bob Lind, nor do they sound much like any other music that I own (except other Midnight Juggernauts albums). They have a fixation with themes of science, space, spirituality, war and the like - a bit of a change from the usual boy-loves-girl lyrics that occur in most dance music.
grant
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by grant »

What one song by them should I look up to get the picture?
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

grant wrote:What one song by them should I look up to get the picture?
Ooh, tough question. They have progressed a bit from one album to the next, but not so much that they sound like a different band.

Into the Galaxy is typical of their first album, a little raw but very spacey.

Lifeblood Flow is one of my favourites from the second album; you can hear how they are already smoothing some of the rough edge to their sound.

Ballad of the War Machine is one of only two songs from the third album that are upon Youtube yet. It's rather interesting, though not really typical of the album. Incidentally the cinematic music at the start of the clip is not part of the song; it's part of an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the band, which apparently fooled many people into believing it was an old clip from some long-forgotten Russian band.
Lind
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by Lind »

I like this Jhosmer person. Excellent taste this fellow. Welcome to the board J.
Danny Harris
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by Danny Harris »

Ha Ha! Subtle, Bob...subtle...
"Some may call it wander-lust, some may call it crazy.
I don't call it anything - I Just Let It Take Me."
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

jhosmer wrote:Just downloaded Bob's new cd. How is it possible for him to just get better and better? Amazing!
Huh? I haven't put out any CD?

Oh. THAT Bob. :wink:
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

Recently picked up Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon, to replace my old cassette copy.

The well-known "Big Yellow Taxi" is possibly my least favourite track on the album,though still a good song. "Conversation" is probably my favourite, and indicates the more jazz-oriented direction she would take on later albums.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

Been continuing with my Joni binge.... as well as Ladies of the Canyon, listened recently to Dog Eat Dog, Hejira, Court and Spark, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns.

Some of Dog Eat Dog is forgettable. The other albums mentioned are a joy from beginning to end.

I also have Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, which is a very strange album indeed. Initially I found its experimental nature a bit off-putting, but I find myself returning to it.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

Been listening lately to some albums by No-man.

No-man is a duo consisting of Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson, the latter better known as the frontman for Porcupine Tree.
The music is mostly rather different from Porcupine Tree, though occasionally one hears points of crossover influence. No-man's earlier music was very "housey"; it would not sound too out of place in certain dance clubs, though it's a great deal more melodic than most dance music. Their later albums are much more dreamy and ambient, with very lush production.

Here's a clip of a song from one of their later albums, "Together We're Stranger". Be patient; the song takes quite a while to get going,but it's worth the wait.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onzqvRXD ... tube_gdata
grant
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by grant »

That's quite nice, that is.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

I borrowed the 2003 edition of Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield from the local library. I have never listened to this in its entirety before; I have heard many times the well-known bit where he introduces all the "instruments" one by one, and while the theme itself is nice, the repetition always annoyed me a little, giving me the impression he was trying to show off. The album itself has other parts that I liked much more.

I still don't think it's as good as Incantations, though.

Mike Oldfield and I happen to have the same birthday.
bob_32_116
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Re: What are you listening to lately?

Post by bob_32_116 »

I have a heap of Jimmy Webb albums that I have not heard for years because I don't have a turntable for playing vinyl. Recently I discovered that most, if not all, his albums are available to listen to on Spotify, so I have been enjoyi8ng:

Words and Music
Letters
Land's End
El Mirage

At some stage I'll probably acquire these again on CD.

Jimmy Webb probably ranks among my top 10 songwriters, along with such people as Bob Lind, Brian Wilson, Steven Wilson (no relation), Joni Mitchell and Tony Banks. Webb does not have a great voice, but he has an adequate voice, and it's a shame he is really only known as a songwriter rather than a recording artist in his own right.
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