Music of the Week: Various Artists - Mariachi Music of Mexico

Based on snippets heard here and there, I’ve wanted for some time to hear some genuine mariachi music. There’s a ton of it on eMusic—a search for “mariachi” turns up 153 artists and 117 albums, and that would catch only titles that actually included the word—but I had no way of knowing what was good. Where folk music is concerned, my taste tends toward the rougher and less polished—in general, the more it’s slicked up, the more it loses its flavor. This album caught my eye first because of its cover. It looked just old enough and low-budget enough to be authentic. When I noticed that it was distributed by Smithsonian Folkways, I really got interested. Then the samples convinced me to download the whole thing. Good move, as it turned out.

In the tradition of the Folkways label, these are field recordings of a sort, from the early ‘50s. I don’t know anything about mariachi in general, so I’ll just say this is great stuff. It’s not polished at all—the violins are often a bit off-key, and the sound quality is mediocre—but it’s not crude, either; I’m still trying to get my head around some of the rhythms. It has in common with reggae an infectious high-spirited quality, sort of an automatic mood-brightener. One Friday night a few weeks ago I was feeling rather low and found that a few tracks from this album combined with a few sips of bourbon was a wonderful cure.

Listen to the sample of the first track here.  If you don’t like it, this music is not for you. If you do, you’ll enjoy the whole album. You can hear a different set of samples and read the fascinating liner notes here, as well as order a cd if you don’t do mp3s.

I’ll mention in passing that the world owes a huge debt to Folkways Records. Read more about its history and work here.

Music of the Week: Apocalyptica - Apocalyptica

Your first reaction to the phrase “Heavy metal cello” might be to laugh; it sounds as if it would just be a stunt. Apocalyptica is four Finnish cellists, and I wonder if maybe their rock experimentation started out as something of a stunt, as their first album was a set of Metallica covers. But what they’ve done is much more than that; it’s a potent and versatile sound, unlike anything else I know. A friend of mine put me on to the group a month or two ago and I got this self-titled album from eMusic. I can’t say it’s a great album overall, but I keep coming back to it because what I like in it I like very much.

Start with the basic sound. If the first thing you heard was one of their hard rock uptempo songs like the first track here, “Life Burns!,” and you weren’t listening closely, you might think you were just hearing heavy electric guitars playing power chords. But there’s something different about this sound, sort of a rich deep growl, that’s very powerful. And most of the tracks combine this with the warm singing natural tone of the cello, to sometimes very beautiful effect.

I like at least half the tracks here a great deal, especially the melancholy ballads like “Bittersweet” and “Farewell.” What’s missing is a fully-developed artistic identity. This is almost all instrumental music, and pop music is a partly verbal art: it needs words and voices. The vocals here are very ordinary, sort of a generic and lackluster hard rock style; I like “Bittersweet” in spite of the vocals, not because of them. With a really gifted songwriter and singer, this group could do something really important.

Here’s an instrumental version of “Bittersweet” that really showcases their sound. It’s 5:25 long and doesn’t get heavy until about 3:50. Although you don’t hear it on this track, they’re capable of some impressive virtuoso “shredding” as practiced by guitar players like Joe Satriani.

And here is the eMusic page where you can hear samples from the album.

Music of the Week: Music from the Hearts of Space - Shadowplay

Ok, I’m going to confess a guilty pleasure, because I really ought to give these folks a bit of publicity, at least, for all the enjoyment they’ve given me over the years. The guilty pleasure is what’s variously called ambient or space music, or, more bluntly, background music—except that it isn’t only background music, because if it’s good it can keep your attention if you wish to give it.

In Brian Eno’s famous definition, “Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.” That (like many things that look simple) is harder to accomplish than one might think. (Here is the Wikipedia article if this is new to you and you want to know more.)

Music from the Hearts of Space (I always cringe a bit when I say that) is an hour-long weekly radio program that specializes in this kind of music. I’ve been listening to (and recording) their broadcasts for years. This week’s is especially good. It’s called Shadowplay and is a collection of mostly cello-and-piano-based chamber compositions; here’s the playlist. There is really some good music here, instrumental works that don’t fit any standard category.

So if it’s good music, why do I call this a guilty pleasure? Well, there is a certain California/New Age smarm and hokum about the program (hearts of space?!?). And the concept of ambient music is kind of hard to defend. And a lot of the music presented is, well, not going to be of permanent interest. But the show’s repertoire ranges from electronic science-fictiony “soundscapes” to folk music to very substantial contemporary classical works: for instance, one broadcast was dedicated almost exclusively to an hour of music from Arvo Part’s monumental Kanon Pokajonen. A final word on the repertoire, which will be enough said for those who know: ECM appears frequently.

You can sign up to listen to the weekly program online on Sundays at no cost, or for three dollars a month you can hear the weekly broadcast whenever and as often as you like during that week. (And, um...if you’re just a bit knowledgeable you can figure out a way to record them.) There are other plans that give you access to their entire library.

So: I’m posting this at 2pm USA Central time on Sunday; depending on where you are, there’s still time for you to go to the site, register, and hear Shadowplay, assuming you have a high-speed Internet connection.

Music of the Week: Delius - On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

Many years ago, roughly 1970, I had an LP that included this and several more of Delius’s more familiar orchestral works. Although I thought the music somewhat bland and shapeless, I came to like it, but more as a sort of tranquilizer than as music properly speaking; it was very peaceful and for twenty minutes or so took me away from the very stressful life I was leading to a much nicer place, a place of green pastoral beauty and running streams.

Somewhere in that chaotic period the LP got away from me, and I don’t think I heard Delius again until recently, when, in a bout of nostalgia, I got this collection from eMusic. So far I haven’t gotten past the first piece, because I keep wanting to hear it again. What absolutely beautiful music—a pure, open sweetness to which the title is perfectly suited (although I admit I’ve never heard a cuckoo). You can hear it in this audio-only YouTube clip:

If you haven’t heard it before, it may not grab you right away, but give it a chance.

Sigur Rós - “Starálfur” (from Heima)

I’m concerned that some people may not be obeying my order following my advice to rent the Heima DVD. So here’s a clip from it featuring one of the band’s most immediately appealing songs.

Music (Video) of the Week: Sigur Rós - Heima

The pronunciation of Sigur Rós seems to be, very roughly: “seeger,” as in Bob Seeger, “rohss”—“o” as in “rose”, “s” as in “toss.” According to the Wikipedia article on the band it means “victory rose,” and is the name of the singer’s baby sister, who was born on the day the band was formed. That tells you something about them: this is not your average rock band, and not even your average indie band.

This is a documentary which opens with these words:

Summer 2006: Having toured the world over, Sigur Ros return home to play a series of free, unannounced concerts in Iceland.

The title means “at home.” The format is pretty simple: images of Iceland and its people interspersed with performances from the concerts and conversations with the band members.

The visuals of Iceland are stunningly beautiful. My wife’s interest in pop music is about as close to zero as it can be without being totally non-existent; measured on a hospital monitor, it would be pronounced dead. (And yes, it is pretty funny that we’re married, but it just goes to show…something or other.) But she watched this with me because she was interested in seeing the pictures of Iceland. Part way through she said “Let’s move there.” Really, it’s that beautiful.

If you haven’t heard any of their music: it consists mostly of long, slow, mysterious compositions that usually start quietly and build to crescendos, sometimes quite noisy ones. They may sound similar to each other on first hearing, but they do grow on you. There are some truly enchanted melodies, perhaps made more so by the singing, which is mostly a single very high-pitched male voice (I guess a lot of it is falsetto). I don’t have any idea what the lyrics are about, as they’re all either in Icelandic or an invented nonsense language called Vonlenska, or Hopelandic. For all I know they could just be singing “oh baby I love you so” over and over again, but the effect is enigmatic.

I don’t want to go on too long here; I only want to recommend this very strongly. But I can’t leave without saying something about the whole atmosphere of the thing. It couldn’t be more different from the phoniness, vulgarity, conventional hipsterism (or simple stupidity, depending on the band), drugginess, and so forth that accompany most rock bands. The concerts are held in all sorts of venues, outdoors and in, and are attended by crowds of the most ordinary-seeming people: yes, there are the young people with green hair, nose rings, etc., but also whole families—middle-aged parents, children, old people. And for the most part the music is something in which they can all find something to enjoy. Some of the most beautiful images in the film are of the faces of people in the audience. And Sigur Rós themselves are almost freakishly unpretentious in conversation; they seem like genuinely decent people without big egos or the generally adversarial stance to the world of ordinary people that so often afflicts artists all across the spectrum. In concert they seem utterly focused on the music; there’s none of the bogus extravagant posing that makes many bands unwatchable to me.

In sum: do yourself a favor and find this. There is a second disk, by the way, which I haven’t seen yet, which I think is straight concert footage. Also by the way, the strings are provided by a string quartet called Amiina, who seem to be interesting in their own right.

Here’s the trailer, which gives you a pretty good taste of what to expect (3:54):

And here is a rather remarkable video. I’m only providing the link, because you need to read the info (click “more info&rdquo to the right of the video box). I don’t entirely understand the story, but…well, like I said, this is not your average rock band. You’ll need a bit of time, as the video is over nine minutes long.

Sad Song of the Week

No, I’m not going to make this a regular feature. I just happened to think about this song and found it on YouTube. There’s no actual video, so don’t bother watching, just listen. If you like this, don’t go looking for the album expecting to hear more of the same, as the rest of it sounds completely different. The song is based on Malcolm Lowry’s novel Under the Volcano, which I read long ago and have been wanting to re-read: Jack Bruce, “The Consul at Sunset,” from Harmony Row. (4:13)

Weekend Music Video

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a pretty depressing week. In an attempt to escape I’m indulging myself in a bit of sentimental nostalgia, which I here share with you. It’s a little over two minutes long. Don’t adjust the volume until you’ve gotten past the screaming girls at the beginning.

The album on which this song appeared, Catch the Wind, was probably among the first dozen or so records I ever bought.

Ultravox: Vienna

This song is from one of my very favorite pop music albums, Vienna by Ultravox (1980). In general I hate music videos, and rarely watch one all the way through; if I want to hear the music, I look at something else while the video plays. But I rather like this one. There are places and stories in my imagination that look a lot like the street scenes here (not the interior scenes, especially). (Romantic? Who, me?)

I found two distinct versions on YouTube, one in mixed color and black-and-white:

And one in more or less black-and-white throughout which may just be a very murky version of the color one:

I would prefer it entirely in black-and-white, if it were really sharp. But you can see a lot more in the first one.