Recently I am spending a lot of my time to make new musical discoveries, especially from the younger generations. Believe me there is a great deal of innovation, experimentation and authenticity going on with these young artists. I think it is time for us (members of relatively older generations) to give up the nostalgic discourses on creativity based on retro references.
Everyday I hear very fine examples of new musical efforts, some successful and mostly not. But what is the definition of success anyhow?
Let's not judge the adventures of these young artists by the standards the industry has been compelling for a long time. This really limits our artistic vision and psychologically causes us to exclude the musical diversity that is so powerful.
Enough with the philosophy, here is a great artist that popped up on my radar very recently.
She is originally from North Carolina now living in LA. Her parents were also musicians and she was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness that probably had a big impact on her musical adventure. She plays the cello (mostly with a loop pedal).
Her debut was with the Church EP in 2016. Here is a song from this EP.
Dreams by Kelsey Lu
Thanks to her mastery in cello and pure voice she can create haunting and sorrowful songs that are very touching.
Following this 6 song EP, she just issued her first full-length album last week called "Blood" featuring collaborations with Skrillex and Jamie xx. It sounds like a transformation of her EP with a lusher sound stage. The orchestration is rich and elevates her solo sound to a new level.
Here are two songs from the "Blood" album.
Due West by Kelsey Lu
I'm Not In Love (10cc cover)
You may also check out her collaborations with other artists such as Florence & The Machine, Solange and King Krule.
"100 Years" with Florence & The Machine
Give an ear to her music and let her take you to a journey, you will not regret it...
Here is my selection of 5 songs for this weekend. This post series have been very rewarding for me as well, as I am constantly trying to make new discoveries to share with you. I hope you enjoy the lists and the songs as much as I do...Keep listening please, I am sure you will come up with something you like one day (I hope you already did by now!).
As Confucius said;
“Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.”
So here are the 5 songs for this weekend;
The Dead South - "In Hell I'll Be In Good Company"
Pomplamoose ft.Dodie - "Shotgun"
Linton Kwesi Johnson - "Five Nights of Bleeding"
Péloquin Sauvageau - "Sterilization"
Mahavishnu Orchestra - "Planetary Citizen"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
Normally I don't like war museums but the Imperial War Museum in London will be hosting a meaningful exhibition from July 5th 2019 till January 5th 2020. The main theme of the exhibition is "Culture Under Attack" and it will consist of 3 parts, "What Remains", "Art In Exile" and "Rebel Sounds". I am sure all three will be very interesting to see but especially one, "Rebel Sounds", should be really impressive. Here is the link to the museum.
The "Rebel Sounds" exhibition covers four difficult periods of the 20th century; starting from the Nazi Germany of the 1930s, jumping to Northern Ireland of the 1970s, and from there to 1990s to the Balkans. The last stop is today's Mali.
Imperial War Museum in London
If you are in London during this summer it might be a good idea to pay a visit to this event to witness the exhibitions, live performances and lectures about how culture, art and music shaped the societies during wartime...
Here is a band in exile from Mali whose only crime is "making music"...
Hello dear readers, another week has flown by.
Summer is coming (winter might be coming somewhere else 😜) so get ready for open air concerts and festivals and don't forget that there is no better music than live music.
As Charles Mingus once said;
“Let my children have music! Let them hear live music.”
And here is our 5 songs for this weekend;
Akua Naru - "The Block"
Ephemerals - "You Made Us Change"
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - "Cheek to Cheek"
Die Antwoord - "Fatty Boom Boom"
John Carpenter - "Utopian Facade"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
2 more days to one of the most exciting days of the year. It's "Record Store Day" again on April 13th.
There will be events, parties and live music in most of the record shops around the world. On top of that we will be able to come by the new vinyls specially issued for the day.
Please check the below website for additional info and the participating stores around you and don't miss this great event...
I plan to visit two great places this year (you may find them below). If you are around, please stop by at them or at any store and meet new people and enjoy the day!
Hello dear followers, here is the 25th post of the weekend songs list. I hope you enjoy to listen to my choices as much as I do when I try to select them...I am fully aware of the fact that the selections are a bit on the eclectic side but remember I had told you in the first post that the songs I hand-pick for you would not belong to a specific genre, era and whatnot. The lists solely reflect my personal taste and willingness to share them with you. So please bear with me, don't give up, I am sure one day you will hear a tune and say "Hey, that's my song", if you didn't already by now...
As the great Thelonious Monk once said;
“The piano ain't got no wrong notes.”
Without further ado, here is our list for this weekend;
Moby & The Void Pacific Choir - "Are You Lost In The World Like Me?"
The Soggy Bottom Boys - "Constant Sorrow"
Erkin Koray - "Hayat Katarı"
Boys Noize - "Mayday"
Cate Le Bon (feat. Perfume Genius) - "I Think I Knew"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
Are you one of the last members of generations that actually turned a dial knob to tune the frequencies on a proper radio? Are you one of those old timers like me who likes an actual radio broadcast?
If yes please continue to read the post, if not, you can go back to your digital platforms... Just kidding, there is a lot for you here as well...
Well, I must admit the convenience of digital but still nothing gives me the pleasure of analog, especially in musical formats.
Don't worry, you will not need to bring out your old tuners/radios from your dusty attics to enjoy the shows I will be mentioning that are brought to us by the great "NPR" as they already provide all their content on their website... See, I can also embrace the digital world, well up to a certain point. I guess my generation is probably the bridge generation from a mixed analog/digital world to a full 100% digital world where our kids definitely rule.
Anyhow who can resist such an inevitable transition? Finding the right balance between both worlds is crucial and networks which can swiftly manage this will always be appreciated. The network I will be mentioning throughout this post is definitely one of them.
NPR or National Public Radio is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization based in Washington, D.C. that's been on air since 1971. It has been established by an act of the U.S. Congress. It produces mostly news and cultural programs and is available for listeners on over a 1000 stations all over the USA.
This is all I know about the NPR.
However it is not the NPR that I will try to elaborate on, but a very successful project of NPR, called the "NPR Music".
According to Wikipedia, "NPR Music" is a combination of programs and shows that offer us current and archival podcasts, live concert webcasts, reviews, music lists, news, studio sessions, and interviews to listen to from NPR and partner public radio stations across the US, as well as an index of public radio music stations streaming live on the Internet. Holy cow, it's more digital than I thought, but hey, you can still tune in an FM channel and listen to what NPR has to offer (in USA).
Here is the link to click for the main page of NPR Music, as it is always better to view and check with your own eyes to grasp what NPR is doing...
As you will notice, there is a vast amount of shows and programs under the NPR Music project but I will try to highlight the ones that I like and follow.
The first one is the "Tiny Desk Concerts". It is a video series of live concerts broadcasted from the actual desk of Bob Boilen (a leading host of the network) from NPR offices in Washington D.C.
The first Tiny Desk Concert came about in 2008 after Boilen and NPR Music editor Stephen Thompson left a bar show frustrated that they couldn't hear the music over the crowd noise. Thompson joked that the musician, folk singer Laura Gibson, should just perform at Boilen's desk. A month later Boilen arranged for her to do just that, making an impromptu recording and posting it online.The name is taken from Boilen's 70s psychedelic dance band called Tiny Desk Unit.
The overall series include more than 800 videos and watched by more than 2 billion times on YouTube.
The videos are a very good source to discover new artists and music, as well as to see popular artists perform in a candid way.
Here is a video of the top 10 Tiny Desk Concerts picked by www.watchmojo.com.
And here is a couple of my favorites;
Leon Bridges
Anderson Paak and the Free Nationals
Erykah Badu (well obviously)
Khruangbin
Gaelynn Lea
Badbadnotgood
Mary Halvorson Quintet
Cécile McLorin Salvant
I think I need to stop here as there are many many others to share with you but I leave the mouse to you to click on your personal choices...Here is the link to "Tiny Desk Concerts".
The second show I would like to recommend is the NPR's "Jazz Night In America". It brings the listeners on-stage performances and backstage stories from NPR Music, WBGO (one of the main jazz radio stations in America) and Jazz at Lincoln Center. The host of the program is the great bass player Christian McBride.
You can watch nice short documentaries and even full concerts on their YouTube channel. Below are some of my favorites;
Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman" (better if you watched the movie)
Can you hear melody in the drums?
The Bad Plus
Again please check the YouTube page, really wonderful videos.
The last show that I will mention is the "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz". You all know Marian McPartland, I assume. She was an English-American jazz pianist, composer and writer. She hosted this show from 1978 until 2011. This was actually a show for radio therefore you will not be able to find videos but the recordings of the radio programs. I find it very interesting, informative and fun to listen to this show as in each episode Marian McPartland interviews a great jazz figure. You can really grasp what jazz really is along with its history and influences...
Here are my favorite ones, but again there are many more recordings on the website below that you can enjoy listening to.
As I have mentioned before, the NPR Music is an immense source for quality music. These three titles are the programs that I try to watch, listen or follow, and I assure you that this is just a tiny bit of what is being offered.
Big kudos to all the people who are involved in creating, maintaining and sharing such a great website and precious content.
n.b.: There was a dedicated NPR Music app in the past, but today you can reach most of the above content from their main app called "NPR"
Another busy week gone with lots of usual ugliness all around. Even at this age, I have difficulties to understand how we can live and survive in such a cesspool of iniquity. Day after day we try not to sink in despair but believe me it is never an easy ride. So what do we do? We place art, we place music, our hobbies and things we like to do in the heart of our lives. After all, it is a good way to cope with the nuisances of our little worlds.
As Plato once said;
“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”
Here is the list for this weekend;
Yo La Tengo - "Friday I'm In Love"
David Bowie - "Sorrow"
Carole King - "It's Too Late"
The Stone Roses - "Made of Stone"
Gloria Jones - "Tainted Love"
Hope you have a great weekend.
nb. You can open the actual youtube page by clicking the name on the upper left side of each video.
