Here is a Portishead song for you that has been quite popular in the 90s. Portishead were a UK group formed in Bristol by Geoff Barrow (numerous instruments), Beth Gibbons (vocals), Adrain Utley (guitar) and Dave McDonald (sound engineer). This was their first of three UK Top 20 hits. The album it came from, Dummy, was named as 1994's album of the year by three separate British magazines, Melody Maker, Mixmag, and The Face. In 1995 it won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, awarded to the best album by a British artist.
And here is the song for this week;
"Glory Box"
"Glory Box" is an Australian term for a piece of furniture where women store clothes and other items in preparation for marriage. The title doesn't appear in the lyric.
The song used a sample of Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap II," from Hayes' 1971 double-album, Black Moses.
The song can be heard in several films, such as Stealing Beauty, When the Cat's Away, The Craft, B. Monkey, Tout pour plaire, Lord of War, Claudine's Return and Wild. The song also featured in a Levi's Jeans commercial, and a French TV advert for Candia milk in the early 2000s.
And here are the 3 versions I chose for you;
John Martyn - "Glory Box"
Eva Cortés - "Glory Box"
Olivia Colman - "Glory Box"
Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).
nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...
Finally some chilly weather in my hometown, I guess in every part of the world seasons are acting strangely...No spring, no autumn as we know them. Mixed seasons create mixed minds so this week I will try to choose some really eclectic pieces. I hope you like them...
As Les Baxter once said;
"Any good music must be an innovation."
Here are the 5 songs for this weekend;
Brad Mehldau - "Proverb of Ashes"
Ahmed Abdul-Malik - "Oud Blues"
Diamanda Galás - "I Put A Spell On You"
John Zorn - "The James Bond Theme"
DeVotchKa - "How It Ends"
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.
The Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara has already been a guest in the blog pages several times. She might be in the top 3 on my contemporary pianists list and she continues to amaze again and again...
What I would like to introduce to you is her recent album that has been publised in September in Japan and in October elsewhere.
"Spectrum" is the eleventh studio album by Hiromi. The album was released by Telarc. It is her first solo album in 10 years after "Place to Be" released in 2009 also by Telarc.
The recording consists of 11 pieces including 2 covers, one from the Beatles and one from George Gershwin. All other pieces are written by Hiromi.
She says, “as a pianist, making a solo album is really like, kind of being naked, there is nowhere to hide. There is no other instrument to play with in order to cover the sound. It’s really challenging, but at the same time, it’s the best way to fully enjoy this instrument.”
Spectrum by Hiromi
“Making a solo piano album, the biggest difference is that it’s only piano and it’s only me. So, I have to be a drummer, I have to be a bass player, I have to be like a multi-instrumentalist, only using the piano,” Hiromi says. She points to the opening track, “Kaleidoscope,” as a good example of this, as she aimed to treat each of her fingers like a different part of an orchestra.
Kaleidoscope
Try to listen to the full album and let Hiromi take you on a musical journey where you will stroll around different colors and references.
Here is a very classic song for you, originally written and performed by Leonard Cohen. Maybe being the most famous song of Cohen in the later years, initially it almost didn’t get released; and when it was, it passed almost unnoticed.
And here is that song;
"Hallelujah"
"Hallelujah" is a song written by Canadian singer Leonard Cohen, originally released on his album Various Positions (1984). Achieving little initial success, the song found greater popular acclaim through a recording by John Cale, which inspired a recording by Jeff Buckley. It is considered as the "baseline" of secular hymns.
The song, in its original version, is in 12/8 time, which evokes both early rock and roll and gospel music. Written in the key of C major, the chord progression matches lyrics from the song: "goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, and the major lift": C, F, G, A minor, F.
Cohen wrote around 80 draft verses for "Hallelujah", with one writing session at the Royalton Hotel in New York where he was reduced to sitting on the floor in his underwear, banging his head on the floor. His original version, as recorded on his album Various Positions, contains several biblical references, most notably evoking the stories of Samson and Delilah from the Book of Judges ("she cut your hair") as well as King David and Bathsheba ("you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you"). Following his original 1984 studio-album version, Cohen performed the original song on his world tour in 1985, but live performances during his 1988 and 1993 tours almost invariably contained a quite different set of lyrics. Cohen's performances of the song drew the attention of many other artists and the song started to become viral. As of today it is one of the most covered songs of all time.
Leonard Cohen once explained: "Hallelujah is a Hebrew word which means 'Glory to the Lord.' The song explains that many kinds of Hallelujahs do exist. I say: All the perfect and broken Hallelujahs have an equal value. It's a desire to affirm my faith in life, not in some formal religious way but with enthusiasm, with emotion."
As I mentioned there are dozens of noteworthy covers of the song and I tried to pick the ones that have both artistic and historical value...
Just for this song I had to choose 4 versions and here they are;
John Cale - "Hallelujah"
Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah"
K.D. Lang - "Hallelujah"
Rufus Wainwright - "Hallelujah"
And another performance from Mennel that I liked very much, but keep in mind that it is out of the competition...
Now the floor is yours, go ahead and make your comments (here, Instagram, Facebook wherever you feel like...).
nb. Please note that I intentionally do not include the original versions of the songs as it would be a little unfair to the artists covering the songs, and I am sure that sometimes you will be surprised to see that the songs you thought were the originals are just covers...
Hello dear readers, I am back from a week off. I hope you missed the weekend songs. I did enjoy the good music and rum under the warm sunshine and now I am ready for a busy winter that looks like never will arrive.
As Cecilia Bartoli once said;
"Music is a way to dream together and go to another dimension."
So here comes our list for this weekend;
Roberto Carlos Valdes - "Drume"
Massive Attack - "Sly"
Paloma Faith - "Never Tear Us Apart"
New Order - "Temptation"
Balthazar - "Bunker"
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.
Literally the last days of summer here, even had the chance for a swim during the Republic Day holiday. Next week I will be in Cuba and try to catch some Cuban sound for the coming posts, with Cuban rum of course. I will try to update the blog, however the internet seems a bit problematic there, so don't worry if you do not hear from me next week...
As Herbie Hancock once said;
"Music is the tool to express life – and all that makes a difference."
So here comes our list for this weekend;
Booth And The Bad Angel - "Dance Of The Bad Angels"
Matt Berninger - "Walking on a String" (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)
Gnarls Barkley - "Going On"
Stereolab - "Jenny Ondioline"
Sudan Archives - "Water"
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.
