Recondite

There’s no question that Manchester’s Dead Sea Apes have made an impressive footprint in the world of heavy psych. Things change quickly from there though. Relying more on gravity - and gravitas - the heaviness of Dead Sea Apes is far beyond an arbitrary turning up of the volume knob and a trip to the the guitar shop for just one more fuzz pedal. Underneath the slow-burn bone-rattlings and rumblings, there’s a deliberateness and nuance to their catalogue that sets them apart from other bands that traffic in bringing the ‘heaviosity’. While their influences and methods may not be obvious to the casual listener, it’s the deep divers that Dead Sea Apes speak to…

Sven Väth is looking relaxed. The global House and Techno scene continues to define his life but he deals with it now at his own pace. To his mind, all that stuff is not only brimming with life but also directed by a higher order or even by the kind of “soul” familiar to us from older historical genres such as Jazz or Blues.

The new Sorrentino's TV series is already a success and, as usual, the choice of the soundtrack is profound and extraordinary. The Young Pope soundtrack mixes classics with electronic music, forgotten Italian songs (Nada "Senza un perchè" / Roberto Murolo "Era di Maggio") with Jeff Buckley, Max Richter, John Adams, Bela Bartok, Antonello Venditti, Jefferson Airplane and Domenico Modugno. A mystic experience.

Cardinal Fuzz present "Warheads", a full-length collaboration between writer/artist Adam Stone and Manchester instrumentalists Dead Sea Apes. Classic British pessimism and speculative dystopian fiction entwine with morbid social commentary and a long piss-streak of bleak humour. This is a claustrophobic and self-contained world where paranoid bunker mentality goes for a Pot Noodle with a faded society always teetering on the brink of collapse, ranting street-punk drops bad acid, and Space Station fuses with Bus Station…

Eventyr means “adventure.” Classical listeners may also recognize it as the name of Frederick Delius’s lovely 1917 tone poem, which is often translated as “Once Upon A Time” to underscore its origins in the folk tale collections of Norwegian scholar Peter Christen Asbjørnsen. Here, the name adorns one of Jan Garbarek’s most recondite efforts to date and, like its own “Once Upon A Time,” houses a world of lessons and signs for those willing enough to interpret them. Joined by John Abercrombie and Nana Vasconcelos, he spins a string of seven improvisations, rounded out by a standard, “East Of The Sun And West Of The Moon” (Brooks Bowman), that doesn’t so much end the album as open us to its nebulous center.

Edmund Rubbra - Complete Symphonies - Richard Hickox (2001) {5CD Set, Chandos CHAN 9944(5) rec 1993-1998}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.43 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 783 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 150 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1993-98, 2001 Chandos Records | CHAN 9944(5)
Classical / Orchestral / Symphony / Contemporary / Modern

If you haven't yet encountered the music of Edmund Rubbra, this superbly played and recorded set of his complete symphonies would be an appropriate place to start. Rubbra may hardly be a household word on these shores, but his reputation has been rising steadily in Britain–largely due to recording projects such as the one under review here. It is a mystery to me why these brilliantly crafted, inexhaustibly inventive, and eminently likeable symphonies have not won a wider following, though perhaps in our fast-paced culture music that requires the listener's total concentration (as does Rubbra's) is not destined to win instantaneous approval.

Old technology meets modern technology on this release from Germany's Oehms label, a top-notch Bach organ recording equally worth the consideration of the first-timer or those with large Bach collections. Featured is one of the monuments of central German organ-building, the Silbermann Organ at the Catholic Hofkirche in Dresden. The organ was dismantled during World War II but subsequently rebuilt and later thoroughly restored. It's a magnificent beast, with plenty of power and some unusual, highly evocative tone colors in the quieter registrations.