Becoming Karl

Brian Eno & Karl Hyde - High Life (2014) {Opal WARPCD255}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 278 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 102 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 220 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Opal / Warp Records | WARPCD255
Electronic / Synth Pop / Electro-Acoustic / Alternative

High Life, the second collaboration between Brian Eno and Underworld's Karl Hyde, began immediately after the completion of Someday World. Its release follows a mere two months later. While some traits of the former are present here – a heavy reliance on African-sourced rhythms, and hypnotically repetitive keyboard and bassline – it is a very different companion. While the pair relied on more formal "song forms" on Someday World, High Life is looser. These six tracks place more value on jamming. The centerpiece is Hyde's guitar. It's front and center throughout, with myriad rhythm tracks close behind. A two-chord reinvention of Chuck Berry's signature riff commences album-opener "Return" before becoming subsumed in sonic treatments and Edge-like sounds.

Born in Graz, Austria, Böhm studied law and earned a doctorate on this subject. He later studied music at the Graz Conservatory. On the recommendation of Karl Muck, Bruno Walter engaged him at Munich's Bavarian State Opera in 1921. Darmstadt (1927) and Hamburg (1931) were the next places he resided as a young conductor, before succeeding Fritz Busch as head of Dresden's Semper Opera in 1934. He secured a top post at the Vienna State Opera in 1943, eventually becoming music director.

Karl-Birger Blomdahl (1916-68), one of Sweden's greatest composers, is only now becoming better known–and mostly through these three symphonies. Taken together, these works, composed in the space of a decade, show Blomdahl's growth from a post-Romantic composer (Symphony 1, written in 1943) to a composer willing to take a few risks in tonality (Symphony 2, written in 1947)–and then some. His Symphony 3, written in 1950, leaps all the way into 12-tone techniques with his own dodecaphonic stylings …..

Paul Cook @ Amazon.com