Field Recordings

This 2CD set is a compilation of original field recordings made by David Attenborough between 1954 and 1963. He travelled to remote parts of the world to find and film exotic animals for the BBC television series Zoo Quest. But he was just as interested in the people he met and their music. Whenever he came across musicians, out came his early portable tape machine . "While I was theoretically looking for pythons, in the evenings I would record different types of music."

This is the second, and perhaps more aggressively experimental, installment in the Bang on Can All-Stars’ acclaimed commissioned composer series. Like its predecessor, More Field Recordings once again explores strange new terrain where found sound, samples and archival audio collide with contemporary classical music, written by a wide range of artists and performed by the All-Stars.

Billy Bragg & Joe Henry - Shine a Light: Field Recordings from the Great American Railroad (2016) {Cooking Vinyl COOKCD623}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 271 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 102 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 156 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Billy Bragg / Cooking Vinyl | COOKCD623
Acoustic / Folk / Blues / Americana

In March 2016 Billy Bragg and Joe Henry, guitars in hand, boarded a Los Angeles-bound train at Chicago’s Union Station looking to reconnect with the culture of American railroad travel and the music it inspired. Winding along 2,728 miles of track over four days, the pair recorded classic railroad songs in waiting rooms and at trackside while the train paused to pick up passengers.

These are not your usual recordings. They are field recordings, created by fans on cassette tapes with equipment sitting on jazz club tables or attached to house sound systems, catching a master jazz musician and his band in acts of purest creativity. Woody has been labeled by many jazz critics and historians as the "Last Great Innovator" and has influenced jazz performers of all instruments ever since his arrival on the scene in the early 60s and beyond his death in 1989. Previously unreleased field recordings from the 1970's and '80's courtesy of Woody Shaw III and Steve Turre. Produced with the help of the Woody Shaw Global Arts Foundation. Liner notes include commentary by jazz historian Tammy Kernodle and jazz trumpeter/educator Pat Harbison.

With trickles of piano, synth, and viola, the Los Angeles-based collaborators shape a tranquil vision of a Nordic landscape that feels just beyond the edge of reality.

Artists’ greatest inspiration often comes from sources that once surrounded them in their native communities. Pianist Lucian Ban, violist Mat Maneri and woodwind master John Surman come from different backgrounds but are connected by their focus on improvised music along with their appreciation of folkloric and classical styles.