Some new musics
by Alex
Now at some level, _all_ Reggae is Jewish. But as the “Bookninja”:http://bookninja.blogspot.com/ points out, “some are more Jewish than others”:http://www.hasidicreggae.com/files/2005/02/07/22/11/33/kimmel_on_stage_2.jpg. But unlike some other novelty bands, “Matisyahu”:http://hasidicreggae.com/, So Called, and the other artists on “Jdubrecords”:http://jdubrecords.org/ are actually pretty quality.
Similarly bending across genres is “Alarm Will Sound”:http://www.alarmwillsound.com/AWS-Home.html , whose latest album features “orchestral arrangements of Aphex Twins tracks”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009XT8KQ/ref=wl_it_dp/002-1728795-4172847?%5Fencoding=UTF8&coliid=I363QKRWD46T0S&v=glance&colid=NK3EH604LU8H. The danger here is of alienating both classical and electronica fans, but apparently the CD — which includes arrangements by “Steven Bryant”:http://www.stevenbryant.com/bio.php — manages to be satisfying to both groups.
Satisfying crossover might be harder to achieve for the “Ahn Trio”:http://www.ahntrio.com/, whose belly-baring marketing is designed to turn off snobby classical music fans like me. But in fact if you look at the contents of their “last”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00006JSCQ/ref=ase_ahntrio/002-1728795-4172847?v=glance&s=music “couple”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004TR18/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2_cp/002-1728795-4172847?v=glance&s=music of albums, they are one of the few groups out there I can think of doing 20th century music for a classical trio — and one of the very few who have actually commisioned new pieces. I personally think the ‘string quartet performs Jimi Hendrix/The Doors/Authentic World Music’ thing is _so_ overdone, but I would still be interested to hear some of their stuff.
Currently I’m enjoying Toby Twining’s remarkable “Chrysalid Requiem”:http://www.tobytwiningmusic.com/projects.html, which I highly reccomend to just who can take an earful of challenging (but not off-putting) 20th century music. It’s best described as a cross of the Poulenc mass with some “overtone singing”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_singing and “Allen Shearer”:http://class.csueastbay.edu/music/Allen_Shearer.php thrown in.
Update: the Twining requiem is *unbelievably* awesome. Check out the “sample tracks”:http://www.bangonacan.org/store/item.html?sku=CA21007 here).
Last night I was watching the PBS documentary on “popular protest music,” and I had this realization that I HATE it when people refer to Bob Marley’s music as “Marley.” So to explore this pet peeve of mine I called up Mike O’F tonight as a joke and said, “Hey, do you want to come over later and listen to some Marley?” I think he thought I was talking about drugs, though.
Ouch! I rather like that-there new Kronos Quartet/Asha Bhosle/R.D. Burman album.