Free music and chinese music coming of age
1) One of my all time favorite bands is putting their entire first album up for free, in mp3 format, on their website http://www.theillustratedband.com. Normally I don't listen to music for the lyrics, however, this album has the highest density of songs with exceptional lyrics that I have heard. In addition, they are such fantastic musicians that you won't even notice them constantly flowing constantly between 11/8 and 6/8 (or any number of other funky signatures). Good musicians don't seem to draw attention to their musical quirks, but use them, I have concluded after listening. If you have limited bandwidth try the following tracks
3) Time
11) The Light
12) A thousand days
13) Return to Cair Paravel
2) Synth music has come a long way. When you compare the music written on the first moogs, or the crappy programmed sounds in early eighties casio keyboards to some of the stuff Radiohead and Sigur Ros have come out with, this becomes really apparent.
If you listen to a lot of chinese music, esspecially "traditional music" they will often try to spice it up with drum tracks and really... bad synth effects. Actually I have a very large pile of world CD's that I do not listen to, because this phenomenon is not limited to the Chinese. Yesteday, though, I stumbled on this guy Chun Lei, and I am beginning to wonder if they might be emerging from this stage. The first four tracks of his album Luck, are actually pretty good blends of organic and synth instruments and vocals. I was really surprised. The album seems to loose elevation after "Dongting: the home of fish and rice." But you can listen to 30clips on msn music (I got 2 free downloads, so I was looking for interesting stuff).
In other news...
My cousin Myron, currently teaching English in China, got filmed as a "lost tourist asking for directions" in a made-for-TV Chinese film. Cool huh? http://myronmarston.blogspot.com/
I went to the post office and got stamps. Yay.
A team in a 50m relay next friday needed an extra person. So I signed up. This is real great, because I haven't really ran at all for the last 2 1/2 years, and I have about a week and a half to get in enough shape to about 10 miles. ACL city.
I will get to take the candidacy before going to Japan.
And, I am still keeping on keepin' on, if you know what I mean.
3) Time
11) The Light
12) A thousand days
13) Return to Cair Paravel
2) Synth music has come a long way. When you compare the music written on the first moogs, or the crappy programmed sounds in early eighties casio keyboards to some of the stuff Radiohead and Sigur Ros have come out with, this becomes really apparent.
If you listen to a lot of chinese music, esspecially "traditional music" they will often try to spice it up with drum tracks and really... bad synth effects. Actually I have a very large pile of world CD's that I do not listen to, because this phenomenon is not limited to the Chinese. Yesteday, though, I stumbled on this guy Chun Lei, and I am beginning to wonder if they might be emerging from this stage. The first four tracks of his album Luck, are actually pretty good blends of organic and synth instruments and vocals. I was really surprised. The album seems to loose elevation after "Dongting: the home of fish and rice." But you can listen to 30clips on msn music (I got 2 free downloads, so I was looking for interesting stuff).
In other news...
My cousin Myron, currently teaching English in China, got filmed as a "lost tourist asking for directions" in a made-for-TV Chinese film. Cool huh? http://myronmarston.blogspot.com/
I went to the post office and got stamps. Yay.
A team in a 50m relay next friday needed an extra person. So I signed up. This is real great, because I haven't really ran at all for the last 2 1/2 years, and I have about a week and a half to get in enough shape to about 10 miles. ACL city.
I will get to take the candidacy before going to Japan.
And, I am still keeping on keepin' on, if you know what I mean.
posted by tmm at
3:02 PM
4 Comments:
Have you heard Banco de Gaia? The album "Last Train to Lhasa" has a very world music flavor, and has absolutely amazing synth effects. One of the top five electronic albums ever I think.
Hey Nathan, good to hear from you. I listened to a few clips of Banco de Gaia's "Last Train to Lhasa" just now.
It was definitely interesting, but it is a much different type of synth than the Luck album. Banco de Gaia seems to fall under the techno/ambient genre. Chun Lei is more like... post-pop (is that a genre)? It immediately reminded me of some bands that used to play around Freemont and Ballard in Seattle (Tableland, Friends for Heroes, Laceybrown) because it combined strong melody with some synthetic lo-fi effects - using drum-tracks with synthetically reduced quality, adding turn-table crackle, and applying some counter-intuitive filtering.
The thing that was weird about it to me was that, in addition to having synthetic sound compliment melodies so well (radiohead) he used these lo-fi effects in a legitimate manner.
Oh, also - I guess China just completed the first railway between Lhasa and mainland China
I echo the recommendation of the illustrated band, although I would pick different tracks to recommend:
3) Time
4) Bound for Ninevah
8) Rain Down
11) The Light
I remember when you used to not like Radiohead at all, and then you at least liked Hail to the Thief when that came out. Do you like the rest of their stuff, now too? Sometimes I'm a little burned out on some of their stuff, but I still think OK Computer is the greatest rock album of all time.
Thanks for the blog mention :).
And what do you mean by "still keepin on keepin on"?
By the way, did you ever hear Gwen & Gary Owen's EP they released last year? It's available for free download from http://www.studiogomusic.com/letsgo/. I mention it here because Gwen & Gary have got some really cool synth stuff. I particularly recommend the tracks "Ashes" and "Finale".
Hey Myron, thanks for the link to Gwen and Gary's page. I downloaded the album. I really love Gwen's voice, it's perfect for the type of stuff she's singing, and yeah, they really know how to work synths. The production sounded really good, too. It sort of reminded me of the Notwist, a little. Atleast, the 4th song did.
I didn't say I really liked Radiohead. I don't. They sound so cynical, or bitter to me, and when I listen to them to much it starts rubbing off on me. That said, it is hard to deny that they are the best of the best when it comes to using synths. They really are masterful at what they do.
Hmm, "keepin' on." I meant that I refuse to give up on a girl who has pretty much cut me out of her life at the moment.
Have fun in the "long white mountain" range
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