Yosuke Yamashita Trio: "GUGAN"

Just found this.

Jim O'Rourke - Ghost Ship in a Storm

Jim O'Rourke is an exceptional talent among singer-songwriters today. He is prolific and extremely versatile. His solo catalogue alone is quite impressive in that respect, let alone when you take his many collaborations with artists from Sonic Youth to Fennesz (a great Austrian electronic artist who I am sure I will eventually post).

This track is a great piece of pop music. One would have to work hard to not find it beautiful, I would imagine.



Below is a post featuring his collaboration with Dave Grubbs, Gastr del Sol, which is my favorite of his collaborations.

Gastr del Sol - Rebecca Sylvester / The Relay

Gastr del Sol was a Chicago band consisting, for most of their career, of David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Between 1993 and 1998 they put out seven albums ranging in genre from post-rock (the scene they were most associated with) to musique concrète. -From Wikipedia

Their output was quite eclectic. On a single album they would have compositions that starkly contrasted each other, some immediately accessible and enjoyable and others that make you earn that enjoyment, others still that can seem purposed to test one's patience. This is a song (Rebecca Sylvester, that is) that is beautiful throughout, I find, but that also holds back a lot. You get a nice pay off at the end as the song opens up, which only lasts for seconds. To me, it is worth it every time, and is one of my favorites from them.



The following song, off of Camofleur, is quite a bit more palatable for nearly any set of ears I am sure. I always felt that the title was so fitting and illustrative and not arbitrary at all. If you listen to this sort of diptych of a song, perhaps you will get the same sort of story and setting from it.

Tim Berne - Hong Kong Sad Song

Tim Berne (born 1954) is an American jazz saxophone player and composer.

Described by critic Thom Jurek[1] as commanding "considerable power as a composer and ... frighteningly deft ability as a soloist," Berne has composed and performed prolifically since the 1980s. His mainstream success has been limited—Berne recorded two albums for Columbia Records -- but Berne has released a significant body of work over the decades spanning dozens of critically acclaimed recordings -From Wikipedia

CHARLES MINGUS : The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (1963) Full Album R...

This is quite a post, as it is the full album. I would not say that this is an under-appreciated or unsung piece of music by any means. Black Saint holds quite a high place in the realm of jazz and is considered by many to be one of the highest peaks the genre has. Personally, I go a step further--it's probably my favorite album period.

And while it is highly thought of, it isn't necessarily an album that your average casual music listener has or has even heard. You know, the one who doesn't really listen to much jazz but still has a copy of Kind of Blue or Time Out laying around. This is the album those people need to hear. This hard bop masterpiece is a far cry from the politeness of Davis's Blue or smooth fun of Brubeck's Time Out. This is the album Dionysus would have loved above all others.

Sparklehorse - Painbirds

Along with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, Sparklehorse crafts strangely beautiful -- and beautifully strange -- music inspired by down-to-earth sounds as well as spacey experimentalism. But where the Lips are lovably loopy and Mercury Rev is arty and wry, Sparklehorse wraps deep-seated, often uncomfortable emotions in layers of metaphors and static.

Good Morning Spider dwells in the gray areas between dreaming and waking, sickness and health, and living and dying. The album takes these grey areas and makes a world out of them, blending classic songwriting with an experimental sound that borrows from hi-fi and lo-fi. It's a natural progression from their debut, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, which introduced Sparklehorse's refreshing mix of classic songwriting and sonic experimentation. Good Morning Spider adds bubbling synths, ambient electronics, horns and drum loops to the mix, giving songs like "Painbirds" an unclassifiable -- but distinctively Sparklehorse -- blend of darkness and childlike innocence. From driving, punky songs like "Pig" and "Cruel Sun," to frail, winding ballads such as "Saint Mary" and "Come On In," to the experimental pop of "Ghost of His Smile" and "Sunshine," the album encompasses a rainbow of sounds and emotions but never loses focus.

Joe Tangari describes Linkous's songs as "defiantly surrealist...with all manner of references to smiling babies, organ music, birds, and celestial bodies. In fact, some of the lyrics are so surreal that it's hard to imagine they're even metaphors for anything." Many of these references are literary or from a variety of rock music sources.

Linkous committed suicide in Knoxville, Tennessee, on March 6, 2010, thus ending the band's 15-year-long run. -From Allmusic and Wikipedia

Robert Wyatt - Sea Song

Such an excellent piece from the classic rock era that seems to be very under-appreciated by my generation (I'm in my twenties). Robert Wyatt was the drummer of Soft Machine. He made the somber, introspective album Rock Bottom (which this song opens on) after losing the use of his legs in an accident. Probably one of the greatest songs from a singer-songwriter I've had the pleasure of hearing.