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.

Erik Satie - Gymnopédie No.1

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.

In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings. -Wikipedia

First Post: Trinovox - L'Albatros

Welcome to The Immediate Erotic. This is a loose format blog for now. The aim is to bring your attention to music that you would love if just introduced to.

I might or might not add much commentary to the tracks I post. The music may speak for itself, or I might let Wikipedia do the talking.

Now for the first music share. This is from an Italian group called Trinovox, off their 1994 album Incanto. The album is quite special. Trinovox, as the name might suggest if you know Latin, consists of three voices. Their musical language, the breadth and depth of it, is astounding considering that voice is the only instrument here. Reportedly, no dubs were used in the recording. Everything you hear is a live performance.