Listening To...

  • Madlib - Shades Of Blue: Madlib Invades Blue Note. Hip hop producer Madlib was allowed to run through the entire catalog of legendary jazz label, Blue Note records; and he put his remixing skills to work. So we have remixes of tunes by the likes of Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, and others. The result is a lot of 'chill' hip-hop, mostly instrumental, very groovy. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with most of the source material, so I can't say how they compare to the originals. I do know this one, though, and it is pretty great.
    Madlib - Song for my father

  • Sumer Is Icumen In : The Pagan Sound Of British And Irish Folk 1966-75. Thirty (!!) songs from the folk music explosion. The quality varies, and the styles range from rough recordings of people sawing away on their fiddles to well-produced psychedelic folk (ex The Strawbs - the only of these bands that I'd heard of). It's ... interesting.

  • Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - All The Good Times. I think this is the first of their records where they both sing. It's always been Gillian sings on "Gillian Welch" albums and David sings on "David Rawlings [+/- Machine]" albums. This is a mix of both; and there's even one tune where they trade verses (Johnny and June's version of "Jackson", which they've been doing live for a while). Not my favorite collection of tunes, but it's nice to get new stuff from either of them.

  • Low - Things We Lost In The Fire / Double Negative. I'm late to Low. They been around for a while, doing their low-key indie stuff, but I didn't catch on till 2018's (awesome) Double Negative. Things We Lost In The Fire is older, but newer to me. And it's more organic and more delicate, without the electronics and extensive sonic manipulations that Double Negative has. But, they're both full of beautiful, slow, droning songs that ebb and flow around you. Great in headphones.
    Low - Fly [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

You?

3 thoughts on “Listening To...

  1. Girl from the North Country

    cleek, you’ve reminded me of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who I first heard on a late night show here hosted by Jools Holland. They were singing The Way it Goes, and I loved it. I’m now listening to the whole album of The Harrow and the Harvest, and loving it too (but not finished yet. I’m looking forward to Silver Dagger, which, in an ancient crackly version by Joan Baez, I adore).

    Thanks!

  2. Rob C

    Oh man, I heard that Low track Congregation on that show Devs last year and it became my most played song of 2020. But I haven’t checked out much of their back catalogue yet.

    I’m listening to a lot of Bowie which isn’t much of a surprise. Blackstar and The Next Day in particular both of which are stunning records.

    But nothing new. Lots of 80s synth and new wave. So many playlists on Spotify but it’s starting to get repetitive so I need to start digging.

    My daughter is almost 17 and she listens to everything which is pretty great. She’s into Kate Bush, Bowie, even Radiohead. So proud.

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