September 29, 2006

"You talk about me just as much as you please... I'll tell God about you when I get on my knees"

Friday's listening list:

As the clouds roll by: on his blog, Jacob Sudol offers a movement from one of my favorites: Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel.

The Library of Congress has digitized a ton of field recordings from the 30's and 40's. Here's "My Lord Is Writin'" as sung by the Cochran Field Singers in 1943. An unusually sly performance for gospel.

From the recesses of UbuWeb comes Musique pour les soupers des Roi Ubu by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, one of the best collage pieces to come out of that 60's fad. Starts out funny, then gets rather disturbing, then ends up almost uncomfortably funny and disturbing. The juxtapositions in the final section are brilliant.

I stink, stink, stink at keeping in touch with people that I've known, but luckily, most of them are musicians, so I can at least pretend to keep in touch with them by visiting their websites. I went to school with baritone Stephen Powell, who was a fantastic singer and a nice guy (if I remember correctly, he also had a degree in composition, so show a little respect). I'll assume he's still a nice guy, and I know he's still a fantastic singer, because there's a page full of audio clips on his site. There's lots of tasteful and serious stuff there, but you know what you want: pop the cork on the last of the summer rosé and scroll to the bottom for "Rondine al Nido."

Paul at Aurgasm has two tracks by Bitter:Sweet ("Dirty Laundry" is my favorite). Imagine Christian Marclay as a member of Herb Alpert's band. Or Spinderella doing a Bollywood soundtrack. Or... oh, just go listen to it.

You're all reading Felsenmusick, right? And not just because Daniel Felsenfeld was nice enough to send his readers to me. Anyway, you might not know that you can listen to a few of his pieces on his other site. "A Dirty Little Secret" is particular fun.

And, just in time for the weekend, our anti-social friend Kid Seditious has a nice blast of pop for you. Follow this link and click on "Bridesmaid Revisited."

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