"New" Music recommendations, part 7

It's been almost a year since I last did one of these, so the definition of "new" is stretched a bit.

• Regina Spektor: "Fidelity"
  I'm late to the party on Regina Spektor (this song is from 2006), but I discovered this song only within the last year, and it's been high up on my playlists ever since. Simply catchy.
• Rana Santacruz: "El Funeral De Tacho"
  A little bit of singer/songwriter, a little bit of Mexican ranchero music, and a little bit of Beirut's trumpet lines go into the music of Rana Santacruz, who I became aware of from a Tiny Desk concert by NPR. Also check out the folk-punk-polka "El Ranchero Punk".
• Dropkick Murphys: "Peg O' My Heart"
  Irish folk-punk, featuring Bruce Springsteen. Gets you into a good mood fast.
• The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
  I can't recommend any particular song, by this indie-pop group I first heard of last year. Both their self-titled album and this year's follow up "Belong" are filled with slightly fuzzy, retro pop anthems that make for good listening. My most listened-to tracks are "Come Saturday" off the debut, and the title track from "Belong".
• Of course, there were also releases from old favorites that I can't neglect mentioning. The Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" was probably one of the most talked about albums of the last year, and we were able to catch them at an awesome concert in Bologna. Check out the synth-pop "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)". The Decemberists came out with "The King is Dead" at the beginning of this year, a solid record which goes back more to their earlier folk-rock than the prog-rock of "The Hazards of Love". Favorite tracks: "Down by the Water" and "Rox in the Box". Finally, Fleet Foxes put out "Helplessness Blues" a few weeks ago, which continues to show their ability to make well-crafted songs with beautiful harmonies. Favorites so far: the title track and "Battery Kinzie".
  

Fairytale of New York

Quite possibly the best Christmas song of the last 50 years.


The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York

O Holy Night

Here it is again!

Black Mountain

Since Kristen is back in the US for a while, I've got plenty of time for myself. So Friday, I took the train to Rome in order to go to a concert at the Circolo degli Artisti by Black Mountain, a Canadian progressive/psychedelic rock band. It was all a rock concert should be: loud and energetic. Black Mountain's music owes a lot to the sounds of the 70's: something like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, with a touch of Pink Floyd added in. Led by Stephen McBean, guitarist and lead vocalist, the band has a second vocalist in Amber Webber, who also sings in the side project Lightning Dust with bandmate Joshua Wells. I love Amber's singing: alternately shattering and shattered, she can be powerful and fragile all at once. Lightning Dust's album "Infinite Light" was on heavy rotation for me last year, and I'm sure that now Black Mountain's new album "Wilderness Heart" will do the same (I got the album at the show). The band doesn't do stage antics, so they might seem disinterested to some, but they concentrate on the music, which was tight and well-crafted. No banter in between songs, but they cracked up at the odd request for "Me and Bobby McGee" from the audience.
The opening act, The Night Terrors, played decent, though somewhat repetitive psychedelic instrumental rock, which had the advantage of frequently featuring the theremin.

Concerts

Leonard Cohen and band in Piazza Santa Croce

After a longer drought in terms of pop concerts, we went to not one, but two concerts by big acts this week. First up, on Wednesday, was Leonard Cohen in Piazza Santa Croce here in Florence. This was probably the biggest concert in Florence this year, and it seemed like half the city was here. The start of the concert was a typical Italian situation: apparently not anticipating that anything could actually start on time, the first two songs were basically disrupted by people trying frantically to find their seats. I also had the impression that Cohen needed a little while to warm up (not surprising, considering that he's 75!), but after a few songs he had found his groove. He played most of the favorites on his Live in London album (a fantastic album -- check it out), and added some of his older songs, like Chelsea Hotel No. 2, Famous Blue Raincoat, and The Partisan. Like Bob Boilen, I was particularly intrigued by Javier Mas, one of Cohen's bandmates, who got to shine on various stringed instruments such as bandurria and archlute, especially on an extended introduction to Who By Fire.

Arcade Fire in Bologna

The next day, we went to Bologna for the I-Day festival, which had the impressive lineup of JoyCut, Chapel Club, Fanfarlo, Modest Mouse, and the highlight: Arcade Fire. We had rented a car (there's no way to get back from Bologna after 8:30pm using public transportation) and got there quite early, during the first set. Since it was still quite empty, and also sunny, we sat down in the shady grass at the outskirts of the festival grounds during the decent sets of JoyCut (an Italian indie band) and Chapel Club. The crowd started to grow a bit during Fanfarlo, who played a good, though brief, set, and seemed genuinely excited to be there, taking pictures of the crowd. I think their neo-folk/indie style resonated well, at least with me (maybe it's the trumpet, but they reminded me a bit of Beirut). Next up were Modest Mouse, and Kristen joined me in front of the stage. I wasn't too familiar with their music, but I liked their energetic set. They were a good opening for the highlight of the evening: Arcade Fire. What can I say? They're an awesome live act, and a fantastic stage presence as well, going all out. I thought the songs from their new album, which sometimes seem to go on a bit long on the record, worked much better in a live setting. And there's nothing better than thousands of people singing along on Keep The Car Running or Wake Up. Apparently the concert was broadcast live on Italian radio, and there's a YouTube of that here.

Fabrizio De André

Despite living in Italy for more than two years now, I don't listen to very much Italian pop music. To be honest: most Italian pop music is really awful. It shares this property with most German pop music, by the way. But since we've been listening to more music at work recently (not because we're more lazy, but because we've improved our experiment in such a way that we can now play music without disturbing it), I've been exposed to more Italian music.
The one artist I've come to like is Fabrizio De André, a cantautore (singer-songwriter) who was active from the sixties up until his death in 1999. He has been compared to (and was influenced by) Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, both in his musical style (though he does enunciate much better than Dylan!), and in the importance of the texts in his work. It seems that his lyrics are sometimes taught in school nowadays, and certainly my Italian colleagues have a pretty good grasp of his most popular songs. Of course, the texts are also the area that I have difficulty with, since my knowledge of the Italian language is still lacking. There are however translations of some of his songs available, and for German-speaking readers, there's an entire website with line-by-line translations.
Many of his songs concern themselves with people at the edges of society: murderers, prostitutes, rebels, etc. Textwise, one of my favorites is "Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poitiers" ("Charles Martel on His Way Back from Poitiers"), a satiric song in which Martel is tricked by a prostitute, complete with archaic language and musical accompaniment on the harpsichord.
You can get an idea of his output by searching YouTube for some of his most popular songs: "Il testamento di Tito", "Il pescatore", "Andrea", "Fiume Sand Creek", "Creuza de mä". There are also two good compilations available: Blu and In Direzione Ostinata e Contraria.

Opera at the amphitheater

Instead of watching the semifinal Uruguay-Holland, we chose a more cultural alternative, and went to see "The Barber of Seville" at the Cascine amphitheater yesterday. Cascine is a rather large park (one of the few in Florence) that stretches along the Arno from downtown to near our apartment. It's nothing special, and I had never heard of any events taking place in the amphitheater, but it seemed like a nice evening activity. The opera was a production of the Teatro Comunale, where we had seen several pieces before, and it did not disappoint. Billed as a "low-cost" performance, it might have been lacking in fancy sets, a big choir on stage, or super-titles, but certainly not in ideas or humor. This started during the overture, which was staged as a rather bumpy train ride, in rhythm to Rossini's music. The young cast -- Enea Scala as the Count of Almaviva, Salvatore Salvaggio as Don Bartolo, Stephanie Lewis as Rosina, and Mauro Bonfanti as Figaro -- sang well (with the discreet amplification helping to lift their voices above the orchestra in this open air venue). In the end, it was a nice balmy evening with some very good entertainment.

New Music Recommendations, part 6

• The New Pornographers: "Crash Years"
  These guys have been one of my favorites ever since "The Bleeding Heart Show" was on heavy rotation on my playlists for something like 8 months. "Crash Years" is my favorite song from a good album which is great music for a fun summer.
• L'Arpeggiata: "Via Crucis"
  The newest album from this improvising early-music group manages to make dour religious music sound cool.
• Joanna Newsom: "Good Intentions Paving Co."
  About as foot-tapping, head-bopping as you can expect to get from Joanna Newsom, from probably the best album of the year so far.
• Sleigh Bells: "A/B Machines"
  A much-hyped band, you either love them or hate them. I'm waiting for a party to really rock out to their songs.
• Elvis Perkins in Dearland: "Chains, Chains, Chains"
  I haven't quite decided what genre to categorize this band in (Elvis Perkins is the son of Andrew Perkins). Folk? Singer/songwriter? Rock? New Orleans? Probably a bit of everything. Their self-titled debut, and especially this song, is of my favorites from late last year.
  

Turkey Day

We celebrated Thanksgiving a few days late again, since making a big dinner on a weekday is too much of a hassle. So Sunday was spent preparing turkey (or rather turkey parts, since a whole bird was too much for just the one meat-eater in the household), gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, cranberry sauce (out of the can), fruit salad, and pumpkin pie. And we've been eating turkey ever since... If you still have some sitting in the fridge, this turkey spinach curry was pretty good.

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The day before, I went to a concert at the Auditorium Flog, where Yo la tengo were playing. Indie rock bands playing in Florence are few and far between, so even though I wasn't too familiar with their music (there goes my indie cred...), I went and was not disappointed. It was loud, energetic, and incredibly varied -- everything you could ask for from a rock concert. The opening act, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, was pretty good as well.

Funny

In case you missed it last year, here it is again.

Green Gold

Italy is deservedly famous for its food, and one of the best-known ingredients is olive oil. What I didn't know was that here, olive oil is a seasonal specialty. In the late fall, the olives are harvested and then pressed into fresh oil. It's bright green, often translucent due to the olive particles still floating in it, and has a fresh, sharp, intensely olive-y, almost pungent flavor. Saturday, we went to the Piazza Santa Croce, where various oil producers from the region around Reggello were offering their products, and where we could try the oil. Some of it brought tears to my eyes, it was that peppery! We ended up getting a modest (by Italian standards) two liters, of a kind which for my taste had a good balance between bite and smoothness.
The best and simplest way to showcase the oil: Toast or bake some white French or Italian bread, perhaps rub with some garlic and generously drizzle with new olive oil.

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After a year and a half in Florence, we finally made it to the Uffizi gallery yesterday (not for lack of trying...). What can I say, it's a quite impressive collection. You know you've been in Italy for a while when you start recognizing the secondary artists -- "Luca Signorelli, didn't we see something of his in ...".

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Channeling Stephen Colbert, a Wag Of My Finger to Amazon for its change of policy on MP3 downloads. For the past year and a half, I've been able to download their free promotional MP3s, and I've purchased several albums, using my credit card with US billing address. Since a few days however, they state that their service is only available to users physically within the United States. Why do companies make it so hard for people to legally get music? Now I'm forced to resort to illegal downloads, or use some proxy software to hide my location. Blerg.

Rigoletto

Last week, we took in another opera at the Teatro Comunale here in Florence; this time it was "Rigoletto" by Giuseppe Verdi. Surely one of his masterpieces (and known mostly for "La donna e' mobile"), we had never seen this piece on the stage before. Actually, I was surprised by how much it is a story about Rigoletto (and not the Duke, who nevertheless has the famous arias). The whole first act is basically a tour de force for the baritone, who in this case was Ivan Inverardi. Deservedly, he got the most applause of the night for a very good performance. The rest of the cast was competent enough -- Shalva Mukeria as the Duke was a bit shaky on the high notes in the first act, but later improved, and Annamaria Dell’Oste performed well as Gilda. On the other hand, Nicole Piccolomini in the rather minor role of Maddalena was one of the few instances in which I wanted the singing to end. A grating voice and no hint of interpretation -- forte all the way -- I hope she was simply having an off night.
The staging was a bit curious: the costumes were traditional, but the scenery (a 50's style car, a boat, and a large black wall) were more modern. It didn't add up to a coherent statement, and I was left wondering if there was a lack of communication between the different departments of the theater. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable evening, and probably not the last time we see "Rigoletto".

New Music Recommendations, part 5

• Lightning Dust: "I Knew"
  This song sounds a bit like glam rock meets folk -- sort of like what Marianne Faithfull would sound like if she were singing Rocky Horror Picture Show. Amber Webber, also of the band Black Mountain, has a voice that is both powerful and incredibly fragile at the same time. While "I Knew" is my favorite song by them, the entire album "Infinite Light" is worth listening to, from the jangly opener "Antonia June" to the apocalyptic "Take It Home" that closes it out.
• Katzenjammer: "A Bar in Amsterdam"
  Katzenjammer is four Norwegian women who make unclassifiable music, and "A Bar in Amsterdam" is catchy, fun folk-punk-pop.
• Leonard Cohen: "Live In London"
  He's an icon, and still making fantastic music at age 75 (!). "Live In London" shows him in great form and with arrangements and a backing band that make his songs sound even better than the album version, in some cases.
• Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros: "Home"
  All Songs Considered loved this band at this year's SXSW, and though they were somewhat disappointed in the album that followed, their songs are still catchy, and uniquely arranged, with a somewhat 70's aesthetic to them. Check out the duet "Home".
• Dead Man's Bones: "My Body's A Zombie For You"
  Just in time for Halloween, here's a track featuring Ryan Gosling collaborating with the Silverlake Conservatory Childrens Choir. If it sounds strange, that's because it is.
  

Activities recap

It's been a while since I've reported on our activities. There's a bunch of stuff to catch up on. A few weekends ago, we took advantage of the good weather as well as the Settimana della cultura (Week of Culture), during which admission to the state museums was free, to visit the Palazzo Pitti and Boboli gardens. We weren't the only ones to have this thought, but the whole complex is quite large, so we weren't shoved through or trampled on. First up were the Boboli gardens, which were an ideal destination on this warm, sunny spring day. Not too many flowers, though -- most of the gardens are landscaped with trees, bushes, grass, and some fountains. Afterward, we went to see some of the museums in the palace, the highlight being the Palatine gallery, with works by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, and many others. Like at many other museums, the paintings all started to look similar after a while though. We also went to see the Modern art gallery ("modern" seemingly referring to post-renaissance) and the Silver museum, which houses the treasures of the Medici.
Today, we took the bus to Poggio a Caiano, where there's another Medici Villa. (A bit of trivia on the side: Poggio a Caiano is the sister city of no other place than Charlottesville, Virginia) We arrived just as they let people inside for a brief visit of the interior, which had some 19th century rooms for entertaining (pool room, private theater) as well as a grand hall with 16th century frescoes by del Sarto and Allori. The gardens were pleasant enough, and had an abundance of lemon trees, as well as a somewhat run down forest behind the villa.

As well as going on some sightseeing jaunts, we also visited two fantastic concerts, thanks to the Maggio Musicale festival which takes place in Florence in May and June. Last weekend, we went to see a piano recital by Lang Lang, the Chinese shooting star. It was quite spectacular, and showcased his musical ability (Schubert Sonata D959) along with his technical skills (Debussy Images and Chopin Polonaise héroïque). Unfortunately, the last piece will be forever associated in my head with Oliver Cromwell, thanks to Monty Python.

Then yesterday, we saw Götterdämmerung, the last part of Wagner's Ring cycle at the Teatro Comunale. Again conducted by Zubin Mehta with artistic direction by La Fura del Baus, the production suffered from the same overload of distracting video projections and people scurrying around for no reason as the previous opera, Siegfried, that we saw there last year. After all those effects, the final scene (where Brünnhilde rides into Siegfried's funeral pyre, the Rhine overflows its banks, Hagen jumps in after the Ring and drowns, and Walhalla is seen burning) was disappointingly static and low tech (though there was some guy riding around on a Segway, which didn't make much sense). Our enjoyment in general was somewhat dampened by the fact that our seats (on the side of the second gallery, 101 and 103 if you're inclined to look at the seat map) had a limited view of the stage, so that we had to lean forward or sit on the armrests if we wanted to see everything, and had some bad acoustics in that we heard parts of the orchestra twice due to the sound bouncing off the walls and/or ceiling. Nevertheless, the highlight of the evening was the music, with an incredibly strong cast, and a consistently good performance by the orchestra. As Siegfried, Lance Ryan was a big improvement over Leonid Zakhozhaev from last time, and Jennifer Wilson as Brünnhilde returned with an excellent command of the part. For me, the stand out this time was Hans Peter König as Hagen. If anyone is lucky enough to be at Bayreuth this year, I think he's singing Hagen there as well. I, on the other hand, will have to look into where else he's singing.

Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n!

The concerts keep coming... Tuesday we went to see Mahler's Symphony No. 2 at Teatro Comunale with Zubin Mehta conducting. If you haven't heard this piece, do yourself a favor and get a good recording (I have the Gilbert Kaplan with the Vienna Philharmonic, but I've heard very good things about the Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic as well), and cuddle up in front of your stereo for some 90 minutes. Maybe you should tell the neighbors, because this thing gets loud! (While we're promoting things, if you're at all interested in "classical" music from Mahler up until today, or if you're wondering why you should be, get a copy of Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century)
In any case, hearing the symphony live is of course an experience all by itself, considering the forces required. There were some intonation issues at times (not surprising when you have 10 horn players...), and the pacing was sometimes a little shaky, but these are minor grievances. I was a little disappointed in the alto solo by Marjana Lipovšek in the 4th movement (Urlicht), who sang this beautiful song a little too plainly for my tastes. Kudos to the choir, who delivered an excellent performance, especially in the hushed passages when they first came in (and to the audience for not coughing too much at this special moment). We're now looking forward to seeing the orchestra again in the production of Götterdämmerung in May as part of the Maggio Musicale festival.

Uri Caine @ Teatro Verdi

Thursday evening, we went to see a concert by Uri Caine and the Orchestra Regionale Toscana at the Teatro Verdi, an old theater near Santa Croce. We got to sit in a box. :-)
For those of you who don't know him, Uri Caine is an innovative jazz musician, who has made a name for himself by combining jazz harmonies and improvisation techniques with classical music. Probably his most successful endeavour in this direction was Urlicht, a collection of music by Gustav Mahler, which was followed by the ambitious Goldberg Variations, taking Bach's variation collection and adding variations such as the "Dig It Variation," the "Luther's Nightmare Variation," or the "Tango Variation." In the concert on Thursday, in addition to two solo improvisations on Mozart's Sonata in C as well as themes by Mahler, he presented Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. In contrast to the Goldberg Variations, with its vast variety of ensembles and musical styles, this was pretty straightforward in that the orchestra usually played an arrangement of Beethoven's original music, while Caine improvised or added some jazzy touches on top of them. Most of the time, this worked quite well, especially in the slower variations, while the faster pieces lacked some of the drive that a solo piano can have.

New Music Recommendations, part 4

• Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers: "Coward Cracked The Dawn"
  This track blew me away when I first heard it. Shilpa has been compared in various corners of the blogosphere to Janis Joplin, and the blues rock she does is pretty awesome. The fact that she plays a harmonium as accompaniment is an added exotic bonus. Unfortunately, she hasn't released any albums yet, so the only music available to listen to is on her myspace page or various other sites on the internet.
• Lisa Hannigan: "Lille"
  While I liked her performance on the Colbert Report recently of "I Don't Know," I actually like this acoustic song better, though I've only listened to both a couple of times.
• Buddy Holly: "Crying. Waiting. Hoping"
  All Songs Considered played this track on the anniversary of the Day the Music Died a little over a month ago, which lead me to explore his music a bit more.
• Fleet Foxes: "It Ain't Me Babe"
  Cool cover of a Bob Dylan song by a great group (Both the self-titled album and the Sun Giant EP are excellent, by the way).
  

I'm still hoping to get the new Neko Case and Decemberists albums for my birthday, so I can't report on those yet, however the tracks that have been flying around the internet promise good things.

Paris Mécanique

Yesterday we went to another chamber music concert at the same old theater that we went to in December. Again, I subjected Kristen to clarinet music, this time by the Trio di Clarone (Sabine Meyer with husband Reiner Wehle and brother Wolfgang Meyer) as well as guests Michael Riessler (also clarinet) and Pierre Charial on mechanical organ. If you're not familiar with this instrument, it's what you might expect to see at a fairground or a European pedestrian zone, not really in a high-brow concert. Basically, the music is stamped onto large sheets of paper that are read into the organ while the player turns a wheel to pump air and progress the music.
Tonight's program was a dedication to early 20th century French dancehall and jazz-inspired pieces, so it featured works by members of 'Les Six' and others, as well as some virtuosic compositions by Michael Riessler and some crowdpleasers by Leroy Anderson. The playing was all on a high level, as can be expected by musicians of this caliber. At times, everything seemed a bit hectic -- many of the pieces segued into each other without time for applause, the mechanical organ meant that everything had to be played above a certain volume threshold, and there was no intermission (as a clarinet player myself, that was one of the things that impressed me most -- you try playing for 90 minutes straight!). For my taste, it could have used a few more quiet moments, such as in the sublime Sonata for two clarinets by Milhaud or the Three Pieces for clarinet by Stravinsky, but I guess the excitation was in the spirit of the roaring twenties.

New Music Recommendations

Some more songs I've been listening to recently:

• Blitzen Trapper: "Furr"
  NPR's All Songs Considered compared this song to "'39" by Queen, and it does have some similarities (listen when the bass drum comes in).
• Fleet Foxes: "Winter White Hymnal"
  Sweet vocal harmonies and excellent songwriting. Their album is on my Christmas wishlist, and has appeared on several year-end top 10 lists.
• The Decemberists: "Valerie Plame" and "Days of Elaine"
  Two upbeat tracks from their singles collection "Always the Bridesmaid". "Valerie Plame" even has a bit of a "Hey Jude" thing going on. This definitely makes "Hazards of Love" one of my most anticipated releases of 2009 (which, along with Neko Case's "Middle Cyclone", appears conveniently in time for my birthday wishlist).
• Music Go Music: "Reach Out"
  I'm not a big fan of 80's music, but this band takes all the clichees about it and combines it into songs that are so over the top, they're good.
• Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela: "Mambo" (Leonard Bernstein)
  Dudamel is the biggest rising star in the classical music conducters' scene, and judging from the energy this orchestra has under him, that's fully justified.
  

Siegfried

Saturday evening, we saw a production of "Siegfried" at the Teatro Comunale here in Florence. I had previously seen "Das Rheingold" in Mannheim, and together we had seen a fantastic "Die Walküre" at the National Opera in Washington DC, so this was the next part in the "Ring des Nibelungen" cycle. The production was a cooperation with the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia Valencia, and was conducted by Zubin Mehta, who had also conducted the free concert of Beethoven's Ninth this summer. Interestingly, the production was designed by La Fura dels Baus, a Catalan theater troupe (who also worked on an opera production in Mannheim a few years back, which I did not attend though). I guess Siegfried followed their usual aesthetic. Though I usually prefer modern productions (often it's the traditional ones that are a bit tiring), I felt that this one went a bit over the top. There were several large monitors/screens that provided the scenery and which could be moved around. While not a bad idea, the fact that there was always something playing on these, in combination with the many silent actors onstage (oftentimes unnecessarily -- people being hung upside down on meathooks during the question and answer part between Mime and Wotan in the first act?) made it seem like the staging was for people with ADD. It was simply too busy. (Some pictures of the production can be found here.) The singers were mostly good, with the standout performance for me being Ulrich Ress as Mime as well as Jennifer Wilson as Brünnhilde. Leonid Zakhozhaev gave a decent Siegfried, though somewhat weak in the forging song at the end of the first act, and with a rather bad accent that prevented me from understanding most of what he was singing (unfortunate when the subtitles are in Italian). Apparently, the role of Siegfried can be an unforgiving one, so I'll let that pass and hope for some improvement when "Götterdämmerung" comes to town next May.