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Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 9 September 2012 CE
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Sep 09, 2012, 12:10
Re: Soundtracks of Our Lives week ending 9 September 2012 CE
Sep 09, 2012, 09:03
Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made
If only. Steve Hogarth is a deeply sincere, committed and often brilliant writer. When it comes to bridging the personal to the politcal and the metaphysical he's no John Berger but he pisses on the Martins and Bonos of this world and when he hits the spot there's a rare magic at work. After reading some backstory to the making of this record I was hoping for an aural equivalent to "Punishment Park" but this is the sound of second generation Prog hitting a big fat brick wall. It has been on the cards for a while and recent Steve Wilson, Porcupine Tree, Hogarth Barbieri, Storm Corrosion records tell the same kind of story. They all Make-A-Prog-Noise-Here but that's the antithesis of Progressive. We are long overdue a Progressive new wave that retains the focus on composition and on the harmonic complexity of jazz and symphonic music but also expands on the evolutions/revolutions in music since 82. The occasional nod to Talk Talk, 90s U2 and the sounds made by the Radiohead of 96/97 (such as that which we have here) is not quite what I have in mind. Many notes are wasted where epic space and greater simplicity might have been more effective as would matching sonic fury to moral outrage. Half the fun of this music is finding a way into unfamiliar territory over weeks and months. This album is as unfamiliar as an identikit 21st century British high street, neatly built and easy to get around but it's no Portmeirion. I am not sure there's enough going on here to bring me back. Prog pedestrianised.

John Martyn - Live at Leeds (Deluxe Edition)
John Martyn - Ain't No Saint
Island's efforts have been a bit hit n miss with the Martyn catalogue. The expanded "Solid Air" and "One World" (like "John Barleycorn", the Free catalogue and "Catch A Fire") were well worth their efforts and my money. "Live at Leeds" however is a travesty. The original six track album, currently only available in the form of an ugly, brittle Voiceprint cd transfer fluffed up with third-rate bonus tracks, is a truly astonishing record. The Island reissue removes music from the original release ("Outside In", `"Solid Air" and `"Rather Be The Devil" i.e. all that which was not recorded in Leeds at all) and replaces it, to the detriment of posterity / Martyn's legacy, with the tracks needed to offer a complete version the Leeds show. Sadly the Leeds set is patchy as fuck (as Martyn often was live in that period) and the original album is neutered for the sake of the trainspotter's love of completeness. Put this out if you must but don't pass it off as an expansion of the original.

"Ain't No Saint" has a similar problem. I bought it for the unreleased 70s live material but it actually achieves the near impossible; through the lens of an over-thorough career overview reliant on too many alternate versions of core tunes, the compiler makes Martyn's music seem dull and workman-like rather than shimmering and transcendent. The old Island two disc set "Sweet Little Mysteries", drawing only on the official releases, told the tale of his career with far greater grace but without any back-of-the-cupboard rarities no existing fan was going to buy it.

Herbert von Karajan & BPO - Schoenberg : Verklärte Nacht
Alison Balsom - Caprice
Keith Jarrett - Spheres
John Coltrane - The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings
John Coltrane - The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions
John Coltrane - Stellar Regions
Nina Simone At Town Hall
Fritz Reiner - Chicago Symphony - Strauss : Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30
Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Fritz Reiner - Bartok : Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta
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