New Releases:
Anoushka Shanakar Traveller
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Released: 3/20 2011
Genre: Flamenco, Classical Indian
Anoushka Shankar's latest release finds her pairing up with a number of Flamenco musicians, at the front are her sitar and the guitar of Javier Limón. The music, and rhythms are unmistakably Flamenco in style, but the instrumentation is mostly Hindustani sounds. At the same time, it feels like you're listening to traditional Indian music. Their combination is often hard to pull apart, the blend of the two is nothing short of amazing. It's this kind of amazing musical synergy that gets me to go exploring further and further into what people can do with fusing music from around the world. This album is absolutely worth finding and picking up. It's energetic, and at the same time it's also a great album to put on and just let fill the space with pleasing sounds.
Adding To The Collection:
OOMPH!Wahrheit Oder Pƒlicht
Label: Supersonic
Released: 2004
Genre: Industrial Rock, Neue Deutsche Harte
By 2004 OOMPH! had become giants in the genre in Europe, not quite as big over the US, and groups beyond Rammstein still hadn't quite broken through into the market here. Which is too bad because this album is great. Hard, a little rough around the edges, and good use of female vocals as not just chorus, but counter-verse and bridge. It's a solid album of industrial-rock, heavy on the guitars without ignoring the harder beats and dance-floor aesthetic. Not being a German speaker, much less ability to translate the sung word, I can only really comment on the music here - not the content of the songs. If you like Rammstein, this is the band you want to go get to add to your collection. I can say this album does feel somewhat formulaic, like they haven't quite broken out of a musical rut yet.
Halestorm
Label: Atlantic Records
Released: 2009
Genre: Hard Rock
This is the debut album from Halestorm. Like a lot of groups over the last decade it's a female lead vocal and a standard rock band behind her. Lzzy and Arejay, the Hale siblings, started the band with their dad back in 1997, releasing an EP in 2000 when they were still kids. The debut album is, musically, decent. Lzzy's voice is solid, doesn't sound like she's yelling or trying to imitate someone else. It's the lyrical content - it's almost an entire album about break ups, or how good the guy had it and how the girl will do so much better, etc and so on. Basically, girl-power rock focused completely on relationships, which gets boring about two songs in. Their new album comes out in April and I'm hoping it's possible they're changed writing tactics. But this album is basically emo-punk set to hard-rock and heavy metal, musically simple and contextually boring. There's some power hidden in there, they just need to cut loose with different material.
J.S. Bach
bonus CD: Angela Hewitt Plays Bach
Label: World Music Network
Released: 2011
Genre: Classical
The Rough Guide series started to delve into the Classical artists a short while back, Baroque composer J.S. Bach was the first. The collection here is interpretations by different conductors and musicians. Celloist Steven Isserlis starts off the collection. Conductor Roy Goodman, with the Brandeburg Consort, provides Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major Overture and Suite No. 1 in D Major parts 2-5, upbeat and quicker paced than I expect classical. Conductor Harry Christophers, with the Sixteen, takes on Praise The Lord parts 1-2, which frankly just sort of adds space to the next collection. Angela Hewitt fits in The Well Tempered Clavier in both C Major and C Minor, I find her piano mesmerizing honestly, it's light and relaxing. The Purcell Quartet and Swiss Baroque Soloists provide a Concerto each. Soprano Johanette Zomer provides the Cantata I Have Enough. And finally Thomas Schmögner ends the collection with Sleepers Awake, an organ prelude. I don't have a lot of experience with Classical, or Baroque, music. But I do know a diverse and wide collection when I hear it, and this seems to cover a good deal of Bach's styles and writings.
The second disc is just piano pieces performed by Angela Hewitt, as a piano player I find her amazing, interpreting Bach and you can't help but just sit back and listen. It's an amazing collection, honestly, covering a lot of ground, and doing it fluidly. The way the chosen pieces fit together I forget it's not written as an album for release but a series of pieces written years apart in some cases. The second disc here is worth the price of this collection.
Next Week:
And that's all this week, next week... a lot of heavy metal makes it's way through the speakers... several live albums, the new Overkill, and just to mix is up some EBM.
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