1,000 Albums To Hear Before You Die.

[RobB]

The on-line version (from The Guardian) isn't complete but the list looks interesting and I'm personally chuffed to see my all-time favourite album included:

'From Gardens Where We Feel Secure' (1983)
Virginia Astley.

'Astley's ambient meditation on a summer's day in Arcadia is so bucolic it makes Nick Drake sound like Ghostface Killah. Garden gates creak, church bells toll, birds twitter and Astley's piano sparkles like sunlight on the surface of a mill pond. Possibly the most English album ever made.'

http://music.guardian.co.uk/1000albums/ ... 98,00.html

We're going to have to wait a few more days to see if any of Stina's albums have made the list.

[sound world]

Yes,I saw that and was going to tell you,RobB.I think the notion of 'most English' is incredibly subjective-I mean,for example,where are the Toxteth riots in it? Maybe most 'idealised' English.
I'd call it possibly the most innocently pastoral recording ever made.The music is so incredibly naive-not a blue note or a post-c.1750 harmony in sight.That's not a criticism,just an observation.You could happily play it to a newborn baby without fear of disturbing it.

Plenty to argue with on that list already-although they do have the caveat that they're not including the dead obvious ones,Pet Sounds,Sgt. Pepper etc.If they don't include a Stina album,I shall be writing to them!

[RobB]

Yes,I saw that and was going to tell you,RobB.I think the notion of 'most English' is incredibly subjective-I mean,for example,where are the Toxteth riots in it?

That review must have been written by an American,eh?

You could happily play it to a newborn baby without fear of disturbing it.

I suspect 'When The Fields Were On Fire' would give any baby a nightmare though!

If they don't include a Stina album,I shall be writing to them!

.....and i'll be next in line to write.

[sound world]

Annoyingly,when you link to that page,after a few moments it cuts to a Philips advert.

[RobB]

Annoyingly,when you link to that page,after a few moments it cuts to a Philips advert.

strange,i don't have that problem.
Must be your macinbosh playing up?

[sound world]

Got it to work by opening the links all in new windows.
Not a single classical album in the list so far.The usual preposterous notion,then.

[~Michael]

Possibly the most English album ever made.'

It must be an American who wrote it, because I think I might say something similiar I can't listen to "Melt The Snow" (that's the harpsichord one right?) without chuckling and picturing a stereotypical version of Rob sipping tea in his garden, wishing everyone were as soft as butterflies and disdaining anything that's not "prim and proper."

[gerryuk]

The list is utterly pants as these type of lists often are. I wonder though could Vashti Bunyan's 'another diamond day' challenge Virginia for the most english/pastoral record ever made

[barrett]

So Dynamite is in the list .At least they picked the right album.

[sound world]

It probably is the right one,taken all round.Here's what they wrote:-

'Stina Nordenstam
Dynamite (1996)
Harsh, gritty guitars crackle and rumble, as if the sound is being forced into the open; occasionally, baroque orchestral arrangements break through. Nordenstam herself is suspended above the clanking industrial arrangements as if in stasis, her high-pitched timbre giving the impression that the edge of despair is the most natural place to be.'

Meanwhile,THIS is the most 'English' (in the stereotypical sense) of all albums (if it had 'The Lark Ascending' thrown in,it would be almost a joke stereotype),and it really ought to be on that list as one of the great albums.

[RobB]

It must be an American who wrote it, because I think I might say something similiar I can't listen to "Melt The Snow" (that's the harpsichord one right?)

I always thought it was daft of Nippon Columbia to shove those 'Melt The Snow' tracks on the end of the 'From Gardens....' cd.I know Virginia wasn't too impressed and had them removed for the re-mastered version.
I think what I call the 'real' Melt The Snow (with the piano/violin,viola,cello) does have a very classical English sound......its the track which Virginia refers to her 'Ice skating' track.
Of the other two recordings on the ep,also called confusingly 'Melt The Snow',i don't really detect so much the 'Englishness' of the music.

[d.a.walker]

Nice to see Dynamite get acknowledged