What are you listening to?

[sound world]

Just an attempt to kickstart our presently moribund forum-
What's on your player at the moment?
For me-
My way of listening these days is to put all my favourite music (currently 8,000+ 'songs'-this includes such 'songs' as movements from Symphonies, jazz instrumentals etc) onto my iPod in a playlist marked 'Unplayed', and then hit 'Shuffle'. It's great to listen not knowing what's coming next! When the battery runs low,I delete all the ones I've played from the playlist, so very gradually I get to listen to all of them. Took about a year last time! I never use headphones, I plug the iPod into whatever hifi is around. (Can't stand those stupid iPod speaker systems, utter crap-fi, no separation).

Despite this I'm still listening to all manner of new stuff, often using the brilliant Firefox add-on 'StumbleUpon' to find random new sounds.
In this way I've discovered some great new things.

Just lately I've been really knocked out by the (old-1996) collaboration between Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, which I hadn't heard before. I've never been much of a Costello fan, but he is stunning on the joint album they made. Seems like Bacharach, the master pop-song writer, wrote most of the music and Elvis the words, but anyway it's a true collaboration-and the results are fantastic-a set of great songs about lost love, mostly. Highly recommended.
My other find of late is the 49-year old black American Jef Lee Johnson, who is, apart from anything else, one of the most amazing guitarists on the planet . He's been a session player for-well,everyone, but quite late in his career he started making his own albums-(singing, playing everything in sight and writing), and they are some of the most extraordinary mixtures you'll ever hear. He's not afraid to try all kinds of different styles with complete conviction and integrity, and all of it exudes a fabulous groove. He's completely unique and unclassifiable, which of course makes him an endangered species in the dog-eat-dog music industry, alas.
What's everyone else into right now?

[Franck]

Lots of Carla Bozulich these days, and her projects: Scarnella (a must have to me), Evangelista, The Geraldine Fibbers,... saw her a few days ago, it was incredibly noisy and quietly emotional (one noise improv, one highly emotional song alternatively). If she's playing in your town, please GO SEE HER! You might be really surprised...

[d.a.walker]

Ola!

I'm currently listening to:

Nice Nice - Extra Wow
Gonjasufi - A Sufi And A Killer
Melissa Auf der Maur - Out Of Our Minds
Monk & Canatella - Care In The Community
Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
LoneLady - Nerve Up
Autechre - Oversteps/Tri Repetae

They're all getting pretty much an equal billing round these parts!

Now, I must be off, I left my kingdom unsupervised and I just know they'll eat all the orange smarties while I'm gone.....

[RobB]

I really havn't listened to much muisc in recent months. Leisure time at home is mainly taken up by reading and watching films. The only time i actively listen to music is in teh car and i havn't really done much driving late either. My Au Revoir Simone cd-rcompilation is still in the cars cd player so i tend to listen to snatches of that for the short mainly short journeys i make.

The last cd i bought was the Beatles bootleg Sgt Pepper multi-tracks album, which has several tracks from that album stropped down to their componet pieces so that, for example, you can hear 'She's Leaving Home' with just the strings followed by a track with just the vocals. Other songs are divided up so that you can hear drums, bass guitar / lead guitar, rhythem guitar / vocal and backing vocal / piano / percussion / brass etc seperately.
Fascinating stuff.

[paul-pgss]

Currently I'm in love with the latest album of the Pet Shop Boys. It's called "Yes" and was released in 2009 but I missed it completely. The album has a very poppy sound and has made me listen to a lot of the older PSB records. I was a big fan of PSB in high school.

And also I'm listening to Daniel Merriweather's Love and War.

[witchy]

MMMhhh, really too many things to quote, we get way too much stuff to review or for free...some are old...:

Florence & The Machine - Lungs
Foals - Total Life Forever
65 days of static - We were exploding anyway
Woost - 6 minutes south
Social Broken Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
CocoRosie - Grey Oceans
The National - Terrible Love
Stina Nordenstam - Dynamite/The world is saved
Leadbelly
PJ Harvey -Dry/To Bring you my love/Is this desire?

And tons more....

[blue]

I'm listening to Stina Nordenstam, a lot. These are scary difficult times for me, and I've found myself needing the comfort of her gentle, knowing voice. I can't listen to anyone else singing right now, even my Tori has not been able to comfort me, for the first time ever. Her saddest songs are still somehow too declamatory for my nerves at the moment, too much the songs of a woman confident of her own strength. I need to hear from a fellow-traveller in the land I'm traversing now, and gain solace from her. I've always loved Stina of course, but suddenly I feel very grateful for her music in a way I hadn't known till now.

Is she really not coming back?

[witchy]

For very different reasons, I totally understand why you need specifically her so much right now. I had her on repeat for quite a while, until I had to stop for a while...
Whatever your painful, scary journey is, you are NOT alone Beth. You can and you should count on us, whatever we can do for you. I am sure I talk for all of us.

I hope she will come back, but I've kinda given up on the idea...

[blue]

Thank you, Sara. Just being able to be here again and see and read you all is a great comfort to me.

I can't believe Stina will not make music of some sort again ..... I guess I just don't want to believe it. Maybe she's just going through a difficult time too, and had to step away for a while.

[sound world]

Stina is the best. Nuff said. It never ceases to amaze me that the world at large, (and the community of musicians in particular) don't seem to see this.
I don't know anyone else who speaks to that place in us-you all know it, of course,so I needn't elaborate-with such consistency and poignancy.

[blue]

I don't know anyone else who speaks to that place in us-you all know it, of course,so I needn't elaborate-with such consistency and poignancy.

Yes. I can't think of anyone else who really does that, either. I'd have to go to some classical composers, I guess.