Saturday, August 1, 2015

Playlist

Live

July 31, 2015
Paul Hoskin Benefit Concert
Paul Hoskin on Beacon Bridge

Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
with Arrington De Dionyso, Stuart Dempster, Beth Fleenor, Sue Ann Harkey, Greg Kelley, Jim Knodle, Susie Kozawa, Carol Levin, David Milford, Christian Pincock, Monica Schley, Wilson Shook, Wally Shoup, China Star, John Teske, Neil Welch, and Jenny Zeifel

some random images:
Neil Welch's subtly mantid shadow silhouette on the face of his amp
John Teske dual wielding bass (cross-)bows
bare feet abounding
audio image: the play of the high partials of contra-deep fundamentals

structurally: like an inverse memoir, not one remembering many, but many in consideration of one

Imagine an economy based on faith in compassion, rather than on faith in currency.

Just about as sweet as music gets, from Wally's opening lyrical phrase to the nothing-like-it-ever final, quiet, chord.

Recorded

July 28, 2015
Gurrelieder - Schoenberg - Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Janos Ferencsik

Many ages ago, when I was in high school, I was given tickets to my first ever opera performance, Götterdämmerung, by the Seattle Opera the year before they did the Ring the first time. Over the next few years, as I digested the experience, what settled was the notion that something odd was happening with the meter. I was watching the conductor and for the life of me I couldn't get the visible downbeat to correspond with anything like a downbeat I had ever heard before. Having become more familiar with the score, and having heard it live many times, I have come to the conclusion that I was right on the money. There really is something funny going on with the meter.

Although I've had this recording of Gurrelieder for decades I don't remember ever really sitting down to listen to it straight through. My gut feeling, with a similar certainty as to my götterdämmerung-epiphany, is that there is something odd going on with its magnitude or scale. Nothing is the size it ought to be, neither in relation to me nor among its parts. Never have I felt so much like Alice after having nibbled an an eat me, nor suspected that the parts have been joining in the feast.

July 30, 2015
Song of the Dagger - Griffes - Sherrill Milnes, Jon Spong

Set utterly without irony, without soft-pedaling the obvious, without attempt to unearth any hidden subtlety, it jumps through the flimsy, sheer innuendo to boldly be about what it was never a question it was about anyway.

Honegger
Le Roi David - Honegger - L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ernest Ansermet

Militantly plain. Proceeds like a film of the time, an alternation of scenes and inter-cards. The camera does not move. Its grandeur can only be heard at a conceptual remove.

In Session at the Tintinabulary

July 26, 2015
Trio 150726 - Keith Eisenbrey
On toy steel drum, ocarina, and solid-body electric guitar.

July 27, 2015
Gradus 272 150727 - Neal Kosály-Meyer

July 29, 2015
St. Rage Demos - Karen Eisenbrey, Neal Kosály-Meyer

It was too hot, and I was too exhausted, to do any serious listening, so I sat in on Karen and Neal working up two songs for Karen's fictional band project St. Rage. I pushed the record button a few times and got three demos, one of Distracted Driver, and two of The Drink I Didn't Have Last Night Is the Drink I Shoulda Had.

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