Great Recordings

Enjoy the greatness.

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The Moles - "Bury Me Happy" (1991)

Keeping the gothic in the jangle rock.

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Kevin Ayers - "Hat" (1970)

In which Kevin Ayers comprehensively addresses one of the perennial questions of Earthly existence.

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XTC - "Harvest Festival" (1999)

One of the most beautiful of late XTC songs.

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Hamza El Din - "Mwashah" (1978)

From the 1978 album, Eclipse, liner notes: "This is a classical traditional piece for teaching voice from the time of the Moors in Spain."

When the gossamer nymph appears, My beloved's beauty drives me to distraction; Surrender Surrender When I am enraptured by a glimpse, My beloved's beauty is a tender branch caught by the breeze; Surrender Surrender Oh, my destiny, my perplexity, No one can comfort me in my misery, In my lamenting and suffering for love, But for the one in the beautiful mirage; My beloved's beauty drives me to distraction, Surrender Surrender

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Djivan Gasparyan - "Lovely Spring" (1993)

From the album Moon Shines at Night, recently reissued with I Will Not Be Sad In This World on All Saints Records. Via Other Music.

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Luther Allison - "Cut You A-Loose" (1972)

The deal goes down at 3:47.

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Duke Ellington - "Who Knows?" (1953)

Duke Ellington could turn out little gems like this in his sleep. Great composer and bandleader, of course. But I love his piano playing most of all. With Wendell Marshall on bass and Butch Ballard on drums. Recorded in April, 1953 in Los Angeles. From the Piano Reflections CD issued on Capitol records.

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Camberwell Now - "Speculative Fiction" (1986)

Even the album cover is kinda Radioheady.

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Belle and Sebastian - "Expectations" (1996)

A brilliant song from a wonderful album, AND an homage (in a way) to Love's "Along Again Or" -- the version on Forever Changes, that is. (You may enjoy the version by Bryan MacLean though it is more tangentially related to "Expectations.")

[greatrecordings]

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Henry Townsend - "Jack of Diamonds Georgia Rub" (1931)

Henry Townsend (1909 – 2006) was an American blues singer and guitarist. The two titles he recorded for the famous Paramount label in Grafton, WI, in 1931, were "undiscovered" by blues researchers until a copy turned up for auction in 1995. According to Alex van der Tuuk, in later years, when asked about the Paramount recordings, Townsend only recalled the other song, "Doctor Oh Doctor."

To imagine that this recording was lost for so long and could have remained so. Some of the greatest blues I've ever heard.

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Raoul Björkenheim / Ingebrigt Håker Flaten / Paal Nilssen-Love - "Oikosulku" (2002)

This is from the trio's first album, called Scorch Trio, which then became the name of the group on their later albums. This blew my mind when I heard it in 2002 -- I thought it was the best update of the Tony Williams Lifetime sound I had ever heard. It still blows me away. Actually, the sound of the guitar on this track is the reason I bought a Parker guitar myself.

Oikosulku is Finnish for Short Circuit.

Epic.

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Dead Rider - "Blank Screen" (2014)

Woah, Great Recordings is 6 months old. WHAT HAVE WE DONE? Here's the breakdown of tunes by decade:

1920s - 1 1930s - 0 1940s - 1 1950s - 2 1960s - 11 1970s - 22 1980s - 7 1990s - 2 2000s - 2 2010s - 2

Yeah, so you can see where most of my listening happens. But this didn't set out to be Great Recordings of the 60s 70s and 80s, so in the NEXT six months the goal will be... balance. Beautiful balance.

(Although, actually, it could be that the greatest recordings of all time were made in the 60s and 70s. I'm not sure where all that 80s is coming from.)

I had a Dead Rider track posted previously -- the tune "Just a Little Something" from the Raw Dents album. But I eventually moved on to an all YouTube or upload model and that track got removed. 

So let's start by getting some 2014 up here. This is from the latest album, Chills on Glass, on Drag City.

[greatrecordings]

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Freddie King - "Can't Trust Your Neighbor" (1972)

There's so much to say, and so little need to say anything. I'll distill my comments to two words: the strings.

[greatrecordings]

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Huguette Dreyfus - Bartok, Microcosmos, Volume 4, "Chanson de style populaire / Quinte diminuée / Mineur et majeur" (1969)

This is a track from one of my favorite albums of all time, sadly out of print.

Bartók wrote the Microsmos as a pedagogical tool for pianists in six volumes of increasing complexity. The cycle was finished in 1939.

Huguette Dreyfus (b. 1928) made a recording of selections from the cycle in 1969 on her preferred instrument, the harpsichord.

Many of the pieces in the Microcosmos are very short, and so the CD tracking groups some together, mostly fortuitously. These three pieces are grouped together from volume 4.

If you like this, you must track down the album; it's brilliant through and through.

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Little Feat - "Kiss It Off" (1973)

Here's a bright little ditty tucked away at the end of Side A of Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken." Lowell George had some darkness to go along with the brilliance.

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Horace Silver - "Blue Silver" (1967)

Horace Silver passed away this week at the age of 85. Out of his many, many great recordings, here's a personal favorite from the 1967 Blue Note album, The Jody Grind.

R.I.P. Horace

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The Zombies - "Care of Cell 44" (1968)

Without a doubt, the best "letter to my girlfriend in jail" song ever written.