Saturday, May 31, 2014

Weekly Playlist No 22

Welcome to the Cloudland Blue Weekly Playlist No 22...




Since the start of the year, these weekly playlists have featured over 575 tracks but, due to space constraints, only the latest five podcasts could remain online, so you always had around five weeks to listen or download before they were deleted...

But now, Playlist #22 is BACK!

Today, we're back to 25 selections in the usual two hour programme and, as always, it's a varied selection...

This week's track list features music from The Stooges, Grand Funk Railroad, Mott The Hoople, Chicago, Beck, Bogert & Appice, Ike & Tina Turner, Donna Summer, Asia, Dream Theater, Brian Eno, Ian Hunter, Cuff The Duke, Jon Hopkins, Thomas Dinger and LCD Soundsystem; tasty jazz by The Crusaders, Neneh Cherry & The Thing, the Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Matthew Bourne and Ronnie Foster; classical pieces from Brahms, Haydn and Glass; and, of course, a tiny smidgen of Cloudland Blue Quartet...

No chat, just the music - hope you enjoy it - press play and a way we go...



The Stooges - Trollin' (3:07)
from "The Weirdness"
From one of several new acquisitions this week.  The Stooges released this back in 2007 around 34 years after their previous studio LP, the David Bowie produced "Raw Power".  This is the opening track and it sounds like they'd lost none of their power...

Grand Funk Railroad - Footstompin' Music (3:43)
from "Mark, Don & Mel 1969-1971"
A hit from GFR taken from the 1971 compilation stop gap double LP of early highlights from both studio and live performances, while the band was still managed by Terry Knight - rockin'...

Mott The Hoople - Roll Away The Stone (3:13)
from "The Sound Of The 70's"
Maintaining the upbeat start to proceedings, a UK hit from 1973 from Ian Hunter's Mott the Hoople.  I think this may be a slightly different mix from the one which appeared on the "Mott" LP....

The Crusaders - Watts Happening (5:17)
from "Blue 60s"
The first of a few jazz things - taken from a Blue Note compilation of some of the label's best late sixties output, originally from the Crusaders' LP "Uh Huh" from 1967.  Tasty!

Chicago - I'm A Man (7:40)
from "Chicago Transit Authority"
A track featured last week played by The Spencer Davis Group but an edit of this version was the one which made the charts states side.  Chicago were a great band in the late 60's and early 70's.  Don't dismiss them on the basis of their later propensity for schmaltzy balladry...

Beck, Bogert & Appice - Superstition (4:20)
from "Beck, Bogert & Appice"
First of two Stevie Wonder covers - this was a favourite of mine when I first acquired the BBA album back in the mid seventies...

Ike & Tina Turner - Livin' For The City (3:28)
from "Mastercuts Funk"
...while the first time I heard this from Ike & Tina was last Sunday, the day I bought the triple CD compilation of funk from which it comes...

Brahms - Deutsche Volkslieder - Book VI - 42. In stiller Nacht  (3:06)
from "Andreas Scholl - Wanderer"
Another new acquisition this week is a great disc of counter tenor versions of classical songs by Schubert, Mozart, Haydn and, here, Brahms.  Beautiful...

Neneh Cherry & The Thing - Dream Baby Dream (Four Tet remix) (8:45)
from "The Cherry Thing Remixes"
Neneh Cherry is the daughter of Don Cherry, founder, along with John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman of the avant garde jazz sound.  Fitting then that she should have recorded a disc with Coleman acolytes The Thing, from Scandinavia. This track comes from the subsequently issued remix album...

Donna Summer - I Feel Love (3:44)
from "The Best Disco Album In The World... Ever!"
Classic disco from the late Ms Summer, produced of course by Giorgio Moroder...

Asia - Gravitas (i. Lento ii. Gravitas) 8:00)
from "Gravitas"
Coming up to date now for a couple of tracks, the first from the recently released latest from John Wetton's Asia - there first since youngster Sam Coulson replaced oldster Steve Howe on guitar. Typical Asia sound on this one - a sound we love here at Crispycat Towers...

Dream Theater - The Enemy Inside (6:17)
from "Dream Theater"
Followed by a rocker from Dream Theater's latest, their second since Mike Portnoy was replaced by Mike Mangini.  Yowsah!

Haydn - String Quartet #60 In G, Op. 76, 3 Menuetto: Presto (2:52)
from "Haydn Complete String Quartets"
And some culture with a track from the 4LP box of three sets of Haydn's string quartets (Opus 76, 77 and 103) for just three of your English pounds.  This version however comes from the 21CD box of the complete quartets, played by the Angeles Quartet as opposed to the vinyl version played by the Aeolian String Quartet...

Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Hands Off (6:18)
from "When Everyone Has Gone"
Decided to listen to some jazz on shuffleplay this week and this track, from a disc bought on our January London trip, popped up and impressed...

Matthew Bourne - I. Air (For Jonathan Flockton) (4:22)
from "Montauk Variations"
I bought this thinking it might be by the choreographer of the same name.  What was I thinking?  Turns out though to be an excellent piano (with some cello) album (on the Leaf label) of jazz from the other Mr Bourne, who is also well respected in his field...

Cloudland Blue Quartet - April in Bolivia (Short Detail) (3:03)
from "Twenty Four Paintings (Short Details)"
It wouldn't be a Cloudland Blue podcast without some CBQ music and today's track is the short edit of the 30 minute piece "April in Bolivia" from the soon to be released mammoth soundscapes set "Twenty Four Paintings", which segues nicely into....

Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent) (4:12)
from "Ambient 1 : A Brief History Of Ambient Volume 1"
..a classic from Brian Eno, taken from the first of four collections issued in the 90's by Virgin, highlighting items from their catalogue which they deemed to be "ambient"...

Glass - Metamorphosis One (5:41)
from "Glass: Solo Piano"
A piece featured in last night's Nederland Dans Theater II performance at the Festival Theatre here in Edinburgh which the Exec Producer and I were lucky enough to attend.  Superb agility on display over the four pieces, the first of which, to the music of Mr Glass, was deemed by us to have been the best...

Ian Hunter - Ships (4:12)
from "From the Knees of My Heart, The Chrysalis Years (1979-1981)"
A 4CD set of Ian Hunter's Chrysalis period entered the fray on Monday and this track was my choice to feature here.  It was a hit in the USA for Barry Manilow would you believe?  A touching piece describing Hunter's relationship with his dad while the former was touring the world with Mott the Hoople...

Cuff The Duke - Claire (4:06)
from "Rheostatics Tribute - The Secret Sessions"
One of my favourite Rheostatics songs, covered here by a band about which I know nothing.  The compilation was released to commemorate the passing of the band back in March 2007.  A sad day for your correspondent but their music lives on...

Ronnie Foster - Cheshire Cat (8:09)
from "Electric Blue"
Another slice of funky stuff from the Blue Note label, which has been featured on a number of their compilations over the years.  The track was originally released in 1975 on Foster's fourth LP, also called "Cheshire Cat". It's not known if the organist ever visited Cheshire...

Jon Hopkins - Light Through the Veins (9:19)
from "Insides"
Selected on a whim the other night whilst just trawling through what's on the various hard drives, this is a great piece of electronica from Mr Hopkins, occasional collaborator with Brian Eno and successful recording artist in his own right.  I would recommend any of his releases, should you see them asking to be bought...

Thomas Dinger - Ballgeflüster (7:07)
from "Für Mich"
A great Neu! like album from the Brain label in the mid 70s, which already I have on vinyl but downloaded this week. The download seems to be a vinyl rip but the sound is good for all that.  Neu! like of course because Dinger, along with his brother Klaus, was a member of said titanic Krautrock band...

LCD Soundsystem - Watch the Tapes (3:48)
from "Brand Neu!"
And the Neu! connection made me select this piece from a compilation dedicated to the band.  Not a new recording by the LCDs but worthwhile nonetheless...

The Stooges - Ready To Die (3:06)
from "Ready To Die"
And we come full circle with the second of this week's Stooges acquisitions, their 2013 follow up to the 2007 album featured at the top of the podcast.  Great stuff.  I am not ready to die though...

Thanks for listening, if you enjoyed the music, do pop back for more next week...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there.
great music, I can tell you that Cuff the Duke is an indy, alt country band from Oshawa which is 50km east of Toronto. I saw them for the first time when they opened for Nick Cave in 2003 and they were quite good.

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Hi John - thanks for the info on Cuff the Duke - I will need to do some more digging on them.

Glad you like the music selection and hopefully you'll come back again. As you might have guessed, I'm a big Rheos fan!

Cheers

Cloudland Blue Quartet said...

Found them on Spotify and Amazon. Sounding good - I see they're playing the Stompin' Tom night in August with the Bidiniband- cheers for the impetus to look closer John