Saturday, June 07, 2014

Weekly Playlist No 23

Welcome to the Cloudland Blue Weekly Playlist No 23...





This week, we break the 600 track barrier for the year so far...

Today, we've got a further 25 things of wonder, including ten pieces from various new acquisitions.  As ever, it's a varied selection across the usual two hour programme...

The track list features music from Cuff The Duke, Dido, Family, Freemasons, Hawkwind, Kansas, Lene Lovich, Maceo & All The King's Men, Kat McKenzie, The Move, OK Go, The Osmonds, Gunner Moller Pedersen, Les Rythmes Digitales, Ulrich Schnauss, Shivaree, UK, Kimberley Walsh and, of course, some Cloudland Blue Quartet; along with classical pieces by Schenck, Dittersdorf, Tippett, Nancarrow, Hacquart and Reimann...

No chat, just the music - hope you enjoy it - here's what's on offer this week...

The Move - Turkish Tram Conductor Blues 4:49
from "Looking On"
A great rocker to open proceedings, from Roy Wood and The Move.  Despite being a huge fan of Wood, I'd never heard this until a few years ago when I started acquiring the Move's back catalogue, having previously mainly concentrated on the prolific singles output of Messrs Wood and Lynne...

Lene Lovich - Lucky Number 2:45
from "A Hard Nights Day – A History Of Stiff Records"
Memories of 1979/80 were brought back this week by a 2CD 45 track set of singles released on the Stiff label.  The long list for today's podcast contained around six tracks but I narrowed it down to this from Lene Lovich, good friends with Nina Hagen back in the day...

Kansas - Curtain Of Iron 6:09
from "Audio-Visions"
Utterly unfashionable is the band Kansas but, over the last year or so, I've been gradually collecting their discography.  This comes from an album released after their 70's hey day but it's still a template for much of the most popular current US prog.  Give it a chance...

Schenck - Sonata No. 7 in Bm: 1. Adagio 1:23
from "Johannes Schenck - Nymphs of the Rhine, Vol 2"
The first of five tracks from the six classical acquisitions this week.  I am a sucker for the sound of the viol and the Dutch composer Schenck was a master of the instrument...

Ulrich Schnauss - In All the Wrong Places 6:38
from "The Big Chill"
A great early track from Ulrich Schnauss, which I stumbled across on this old compilation, as I transferred various "various artist" collections on to the hard drive this week...

Les Rythmes Digitales - Soft Machine 3:38
from "The Digital Blueprint Of Abstract Dance"
...which is also how I came across this little gem from the Frenchmen who are not Daft Punk, not Air, not indeed French and not men...

Freemasons Feat. Bailey Tzuke - Uninvited 3:02
from "101 Running Songs"
...and third in a row from compilations, this track popped up on shuffleplay in the middle of the week and I found it so uplifting, it was always a front runner to be included here...

Dittersdorf - Divertimento I. Allegro 3:21
from "Divertimenti Of The Viennese Classical Period"
Another classical purchase this week was this delightful disc by the Vienna String Trio, of works by composers who reigned in Vienna during it's heyday in the 18th Century.  Dittersdorf was a much loved contemporary of Haydn and Mozart...

Dido - Go Dreaming 4:24
from "Girl Who Got Away"
Three in a row now of tracks which popped up and impressed during the week.  The first is the nonchalant Dido with her matter of fact delivery over some great electronic sounds - from her latest comparative flop (when compared to her first two albums) which I like none the less...

Kimberley Walsh - You First Loved Me 3:13
from "Centre Stage"
You can pick this album up for less than a pound now and, to be honest, unless you like show tunes, there's not much of any interest on here.  But, when this "no bad" tune came into my headphones this week it was short-listed and has made it through...

Shivaree - The Fat Lady Of Limbourg 4:13
from "Who's Got Trouble?"
This is an old favourite I'd not heard for ages.  As soon as it started I remembered what a great cover this is.  A song from Brian Eno's second album, "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)"...

Tippett - Concerto For Double String Orchestra (1938-39) Allegro Con Brio 6:00
from "Tippett: Ritual Dances"
Michael Tippett is now one of my favourite British composers but, to be honest, it's only recently that I've come to appreciate his work.  This piece was written to be played by two separate string orchestras in tandem and features much of the tunelessness which attracts me to 20th Century classical music...

Maceo and All The King's Men - Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself 6:15
from "Mastercuts Funk"
I think I bought this 3CD set of funk the week before last and am still dipping into it.   My favourite version of this Sly Stone song is actually by Magazine but I hope you'll agree this is pretty good too...

Pedersen - A Sound Year : May (Edit) 8:16
from "Gunner Moller Pedersen: A Sound Year"
Some extremely difficult listening now from Danish composer Gunner Moller Pedersen which you might find hard going.  It's an extract from one of twelve electronic pieces from his sprawling six hour, 12 part work from the eighties, "A Sound Year".  When it came on by chance this week, I reckoned at first it might be Tangerine Dream.  Believe it or not, I actually listened to the entire piece.  Good music for walking in the rain...

UK - Nevermore 8:16
from "Reunion - Live in Tokyo"
From John Wetton and Eddie Jobson's revival of their late 70's prog supergroup UK - originally with Allan Holdsworth and Bill Bruford but here with Alex Machacek on guitar and Marco Minneman on drums - playing a track which was on the band's 1978 debut but which was deemed "too difficult" to play when the original band toured...

Nancarrow - Three Canons for Ursula: Canon 5/7 5:29
from "50 Best American Classics"
Played by Thomas Ades, this solo piano piece comes from a 3CD set which arrived in the post this week. Amongst these 50 examples of American "classical" music, there are some absolute gems (like this) and some absolutely dreadful shite.  On balance though, the gems outshine the shite (luckily)...

Hawkwind - Brainstorm 6:14
from "Hawkwind: At The BBC – 1972"
Sometimes a track comes up on shuffleplay which leads me to go and listen to the whole album and that was the case with this Hawkwind album this week.  The performance was recorded for BBC's "In Concert" series a couple of months before the release of "Doremi Fasol Latido" and just after the huge (unexpected) success of their top 5 single "Silver Machine"...

The Osmonds - Are You Up There? 4:44
from "The Plan"
And from Hawkwind to... The Osmonds??  Yep, this is a track I secretly liked whilst slagging the Mormon brothers off to my sister Pam at every opportunity.  I think it may have been the B side of "Going Home", the follow up to "Crazy Horses".  It comes from their "concept" album, "The Plan" which is, in fact, despite everything, well worth a listen...

Kat McKenzie - The Middle 4:58
from "Shine On"
A track from New Zealand's Kat McKenzie, now based here in Edinburgh.  It was recorded around a year ago and features Mr CBQ on guitar and bass and Capital Models' Keith Apter on drums.  And Kat on piano and vocals of course.  A lovely song, written for the wedding of two of Kat's chums...

Hacquart - Domine, quae est fiducia tue 6:04
from "Music From The Golden Age Of Rembrandt"
Mr Hacquart was born in Bruges but achieved fame in Amsterdam.  This comes from a 3CD set of Dutch music from the time of Rembrandt.  The painter had little contact with musicians apparently so it's rather a tenuous concept but it does offer up some superb slices of 17th Century culture.  Not much of Hacquart's music survives and, apparently, that which does, is kept in the library at Durham Cathedral...

OK Go - Skyscrapers 2:45
from "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky (Alt Version)"
One of three versions of this song from OK Go's third album from 2010.  This is one of the two alternative takes on the alternative version of the LP which was released as a double pack with initial pressings of the LP.  As soon as this started I just knew it was OK Go.  Great stuff - despite the particularly abrupt ending designed to catch out DJs...

Family - Between Blue & Me 5:02
from "In Their Own Time"
Again if, like the Kansas track earlier, you give it a chance, this is great.  I've always loved Roger Chapman's voice but I think it may well be a love it or loathe it scenario.  It's the opening track from their 1971 album "Fearless" and made it into the setlist for their 2013 reunion at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London...

Cuff The Duke - Open Your Mind 6:39
from "Union"
Some correspondence from a Canadian listener in the week, led me to delve more deeply into the music of this band, after featuring their cover of Rheostatic's "Claire" last week and saying I knew nothing about them. Then, low and behold, I found their latest album at a very reasonable price in a local record shop and immediately partook. I believe this may very well be the best track on the album.  Nice...

Reimann - Erste Sonate I. Allegro Con Spirito 4:04
from "Reimann: Piano Works (Complete)"
Looking along the living room shelf of the last 100 or so entries into the collection, I came across this excellent disc of 20th Century piano music by the Berliner, Aribert Reimann.  I chose the first movement form his 1958 sonata to demonstrate just how good this is...

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Actor Leaves the Stage 6:47
from "Starlightnight"
And so we come to the end once again and, at present, the final song in the Cloudland Blue Quartet canon, from the last song based album "Starlightnight", released back in 2012.  I've recently done some work on a couple of new chord sequences, so there may be life in the old dog yet but, if not, this would be as fitting a way as any to end my songwriting "career"...

...and that's it. Thanks for listening, if you enjoyed the music, do pop back for more next week...

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