Records.
They have sounds on them.
We have them.
You should too.
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Two audio professors and musical wizards venture forth deeper into the outer realms of more unexplored musical dimensions bringing you the most astonishing aural treasures for your pleasure - straight from the Prog Cellar.
3/18/2013
Tenhi - Maaäet
Artist: Tenhi
Album: Maaäet
Year: 2006
Line-Up: Ilmari
Issakainen
- Drums, piano, guitar, bass, percussions, backing vocals
Tyko
Saarikko
- Vocals, piano, harmonium, synth, guitar, percussions
Ilkka
Salminen
- Vocals, guitar, bass, harmonium, percussions
Inka
Eerola
- Violin
Jaakko
Hilppö
- Backing vocals
Janina
Lehto
- Flute
Tuukka
Tolvanen
- Backing vocals
Label: Prophecy
Productions
Tenhi’s
music is Finnish melancholy in its' finest. The dark, soft ambience
that these musicians create is minimal and small, but at the same
time kind of huge and even epic. Tenhi takes great inspiration from
nature, especially from Finnish nature. They claim it to be an
endless source of amazement and beauty. Maaäet is their third studio
album and they describe its theme as follows:
“We
compare our album Maaäet to an autumnal forest. It was its feel that
we aimed for when we were creating the music. Life slowly fleeing
from everywhere, fatalism, acceptance, gentle fall to sleep, turning
towards an end of a cycle, giving energy back to earth — giving it
to be a seed of new life.”
The
album contains 12 tracks, almost all including vocals sung in
Finnish. I usually tend to understate the beauty of the Finnish
language, and even consider it occasionally pretty ugly, but I have
to admit that Tenhi makes my mother tongue sound enchantingly
beautiful and it suits this kind of music perfectly. Their use of the
violin together with piano is brilliant and smooth while guitar,
drums and bass are actually used rather rock-oriented. Only a few
graceful melodies and some minimal fingerpicking with the guitar can
create lovely emotions and soundscapes. Some tracks even include
heavy riffs, but mainly the music is pretty folky with a progressive
touch.
Tenhi
is an old Finnish word meaning a village elder, wise old man, or
seer. For Tenhi, visual arts are almost just as important as the
music. The band creates the album covers by themselves. The dark
artwork dominating in the sleeve of the CD works as a window from
where the themes are captured, as it has guided the band in composing
the music for this beautifully floating piece. Maaäet is a very
interesting album, and if you want to explore the Nordic melancholy
Tenhi is a good place to start. Varpuspäivä (Sparrow Day) is the
opener of the album, enjoy:
Written
by: Oz
3/11/2013
Jorge Cardoso - Origenes
Artist: Jorge Cardoso
Album: Origenes
Year: 1998
Line-up: Jorge Cardoso – Vihuela,
modern classical guitar, baroque guitar,
classical-romantic
guitar
Label: Guitar Masters
Continuing to cover albums of artists
which I have had the pleasure of seeing perform live, today I am
going further back to the year 2009. I was attending a world music
festival where I saw the Argentine guitarist/composer/musicologist
give a solo recital concert on the classical guitar. Cardoso has done
an impressive life work on studying the deep roots and secrets of
Latin and Spanish classical guitar music. The recital performed in
the festival was based on his album Origenes
which tries to build a musical and historical bridge between Spain
and South America originating from several hundred years ago to the
present. I was so enthralled by the concert that I absolutely had to
purchase a copy of the Origenes album
afterwards.
The
album contains 15 compositions the oldest dating from the 16th
century and the newest being the compositions of Jorge Cardoso. Some
of the composers featured on here are Luis de Narváez (Spain,
1526-49), Francois Le Cocq (Belgium, 1685-1729), Ferdinando Carulli
(Italy 1770-1841), Matteo Carcassi (Italy, 1792-1853), Napoléon
Coste (France, 1805-1883), María Luisa Anido (Argentina, 1907-1996),
Eduardo Falú (Argentina, 1923) and the master himself, Jorge Cardoso
(1949, Argentina). In addition, the album contains also works of less
known composers from Latin America. In the concert Cardoso performed
only on one modern classical guitar, a type of guitar which was
established in the 19th
century Spain. However, on the album the maestro strives for
authenticity by performing each piece with respected instrument of
the given time period. Thus, we are being treated with the sounds of
vihuela (a guitar-shaped instrument from 15th
and 16th
century Spain, Italy and Portugal), baroque guitar (a string
instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets)
and romantic guitar which is the immediate precursor of the modern
classical guitar.
The
actual music on the album is a pleasant and lovely collection of solo
guitar and vihuela works which explore, in the most interesting
manner, the origins and the evolution of this fine instrument and the
similarities and differences between the European and the South
American tradition. The playing and the performances of Jorge Cardoso
are absolutely brilliant. The virtuosity and the control which he has
over the guitar is astounding, resulting in delightful performances
which are not are not only technically flawless but also full of
purity, clarity, dynamics and, above all, emotion. In addition to
being a virtuoso on his instrument, Cardoso also proves himself to be
a quite talented composer who writes very subtle and delicate pieces
never putting his technical proficiency ahead of the actual music.
Along with the compositions of Cardoso, one of the definite
highlights of the albums has to be the 14-minute long tour
de force Folías de España,
which is one of the oldest remembered European musical themes.
It goes without a
saying that this record is a must for all fans of the classical
guitar for having such lovely and rare repertoire and featuring also
various precursors of the modern classical guitar. The album is also
quite relaxing and smoothing and serves well as music to have playing
while reading, having a cup of coffee or tea or before going to bed.
Yet again, the more careful listens bring forth the rich details of
the featured compositions and Cardoso's playing.
Please enjoy a composition of Jorge
Cardoso, a beautiful milonga:
Written
by Παναγιωτιης
3/04/2013
ECM
ECM Records (Edition of Contemporary
Music) is a German record label founded in 1969, in Munich, Germany,
by a record producer and double-bass player Manfred Eicher.
Musically, the origins of the label lay in jazz music, and especially
in modern jazz, but nowadays ECM has broadened its' catalogue to
western art music and various world music traditions. However, many
ECM artists and Mister Eicher himself have been reluctant to
categorize their music and move fluently across the borders and
boundaries of traditional genres. To date, ECM has released over 1200
albums covering a wide variety of different musical idioms.
The first release of ECM was Free at
Last by American pianist Mal
Waldron, and at first the label was known for releasing records by
great modern American jazz masters such as Keith Jarrett, Chick
Corea, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, John Abercrombie and Ralph Towner.
Nonetheless, from very early on the label served also as a medium for
putting many gifted jazz musicians from all over Europe on the map
and bringing various musicians, often with very different
backgrounds, together in new and exciting combinations and ensembles.
In 1984 ECM New Series saw its' daylight originally launched to
introduce the composition Tabula Rasa by
Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Since then, the series has become an
essential part of the label as a platform for documenting the works
of western art music ranging from early music to modern compositions.
Eventough lacking its' own series, world music has also become an
important ”genre” of the ECM catalogue. In the label's true
fashion, their catalogue also include a great deal of releases where
the idioms of jazz, classical music and different world music
traditions are mixed seamlessly.
ECM
has also a very special relation to the art of cinema. Founder
Manfred Eicher is himself a passionate aficionado of cinema, and thus
his label has been active in various film projects. For example, ECM
has released the soundtracks of the films of such directors as Theo
Angelopoulos, Jean-Luc Godard and Andrey Zvyagintsev. The
collaborations with Godard have expanded to the usage of various
still photos of numerous Godard's movies as album covers and to
Eicher's involvement on Godard's films as a musical director.
Additionally, a number of prolific European actors have released
spoken word-albums for the label and some projects and albums are
dedicated to iconic people in motion picture history. ECM has also
released a couple of concert performances of its' artists, a
collection of short films by Godard as well as a quality documentary
named Sounds and Silence which
captures the daily routine and work of Manfred Eicher with various
musicians.
The
founder and producer of ECM Manfred Eicher continues to the date to
take active interest in the music which is released by the label by
picking new artists usually based on his own very wide musical taste
and he is also close friends with many of the artists. Yet, the
integrity and the musicians' control over their art and creations has
always been an important policy of the philosophy of the label.
Eicher acts as the producer on the majority of the releases being
almost always present in the recording sessions which usually last
only three days: two for recording and one for mixing. The ECM's
motto, taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases by Canadian jazz
magazine called CODA, is the Most Beautiful Sound Next to Silence.
This motto sums up very well the very prolific, iconic and
recognisable sound which the ECM albums are known for. Despite the
difficulty of verbal expression of sound, one could use such words as
”ascetic”, ”pure”, ”clear”, ”meditative”, ”ethreal”,
”dreamy”, ”peaceful” and ”reflective” while trying to
capture the general atmosphere of a typical soundscape of an ECM
record. The importance of texture and atmosphere are usually the key
elements of the sound engineering on an ECM album. Part of it is
based on producer Eicher's tendency to approach the sound engineering
with the aesthetics normally associated with classical music
production which aims for clarity and detail.
Altough
ECM is without a doubt a familiar name to many music connoisseurs,
such a fine and quality record label can never get too much
attention. For the end, I have picked a number of less known samples
of the vast catalogue of ECM.
A
piece from the soundtrack of the the film The Return:
A
collaboration between Norwegian saxophone player Jan Garbarek and
musicians from Pakistan:
Modern
jazz by the masters, Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell and Dave
Holland:
Modern
classical music by Slovakian composer Vladimir Godar:
New
age-ish music by interesting world music artist Stephan Micus:
Nu-jazz
by Nil Petter Molvaer:
Modern
art music in memory of the great film director Andrei Tarkovsky:
Written
by Παναγιωτιης
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