CD-Charts Position 61
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Serenity

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Bobo Stenson

Release Date June 26, 2000
How did you come to be checking out Bobo Stenson? Assuming that you didn't stumble onto this page while looking for Bobo the clown, the fact that you're here means that you're one of those out-of-the-ordinary musical explorers rather than one of the mainstream many who stick to the safe highways of easy-on-the-ear music. And I bet you're one of those inquisitive types who actually reads the liner notes and takes note of who plays what on which tracks.

So you're probably the sort of person who has the discrimination to recognize outstanding musicians, and the patience to listen to what they're doing. "Serenity" will reward you richly.

I first came across the great Bobo on Charles Lloyd's excellent "Fish out of water", ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 62
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La Scala

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Keith Jarrett

Release Date June 16, 1997
Each of Keith Jarrett's performances demands respect but, for me, this is the solo concert which surpasses the rest. Part 1 is a jaw-dropping piece of improvisation which culminates in one of the most moving, stirring and transcendant sequences you are likely to hear; the long, intricate journey resolves into a sublime resolution of the musical ideas. This intensity is sustained in the second track where the ideas and sheer pianism can knock you back, before lifting and transporting you to an intense plane before...well, you need to listen to it. As you might gather, I rather like this cd.

CD-Charts Position 63
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Lanquidity

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Sun Ra

Release Date October 09, 2000
It's sulphuric rivers on far away planets, shooting stars darting across the stratosphere, our minds bent to see and hear other things.
Ra's Languidy conjures up so many images, so many foreign emotions as it slowly tip-toes along, creeping under your skin.
"Where pathways meet," is where things come alive, a jumping tumult, all behind that croaking beat laid down by the sax. There's chance far all types of fun and games, plenty of sneaky witchcraft on the guitar.
"That's how I feel," is a so wonderfully lonesome, its baseline insipid, enternal. The whole record fit together nicely with the vocal on the languorious,"There are no other worlds."
A relative newcomer to Sun Ra's music I chose this as a starting point having ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 64
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The Way the Wind Blows

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: A Hawk & A Hacksaw

Release Date October 09, 2006
Apparently being part of Beirut has had quite an influence on A Hawk and a Hacksaw. In third album "The Way the Wind Blows," this quirky Balkan-electro-psychfolk band gets even more into their sound... and by that, I mean less electro and psychfolk. Not typical Elephant 6 fare, but good.

It opens with "In the River," a swooning ballad crammed with accordion and horns... which changes tempo into an entirely different kind of song. It's followed by the title track, a bittersweet fiddle tune that wanders through the slow accordion tune. It sounds like a gypsy fiddler who got left behind, and is lamenting about it via music.

They continue that sound through the next song, only to burst into a raucous little dance number in the bouncy "Fernando's ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 65
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The Big Gundown: John Zorn Plays the Music of Ennio Morricone

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: John Zorn

Release Date August 21, 2000
Ennio Morricone pioneered a type of soundtrack composition in which diegetic noises (such as the harmonica in "Once Upon A Time in The West", or, less musically, whips and gunshots) became a key textural element in the score. Most soundtrack albums attempt to remove these noises and leave as clean a piece of music as possible, but Zorn's tribute to Morricone goes to an opposite extreme: there is no aspect of noise that is alien to this album, and as such it is a surprisingly "faithful" hommage. The opening track is in practice an entire Spaghetti Western compressed into seven minutes, featuring a series of events and cues that the listener is encouraged to reconstitute for him- or herself. "Peur Sur La Ville" is a taut thriller, with the appropriate sound effects layered ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 66
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Record of Singing, Vol.3

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
from: Testament

Release Date February 09, 2003
This series, produced by EMI in the days of LPs, is one of the great achievements of the gramophone - they rightfully belong up there with the Decca Ring, the EMI Callas series, and any other candidates you care to name. Together they provide a truly comprehensive survey of singing right through the age of recording up to the early days of the LP. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, only Volumes 3 & 4 have appeared on CD - the very earliest era of recording and the period up to the introduction of electrical recording methods that were originally on Volumes 1 and 2 really deserve to be heard again.

Volume 3, the collection under discussion here, covers the period from 1926-1939. This was a veritable Golden Age of Singing - in Wagner it was the era of Leider, ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 67
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Visible World

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, Manu Katche, Trilok Gurtu, Mari Boine

Release Date April 22, 1996
Much of this is in fact derived from work done for soundtracks. This is clearly stated, including the title of the CD, which is split as Chiaro and Scuro with soundtracks from other visual works. The final track of 12 minutes with voice is also a soundtrack. On first listening, of course this is not comparable in structure to other work listed as comparable such as Twelve Moons or In Praise of Dreams, both significantly superiour, but as background music it is ambient and usually unobtrusive except for occasional blasts in Survivor, so severe in dynamic surge as to suggest a fault in post-production. Innocuous, pleasant, anodyne, late evening background music to conversation, perusal of photographs, autumnal journeys.

CD-Charts Position 68
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I Took Up the Runes

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, Manu Katche, Bugge Wesseltoft

Release Date November 05, 1990
This was the first Garbarek 'solo' album I bought (having heard him with Keith Jarrett before), and it remains my favourite. Eberhard Weber's innovative bass (unusual sounds created by using the bow close to the bridge) adds much to the atmosphere of this album. Bruninghaus's piano does too, but recessed into the background - never forward but always part of the web of the sound. Manu Katche (played with Peter Gabriel on the PoV tour) accurate and sparkling on drums. A couple of tracks are based on the traditional Lapp singing (Joik) of Ailu Gaup 'His Eyes Were Suns' demonstrates Garbarek's brilliance at counterpoising different sounds and instruments, where the pauses and silences are so important to the delicate construction of the music. As other have mentioned, the 5 Part 'Molde Canticle' ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 69
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The Complete Machine Gun Sessions

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Peter Brotzmann

Release Date August 27, 2007
This was the first Garbarek 'solo' album I bought (having heard him with Keith Jarrett before), and it remains my favourite. Eberhard Weber's innovative bass (unusual sounds created by using the bow close to the bridge) adds much to the atmosphere of this album. Bruninghaus's piano does too, but recessed into the background - never forward but always part of the web of the sound. Manu Katche (played with Peter Gabriel on the PoV tour) accurate and sparkling on drums. A couple of tracks are based on the traditional Lapp singing (Joik) of Ailu Gaup 'His Eyes Were Suns' demonstrates Garbarek's brilliance at counterpoising different sounds and instruments, where the pauses and silences are so important to the delicate construction of the music. As other have mentioned, the 5 Part 'Molde Canticle' ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 70
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Empyrean Isles: Remastered

CD-Charts > Music > Avant-garde
by: Herbie Hancock

Release Date May 03, 1999
Empyrean Isles by Herbie Hancock could be viewed as a warm up for Maiden Voyage, universally accepted as one of the greatest jazz albums ever produced. On Empyrean Isles, the celebrated Hancock/Carter/Williams rhythm section (working in Miles Davis's band at the time) combine with the artistry of trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, (the whole group, together with saxophonist George Coleman, recorded Maiden Voyage) who provides an interesting contrast to Davis, with his more aggresive, Coltrane-influenced take on Hard Bop trumpet playing. The aggressive opener 'One Finger Snap' is pure floating groove as generally associated with the rhythm section, while Oliquoi Valley takes a more relaxed but still powerful bent as Freddie Hubbard and Herbie Hancock show their affinity for one another's playing style. The third ... Read More: