Category Particular platters
HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO ELECTRIC LADYLAND?
The third and final Jimi Hendrix Experience album, the double Electric Ladyland, was released in October 1968. For me it is the greatest of his studio career. It would also be the last studio release in his lifetime, and see the breakup of the Experience. More: the album marked the departure of bassist Noel Redding […]
ALL THINGS MUST PASS
In Australia we did not get the impressive boxed version of All Things Must Pass. Our version was a three-panel gatefold sleeve with the lyrics printed inside. We did get the poster, though. A dark 3’ x 2’ portrait of a morose, hairy George. But our flimsy fold-out was disappointing. The box had solidity, gravitas. […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 6
DAY SIX / DISC SIX Music For Future Installations I have an LP of compositions for glass harmonica. Mozart wrote several. “Unnoticed Planet”, the first piece on disc six, has clear, ringing notes hanging suspended in space. Plenty of thin air, enough to enjoy the decay of these glass-like notes. Listening to the final disc […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 5
DAY FIVE / DISC FIVE Making Space Holy beatbox Batman! I hear clicky percussion, bass; structure, barlines, time signatures… The opening track of Making Space, “Needle click”, is nothing even remotely like most people’s understanding of ambient music. Ah, but the box isn’t called ‘Ambient’, my precious, it’s called Music for Installations. So this must […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 4
DAY FOUR / DISC FOUR After a brief intermission, we continue with the second half of the series (discs 4—6) on Brian Eno’s Music For Installations. I Dormienti / Kite Stories Delicate shimmerings evoke Eno’s Thursday Afternoon (1985). Does “I Dormienti” mean “I scintillate”? But there are little ‘Ha’ moments; sounds like a processed human voice […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 3
DAY THREE / DISC THREE Lightness – Music For The Marble Palace With this (or any other) evocative title, is Eno elucidating the purpose of the project, defining the setting or evoking a mood? Or perhaps exercising his sense of mischief. Mood and fantasy blur. I’m wandering in an immense deserted palace in a Dying […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 2
DAY TWO / DISC TWO * An ambient alphabet amnesiac background calming deep environmental featureless gentle hypnotic interior jointless keyless limpid minimalist nocturnal open peaceful quiet restful soothing transparent unobtrusive vacant waveless xenial yawn zen 77 Million Paintings small celestial gongs wisps of synths tones that reverberate for so long you forget where they began […]
A WEEK OF ENO INSTALLATIONS — DAY 1
Readers may have noticed a couple 2018 releases in these pages of late. It’s nice to be able to write about current albums, and doing so somehow gives a more contemporary feel than is really justified, but it is not always an easy task. Several times over recent years I have dropped new releases from […]
DUNE, CHAPTER FOUR
This Dune music series is longer than a deep desert worm. That odd opening sentence might cause some to wonder about a book producing such a welter of creative musical responses. How could Dune be described? Dune. The planet Arrakis. No rain but plenty of sand. What, though, is Frank Herbert’s novel about? Power and politics […]
DUNE, CHAPTER THREE
“Another Klaus Encounter” In an article a few months back, Vinyl Connection dipped into the massive Klaus Schulze catalogue for the first time (here). One of the reasons it took so long to write about this key electronic artist was the sheer quantity of high-class albums Herr Schulze has produced since his 1972 debut. Fortunately, […]
DUNE, CHAPTER TWO
It is a rule of cinema that any successful novel will eventually be made into a film, no matter how challenging the translation from page to screen might appear. It is a rule of the known universe that any film adaptation of a beloved book will disappoint bibliophiles. It is a rule of pop that […]
THREE 68 BEES
One of the best albums of the 60s was released in January 1968. It garnished folk-rock, psychedelic, country and pop tunes with flourishes of Eastern tonalities, smatterings of jazz and a knowing awareness of what four chaps from Liverpool were doing over in the UK. We are talking about The Notorious Byrd Brothers, behind whose […]
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