You Tube Videos

[james]

I am reading "Reinventing Bach"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reinvent ... &sr=8-1

and it recommends this video ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_CDLBTJD4M [/youtube]

[The book is basically the author discussing how performances / recordings of Bach have changed and how he relates to them. He discusses Schweitzer / Stokowski / Gould / Casals / Ma as Bach players and his reaction to them. Also bits of Bach's like. Bits about the changes in recording technology (from 78rpm to the IPod). Enjoying it .. but at as I reach the end I feel its not as good as it seemed at first].

[cybot]

https://youtu.be/s94GcyEL2K4

This and the Ben Folds covid19 broadcasts have kept me and my other half(in the UK unfortunately) sane over the last few months....enjoy

Ah nice one Shane. Love the way he snuffs out the candles 🎂 ⚾️ 🎂

[mcq]

The quite remarkable Gwenifer Raymond in concert in Copenhagen in December 2018. Short set, minimal audience interaction but profoundly rewarding music-making. Personally, I find her playing absolutely mesmerising. There is a cumulative power to her music, compelling and urgent. There is a sense of fatalism embedded in her music which powerfully evokes the spirit of early blues music. If her primary inspiration, John Fahey, is looking down from on high, he must be very proud.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c8_WuI72_1U

[mcq]

I am eagerly awaiting the new Thumbscrew album from Mary Halvorson, due for release at the end of this month. It’s a very personal project to mark the 75th birthday of her mentor, Anthony Braxton, who radically changed the course of her life when she happened - out of curiosity- to sit in on a course he was teaching whilst she was at college studying biology. Within her first semester, she had dropped all of her science courses and transitioned to music. It was Braxton’s urging of Halvorson to take risks and be unafraid of mistakes, to be fearless in searching for and developing her own individual voice, that convinced her to devote herself full-time to her music. This dedication to her art has resulted in an extraordinary work ethic with over 100 recordings in her discography amassed since 2003 and a fearless reputation amongst her contemporaries in New York.

The new album proves to be very special. I’ve been listening to this preview track on repeat for the past few days. There is so much head-spinning invention and creativity crammed into these three minutes. So much here to untether the mind from orthodoxy and senseless virtuosity. Such a beautiful demonstration of the liberating force of music and perhaps reminiscent of the rare forces which untethered the young Halvorson’s mind in Braxton’s classes all those years ago. Such a wonderful and well-deserved birthday present for the great man, he must be very proud of his student.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ORPbrJQSPE

[tony]

Saw this show live in the RDS back in the early eighties. I don't care about the slagging it was bloody brillant. Great show really tight performance from a great band.

[tony]

Came across this recently don't know how. It took me a while to figure out it was Grafton street. The guys voice is really good.
15.5m views?? Is that possible in such a short space of time?

[Fran]

I've posted these lads before - they're a loose collective that trade now and again as the other favourites. Anyway the principals are Joshua Lee Turner, Reina del Cid, Toni Lindgren and Carson McKee. I think they are terrific. They record and post pretty often, and now and again are joined by other performers.

[Fran]

[mcq]

Bent Knee are a great band that I first started listening to a few years back and I keep checking in on them on a regular basis. There are a lot of different influences here from trad rock/thrash metal reaching out to the extended time signatures of prog rock and jazz rock. There is some of the whimsy of prog rock here as well. There are echoes of what Faith No More used to do in the early Nineties (and Courtney Swain has, like Mike Patton, an impressively wide vocal range) but I think Bent Knee go considerably further. The violin, guitar and keyboards are used more for textural purposes and their music is primarily directed by their rhythm section. There are some fantastic live performances available online. Here are some of my favourites.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KFwtaweXX8s

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws0gHgDd_10

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LGNZePMJ8XM

[mcq]

Wonderful footage of Gwenifer Raymond play her version of Oh Command Me, Lord on banjo at a concert last year. There is a breathless abandon about this performance, fearless in its intensity, which goes way beyond technical virtuosity.

The title of the tune suggests a desperate plea for salvation from a soul in anguish in her hour of direst need and that sense of emotional anguish is just what I hear in this performance, especially in the breakdown towards the end where the scrabbling for the notes appear to suggest a frantic scramble for one’s own sanity.

What a remarkable talent she is.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbhLX7B0ctw