Tír Na HiFi

jadarin wrote:Cybot the guru!!
There’s a nice ring to that..Totally agree with Adrian as well dermot,you are
a wealth of information.

For once I don't know what to say! Would a thank you be ok? Anyway it's not just me who's keeping this thing going.....you goons fairly keep me on my toes ha ha!

Spotted this on vinyl in Tower the other day but didn't buy it.....Have been a fan of Max's work over the years but this certainly threw me! Now excuse me until I read/listen....






Listen here



Max Richter spring-cleans Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
Musician Max Richter has given The Four Seasons an avant-garde update. Then he had to find an orchestra who could play it


Tom Service
The Guardian, Sunday 21 October 2012 19.30 BST
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‘It’s as if an alien has picked it up’…
It starts with a shimmer of something strange and soft, an ambient mist of strings that's both electronic and acoustic. Then something weird happens. Out of these shifting sonic tides comes an ensemble of violins – playing fragments of the world's most overfamiliar concerto, the soundtrack to 1,000 adverts, an on-hold phone favourite that features on every classical compilation ever. Yes, it's Vivaldi's Four Seasons – but not as we know it.


Max Richter
Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
Decca (UMO)
2012
This is Vivaldi Recomposed, by genre-hopping, new-music maestro Max Richter. So the big, clanging question is: why? Why retouch, rework, and reimagine Vivaldi's evergreen pictorial masterpiece? "The Four Seasons is something we all carry around with us," says Richter, a German-born British composer. "It's just everywhere. In a way, we stop being able to hear it. So this project is about reclaiming this music for me personally, by getting inside it and rediscovering it for myself – and taking a new path through a well-known landscape."


This involved "throwing molecules of the original Vivaldi into a test tube with a bunch of other things, and waiting for an explosion". You can hear this chemical reaction particularly well at the opening of Richter's reworked Summer concerto, which has become a weird collision of Arvo Pärt-likemelancholy in the solo violin and a minimalist workout for the rest of the strings. "There are times I depart completely from the original, yes, but there are moments when it pokes through. I was pleased to discover that Vivaldi's music is very modular. It's pattern music, in a way, so there's a connection with the whole post-minimalist aesthetic I'm part of."

Part of the fun of the album is that your ears play tricks with your memory of the original: these familiar melodies do unexpected things, resulting in an experience that's both disturbing yet full of strange delights. And imagine how it felt for Recomposed's solo violinist Daniel Hope: having played the original for decades, he – and more importantly his fingers – faced a surreal task when he first picked his way through Richter's score.

"It was incredibly thought-provoking," he says. "I had to deal with all the curveballs Max throws at you, the way he does things you don't expect." The experience clearly messed with Hope's mind. "What really threw me was the first movement of Autumn. He pulls the rhythm around, starts dropping quavers here and there. You end up with a rickety and slightly one-legged Vivaldi. It's incredibly funny. But even in poking fun at the original, there's always enormous respect."

The slow movement of Winter is another standout moment for Hope. "It's really out of this world," he says. "It's as if an alien has picked it up and pulled it through a time warp. It's really eerie: Max has kept Vivaldi's melody, but it's pulled apart by the ethereal harmonics underneath it."

Can it all work beyond the recording studio? If the work sends listeners back to the original with new ears, that's all part of the point, says Richter. "The original Four Seasons is a phenomenally innovative and creative piece of work. It's so dynamic, so full of amazing images. And it feels very contemporary. It's almost a kind of jump-cut aesthetic – all those extreme leaps between different kinds of material. Hats off to him. That's what I'm really pleased with: my aim was to fall in love with the original again – and I have."

Triple vinyl set...







Pitchfork:

Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie of Stars of the Lid have traveled far in the six years since their debut, 1995's Music for Nitrous Oxide. But. They. Continue. To. Move. Very. Slowly. That promising first record combined crude guitar feedback with some snippets of religious radio programming that the band captured in their home state of Texas. It was all likely laid down on a four-track in some living room arranged around a double-barreled bong. Music for Nitrous Oxide was a noble and affecting work of home recording, showing that the DIY aesthetic could be incorporated into experimental drone music just as easily as guitar-based pop.
But The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid finds these guys fully harnessing the power of the studio, with striking results. Strings and horns are all over this record, and the richer palate gives the drones added weight and depth. In 1989, new music pioneer Pauline Oliveros recorded an amazing album called Deep Listening inside a 2,000,000-gallon steel tank, and the feel of The Tired Sounds is similar. Like the Oliveros record, the listener is meant to focus attention on the subtle build and decay inside these layered drones. Slight breaks in harmony between a violin and a shard of guitar feedback carry serious emotional weight. The half-second decay of a breathless French horn resonates like a perfect chord change. Silence becomes another instrument.
The Tired Sounds is an exceptionally long album-- two CDs or three LPs-- with six multi-part suites over the course of about two hours. If this were the latest collection of 2Pac rarities, we'd be talking serious sonic overkill, but music that evolves this slowly needs plenty of time to stretch out. Hence, nothing about this lengthy album feels at all bloated or extraneous.
The first three-part piece bears the jaunty title "Requiem for Dying Mothers," and the music itself is fitting. Thick cello harmonies weave between guitar drones that have a bright, almost Celtic quality. Changes are paid out slowly over the course of close to seven minutes, until the track opens up in its second part, introducing periods of silence and deep, foreboding bass pedals. Eventually, the band's penchant for field recording rears its head, as the 20-minute "Requiem" transforms into a gothic piece, with spare piano and unnamable radio transmissions.
"Austin Texas Mental Hospital" keeps the party going over the next 20 minutes, as guitar feedback and a larger orchestra modulate between two chords, rocking back and forth slowly like a self-stimming resident of the facility that gives the piece its name. The second part of the track reminds me of the Peter Gabriel soundtrack to Birdy, with hints of mechanical breathing interspersed with throbbing bass tones and a hanging drone in the middle register.
The second disc has a relatively lighter tone, with more space around the instruments, more keyboards, and less guitar feedback. "Mullholland" seems like it could be an audition tape for the forthcoming David Lynch film of a similar name, glowing with menace like a freshly waxed, cherry-red vanity ride. "Piano Aquieu," though, is the real find on this disc-- a minimal piece for treated keyboards, piano and organ, with a yearning melody and a half-hearted promise of redemption.
The strings return in force on "Fac 21," joining in a thick, Youngian drone. The piano-based "Ballad of Distances" recalls Labradford as heard through the ventilation shaft at Alcatraz, and the three-part "A Lovesong (For Cubs)" incorporates horns and cellos for a more conventional, but no less affecting sound.
With each record, Stars of the Lid seem to assess what tools are at their disposal and then set about seeing how they can maximize the result. Their continued explorations into more varied instrumentation and richer sonics are a smashing success. Still, in their crowded field, it's hard to say exactly what makes Stars of the Lid so special. It comes to mind that their relentless commitment to subtlety sets them apart, as does their masterful hand with tone. Throughout The Tired Sounds, dissonance is doled out in small portions, perfectly coloring the sculpted fields of sound.

For once I don't know what to say! Would a thank you be ok?

All you have to say is............... I am the Man of de Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahh.

Currently listening to this EP ....................



Schengen Portal............ Innerise Weyland.. There is always something to listen to. There is not always someone to hear.

Very mellow to quote from Leonard's Lair..

The second release from the new electronic label, Make Mine Music, is another collaborative effort. However, this time it's Bristol collective Schengen who dominate 'EP' having written or co-written all the music on offer. The tracks, recorded live, by Schengen and Portal are a delight. The first, 'Cap itol' evokes comparisons with the alien worlds of Boards Of Canada whilst 'B'Leaf' is steeped in Scott Sinfield's 4AD-style guitar playing and Schengen's Harold Budd-mimicing piano minimalism. Though these efforts are unquestionably the main attraction of the CD, two remixes are offered for a Schengen original named 'Seti'; Weyland's 'On Safari' mix borrows disturbing effects from This Mortal Coil and Innerise opt for the understated, downbeat side. Finally, Schengen go solo with the oceanic, well-titled 'Grace'. Long may Make Mine continue producing music of this calibre.

Source http://www.leonardslair.co.uk/schengen.htm

Adrian wrote:

For once I don't know what to say! Would a thank you be ok?

All you have to say is............... I am the Man of de Man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahahahahahh.

:-))))))

Adrian wrote:
Currently listening to this EP ....................



Schengen Portal............ Innerise Weyland.. There is always something to listen to. There is not always someone to hear.

Very mellow to quote from Leonard's Lair..

The second release from the new electronic label, Make Mine Music, is another collaborative effort. However, this time it's Bristol collective Schengen who dominate 'EP' having written or co-written all the music on offer. The tracks, recorded live, by Schengen and Portal are a delight. The first, 'Cap itol' evokes comparisons with the alien worlds of Boards Of Canada whilst 'B'Leaf' is steeped in Scott Sinfield's 4AD-style guitar playing and Schengen's Harold Budd-mimicing piano minimalism. Though these efforts are unquestionably the main attraction of the CD, two remixes are offered for a Schengen original named 'Seti'; Weyland's 'On Safari' mix borrows disturbing effects from This Mortal Coil and Innerise opt for the understated, downbeat side. Finally, Schengen go solo with the oceanic, well-titled 'Grace'. Long may Make Mine continue producing music of this calibre.

Source http://www.leonardslair.co.uk/schengen.htm

Make Mine Music? Haven't heard of them! Love the quote though :) Time to catch up......

Previously played on the CDP at the moment...........

Atone............ Cet Apres midi la........



A bit quirkey...................not really on my "I must play that one again" list.

Now currently playing....................... Blindfold...........



Much much better............... Icelandic smooth melody.... recommended.

Blindfold have made a gorgeously textured album whose aural Putsch is impossible to resist. Lovely.

Source Boomkat.com

On Now............... Yellow6..... Sounds and Moving Pictures..



Enjoyable...

Paul Corley.......... Disquiet..

Ambient with piano...