PETER WRIGHT
Peter Wright: At Last a New Dawn

XENIS // TAIGA // PHASEN // RED SPAROWES
Xenis Emputae Travelling Band: A Selenographic Lens
Taiga Remains: Beehive Sutra
Phasen: Yesterday Was Tomorrow
Red Sparowes: Aphorisms

YELLOW6 // VODKA SOAP
Yellow6: Sthlm
I learned about Yellow6 originally from a 3way split album that included Rothko, and unfortunately, I haven't been able to separate their styles from each other. Thus, I'd characterize this as also whirring reverb and melancholic delay, mostly relaxing, slow, mostly electric, pseudo-chamber, definitely slow wordless post-rock. I've been seeking out more post-rock lately, if you haven't noticed.
Vodka Soap: Shee-Ro Gatewy Temples
Oh, the ineffability! Find this, if you think you're hip. If you are on a spiritual quest, if you are a psychedelic warrior, a perambulant wonderer, a salivating postmodern, a fancy genre-fucker, a cigarette-smoking musicologist... or just, you -- yeah you! find something by Vodka Soap, drink some wine, and just fucking DEAL WITH IT. The people passing by my bedroom at the co-op I've been residing at, no doubt, hated the stretched out slow drone that leaked out of my tiny study cavern. But I bet if you got them to sit and endure it, they'd love it. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just a complete weirdo, who has fucked his ears up from listening to Sonic Youth's "the diamond sea" over and over again as a teenager, when everyone else was listening to butt-rock and Weezer. But there is something definitively holy here, and, hey, I don't believe in metaphysical things.

ROTHKO // STEVE GUNN
Rothko: Eleven Shades of Intervention
I forgot about this group for a long time. This is amazing stuff. Somber bass-driven sparse reverb delay and shimmer. Whirring, sighing, undulating, trembling. It was perfect for the three-hour walk I took along the ocean while in Pacific Grove for a microbiology conference. Oh, I yearn for more music like this. And I learned how incredible music can be if you listen to it in the proper setting.
Steve Gunn: Rif
It's been a while since I listened to any GHQ or Steve Gunn. I like this a lot. It's no different from the rest, but it's good sometimes-acoustic fingerpicked guitar psychedelia, some guest humming and moaning, and plenty of Eastern angles for the lovers of mystery.

SARASATE // MACHINEFABRIEK
Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
I went to see the Japanese film, Zigeunerweisen, at the Pacific Film Archive. This musical piece was a central theme and even plot item of the film. Great film, but moreover, great piece of music. I ended up downloading every version I could get my hands on. One version actually played an arrangement that included gypsy instrumentation, and that one (James Last, not the techno version though) is highly recommended. So are the ones with less orchestra, such as Simon Hewitt Jones, Sandor Lakatos, Arthur Grumiaux. Please, if you have any recommendations of music like this, let me know; it's really fabulous.
Machinefabriek: Marijn
This group collaborated with Jasper TX on one of the albums from last week, so I decided to check them out. I know nothing about them. But I like it. Whirring somber post-drone post-rock. (Gosh, why do I let myself drop such apellations?!!!)

JASPER TX // SKATERS
Jasper TX: Vintermusik (with Machinefabriek)
I don't recall how I came across this musician, but I did and downloaded some albums and found it to be right up my alley. Ambient hum drone with a bit of dissonance, postrock chamberishness, and postmodern electricalismo. The only problem is the occasional clack or static that is a stain upon the beauty. Oh postmodernists and their blasphemous irony!
Jasper TX: Pilgrims
See above comment. The pieces were indistinguishable for me. I should stop listening to multiple albums from the same artist within the same week, so that I can actually form an opinion about the actual work.
Skaters: Physicalities of the Sensibilities of Ingrediential Stairways
Yes! More! Sometimes I'm not in the mood for the Skaters, because, well... it's pretty darn annoying and noisy. But once you let about 30 seconds go by it sucks you in. I miss having them in the Bay Area, because now I don't get to hear them live anymore.

WEEK OF 081117: DEATH CHANTS // ELUVIUM // LIGETI // SCRIABIN
Death Chants: I Have Seen A Thousand Swim Through Skies
A new short release by this neat space folk outfit, a member of which I once corresponded with. I really like them, and wish that they would release music more often.
Eluvium: Time Travel of the Sloth
I think this came from a split album with someone else. I am in love with this music. Sometimes he makes ambient space drone, sometimes he makes gorgeous reverb piano pieces. Sometimes he even does both. I have never been disappointed by his work and I am sadly nearing the end of his catalog.
Ligeti: Continuum, Nouvelles Aventures
In response to my wonderful experience hearing "SF Polyphony" at the UC Symphony last week, I tried to find more work by Ligeti that I might like. I found these pieces, thinking I might like them, but they seemed to be too conceptual and not "holy" enough. I listened to both the organ and the harpsichord version of continuum, and the latter piece was a bunch of voice that coalesced into a din. yuck.
Scriabin: Poeme De L'extase
I had to revisit this piece after the glory of hearing it performed live last week.

WEEK OF 081110: LIGETI // SHOSTAKOVICH // STRAVINSKY
Ligeti: SF Polyphony
(I picked these pieces in preparation to hear them at the UC Symphony on the Saturday at the end of the week.) Wow..... I had once seen Ligeti's "atmospheres" performed at the UC Symphony, and was floored... This was just the same. This music is really no different from the electric drone that I listen to. Not all of Ligeti's pieces are like this. People might describe it as dense sound, but I resent that description.
Shostakovich: Symphony 1
Eh... It's turning out that I'm not so interested in Shostakovich. He's great, no doubt, but there's a self-indulgence that I've found in all his works. If I had the patience, I might cull the best moments... But I don't.
Stravinsky: Petrouchka
While I don't dislike this, I didn't listen to it much, and it apparently didn't matter because the orchestra decided not to play it, and instead played Scriabin's "poem d'extase", which I listened to a year ago and loved.

WEEK OF 081103: FURSAXA // UTON
Fursaxa: Kobold Moon
New album! In love! Listen!!!!! Glorious hymns and loops and pseduo-spirituality.
Uton: We're Only In It For The Spirit
Much easier to listen to than the previous Uton album I listened to a couple weeks ago.

WEEK OF 081027: MOZART'S 25TH // BF/BS
Mozart: Symphony 25
I listened to four different versions. This is actually the first Mozart I've ever listened to in any deep way. It wasn't bad, but I think I'll go back to Beethoven and the melancholic Romantics.
Black Forest / Black Sea: Portmanteau
I forgot about this band. Very nice electric space folk drone atmospheres.

WEEK OF 081020: UTON // KOTO
Uton: Shiva Blues
Good electric klanging cleansing false-drone.
Japan Music: Koto Traditions
I can never get enough of this stuff. If I ever get some stability in my life I would purchase a koto. I once had the privilege to try one out, when a koto orchestra came to Berkeley for a lecture/performance/demonstration.

WEEK OF 081013: SCHUMANN // BEETHOVEN // HAYDN
Schumann: Davidsbundlertanze
Some of Schumann's piano work doesn't appeal to me immediately, but I know that with repeated listens I am able to probe into it to find his fractured mind. By the end of the week I don't want to stop listening to it.
Haydn: String Quartet, Op.20,no.6
I decided that this week I would have to find something less somber to listen to, as I finally ended my long stretch of homelessness and found a home (the graduate student co-op) in which I am now residing (albeit on a temporary basis). Although this quartet comes during Haydn's "Sturm und drang" period, this quartet is very light and pleasant, and has helped me feel some comfort this week as I embark on a new experience of a complicated yet bold new living experience, and grapple with my own directions in life.
Beethoven: Piano Quintet
I believe this is an earlier piece of Ludwig's, and I've listened to a version of it that has again smoothed out his idiosyncrasies, but that is fine for me right now, as I'm not looking for terror or agitation this week. The wind instruments in this piece are appealing, as lately I've been intrigued by them. This seems to be a rather lighthearted piece (though there is depth if you look for it in the right places, as there always is with Beethoven).

WEEK OF 081006: BRAHMS SECOND SYMPHONY
Brahms: Symphony #2 (Op.73), D Major
There was no better choice for the record of the week this week, following Kirsten Brydum's murder, than to invest myself in the frustration of a Brahms symphony. Even in a major key, the man manages to infect you with his paranoia and nervousness. Whatever worried him is beyond me, but clearly there is a lot to loathe when a friend is put to her abrupt end by bullets. I was able to attend a performance of this piece by the UC Symphony at Hertz Hall at the end of the week, and found the live version to be far superior than listening to it on headphones. I found it to be quite rhythmic and repetitive, which is a flair I hadn't noticed in Brahms before.

WEEK OF 080929: MARK MCGUIRE // SCHUMANN
Mark McGuire: Light Movement
This week has become a monument in my life, and the music could not be more apt. It is simply a gracious coincidence that I selected this solo shimmering work of a member of Emeralds the day before I found out about the dismal murder of my friend, Kirsten Brydum. In the midst of my homelessness (and a small personal murder I've been enduring this past month), I was thrown even deeper into the strange conundrum of meaninglessness that our sliver of living holds. Rather than bash the world with my desperation, I was stilled and robbed of my emotions. This reverberating music filled me with wonder, as a salve. It bounces and reflects and builds and becomes complex. It gave me this strange feeling that even while I'm outside in the strange October hot Berkeley sun, I'm really still indoors; I feel now, every time I walk down Hearst's hill that there is a greater gate that leads out of this sphere, and the magic of being here is enveloped by rich images and their ability to inspire in the face of this meaninglessness. I am heartened by the curiousness of all the Earth's peculiar colors, and think that we must do our best to chase wonderment even if it never leads us to enlightenment. We must try, otherwise life is too mechanical. Kirsten's ideas will persist in this hearth, although she has certainly left the room.
Schumann: Cello Concerto in A Minor
I needn't say much about Schumann other than I have felt a great affinity for his confusion and worry and sadness and fear and trembling and occasional dashes of hope and grandeur, particularly his (failed) attempt to persevere.

WEEK OF 080922: RACHMANINOV PRELUDES
Rachmaninov: Preludes (minor keys only)
I had a good success last week with Chopin's minor-key preludes (I had been hankering for something as splendid as Chopin's Nocturnes), noting with ever more cogency that it is minor-key works that I enjoy. I have once stated that "(noise and) dissonance are just extra colors with which one can paint a beautiful picture", but moreover dissonance directs the mind to the conflict of living. As I am also in utter rapture of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody, and his Third Concerto last week was also fulfilling, I felt a need to explore this composer some more, and follow the path I took with Chopin. Unfortunately, these pieces are not very stellar, and I found myself less compelled than usual to put on my headphones this week. Some of them are rather gaudy, like Liszt, and did not convince me of any urgency. So, now I've learnt that Rachmaninov, like most artists, is hit or miss. (Schumann and Beethoven, on the other hand, have yet to disappoint me.)

WEEK OF 080915: CHOPIN MINOR PRELUDES // RACHMANINOV'S 3RD CONCERTO
Chopin: Preludes (Op.28) (minor keys only)
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto #3 (Horowitz)

WEEK OF 080908: MANFRED SYMPHONY
Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony

WEEK OF 080901: BEETHOVEN: SERIOSO / MANDOLIN / EGMONT
Beethoven: Serioso Quartet (#11, Op.95)
Beethoven: Mandolin Works
Beethoven: Egmont Overture (Op. 84)

WEEK OF 080825: UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES // EMERALDS
Schumann: "Zwickau" Symphony
Beethoven: Unfinished Symphony
Schubert: Unfinished Symphony
Emeralds: Solar Bridge

WEEK OF 080818: ASHTRAY NAVIGATIONS // HAYDN SONATAS
Ashtray Navigations: A Mayflower Garland
This music is like a curtain; klanging, billowing. It's one of those teleportational incantations that whirrs as you float around the globe. What's-his-name is getting better and better at combining aloof noise with incomparable beauty. This creates a splendid environment, if one can hear past the high pitched plinks and fuzzy glaze. There's one track that's incredibly annoying, however.
Haydn: Piano Sonata 60 (Hob50)
Haydn: Piano Sonata 62 (Hob52)
My friend Ore reccommended these along with last week's symphonies. The numbering of Haydn's piano sonatas are very confusing, but I double-checked with Ore and these are masterpieces which he finds to be amongst the best music he knows. He said he also likes #61, but said it was weird (up my alley!); however I have not found it yet. #60 starts out adorably cute and bouncy. I wasn't affected so much by it, but the playing is superb; I love the dynamics. It's quite fast and has some exuberances that people tend to attribute to Beethoven. I like the slow languor of the second movement. The third movement seems to resume the exuberances of the first movement.
Haydn: String Quartet Op.20 No.5 (F-minor)
When I learned of Haydn's "Sturm und drang" period ("storm and stress") while reading about last week's "Farewell Symphony", I sought out more of this music that signals the end of the enlightenment and birth of romanticism. These cusps of grandeur meeting tragedy elate me. I think this is life; beautiful and beyond words, but damnable and frightening for its finality. Some pieces of this quartet are a bit too lighthearted for me, but around every corner there is a bent tone of seriousness and reality.

WEEK OF 080811: HAYDN SYMPHONIES (FAREWELL & DRUMROLL)
Haydn: Symphony 45 (Farewell)
While walking down the stone stairs to go home one evening, I chanced upon Ore, a friend who formerly was a hallmate in my workplace. Upon our cordial catching up, I slipped to Ore that I had been listening to Schubert. I have often slipped casual comments to him about my growing interest and experiments with listening to classical music, for Ore had formerly played piano at Julliard. Ore often would ignore my nods to his past, for I surmise he (besides shy) is distancing himself from the world of classical music. Nevertheless, on this night, Ore's face lit up when I explained how I'd been listening to these works of art and emotion with diligence, and allowed me to extract his opinions. These two Haydn symphonies came out, and I am quite glad. I had overlooked Haydn, primarily because the classical composers had seemed to invoke emotion less often in their work. On the contrary, Haydn led a particular life apart from the critical society of the cities, instead spending a few decades composing for a rich Hungarian prince at his estate, with some freedom thus to explore the possibilities of music. This farewell symphony came during a time when the composer wrote many minor key pieces in parallel with a literary movement called "Sturm und drang" (Storm and stress), which emphasized bleak emotions in contrast to rationalism. This symphony begins with a frantic flight, perfect for working during, imparting my scattered mind with a focus on what is important. I admit that the slow Adagio movement had not sunk in by the end of the week's listening, but it is sublime and stately, avoiding sadness but wavers with its calm struggle.
Haydn: Symphony 103 (Drumroll)
This symphony begins with a ferocious warlike drumroll. I hate it. I spent some moments this week explaining to friends my hatred for the western trapkit (the rock drum set) and its violence and masculinity. Thankfully the drum only invokes the symphony and does not play so ferociously throughout. Admittedly, I was bored by much of this symphony. It's got some interesting challenging waves of sound, for the ordinarily dainty music of the classical period, but it still seems quite aristocratic for my tastes. The real reason Ore had recommended it was because it has, as its second movement, a set of variations -- an interest of mine. Unfortunately, these variations (although suitably peculiar, in that they originated from a folk tune, I believe) are not so varied at all. Was Beethoven the first to explode the variation form? Bach's Goldberg variations are quite revolutionary... So why were these so stiff? Perhaps because a wildly variant set of exercises would not have a place within a symphony? I do not know, but I'm a bit sad that I wasted my time listening to this, when I might have selected another symphony from the Sturm und drang period of Haydn's works.

WEEK OF 080804: SCHUBERT // LUCKY DRAGONS
Schubert: String Quintet (D.956)
Two months have flown by, this summer, and again at the Mission Arts and Performance Project (MAPP) I saw Classical Revolution play some pieces. I again was the only patron to inquire the names of the pieces performed, and a violinist anxiously amended the given explications with some syrup that the next piece that they were about to play was her favorite piece of music. Indeed, it was ferociously good, and it swiftly was selected by me for this week's "record" of the week. The piece is Schubert's final composition, and vascillates between major and minor. A contemporary of my boy, Beethoven, Schubert's work is very similar but without the outbursts. Of course musicologists might scoff at my smearing two different colors together, but what I mean is that both composers are bold enough to inject emotion (and often tortuous ones) amongst the pretty splendor that the world and our silly society performs for us in our cordial feats. This music totters from moment to moment (perhaps even note to note) on the edge of being something to tremble about, but remains measured. There are many repetitive, rhythmic phrases, which I rather liked, when paired with the postrock record reviewed below.
Lucky Dragons: Dream Island Laughing Language
It's important for me, as a dreamer, and a poet, to keep up with post-rock. I once wailed that I would consume only this sort of instrumental music, as it is probably the best and most beautiful sort of our times, which I would characterize as sparkling and defiant of the gloom that looms over us, environmentally and economically. What I mean to say is that, with such a large wealthy class here in America, things are glorious and beautiful. You can see that in the pop music, today, but that sort of frivolity is narrowminded. What really can be acclaimed about an artist is their foresight -- their ability to conjure the future, or the movements of parallel moments in our era.
What this music captures, for me, with its repetitive gongs and hums, clomps and scrapes, taps and hoots, and sundry other pseudo-sino sinewaves, is the sun shining on a hustling earth, too fast to bask in its fleeting splendor. I will always recall, in this music, the memory of awakening from a friend, Brent's, birthday bonfire at the Albany landfill, and heading out back from the artificial peninsula (dream island, indeed... I once saw a free performance of Shakespeare's "the tempest" at the landfill!) towards the mainland, with the recently risen sun sparkling up from the bay at me and the strange wave of dog-walkers peppering my heady morning with their sad ridiculousness, as this music bubbled and gleefully stuttered back, affirming that the world still brews.

WEEK OF 080728: ARCHDUKE TRIO // EMERALDS
Beethoven: Archduke Piano Trio, No.7 (Op.97)
I'm listening to several versions, with Previn, Ashkenazy, Barenboim, or Kempff as the pianist. So far I can't tell any difference, and all of them are unfortunately softening Ludwig's outbursts (which I cherish). I must find a version of this that is true to the composer's idiosyncrasy. This was written a year after the 5th Symphony, so we know Ludwig was not all clear in the head, including his struggle with accepting his deafness. Supposedly at the premiere of this piece (Beethoven's last performance as a pianist), he banged so hard the strings jangled in the loud spots, and so soft in the quiet spots that entire notes were omitted.
Emeralds: Golden Swirl, and Planetarium
I've never heard of this band, but they were recently recommended by Volcanic Tongue. It's quite lovely, quiet space drone. One record is a bit more substantial than the other. I think I like this group and will try to find out more about them.

WEEK OF 080721: SCHUMANN
Schumann: Symphony 4 (Op.120)
Bravo! I like it a lot. This final symphony of his ("Zwickau" is incomplete) is the only one that touches on Schumann's anguish. I listened to a few different versions -- a fast one, and a slow one, and one in between. I can't decide which I like best, but I see how important it is to listen to multiple versions. The version with the in-between tempo was actually the "revised" version (Brahms said he preferred the original version, though). I didn't sit and scrutinize the two versions, and so I can't really tell the difference.
Schumann: ABEGG Variations (Op.1)
These piano variations are lighthearted and not too complicated. I'll take what I can get. It's nice to hear the seeds of the style that will later characterize Schumann's excellent sweep of grandiose and morose. It's there in these pieces, but it is barely there.

WEEK OF 080714: RV PAINTINGS // LISZT
RV Paintings: Trinity Rivers
Back to some good space drone. This is a side-project of the Starving Weirdos, who make incredible cricket summer night hot heat drone artifacts, but RV Paintings is more full and velvety, with overt loops and tinkling and shimmer. This is really quite good, and is getting better as the week progresses. Good for sleeping or studying or walking or thinking.
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes (S.139)
These piano pieces are supposedly some of the most difficult pieces of music to play. While how it makes one feel is arguably the most important aspect of a piece of music, such radicalism seems like it might be able to offer something that cannot be found elsewhere. I've always, all my life, been in favor of esoterica and the deviation from the norm -- the jewels that are rare and irreproducible. These pieces have their moments, but they don't evoke as much as some of the Hungarian Rhapsodies had done for me. I'm sure Liszt has some other incendiary pieces, but I wouldn't say these etudes are such. I'd love to hear someone re-interpret these pieces for some other instrument. No, not transcribe, reinterpret. Or maybe flesh out with multiple instruments. They are very colorful, indeed.

WEEK OF 080707: DVORAK // TCHAIKOVSKY // (VxPxC)
Dvorak: Dumky Piano Trio (Op. 90)
I was searching for some more composers that incorporate non-Western music into their orchestral or chamber pieces. Dvorak was, of course, well known for including eastern European melodies, which of course were often sour-sounding, because rural life can be tough.
Tchaikovsky: Dumka (Op. 59)
I ought to try out all of the latter Tchaikovsky pieces that lack vocals.
(VxPxC): Porchmass
These guys hosted the Bottling Smoke festival that I went to last spring, in LA. I quite enjoyed their languorous instrumental set, as I have also enjoyed some of their other albums. This is a bit more percussive than the other things I've heard. Their music makes me think of high heat in summer, but that's perhaps because I first heard it in LA, and we don't get much heat here in SF, so the music has nestled into my sensory emotions.

WEEK OF 080630: SCHUMANN // BRAHMS // ILYAS AHMED
Schumann: Symphonic Etudes (Op. 13)
Wow, this solo piano set of etudes (studies) is nice, and mostly frantic. I think I'll be returning to this one, and greatly recommend it. It's actually a set of variations, but there isn't anything overtly academic to my ears, as some sets of variations tend to be. It is really more evocative. Whenever I listen to Schumann, I can't help but think "this man threw himself off a bridge". That really puts this strangled music in perspective. It's similar to how "emo" relates to the rest of rock and roll. I listened to the version by Pollini, which includes the posthumous variations. I don't really understand the "etude" form and how it's different from some of the other categories of solo piano music.
Brahms: Tragic Overture (Op. 81)
I listened to two different versions, and it really mattered. Unfortunately I don't know who conducted either of them, but one lasts 11:55, the other 13:26, thus one is fast and the other is slow. I much preferred the fast one, as the slow one made it sound too pretty, and not "tragic" at all!!!
Ilyas Ahmed: The Vertigo of Dawn
It's been a while since I listened to guitar spacy music, including Ilyas Ahmed. Sounds like crooning prayers for the suffocation of the future skies, to me. Love his stuff, and the percussion that has come aboard for a song reminds me a lot of early Six Organs of Admittance.

WEEK OF 080623: BRAHMS // BEETHOVEN
Brahms: Symphony 4 (Op.98)
I suppose I should be listening to Brahms more often, since I like Beethoven so much. I enjoyed the first Brahms symphony, so I decided to see where his last one would take me. Brahms is really an extension of Beethoven, but I feel like the turmoil is a bit forced. It's like how so many rock musicians sang like Kurt Cobain even though they weren't really going through the same kind of pain. Anyway, the movements are actually quite coherent with each other, which is nice. Supposedly this piece quotes many other works by other composers, and thus is a bit scholastic, but none of that matters to me. I can't quite pick a favorite movement, the whole thing is good. I listened to Solti. I also grabbed Bernstein and Ormandy, but didn't find much difference.
Beethoven: Piano Trio 6 (Op.70, no.2)
I originally selected the first Piano Trio because I saw it performed last year, but I had to reject it after a few listens because, despite glimpsing the mania later to come in Beethoven's work, the piece is too light for me, especially to go alongside the Brahms. This piece is a bit exuberant, too, it also got on my nerves. The third movement is like a pop tune (you'll want to hum it), and the fourth is jolly and fast, but the first two movements are more typical of the Beethoven I enjoy -- sweet and sour, with a couple of hot chili peppers hiding in there, waiting to knock you around...

WEEK OF 080616: PHILIP JECK // R.STRAUSS // BEETHOVEN
Philip Jeck: Sand
I haven't listened to any experimental music in a while. I don't really know much about this person. I think the drones he makes are more electronic-based, but he apparently is indeed doing knob-twiddling and looping. I just wonder how much of it is analog. Maybe it doesn't really matter. These are nice shimmering soundscapes, not too sleepy, even a bit melodic at times. They are even dynamic enough to keep you interested, were you to sit and listen to them in an active way, unlike the passive way I tend to use drone music. They really struck an emotion in me during the week in rotation because of the heatwave we encountered late in the week. These pieces made me feel as though the air was thick and there was some sort of majesty to the Earth's extreme environments.
R. Strauss: Don Quixote, Op.35
I haven't listened to anything by Strauss prior to this, mainly because everyone says he was complicit with the Nazis, and that weighs in on my Holocaust-surviving heritage. But music is only what we make of it, and I must admit that I'm intrigued to hear what other non-opera music was made by the composer of the well-known "Also Sprach Zarathustra" tone poem. This tone poem about Don Quixote, a set of variations, is from around the period he wrote the famous "2001" piece. In high school I was obsessed with Don Quixote and the symbol of individuality; I wrote about him in my college entrance essay, in fact. But to be honest, I really don't enjoy the musical programs that get attached to wordless pieces of music; it's a bit limiting to the experience of the music. I don't think the program gets in the way of this piece. There are some fine moments, but unfortunately they are too brief, and are mixed in with a lot of ordinary music that likely has been a strong influence on film scores -- boring. I also don't see how these pieces are variations. There are definitely themes that come back, but the work as a whole is very scattered. I think it will be a while before I try another piece by R.Strauss.
Beethoven: Kakadu Variations, Op.121a
I'm trying to fit in a short piece by Beethoven each week, just because I love him so much. But in searching for the piece this week, I realized that his happy major-key pieces are representative of the high society that was supporting him. The Beethoven that most people know (regarding his frantic slashes, or desperate low and slow movements) is quite a different category than the music that I enjoy most. These variations sound great, but are not as arousing as the Eroica Variations nor as circuitous as the Diabelli Variations. I was tempted to remove the fluffy variations, but I think they serve as a nice contrast to the poles of grandeur and depression from which Beethoven vacillated.

WEEK OF 080609 PLAYLIST: RACHMANINOV / TCHAIKOVSKY / SCHUMANN / BRAHMS
Rachmaninov: Trio Elegiaque 2
(written, as a young adult, in response to the death of Tchaikovsky)
I think I prefer the first trio elegiaque, but this one is quite nice too. I feel like I need to listen to them both side by side again, for another week, but I have so many things to try out before I can start repeating pieces!!
Tchaikovsky: Op.50, Piano Trio in A minor
The first movement is quite sad, sinister, frantic; typical late-Tchaikovsky, and suits my major interest in classical music. The second movement is lighter, but a set of variations, which is largely my only other interest in classical music. This is a nice piece, but it's a bit triumphant at times, and that breaks up the mood of imminence of death that surrounds the concept of the work, "In Memory of a Great Artist" (Nikolai Rubinstein).
Brahms: Op.34, Piano Quintet
(I heard this played by Classical Revolution for free, in some person's living room, this past weekend, as a part of MAPP.) Someone on Wikipedia said that this is one of the three most excellent piano quintets by any composer, which is an opinion and also a statement that means little (for I cannot accept, in our postmodern age, that there is anything particular about a title such as "piano quintet" that merits the measure of one quintet versus another). I think the piece is a joy to listen to, but I found myself skipping over it to hear the Trio Elegiaque and Tchaikovsky trios more often.

WEEK OF 080602 PLAYLIST: RACHMANINOV
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a theme from Paganini.
(two versions, a recent one and another that is quite old, where the strings sound like wind instruments!) These are variations, and quite fun to listen to and compare, and hum. But skip the 18th variation. It has been overplayed in Hollywood movies, and is quite sentimental and fluffy.
Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances.
(the orchestral version, and the adaptation for two pianos). I thought I'd like this, but it's not so enveloping. It probably merits its own weeklong study, but it was too complex to sink in this week. The two versions seem very different from each other; I prefer the orchestra version, but there is a lot to pay attention to in the piano version too. This is the last thing that Rachmaninov wrote.
Rachmaninov: Trio Elegiaque 1.
Can't get the theme out of my head. The arrangement of the parts is symmetrical. This goes along with my "sinister symphonies" original interest in classical music, it's a keeper.

WEEK OF 080526 PLAYLIST: VOLCANO THE BEAR // ZELENKA // BEETHOVEN
Volcano the Bear: Amidst the Noise and Twigs
At the first few listens, I thought, "oh jolly! this falls immediately into my 'essential space folk' list!", but after a week of listens (and aggravation to my housemates), I noticed that it suffers from the same problems that the latest One Ensemble (an offshoot) albums are fouled by: dishonest weirdness and unattractive singing. There is a holiness to certain moments, as with the first two One Ensemble of Daniel Padden albums, but there aren't any songs that are so sublime that they would get placed on a mix, for they frequently fall into the realm of being annoying, from writhing, squawking, shrieking, etc.
Zelenka: Symphonia A-moll
This should have received its own weeklong study. It's very nice. Fans of Bach, check it out. It's interesting to hear early concepts of the symphony form, as I have otherwise exclusively been listening to things from Beethoven on. To me, the symphony is a cathartic experience of emotion and development and travel. This, on the contrary, was like eating a really good piece of dessert.
Beethoven: Op.44: Variations in Eb

WEEK OF 080519 PLAYLIST: SCHUMANN, NIN, BEETHOVEN
Schumann: Violin Concerto
Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts III
Beethoven: Op.46, Variations (Bei mannern..)

WEEK OF 080512 PLAYLIST: NIN // BEETHOVEN
Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I, Ghosts II
Wow! This is the Trent Reznor that I've been waiting for!! I'd always suspected that he would have been making this sort of music, perhaps secretly under another name. I love the places where his piston-pumping factory imagery (particular to "industrial" music) coalesces with the sparse and beautiful Eno ambient soundscapes. I only wish the pieces were a bit more intricate, but I suppose he wants people to mix the tracks and add the intricacies in a collaborative sort of way. This album (so far, I'm taking it a little at a time) is just wonderful. I played it for my eldest housemate (who eschews all rock/post-rock music) while scraping glue off of used slats of oak flooring (for a new library we're constructing), and he actually liked it, even the hyena hissing/screaming in the background, which is more subdued than on the early NIN albums.
Beethoven: Woo.80, 32 Variations in C minor

WEEK OF 080505 PLAYLIST: LISZT // ZELENKA // BACH
Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor (S.178)
I'm curious to hear more Liszt, since he was quite a frantic piano player. He tends to stab all over the keyboard, in an impressionistic way. Sometimes I wonder what his flourishes have to do with the general program of the pieces he plays; it's almost as though he becomes distracted by his own flamboyance. It's not my favorite type of music, but it is certainly idiosyncratic. Artists should always push the boundaries of what distinguishes them from all else.
Zelenka: Sonata No.2, Sonata No. 5
I recently went out to lunch with a Biochemist, Chikashi Toyoshima, the Hitchcock Lecturer last week, invited by my mentor. While walking back from the faculty club, I said to Toyoshima, "Sydney tells me that you enjoy going to the symphony. I know it's an unfair question to ask someone to narrow their favorites down to a single composer, so perhaps instead let me ask if you have anything you enjoy so much that you might recommend?" He chuckled and paused a bit, as we tarried amongst the oaks along the creek, and upon reaching the Campanile, said that he tends to enjoy the composers that haven't had as much publicity (oh, he's after my heart!), and thus wanted to recommend the composer, Zelenka, a contemporary of Bach, who is particularly cherished by oboe players. I later went to go look him up. Zelenka wrote a lot of music with vocals, which I simply cannot endure, but I found these sonatas to be quite splendid.
Bach: Flute Sonata in B minor (BWV1030)
I haven't listened to Bach much. I don't know why I selected this; I acquired a bunch of pieces randomly, and then selected this one out of them, for not being too fluffy. The lighthearted pre-Beethoven music annoys me with its splendor; it's largely a music for rich society. Beethoven was remarkable for his wagging the rich society that supported him with his desperation and melancholia, often imperceptibly placed amidst the same splendor of the Classical and Baroque period, although sometimes as spasms of violence, as if to be a gesture (like we moderns raise the "middle finger") of derision to his frivolous patrons. This Bach piece didn't move me much, and I found myself preferring the Zelenka.

WEEK OF 080428 PLAYLIST: LUCKY DRAGONS // SIR RICHARD BISHOP
Lucky Dragons: Widows
Larkin Grimm had recommended this artist to me two years ago, after she played a free show at my former warehouse loft in Oakland. The artist's brother, an Oaklander, was also at the show -- a friendly chap. It should have been apt for me to have put Lucky Dragons on one of my weekly playlists shortly after the show, then. However, after acquiring all the albums, and cursorily clicking on their diverse portions, I had decided that it was more noisy and cut-up than sublime. Somehow, I recently gave it another glance, and am so pleased that I listened long enough to allow it to be played over and over all week. Even my housemates enjoyed hearing it. There are some pretty moments. It instantly goes in the "sublime post-rock" pile (you know, along with the second Four-tet album, Do Make Say Think, The third Tortoise album, etc)
Sir Richard Bishop: All Strung Out.
I don't think SRB belongs in the post-Fahey pantheon of bottom-up open-tuning spiritual acoustic guitarists. He is arguably talented, he possesses an impeccable attractiveness for his love of foreign cultures, particularly from Asia. But I just don't find his pieces to be heady enough. For that we go to Jack Rose, to Ben Chasny (his early work, mind you).

WEEK OF 080421 PLAYLIST: PETTERSSON // MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS
Gustaf Allan Pettersson: Symphony 9
Monopoly Child Star Searchers: Gitchii Manitou

WEEK OF 080414 PLAYLIST: VAUGHAN WILLIAMS // BEN REYNOLDS
Vaughan Williams: Symphony 4
Ben Reynolds: Many Straight Creation

WEEK OF 080407 PLAYLIST: MVEE // BEETHOVEN
MV&EE Medicine Show: Zone of Domes
Beethoven: Piano Sonata 27

WEEK OF 080311 PLAYLIST: TONY SCOTT
Tony Scott: Music for Zen Meditation
The jazz musician's incredible clarinet album playing traditional Japanese music. I am in love with koto music, and much other traditional Japanese music, particularly the slow stuff. When I learnt about this album last week, from a guy who makes shakuhachi flutes out of PVC pipes, I was very upset that I hadn't heard of it before.

WEEK OF 080324 PLAYLIST: MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS // PACIFIC RAT TEMPLE BAND
Monopoly Child Star Searchers: Infant Spirituality Rates Coconut Percent
Pacific Rat Temple Band: Tan Kim (Boa Paradise)
These are both new solo projects from Spencer from the Skaters. It's indescribable. It's splendid. It is a new angle on the holy noise drone that the Skaters made their mark with. Everything Spencer touches is golden. This is rhythmic, a bit like some sort of southeast Asian cultural music. But it does indeed have a "temple band" feel to it. The two projects are slightly different, but more or less in the same direction away from the love drone syrup of the Skaters and Vodka Soap.

080317:
Xenis Emputae Travelling Band: The Suffolk Workings

080310
Mark Dagley & Stephen Connolly: Benedictions From the Eternal
Stephen Connolly is from Pothole Skinny. This is two pieces of slow, slinky space dronerock eastern plinky magnificence.