Sunday 31 August 2008

Classical: Les Arts Florissants/Christie/Von Otter, Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Anne Sofie von Otter's recital with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie was the outcome of what the Swedish mezzo-soprano calls her "new love affair" with French baroqueness music. Operatic scenes by Charpentier and Rameau formed the rachis of her programme, each half of which approached one of their corking tragic heroines - Charpentier's M�d�e, Ph�dre in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie - via songs, instrumental suites and dances. Von Otter is verbally the most subtle of artists. Given that both composers' styles are stock-still as much in textual declamation as in song, it is surprising that she has taken so long to tackle them.

Charpentier, with his sharp, rapid insights into the human psyche, is better suited to concert excerpts than Rameau, whose examination of the head is slower and more probing. You don't get the full measure of his Ph�dre if you isolate her from the context of the opera, in which her emotional turbulence is measured by constant comparing with everyone else's mental stability. Von Otter's portrayal - sorry, grieving and, at the close, nobly resigned - remained of necessity, and frustratingly, incomplete.

Her M�d�e, however, was a thing of wonder. Keeping us the right face of empathy, Von Otter dragged us with her into mouth monstrosity, unleashing hell with the to the highest degree exquisite of pianissimos and suggesting vortices of emotion beneath the calm, controlled surface.

Christie's examination of the insidious instrumental differences between each composer was immaculate. Flutes indicate compassion in Hippolyte et Aricie, but deceit in M�d�e. Charpentier, obstinate to presuppositions, was shown as having the greater harmonic mountain chain. Enthralling.







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Monday 11 August 2008

Delirious

Delirious   
Artist: Delirious

   Genre(s): 
Trance: Psychedelic
   Metal: Thrash
   Trance
   Rock
   Other
   Gospel
   



Discography:


Made for the Violent Age   
 Made for the Violent Age

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 13


Explosive   
 Explosive

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


The Mission Bell   
 The Mission Bell

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 11


Minimal (Unreleased)   
 Minimal (Unreleased)

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 1


Break Point   
 Break Point

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 10


Touch   
 Touch

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 10


Glo   
 Glo

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 15


Cutting Edge   
 Cutting Edge

   Year: 2000   
Tracks: 13


Mezzamorphis   
 Mezzamorphis

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 16


King of Fools   
 King of Fools

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 12




 






Wednesday 6 August 2008

Tiny Masters of Today

Tiny Masters of Today   
Artist: Tiny Masters of Today

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   



Discography:


Bang Bang Boom Cake   
 Bang Bang Boom Cake

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 13




Tiny Masters of Today took their list from a stria in the Blake Nelson koran Rockstar Superstar, a young adult novel around the trials and tribulations of existence in a stone band. The Tiny Masters -- Ivan, 13, guitar and vocals, and his sister Ada, 11, bass and vocals -- have had far fewer troubles than Nelson did in his fabricated striation. The yoke began scripted material songs earlier they had any idea of starting a dance band. Ivan (no final make calling, a knowing maternal decision, one thinks) was jamming with some friends when Ada started singing about how much she disliked George W. Bush. The effect was "Bushy," which appears on their debut album Bang Bang Boom Cake. They're non technical musicians, but non being competent musically has never been an event in john Rock candy & wind. They get up for their deficiency of chops with an elating mightiness and their innocuous insolence. Singing may be beyond them yet, merely once again, it never stopped Johnny Rotten or Handsome Dick Manitoba. Ivan and Ada ar pretty normal kids. You don't get the feeling that they receive overbearing parents egging them on, and their music isn't cutesy, it's real goon stone, if a fleck derived function.


Their parents curtailed their TV observance on schooltime nights, so the duo and a few of Ivan's friends took refuge in the phratry basement where their parents supplied so with a chinchy metal drum kit and a few old amps. Ivan was decade when he picked up the guitar and Ada followed him on bass at 8-years-old. They created a MySpace website and started putt up demos they made victimization the drumfish programs on Garageband, the user-friendly MacIntosh programme. Andrew Romano, a newsman for Newsweek cartridge, establish them on MySpace where they'd racked up 13,000 spins in a footling more than 7 months, with no promo or selling plan. He wrote them up in a patch called "Middle School of Rock," noting that a British indie judge called Tiger Trap had snapped up their demos and put them out as an EP called Big Noise. Romano called them remarkable for their brattish laborious john Rock tunes and gave them their first interview. When Romano asked Ivan if his classmates like Tiny Masters better than Disney's calendered Senior high school School Musical, he responded like a real rock star: "A clustering of kids in my class formed a fan night club for us," he said. "They, like, worship me." The tunes on Big Noise -- " "Bushy," "Stickin' It to the Man" and "Tooty Frooty" (non the Little Richard song) -- got rave reviews in the British beseech, and airplay on the BBC and XFM radiocommunication. The U.K. mag Artrocker put them on their cover and David Bowie weighed in with a rave review, vocation their music "wizardry" in an interview in the London Times. Not defective for a bunch of homemade demos.


Next to appear was Russell Simins, drummer for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, wHO besides found the band on MySpace. He sent an email and asked if they'd like to crush with him. After coming together their parents to convince them he wasn't an eccentric person, Simins became their drummer and the only when adult in the band. Gigs at CBGB's and the McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn started building a stateside buzz. K.I.D.S., another EP of home demos, came out in the U.K. and sold out spell Simins took the kids into a real studio and started laying down tracks for their debut Slam Bang Boom Cake. Chris Maxwell and Phil Hernandez (aka the Elegant Too of Brave Combo, Shivaree, They Might Be Giants, John Cale) co-produced the sides with Simins. Most tracks simply supply a mo of polish to the band's unsanded squall, just a few elder common people dropped by the roger Huntington Sessions to supply their two cents. "Disco Bomb" features the B-52's Fred Schneider on background signal vocals and Ramones-like lyrics "Discotheque bomb, we got it goin' on." "Trendsetter" has anti-folk star Kimya Dawson performing one of her demented outbursts around the incorporated indoctrination of tween consumers, while her married man Angelo Spencer adds some real lead guitar. "Holograph World" features Nicolas Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on guitar with Karen O portion out on vocals. Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers) and DJ Atsushi too dropped by to help out. The finished album was snapped up by Mute in the U.K.; Great Society, an American indie, put the album out in the U.S. In 2007, Tiny Masters played out their summer vacation on circuit, wowing 'em at SXSW (the youngest band to e'er play the fete) and merchandising out smaller venues in London. They were peerless of the highlights of the Underage Festival in Victoria Park, along with a passel of tween bands from the U.K.. In the light of 2007, Tiny Masters returned to shoal in Brooklyn, NY and had to one-armed bandit in gigs as their schooling and parents permitted.