Like you, I have many different tastes when it comes to music and I often find myself listening to very different genres at the same time. Last week I bought two albums that are pretty different from each other, one featuring ballets by the baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully, performed by La Risonanza and the other an album entitled Pop Negro! by Canary Island born el Guincho featuring his very unique Electronic/Afrobeat/Tropic kind of music. These together made the many hours of train commute last week bearable!
Though I knew I wanted something Baroque, I did not set out to buy this album by Jean Baptiste-Lully when I went to the store, it was my girlfriend who has a degree in Music History that highly recommended this composer and ensemble. What I love about Baroque music is how clean and clear the harmony and voicing can be. I feel like the openness and clearness of the sound really lets you step inside the music. The instrumentation here is: soprano singers, violins, basse de violin, theorbo, and of course harpsichord. The level of playing in La Risonanza is absolutely phenomenal, there is no other way to describe it. My favorite on this album is Ballet de la Raillerie, it is here that the singers end phrases the most in harmony and without vibrato, and the texture that is created by the ensemble is addictive. I found myself going back to listen to these moments the most. I am very pleased with this album, and regret to say I had never heard anything by Jean-Baptiste Lully before. Whether you love baroque music or not, this ensemble deserves a listen. You can buy it on iTunes for less than half the price I paid at the store.
I am really in love with El Guincho's new album Pop Negro!. It is in a way similar to the Lully, in that the beats/samples/melodies are open and clear, not at all cluttered, which again I really love (from what I've read, this is a deviation from his previous album Alegranza!). El Guincho is mostly a one man band using his Roland SP-404, though you can sometimes see him with a few other musicians on stage. This isn't euro/techno/dance-pop etc, it is really his own style and keeps your "musical" attention. What I love about his beats is that they sometimes remind me of my favorite drummer Carter Beauford, in that you will hear a very particular snare drum hit return every few bars consistently while the groove around it is shifting, creating longer more musical percussion phrases. This is particularly evident in the song "Lycra Mistral." It's what makes the music really groove, having busier/unpredictable fills grounded with a very distinguished beat that returns every few bars. This is what sets him apart from the depressing mass of musicians that rely on electronics/samples, these aren't overused bland one or two measure samples being played over and over again, you won't be able to repeat his rhythms after one listen. It is hard to fully describe this album, you need to experience it. I highly recommend you go iTunes and listen to the 30 second samples, and at least download the song "Bombay," you won't be disappointed.
More music is being recorded and produced today than ever before, and for better or worse it is easy to have access to large amounts of music for very little money. Don't get stuck in a routine of listening to the same "classic" recordings of your favorite pieces and become jaded to new music/recordings. What if JS Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven had the same access to music and technology we do? What would they have done? I encourage you to each week expand your musical palate, pick out one or two albums/artists that are new to you and give them a serious listen. In a year you could be at over 100 new albums of music that is new to you, imagine what you could learn.
-John William Banther is a musician living in the Netherlands-
Twitter.com/Banihex
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