Ah, it’s Friday (and when you’re unemployed like me, everyday is like Friday — except you don’t get paid). I keed, I keed.
Well, here we go with another group of songs from my collection — and this time, it’s pretty random. Ready? Let’s go!
“Three Variation on The Canon in D Major By Johann Pachelbel (i) Fullness of Wind,” Brian Eno (Download) When I was doing the mobile DJ thing, I can’t even begin to count the times I had to play The Canon — also known as “Pachelbel’s Canon” in certain quarters — at weddings. It’s a standard that, while quite beautiful, loses it’s luster after repeated plays while working a wedding. Years ago when I would be at the record store two or three times a week, I read about Eno’s experimentation with this classic that involved both the creation of “ambient music” (or as he said: “Perhaps in the spirit of [Erik] Satie who wanted to make music that could mingle with the sound of knives and forks at dinner”), and the use of a tape delay to create strange permutations in the music. In other words, you can have this music playing in the background, but may become slightly disturbed by the fact that what you know as familiar is not hitting the right notes at the expected times.
“How the Day Sounds,” Greg Laswell (Download) Another tune off the latest Paste magazine sampler. I know almost nothing about Greg Laswell other than I rather like this song. Okay, I felt bad about the first part of that last sentence, so I went over the Wiki to see what I could find. Seems Greg is a busy guy. He not only has music featured on TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy, One Tree Hill, and Cold Case, but he’s toured with Sia and Ingrid Michaelson (You know, that song about the sweater and how she’ll by her boyfriend Rogaine because he takes her as she is? Yeah, THIS song). Wait, there’s more! He’s also scored three films and has three albums, so even though he’s being touted as “up and coming,” he’s been around for awhile.
“Rock Hard in a Funky Place,” Gunnar Andreas Berg & Erlend Smalås (Download) This was a gift from a Popdose reader who has gotten into Prince kind of late. He was telling me about this tribute to Prince by a bunch of Norwegian artists, and I said I was interested in hearing what was on that five CD set. A day later, an email said a gift was coming my way. I have to say that this compilation is very diverse (which is fitting for Prince’s music) and while some of the songs are a little iffy in terms of likability, this tune has a nice vibe to it.
J
September 5, 2008 at 12:19 pmI remember when you got that Eno record, and not really liking this version of the Canon. Interesting? Yes. Listenable? Not really. But I wondered if I might have changed my mind over the years. Nope.
I really liked the Greg Laswell song. Maybe we should get his album? 😉
The prince cover was interesting, and did indeed have a catchy vibe to it, but it made me want real Prince more than it made me want to listen to it on its own.
Great sample! Always fun and interesting to see what’s out there. 🙂