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Recommend an 'AMAZING' Album!

PES

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PES

PES

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You know when you hear an album for the first time and wish you'd heard it years ago? We'll this has just happened to me and prompted me to share an album with you thats IMO is truelly awesome.

 

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

 

Absolutely brilliant, It's really stripped back and is pretty much Bruce Springsteen and his guitar, it's kinda folky but really quite dark and tweaks the old heart strings in places. I particularly like "Nebraska", "Highway patrolman", "Johnny 99" and my favourite "My Fathers house". I've always liked The Boss but only as far as owning his Greatest Hits. We'll I was recomended this album and it's truelly breathtaking, I'm just gutted that it's taken me over 25 years to hear it.

 

Anyway this got me thinking that maybe we could have a thread where people could point people in the direction of some other, truelly amazing albums that others may not of been exposed too. I'd be all ears! :D

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Scudamore

Scudamore

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Anyway

 

I'll recommend five albums...

 

1) Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

2) Kruder & Dorfmeister - K&D Sessions

3) Craig Armstrong - The Space Between Us

4) Bunny Wailer - Blackheart Man

5) High Contrast - True Colours

 

Good times...

 

Oops...no hip hop...

 

6) Skitz - Countryman

Edited by Scudamore
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Counterforce

Counterforce

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HorizonsCover5x5.jpg

 

 

 

"Cast the clear light of alchemical truth through the graphically enhanced occult fog, and you'll find an album fluffed full of magick, mystery, and densely orchestrated mosque-rocking beats."

Richard Gehr, Village Voice

 

mxdwn.com Top 5 Albums 2004

4. Secret Chiefs 3 - Book of Horizons

Book of Horizons is an album so well thought out, it begs the question, "Can an artist go too far?" Mr. Bungle alumnus Trey Spruance has steered this project from what was once only a side project into the uncharted musical territory. Few musicians in the last thirty years have been this brave and bold in realizing a vision. Secret Chiefs 3s last album Book M was so good it stands as a true five star album. Spruance boiled metal, electronica, jazz, folk and middle eastern styles together in such a stunning way that it defied the conventional nomenclatures of world music, alternative or progressive rock. In a shocking twist, apparently determined to work even harder, he has fractured this genre-medley of a band into seven different "identities." Thats rightseven. Im not making this up. Each has their own name and visual branding. For example, Ishraqiyuns songs ("The 3" and "The 4 (Great Ishraqi Sun)") are fast paced Middle Eastern romps using just a smidge of distorted guitars appearing only in the final bars. UR is a surf orchestra that dabbles in electronics. The Holy Vehm is ear-shredding death metal with shrill screams. In a span of only two songs Book of Horizons goes from a stunning cinematic symphony in "Book T: Exodus" to the never ending drumroll blast beat of "Hypostasis of the Archons." This disparity may sound jarring, but its not. The music is unmistakably all a part of the same audacious vision. A precisely orchestrated journey through counter culture musical styles. Each song blends without notice into the next. Even in spite of songs like band identity Traditionalists "The Indestructible Drop" and "The Exile" which are stark experiments in noise and sound design. Once the folk pianos of the identity FORMS album closer "Welcome to the Theatron Animatronique" conclude, the opus takes on a pivotal sense of completion. No closing credits though. It may sound intimidating on the surface butwowTrey Spruance is onto something."

Raymond Flotat, mxdwn.com

 

 

:-)

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Marsdinho

Marsdinho

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These are the three albums i always find myself returning to, the first being my favourite album of all time, possibly the best female vocals ever recorded!

 

Dusty in Memphis - Dusty Springfield

 

The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion - The Black Crowes

 

Laid - James

 

I'll second that !!!!

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SuperMikey

SuperMikey

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Most of my favourite albums are ones that grow on you tbh, I like albums that catch you at first but I often get bored. I enjoy listening to albums at least twice, maybe even three times through when I buy them and that way I get a real feel for the songs, I can feel the craft behind them and i can understand them too.

 

My top five are mainly albums that have come out recently because, although I do listen to a lot of music from past decades, my music tastes are firmly rooted in the modern music scene because this is what I have grown up with and into in a way. Music has evolved so much over the last 50 years that it's unbelievable. Anyway.

 

1. Radiohead - OK Computer

2. Biffy Clyro - Puzzle

3. Rage Against The Machine - The Battle of Los Angeles

4. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

5. Larrikin Love - The Freedom Spark

 

These five albums are ones that will not particularly grab you by the balls at first (with the exception of RATM) but you will find that with each listen they get so much better. When I first listened to Because of the Times by KOL, I was disappointed with it after Youth and Young Manhood, as their style seems to have changed a lot. But with each listen I discovered more textures and feel to each of the songs, and now I can honestly say that imo it's one of the best albums of the last decade.

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PES

PES

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When I first listened to Because of the Times by KOL, I was disappointed with it after Youth and Young Manhood, as their style seems to have changed a lot. But with each listen I discovered more textures and feel to each of the songs, and now I can honestly say that imo it's one of the best albums of the last decade.

 

I'm seeing Kings Of Leon at the BIC in December, I cant wait! :)

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loughborough_saint

loughborough_saint

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5. Larrikin Love - The Freedom Spark

 

man I miss this band! Their set at reading 2006 is one the most fun gigs/sets I have ever been at - just dancing crazily with complete strangers (because all the people I was at raeding with went to see the kooks instead! idiots!

 

Sorry to disgress but have you heard much of Edd Larrikins solo stuff? a mixed bag i would discribe it as!

 

Back to the point:

 

The Decembersists - The Crane Wife

Most say that Picaresque is their best effort but I love the drama and tension of some songs on The Crane wife.

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Counterforce

Counterforce

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princess_cover.jpg

 

 

 

Well, thanks to the existence of Sublime Frequencies now you can get it! Originally released in 1994 on Majora, this was one of the 1000 copy vinyl runs that changed the world forever. Possibly the first ever "world music" compilation with the right idea, and so scarce and sought after going out of print, it's been commanding some serious change on the LP collectors market. And for good reason. This ****ing thing will absolutely blow your goddamned head off. We've been recommending it to people for years, and only a couple of them have been able to track copies of it down after the first year of its printing — paying through the nose for the privilege.

 

Princess Nicotine is a compilation of 45s and tapes purchased and traded in Burma by Alan Bishop, and let's just state right here that besides his many other skills, this is a man who knows how to compile an album. Any Morricone freak knows that already, and will recognize AB as being the one who constructed the best Morricone compilation on the market: Morricone 2000.

 

But this is altogether different. What we have here is Burmese music that is made by and for Burmese people, not just some jerk going over there with some recording gear and making ethno-vampiric field recordings of the quaint little poor people in their natural habitat. (Why the **** do they always do that? GOD!) Whatever your opinion on the ethics of repackaging previously recorded music, part of what comes through when we get to hear people represent themselves in the recording medium instead of having some "expert" do it for them, is the incredible sonorities of the instruments: the pitched drums, the screaming double reeds, the pitched bells. These are really interesting instruments that come with musicians who are all literally shredding on them like you wouldn't believe. Untrained ears might call the sound lo-fi, but in my opinion the assumption that people making their own recordings on less-than-state-of-the-art gear is automatically lo-fi is pretty insulting. It's about what you put into it, and these recordings are good in my opinion. A lot of thought and heart went into them, and they represent the music really well ... opinions may differ on that argument, so if you're one to get all impressed by, say, Bill Laswell's brand of *ahem* "ethnic appreciation," maybe this isn't for you. For us, with the tape distortion, fabulous high-pitched vocals going through tape delays and karaoke boxes, Casio keyboards — all that stuff just keeps us going, "what? How? No WAY!" and hitting the rewind button over and over...

 

Ok, so spectacular instruments and sounds aside, the music itself is of course what's really interesting. What a jackpot! At one time a loose seeming and almost meandering part will take off into unfathomably tight musical pyrotechnics unmatched anywhere on earth — then stopping on a dime like a grindcore band to give way to a dialogue/comedy routine, complete with canned laughter. Oh just buy it for Christ's sake. We can't describe it! Well, we should say that there are also songs that are very pretty, and even though they're less crazy than some of the others, being "just" songs, a lot of them still remain harmonically and rhythmically inaccessible to me. Which after 10 years still adds to our love for all this music.

 

From the evidence presented on this release we know that the music of Burma is extremely varied, and by way of orientation, on this compilation one can hear vague musical relations to all the neighboring musical traditions: some Indonesian/Javanese/Balinese Gamelan style rhythmic concepts, a few elements of Indian pop and film music, the clashing of cymbals and punctuations of Chinese festival and opera music ... it's all there ... sort of. Geographically you would expect as much. But then one has to wonder how much of this is generalization born simply of our nearly universal ignorance of the whole area. For instance, anyone who's heard the piano music of Burma will go, "well, yeah, that's a piano alright. But what the hell??" So part of me doubts the wisdom of defaulting to "cross-pollinization" as any kind of real explanation of what's going on here. AB says it best: "Burmese music has a very distinct sound and whatever instrument is assimilated into its core only seems to magnify its original intent without depending on outside ideas as they relate to each component of it."

 

And DAMN do they ever turn it up a few notches over there in the jungles of Myanmar!

 

The CD contains extra tracks not on the LP that are GREAT, and it's tantalizingly subtitled "folk and pop music of Myanmar (Burma) VOL 1." Yes!

 

Finally, just so you don't go thinking it's all done with mirrors, after getting this one you should definitely get the Nat Pwe DVD on Sublime Frequencies, where you can see music like this being performed live at a festival in honor of a pair of transvestite deities who seem to really dig week long binges of Johnny Walker, Winstons, and loud incredible music that seriously never stops.

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Counterforce

Counterforce

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8a3ad250fca04aa7a4276010.L.jpg

 

 

Speedy West, pedal steel master, and Jimmy Bryant the guitar wizard teamed up for these astonishing recordings and gave to posterity some of the most mind-annihilating music ever committed to tape.

 

Transcending all notions of genre (Western Swing, Rockabilly, Old Country) these two guys are masters if there ever was a use for such a term. As fast as Fanfare Ciocarlia, as precise as U. Srinivas, and as fun-loving, unpredictable and ridiculous as Perrey & Kingsley, you're not accustomed to hearing American musicians excel like this. Because they're all dead. But these 1951 recordings provide proof that once upon a time giants walked the earth, even here in Hell. There is nothing to compare this to. No overdubbing or studio-****ery, there's no way this is possible. Yet there it is. And they're just laughing about it. They just **** these recordings out as a joke pretty much. How horrifying. The chemistry between these guys is priceless, and that alone obsoletes "shredding" in the current sense of so-called musicianship. Because the magic touch is there in every note — it's not just fast, it's supersonic, and yet unlike modern day speed demonism, it's totally listenable. Every note is arrived at through musical mastery. Nowhere does anything sound calculated; there's spontaneity written all over these tracks. And even though it's lighthearted, it's still deeper than most of us can even imagine — like going to the house of some classical Indian masters and after dinner they break out the instruments to screw around just for laughs. Only these masters are white guys in Tennessee or something. Truth told, you'll return to this again and again. We heard this **** in a gas station in Texas once, so it's still appreciated and well loved & not just some "novelty" to a lot of people, which is sure nice to know.

 

But get ready to cry from laughing too hard. You can forget ever playing the guitar again...

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St Landrew

St Landrew

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Apologies to all those I 'offended' through my stupidity. :(

 

There's no offence. I don't know which forum you originally placed this thread into, but it's in the right one now. The problem misplacing a thread such as this is that you're unlikely to get the answers you hoped for or expected. And there's no doubt it'll very quickly be hijacked. So it pays to get it right.

 

My contribution is Chips From The Chocolate Fireball by The Dukes Of Stratosphear. It's a combination album of the EP - 25 O'Clock and the album - Psonic Psunspot, and it's once again in my car.

 

I know I bang on about these guys [it's XTC in their 60's pop/psychedelic phase] but their music is superb at best and way over average at the absolute worst. The CFTCF songs are practically better than the original songs they tribute. It takes about 2 or 3 plays before you start to get into it [which actually is the same for all XTC songs, which is why people often don't get them until it's too late for a sale], and once you do, you're into a huge back catalogue of excellent albums. The worst of which [GO2 IMO] is still great listening when you're in the right mood.

 

It's the story of a band who start off brash and loud, e.g. Are You Receiving Me..? and end up being able to produce beautiful lush tracks like Chalkhills & Children. But do check out the Dukes.

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