Abbess Hildegard von Bingen- A Feather on the Breath of God (1993)

http://www.mediafire.com/?s1e9eno35w5a51m

Let me introduce you to another CD that i purchased based on visual interest: Abbess Hildegard of Bingen.

Hildegard von Bingen was a self-taught Christian mystic who created music, poems, visual art (iconography), and religious texts during the 12th century. Her music is amazing--serene, surreal, haunting, evocative, and blissful. The title of this collection, A Feather on the Breath of God, is meant to convey the role of mankind in the earth-- floating at the whim of the supernatural. It's also a perfect description of this music.

Her artwork/iconography is also unbelievable. I hate to add to the piles of internet knowledge, so i'll refrain and just say how incredible the music is. I think of cds like this when i think of Michael Stipe's quote that "Music is proof that god exists."

Please just download it and listen to it.

Some of Bingen's sensational--and academically neglected-- visual artwork. 

A beautiful self-commissioned holy icon.

R. Crumb- Hot Women: Women Singers from the Torrid Regions of the World (2003)

http://www.mediafire.com/?b54hzi52x8dshtr
or
http://www.mediafire.com/?nj3r6d9neneeq49

There have been a few times that I have purchased an album based on the sheer promise of the artwork and song names on the back cover. HOT WOMEN was a very memorable one.


It was compiled by illustrator R. Crumb (and his under-credited wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb) from an impressive group of 78s.


The music is all "traditional," as iTunes calls it. Women, sometimes with their children, all singing around the mic, hisses and all. After being bombarded by Rebecca Blacks and Lady Gagas, i love to hear the flawed crackle of outdated recording technology and the additional talent that performers had in order to adapte to the medium. As a result, the album is beautiful and diverse.


The main reason to purchase the cd is to hold the fantastic artwork in your hand. But the music is good, too.

Complaint: A few of the titles are listed as "Title in Hindustanese" or something similarly lazy. If you're going to put out a compilation, why not bother to ask someone who reads a language to translate it for you??
Big pet peeve. Crumb probably thinks it's part of the charm, but i call it lazy at best (and culturally arrogant at worst). Your call. 

Rachel's- Systems/Layers

http://www.mediafire.com/?hzjyj3zvlkm

Rachel's has to be one of my favorite bands ever, and Systems/Layers is probably their finest record. Most of their albums could be classified as concept albums, but this one works the best. Start to finish, it has an uncanny cohesion, and it bounces between classical, ambient, trip-hop, spoken word, indie rock, found recordings, and low budget movie soundtrack.

It works well as active and passive listening, and as a result, Rachel's proudly boasted of being as popular with grandparents as they were to young hipsters. If that sounds at all weird, please listen to this and see what I mean.

This cd has a tenuous beauty and sadness to it-- both frail and rough. Probably one of my top 10 records of all time. I played the hell out of this the year it came out.

Also great by Rachel's: Selenography, Music for Egon Schiele, and The Sea and the Bells.

Bang on a Can All Stars- Music for Airports

http://www.mediafire.com/?d2vuu97kb8h2m9f

Unless you have lived (quite successfully) under a log for the past several decades, you've gone through a period of really liking Brian Eno's Music for Airports. The story is that while he was hospitalized, he became fascinated with sounds that blended into the environment. That is apparently an amazing idea, though Eric Satie had a very similar idea a good hundred years before...

I digress. So there is a "New Chamber Group" or however they describe themselves, named Bang On a Can All Stars (i won't judge you for judging the name. Yuck.) who likes to cover music by people who will never appreciate their efforts (e.g. Brian Eno and Richard D. James). They turned this extremely discreet music into something sort of dynamic, to be played live by 8 or 9 musicians.

I sound pessimistic, but the actual recording is pretty nice. If you are at all familiar with Eno's original, this is an interesting listen.

(Please, BOACAS: new name, or at least new album art. Yuck.)

Dirty Projectors & Bjork- Mt. Wittenburg Orca

http://www.mediafire.com/?4qo24epevcb4x2g

I grew up with this guy who ended up wearing polyester suits to school every day his Junior year of high school, right around when he started sporting some bleached hair and very angular sideburns. Part of this new persona consisted of listening to music that his sister handed down to him, which he tried to like, but then became disinterested in. He passed them along to me. I wish i could say that i had a revelation, but it was years until i fully appreciated The Beach Boys- "Pet Sounds" and Bjork- "Debut," which were two of the cds he gave me.

Fast forward a few years, and a friend played Bjork's "Homogenic" at her house. That WAS a revelation, and Bjork was the bee's knees for a few solid years. I loved how she destroyed her voice on every song and sounded ready to fall apart. I enjoyed her a bit less as Drawing Restraint came out, and it was downhill from there.

BUT! A few years later, I discover the amazing and incredibly weird Dirty Projectors, who somehow cradle chamber music, art rock, and 80s R&B. Oh yeah, they're weird. Then, they make a cd with Bjork about whale sighting off a mountain in California, and luckily for us all, it's absolutely beautiful. Weird, wobbly, perfectly delivered, and full of idiosyncratic sounds. To me, it sounds like whales swimming, which is about perfect.

I feel a little guilty for putting it up here, since the proceeds from the album go to support National Geographic. It's like robbing from Ghandi. Eh. What are you gonna do...?

A rather shoddy live recording:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdZH9R1n-4


*As a side note, my two year old son LOVES this cd. Take that, all you lame-ass library folk singers.