[patgod]

Every so often, someone here at the offices will clean up their areas and throw out tons of promo cd's we all tend to accumulate around here. They usually put them out for the rest of us to pick through before all the plastic gets recycled.

I had forgotten that last year someone threw out a TON of Nonesuch promos (label known for world music, avant garde, jazz, soundtracks, and Randy Newman.)

My headphone setup has been coming along nicely and I have been looking for some new music to test everything out.

So I cranked up the new system (these new crankshaft diesel getups): Toshiba 3990 -> Belkin Pure AV IC's (on loan from Craig) -> Eddie Current EC-01 -> Senn 580's.

Wow! What gems I've been overlooking:

Omara Portuondo - Flor De Amor
- I know nothing about her about except that All Music says she's the "grand old lady of Cuban music". Grand indeed! This album is wonderful. If you are into latin music ala Buena Vista Social Club, this is for you. An absolute delight.

Bernard Coulais - Les Choristes
- Film score? Very nice. Not something I normally listen to, as my knowledge of classical, scores, opera is embarrassingly insufficient.

Michael Gordon
- Fred Frith meets Phillip Glass? Very cool avante-garde compositions with nice worldy-electronic beats. Very different and has a nice dynamic to test my new set up.

Amadou & Mariam - Dimache a Bamako
- Can't say enough good things about this album. This one I've been listening to off and on quite a bit the last year. Blind, Malian Afro-pop duo that should be the biggest superstars in the universe. I listen to the crap put out by our sister labels and wonder why on earth such travesties are allow to occur. I could go on for hours about the vacuous soul-killing boring rock that gets shoved down our throats by a greedy out-of-touch music executives, and how the answer to the apparent "downfall" of the industry lies in the talent being modestly push by the music group's woefully ignored step-child of a label, but I won't... Check out Sénégal Fast Food. Best pop song since the Beatles.

Compay Segundo - Calle Salud
- Another wonderful participant of Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club. All music describes: "son, bolero-son, merengue, son-afro, and cha cha styles." Lot's of clarinet, acoustic guitar and latin percussion.

Wilco - a ghost is born
- My impression of Wilco standing outside the ski lodge that is Warner/Reprise: "hahahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! !"

Well, I'm still digging through these delights, let's see what treasure I can discover next.

 

[FalconP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by patgod /img/forum/go_quote.gif Omara Portuondo - Flor De Amor - I know nothing about her about except that All Music says she's the "grand old lady of Cuban music". Grand indeed! This album is wonderful. If you are into latin music ala Buena Vista Social Club, this is for you. An absolute delight.

YES! YES!
Omara Portundo has always been a darling in Cuban Music, long before her international fame with the BVSC. If you can only have one of her many albums (which are being rereleased by many different labels), Flor De Amor is it.

Nonesuch have been re-releasing remastered version of their field/ethnic recordings. The Japanese titles are well worth having.

 

[hempcamp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by patgod /img/forum/go_quote.gif Amadou & Mariam - Dimache a Bamako ...Check out Sénégal Fast Food. Best pop song since the Beatles.

x2 -- to those who don't know, Manu Chao makes a great number of appearances on this album as well. Great stuff, even though my favorite A&M track -- Je Pense à Toi -- is on another album.

You're one lucky son of a gun to get all those free promo CDs!

--Chris

 

[ralphp@optonline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by patgod /img/forum/go_quote.gif Omara Portuondo - Flor De Amor - I know nothing about her about except that All Music says she's the "grand old lady of Cuban music". Grand indeed! This album is wonderful. If you are into latin music ala Buena Vista Social Club, this is for you. An absolute delight...... Amadou & Mariam - Dimache a Bamako - Can't say enough good things about this album. This one I've been listening to off and on quite a bit the last year. Blind, Malian Afro-pop duo that should be the biggest superstars in the universe. I listen to the crap put out by our sister labels and wonder why on earth such travesties are allow to occur. I could go on for hours about the vacuous soul-killing boring rock that gets shoved down our throats by a greedy out-of-touch music executives, and how the answer to the apparent "downfall" of the industry lies in the talent being modestly push by the music group's woefully ignored step-child of a label, but I won't... Check out Sénégal Fast Food. Best pop song since the Beatles..... Well, I'm still digging through these delights, let's see what treasure I can discover next.

Thanks for the heads up on some new and interesting music to check out. Luckily I live in an area that has a rather nice library system where one can go online and request books, CDs or DVDs from a whole network of local libraries and so I was able to find (and request) a few of the items that you mentioned. Now I'm looking forward to giving them a listen.