Playlist for March 2020

I've made a music playlist for March. It's available here:

• Spotify
• Tidal
• Deezer

My comments on the music

• Mike Oldfield: Pran's Theme
  
  I've always been partial to Mike Oldfield ever since I heard Tubular Bells II. Mind you, that was before I heard the original and had reached an age when I realised that bands like Tangerine Dream had made far more interesting music than most of what Oldfield had made. Forgive me. I was young and innocent.
  
  On the other hand, this is beautiful music. Oldfield made this track as part of a considerate and lovely soundtrack for The Killing Fields, a popular film about the Vietnam invasion.
  
  
• The Black Dog: Out of Your League
  
  I had some difficulties getting into bands like The Black Dog—e.g. Autechre and Boards of Canada—but somehow, their The Conspiracy Tapes album came at the right time.
  
  About the album:

I can probably blame the WXAXRXP box set for rediscovering these bands properly.

• The Jesus and Mary Chain: Kill Surf City
  
  JAMC once said they wanted to sound like the Shangri-Las and Einstürzende Neubauten at the same time; another ingredient is Bo Diddley and simple four-to-the-floor rock 'n' roll, which is what this song is all about, drum machine included.
  
  
• Scud Mountain Boys: In A Ditch
  
  I've no idea how I fell into this lot, but Joe Pernice is in the band, and The Pernice Brothers used to be good. There's something in this track that niggles me back to it over and over.
  
  I have to give you The Pernice Brothers' Saddest Quo that's just a fucking banger in spite of its title:

• The Weeknd: Hardest To Love
  
  Don't ask, I was about to say.
  
  I've heard this guy's stuff on the radio a lot and didn't care for it. I dug his collaborations with Daft Punk but I thought that's it.
  
  Then I heard his new album, After Hours. Can we please dig the cover for a long time?
  
  
  
  Shit changed.
  
  Listen to this track. It's been looping off my head for a day.
  
  Yes, a day, because that fucking album has been rolling in my headphones nonstop for that entire time.
  
  Heartbreak songs drip of love and I need them in spite of happily being married.
  
  
• Blanck Mass: Descent
  
  I've dug Blanck Mass ever since I bought his World Eater album. Just listen to those first two tracks and fall in love with it already!
  
  I have to include the World Eater cover here:
  
  
  
  Now, he's back with his first soundtrack, Calm with Horses, for Geoff Barrow's Invada Records.
  
  As you can hear, it's a pulsating beast of a track. The entire soundtrack—i.e. the album—is emotive and brilliant. It goes up and down. It's a proper soundtrack. Makes me want to see the TV show.
  
  
• 1000 Kings: The Drop
  
  Part of me dislikes this song because it's too long.
  
  Part of me can't stop listening to it and enjoys how it's thoroughly and properly mixed.
  
  It's like a demo song for a sound system.
  
  I want to hate it and I can't. It's good.
  
  
• ShitKid: Always Amber
  
  ShitKid, the Swedish version of Scout Niblett, pulls off a soundtrack. She's good. She's always good, but she's progressing. I love her guitar playing.
  
  BTW, she's recently released this album that features people like Paul Leary (Butthole Surfers), Josh Freese (Nine Inch Nails, The Replacements, Guns n’ Roses etc), Buzz Osborne (the Melvins), and Dale Crover (the Melvins, Redd Kross)!
  
  I have to include the trailer for the album:
  

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• Viagra Boys: Lick the Bag
  
  Another kind-of-Swedish band—not that it matters, I'm not a fucking nationalist—that rocks, here's a slammer from their new EP.
  
  I'm still happy that I saw them live last year. If you get the chance to see this lot, do.

• Against All Logic: With an Addict
  
  I know nothing about this artist. I just know that this song is like a mix between M.I.A., some junglist shit, and calm electronics.
  
  OK, I checked; it's Nicolas Jaar. Not that I know anything about him either. This is just very nice music.
  
  
• Christian Ferras and Pierre Barbizet play George Enescu's Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 25 "Dans le caractère populaire romain": I. Moderato malinconico
  
  Ferras and Barbizet met in 1949 and formed one of the most famous piano-violin duos. This recording is from 1963 and rocks; it's available in remastered form. I dig how the initial feel of the track is kind of...what I've heard in both traditional Klezmer and Arabic music.
  
  
• Romain Collin: Clockwork
  
  Hypnotic, modern jazz. I like the drums and bass on this one, bar the piano. If you've got good listening equipment, you can hear the sound of somebody droning their voice throughout the first part of the song until it breaks out.
  
  Collin's cover of Bon Iver's Holocene is, by the way, quite beautiful in its simplicity:

• Paul Curreri: I Can Hear the Future Calling
  
  I discovered Curreri thanks to this thoroughly researched and beautifully written Longform article by Brendan Fitzgerald.
  
  Curreri is a brilliant musician. Read that article and listen to his shit or you are missing out. Support him via Patreon.
  
  
• The Kinks: A Well Respected Man
  
  The Kinks never gave a shit about anything—including compound modifiers, as the title implies—and this song has Ray Davies oozing sarcasm.
  
  Just hearing this song makes it obvious that The Kinks had their shit together. I don't know about the rest of the band, but Ray Davies is a brilliant songwriter.
  
  
• Roger Eno and Brian Eno: Deep Saffron
  
  Some times, I think Brian Eno takes the piss out of his listeners. Other times, I think he's absolutely brilliant.
  
  Parts of what he's done, for example, being in Harmonia as well as releasing Ambient 1: Music for Airports and Here Come the Warm Jets, are utterly brilliant.
  
  Producing U2 isn't.
  
  
• Shabaka and the Ancestors: You've Been Called
  
  This is some hard improvisational shit: I don't know why, but the counter bass, the song, the intro, the shouts, the weird piano accents, the percussion...this gets into me. This entire album is brilliant.
  
  

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• Christian Löffler: Weiß
  
  You're wrong if you think this to be something other than heavy German electronic stuff that strongly reminds me of Jon Hopkins.
  
  This is a nice post about how the album was made.
  
  
• Holy Fuck: No Error
  
  This is one of my favourite electronic bands in about twenty years, no exaggeration; they're a natural evolution from Kraftwerk deeply into dance, Krautrock, and improvisation. I'm very happy that they don't take themselves too seriously.
  
  This is from their latest album, Deleter. Stream or buy it here.
  
  
• Giuliano Carmignola, Mario Brunello, Accademia dell'Annunciata & Riccardo Doni. Bach & Vivaldi: Sonar in ottava. Double Concertos for Violin and Violoncello Piccolo: Sinfonia in D Major, RV 125: II. Adagio
  
  The violin and violoncello are here played an octave apart. This is a very choice recording as can plainly be heard. Buy the FLAC 96 version from Highresaudio.
  
  
• Maria Callas, singing Casta Diva from Norma by Vincenzo Bellini with the libretto by Felice Romani.
  
  Callas's voice is an acquired taste.
  
  I love her singing this version, which is played by Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, conducted by Tullio Serafin.
  
  This is blissful, soaring above pain, worries, anything and all.
  
  

Playlists, embedded