I was obsessed with kd lang for a while as a teenager. I was blown away by her voice and the songwriting on Ingenue. She knocks this Roy Orbison song out of the park every time she sings. She’s one of the greatest singers ever. No contest. Brilliant control, tone, pitch, and power, all used with great musicality. She knows when to pull back, and when to let rip. I prefer the arrangement in the MTV Unplugged session she did in ’93, but her vocal from the induction of Roy Orbison into the The Songwriters Hall of Fame is stunning.
Speaking of that Unplugged session, this performance from it of the song “Barefoot”, is one of my very favourite performances of hers. The song is from the movie Salmonberries, which also kd lang also starred in, is one of those songs that will randomly pop into my head for no apparent reason. The melody of is utterly divine:
I remember completely enjoying the movie Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, but having it open with kd lang singing “Skylark”, a capella, was an absolute gem. Just her voice, unadorned.
Whether cowpunk, or pop, powerballads, or country tinged folk, her vocals are always golden. This song, from the album Invincible Summer is always one of my happy summer driving songs:
The last two days of May were spent back up in Charthouse studios again, this time working on just three songs over the two days, as we were going to be hitting two of the more complex songs from a recording point of view. As it stands at the moment, I’ve worked on 10 songs in the studio. Two of them will need retracking, as they’re stuff I did on the very first day, and I’d not really gotten the hang of the studio just yet. The other 8 are at various stages – some just need a little bit of extra work and that’s all, and others are pretty good reference tracks that’ll need vocal retracking, and the rest fall somewhere in between. But I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far.
I think I was overly prepared in many ways, as I have a fear of wasting time in the studio when I’m working on a tight budget, and I want to be as well rehearsed and prepared as possible going in each day. I plan out what songs I’m going to work on what days, and anything I’m unsure of musically gets plotted out on manuscript paper or using MuseScore so that I don’t get flustered or blocked in any way when I’m actually in the studio.
It was nice to hear things coming together that I’ve only done rough demos of, or hearing new vocal arrangements working out better than I imagined they would. I’ve been listening to the reference tracks here at home these last few days, and picking out what I want to do with each song, and looking at what I’m not happy with about each track so far, and trying to put together a plan for how to finish off the recording as efficiently as I can. I might dilly dally when I’m writing the music, but when it comes to the studio days, I try and be prepared and organised so that I don’t waste money or anyone’s time in the studio. I’m really liking working in the studio though – I’ve taken to it a lot easier than I thought I would, click tracks and all!
But, in between studio days, I’ve been meeting with a friend of mine who is a print artist, and we’ve been chatting and working out ideas for the visual side of the album which has been exciting, and I’ve been working on the crowdfunding project on :fund:it.
In short, the last bit of cash I’d put aside for the recording days was what funded those last day in the studio, so to help fund the rest of the studio time, mixing and mastering, and the initial batch of cds, I’m running a crowdfunding project through :Fund:it – Ireland’s version of Kickstarter and their ilk. Anyone from around the world can pledge money towards a project, and you’ll see a little slew of rewards available to you if you pledge money to help me finish off this album: :fund:it – mister ebby – wires.
Mark Willis very kindly came over and shot the promo video I’m using on the :fund:it project, and Yvonne Ryan took a few shots that day for me to use too. Check out their work!
When I was in university, every so often one of my friends would announce some random gig or other that we all just had to go to. Sometimes the excitement was well founded – like the first time Damien Rice came to play in NUIM was just at the university open mic, but the excitement was well built up by the time he came back a year later with a full band. Other times, the hype fell through. But this particular friend had never gotten so enthusiastic about a gig before this. She wanted us to go and see the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Nika is Swedish, and we figured it was just some random Swedish band who no-one else would know about, so we’d all go along with her and see them in Vicar St. In her eagerness, Nika ended up being one of the first people booking tickets, and we were seated up in the two tables front and centre in Vicar St – right up at the stage with a full clear view of the jazz trio set up.
We gathered first out in the bar, before going in to take our seats, and I got chatting to some random guy who was asking me what I thought of the group, and if I’d seen them before. When he discovered that not only was this the first time I’d be seeing them live, but also that it would be my first exposure to their music at all, he was surprised. But upon also find out that we were all music students, he decided to give me a copy of “Strange Place For Snow“, which he had intended to give to the friend he was meeting to go to the gig with. But it ended up in my bag instead, and I said thank you as we headed into the gig.
I felt a bit guilty taking the best seats in the gig, especially as only one of us even knew of e.s.t. beforehand. But as the gig progressed, I was kinda glad we had those seats, as the band completely blew us away. A gang of eager music students hanging on every note was perhaps the best thing you could have in those seats at a gig. The energy coming from the stage was astonishing, and seeing how each musician stretched the boundaries of what they could make their instrument do was inspiring. It completely reignited my love of jazz and Esbjörn Svensson quickly moved into my list of inspirational pianists.
After the gig, the simple gesture of a stranger giving me a copied CD of some music meant a hell of a lot more, and that album has become one of my most listened to records over the years.
Astonishingly wonderful piano playing. I love how he incorporates prepared piano techniques into his music, and quite effortlessly, and to brilliant effect:
The two piano lines in this track really showcase the Baroque influence on his piano style, and always brings to mind that amazing piano solo in Nina Simone’s version of “Love Me Or Leave Me” :
Tragically, Esbjörn Svensson died in 2008 in a diving accident. His obituary in The Independent tells how he brought jazz to new audiences, and speaking from personal experience, that is most definitely true.
The pianist and composer Esbjörn Svensson was one of the most popular and influential figures in contemporary jazz. His group e.s.t. (Esbjörn Svensson Trio) […] drew inspiration from Bach and the baroque, ambient music, rock and techno to create a new form of intensely textured instrumental music that proved as attractive to younger fans with no previous interest in jazz as it did to admirers of the classic piano trios that the group’s ensemble-based style referenced.
[…]
As a jazz pianist, Svensson had an unusually versatile style, which combined the structural importance of baroque counterpoint that he had learned to appreciate in his classical studies, with lightly twinkling improvisations that recalled Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, the two most influential piano trio leaders of the post-war period.
What made Svensson most unusual within the normally promiscuous world of jazz is that almost all his mature work was with the same group, and the same personnel. He was also very happy to let Berglund and Oström take up solo space themselves, and the great delight of e.s.t. as a group was the strength of the ensemble rather than that of the individuals who comprised it.
Someone I was chatting to recently about music, was hating on jazz, and saying that a lot of instrumental jazz had no heart, and was just experimentation and a wild mess that was unlistenable and had to structure. I’ll be the first to admit that I loved vocal jazz a lot earlier than I developed a love for purely instrumental jazz, but can you listen to this and say it has no heart:
The melody at the end of that track just hits me really hard. It’s just beautiful, and the whole ending of that piece is magical.
Along with everything else in this track, listen to the double bass part here around the 5min mark especially. Seeing a double bass being used like that live for the first time was ear and eye opening for a young music student, let me tell you:
There’s music everywhere now. There’s saturation now. It’s become a career opportunity. A job. People go on The X Factor and say, “I just want a better life”. I wanted to change the world. When I started making music, I felt, naïvely or not, that I had something to tell the world. I had a mission statement. It’s great to buy your mum a house. It’s a lovely idea. But it shouldn’t be why you make music. When I hear that I think “you’re getting it all wrong”. My favourite type of music makes me want to burn down a building or makes me cry.
I agree with everything in this quote. It’s one of the best statements about the music industry and why some people just have to make music, and others just want to be famous. The whole article, an interview with Mark Ronson and Boy George together, is definitely worth reading. Boy George is a very interesting man, and I’ve a lot of respect for him after reading that interview. I never really read much about him, other than random news headlines, and I only really know his Culture Club singles.
There’s a wonderful moment at the end of the article, where Mark Ronson jokingly refers to Boy George as a “national treasure”, and the Boy responds:
Being a national treasure doesn’t pay the rent though. An 80s icon is nothing to be.
I used to watch a music show back in the late 90’s on TnaG (TG4 as it is now), and they’d have 20minute segments dedicated to an artist or a year or whatever, and I remember one time it was Culture Club. I knew the songs, but didn’t know the man, and even then it was an exhilarating experience to see someone so definitely “other” singing on my tv. The same show introduced me to Kate Bush, and developed my popular music history. Of course, I’m a sucker for choirs, so the Culture Club song that made the biggest impact is one that is probably not as well known (note the top hat. Even more awesome) :
Of course the reason for the interview with the two together is because of the Mark Ronson single “Somebody To Love Me” which has Boy George on vocals, along with Andrew Wyatt of Miike Snow.
