Whats playing on your system today?

Handel's Messiah, Emmanuelle Haim, Qobuz......the whole thing this morning before Lessons and Carols at church.

Wonderful stuff loud.

Beck - Morning Phase.


Just recently discovered this. Listening to it every day. I'm just blown away. I'm a sucker for echo chamber. Very mature. Introspective. I can hear lots of stuff in it. Simon and Garfunkel, Grateful Dead, Astral Weeks to name a few. Some of it borders on Gregorian. Hypnotic. It is also a cohesive album not just a collection of songs. They're different but they work together in the order they are presented. A lot like Astral Weeks.

Hi-res streaming SQ is good. Could have been better though.


Funny thing is, I'm going back and listening to his other stuff and it just doesn't click for me.

@uberwaltz, I am interested to see what you think of Morning Phase. It is certainly a contemplative album, not a rocker.


@mapman I feel the same way about most of Beck's other stuff. I just don't really get it. Sea Change is not bad but does not pull me in the way Morning Phase does.


@stereo5 Me too. Apparently his father helped do the arrangements of the orchestral pieces. Maybe that helped guide the cohesiveness of Morning Phase as there are recurring instrumental themes through the album.

Khruangbin - The Universe Smiles Upon You. First album by this Texas trio. 2015 I think. Thai-funk ambient echo-chamber psychedelic mood groove lounge music recorded in a barn in Texas.

Just got the CD. Shocker here. NOT OVER COMPRESSED! I can't say what the DR  actually is because the CD is not in the DR database yet. Lossless streaming versions are on the database and have excellent DR by today's standards and the CD sounds better than the hi-res streaming version. To me this is refreshing and ground breaking for a new artist to release a CD with a broad DR.


I've mentioned these guys before. It won't be for everybody. I still can't figure out why I like it so much except that it is well recorded and produced. Real sonic ear candy. Just put it on. Crank it up to a pleasant volume and give it a chance while you're doing something else.


I actually like their second and third album better. Can't wait to get those CDs! Happily paying new prices for this.

@uberwaltz: Did you survive the trip? Haven't heard from you in a few days. I've had the same experience in the lower back. Miserable stuff. Even worse when you need to be working.

Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference. Jazz of all things.

@glupson: I like hill country blues as much as I do delta blues. RL and Junior were greats.
I've seen Cedric Burnside perform. He was RL's grandson and used to play with RL when he was young. He is a great drummer and a great performer. His albums are okay with some good songs but a fair amount of so-so to not-so-good stuff.

The Black Keys - Chulahoma : The Songs of Junior Kimbrough

I think it is one of their best albums. Production quality is crap....but that does not really matter for Junior's songs. Raw, coarse, hard edged blues. And they interpret Junior's songs perfectly. Only Junior could do it better.

If you like blues and don't know Junior Kimbrough, give him a search. If you like blues and Junior, this album is worth your time and the recorded phone call from Junior's wife at the end is priceless.

I saw Big Head Todd, Hootie and the Blowfish, The Meat Puppets and Freedy Johnston at a festival in Charleston, SC in the mid 90's. Great 90's pop groups.

Tonight I'm listening to Robert Plant-Pictures At Eleven then R.E.M. Automatic for the People.

Neko Case tonight-Fox Confessor then Middle Cyclone.

Listened to Zenyatta Mondatta earlier this evening. Great album. I really like "Voices In My Head" but invariably the loud reggae shout in the middle makes me jump.

Right now: Steely Dan-Two Against Nature

Black Sabbath ,"The End". HR 24/96

ozzy

Ozzy is that you?

 Neko Case - Middle Cyclone. Again. Her music doesn't really hit me initially. But the more time I spend with it the better it gets.

uberwaltz, I admire the breadth of your interest...but Alabama? ;-)

I just got Donald Fagen's "Nightfly" CD in the mail this afternoon. As expected the production quality is hard to top but not sure I like it as much as any of the other Steely Dan recordings I have.

uberwaltz, agree about August and Everything After. That album sounded so original and groundbreaking to me when it came out. Still love it.

Right now:

Oxford American 2003 Southern Music CD no.6:

Swamp Dogg, Del McCoury Band, Linda Ronstadt, My Morning Jacket, The Gourds, Memphis Minnie, R. L. Burnside, Willie Nelson, Will Kimbrough....to name a few 

My wife had dinner with Marshall Tucker once.

Well, it was a baited anecdote, but I didn’t set it up well. There is no one in the band named Marshall Tucker, of course. They took their name from an envelope they found in a house Marshall Tucker used to live in. He was a blind man and my wife used to read on the radio for the Commission for the Blind. She met him at a commission banquet.

Edit: Wikipedia gives a different, and probably more accurate, account but the story is basically the same.

Ted Hawkins- The Next Hundred Years. CD. What a fortunate find!

Nostalgia lane: BTO - Not Fragile. I think it was the first LP I ever got. A bit course and simplistic lyrics but still a great album. Wish I still had the LP. The cover was stamped so that you could feel the gears in the picture.

uberwaltz, I like Knopfler’s Get Lucky (2009) and the Privateering double CD (2012). I love Tracker (2015), listening to it now. It is probably in my top 10 albums. So I was hoping Down the Road Wherever would be a continuation in that line.

@bdp24, my favorite blues song is by Little Walter: "Hate to See You Go". The Stones cover it on their recent blues album.

To your list I'd add Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, both Mississippi hill country blues singers. R.L.'s later stuff is a bit funky. I saw his grandson and former drum player Cedric Burnside play in a tiny (and most of the year, abandoned) movie theater in Clarksdale, Mississippi a few years ago. It was encouraging that there were a lot of college students in there who clearly knew his music.

***************
Tonight I'm listening to Mark Knopler's new album Down the Road Wherever and not really digging it. :-(

Traffic- The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

Privateering CD #1-Mark Knopfler.

Steely Dan-Gaucho, CD. The production quality is so good I even like the songs I don't like. ;-)

Traffic-John Barleycorn. CD.

Right now: Dire Straits - Communique

Earlier:

Rush - Moving Pictures
The Police- Ghost in the Machine
Traffic- John Barley Corm Must Die
Ted Hawkins- The Next Hundred Years

Streamed some Dave Mason too.

The Teskey Brothers. Half Mile Harvest.

My wife is in here reading and she likes them too.

Neko Case- Middle Cyclone when my wife goes upstairs....she does not like Neko.

Dvorak, Symphony 9 'From the New World', Cleveland Orchestra, Christoph Von Dohnanyi. London CD.

Loud.

Blue Mountian - Dog Says. From the 1990's. Brief but quality career in my opinion. If you like roots rock give them a listen.

Led Zeppelin III. CD. Vinyl is worn slap out.

Traffic-Low Spark of High Healed Boys.

Considering whole albums I prefer John Barleycorn Must Die.

Animals-Floyd. My dog comes running into the room and stares at my speakers when Dogs comes on. I think he got some dog drool on one of my bass drivers.

Well, I'm not man enough to admit that I bought an Air Supply LP.....and I never have.

But, a few months ago we were in a record store and my wife bought Don Henley's album with Sunset Grill and Boys of Summer on it. Pristine condition, plays like new. She also got Huey Lewis' album Sports. Also like new.

I never would have bought these albums but they are both pretty good and in perfect shape.

I on the other hand spent too much money on The Band's first album and Morrison's Tupelo Honey. Both have a few clicks and pops. I've never cleaned an LP. Probably need to learn how.

That would be a good topic for a thread...stuff you like but don't like to admit it.

One of my all time guilty favorites: The T-bones' No Matter What Shape Your Stomach's In

Listening to it now.

Led Zeppelin I - CD

Ella and Louis. Verve recording via Amazon Music. 
Sonically a great recording. 

Leon Bridges- Coming Home, serious new R&B/Soul. Refreshing neo-retro.

Cowboy Junkies - Lay it Down.

St. Paul and the Broken Bones - Half the City. I lie it but I'm not blown away. May take a few more listens.

@bdp24, I'm sure you are well aware of Dankos solo stuff but others might not. Not sure how you feel about it but one of the songs, Sip the Wine, is not bad for a 'Band' flavored song.

@mental , I can hardly stay in the room or car if modern country music is playing. But, I recently bought Chris Stapleton's Traveller CD. There are a few songs on there that smack of mod-country-pop that I don't like but there are also a few excellent songs on there. Tennessee Whiskey is the best of the bunch and is heavily blues infused.....which is why I like it.

Tonight, I'm listening to The Teskey Brothers Half Mile Harvest. Again. The more I listen the better it gets. Looking forward to their US tour this summer.

@mental , someone here on Audigon turned me on to the Teskey Brothers. I knew I liked them from the first 30 seconds of the first song. The singer sounds like Otis Redding and they are very soulful.

In that genre also look into Vintage Trouble, especially 1 Hope St and Leon Bridges Coming Home.

Gary Clark Jr also dabbles in R&B but he is all over the place on his albums from raw acoustic blues to blistering Hendrix-like guitar work to R&B and even a little hip-hop vibe here and there.

I peruse this thread and the ’what are you streaming’ thread a lot and I’ve been turned onto some good music. As someone mentioned in another thread, we are in a golden age of music diversity and availability.

The downside is that when I look up a lot of the recommendations mentioned here, most of the time I am underwhelmed. This is not a complaint or a criticism. We all have different tastes and that’s good. Plus, I’m not hearing much overtly bad music. Most of what people mention in these threads is well done.......just not my cup of tea. Just doesn’t hook me in.

Given the volume and variety out there this is no surprise of course but I’m just struck by how much good but not great (to me) music is out there. I’ve listened through quite a few whole albums by an artist and or multiple songs by an artist enjoyed them okay but have not been compelled to purchase them on CD....which is my measure of how good an album is to me.

The bottom line is that I have to preview a lot of music before I find something I want to buy and own. But there are a lot or worse ways to spend one’s time, right?

It also gives me some insight into other’s tastes in music.

Some of you guys are weird. ;-)

Tonight listening to The Best of INXS on CD. Man that band put out a bunch of hits and even though a couple of them are dated the rest have held up pretty well. This CD also sounds quite good.

A true shame about Michael Hutchence. So many of these bright creative folks just can't seem to stay on the planet. Makes me think about Cobain and Shannon Hoon too.

I'm listening to Mark Knopfler's Tracker CD. My wife says I listen to it every day...which is not true.

But, the more I listen to it the more I like it. The songs are fabulous. The recording and engineering are top notch, to the point that I consider it to be one of my reference CDs. 

It is becoming one of my favorite albums. Right up there with Astral Weeks and a very few others.

I'm almost grieved that his most recent release is nowhere near as good. Not even good enough to buy in fact.

If you haven't listened to Tracker, give it a try. Get a glass of scotch, turn the lights down, get in your listening chair, close your eyes and give it a good listen. The deluxe version is worth the money as the extra songs are also quite good.

Cowboy Junkies - Lay It Down.

I like a number of their other songs too but this is the only album that I really like as a whole.

I like her voice a lot but it is a bit one dimensional and does not seem as rich as someone like Natalie Merchant who has a similar voice but maybe more depth and range.

boxer12, I will admit that I have not given The Trinity Sessions a serious sit down listen and even my experience with a number of their other albums is cursory.  I should have said that their other albums didn't initially grab me the way Lay It Down did. So I can't really comment.

I'll give it a listen tomorrow night and try to remember to comment.

And speaking of alt country female singers, listening to Neko Case:

Fox Confessor now.
Middle Cyclone next.

@boxer12, Just listened to The Trinity Session and I like it okay. Sweet Jane, Blue Moon Revisited and Misguided Angel are particularly good. Many of these songs are covers and they do a good job but they're own stuff on Lay It Down is really good.

One article I read says that Lay It Down is their first album where they are pretty much fully rock rather than alt country. Lay It Down has an alt country vibe so I'm not sure I agree.

Anyway, give Lay It Down a listen. So far, to me, its their best work.

Blak and Blu - Gary Clark, Jr. - HD Tracks file. Better recording than the CD.