Colleen (Cécile Schott) - The Golden Morning Breaks - The Leaf label - 2005

My absence during the majority of the summer was not intentional; it was a very difficult time (not going to burden or bother everyone with details - we are all here, after all, for glorious music!) and although 'this' continues for me, I'm glad that the oppressive heat and turmoil of the season is over.

One issue that I will share - and this is quite embarrassing for me - is my dreadful financial state which forced me to cancel my internet provider for a couple months. Never imagined it would come to that! Alas, this is but a "first-world problem" as they say - but then again having an i.s.p. or a connection of *some kind* is pretty basic, like owning a phone. So the "bargain" tier service I'm using now is slowww - slow like a Purcell Fantazia in fact (zippyshare is currently taking 12 min to upload 100mb!). But, I am here all the same!

So much for not whining/kvechting : /  I did keep it short, which is atypical for me hehe.

This is an album that I turned to repeatedly during the summer to try to find peace and calm, surrounding myself with Schott's mysterious and quiet beauty. This is her 2nd album from 2005. 

Composer and musician Colleen (Cécile Schott) creates an aural realm that is oft melancholy yet also cheerful - one must really listen to what's happening to "feel" it. She creates ambient sounds that are dark, yet also full of light that shimmers and sparkles delicately. Schott achieves this by employing all types of bells, chimes and even a glass glockenspiel from the 1800's. On this album she also plays several acoustic guitars, small electric pianos and organs, a harp, primitive mallet instruments, and a handful of toy instruments (such as a hand-cranked music box). 

Tracks:

1. Summer Water

2. Floating In The Clearest Night

3. The Heart Harmonicon

4. Sweet Rolling

5. The Happy Sea

6. I'll Read You A Story

7. Bubbles Which On The Water Swim

8. Mining In The Rain

9. The Golden Morning Breaks

10. Everything Lay Still

I first discovered Colleen's music in the debut film "The Unloved" by Samantha Morton. I find the film to be as poetic and magical as it is sad and tragic (it's a child's eye view of the U.K.'s government-run care system for orphans and children in danger who are stuck in foster care. The music meshes with the atmosphere and images as if Schott's pieces were composed for the film (the film was made 4 years later, in 2009). This is a film that I am really fond of and definitely recommend. The soundtrack also includes works by Colleen taken from other albums - I just might upload some others even if just a couple of people are receptive to this music. Hopefully everyone can find something to enjoy here!

Enjoy

Colleen-TheGoldenMorningBreaks-Tzadik.zip

http://www104.zippyshare.com/v/CHTDzgRc/file.html

Timothy Nelson - Music for the Brothers Quay Documentary - "Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)" - Mütter Muszea, Atelier Koninck & Pro Bono Films 2012

Twin brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay have been ('two') of my favorite filmmakers/artists/directors for many years now. I am a huge fan of surrealist stop-motion animation and puppetry, especially from Eastern Europe-the Czechs in particular have always had a special preoccupation with surrealism, and many of the best surrealist and experimental filmmakers have come from the Bohemian land of King Rudolf II. The Brothers Quay have always collaborated with the most interesting one-of-a-kind composers, the best example being Leszek Jankowski whom the Quays had a long creative partnership with. Jankowski composed music for most of their short films and a couple full length features as well. The music for their fascinating documentary-short (31 min) was written by Timothy Nelson, a composer, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist whose music powerfully adds to the film's visual strength. I knew nothing about him prior to the film. The music is oft abstract,  gloomy, other-worldy, beautiful, and in general hard to pigeonhole. It works wonderfully within the fascinating, macabre setting of the Mütter Museum.

Dvd cover of the Quay's film. 

Timothy Nelson's soundtrack is included on the dvd as mp3s so I finally plopped them on my HD.

"Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum)" is specifically a documentary on the collections of books, instruments, and medical anomalies at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mütter Museum. It’s a ghoulish, educational and intriguing collection.  This short film, commissioned by the College, is the first made by the internationally recognized and brilliant Quay Brothers here in the United States. The coupling of the Quay Brothers' vision with the collections of the Mütter Museum and the College's Historical Medical Library has produced a riveting experience of contemplative set pieces in which the Quays find poetry in the ill-fated, true-life stories of the "ossified man" Harry Eastlack, and famed Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker among many others. The resonant voice-over is performed superbly by Derek Jacobi. 

Composer Timothy Nelson

The "Viennese eye phantom"

Above is the skeleton of Harry Eastlack, a young man who died from the rare disease Fibrodysplasia Ossificants Progressiva, where cartilage in the bones ossifies, causing a "second skeleton" to grow.

Scene which explores a rare, very old anatomical "pop up" book

Skull from the Hyrtl collection

The actual plaster cast made shortly after the death of the Bunker Brothers

Part of the Viennese anatomist Joseph Hyrtl skull collection

The Brothers Quay during filming at the Mütter

Rather creepy device known as the perforator. This was used to save the mother's life in 'emergencies' by taking another

This is actually a tumor

And no this post has nothing to do with it being Halloween here in the States tomorrow! To be serious, I am fascinated with all kinds of dark subjects, and medical anomalies are extraordinarily interesting. One cannot begin to fathom however these kind of existences. The museum has 1000s of examples of all kind, including the strangest objects ever swallowed, and a (human) colon in a display case that's about 3 feet long. The Quays tell the stories of those unspeakably afflicted with great dignity.

The composer's own site says that "Nelson's film music has been compared to that of Zdeněk Liška, Alan Splet, Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda and Toru Takemitsu. I urge all of you to be adventurous and check it out (and the documentary as well!). I think anyone missing more traditional, or lyrical music here will well enjoy the brief last track, "Orchids"..

Enjoy ye adventurers 

Timothy_Nelson-Through_The_Weeping_Glass-Tzadik.zip

http://www83.zippyshare.com/v/3E9BOSkh/file.html

Jon Hassell - 'Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street' - ECM Records 2009

Jon Hassell's 2009 release on ECM could surely win in a competition for the 'strangest album title', not to mention the most mysterious. Hassell's music is often situated in a hazy nexus between jazz and ambient, and it can do weird things to your sense of space. He sounds like no one else, but many trumpet players and sound collagists have been deeply influenced by his work. On this recording Hassell captures a hushed, gorgeous stillness that recalls Miles Davis at his most languid.

The piece that entranced me immediately even before I got this album is "Last night the moon came", which is the most elegiac piece, built upon a tranquil, repeating string figure. *It is the 4th track, and I would strongly recommend to anyone who might think that this album is not for them-to start with this work. It is simply ethereal, and imo the highlight of this collection. The first track, "Aurora" is also a fine place to start (call me 'captain obvious'. -is anyone suddenly singing Do-Re-Mi??) however it requires more patience for the uninitiated I would think. It is symphonic in feeling (even the bass resembles a timpani) in it's own quiet, dreamy way..

"Jon Hassell is an inventor of new forms of music – of new ideas of what music could be and how it might be made. His work is drawn from his whole cultural experience without fear or prejudice. It is an optimistic, global vision that suggests not only possible musics but possible futures."

This quote came from Brian Eno in 1986, and if anyone knows a thing or two about new forms of music, it is Eno.

Jon Hassell, in case his name doesn't ring a bell (especially for those who do not regularly listen to or keep up with the world of jazz), is a trumpet player. But calling him a trumpet player is akin to calling Duke Ellington a piano player. Having studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen and worked with minimalist music trailblazers Terry Riley and La Monte Young, Hassell eventually carved out his own distinct sound in the wide open world of electronic experimental music. Perhaps the final piece of Hassell's musical mosaic grew out of his studies with Pran Nath, an Indian singer. From that experience, Hassell integrated the vocal inflections of Indian raga into his trumpet playing, a distinction that sets his horn apart to this day.

By the late seventies, Hassell had digested these and other influences to forge a new style he coined "Fourth World" which he describes as "..a unified primitive/futuristic sound combining features of world ethnic styles with advanced electronic techniques." Since his 1977 debut 'Vernal Equinox', Jon Hassell has effectively blended world musics, electronic atmospherics and advanced western composition to create a sound that's both approachable and exotic.

Hassell has more than just critics to co-sign to his musical concept, however. Visionary artists as diverse as Ry Cooder, Peter Gabriel, the Kronos Quartet, the renaissance man David Byrne/Talking Heads and the aforementioned Eno have all brought him in to collaborate, and filmakers have found his music appealing as well, with his works appearing in films such as 'The Last Temptation Of Christ' and 'Angel Eyes'.

"Last night the moon came dropping its clothes in the street" is taken from a line by the great 13th century Sufi mystic and poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. If the title suggests that Jon Hassell is (also) a renaissance man, the music contained within confirms it.

Hassell is a master at proffering an integrated musical montage where individual instruments aside from his horn rarely rise above it to capture the ear's attention. Considering that there are up to seven musicians playing on any given track to produce such a sleek, angular sound, that's no small accomplishment. Hassell’s insular horn floating over a distant, shimmering electric piano does much to replicate the atmospherics heard on Miles Davis's "In A Silent Way" although admittedly with fewer hints of jazz.

Casual ears might brand this music "new age" but closer listening reveals a lot of richness found in the layers that Hassell carefully constructs in creating that montage. "Time And Peace" features both Hassell's trumpet and Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche's violin sounding virtually indistinguishable from each other. "Abu Gil" tantalizingly hints at Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night In Tunisia", but never quite cops it.

"Time and Place", "Clairvoyance", and "Scintilla" act as transitions segmenting, however seamlessly, the album into roughly thirds.

"Northline" stands out with its a well-defined bassline and Eivind Aarset's wah-wah guitar. It's the closest this album gets to rock-infused jazz. The "Blue Period", a remixed version of a track Hassell did for a movie, is an ostinato that gently ebbs and flows like waves crashing against the shore. "Light On Water", one of four tracks recorded live, is a slow-motion ride tastefully adorned with Jan Bang's live sampling. 

Enjoy ye explorers

Jon_Hassell-Last_Night_the_Moon_Came-Tzadik.zip

http://www42.zippyshare.com/v/XBYsABK4/file.html