Here is some wonderful weekend music from Brooklyn trio Say She She, with their second album Silver.
Having made a strong impact at Glastonbury with their live set, which included one of the singles of the year in C’est Si Bon, they have given us a long player guaranteed to brighten up any day. A homage to the disco music of the late 1970s, it is more than mere pastiche – a brilliant collection of original compositions, packed with good feelings and funky basslines.
Described as a ‘remixed collaborative album’, this is an update for the 2010 release made by The Orb and David Gilmour, Metallic Spheres.
You may remember that the original has just two tracks, which sit either side of the vinyl release. Producer Youth recently revealed that “The idea for Metallic Spheres In Colour was that Alex Paterson could have done more on the first version, and he didn’t really have the opportunity because we had a philosophy of making the music like the Blade Runner soundtrack meets Wish You Were Here. So, I asked him why don’t we remix it and make it like an Orb classic? And in doing that, it’s almost like a completely different album.”
Have a listen to an excerpt below and see what you think:
The tale of Michael Gold is a compelling one. The singer-songwriter, who records as Mirror Tree, is a pilot, flying a 737 for a major airline out of Los Angeles. Yet he also belongs to a musical family tree of impressive lineage, his mother being Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sharon Robinson and his godfather a certain Leonard Cohen.
For a while his route into music looked unlikely, with pilot duties taking him into remote Alaska – but it was while flying across the remote American wilderness that he began to hear music afresh, and in particular bands such as Stereolab and Broadcast.
Returning to L.A., Gold began writing and recording, working with former Poolside bandmate Filip Nikolic. The two dragged Gold’s Farfisa organ out of storage, and it became an integral part of the album’s sound.
What’sthemusiclike?
The Farfisa makes all the difference. With clever use of reverb and perspective, Gold and Nikolic use it to add perspective but to add a layer of musical dust to each track, the listener almost shaking sand off their shoes. This feels like outdoor music as a result, and with a lovely sheen and hints of psychedelia added to the production, the sound is an extremely pleasant one.
The clincher, however, is Gold’s voice, an easy-going instrument that is slightly husky and delivers the lyrics with warmth and a little charm. Another Day is a beauty, dappled sunlight sneaking through the trees as a backdrop to the vocal, while Echoes Competing is similarly sunny, its coda a singalong moment. The hooks Gold uses can pass the listener by on the first one or two listens, but give it time and the album really starts to make its mark.
Let It Go looks up at the moon and stars with tired eyes and an old piano for company, while during the carefree Tuesday it’s easy to imagine Gold soaring above the clouds. Similarly with Along For The Ride, which takes to the wing on vocals that could have been crafted as part of late-1960s psychedelia. The Stereolab and Broadcast influence can be heard in a good way, and the Farfisa creates a series of musical mirages.
Elsewhere layers of guitar create a warm musical bed for songs such as In A Day, where the organ is manipulated to sound like a flute ensemble. Meanwhile 300 Miles bends the sound off pitch slightly, creating a distinctly Eastern feel.
Does it all work?
Largely, yes. This is charming pop music with pastoral and psychedelic overtones. The album threads its themes together nicely, and while occasionally it’s a bit too woozy – and maybe a song or two long – Gold spreads the warmth of his music a long way.
Is it recommended?
It is. Mirror Tree uses a combination of thoughtful and often blissful songwriting with imaginative instrumentation, and it proves difficult to resist.
Stacey Rishoi (mezzo-soprano), Boulder Children’s Chorale, Women of Boulder Concert Chorale, Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra / Kenneth Woods
Gunning Symphony no.10 (2016-17) [First public performance] Mahler Symphony no.3 in D minor (1893-6)
Colorado MahlerFest 195269164287 [two discs, 114’21”] Live performances on 22 May 2022, Macky Auditorium, Boulder, Colorado
Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse
What’s the story?
The 35th Colorado MahlerFest, the eighth under the direction of Kenneth Woods, reached its culmination with the performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony and preceded in this concert with a first public hearing for the 10th Symphony by the late-lamented Christopher Gunning.
What’s the music like?
In its setting out the creation of the world, from an inanimate state to the dawn of humanity, Mahler’s Third Symphony is his most ambitious conceptually and certainly his lengthiest. It is to Woods’s credit that, though his account at 92 minutes is among the swiftest, there is no sense of haste – not least his handling of the first movement’s vastly extended sonata design, which amply conveys the burgeoning of natural forces with unbridled impetus but equally a fantasy or even playfulness manifest through the irresistible abandon of those closing pages.
Those having watched the online broadcast will recall Woods observing the customary break before the remaining five movements which constitute the second part. Here, though, there is barely a pause going into the second movement, its minuet-like lilt and evocation of all things vernal rarely having sounded so delicate or ingratiating. The ensuing scherzo is almost as fine, the often boisterous irony of its outer sections finding contrast in trios whose post-horn solos are ethereally rendered by Richard Adams, with a frisson of danger emerging in the final bars.
Nor is Stacey Rishoi found wanting in a Nietzsche setting that alternates earnest speculation with heartfelt yearning. She is no less inside its successor’s setting of a Knaben Wunderhorn text, its ambivalence offset by a whimsical response from the women’s and children’s choirs. Others may have found even more profundity from the finale, but Woods ensures it emerges as a seamless totality – the anguish at its centre drawn into a rapt eloquence which is carried through to a coda bringing this disciplined and persuasive performance to its ecstatic close.
Unlike other of his peers, their concert output little more than a rehash of their work for film and television, Christopher Gunning’s symphonies and concertos seem abstract music with a vengeance. The single-movement 10th Symphony is both cohesive in its structure and methodical in its evolution. Woods has recorded it with BBC National Orchestral of Wales (Signum Classics), and while that studio recording has greater formal focus, the Colorado musicians unfold this quixotic score to its serene ending with demonstrably greater spontaneity and impulsiveness.
Does it all work?
Almost always. Those who prefer a more expansive or interventionist approach in the Mahler may be disappointed, but the no-nonsense nature of Woods’s traversal conveys any amount of insight or expressive nuance. Presentation is equally straightforward, but Mahler’s expression markings for each movement should have been included alongside those descriptive headings he later deleted, while the Gunning might have been best placed at the start (as in the concert) with the first part of the Mahler – allowing its second part to unfold as an unbroken continuity.
Is it recommended?
Very much. Boulder’s Macky Auditorium might not have the most spacious perspective, but its clarity and definition audibly benefit a performance that is much more than the memento of an occasion. Indeed, this MahlerFest series is shaping up to be a memorable Mahler cycle.
Buy
For further purchase options, visit the MahlerFest website – and for more information on the festival itself, click here. Click on the names for further information on conductor Kenneth Woods and composer Christopher Gunning
Panda Bear & Sonic Boom revisit their 2022 album Reset in the company of dub royalty, producer Adrian Sherwood. Sherwood took the album through his On-U Sound studios in the company of musicians Doug Wimbisch and Skip McDonald.
Panda Bear (aka Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox) and Sonic Boom (Peter Kember) wrote the original downtempo album with strong Caribbean influences, and Kember spoke of how Jamaican rocksteady played a big part in his thinking for the original Reset album. When the opportunity for a dub album arose he immediately thought of Sherwood.
The artistic respect is mutual, as Sherwood himself is a fan of Animal Collective. He describes how they wanted to keep “all the elements of trippy fun, but with added menace, groove and an ultra-active mix for the ‘heads’.
What’sthemusiclike?
Rather special – and in some cases it transports the listener overseas almost immediately. That much is clear from the lead single Edge Of The Edge, where the sighing motif sounds like the tide lapping gently at the shore. Elsewhere Sherwood gives us a mind-expanding treat, whether attending to the saxophone sound on Gettin’ To The Point Dub or overseeing a healthy dose of funk to the mix for Everyday Dub. There is a lovely breezy disposition to this music, especially in the likes of In My Body Dub and the dreamy piano of Go On Dub, where the wide open textures complement Panda Bear’s rounded tones.
Danger Dub is especially good, firing up a quicker tempo, while Whirlpool Dub is full of cleverly worked sonic displacements. Livin’ In The After Dub has a folksy melody with a harmonica which gets the Sherwood reverb treatment, the drums setting us in a woozy fireside spot. Perhaps the best is saved for last, Everything’s Been Leading To This Dub an epic production, booming low vocals twinned with glittering guitar and bright brass.
Does it all work?
It does – effortlessly so. This is music that creates its own hot weather, and the stripped back approach works a treat. So too does Sherwood’s instinct on when to throw the perspectives wide open or bring them up close, using Lennox’s voice to its full potential.
Is it recommended?
Enthusiastically – but only on the assumption that you’ve already purchased the original album!
Arcana.fm 