While I did threaten to freeze this blog and auction off screen shots if Rick Moody were to drop by, once it happened I decided against that course of action. However, this will in fact be my last post for a while, since I'm meeting up with my significant other in the Atlanta airport tomorrow afternoon, then heading down to Houston for Thanksgiving with my family. I don't get down there as often as I should -- and it's keenly important at this point, since I haven't seen my sister and nephew since the kid was a month old. He's now two-and-a-half, and I'm seriously verging on Bad Uncledom.
Still, it's not like I'd leave town without providing some way in which friends, colleagues and total strangers might mull over my personal obsessions. So here are two suggestions.
First, like Cafe Aman's Anastasia Tsioulcas, I review new CDs monthly for Weekend America, a smart, lively magazine-format radio program produced and distributed by Minnesota Public Radio. This weekend, I'll be talking about two recent CDs of contemporary music that I really dug. One is a new Ondine disc of Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto, Gran Duo and Chorale, performed by Kari Kriiku and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. (An excellent review of that disc by Andrew Clements of London's Guardian can be found here.) The other is Deviations, the long-awaited solo debut of guitarist Dominic Frasca on Bang on a Can house label Cantaloupe, which includes original pieces, works by Marc Mellits and a jaw-dropping version of Philip Glass's Two Pages. In most of the country, I believe the show airs on Saturday afternoons; for those in benighted burgs that don't receive the program (such as, ahem, New York City), there's a podcast available on the show's website, and you can also stream archived shows.
The second attraction springs from the pop-music section of this week's TONY, where I gave an "MP3 of the Week" shout-out to a young Mexican rock band whose music has been one of my fondest discoveries this year. Sadly, I can't remember the name of the alternaLatino music news site on which I first read about Album some months ago, but here's what I wrote:
If Cafe Tacuba's influential 1994 release, Re, is the Sgt. Pepper's of Mexican alt-rock (and the band's 1999 Reves/Yo Soy the "White Album"), then Eureka Sön, the 2003 debut full-length by Monterrey-based quartet Album, might well be the scene's Paul's Boutique or OK Computer -- maybe both. Currently out of print, you can find the entire release (and a whole lot more) available for free download from the band's website. Album's sophomore full-length, Microbricolages, is due sometime next year on a label to be determined; "Es Facil," the initial single, is just under two minutes' worth of manic synth-bop pinned to a warbling bass line and a stuttering beat.
Now admittedly, I do understand exactly how hyperbolic those claims are. Still, I can definitely tell the difference between a new band whose music catches my interest for a minute or two and one that I'll spend time anxiously waiting to hear from. Album falls into the latter category. So while I'm gone, please take a moment to stop by the website and test-drive a track or two. I'd love to hear what you think. Here, let me help you:
Album - "Es Facil" (MP3, 2.47 meg.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Playlist:
Einojuhani Rautavaara - Garden of Spaces; Clarinet Concerto*; Cantus Arcticus - Richard Stoltzman*, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Leif Segerstam (Ondine)
Mary Halvorson/Jessica Pavone - Prairies (Lucky Kitchen)
Taylor Ho Bynum and SpiderMonkey Strings - Other Stories (Three Suites) (482 Music)
Anthrax - Alive 2 (2005) (Sanctuary)
Album - Eureka Sön
Rush - R30 (Zöe/Rounder)
Bohuslav Martinů - Memorial to Lidice; Gideon Klein - Partita for Strings; Bela Bartók - Concerto for Orchestra - Philadelphia Orchestra/Christoph Eschenbach (Ondine)
Eleanor Sandresky - A Sleeper's Notebook (One Soul)
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