CD Giveaway No. 5

Welcome to the fifth Giornale Nuovo free CD giveaway. Peruse the CDs listed below. If you’d like one (or two) of them, check the comments to see whether your choice has already been claimed: and, if it hasn’t, then leave a comment of your own stating which of the discs it is that you want. Once you have laid claim to the CD of your choice, send me an e-mail (to mr.h@spamula.net) which contains your snail-mail address. I’ll sort through the requests to decide who gets what: in most cases, it’ll simply happen that the first person to claim a disc will be the one who receives it. I’ll mail out the CDs within a week or so (I will pay all postage costs). I’m limiting the offer to two discs per recipient.

1. The Vespers of Sergey Rachmaninov, performed in 1992 by the Saint Petersburg Capella, under the direction of choirmaster Vladislav Chernushenko. Rachmaninov’s celebrated setting, composed in 1915, of the Orthodox ‘All-Night Vigil’ is beautiful music, but I’ve not listened to it in years, and so hope to pass it along to someone who will appreciate it better than I.

2. The Stabat Mater and Requiem of Vladimir Martynov, performed by Sirin and Alkonost choirs, accompanied by the Opus Posth Ensemble led by Tatiana Grindenko. I’ve praised Martynov’s works here before, but have had less success with his compositions on sacred themes. This disc couples a kind of neo-mediæval treatment of the Stabat Mater with an unusually uplifting Requiem about which Martynov notes ‘one must remember that the primary aim of the Missæ Pro Defunctis is not to cultivate mournful feelings … but in a prayer that God would grant the deceased eternal rest and eternal light.’

3. In l’istesso tempo, which comprises three works composed by Giya Kancheli: Time… and again performed by Gidon Kremer and Oleg Maisenberg; V & V performed by the Kremerata Baltica; and a Piano Quartet performed by the Bridge Ensemble. Kancheli’s works are widely-praised, and are performed here by first-rate musicians, but I found myself unable to warm to these lugubrious compositions.

4. John Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria, etc. I bought this disc after catching, and enjoying, some extracts from Corigliano’s score to the movie The Red Violin (which I still haven’t seen). Alas, a first couple of listens never drew me back to the four exuberant pieces on this disc: Phantasmagoria, To Music, Fantasia on an Ostinato and Three Hallucinations, all performed with gusto by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Eri Klas.

5. Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 6: Plutonian Ode, performed by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, and Lauren Flanigan, Soprano, under the baton of Dennis Russell Davis. Well, I like a nice bit of Philip Glass but there’s also a whole slew of his works I’ve disliked: I think I’ve given away more of his music than anyone else’s. For what it’s worth, I took a particulalrly sudden and violent dislike to this piece, presented here in two versions, one where a recording of Allen Ginsberg reading his Ode (which also serves as the score, sung by Ms Flanigan) is dubbed over the performance of the Symphony, and another where it is not. I could only bear to listen to either version for a few painful minutes…

6. Secret Rhythms 2 by Burnt Friedman and Jaki Liebezeit. This disc, the last one I bought at our local CD-store before it closed, is a second instalment of minimalistic instrumental grooves by ‘electronic jazzer’ Friedman and the renowned percussionist Liebezeit, formerly the drummer for Can. My first impression was that the tracks seemed a little insubstantial, but I daresay these pieces might well repay repeated listening; this just being a case where I lack the patience to persevere.

7. Much as I admire Neko Case’s plaintive voice, I could not get into her latest release Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, and thus offer it here with the hope it might find a more receptive listener.

8. I was similarly unimpressed with Ballad of the Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan: I felt that while his voice suited the material admirably well, hers did not.

9. You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand. Indeed we could have had it better than this lukewarm follow-up to their stirring debut. Should you disagree, then by all means lay claim to this seldom-used secondhand CD.

10. I love Calexico, and would not readily be parted from Garden Ruin, Convict Pool or Feast of Wire. The 7-track EP In The Reins, however—their 2005 collaboration with Iron & Wine—I could happily live without.

11. I’ve held on to Highly Evolved by The Vines for a long time considering it’s been years since I played it, although I do recall taking quite a shine to this disc when it first came out, especially the track Outtathaway.

12. Frank Black & the Catholics’ Black Letter Days is, apparently, a ‘grower’ but one, alas, that never grew on me, with the exception, that is, of the manic version of Tom Waits et. al.’s Black Rider which kicks it off. Oddly, I remain inordinately fond of FB & the C’s Devil’s Workshop CD, which was issued simultaneously with this one.

13. I must class the music of the Animal Collective together with the prose of Vladimir Nabokov, and the taste of gorgonzola cheese, among those things that I really ought to like but somehow cannot enjoy. Regarding their Sung Tongs disc: I can recognise some of its appeal without actually experiencing it…

14. Satori by the Flower Travellin’ Band was one of several albums recommended to me earlier this year during a haphazard exploration of Japanese music I’d embarked upon after discovering the magnificent Boredoms and OOIOO. This is a classic and influential slice of early-’70s acid-rock, succinctly characterised by one amazon reviewer as ‘It’s like Black Sabbath does Dark Side of the Moon.’ The thing is, I don’t really like Black Sabbath, or this either.

15. Just Another Band from the Cosmic Inferno, by Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno, is a contemporary chunk of Japanese psychedelia, another recommendation, like the one above, that didn’t quite do it for me. This CD features just two lengthy (and loud) jams: Trigger In Trigger Out and They’re Coming From the Cosmic Inferno.