Inspirational Technology

OK, so it’s actually been about two months since I’ve posted an album of the week, better late than never I guess. I used to be a big Diana Krall fan, but for some reason I haven’t had much desire to listen to her recent albums. That includes this one which has been out for a couple years. For some reason I decided to look at what she was up to now and found out she had married Elvis Costello and that they had collaborated on this album. That captured my interest so I had to check it out. Upon first listen I was hooked by Diana’s rendition of Tom Wait’s Temptation, but the rest of the songs weren’t really jumping out at me. I stuck with it though and after a couple more listens I really started to feel the album.

This has been a controversial album among Diana’s fans because it’s not based on Jazz standards and some of the songs are definitely less jazzy than others. The criticisms are valid I suppose, if you expect her to keep putting out the same album every time, but this album is different. The Jazz is still there, but some of the less jazzy songs just have a feeling to them that takes a little while to penetrate and grab hold. The song Departure Bay in particular caught my attention while it was playing in the background and with that I realized the beauty of this album. Normally I’m drawn more to muscianship, but on this album it’s her vocals that keep pulling me in. Especially on songs like Depature Bay, The Girl in the Other Room and Tempatation. All great songs on a truly great album.

This album makes Album of the Week because Zero 7 just released their new album “The Garden”. The new album makes it clear how brilliant Simple Things really was. I plan to write a review of the The Garden as soon as I can figure out how I really feel about it. This is about Simple Things though, and there I can say, without hesitation, that it’s a brilliant piece of downtempo electronica.

Smooth, flowing, chill are all ways you can describe this album. It’s a great blend of electronic textures with real instruments and smooth vocals and makes great accompaniment while you’re working. The beats and vibe drives the music forward without being too distracting and overall just contributes to that feeling of chill that goes so well when writing code.

There isn’t a bad song on this album, but the song that initially hooked me was Distractions. For some reason that song just grabbed me and never let go. According to iTunes I’ve played that song 95 times and I love it just as much now as I did the first time I heard it. Oh yeah, the least played song on this album has 82 plays. Considering I have 30,847 songs in my iTunes library that’s a pretty good indication of just how good this album is. Highly recommended.

I started listening to indian classical music about 15 years ago. I’ve always enjoyed it, but I’ve never really known much about the actual form of the music. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of seeing Ravi Shankar perform with his daughter Anoushka. It was a truly fascinating experience and greatly deepened my interest in the music. I spent some time with Google and Wikipedia learning about the form of the music and the instruments that they play and also came across this CD on iTunes. This has a number of excellent performances by Ravi Shankar, but also includes some dialog from Ravi himself discussing the music and how it works. There’s a short introductory track about indian classical music in general, along with an introduction to each piece where Ravi speaks a little about the ascending and descending scales used in the Raga and the Rhythmic pattern that will be used. This is fascinating stuff and makes you appreciate the astounding level of complexity and virtuosity that exists within the music. The only downside is that the recording is mono, but that doesn’t really detract that much from something so fascinating. Overall, a great introduction to Indian classical music aimed at western listeners.

I haven’t been able to really get into the last few Depeche Mode albums. They’ve been good, but not good enough to fully capture my attention. Playing the Angel came as a bit of a surprise because of that. It’s a bit darker, a bit more aggressive and absolutely amazing. I’ve probably heard this album 200 times now and it just doesn’t get old. It seems there’s always more to hear within the complex tapestries of electronics and vocal harmonies that make up the songs. Music that can hold my attention for that long is rare and hopefully future Depeche Mode releases are equally as good.