More Library and more Luciani with Divertissement Baroque (Kaleidoscope No. 6) -- Lossless Available!

I don't know what possessed me to buy another baroque outing from Luciani.  Maybe because of their great popularity out there in the ''blogosphere" or perhaps "blogtopia."

Anyways, what you see is what you get here for sure.  A little too light for my tastes.  A typical sample, B2, Clementina:





Notice the famous whistling of the composer.

Thomas & Henry Kiefer - 1980 - Improvisationen Uber Edoardo Antonius Eumel (Private)

A very beautiful cover painting, again, with its surreal trunk, candle, and Daliesque guitar neck... and a beautiful album as well, a mixture of folk and some fusion courtesy of our old prognotfrog friend pollux... whose ripping style as always is unparalleled in the digital domain.  An old mono rip that was barely listenable was circulating heretofore and needed replacement.

My favourite track is one called Santa Barbara:

Rüdiger Oppermann's 1985 Celtic Harp opus Reise Nach Harfistan (i.e. Journey to Harpistan)

He made several albums.  From discogs:

German harpist and experimental musician. He specializes in the Celtic harp, which he began playing in 1973. A musician devoted to exploring all musical cultures, Oppermann has collaborated with folk musicians from around the world, particularly musicians from Africa and Asia. Rudiger Oppermann might be best described as a free-style and experimental folk musician, who draws on both ancient and modern musics and musical traditions, to create a melting pot of musical cultures that cannot be ascribed to any one folk tradition. 


From the record insert:

The harp is the oldest stringed instrument in the world, its form being etched on the face of stones as many as 12000 years ago, in various ancient cultures (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Celts, Central Asia, Zimbabwe), the harp played in important role specifically as a magical instrument: the portrayal of the human body with taut strings connecting the head and stomach.


Of interest here is that not just the concert harp is used in this music, but the wire-strung trad. Celtic harp (which was developed some 800 years ago), a Kundi which is an African bowed harp, Kora (West African Lute Harp) and Wind Harp (Aeolian Harp).

The sidelong track on side b called "The Mist Rider" comprises the following passages:

The Tones of Fong (Chinese progression of F - C - G - D - A)
Nhemamusasa (Zimbabwean finger piece with xylophone)
Morrisons (trad. harp tune from the Celtic Epoch, used by famed master Alan Stivell)
Zongo (a five-voiced "flying carpet piece" with 3 celtic harps, electric guitar, and percussion)
Paradise of the Heart (which includes vibrato and stretched tones)
Gending Tirtakenjana (A Java melody originally played on Gamelan)

And I think the composition closes out with the original diatonic C major with which it began.  So you can see there is quite a bit of the 'world music' influence here.  The whole flows quite beautifully through the passages making it a little difficult sometimes to tell where you are in the above six parts.  Still, a journey worth making, far more attractive than to any other of the '-stans'.

A track called "Amethyst" provides some very interesting tintinnabulation by the harp on a bass basis:

Germany in 1980 with the fusion album FAUN [No Download Available-- sorry]

We were hoping for something outrageous with the shocking cover art: a helllish and porno-grade-tailed faun branding his name on a high-heeled woman's butt in (?) red blood-- but it is altogether disappointingly easy fusion, fuzak with funkishness (fusunkzak, I guess we could appropriately term this ugly hybrid), such as we can find in the millions in this era in time, like trilobites in the cambrian.  Some very proficient musicianship, but only one track to appeal to the progressive aficionado and that one is called "November" with its opening oh-so-exciting and encouraging synth tritonal attack, there is enough dissonance in the initial riff to perk up our jaded ears instantly, recalling famed Exil-Fusionen, then a whole tone scale topped with thirds builds interest but by the time the electric guitarist plays his solo there is very little momentum to carry through 7 minutes to the generic fusion finale:

Don't be too excited by the above, obviously, it's the peak of this performance, and the lower latitudes are really just a pedestrian, car-friendly zone of big city boxes, walmarts,drug and liquor stores, strip malls, and other such platitudes of modern life...  I don't believe it's worth the going price, however high that might be owing to its rarity, which my poor friend was caught red-handed dishing out to his and our communal disappointments.  I nonetheless thank him and the gods of prog for my luck in hearing this LP, curious as I was when I first saw the cover some years back.  As I am merely a worshipper (and sacrificial lamb sometimes) in this pantheon, I am not permitted to share with you anything more-- other than the not important news of its mediocrity.

By permission of an anonymous collector, two rarities from the library world again: Pastoral / Grand Panorama CBL 643 and Beat Drama CBW 628

We interrupt our regular programming for a day here, as these are limited time losslesses for the grab and snatching.

I know these little collector's items are very popular, so here are two more, by permission from the collector, who apparently has huge pockets, in lossless.  I am instructed to again beg if anyone has the time and patience to clean the sounds off these raw rips with eternal thanks in the event of a successful fix.

They are typical library albums, various artists are contributing.  The pastoral series (the first side, by different composers) on the second share is particularly impressive at least as soundtrack music.

You can read about the composers here for Beat Drama, and the Pastoral - Panorama, here.  Trevor Duncan as usual stands out.

Enjoy them.