So I continued my exploration of the Echoes Top 25 Albums for April 2013 and stopped at Number 6 William Tyler’s album Impossible Truth Tyler is an accomplished young Nashville guitarist and this is a great, distinctive and original sounding album!! Today the music was just basically background music while I was working, but I am looking forward to listening and drifting maybe later tonight! From William’s website….
So this morning I was scouting out new New Age music at the Echoes website. I looked at the Top 25 albums for April and decided to give the album at Number 2 a listen, Stories From Elsewhere by Rhian Sheehan, It was a good choice! The album was labeled as Electronica/Dance at Mog, but I think the electronic part may be correct, but unless your dance is gently swaying, I don’t think it’s dance music! However, the quiet, beautiful music and environmental sounds was perfect to create a nice musical day at work. When I came home tonight, I went looking for information on Rhian Sheehan since I knew nothing about him. Here’s what I found at his website:
Today I traveled over the Burlington-Bristol Bridge and out Street Road to the Costco in Warminster,Pa. The reason I traveled all that way today was to see about getting new hearing aids! Why go to Costco? – well their cost for hearing aids is one-half price of their competitors! I will be getting two aids for less than the price I paid for one! Not only do I get a great deal but it’s from a company that pays their employees a decent wage and makes money!! The soundtrack for the trip was the new album from Serbian born Ana Popovic, Can You Stand the Heat Now if you like some great guitar with your blues, who doesn’t then you can’t go wrong with Ana! As I reviewed her biography tonight at her website, I saw some interesting facts!
So last night I came home last night and wasn’t sure whether I was going to run. I expressed that sentiment to my wife who reminded me that I feel better when I run! So that was the nudge that I needed to get me on the road. When I started my legs felt really good, and for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel like turning around and going home within the first half-mile! I hit the first mile mark in about 9:45 and the held on to average 10:02 per mile for the rest of the run! While my heart rate is still above where I’d like it throughout the run the good thing is that it’s almost under 100 within 5 minutes after the run! Now I just have to work on getting two more days per week in consistently! The soundtrack for the run was last year’s live album from Spock’s Beard, The X Tour Live. 
Now I have stayed away from Spock’s Beard because it’s one of my sons favorite bands. I know that should make me want to listen to the band, but somehow it has the opposite effect on me – now it may just be that I enjoy being contrary or that I’m afraid I won’t like them! Anyway the fear of not liking them has been removed! I thoroughly enjoyed the album. Now over this may not be the band that Andrew loves, because the band has had many personnel changes over the last ten years. The biggest being the departure of founding member Neal Morse. Morse founded the band in 1992 along with his brother Alan. left the band in 2002 to focus on his solo career. Therefore, the album “Feel Euphoria” released in 2003 was a new beginning. The band released Octane in 2005 and a self-titled release in 2006. They released the album X in 2010. The album that I listened to was The X Tour Live. Jimmy KEEGAN provided some additional vocals on that release and later followed the band on the promotional tour for the new material. After the release of X Nick D’VIRGILIO left the band to concentrate on his solo career. The line-up for the X Tour Live was: Nick D’Virgilio / vocals, drums, guitar Dave Meros / bass Alan Morse / guitar Ryo Okumoto / keyboards Jimmy Keegan/ tour drums The line-up for their latest 2013 release Brief Nocturnes And Dreamless Sleep is: ( I listened to parts of that album today) Alan Morse / Guitar & Vocals Dave Meros / Bass, Bass Pedals, Keyboards & Vocals Ryo Okumoto / Keyboards & Vocals Ted Leonard / Lead Vocals & Guitar Jimmy Keegan / Drums & Vocals Anyway, the run only got me through the first five songs on the album. The two tracks that really stood out for me were “From the Darkness” and “The Man Behind the Curtain” I’m listening to the album now and the track “On a Perfect Day” is on and it sounds great! Overall, the album has a 3.55 rating at the ProgArchives and is labeled as an excellent addition to any Prog Rock collection and the novice says: I agree. Now Andrew, you have to tell me what earlier albums to listen to, when Neal Morse lead the band! Here is a performance of the aforementioned “On a Perfect Day”
After coming home from food shopping at Trader Joe’s this afternoon, I came within an eyelash of talking myself out of going for a run! I’ve done that successfully for most of April, between long days and knees that really didn’t feel 100%. But I told myself no, you are going to run. I thought maybe if I go to Runner’s World and create a new route then at least it’s different and then I really can’t compare it to familiar runs! So that’s what I did and overall the run was pretty good the first mile was under 10 minutes and overall I averaged about 10:13 minutes per mile, and considering that I haven’t really run that much this month I’m okay with the pace!
The soundtrack for the run was the latest album from Pantommind, Shade of Fate. From Prog Archives:
A while back when I was listening to Jesse Cook and exploring flamenco guitarist, i listened to the music of Johannes Linstead. I have heard Johannes’ music before and enjoyed it but for some reasons none of his albums appear in my library. He is not one of the guitarist that I listen to regularly – mistake! As I listen again, to Tales of A Gypsy I think I need to explore his discography more thoroughly!! While listening to his music, I feel the atmospheres that he creates.
So I’ve written before, that one of the things I like about Prog Rock is that the bands come from all over the world. The band that was the soundtrack for my ride down to the Garden State Parkway was the French band Delusion Squared. The album is their sophomore release appropriately titled II The band, formed in 2009, is a trio composed of lead vocalist and guitarist, Lorraine Young, guitarist, keyboard and drummer – Steven Francis and bassist/keyboardist – Emmanuel de Saint Meen. Their music can be classified as Crossover Prog (or Art Rock). If you are a novice to the world of progressive rock, you can go here, for the ProgArchives definition of Crossover Prog!
So a while back, when I was listening to Jesse Cook, The Blue Sessions album, the album finished and MOG radio came on with artists similar to Jesse Cook. One of the groups that caught my ear was Luna Blanca. I listened to their 2007 release, Magic and really enjoyed it. Since then I have listened to their 2012 release El Dorado and the album Live and enjoyed both of them as well! I have since discovered that the group is from Germany and is one of the most popular nouveau-flamenco groups in the world. Currently, another 2012 release Obsession is at 2 on the Music Zone Reporters’ Top 100 Radio Airplay Chart for February 2013.
Luna Blanca features Richard Hecks (guitar) and Helmut Graebe (piano). On the last three albums, Hecks and Graebe have been joined by rhythm guitarist Bino Dola (flamenco guitar) and Clemens Paskert (bass, percussion and keyboards).
