Sometimes I am not sure that I like ambient music all that much. Many times I’ve heard an ambient track and said, “What the hell was that?” Little did I know that was the reaction that Marconi Union wants from listeners to their latest release Ghost Stations. Here’s what they have to say about the album…..
Last night as I looked down the Zone Music Reporter Top 100 Airplay Chart the album at number 7 caught my eye. The album was titled Matters of Balance and the artist was Richard Carr. The album cover looked pretty cool and I had never heard of Richard Carr so I opened up Spotify to check the album out. So I put the album on an picked up my book and started to read. Pretty soon I was doing more listening than reading!!
I was thinking about music in the late 60s and early 70s this morning.My thoughts quickly turned to one of my favorite bands, Pearls Before Swine. During those years the underground music scene was exploding. Typically AM commercial radio stations played pop music that was singles oriented. Underground music was album oriented and the tracks played were usually much more complex and longer. As the popularity of underground music grew several Philadelphia radio stations adopted the underground music format. Both WDAS and WMMR made the switch.To me the beauty of the format was the ability of the DJ to play just about anything HE wanted to play. WIBG’s DJ Hy Lit led the transition on WDAS and Dave Herman and his Marconi Experiment paved the way at WMMR.
So if you are looking for a nice, quiet relaxing album, I have one for you – Distant Horseman the latest release from New Age Artist Timothy Wenzel. The album was released back in February and it has been in my music rotation since then. I also think that it has also been at the top of the Zone Music Reporter Charts for all those months. The album features the musical artistry of Wenzel coupled with the beautiful violin of Josie Quick.
I first discovered the music of Marquis Hill back on 2013, around the time of the release of his album The Poet. At the time, I couldn’t find The Poet at any of my usual listening spots, so I listened to his album Sounds of the City . IK quickly became a fan! The sounds of the city emanated from Marquis’ home town of Chicago and the album was outstanding.
One of the albums that has been in my music rotation this past week while on vacation on Long Beach
Island in NJ was the latest the self-titled debut album from a three-man trio Terceto Kali. The trio led by virtuoso flamenco guitarist Jason McGuire “El Rubio, plays a blend of flamenco, Latin and jazz rooted in a variety of musical genres. Prior to the release of this debut album the band was billed as The Jason McGuire Trio. Either way, if you are a fan of flamenco guitar, oh hell, if you are a fan of guitar playing, you are going to love this album! Throughout the album, “El Rubio” lives up to his billing as a virtuoso guitarist!
This morning I put the iPod on playlists recently played and for my commute to and from work at Target the soundtrack was a mix of new music added to my music library. Some the tracks are from the albums that I bought at the Princeton Record Exchange a couple of weeks ago and some are just new albums. So here’s the twelve track playlist…
So a while back I came across the album In a World of Mallets by Jason Marsalis. I listened to the album because the lead instrument was a vibraphone and not because of the name Marsalis. In fact I didn’t even make the connection until today, when I was reading about Jason, who is celebrating his thirty-ninth (39) birthday today. I read that Jason was in fact the youngest of the famous Marsalis family ,led by father Ellis and includes brothers Wynton, Bradford and Delfeayo!. I felt a little better about not knowing who he was after I read at All About Jazz that…..
The other morning while meditating my mind turned toward my blog and I thought of my blog in relationship to my body mind and spirit. Much of what I try to do during the day is directed at one of those three aspects of life. Whether it’s trying to enrich and keep my mind sharp by reading, exercising and eating right to help my body and meditating and listening to New Age music to lift my spirit, the actions I take revolve around these aspects of life. Anyway what I am going to try for a while is to keep this blog oriented toward the rejuvenation, and revitalization of my mind, body and spirit,
