I know the summer's long gone, but I haven't had a chance to mention the folllowing songs on RR. These were some of my favourite discoveries of the summer.
Elan Mehler is a jazz pianist with very strong Bill Evans influences. Here he covers a song by Gillian Welch.
The genre that fits Portico Quartet the closest is jazz I guess but there's more to it. They also remind me of Cinematic Orchestra. Their main instrument is this thing called a hang that sounds like a steel drum. They're really good live, especially the track Cittagazze.
5 comments:
Is a hang struck or plucked?
It is struck with those foamy sticks if I remember correctly, here's the picture I almost posted of the Hangist(?)/Hanger(?), but it doesn't look too appealing with his goatee, big jumper and hat a bit sideways
http://lamivo.blogspot.com/2007/03/portico-quartet.html
Those Portico Quartet tracks sound very good. The cello and soprano sax do make them sound a bit like Cinematic Orchestra, but I'd place them closer to folk and world influenced groups like Gotan Project or Jack Dejohnette's work with Foday Musay and John Surman. The sax/hang interplay also reminds me of Michel Portal/Richard Galliano, very fine.
I'd recommend the whole album, nilpferd, they're really good. thanks for pinpointing their style, I'm not very good at that. I'll check out the JdJ connections.
Well, I just downloaded it from itunes. You're right, well worth it. Thanks for the tip!
Jack Dejohnette's techno/world music mix here-
http://www.jackdejohnette.com/order_ripple_effect.htm
contains remixes of an earlier, non electronic album he recorded with Foday Musa (not Musay as I thought).
Hybrids was my favourite purchase in 2007.
And if you don't know it, Michel Portal and Richard Galliano's Blow Up is also great.
http://www.amazon.fr/Blow-Up-Galliano-Portal/dp/B000024UMN
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