Hanne Hukkelberg - Blood from a stone

Hanne Hukkelberg is a Norwegian singer-songwriter. I have known her two earlier albums, with its strangeness and the strong intention to make experiments, so when I first saw this new third title few days ago, I got interested immediately.

I had many feelings and expectations about what will I hear... that familiar northern tone... but in the end it changed. This is a newer Hanne, who exited that deep introspective world - as she says: "and i find it really relieving to make this sort of non introvert music now. this is a record more direct, more loud and from the hip. lyrically as well." But this exiting is partial. Until the half of the album we meet nice songs, with some rock-indie touch, but they didn't tell me any more, I missed that old excitement, crazyness, weirdness as earlier - though, besides it - they show some signs of life and loosening, more carefree moods. Especially the song Blood from a stone, which became the single, is the most "new Hanne" song on the album. The video is perfectly like Anna Ternheim's To be gone, you can watch it on her website, see the link below.

So when we get to Salt of the Earth, the mood changes and those older memories wake up in our minds. From here the tracks feature more aggressive and introspective feelings, with dissonant vocals and sounds created by anything. I mean, she likes using kitchen obejcts or other tools to play it in her music. See the lyrics menu on the website, there you find detailed informations about it. In other words, as we get to the second half of the album, the circumstances of the creation are cleaner: "i’ve been sitting on an island north for the polar circle, Senja, and composed songs for my new album which is called “Blood From a Stone”. this took about seven months, and the rest of the year 2008, i spent recording it all in Propeller studios with my regular producer Kåre Vestrheim." Fortunately, in the last track we can also hear Norwegian lyrics.

Have yourself this adventure, which is probably just a stage in a longer trip.
http://www.hannehukkelberg.com

Salt of the Earth:

Maybe... John Mayall - The turning point

A few days ago I realized something. Something which is maybe my own imagination, and the result of my adoration towards the season: autumn.

The colour of sunshine has changed. It's more pale than earlier.

There are more and more leaves on the ground, which is also very dry.

Maybe there was a thin cloud on the sky - like a veil, that's for the colour.

Maybe there wasn't any rain for a long time, that's for the leaves.

Maybe.
Or maybe not.

So I felt that I must choose a last album for this summer, because it's gone. I need something with which I say goodbye.

The turning point is also an album which I got to know by a casette in that mentioned weekend house. It's a live performance, recorded in 1969 and a great album. Mayall's guitar and harmonica melodies are perfect for a later summer day. A lot of emotions mix between the tracks, from joy to contemplative parts, that's what I like in music, and here - in blues. And if we are at blues, it's the moderner blues. The tracks aren't only another interpretations of the blues-circles, these sometimes exit the genre, especially where there's a progressive feeling in them. For example, in my favourite song on this album: California. With its 9:31 minutes length it's something which builds up as we go on, as we are leaded into the song: first the cool bass-pattern (which stays until the end, and always repeates), and the immediately appering melancholic, fascinating guitar sounds (4:39!)... plus Mayall's singing voice, matching perfectly to this mood. So hard to share or Thoughts about Roxanne are also good examples for this longer, evolving type of blues.

Goin' back to California
So many good things around
Don't wanna leave California
The sun seems to never go down.

California:

Did you see me coming?

It's Pet shop boys' new single, a light song for the end of this summer. They kept their basic style and atmosphere but with their new album, Yes, they redefined the genre "pop". Yes is an incredibly good title for an album and perfectly matches to the list of their album names, which are all one word long. Visually - besides the developments - the new style belongs to the Fundamental-Minimal style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hy4bT0ESfc&hd=1

Here's an other video by them, a live performance at the Brits Award, a ten minutes long medley, where their cool hits mix very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OAlTWrNN6o

The three best Weather Report albums

There are different grades in musical talents. Somebody - after learning it - can play a song well. Somebody can write new melodies, and make a complete song of it. And somebody can create a quite new, exciting thing, almost a new genre, music which we hear and say: Yes, it must be that. Maybe this is the description of the word "unique".

Weather Report belongs to this last category. It's hard to find any band or musician who is similar to it, usually we read that it's for example Chick Corea's band, Return to forever. Both are jazz, jazz fusion, usually called jazzrock, but these genres are always disputed. Be that as it may, Weather Report was a world-wide known "supergroup" (making their greatest albums in the seventies). I mean that the band members are also big names in their personal carreers. The pianist/keyboardist Joe Zawinul, the saxophonist Wayne Shorter and for example, the bassist Miroslav Vitous or Jaco Pastorius. By the way, this is one of the coolest band names I've ever heard.

Now I've picked three albums which I suppose to be the best albums: Sweetnighter, Black market, and Tale spinnin'. I had a dilemma about Mysterious traveler, but that will be another post.

Sweetnighter from 1973 (as many albums of their's) starts with a longer, faster, evolving song, then calms down in the second song, which is usually a slower, more silent thing. Here the first is the 13 minutes long Boogie woogie waltz, with the sometimes-appearing cool bass melody of Vitous, and the undefineable saxophone parts of Shorter. This music always changes, evolves then the instruments find each other again to express melodies in a very unique way. After it, Manolete immediately leads us to somewhere else in a spanish mood. Listen carefully at 2:24, when a new rhythmic part starts, I like it very much. Later we get to the track next to last, it's Will, my favourite song on this album. Starting with a light drum pattern and the fine electric piano by Zawinul, it gets a little bit louder but stays intimate until the very end of it. Shorter's longly lingering sounds create an unforgettable mood.

Black market from 1976 is perfectly like its cover: vivid, varicoloured, and there's also a little bit of mistery behind that lake - and the songs - as on the other albums, like a constant flavor of Weather report. The first song, Black market is very friendly, especially because the carefree melody by Zawinul. And, as I told you earlier, the second song is usually a calmer thing. Cannon ball is beautiful at first, but sometimes it becomes serious and louder - with typical Weather report melodies. It's typical because when you hear it, you say: it must be Weather report. A cool part: at the start of the third track, Gibraltar, the noise of the big ship - it creates a strict atmosphere. Then everything gets silent for a while and after it immediately comes the louder part. After it we get to my favourite track on this album, Elegant people, a beautiful song, starting with one of the coolest melodies in "my musical life". For me, Hernandnu, the last track is the most connected with mistery. That melody has an uncertain feeling, but not in a negative way.

Tale spinnin' from 1975 maybe concentrate less on the melodies. Fast starting, then something else: Lusitanos, with the always coming back shift in emphasis, melodies, moods. It can be beautiful, contemplative, strict and uncertain at the same time, this is also a typical Weather report attribute. My favourite song on this album is Badia, a silent, slower expression. I've always liked in music when a song starts almost silently, then the little parts connect and we gradually get in that mood. The beautiful melody sometimes has an additional, slightly hoarse vocal, too, which is ice on the cake. And at 2:42 we meet the unexpected new fast part - to keep it exciting. In the end, Five short stories is an interesting improvisative dialogue between Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter, closing the album.

There could be many more interesting things about these albums, but I think it's enough to be curious about the band.

Black market: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7fOetV0ha4

Badia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xDPJwIYz_E

Cannon ball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkKw7mDmIIg

In memoriam Cseh Tamás

It's nearly a week ago that Cseh Tamás, the Hungarian composer, guitarist and singer died. A big loss in the Hungarian music and especially for the age of my parents.

He was special. Lyrics was very important in his music - fiction, and I think often real stories - he usually mixed the speaking (that kind of story-teller speaking) with the singing and the result was quite unique. His singing voice was also interesting and this, paired with beautiful melodies and more that twenty albums and many film themes made him a real character.

The next lyrics is a part of the Hatvanas évek (The sixties), and I translate it for you, to understand, but I do it against the grain.

A hatvanas években nyár felé tetőzött az ifjúsági probléma.

Emlékszem nap mint nap hajóval átmentünk Almádiból Siófokra.

Ó a régi, ó a Balaton, régi nyarakon, bár nem volt vitorláshajónk.

Ó a régi, ó a teraszon, ültünk nyarakon, úgy néztünk végig a tavon.

In the sixties around summer the problem of youth culminated.

I remember we traveled to Siófok from Almádi all of the days.

O that old, o the Balaton, in old summers, although we hadn't any sailboat.

O that old, o on the terrace, we sat in old summers, we glanced over the lake.

The comments of these videos are all about the sadness of Cseh Tamás's passing.

Hatvanas évek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG6INjVFWdM

Budapest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dukoAaxVHUA

Few days at the weekend house... Just a song before I go

Weekend house. I think for all of those who spent their summers in a weekend house, it became a new expression, an other world, where the time isn't like in the city. For me, that house up on the hill above the lake-side city, Balatonalmádi is a real treasure and quite a big part of my brain, where my memories settle. It's a feeling which contains many little things: asking my father answerable and non-answerable questions about the sky, gardening with my grandfather, taking a trip to the mountain, sitting on the terrace as the night fall down, watching the summer night sky and the stars, the long, rainy days with the noise of the water pouring down from the eaves just next to my room outside, the childish fears caused by strange noises from the garden - most of these remained -, the camp fire and frying bacon, and the "Sounds of the night" which was a personal show created by me and my cousin, performed it to our parents but mostly for ourselves... just to pick the most important memories.



Few years ago, when none of our casette-players worked yet at home, we brought our casettes down to the weekend-house, where we can listen to it. One of these casettes is a Crosby, Stills & Nash compilation, made by my father many years ago. I hadn't known about this band before, but two years ago, when I first listened to it, it became one of my favourite casettes, and on every holiday it's a "must-hear" casette there.

Crosby, Stills & Nash (often called shortly as CSN) and later, when Neil Young joined the group, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (CSNY) was a rock/folk band, making most of their well-known songs in 1969 and the seventies. Their best albums are Crosby, Stills & Nash (1969), Déjà vu (1970), and CSN (1977).

Just a song before I go is a track from the album CSN, a short, slower song with a little melancholy. Written by Graham Nash, just in 15 minutes en route to an airport. It's my favourite, that mentioned casette starts with it. I remember listening to it in my room, lying on my bed, as the afternoon sunlight break its way into my room through the shades - "I had to be alone".

The original version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRP6GR35bQE
A live version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Ji8HzTQl4

Album version:

Ella Fitzgerald - Clap hands, here comes Charlie!

By its selection and compilation, it's a perfect vocal jazz album. Because it shows gladness and melancholy, also vividness and slowness, and contemplating-carefree moods as the songs pass by. That's what I like in these records, this kind of variegation.

Starting with the fast Night in Tunisia we can easy be fascinated, and after that, too, because then comes the slow, beautiful ballad, You're my thrill, and a nice song, My reverie (one of the best songs on this album). Later we meet the happy shouting Jersey bounce, or the well-known and well-titled Good morning heartache, which melts up in melancholy and beauty, to paint some more colours on the album.

But this variegation wouldn't work without a very varicoloured voice. Ella was a great talent, it's not coincidence that they called her "First lady of song". Yes, she can be wild, she can shout in happiness, wake up your mind: "live!", laugh on something, or slow down and almost cry while singing.

To prove it better, here are some words quoted from the inner cover:

"Ella Fitzgerald has no competition. The most universally admired popular singer in the world, she represents one of the fortunate cases when talent translates into popularity and productivity. ...

Clap hands, here comes Charlie, a collection of tunes with varying degrees of jazz relevance, has ever since 1961 been just about the most treasured by Ellavationalists. ...

Ever as emotionally deep as she is swinging, her voice brimming with contagious, enthusiastic energy, her ptich perfect and her time beyond approach, I think she's modestly misidentified the proper recipient of applause: we should be shouting: Clap hands! Here comes Ella!"

They call it the Jersey Bounce
A rhythm that really counts
The temperature always mounts
Whenever they play the funny rhythm they play

It started on Journal Square
And Somebody heard it there
They put it right on the air
And now you'll hear it everywhere...

Good morning heartache:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZEq8H8cTNc

Hear samples of the album on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Clap-Hands-Here-Comes-Charlie/dp/B00000477N/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1249464455&sr=8-3