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Most recent album you bought?

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 Tobes 21 Nov 2020

A different take on the 'first album you bought' thread - 

What's the most recent album/track you've bought? Doesn't matter whether it was a physical copy of something or a download and I guess perhaps doesn't matter if you paid for it or not (though does to the artist of course!) Lastly doesn't have to be new music, just new to you - 

Made of Rain - The Psychedelic Furs (2020) new double album, first new music from them in decades, excellent stuff! 

and you? 

 Sl@te Head 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Bring me the Horizon -  Post Human: Survival Horror, really good angry Pandemic music....

 rockcatch 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

The last one I bought that I currently have is BMTH - Post Human Survival Horror.

I have a pre-order on Tom Clarke - The Chronicles on Nigel which should be with me before Christmas.

 plyometrics 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Alter Bridge - Walk The Sky

 Blue Straggler 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Marie LaForet 1961-64 bought today as a download from the Apple Music store which seems the only practical and reasonable way to get it.

It’s not new and it’s not particularly new to me as I’ve been listening to it on Spotify all year. However my increasing unease with Spotify’s model for compensating artists, coupled with my own ineffective use of Spotify, caused me to cancel my Premium subscription yesterday. And pretty much the only thing I started missing, was the Marie LaForet album. 

Post edited at 20:35
 cragtyke 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Bought two CDs together, one old - Super Ape by Scratch & The Upsetters, and one new - Hasta El Cielo by Khruangbin.

Both very good.

 Dave Todd 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Just noticed that I haven't bought a whole album in 2020...shocking!  I've bought plenty of random tracks though...

So, last 3 bought in 2019 were;

Mogwai - Young Team

The Voluntary Butler Scheme - At Breakfast, Dinner, Tea

Erland Cooper - Solan Goose

 SFM 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

I bought 3 albums in an iTunes flurry recently: 


Kick-INXS (to replace the tape I had)

If you wait-London Grammar

Hypersonic Missiles-Sam Fender

Last tracks were:

Witching Hour- Camelphat

Air that I breathe- Sub Focus & Wilkinson

Post edited at 21:05
 Andy Clarke 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Nick Cave: Idiot Prayer. Searingly intense solo performances from one of the most impressive bodies of work of any songwriter living or dead. Still at his creative peak. Saw him relatively recently "in conversation" and it was one of the most powerful concert experiences I've had. Members of the audience baring their souls: secular confession and redemption.

Also bought a second-hand cd of volume 1 of the St Germain des Pres Cafe nu-jazz electronica anthology series, inspired by listening again to St Germain's Tourist and pining for a few days in my favourite part of my favourite foreign capital. And it was so cheap on Music Magpie that resistance was futile.

Post edited at 22:26
 Tom Last 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Omoyari- Kishi Bashi

 Tony the Blade 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Glen Campbell's Greatest Hits - from a charity shop a couple of months ago

 J101 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress by Gulch

 Blue Straggler 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tony the Blade:

> Glen Campbell's Greatest Hits - from a charity shop a couple of months ago

I’ve got that, or a version thereof. It has sleeve notes saying how there was so much to him than Galveston, Wichita Lineman and When I Get To Phoenix, and then tracks 1, 2 and 3 are THOSE SONGS! Rhinestone Cowboy probably track 4 😀

 Jon Stewart 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Angel in Disguise, Leifur James.

I think he's just a bedroom musician/producer, who seems to be doing OK by the look of this glossy video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX3Nky5tsBE&ab_channel=NightTimeStories

 Tony the Blade 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

You've made me go fish it out...

Side One

1) Honey Come Back

2) Gentle On My Mind

3) Everything A Man Could Ever Need

4) Galveston

5) Try A Little Kindness

6) Dreams Of The Everyday Housewife*

Side Two

1) By The Time I Get To Phoenix

2) Dream Baby

3) Where's The Playground Susie*

4) It's Only Make Believe

5) Wichita Lineman

6) All I Have To Do Is Dream

...

No place for Rhinestone Cowboy - shocker

* These song titles though haha

 Linda Orritt 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Chaleur Humaine, Christine and the Queens. Her voice is amazing as are her lyrics 

 Tom Valentine 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

50 Best Handel.

As soon as l loaded it into my car CD player the damned thing packed in.

 Andy Clarke 21 Nov 2020
In reply to Tony the Blade:

> Glen Campbell's Greatest Hits - from a charity shop a couple of months ago

Springsteen paid a lovely homage to Campbell's countrypolitan sound on his last but one album, Western Stars.

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Is this the first classical record on here?

The Bach Album by Vickingur Olafssen (Piano)

It's been continuously playing in my van since I bought it a few months ago. It's burying itself into me as deeply as the Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett (who sadly is not going to perform in public again...).

A brilliant record, and I've asked for copies of the script music of all the transcriptions for the piano that are on this album for Christmas, as I should be able to play a good number of them.

His playing of the transcription of Bach's Organ sonata in D is just alluring and sublime.

 cragtyke 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

Highlights of the Idiot Prayer show are on the BBC sounds app until the 28th, it was on the Tom Ravenscroft show a while back.

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to cragtyke:

> Highlights of the Idiot Prayer show are on the BBC sounds app until the 28th, it was on the Tom Ravenscroft show a while back.

Is that the Ally Pally one that was iirc heavily sold as a once-only event not to be recorded or replayed? 

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to veteye:

I’ve bought some classical this year but my most recent one was as described upthread 

 Jon Stewart 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I started listening to classical only in the last few years, and it has changed my life, kind of. I'm really into solo piano and chamber music, can't quite deal with the pomp and what have you of most orchestral music (though I do like a few piano concertos I've tried but even these sound to me more like crowd-pleasers than really sincere music).

So actually the last album I bought was for someone else, this amazing recording of chopin's nocturnes.

youtube.com/watch?v=kHXxWfSAxik&

 Doug 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Dave Todd:

Like you I don't think I've bought an album this year, fairly sure the last I bought was 'Import Export' by the Les Poissons voyageurs. A real CD bought from the band after an outdoor concert in a nearby village.

Otherwise I've downloaded a fair amount of classical music, mostly late 19th/early 20th century pieces from the likes of Ravel, Debussy & Satie

Post edited at 07:45
 Fredt 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Doug:

Elgar - Enigma Variations, finally.

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> (though I do like a few piano concertos I've tried but even these sound to me more like crowd-pleasers than really sincere music).

Is it fair to say that a lot of classical music might inherently lack true sincerity, being written for commission or as “audition” for court positions (and thereon, for commission)? 

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

What about Shostakovitch's second piano concerto: Written for his son.?

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to veteye:

> What about Shostakovitch's second piano concerto: Written for his son.?

I said “a lot”. Not “all”. And it was a genuine question asked in earnest, not a statement. 

Post edited at 09:46
 Clarence 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Gama Bomb - The Terror Tapes

Forlorn Hope - Over the Hills

Apocalypse Orchestra - The End is Nigh

Orange Goblin - Time Travelling Blues

Iron Reagan - Worse than Dead

Sodom - Code Red

All arrived about 20 minutes ago from my nice Amazon delivery man. I did a lot of overtime this week so I treated myself, I normally limit my purchases to two CDs a week.

 Root1 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Ancian by 9Bach. 

They are a modern version of folk music. An excellent Welsh band.

 Root1 22 Nov 2020
In reply to veteye:

> What about Shostakovitch's second piano concerto: Written for his son.?

That's one of the best pieces ever written. So heartfelt.

 aln 22 Nov 2020
In reply to cragtyke:

> - Super Ape by Scratch & The Upsetters,

I have that on vinyl from when it was released and coincidentally dug it out the other day and gave it a spin. Great album. 

On topic, I was given Brutalism by Idles on CD for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, loving that. Excellent up loud in the car. 

 Jon Stewart 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> Is it fair to say that a lot of classical music might inherently lack true sincerity, being written for commission or as “audition” for court positions (and thereon, for commission)? 

Probably quite true for strictly "classical" music (mozart and haydn) and earlier but from late beethoven onwards, composers started to write with self-expression as a primary goal. Schubert's late chamber music and piano sonatas are definitely deeply personal - much of it sounds like someone staring death in the face, and in fact the incredible string quintet was never even performed until someone found the manuscript following his death. If you don't know them and you can devote a bit of time to getting to know them, schuberts final chamber works (quintet in c, death and the maiden and quartet no.15 in g) could be the most brilliant music ever written. (Also, the famous b flat piano sonata, which is playing in uncle monty's London home). 

Chopin's music is sometimes entertaining and fun (the waltzes), or displays of technical wizardry for an audience (the etudes - though some of these are still expressively intense) but in the big concert pieces (the 4 ballades and 4 scherzi) he means business.

Liszt on the other hand was always just showing off, the little tinker. Fantastic music, but not spiritual like chopin. 

I don't really know any later romantic stuff like mahler, Tchaikovsky, rachmaninoff, but they weren't composing for well-to-do courts by that time, they were trying to explore the boundaries of what music could be. 

OP Tobes 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

To all-Fantastic response so far, many thanks!

-plenty of stuff I’ve never even heard of so will be doing some searching later. 
 

keep ‘em coming!

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

Thanks Jon, interesting that you "only got into classical" a few years ago, have you been reading a lot around it or just listening to lots of quality radio (I've recently discovered "Inside Music" on Radio 3, which I find excellent) ? 

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

This thread has made me realise I've bought quite a few this year, mostly from doing the rounds of the charity shops (lockdown is making us all do home clearouts, which has resulted in the charity shops actually having some decent media instead of the usual 18 copies of the first solo album by Louise from Eternal , but also a few online digital and physical purchases, and I even managed to buy one AT A CONCERT! 

 wbo2 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tony the Blade: As you know he was afflicted by Alzheimers in his later years.  I recall in interview his daughter said that even after he talking nearly impossible he could still play the guitar

cb294 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

Good recording, but I like the recordings by Brigitte Engerer even more:

youtube.com/watch?v=QJs1H-kytQQ&

If you like solo piano I am sure you already know the concert by Horowitz on his first return to Moscow after 61 years in the US. To me this is the one concert I would have most liked to attend.

It is also the most recent CD I bought to replace my old vinyl record, as I do not have a record player anymore since the last one died quite a while ago:

youtube.com/watch?v=A9Seh29q7EA&

CB

 Andy Clarke 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> Is it fair to say that a lot of classical music might inherently lack true sincerity, being written for commission or as “audition” for court positions (and thereon, for commission)? 

I'm guessing by "true sincerity" here you mean an expression of deeply held personal feelings? If not, apologies, and please correct me. But if so, why should this matter much for any work of art? It seems like  a very romantic notion, and much less relevant to the periods in art that precede and follow it. I don't particularly care whether a Schoenberg string quartet is expressing any of the composer's personal views or emotions, I mainly care about what sort of experience it enables me to have.

 Tom Valentine 22 Nov 2020
In reply to veteye:

> Is this the first classical record on here?

I think I was ahead by 2 posts and nearly 13 hours....

 Blue Straggler 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> I'm guessing by "true sincerity" here you mean an expression of deeply held personal feelings? If not, apologies, and please correct me. But if so, why should this matter much for any work of art?

It doesn't matter and I didn't imply that it "should". 

In reply to Jon Stewart:

A good summary of Schubert there, and for that matter, Liszt and Chopin. Tchaikovsky I think is underrated: his Pathétique Symphony being surely one of the most heartrendingly bleak/sincere/authentic pieces of music in the whole of musical history. A virtual musical suicide note, completed eleven days before his death.

 Jon Stewart 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> Thanks Jon, interesting that you "only got into classical" a few years ago, have you been reading a lot around it or just listening to lots of quality radio (I've recently discovered "Inside Music" on Radio 3, which I find excellent) ? 

Reading, me? No. I get all my info from the internet. I've watched hundreds of hours of Bob Greenberg's lectures on The Great Courses (although I skipped a lot of the ones on opera).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID6z-DMcbrM&ab_channel=RobertGreenberg

I find I get more enjoyment out of something as complex as classical music if I understand the basics about what's going on. I like to know 'where I am' in a piece of music - is it going to last 7 minutes and then end? Is it the main sonata form first movement of a four movement quartet where I'll get to hear the tunes deconstructed and then come back at the end? Some romantic era stuff is "programme music" where there's literally a storyline being told, with characters and events.

If you're interested in counterpoint, then this chap's delivery leaves something to be desired but the analysis is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTxYykhQZbI&vl=es&ab_channel=Richar...

And thanks for the reminder, I must start listening to R3, never been in the habit.

 Jon Stewart 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> I'm guessing by "true sincerity" here you mean an expression of deeply held personal feelings? If not, apologies, and please correct me. But if so, why should this matter much for any work of art?

What an interesting philosophical question!

> It seems like  a very romantic notion, and much less relevant to the periods in art that precede and follow it. I don't particularly care whether a Schoenberg string quartet is expressing any of the composer's personal views or emotions, I mainly care about what sort of experience it enables me to have.

Well if you're listening to Schoenberg, that explains a lot

For me, art is, almost by definition, the way a person captures some aspect of their private consciousness and encodes it in a physical form that allows others to access it. My most intense and memorable experiences of music have involved the feeling that as I listen I'm experiencing the very mental state of the composer (admittedly this does sometimes involve magic mushrooms, but not always). Some music is just for fun, or might be beautiful or fascinating in an abstract way, but the music that means the most to me earns that place because it conveys something about what it like to be human that cannot be said in words.

 Andy Clarke 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> For me, art is, almost by definition, the way a person captures some aspect of their private consciousness and encodes it in a physical form that allows others to access it. My most intense and memorable experiences of music have involved the feeling that as I listen I'm experiencing the very mental state of the composer (admittedly this does sometimes involve magic mushrooms, but not always). Some music is just for fun, or might be beautiful or fascinating in an abstract way, but the music that means the most to me earns that place because it conveys something about what it like to be human that cannot be said in words.

Sustained Schoenberg probably has rerouted more synapses than I can count. I guess my view of the relative unimportance of sincerity/creator's consciousness is coloured by my own experience of writing. As soon as you send a poem out into the world you give up any ownership of the multiplicity of meanings it may have for different readers, particularly if it's an imagist or symbolic or surreal piece. I imagine it could be the same for composers. To come at it from a different tack, some of the visual art I find most intensely moving is the abstract art of Kandinsky - because of the emotional experience I have in front of it. But I don't feel that I'm accessing the thoughts and feelings that Kandinsky may have had when creating it. Finally, one of my favourite pieces of music is Bach's Goldberg Variations. When I listen to this I feel exactly as you say, that it expresses the human condition from despair to transcendence in a way that words can't. But it doesn't matter to me whether Bach was plunged in depression or soaring beyond earthly reality when he wrote particular sections. I guess I'm just not wired right to be romantic!

Removed User 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Jeffrey Martin - One go round.

If you like a slightly "Folk" feel to your music then this might be your guy

Post edited at 23:10
 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Tom Valentine:

I saw it after I'd written, but I thought that others would notice earlier.

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Recent forensic medicine looking back on historical reports and circumstances, now throw doubt on Tchaikovsky's suicide, but cannot throw it out altogether, I don't think.

Still the sixth symphony is pretty good.   :-}

Ninths are a bit different in some way.

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

R3 is no bloody good for getting you out of the house in the morning. Classic FM is better, if you can stand the adverts, and the repetition of several hundred pieces in close proximity (when there hundreds of thousands of decent pieces). Mind you David Mellor's Classic FM program on a Sunday is pretty good.

R3 is great for a wider focus and light-heartedness w Jess Gillam (Trendy young saxophinist) on a Saturday lunchtime-early afternoon. She has all sorts of guests, and they ply each other with interesting snips of music.

Then sometimes, you have to break out, and go for Planet Rock...

In reply to veteye:

All I'm going on is Anthony Holden's very sound and balanced biography, which leaves the question completely open. I think all we can say with certainty was that T was 'in a suicidal frame of mind' when he wrote the Pathetique. Equally certainly, we can say that he was treated abominably by the Russian cultural elite of the time, because he was a homosexual. Even the very staid, unsensational biography of Holden is shocking in this respect, so I recommend it.

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

I find the Goldberg variations, are truly addictive. and I have several different recordings (by the way, the new one by Pavel Kolesnikov, is supposed to be excellent), although I don't know if I'll get the Lang-lang version, as I think that he is too arrogant, by changing it too much.

Sometimes I have to just go and physically play the Aria on the piano, if I'm feeling tense, or not even that... It's like a chocolate addict requiring/needing that sudden input of Lindt or whatever.

 veteye 22 Nov 2020
In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Thank you, I will consider that biography, when I catch up.

In reply to Andy Clarke:

It's so hard to explain how Bach did it. The Goldberg has to be right up there with about the greatest 2 or 3 solo pieces ever written. The genius is in the way the humanity, the depths of human feeling, well up at the end through that restrained and ultra-disciplined musical format. Just totally awesome, and all the more powerful for its restraint.

Edited to add 'at the end'. 

Post edited at 00:01
 Dr.S at work 23 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

“It’s still autumn”

kayhan kalhor.

 loose overhang 23 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

The last album I bought, and the second last live concert I saw was Jill Barber.  She sang music from the linked album and music from her other albums.  The concert was outside, on a lawn, at a dairy farm in Agassiz, BC.  Everyone observed the required public health regulations.  We sat at least 2m apart, wore masks to enter and exit, and showed that even during a pandemic, if we followed the rules we could be safe.  Where I live has a small population, so I ran into several folks I know.

It was a beautiful concert.  The day was warm and clear.

The last concert was at the same farm, Alex Cuba, that time.

https://jillbarber.bandcamp.com/album/chansons

Post edited at 07:45
cb294 23 Nov 2020
In reply to veteye:

I know some professional organ players who refer to Lang Lang as "Bang Bang". IMO they do have a point, the way he plays is technically amazingly precise, but lacking nuance and most of the time much too loud.

Also, I need to give the Goldberg variations another try. My regular fix for solo Bach is the piano adaption of the Art of Fugue, and I would love to be able to play the first contrapunctus (not having touched a piano in 35 years). I started practising that piece a couple of years ago, but had to stop after my wife threatened to burn the piano if I continued. Admittedly, she has a point...

CB

In reply to Tobes:

Existential Reckoning - Pusifer

is the last thing I brought .

 graeme jackson 23 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

The most recent album I got was the Lark Ascending freebie on the cover of the BBC music magazine.  Last albums I paid for were Dream Theater 'Distance over time' and Flying Colors ' Third Degree' on the same Amazon order. (yes, I buy from Amazon - sue me!) 

Removed User 23 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Fun House on vinyl. Years of Cd and from-vinyl downloads and I'd forgotten what it was meant to be. With every passing year I'm more impressed by how futuristic the Stooges were. Too easy dismissing them as simply proto-punk.  

 Jon Stewart 24 Nov 2020
In reply to cb294:

> Good recording, but I like the recordings by Brigitte Engerer even more:

Can't fault it, but it's Arrau that most reliably has me in floods of tears. But the Moravec seemed to bring a new level of clarity I hadn't heard in the Engerer the Arrau - perhaps just through the sound engineering as much as the playing?

> If you like solo piano I am sure you already know the concert by Horowitz on his first return to Moscow after 61 years in the US

No - loved it, thanks.

 Jon Stewart 24 Nov 2020
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> Sustained Schoenberg probably has rerouted more synapses than I can count.

It's not easy to count synapses

> As soon as you send a poem out into the world you give up any ownership of the multiplicity of meanings it may have for different readers, particularly if it's an imagist or symbolic or surreal piece. I imagine it could be the same for composers.

Yes, art can be all kinds of things and the "cash value" is the experience of the listener (etc) regardless of how it came into being. But in some cases, even instrumental music can be quite explicit in what the musician is deliberately trying to get across (or at least it seems that way to me).

> Finally, one of my favourite pieces of music is Bach's Goldberg Variations. When I listen to this I feel exactly as you say, that it expresses the human condition from despair to transcendence in a way that words can't

I get that it's a masterpiece with all of its layers of structure and patterns, while never sounding mechanical; but I always find Bach much more "architectural" than emotional. Can't connect with the religious stuff at all, but I've only tried very briefly. I probably just haven't tuned in yet, much like I haven't tuned into Schoenberg (but that seems much less likely ever to happen).

 Andy Clarke 24 Nov 2020
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> I get that it's a masterpiece with all of its layers of structure and patterns, while never sounding mechanical; but I always find Bach much more "architectural" than emotional. Can't connect with the religious stuff at all, but I've only tried very briefly. I probably just haven't tuned in yet, much like I haven't tuned into Schoenberg (but that seems much less likely ever to happen).

My desert island single piece of music would be the late Beethoven String Quartet in A minor (the 15th). There's an obviously 'romantic' autobiographical element to this - the holy song of thanksgiving after recovery from his serious illness - and this undoubtedly came to have very intense personal significance for me after I survived a potentially fatal climbing fall. But when I'm listening to it I'm rarely aware of thinking about such things or experiencing such emotions. I guess it's taken me far beyond conscious thought. All this is by way of preamble to saying that it seems in his last great works (the Mass, the 9th, the quartets) Beethoven was at times engaging with the essence/spirit/soul/? of Bach and produced some of the greatest art I've ever encountered. Disclaimer: I'm no expert and I'm a shit musician. Sadly I won't be playing the Lute suites on my guitar in this life.

In reply to Tobes:

The Highwayman by the Highwaymen. 

(I've been listening to Rebel Radio on GTA 5.)

 Point of View 24 Nov 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

The last CD I bought was the recent recording of the two Shostakovich violin concertos by Alina Ibragimova. Try either of those and see if you find a lack of sincerity!

Removed User 24 Nov 2020
In reply to Tobes:

Sound & Fury - Sturgill Simpson

(On the strength of the film shorts for it on Netflix)


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