O Vos Omnes - Tomás Luis de Victoria (1585)

Passio - Arvo Pärt (1989)

Music of the season . . . liturgical minimalism via Arvo Pärt.

In Rotation: Spring is Coming!

I suffer from what the kids are calling Seasonal Affective Disorder. Or maybe I just hate the holiday season that much. Yeah, actually it's not SAD at all, it's just a hatred of the season of hysterical commerce. By February, hoops are peaking at all levels, commerce is coming under control, and my anniversary rolls around at the end of the month. By March, spring's promise is within reach, even if we get slapped once or twice with snow just to keep us grounded. As I sit now, Texas Tech has eliminated North Carolina, and all is getting better with the world.

Wombo: Staring at Trees
Dirtbag: Voided
Earth: Earth 2
Iannis Xenakis: Iannis Xenakis (Editions RZ)
Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing
Shostakovich: The Complete String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet)
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 (Stokowski/Houston Symphony)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (Sanderling/St. Petersburg Philharmonic)
John Coltrane: Meditations
Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star
Obnox: Boogalou Reed
Webern, Haubenstock-Ramati, Urbanner: String Quartets (Alban Berg Quartet)
Debussy, Ravel: String Quartets (Quartetto Italiano)
Debussy, Ravel: String Quartets (Kodaly Quartet)
Stockhausen: Telemusic, Mixtur
Protomartyr: Relatives in Descent
Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction
Dream Syndicate: Days of Wine and Roses
Maria McKee: You've Got to Sin to Be Saved
Paul Sturm: Collateral Effect

Ranked: Star Trek Doctors

7. Pulaski (The Next Generation)
6. Emergency Medical Hologram (Voyager)
5. McCoy (Star Trek reboot)
4. Bashir (Deep Space Nine)
3. Crusher (The Next Generation)
2. Phlox (Enterprise)
1. McCoy (Original)

My Bookshelf - Wombo (2018)

New Louisville sound on Sophmore Lounge.

Persepolis - Iannis Xenakis (1971)

From the YouTube description by user Polyphonie X:

 Persepolis  

Iannis Xenakis Persepolis GRM Mix

Mixed By, Engineer – Daniel Teruggi 

A re-issue of the "polytope" (composed in 1971, first performed for the 2500th anniversary of Iran's founding by Cyrus) on CD1 with remixes on CD2. 

Original recording mixed at INA-GRM (Paris, France) and engineered in Studio 116A by Daniel Teruggi, under the consultation of Iannis Xenakis. Radu Stan of Editions Salabert provided the original tapes and scores for the mix, as well as attended the mixing.

My Favorite Things (The Olatunji Concert: Last Live Recording) - John Coltrane (1967)

All the Coltrane I’ve heard in my life, how did I miss this one? Saying something is “deconstructed” is usually lazy and stupid, but it applies here. You can trace back shards of melody and interval to all the previous versions he’s done over the years, but they’re all smashed up and shrieking. An actual chunk of the head shows up for the first time 25 minutes into the 35 minute version. This was his second-to-last show ever, and features Jimmy Garrison (who starts the proceedings with his bass solo, as was the group’s wont during the period), Alice, Pharoah Sanders, and Rashied Ali leading a drum battery that likely has at least two more members.

This is amazing. Virtually all Coltrane is amazing, of course, but this is overpowering.