Classical

POTW (2019/37): Dreamy Cinematic and Ambient

This week’s playlist of the week, Dreamy Cinematic and Ambient, is just what the doctor ordered after a monster-shaped week. It was my first week in a new temporary day-job, trying to learn the ropes. I was not feeling well, and plumbers were replacing the central heating system in the house where I was staying. (Following their work, there is now a working shower as well, which is my favourite part of last week!)

I’ve taken the job because my income as a musician falls woefully short of paying even my basic bills currently. Let me be very clear: I am not giving up making music (I couldn’t if I tried). But it will do wonders for my stress levels to know that I am earning enough to cover my bills.

Our playlist this week is a collection of pieces curated by Andy Salvanos (he of the Chapman Stick). It is one of the most relaxing sets of music I’ve played in a while. It will take best part of a day to play it, so expect to feel really chilled by the end. (That’s always assuming you haven’t dropped off in the meantime). This playlist would actually work quite well for sleeping music. I managed to stay awake all the way through this time, though!

Stand-out tracks

The talent represented in this playlist is phenomenal. Max Richter, Hans Zimmer, Pat Metheny, Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm… Just to mention a few of the best known artists – and the list goes on.

The stand-out tracks for me included Salt of the Sound’s Deep Peace, and Armstrong’s The Noetic Quality. Deep Peace is unusual tracks for this list as it features a female vocal, whereas most tracks are instrumentals. The Noetic Quality is a gentle percussive track with ringing marimba and xylophone over synth washes. It has a repeated theme that slowly morphs into forms that are different, yet the same. Two other tracks that grabbed my attention were Maneli Jamal’s Floating and Kirsten Agresta Copely’s Onde. Floating is a beautifully recorded, layered, echoing guitar piece, and Onde is a lovely harp piece with Celtic vibes. Both fit their names very well.

Dreamy, Cinematic and Ambient playlist, curated by Andy Salvanos

Duration: 6h 38min, 106 songs

Rating: U – nothing to be scared of.

Ideal for: Focussed study, destressing, and/or quiet evenings in.

POTW (2019/36): Acoustic Artists

Jürg Kindle is the curator responsible for this week’s Playlist of the Week, Acoustic Artists. I’m going to be honest with you and admit upfront that I haven’t been able to listen to the whole playlist this time, because it’s 8h long. (I forgot to check the length before I selected it and started listening.) I’m starting writing this at about the half-way point, just after I looked to see if I’d got to the end because the music had stopped and realised the pitfall I’d set for myself!

This is the kind of playlist that your Mum will love. (Assuming your Mum is of a certain age and isn’t a punk-rocker… If she’s more the rock-chic type, you’ll be better to play this one when she’s around, instead!).

There’s a broad range of quite gentle music in this list, from classical pieces and instrumental cover song versions from purely acoustic artists, to soft rock, country and songs with orchestral backings. There are even some tracks that are really electronica, but which fit the soothing acoustic vibe.

The list’s curator, Jürg Kindle, is a musician himself. (If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, that won’t really be a surprise, there’s been a bit of a theme, hasn’t there?) Jürg composes for guitar and mandolin, and for ensembles of the instruments up to guitar or mandolin orchestra size. Some of his pieces are used as compulsory pieces in competitions. There are several pieces that he composed and played in this playlist, so you’ll hear some examples of his work.

Jürg plays an impressive range of chordophones himself, several of which I hadn’t even heard of before, plus drums and percussion. He says that his guitar pieces express his inner drummer because they can be quite percussive. (Ok, so I know you’re curious about the chordophones! Jurg plays saz, chiftelia, bouzouki, mandolin, bandolim, cavaquinho, 12-string guitar, soprano guitar, quint and quart contrabass guitars).

Duration: 8h 35min, 140 songs.

Rating: PG – No songs labelled as ‘explicit’, but some more sensitive parents might consider some lyrics unsuitable.

Ideal for: playing all day in a café setting.

POTW (2019/22): Instrumental imaginaries and Atmospheric Architects

This week’s playlist of the week is Instrumental imaginaries and Atmospheric Architects. It’s a wonderfully varied relaxing playlist that journeys across genres and is all instrumental, as the title indicates. It takes in classic rock, disco, funk, classical, folk, psychedelic, epic and ambient styles – amongst others! A constant is the high quality of the tracks selected and how they conjure up images in your imagination. Artists featured range from household names like Jamiroquai and Jean-Michel Jarre to the relatively obscure and label-free.

Mat Champney of The Mighty Fallen is the curator; he also curated another recent POTW: Silent River. (There’s a little about the band in that article, and you can also hear one of their tracks in this playlist).

I found this particular playlist rather immersive. It’s one you might prefer to actively listen to, without attempting to concentrate on something else at the same time. (It works quite well for that, too, though.) I did find myself just disappearing into the music at times and floating off somewhere remote in my mind.

Duration: 3h 56min ; 57 songs

Rating: U, fit for all listeners. Whilst I wouldn’t expect that to change, this being a relaxing instrumental playlist and all, if you are at all concerned about explicit content, put the filter on. Then you won’t need to worry about dubious lyrics appearing while eg your mum is within earshot!

POTW (2019/20): Soft Calm

This week, we have Soft Calm, curated by singer-songwriter Barry McLoughlin as our Playlist of the Week. I’ve featured two of Barry’s playlists before – his Acoustic Treasures and Winter Wanderer playlists, and there’s a bit more about him in the first of those two articles.

Soft calm is a collection of songs that are gentle on the ears. Moving between jazzy, cool, spacey and just plain beautiful sounds, this is a really lovely relaxing listening experience that can just as easily be used as background music for all-day work, creativity or reading.

Duration: 11h / 179 songs.

NB: I listen with Spotify’s ‘explicit’ song filter switched on. There are a few tracks labelled explicit on this list, but I haven’t heard them! If those tracks are likely to bother you, please make sure you have the filter switched on in your own account before listening.

POTW (2019/18): Instrumental Chill Out Gems

This week, our Playlist of the Week is Jon Magnusson’s Instrumental Chill Out Gems.

I’ve featured some of Jon Magnusson’s playlists in the past, as he is the artist who started the ‘Monster Thread’ movement which started with The Monster Thread playlist and developed into a platform for indie artists to support each other, collaborate and share knowledge of the industry so we can all benefit from each other’s experience. (For more about Jon, read post on The Monster Thread).

This is another playlist that does what it says. Instrumental Chill Out Gems starts out with Chet Atkins’s Maybelle, a folky guitar piece with a hill-billy ragtime flavour, then moves into modern classical piano territory with Yiruma’s River Flows in You, before featuring independent artists like Tommy Berre, Kip LaVie and some of Jon Magnusson’s own guitar-based pieces.

This collection of pieces frequently features solo acoustic guitars and pianos, and would be perfect for waiting rooms or reading, as it is very calm, without being particularly sleep-inducing. (It’s probably still too calm for playing behind the wheel, though). There are also laid back rock pieces, jazz, downtempo electronica and ambient tracks, plus an occasional foray into epic orchestral music.

Duration: 87 songs, 5h 10min. (Subject to change, of course).

Rating: PG. I would have rated this as U, were it not for the inclusion of Alessandros Kilias’s piece ‘My Idea’, which has some spoken samples from the film The Indestructible Man, including the threat ‘I’m going to kill you’, which I imagine may not be suitable for very small children.

POTW (2019/12): The Four Seasons

This week’s Playlist of the Week is another one of those playlists that ‘does what it says on the label’. That is to say, that Dmitry Golubovsky has compiled a selection of tunes about weather and the seasons, which kicks off with three of his own minimal electronica pieces, which, if I’m not mistaken, are all variations on a theme.

Genre wise, the playlist leans mainly towards classical, neo-classical and gentle electronica instrumentals (as you might expect from an artist who produces this sort of music himself) but there are exceptions, including a few songs with lyrics. It’s the kind of playlist you could easily listen to in your office or while reading a book without the music distracting too much of your attention.

POTW (2019/8): Classic Electronic Music

This week’s selection for Playlist of the Week is ‘Classic Electronic Music’ by Spotify user ‘lodolf’. It focusses in on the more melodic and cinematic side of electronica, which has roots in classical and orchestral music. In fact, some of the pieces included are actually classical orchestral music being played on synths, e.g. Synclassica’s renditions of Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi and so on. Another notable piece is Arvo Pärt’s moving minimal work, Spiegel im Spiegel.

There is a lot to like here. This is a well thought out playlist of instrumental music, with selected pieces of electronica from the 1970s onwards. There were a few surprises – I didn’t expect to hear ABBA’s Arrival or, for that matter, any Bowie. (Benny Andersson of ABBA also snook in again with his cinematic Skallgång.)

That insistence on shying away from the obvious is one of the playlist’s major assets – it includes a generous smattering of emerging artists, examples being Easily Embarrassed, Bassic, Animobo, Firechild, Didymos, and the list goes on. This led me to discover at least a handful of artists who weren’t even near my radar, let alone on it.

If I’m going to be really picky, this playlist focusses a bit too heavily on certain artists, albeit with some heavy hitters fitting that category, such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. That has not taken away from this playlist being a thoroughly enjoyable listen, however, as the ‘over-represented’ artists are all fantastic.

POTW (2019/5): Yoga Chill by Michelle Qureshi

This week’s playlist of the week is Yoga Chill, from Michelle Qureshi, and brings together a selection of beautiful pieces in the chill out, new age, ambient and acoustic genres. You don’t need to be doing yoga to enjoy this playlist – it makes great background music for reading, studying or other non-physical activities, which is great if you’re an unbendy couch-potato like me.

Michelle Qureshi is an acoustic artist in her own right, writing and recording almost classical style new age and ambient pieces, often guitar based. She has several tracks in the playlist, so you can get a feel for her style. (She’s also included a couple of tracks by Andy Salvanos, who I’ve mentioned before in the blog.) Michelle brings a great deal of feeling to everything I’ve heard her do, and pieces like Never Odd Or Even can leave you floating off into some imaginary sunset, so I think you’ll really enjoy listening.

Playlist of the Week (2018/40)

POTW-2018-40-NickTempest 600x900

Our POTW this Monday, Relax Soul, comes from Mirko Consoli, otherwise known as the singer Nick Tempest.

Nick’s from Sicily, Italy, and takes the second half of his stage name from the lead singer of the 80s rock group “Europe”. (Incidentally, that singer’s name, Joey Tempest, is also a pseudonym – he’s really Rolf Larsson). 

Nick says his love of music stems from his childhood, when he was particularly struck by Power Metal and West Coast AOR, which he loves for their sense of melodic power. But  these are not the only genres that he says have made an impact on his own musical direction – he also cites Celtic and Italian influences, particularly the popular Italian singer-songwriter Amedeo Minghi. 

Nick’s self taught on the guitar and keyboard and can sing in six different European languages. His music is pop; the best description I can manage is that it’s a kind of cross between 80s-inspired Euro-synthpop and that easy-listening – almost crooning – style of classical music. Kind of Julio Iglesias crossed with Pet Shop Boys with a bit of light opera thrown in, very loosely speaking. I can certainly hear Minghi’s influence on his style, having checked out a selection of his music for the purposes of writing this article.

Back to the playlist: it’s a collection of soundtrack, filmscore-esque and instrumental music, with the aim of being relaxing to listen to. (Obviously – the clue is in the title.)  Piano features quite often and Nick’s included a generous sprinkling of lesser-known artists in the mix, too. The overall result of his work putting this together is a great playlist for listening to when you have tasks that you need to really focus on without being distracted by lyrics. Equally, it makes a great late-night playlist for de-stressing before sleep.

 

Playlist of the Week (2018/39)

Playlist of the Week (2018/39): Andy Salvanos's gorgeous Dreaming Instrumental collection.

This week, our POTW is Dreaming Instrumental, compiled by Andy Salvanos. Andy is a highly talented musician, as evidenced by his beautiful tracks Solace and Peace, which feature on the playlist. Born in Sweden with Greek-Russian-Irish heritage, and growing up in the US, Salvanos spent a decade in Los Angeles as a session bassist, before settling in Glenalta, Australia. He is now a highly respected solo performer at events such as The Adelaide International Guitar Festival and The National Folk Festival. Here’s an example of his work:

The instrument behind these sounds is a 10 string Chapman Stick (also available as a 12 string variety) . Unlike the better-known 12 string guitar, all the strings are played separately, not in pairs, so Andy’s fingers can get pretty busy as he creates his hypnotic tunes.

I’ve come across the Chapman Stick before – when Nick Beggs* was playing with Iona, this was his weapon of choice for the bass-lines – so I have always thought of it as a bass instrument. But apparently Nick was only playing half the strings on the Iona pieces: presumably because he wasn’t performing solo.  Andy’s self-composed solo pieces make full use of all the strings, so that he is effectively playing the equivalent of a bass and a treble guitar simultaneously. (For an equivalent solo piece from Nick, see here.)

Back to the playlist, before I get completely carried away discussing UK celtic prog rock!  It’s an absolute beauty: full of dreamy, evocative instrumentals that you can pretty much float around the world on, as you journey into different lands through ethnic beats and instruments and the cinematic feel of this collection of tunes that keep coming back to solo guitar (or stick).

 

*Iona fans will appreciate this Youtube clip I found of Nick playing Chapman Stick for a Magenta recording.