aworks :: "new" american classical music

album listening log :: june 24, 2017 #okplanetarium

• Gregg Allman - Low Country Blues [2011 Rounder Records]
• Radiohead - Ok Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 disk 2 [2017 XL Recordings Limited] 
• James McAlister, Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly - Planetarium [2017 4AD] 
• Murcof, Vanessa Wagner - EP02 [2017 InFiné]
• Richard Dawson - Peasant [2017 Domino Recording Co Ltd] 

When I think of planets, I don't expect them to be as gauzey and benign as this new recording. And when I think of planetariums, I think of Pink Floyd and laser light shows. I need to give this another listen.

On the other hand, the Gregg Allman traditional blues album may be the best thing he's done since the 1970s. I need to give that another listen as well.

EP02 is a piano recording of music by Glass, Pärt, and Feldman. Murcof is a electronic musician; the Glass is his beats along with Metamorphosis 4. This is the first time I've heard electronic treatments for Pärt, and Feldman. The idea never occurred to me.

album listening log :: june 23, 2017 #allmanbrothers

1. Sandy Bull - E Pluribus Unum
2. The Allman Brothers Band - Hittin' the Note
3. The Allman Brothers Band - Seven Turns 
4. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Take It from the Man 
5. The Allman Brothers Band - Shades 
6. Test Dept - Matiera Prima

I read a new Rolling Stone article about Gregg Allman and the group:

The band was attuned to the emotional meanings of blues and the stylistic patterns of rock & roll; at the same time, the Allmans loved jazz and had spent many hours marveling at the way visionaries like Davis, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker had taken the same primitive blues impulses that had thrilled and terrified Robert Johnson and turned them into an elaborate art form capable of intricate, spontaneous inventions.

The later albums from their career, as listed above, probably don't meet the standard of "an elaborate art form." But they are unmistakably Allman Brothers music.