Separate Sound

I’ve gotten a lot of great response to my mention of Ghada Shbeir last week.

In case you missed it, Ghada Shbeir’s album, Al-Muwashahat, won the BBC Radio 3 2007 World Music Award in the Mid East & North Africa Category.

Since there’s been so much interest, I’m excited to be able to hook you up with an article published in today’s edition of The Daily Star - from Shbeir’s native Lebanon.

Considered one of the leading exponents of Arabo-Andalusian singing and Assyrian religious chants, Shbeir is one of the rare performers of a musical form that many thought was on its way to extinction.

“When we started producing ['Al-Muwashahat'] it was really a shot in the dark. We wanted to do it because it is good for the archives of this music, to safeguard it,” says Forward Productions’ Ghazi Abdel Baki.

Go here to read more about Ghada Shbeir and the intriguing music she performs.

ghada shbeir, bbc radio 3, world music awards, music, al muwashahat, lebanon

Well, this is pretty awesome.

Akashic Crow’s Nest is one of the many projects of artist C.P. McDill.

Hawk of an Uncanny Nest is ACN’s latest release - and you can hear it all online, free.

The album is described thusly:

The tracks are created by first making a very long thin picture file that functions much like a piano roll, which is then fed into a software synthesizer which reads the picture from left to right, pixel by pixel, and translates the values into tones, adding variables such as loudness and panning based on information in the picture. The output is then treated to various digital effects such as delays and compression to give the final pieces a warmer, ambient quality.

The whole concept of picture–>music is fascinating and the resulting music is not a disappointment. It’s very ambient and very mysterious. Give it a try.

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Volta, Björk’s newest album, isn’t due out until May 7th in Europe and May 8th in the USA (insert picture of me waiting impatiently), but as of today a single, Earth Intruders, is available for download!

It’s as simple as visiting your country’s iTunes site and searching for the single. In the USA, the download costs just 99 cents, so it’s an inexpensive treat.

Volta is influenced by Björk’s January 2005 trip to Indonesia and the tsunami destruction she found there. Read more about the album, the single, and Björk’s vision of humans as one tribe in Pitchfork’s interview.

bjork, volta, earth intruders, music, digital download, itunes, pitchfork

I was a big fan of Luna’s quirky, poppy, catchy rock back in the mid-90s. (10+ years ago?!) But I admit, I lost track of them after Penthouse.

The band members kept going, though, in various incarnations and today Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have 4 albums behind them as a duo.

David Dye of NPR’s World Cafe talked with Dean and Britta last Wednesday and you can hear it all online now.

From this interview, I learned that Britta was the voice of Jem from Jem and the Holograms! Ha!

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Today’s Friday Playlist comes straight from a mix CD my spouse made earlier this week. He even gave it a name.

Sonic Vibrations: Take As Needed

1. Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) — Kenny Rogers & the First Edition
2. Uncle John’s Band — Grateful Dead song covered by Jimmy Buffet
3. To The Stars — Erin McKeown
4. Cassidy — Grateful Dead song covered by Suzanne Vega
5. Light and Day — The Polyphonic Spree
6. Felicia — Blues Traveler
7. Big-Time Sensuality — Bjork
8. Om Numah Shivaya — Apache Indian
9. Send Me On My Way — Rusted Root
10. What Do You Hear In These Sounds — Dar Williams
11. Iron Lion Zion — Bob Marley & the Wailers
12. Honest Hour — Assembley of Dust
13. We Are More — Erin McKeown
14. Section 12 (Hold Me Now) — The Polyphonic Spree
15. Back to the Earth — Rusted Root
16. Most Precarious — Blues Traveler
17. Man With A Plan — Assembley of Dust
18. Buckaroo Banzai Closing Theme — Michael Boddicker

On Fridays, Separate Sound will feature playlists from readers, bloggers, and musicians. Want to submit a playlist? Click the “Contact Me” button right over there (—>) and send me five or more songs that you’re listening to. If you have a blog or website, be sure to include it so I can post the link along with your playlist.

friday playlist, music, playlists, songs

A day after the vital newsflash that Keith Richards may or may not have snorted (the ashes of) his father, let’s take a moment to listen to a great cover of a Rolling Stones standard…

PJ Harvey and Björk perform “Satisfaction.”

keith richards, rolling stones, satisfaction, pj harvey, bjork, covers, music, insufflation

Get Him Eat Him is an indie rock band with a new album coming out in June. To celebrate, they’re offering us free music!

Each week, GHEH is offering free downloads of their previously released tour EPs. This week’s album is do as i tell you.

“our second and most popular tour ep, released in january of 2006 by the venerable catbird records. we did drums and bass for this one at steinert recording studio in providence, and tracked guitars, vocals and keyboards at the gheh house. mixed by matt on his computer, and featuring gratuitous overuse of the hyperprism-dx compressor plugin. we wanted to try our hand at re-recording a track from geography cones, and a slower and more muscular version of “one word” seemed like a good plan.”

Go here to dowload the album, hear a track from their upcoming release, and to find out more about the band.

By the way, I heard about this on Questionable Content, which is a great webcomic!

get him eat him, do as i tell you, indie rock, rock, u.s., north america, music, free music, questional content

Enter to win a trip (with a friend) to Los Angeles to see Loreena McKennitt in concert or to win an iPod Shuffle. (Is it strange that they specify you would win a “new” iPod Shuffle?)

And perhaps you’d like to take a quick swing by Loreena’s site and sample some tracks from her newest album - An Ancient Muse.

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BBC Radio 3 has announced the winners of their Awards for World Music 2007. There are awards in 9 categories (and a 10th, Audience Award announced at the winners’ concert in May) and there are some great artists being recognized this year.

There’s Ghada Shbeir winning the Mid East & North Africa category with her Al-Muwashahat, which is both the title of her album and the over 10-century-old style of music she performs. Her music is very vocally-focussed and emotive. Ghada Shbeir performs both modern and traditional (and we’re talking 1,000-year-old-traditional, here) pieces. One of her goals is to keep alive this art form of muwashah and bring it to new audiences.

With a very different sound, Gogol Bordello won the Americas Award this year. They perform an imaginative style of punk that incorporates (amongst other elements) accordian, violin, a wild sense of humor, and a much-remarked-upon mustache. Fans say Gogol Bordello live shows are not to be missed.

Visit both Ghada Shbeir and Gogol Bordello’s sites for samples of the music they’re making.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. To find out about the rest of the winners and the upcoming concert, visit BBC Radio 3.

bbc 3, radio 3 awards for world music 2007, world music, music, ghada shbeir, gogol bordello, lebanon, u.s, asia, western asia, north america, middle east, punk, gypsy punk, muwashah

National Geographic is not the first source I usually think of for music discoveries, but recently I read about a group on their site that sounds great.

Slavic Soul Party! — NG describes them as having a “funkified brass sound” and The New York Times says: “Fiery Gypsy brass, soulful Balkan anthems, and hip-grinding American funk: Slavic Soul Party! is just what it says.”

Anytime your band name has an exclamation point built right in - you’re off to a good start. Go to their site for samples of their music. Their new album, Teknochek, comes out April 3rd (tomorrow)!

slavic soul party, balkan soul gypsy funk, gyspy rock, abstract jazz, brass, U.S., national geographic, north america, music