Catch-up TV isn't what it was !
Once you simply watched yesterday's programme, that you missed because you were out, nowadays you can catch up on an entire television series by downloading it to your TV digibox or similar device. The only thing with this is you're often watching a programme from some years ago. People using a flip open phone instead of everyone on smart phones, showing how quickly technology has moved on.
The same is equally true of the music used, as something new to you turns out to be from 2013 or before. We have been 'catching-up' with an American series called 'The Blacklist' - series 1 & 2 - so far have been caught ! What started with me making notes of the music I liked has become quite a long list. An artist by the name of Radical Face - the pseudonym of singer/songwriter Ben Cooper from Florida - has featured a couple of times. Off his 2011 album "The Family Tree: The Roots" - this is 'Always Gold'.

Nice 'sunny' video for company too.

More recommended Radical stuff > click here
We may visit 'The Blacklist' soundtrack again, very soon.

Spring is here !

Antonio Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' is one of the most well known works in Baroque music, and certain passages from "Spring" are instantly familiar. But have you heard this version ?

The background story is: 
German-born British composer Max Richter has disassembled them and fashioned a new composition from the deconstructed pieces. Richter has created an album that speaks to a generation familiar with remixes, sampling, and sound collages, though his method transcends the manipulation of prerecorded music. Richter has actually rescored the Four Seasons and given the movements of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter thorough makeovers that vary substantially from the originals. The new material is suggestive of a dream state, where drifting phrases and recombined textures blur into walls of sound, only to re-emerge with stark clarity and poignant immediacy. Violinist Daniel Hope is the brilliant soloist in these freshly elaborated pieces, and the Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin is conducted with control and assurance by André de Ridder.

And this is how it sounds: "Spring 1" - recomposed by Max Richter

If you want more seasons > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYWfJuMGMA

We have just spent five days surrounded by deep snow, minus temperatures, frozen rivers and reindeer in Lapland. Passing back and forth between Sweden and Finland our minibus driver insisted on playing music so far removed from this white sparse unpopulated landscape it soon became an inseparable part of a memorable trip.
Rio De Janerio at over 11,000 kilometres away and we were driving (and dancing) around to the rhythms of Samba music - and then on our last night he gave Margaret the CD as a memento.
This therefore is 'Samba De Janerio' by German pop group Bellini. Let's Carnival in the snow !

For those interested this track was a European wide hit in 1997 - the main theme is sampled from the Airto Moreira song 'Tombo in 7/4'.

Following on from last week's excursion into seventies British Prog Rock with Yes, I unearthed this flyer from 1972.
Advertising Thursday nights at the 'Toby Jug' pub in Tolworth. 
Given the size of the venue compared to the size of the bands playing: David Bowie, Manfred Mann and Status Quo it was probably packed out most weeks.
If you'd been there last night, in 1972, you'd have seen Atomic Rooster and no doubt they'd have played this week's STAR TRACK.
They had followed up the earlier hit single "Tomorrow Night"* in the summer of 1971 with "Devil's Answer". It reached No.4 on the UK charts and here they are performing it on 'Top of the Pops'.
Vincent Crane (keyboards) was the one constant member in an ever changing Atomtic Rooster line-up and as a result I can't tell you who supplies the excellent guitar work on this track. 
Hit it !

* Wild keyboards from Vince Crane and seventies style TOTP dancing in another video > right here.

Pie & Mash Shop - London SW11 5TQ

MUSICASSETTES or Compact Tape Cassette >
Invented in the 1960s Cassettes will be fondly remembered, down memory lane, for the number of compilation tapes that were created during their lifetime.

In the 1970s, my Dad, in between telling me to turn the volume down on the music I was playing, sometimes surprised me by announcing he quite liked a particular track that I was listening to. Eventually he asked me to make him a tape of HIS favourites. As you can see from the picture below that cassette contained music by Pink Floyd "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", Vangelis, Focus, Santana and Yes - it was an impressive selection.

The track by Yes was 'Soon', a beautiful calm song at the end of the 22 minute 'The Gates of Delirium' - the entire side one of the 'Relayer' LP released in 1974. This song of peace and hope was issued as a single a year later.

Down the years there have been various recordings, none better than a symphonic version of this piece from a live show by Yes in 2001.

The sun will lead us

Our reason to be here

If you thought YES a draft sixties hippy name for a Prog Rock band, then check out what they originally called themselves > here