Mon 29 Oct – Iron & Wine

I am still not very familiar with the extensive musical work of Sam Beam a.k.a. Iron & Wine but I decided to give it a go and watch him live at the Queen's Hall, one of my favourite venues in Edinburgh.

I was expecting intimate tones and smooth tunes, with great vocals but tinged with sadness. I was surprised by some upbeat musical arrangements and how the audience reacted to them. Not to say I was disappointed! The set up was certainly bigger than I expected, with Sam's 7 people strong entourage sporting…

A few days ago, I found an old album that I had not listened for quite a while.
António Chainho released the album Lisboa-Rio in 2000 (Chainho is misspelled here).
This work was the result of a collaborative effort of António with Celso Fonseca and Jaques Morelenbaum. It merged the distinctive sonority and tradition of António's Portuguese Guitar with Brazilian music. António plays songs from the classic Brazilian repertoire and a few originals with renowned brazilian artists such as Ney Matogrosso, Paulinho Moska, Virgínia Rodrigues,Jussara Silveira,Armandinho and Dominguinho. The outcome is one…

After a busy day, a bit of jazz can make a lot of difference to how I finish my work and go home.

Straight Life
This piece by Freddie Hubbard features the trumpet man himself at his best plus excelent vamping throughout from the accompanying band. I especially like the drum solo - great stuff!

…and the next track was How high the Moon. Couldn't have chosen a better follow-up myself :) Gotta love last.fm radio :D

The more I listen to Fisherman's Woman by Emiliana Torrini, the more I love its simple and mellow songs. Emiliana's soft and "smokey" voice seems perfect for this form of intimate dialogue - just her, a guitar and her stories.

My favourites tracks are the beautiful "At Least It Was" and "Serenade".

Emiliana Torrini
Fisherman's Woman
Serenade
At Least it Was

One of my personal favourites from Django's best-of album The Best of Django Reinhardt. This three-piece little gem has some cool guitar and violin solos over a foot-tapping double-bass rythm. The whole album gives the feeling that you're in one of those old romantic movies from the 50s and this song portrays that feeling very well…ingenious, playful and a delightfully uncomplicated sound.

The radio "Similar artists to Kruder and Dorfmeister" continues to throw at me interesting new sounds. This latest one is from Talvin Singh, who is widely known for his hardcore Indian techno/breakbeat. This song is more divorced of his normal music medium and more into Indian folk though… A widely appreciated change of pace :)

Reggae beat as a platform for some groovy solos…interesting surprise :)