Work The Figure One Cuts--
Artist Minimal Compact

The studio swan song of this arty Israeli-Belgian band is a stunning achievement of pop craftsmanship, wrapped around a decidedly dark outlook. Each song is exquisitely realized with pop hooks evoking, in my mind, a diverse set of fine references: Peter Gabriel, Renaissance, the Moody Blues, Squeeze.

Work The Three-Sided Dream in Audio Color
Artist Rahsaan Roland Kirk
He is still getting respect in jazz circles which assures that his music will continue to be heard for generations. But let's not leave him to the jazz scholars who may discount him in comparison to the enshrined giants. But let's sing to the giant spirit of Rahsaan, a musical hero if there ever was one. A man of enormous technical virtuosity, he mastered playing three saxophones at once, not as a gimmick, but as a unique and rich musical voice. He would also play his nose flute, sing into his flute, and generate massive tumbling driving careening saxophone solos on a continuous stream of circular breathing. After he was partially paralyzed by a stroke, he returned to recording and touring, able still to play his saxophone with his one good hand. He soonafter died while on tour. I choose the 3-sided dream as a representative work, for he had many other albums easily as good. But this one is particularly intriguing. It's got a peculiar mirrored structure with songs being repeated in different styles interspersed with interesting sound effects. The concept is that we are hearing an audio dream, such as might be experienced by a blind musician such as Rahsaan. Classic Kirkian contradictions abound. At each end the work, Kirk is heard arguing with a computer who is commanding him to sleep. Rahsaan energetically rails against computers, electricity, rock and roll, and yet the album includes some rockin' electrified accompaniment that is quite good. The 3-sidedness of the title refers to packaging of the original vinyl release as a double album with Three sides of music, with the fourth side containing just a minute or two of spoken clips.
Availability: Quite happily still in release on CD.
Connections: Other top Kirk works: The Inflated Tear, Volunteer Slavery, Black Root Strata, Other Folks' Music.

Work Pop Eyes and/or the BBC Sessions
Artist Danielle Dax

Okay, Danielle Dax is a bit strange. But she's also very smart, and funny, and exquisitely talented. Stereotyped as the woman who made the gothic movement safe for big hair, she does like to indulge sometimes in gruesome and uncomfortable imagery. But there is great theatre and irony in all this.

Her voice is remarkable. There is such a range between her high and sweet and low and raspy intonations that her overdubbed numbers may seem like real duets. A multi-instrumentalist, and lyric poet of darkside drama, she has the attraction/repulsion dynamic ever so perilously balanced.
I choose Pop Eyes as her most revealing work. Her first solo album, in which she plays all instruments, is Danielle undiluted and not fettered by anyone else's expectations. True, the graphics in which she wraps this exquisite work are stomach-turning. With my CD, I turn the booklet around and let the fine double portrait shown at the above-left appear on the outside. I also recommend the EP disk Live at the BBC. On it, she delivers a stronger version of the beautifully haunting song Numb Companions than that on Pop Eyes, along with strong alt-versions of three other masterpieces. (The cover also has my favorite Danielle portrait.)

keeping an ear out...

 In the meantime, there is always a thirst for fresh, live music, and this leads to more recordings. There is more music than we can listen to! So we might reject whole styles, whole genres. We need to find a home in our music, and yet a love of music feeds on novelty, and we need to embrace the musical connections from diverse cultures and outlooks and from other times.

 If a work of music is to survive in the long term, it isn't sufficient that it merely be preserved in physical media. It must continue to be heard.

 Being of philosophical bent, I can't help but wonder:

 Suppose all humanity, and all living creatures, were wiped out. And suppose for some inexplicable reason, somebody left their stereo on a timer, and the CD kicks off, with the volume turned up, speakers facing out the second story window, blasting out Beethoven's Fifth Symphony--

 Would it make a sound?  And would it be music?

 So what to listen to?

 On this list, I will to highlight some musical works that deserve wider attention, and hopefully a better chance of long-term survival. No huge sellers here I think. The ultimate survival of those is well assured, to be kept alive by the pundits of "popular culture".  (How bland we might seem to the people of the future! ) Whatever else survives is up to us.

 The rules for being on this list are simple; the Work must have been--(hopefully still is)--available as a complete package. Double albums or CD's are eligible. Great works are synonymous great artists, so in the long term I will try not to repeat performers. But if the list gets long enough, that rule could change. In all cases, I will try to make connections to other worthy works by the same artists.

 In order to go get this launched, I've decided to go skeletal, and flesh things out later. The reviews, I think, will expand from here and evolve over time.

Thanks for stopping by!

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