Andrew Bird: "Imitosis" Video
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The Bird and the Bee: "Again and Again"
Over the course of 3 years, Inara George and Greg Kurstin, alias the bird and the bee, whiled away scattered afternoons in Greg's home studio in Echo Park, California, sequestered in a little world of their own making, and creating the ten sunshine-drenched, semi-psychedelic ditties you hold before you. Were these compositions intended for public consumption? Inara and Greg never gave it any thought; they made music together simply for the joy of it. ? with no real goal for the music except to enjoy the journey of making it. As casual as this sounds, the backgrounds of Inara George and Greg Kurstin are nothing to scoff at? Multi-instrumentalist Greg was a jazz piano prodigy by the time he started shaving; he moved to New York specifically to study with leftist Jaki Byard, a jazz icon best known as Mingus' pianist. He returned to Los Angeles and became one of the city?s most well respected musicians, lending his skills to the likes of Beck and Robert Moog, as well as writing with and/or producing The Flaming Lips, Peaches, and Lily Allen, to name a few. Inara George is the daughter of Lowell George, frontman of the eclectic ?70s Southern rock band Little Feat. For several years she was in different bands in the LosAngeles area until she began her solo career releasing 2005's critically acclaimed All Rise. During the making of that record was when Greg and Inara first met.
Download Music picks: Episode 3
Andrew Bird, Midlake, Ellen Allien, and Lifesavas feature in the Download crew's music picks of the week.
This hard-driving tune from Ivy makes the crawlies in the forest go crazy. The New York-based pop group, Ivy, came together in 1994 when multi-instrumentalist Andy Chase placed an ad in the Village Voice in an attempt to start a band. Musician/songwriter Adam Schlesinger answered Chase, for the two had mutual musical tastes - both liked Prefab Sprout and The Go-Betweens.
Herbert: "Moving Like A Train"
Restless innovator, sampling wizard, classically trained pianist and superstar collaborator, MATTHEW HERBERT is one of electronic music's most versatile and prolific figureheads. Recording under his own name as well as Doctor Rockit, Wishmountain, Radio Boy and others, Herbert has also produced and remixed artists as diverse as Bjork, REM, John Cale, Roisin Murphy, Yoko Ono and Serge Gainsbourg. An alchemist of avant-garde sound in the tradition stretching from Stockhausen to the Aphex Twin, Herbert combines playful pop sensibility with a strictly imposed experimental agenda. In his increasingly conceptual and political albums he has emerged as a unique figure in modern music: a kind of one-man Radiohead, or a Brian Eno for the 21st century. It was in January 1995 that Herbert gave his first large public performance. His instruments: a sampler and a bag of crisps. But long before he discovered the revolutionary possibilities of sampling, he began playing violin and piano at the age of four. When he was seven he sang in the school choir and played with orchestras. At school, he had the good fortune to have a music teacher who considered Reich, Xenakis and Jazz standards to be the equal of Beethoven. During his time as a theatre student at Exeter University, Herbert, the son of a BBC sound technician, continued to invest in his own home studio. Herbert's studies helped to germinate his interest in "musique concrete". Rummaging around his bag of crisps was only the beginning. His 1998 masterwork 'Around the House' (re-released on !K7 in 2002) collected sounds from the house and home: washing machines, toasters and toothbrushes were sampled and processed into swinging grooves and absorbing sound scapes. All the project needed was the silken voice of Dani Siciliano, Herbert's long-term collaborator, to humanise the album into a left-field classic. In 2000, Herbert wrote a manifesto, the "Personal Contract for the Composition Of Music (PCCOM) (Incorporating the Manifesto of Mistakes)", rules which have defined the compositional methods ever since. The manifesto, not unlike Dogme 95's filmic principles, prohibits the use of any pre-recorded musical sources, as well as any synthetic sounds that imitate acoustic instruments. Furthermore, accidental sounds or errors should influence the process of his production. Herbert considers mistakes in programming or recording as the welcome intervention of random humanity in a sterile world. This is a man, after all, who runs a record label called Accidental. Deriving much of its musical content from human skin, hair, bones and the random contents of Dani Siciliano's handbag, Herbert's 2001 album 'Bodily Functions' was the audible result of putting this theory to practice. But far from being limited by these self-imposed rules, the record unlocked rich new vaults of unique sound and fascinating rhythm from the most unlikely everyday objects. In 2003 Herbert redefined his musical agenda yet again with his big-band album 'Goodbye Swingtime', which was recorded at Abbey Road studios with 16 jazz and session musicians. Despite its self-consciously traditional elements, the album was composed under strict PCCOM rules, and again featured Siciliano on vocals. The subsequent live shows, including Sonar in Barcelona, the Montreux jazz festival, and Roskilde festival in Denmark, were rapturously received by large crowds. From bedroom samplers to concert halls, Herbert continues to expand the horizons of electro-organic music. The political content of Herbert's music has become increasingly overt in recent years. His 2004 album 'Plat Du Jour' was his most rigorously experimental to date, featuring sounds entirely derived from food and its packaging. Unified in concept and content, it used witty culinary metaphors to attack not just giant food companies but also the death penalty, body fascism and war in Iraq. In Britain, 'The Guardian' called the consequent live shows, complete with a chef making live smells "a wild stimulation of senses, feet and intellect". In 2005, Herbert produced 'Ruby Blue', the debut solo album by Moloko singer Roisin Murphy. A fertile garden of flamboyant dance-pop and artfully textured jazz-funk. Herbert's latest album, 'Scale', is probably his most pleasingly pop-friendly mellifluous so far. But beneath its deceptively glossy surface sheen of jazz, disco and sensual house rhythms lie quietly anguished meditations on mortality, global suffering and the end of the oil age. Among the 723 objects sampled on these lush tracks are coffins, petrol pumps, meteorites, an RAF Tornado bomber, and somebody being sick outside a banquet for a notorious London arms fair. More than any previous Herbert album, 'Scale' combines immaculately groomed dance music with subversive subject matter. Herbert is as solid as a rock in these times of "borderless digital arbitrariness," as the German newspaper 'Die Zeit' once described his work. Between programming mistakes and the conceptual stringency of his PCCOM manifest, between divine accident and strict intent, whether he scores films or theatre shows or paints the musical backdrop for fashion shows - Herbert's endless innovation and transgression of genres is never just art for its own sake. His music is always engaged in lively dialogue with the wider world, with the past and future of experimental music, with its own political and economic origins.
Microsoft Zune 120 (third generation, black)
The Zune 120, with a unique focus on music discovery, is a fierce competitor to the iPod Classic. The Zune's substantial storage capacity combined with its Zune Pass music subscription makes it an ideal solution for restless music fans with large appetites.
Blackmore's Night:"Olde Mill Inn"
Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. April 14, 1945, Weston-super-Mare, England) shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late 1990s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. He formed Blackmore's Night with his fiancee, vocalist/lyricist Candice Night (b. May 8, 1971, Hauppauge, Long Island, NY), and recruited other musicians from around the world to combine elements of world music, Renaissance, new age, folk, and rock & roll. Blackmore didn't exactly retire his Fender Stratocaster, but he plays acoustic guitar almost exclusively in Blackmore's Night. His acoustic guitar melodies and Night's clear, ethereal voice blend with a host of instruments such as mandolins, keyboards, pennywhistles, violins, tambourines, military drums, and hurdy-gurdies. Blackmore once described the band's sound as "Mike Oldfield meets Enya." Blackmore and Night met in about 1989 when Deep Purple played soccer against employees of a Long Island radio station where she worked. Night, a former model, studied communications at the New York Institute of Technology and had her own radio show. Blackmore and Night discovered they shared a love of Renaissance culture and quickly became a couple. The formation of Blackmore's Night is tied to the efforts of his previous two bands. Blackmore left Deep Purple -- again -- after 1993's musically disappointing The Battle Rages On... album. Blackmore then revived Rainbow -- technically under the original Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow moniker -- with largely unknown musicians for 1995's Stranger in Us All, and Night contributed lyrics for four songs. Blackmore didn't really want to call it a Rainbow project, but record company executives insisted the name recognition would make it easier to market the album. After Stranger in Us All, Blackmore decided to actually record Renaissance-inspired music. He'd loved the style for years, but he never really played it himself. Once he began playing the music at home, Night would casually start singing along. This innocent, informal practice germinated into Blackmore's Night. The debut album, Shadow of the Moon, was released domestically in 1998. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson contributes flute on "Play Minstrel Play." Under a Violet Moon followed in 1999, and since a full tour was planned Blackmore consciously wrote more upbeat, stage-friendly music. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide
Blackmore's Night: "Just Call My Name"
Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (b. April 14, 1945, Weston-super-Mare, England) shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late 1990s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. He formed Blackmore's Night with his fiancee, vocalist/lyricist Candice Night (b. May 8, 1971, Hauppauge, Long Island, NY), and recruited other musicians from around the world to combine elements of world music, Renaissance, new age, folk, and rock & roll. Blackmore didn't exactly retire his Fender Stratocaster, but he plays acoustic guitar almost exclusively in Blackmore's Night. His acoustic guitar melodies and Night's clear, ethereal voice blend with a host of instruments such as mandolins, keyboards, pennywhistles, violins, tambourines, military drums, and hurdy-gurdies. Blackmore once described the band's sound as "Mike Oldfield meets Enya." Blackmore and Night met in about 1989 when Deep Purple played soccer against employees of a Long Island radio station where she worked. Night, a former model, studied communications at the New York Institute of Technology and had her own radio show. Blackmore and Night discovered they shared a love of Renaissance culture and quickly became a couple. The formation of Blackmore's Night is tied to the efforts of his previous two bands. Blackmore left Deep Purple -- again -- after 1993's musically disappointing The Battle Rages On... album. Blackmore then revived Rainbow -- technically under the original Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow moniker -- with largely unknown musicians for 1995's Stranger in Us All, and Night contributed lyrics for four songs. Blackmore didn't really want to call it a Rainbow project, but record company executives insisted the name recognition would make it easier to market the album. After Stranger in Us All, Blackmore decided to actually record Renaissance-inspired music. He'd loved the style for years, but he never really played it himself. Once he began playing the music at home, Night would casually start singing along. This innocent, informal practice germinated into Blackmore's Night. The debut album, Shadow of the Moon, was released domestically in 1998. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson contributes flute on "Play Minstrel Play." Under a Violet Moon followed in 1999, and since a full tour was planned Blackmore consciously wrote more upbeat, stage-friendly music. ~ Bret Adams, All Music Guide
Antony and the Johnsons: "Hope There's Someone"
On this video, for the second single from the 2005 Mercury Prize winning album "I Am A Bird Now", Antony presents a haunting and minimal visual accompaniment to one of the strongest solo pieces in his staggeringly rich repertoire.
Adriana Evans also known as Adriana Madera is a singer songwriter that possesses an enormous talent. Her debut album on PMP/Loud/RCA Records was truly ahead of the curve. It was one of the first so-called Neo Classic Soul records.
Adriana hated the over processed sound of nineties R&B. She and her musical collaborator, Dred Scott decided to take their music in a completely different direction. This meant using real strings and horns, a tight rhythm section with actual human beings sitting together playing live music. This was a simple but revolutionary concept at that time.
Music has always been an integral part of Adriana's life. The daughter of a jazz singer raised in the Haight/Asbury district of San Francisco. Growing up she grooved to everything from Afro Cuban music to Led Zeppelin and everything in between.
Now with her new release Nomadic she is once again ahead of the curve. Her new collection is an eclectic mix of Latin, Soul, Rock and Jazz. It is done in a manner that only Evans could accomplish. She has created a sound that is current yet timeless.
The 5 Browns: "18th Variation"
The 5 Browns -- classical music's first family of piano virtuosos begin the '07-08 season with their third CD released October 2: Browns In Blue. Their latest effort features atmospheric classical and jazz-inspired piano music, performed with the sublime virtuosity that propelled these twenty-something year old siblings -- Ryan, Melody, Gregory, Deondra and Desirae -- to the top of the nation's classical music charts first in 2005 with The 5 Browns (which spent 8 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Classical chart) and the next year with No Boundaries also #1 on the charts for 21 weeks.
