Friday
Elgar, Violin Concerto, Simon Rattle conducting the City
of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Nigel Kennedy on violin.
Nigel Kennedy is something of an ass (who now prefers to just
be called “Kennedy”: yecch), but his particular gift
for finding the emotional heart of things is miraculous. I liked
the young Nigel Kennedy just fine, but the older model has a
Shumskyesque feel for tone. I have a feeling I am talking to
exactly no-one at this point. That’s cool, I guess. At
any rate this is a great record. Kennedy revisits a piece he
originally recorded in 1984, describing the new version in the
liner notes as “more emotional, less by-the-numbers.” Emotional
yes. But not to a fault. Great performances find emotion stirring
at the heart of relentlessly unforgiving design. This is one
of them.
10:30 a.m.: Persons Attack the Scene, self-titled album.
The instrumental stuff I could do with out, but the songs with
vocals
toward the end have a post-punk appeal to them and a weird sexless
feel that’s intriguing. Unquestionably a terrific band
name.
10:52: Kimya Dawson, My Cute Fiend Sweet Princess. Great,
of course. I assume everybody reading this knows how amazing
Kimya Dawson is. This album’s first song, “Chemistry,” has
my favorite lyric of the year. After a long list of general and
specific truths, she sings: “…and my family and my
friends and all the little kids that love me make me strong/and
no matter how this ends, I know I’ll never, ever, ever
be alone.” It gives me the chills just typing it out. Everybody
should just buy this record right now. Okay thanks.
4:40 p.m. Listened to Kimya Dawson for the rest of the day
and got pretty deep into it: she’s the real thing. But
then somebody pointed out Marissa Marchant to me. I assume everybody
knows about Marissa Marchant by now. Gosh, but her lyrics are
awful.
8:35 p.m. After dinner, listened to My Cute Fiend Sweet
Princess one mo’ time. Yes, it’s
that great. Then I got a hunger for to get my chill on, yet without
too heavy a chillosity
factor. Peanut Butter Wolf’s Jukebox 45’s CD
presently soothing & gently rocking the house. Ohhhh. Yeahhhhh.
This Week In Music