Interactive Poll #60: Anywhere the Wind Blows... |
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suitkees
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 19 2020 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 9050 |
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Posted: May 30 2022 at 06:58 |
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Hi y'all ! Here's the next edition of the Interactive Polls. This time, my friend, the answer is blowing in the wind: nominate up to three of your favourite (or not favourite) songs, tracks, musical pieces that evoke the wind for you. Not through the lyrics (so no "I Talk to the Wind" or "Dust in the Wind"...), but through the music. It doesn't have to be real wind sounds, it can be evoked through different ways: wind instruments, real wind sounds (yes, of course!), synthetic wind sounds or anything that for you creates the link with "wind" (storm, breath, whispers, farts, a cool breeze...). And when you think it might not be clear to all of us, just convince us! So, to participate, follow the usual guidelines: - Put up a maximum of three or four suggestions (preferably with youtube embeds) of tracks that evoke the wind for you; - Don't forget to mention artist and title (sometimes the embeds do not work for everybody so this will help to find alternatives), and give some more information on your choices if you wish; - If you can, listen to the suggestions put forward by others and feel free to comment on them; - By the end of the next weekend, nominate one of your choices for the final poll; - In the following week: listen to all the nominated tracks and vote for your three favourites. - Prog is allowed, but please limit it to the lesser known artists and pieces... Have fun and let the winds speak! EDIT: Here's the playlist of the 11 nominations: Edited by suitkees - June 11 2022 at 02:30 |
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suitkees
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 19 2020 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 9050 |
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And to start things off, here are my suggestions: The first one is all about wind, especially through the wind instruments. Composed by jazz musician Michel Portal for the film by Joris Ivens and Marceline Loridan: Une histoire de vent (A Tale of the Wind). Michel Portal - Histoire de vent: For my second suggestion we're more in the musique concrète/electronic music domain. I actually hesitated between a piece by Luc Ferrari and a piece by Iannis Xenakis. And since I cannot choose I give you both. Luc Ferrari - Saliceburry Cocktail Part 1: Iannis Xenakis - Diamorphosis: And, in order to illustrate that you should feel free to take some liberty with the notion of "wind", a more proggy one, in which the wind is less present, but still coming through us by different means (angelic voices, musical evocations...)... Now - Complaint of the Wind: |
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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My thoughts immediately leapt to Adenine, the ambient alter-ego of Scottish harpist Ailie Robertson. She has released plenty of more traditional harp fare under her own name, but in 2020, released her first ambient album – and the music is lush and beautiful. Using harp and electronics, Adenine on her self-titled debut seeks to emulate the sounds of wind and rain. Adenine opens up with possibly my favourite track, Smirr (which Adenine’s Bandcamp page tells me is a Scottish word to describe a fine, drifting rain or drizzle). The sounds of this smirr are omnipresent in the track, and provide the most gorgeous accompaniment to the sounds of the harp. It’s the most effective use of precipitation as an instrument that I’ve ever encountered, and not at all the cliché that the sound of rain can often take in music. But it is the following track, Spindrift, which sprang to my mind for this interactive poll. While the watery theme of Smirr continues with Spindrift, the element of wind definitely enters the picture (or, at least, my mental imagery), and has a suitably weightless and breathy sound that perfectly evokes the swirling spray blown from creating waves. There’s a sensation of floating, and being carried along – being taken where the wind blows you. Apparently, spindrift in Scotland can also refer to the fine snow that is blown off hills in a similar way. So this is perhaps the intended meaning (though I can’t help but imagine the sea, rather than snow), as the following track is Flindrikin, which is one of (so I’m lead to believe) over 400 words the Scots have for snow. Either way, the sense of water being blown by the wind is quite tangible for me. (Strangely, a flindrikin is a light shower of snow, while the track named thus feels considerably heavier, and crunchy. Aftak is an easing or lull in a storm, which only furthers the impression that Flindrikin may have been named somewhat ironically. Aftak lives up to its name, a beautiful and quiet oasis of minimalism.) The watery theme returns with final track, and my second favourite after Smirr, Haar. A haar is a cold sea fog that is blown inland, but there’s nothing cold about this haar. It’s as perfect a closing number as Smirr was an opening number. This album was well worth the wait. I could probably have used Haar for this poll, too, as again the wind is very much a part of the piece. In fact, perhaps I shall offer both, and you can tell me which evokes the wind more for you? Adenine - Spindrift Adenine - Haar The next song that sprung to my mind does have wind in the title and lyrics, but it would not really matter if it did not. Truly's Hurricane Dance really evokes the force and destructive nature of a hurricane, whirling around deliciously and dangerously, despite its demure beginning. It starts building and building, and then starts swirling and swirling, and suddenly the intensity drops as the eye of the storm is entered. You can hear the destruction still going on around, but it's like its muffled. There is a real sense of eerie tension, and soon the turmoil and tummult is back. Truly - Hurricane Dance |
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nick_h_nz
Collaborator Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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I like all four of your entries, Kees. My favourite is probably the Xenakis, but I am really surprised by how much I enjoyed the Now. I have always heard them compared to '80s Yes and Pallas, neither of which I really have any affection for at all (apart from Drama, which I love). So I was not expecting to like this at all, let alone as much as I did. It does sound very much a product of its time - you could never really mistake this for anything other than an '80s album - but it's actually quite enjoyable. I think I even like it more than the Ferrari, which I was definitely not expecting. So the wooden spoon (though I still enjoyed it) goes to Portal, for me.
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suitkees
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^ Thank you, Nick. I'm glad you like all four of them, while they're quite different from each other (except the Ferrari and Xenakis pieces, maybe). Now was a promising Belgium neo-prog band at that time; I think all they lacked was a decent production behind them. They have some awesome compositions scattered over their sparse releases...
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Snicolette
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This should be a breeze! Thank you, Kees, for the poll subject. I don't know yet if I will be able to participate, but hearing the first of Nick's pieces made me think of Aeolian harps, harps that are played by the wind.
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"Into every rain, a little life must fall." ~Tom Rapp
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The Dark Elf
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The wind effects on Pink Floyd's "One of these Days" (which segues directly into "A Pillow of Winds", which I am sure is merely coincidental) evoke the malevolent first whispers of a coming storm.
Michael Hedges' "Aerial Boundaries" has no wind effects, but the ebb and flow of the guitar, punctuated by basso profundo inflections, intimates a blustery day of quavering trees bending in cadence to the whim of the winds as clouds scatter quickly across the sky. Robin Trower's epic progressive blues composition "Bridge of Sighs" perfectly attunes to the aural mood of doom as the condemned took their final few steps of freedom while crossing the Ponte dei sospiri to their awaiting imprisonment, and heave one last lamenting sigh as they see a bright view of beautiful Venice before descending into their dank, dark cells. The haunting wind effect which materializes after James Dewar sings "a cold wind blows" could just as well be a howl of despair. |
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...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined
to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
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suitkees
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Hey Nickie! Nice to see you jump in. De facto, since you put up a suggestion, you're participating. |
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The razamataz is a pain in the bum |
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Snicolette
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"Into every rain, a little life must fall." ~Tom Rapp
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Lewian
Prog Reviewer Joined: August 09 2015 Location: Italy Status: Offline Points: 14830 |
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This is a surprising but very nice theme! I think I like music that feels like wind, breezing, moving, with some lightness but still power. After all these wonderful polls it gets harder and harder to find stuff that I hadn't used earlier, but here my first find is on an album I love and that I haven't seen mentioned on PA yet, it's "Form of..." by French-American "The Berg Sans Nipple", which has a few very breezy tracks. Here is "A Free..." (Those who know me enough will find this quite "Lewianesque", and it probably is.)
Edited by Lewian - May 30 2022 at 11:35 |
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jamesbaldwin
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My selection:
1) Gotan Project: Triptico (live) 2) Marisa Sannia: Baju Isteddadu I know you miss Guccini, so... 3) Francesco Guccini: Shomèr Ma-Mi-Llailah |
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Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.
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Logan
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And I so would have liked to nominate Spinal Tap's album title song, "Break Like the Wind". I unironically love that whole album, but actually "Clam Caravan" off the album does have a windy evovative quality, and not just because it mentions "scirocco" (the wind has a name in the desert). Spinal Tap - Clam Caravan That said, the first artist to come to mind when I saw this was Julia Holter, who I know is known to some here. As an artist, she is one of my favourites for music of this past decade. I find a breezy, and sometimes stormy, quality to various of her lush music. I plan for this Julia Holter song to be be my nomination: Julia Holter - Words I Heard Edited by Logan - May 30 2022 at 15:24 |
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jamesbaldwin
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Amos Goldberg (professor of Genocide Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem): Yes, it's genocide. It's so difficult and painful to admit it, but we can no longer avoid this conclusion.
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Snicolette
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"Into every rain, a little life must fall." ~Tom Rapp
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The Anders
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I need to think about this. The easiest would be to just pick something with wind instruments, but that could be almost anything really.
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Ronstein
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First one to come to mind - Alan Parsons feat. Eric Stewart - Blue Blue Sky pt. 1
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Lewian
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Pretty abstract instrumental music one can associate all kinds of things with, but I find this pretty windy. Sonar & David Torn: Monolith (Maybe the best band I discovered in the 2010s.)
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Mila-13
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Maisha: Azure (Debut Album: There is a Place, 2018) Maisha are a London-based ensemble led by drummer/producer Jake Long. Their music brings a fresh slant to the lineage of modal jazz from the 60’s and 70’s. Fusing these influences with music and cultures that inspires them, they cross between genres with a focus on genuine improvisation and expressive experimentation. Maisha have carved their place as a pioneering force in the London Jazz scene.- I may bring another piece later. Let's see . . Edited by Mila-13 - June 02 2022 at 17:03 |
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suitkees
Forum Senior Member Joined: July 19 2020 Location: France Status: Offline Points: 9050 |
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Thank you all for your contributions so far. There are some that I know but others that I am curious to discover. Hope to be able to listen to and comment on them tonight, but after a dense week I first have to take a dive into the Mediterranean now (the real one, not the poll).
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The razamataz is a pain in the bum |
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Mila-13
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Maybe we are neighbours?
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