Stuff I'm Spinning / Piano

I've just been idly plugging things in, too reduced by sickness and fatigue to do some honest reviews. I feel cloudy.

Heartbeat Radio - Sondre Lerche. The guy did some fantastic work for "Dan in Real Life," and some of his other records have some interesting parts to them. When he strips away his rock influences for his acoustic focus, or generally turns down the rock for more lounge-style stuff, I'm often frustrated. His songwriting can be frustratingly convoluted, and although he has a pretty good sense of melody, his lyricism can be frustrating . He has a smooth sound, and occasionally his lounge stuff reaches good points, but the most of "Two Way Monologue" was difficult for me. Same with "Heartbeat Radio," except now he's discovered violins. His arranging in certain parts is good, and "I Guess It's Gonna Rain Today" has some wonderful intervals...but damn, he just doesn't know how to create flow and hang with it.

Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons. I was really excited when I heard they had a new album, and I'm still working through it. However, my first impression is...disappointment. I don't like the dancey aspect to it. They used the 4/4 bass drum as a sort of pivot before, a basis or a spine, around which the song pivoted, struck against, shone with...I'm thinking directly of "Colours Move," but the regularity of the drums in a few other songs from Street Horrrsing provides a similar effect. I feel like they're...letting up a bit. That's just my first impression; I expect it to grow on me blah blah blah.

Fluent in Stroll - Big D and the Kids Table. The newfound cute self-defined "Stroll" genre is an excuse for '50s throwback and childish lyrics spiced with that same, somewhat annoying, female backup. I loved their earlier stuff, but I don't like the direction of this. Shame.

Kasabian. I'm listening to everything I can find, I love it I love it I love it I love it.



My chopin prelude (Db major for Kessler, the name "Raindrop" is highly inapt) is going awfully. I barely practiced and had no lessons ove the past three weeks. I've lost my technical ability over the parts, and I can barely play the second part of the middle section (with those rich, dissonant, tortured chords). Since it's such good music to hole up to and bash away at, in stress or peace, I think I'll spend my free time remastering certain technical aspects.

This totally leaves open all the texture-related and gesture-related and personal stuff that I should be doing. I need adjectives, and I need to stick with them and express them. I've had a few wonderful discussion about the nature of silence in the piece, and about the strange pivot point of the Ab/G# and its importance/relevance. I can barely do roman numeral analysis and I want to entirely split apart the piece and look for those golden gels and glowly liquids undearneath its placid skin. It has an unmatched range of emotion, but because the 3 statements of theme are so simliar (with the rich opportunity for contrast in the ornamentation), flow is so vitally important. How do you lead up to the creeping terror of the B section? How do you surface from it? How can you emerge from the silence, cascading down the piano in that Db major chord, with such expectation of rising again? To what? Where are we going?

I am thus overpowered by the work.