Salon's Wed A.M. Downloads • 9/22/04

[DudeAsInCool]

This week Salon's Thomas Bartlett reviews Bjork's new album, looks foward to the new Tom Waits and Nick Cage LPs, and offers up free downloads from Diamanda Galas, Madeleine Peyroux, Marz, Devendra Banhart, minimilist Williamd Duckworth and the what he considers to be the most hyped band of the moment - Arcade.

You can receive your free downloads and read the full review at Salon.com after viewing a small ad:

http://www.salon.com/ent/music/review/wmd/...jork/index.html

Here are some excerpts from his review:

"I think Medúlla is brilliant, one of the best records I've heard this year. I also think it's the least successful of Björk's five studio albums. My reservations are summed up by the fact that "Desired Constellation," the track with the most nonvocal sounds on it, is by far my favorite. I think she got too caught up in the concept of an all-vocal release, to the detriment of the music."...But if Björk, however slightly, disappoints, two other personal idols of mine have delivered in a major way. Tom Waits and Nick Cave are two artists who I (reluctantly) had decided had started on the downward slopes of their respective careers. Waits' "Real Gone" (due Oct. 5th) and Cave's double album, "Abattoir Blues" and "Lyre of Orpheus" (due Oct. 26th), prove me to be (jubilantly) wrong. They're two of the best records of the year. I'll no doubt write more about them as they're released.

Madeleine Peyroux's "Don't Wait Too Long." It's a simple, bluesy, almost imperceptibly swinging song, written by Peyroux, her producer Larry Klein, and Norah Jones' hitmaker Jesse Harris, the man who wrote the ubiquitous and (I might as well say it) brilliant "Don't Know Why."

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "Hastayim Yasiyorum," Diamanda Galàs, from "La Serpenta Canta" and "Defixiones: Will and Testament," respectively" It may be hard to imagine any commonality between an operatic soprano's vocal artifice and virtuosity, the white noise scream of death metal, and a bluesman's moaning lament, but in the singing of Diamanda Galàs all three are present, often simultaneously.

This week, we have two exclusive Diamanda Galàs downloads, one from each record. From "Defixiones" comes "Hastayim Yasiyorum," composed in Turkish by the great Armenian oudist Udi Hrant. And from "La Serpenta Canta" is Galàs' harrowing version of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

"The River" and "Blaue Fäden," März, from "Wir Sind Hier"

I know next to nothing about März, except that they're a German duo of Ekkehard Ellers and Albrechte Kunze, and that their music mixes electronics, samples and acoustic instruments, with a good deal of ambiguity as to which is which. But this is some of the most beautiful, uncomplicatedly pleasurable, just-lie-back-and-let-it-wash-over-you music I've heard in quite a while.

"Be Kind," Devendra Banhart, from "Niño Rojo"

For the most part, these songs are just Banhart's hugely expressive voice, his acoustic guitar and some other minimal instrumental accompaniment, but sometimes, as on "Be Kind," the sound is thickened up further, with piano, drums, harmonica and electric guitar. Regardless of how the songs are arranged, Banhart is among the most unusual and consistently brilliant singers and songwriters I know.

"Blue Rhythm," William Duckworth

William Duckworth, a composer and a tenured professor of music at Bucknell University, is considered the father of post-minimalism, a compositional movement that seems inevitable but has never really gotten off the ground. "Blue Rhythm," a nine-minute piece for violin, cello and piano that he wrote in 1990, gives a good sense of the potential of post-minimalist composition.

"Wake Up," Arcade Fire, from "Funeral"

The most hyped band of the moment, and they don't play retro rock! Time to rejoice, time to breathe a collective sigh of relief.... A highly recommended record. Free download: "Wake Up"