Inspiration ~ Nov22
New music ~ Liv Dawson ~ Liv Dawson was an exciting pop prospect a few years ago and I lost touch with the project a bit. But “release radar” coughed up her latest ~ Last thing on my mind ~ this month. I think it’s great - vocals are silky and the production has that bitter sweet touch that gets heads nodding. Feels classy.
Performance ~ Marvin Gaye ~ have a listen to Marvin Gaye’s isolated vocals from the Heard it Through the Grapevine. session. Ridiculous.
Music geek stuff ~ Falstaff’s Clock ~ Opera’s not for everyone (to be fair it can be loooong…) but there are lots of good bits. One is in Verdi’s Falstaff. The plot is bonkers - a fat knight tries to seduce two married women, the husbands bust him and scare him in the woods but he ends up saying sorry and they all go for a drink. There’s a wonderful moment when he listens for the chimes of the clock that signal the time for one of his illicit meetings. The clock chimes 12 minim F’s supported by some beautiful incremental harmony that squirms around before preparing a final cadence ringing with inevitability of Falstaff’s eventual comeuppance. It’s such a smart, poised piece of scoring - linear and cellular at the same time and tied to the action on stage in a not too hammy way (“diegetic”?). This month’s playlist includes my very humble effort to translate the chords to a more modern arrangement with an overlayed chime in golden section ratios if you’d like to listen.
This month’s playlist:
