Listening to music while doing work in Greece and Cyprus is sometimes a bit challenging. At home, I tend to stream music as much as listen to music from my collection. Abroad, though, as the internet is just a bit less reliable, I find myself listening to music in my collection.
This past week, for example, I found myself enjoying the Butterfield Blues Band’s East-West from 1969. It is one of my favorite “blues revival” album from the late 1960s. It’s just pop-y enough to be fun, psychedelic enough to be dreamy, and bluesy enough to keep me grounded:
The other album that I’ve been enjoying is a bit different: George Russell’s Electronic Sonata For Souls Loved By Nature. It’s an unusual recording and is full of chaos and electronic sounds and changes in tempo and form. The version that I’ve been enjoying was recorded in 1968 by a sextet in Oslo (on April 28th no less) and released in 1969. Evidently, the album’s two tracks were modeled on a “panstylistic tape” of different types of music that is performed live. It is clear that there is a good bit of improvising and I’m finding it vibrant and exciting.
Finally, I’ve been enjoying the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s The Spiritual (1969) which shares the experimental spirit of George Russell’s Electronic Sonata, but executes it in the Art Ensemble’s unmistakable style (without, on this occasion a drummer). To be blunt, I have no idea what’s going on in this album, but the atmospherics of it help drive me along when I hit my after lunch doldrums:
Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 