Micshazam's album and song picks
 

A blog wherein I write about the things I find, post amazing songs and give my short-form opinions on CD's that I've bought recently.

I've long since given up on the idea of writing full lenght reviews. I don't ever read album reviews anymore.
I consider it a fruitless method of music discovery, so I'll simply comment, link and ramble about whatever I find.
The idea is to convey my enthusiasm and to point towards things that I find interesting, beautiful, unusual, whatever...
So join me on my journey through the landscape of music or, like, don't. Whichever suits you best!


Comments are more than welcome on this blog!


The maiden voyage post will be this:



Artist: Cristina Branco
Nationality: Portugal
Song: E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim
Album: Menina
Year: 2016
Genre: Fado, more or less

Inside the last ½ years time I've discovered that I apparently always held a secret love for all sorts of "ethnic" and "foreign"
sounding music inside. Why it hasn't dawned on me any earlier to check out the musical traditions South America, Africa,
Asia and southern Europe I don't know.
I always really enjoyed spanish guitar and old timey sounding Spanish songs, African singing and such in movies, so...
What was it I couldn't see?
Anyhow... better late than newer. Now I'm finding all sorts of amazing things and I feel like my perception of the musical
landscape has been blown wide open.

I discovered Cristina Branco pretty recently and I'm already completely taken with her music. Her voice is simply sublime.
Beautiful, vulnerable, expressive, powerful... I simply adore the colour of her voice and the nuanced way in which she bends
the notes and varies how she sings syllables and with how much force. This is what a truly talented singer sounds like.

E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim is a song that simply knocked me off my feet the first time I heard it. The video is gorgeus as well.
The part near the end where the guitars jam a bit together with the piano, soon to be joined back up with Branco... Just amazing.
Just like most music I've heard from her so far, the mood is generally melancholic and full of longing. The backing music is kept fairly subtle,
but there's a lot of great, melodic acoustic guitar and piano if you listen carefully. This style of music really speaks to me. I feel like I have to
make it a new mission in life to some day travel to portugal just so I can sit through long summer nights, drinking wine while listening
to fado. It could very well be a mind blowing experience for me.


I don't know if anyone else in here feels me on this, but there's my two cents on this artist for now.
I've got much more to say on similar portugese music, but that'll be another time.

Journal post #2

Here's another great find!




Artist: La Yegros
Nationality: Argentina
Song: TROCITOS DE MADERA (band version)
Album: -
Year: 2014
Genre: Cumbia

I like this song a hell of a lot! Too bad that the album version, which has more
of an electronica feel, is sort of tame by comparison. For this reason, I still haven't got
an album from this artist. Hopefully some of her album material can match the song above.

The accordion really brings this song to another level. Such an underrated instrument.

Journal post # 3



Artist: Alsarah and the Nubatones
Nationality: Sudan
Song: Ya Watan
Album: Manara
Year: 2016
Genre: Nubian music

This band caught my eye on a blog somewhere and I'm glad I checked them out. The song above is pretty representative of the album I've got. I find the vocals positively hypnotic and there's something really trippy about the video, despite the fact it's just two women walking in slow motion for a few minutes.
I like the subtle use of backing vocals and I can say for a fact that this is the first time in my life that I've bought an album from a Sudanese artist.


Journal post # 4



Artist: Waltari
Nationality: Finland
Song: Lights On
Album: Torcha!
Year: 1991
Genre: Alternative metal or... something

I've loved this band for years. They don't get a lot of love among metalheads, but they do have a pretty loyal fanbase across Europe, mostly.
The variety, the inventiveness, the weirdness... there's a lot to love. Plus guitarist Jariot Lehtinen is an amazingly soulful musician. Turnoffs might be the nasal vocals of Kärtsy Hattaka and the bands tendency to make some pretty silly and/or corny songs here and there.
The song featured here is a pretty straight forward rock song with some metal influence and poppy vocals. It's a lot of fun and never fails to cheer me up.
For another side of the band on the same album, check out my favorite song off this disc, I Held You So Long.

#2 is digital Cumbria, #3 is Nubian music.

I edited the posts above to reflect this. It seems it's spelled Cumbia though, and I left out the "digital" part since the posted version is not electronic like the album version is. Hopefully, this isn't massively incorrect labelling.

You're right on the bolded. Whenever I can't figure out what the genre is beyond world music, I just take a glance at the artist/album's RYM (which is what I did in this case). Usually pretty accurate and leads me onto the path of new and exciting genres.

A Wikipedia search on the artist brings up the genres Cumbia, world, electronica, chamamé, folktronica. There's some genres I need to look into.
I haven't ever used RYM much, but it might be worth adding to my usual music site rotation. It's not really that many sites I find useful in finding new music.

Folktronica has crazy good potential that is almost always flubbed imo. RYM is useful for music discovery because you can use the charts for a genre to find the top or esoteric albums in it to give you a good idea of it. The lists can be cool too.

Journal post # 5

This time, I'm just going to post some interesting things I've found that I don't even know much about myself.
I just know that I like what I've heard so far and that it's probably worth checking out for anyone who likes to look under every rock for good music.

Some kind of ambiet/orchestral one-man project:


A woman with a violin. Beautiful stuff:


If Tool played world music:


Rock, jazz, latin... something...:


Based on this song, I'd say Laurie Anderson + Kate Bush:


Saxophone noises, bass and dark female vocals:


Wild, multilayered folk with really great vocals:


Moody, atmospheric guitar and vocal music. Somehow feels very European:


Bigband seems like the proper label here. Gets weird at times:

I mean to do this a bit more regularly, but I have so many hobby projects going that it just got pushed aside a little. Like always, I've been listening to some interesting things, so here's some selected highlights:

https://img.discogs.com/ffWcCZKvrx3u...32405.jpeg.jpg

I bought the album on vinyl a few days ago. I don't actually own a record player, but i like to use vinyls as "paintings" on my walls and shelves. I haven't heard more off this one than the posted track, since that's all that I could find on Youtube from this album.

What a song though! -->

Artist: Cris Williamson
Song: Shine on Straight Arrow
Album: (self titled)



The vocal part that hits at the 00:38 mark sends shivers down my spine. I'm a sucker for certain kinds of beautiful vocal styles and anything with a hint of melancholy to it's beauty. Getting this on CD or buying a record player is now officially on my "most wanted" list.