Leithart on the music of the spheres

"Earthly time is tuned to be a harmonization on the music of the spheres." (via twitter)

Read his blog post Tuned Cosmos.

brotherly love

Radical Face has some good songs. This song, from their album The Family Tree (a colection of stories about a fictional family), is especially beautiful. Brotherly love with pain, with forgiveness, with hope, with loyalty. There is something of the prodigal son here, something of the age-old competition between siblings, something of Christ, and something I always want to be. I absolutely love Always Gold.

Rosi Golan song

It's Been a Long Day is a beautiful song.

more music

Listening to Over the Rhine tonight. Some serious talent there. Happy To Be So is particularly sweet and beautiful.

Bryan John Appleby

Tonight my roommate talked me into going to a little concert a few miles from here. It was cheap, the timing was good, and she showed me one of the songs of one of the bands this afternoon and hooked me. I am so glad I went! While the first band was - interesting, let's say, and the second band was ok, Bryan John Appleby was really, really good. In spite of the beardiness of the whole band. Ha. I loved his voice, his guitar, his accompanists, and all their songs, at least as well as I understood them.

From Appleby's website: Seattle based songwriter Bryan John Appleby spent winter and spring of this year holed up with close friends in a Ballard warehouse banging pots, plucking strings, tapping mason jars, and plunking pianos. What emerged from these musical ramblings was the long awaited debut full-length Fire on the Vine. The album elaborates on his affinity for organic soundscapes and acoustic found sounds.

From Grooveshark: lots of good songs.

Through the Dark

Alexi Murdoch is one of my new favorite singer/songwriters. The simplicity and homeyness of his acoustic guitar and his voice and oftentimes his lyrics as well comfort, stir, gladden, engage. Wikipedia, the infallible source of all wisdom, tells me he was "born in London to a Greek father and Scottish-French mother and raised in Greece, just outside of Athens until he was ten, when his family moved to Scotland," so of course some of his awesome comes from that background.

Through the Dark just came on my station. Brainlessly simple, but good. Good for a cold night that seems so very unlit. Good for a night whose edges seem to crumble. Good for a night of sniffles and tea and chapstick. Good for a night that calls me to curl up under a soft blanket and dreams for at least a couple of days.

Ok, I want cello lessons

Bach's Cello Song
It is beautiful.

reggae night

Sometimes you just need to get a bit of swing in your soul.

Sometimes you need to feel anything but white, and pretend you have the do-wop rhythm and dreads.

Sometimes you just need Bob Marley to tell you everything's gonna be alright.

On 21 May 1981, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Seaga delivered the final funeral eulogy to Marley, declaring:
"His voice was an omnipresent cry in our electronic world. His sharp features, majestic looks, and prancing style a vivid etching on the landscape of our minds. Bob Marley was never seen. He was an experience which left an indelible imprint with each encounter. Such a man cannot be erased from the mind. He is part of the collective consciousness of the nation."

some mid-week music

I am listening to some excellent and fun music by the Portland Cello Project this afternoon, and wanted to share a link to Take Five.

That is just one. I definitely also like Denmark. And probably some more. I just got started listening to these guys.

From their website, the goal of the group:

1. Connection. To bring the cello to places you wouldn't normally hear it. They've performed everywhere, from touring with heavy metal guitarist Buckethead, to sports bars in Texas, to punk clubs in Boston, to halftime at Portland Trailblazer games, to music festivals focusing on everything from rock, folk, classical and... pure noise...
2. Innovation. To play music on the cello you wouldn't normally hear played on the instrument. Everything from Beethoven to Arvo Pärt to instrumental covers of Kanye West and Pantera.
3. Collaboration. To build bridges across all musical communities by bringing a diverse assortment of musical collaborators on stage with them. The PCP has collaborated with musicians such as Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary), The Dandy Warhols, Mirah, Laura Gibson, Thao, Eric Bachmann (Crooked Fingers), Matt Haimovitz, Dan Bern, among many others...

Boise is not that far from Moscow

And Alison Krauss is gonna be there!

http://www.songkick.com/concerts/8695321-alison-krauss-and-union-station-at-idaho-botanical-garden

To a New Life

FAR AWAY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IfZ5SYeuug

Written by Ingrid Michaelson

I will live my life as a lobsterman's wife on an island in the blue bay
He will take care of me, he will smell like the sea,
And close to my heart he'll always stay

I will bear three girls all with strawberry curls, little Ella and
Nelly and Faye
While I'm combing their hair, I will catch his warm stare
On our island in the blue bay

Far away far away, I want to go far away
To a new life on a new shore line
Where the water is blue and the people are new
To another island, in another life

There's a boy next to me and he never will be anything but a boy at the bar
And I think he's the tops, he's where everything stops
How I love to love him from afar

When he walks right pass me then I finally see on this bar stool I can't stay
So I'm taking my frown to a far distant town
On an island in the blue bay.

Far away far away, I want to go far away
To a new life on a new shore line
Where the water is blue and the people are new
To another island, in another life

I want to go far away
Away away, I want to go far away, away, away
I want to go far away, far away

Where the water is blue and the people are new
To another life, to another life
To another shoreline, in another life

The Decemberists

I'm not sure how much I like The Decemberists (sometimes a little dark, but definitely some interesting indie-rocky stuff).

I do know I love this song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5H8DwJI0uA

Sons and Daughters

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

These currents pull us
Across the border
Steady your boats, arms to shoulder
Until tides are pulled, hold our grounds
Making this cold harbor now home

Take up your arms
Sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We'll leave our tracks untraceable now

When arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our lives on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon

When we arrive
Sons and daughters
We'll make our homes on the water
We'll build our walls aluminum
We'll fill our mouths cinnamon
(When we arrive sons and daughters
We'll make our homes underwater
When we build our walls of aluminum
We'll fill our mouths with cinnamon)

Hear all the bombs fade away...

Jack Johnson is so good

Middle Man. You should listen to it. Nice bass guitar opening. Good rhythm. And lyrics.

...well I know some people they got a little less than nothing

but still find some to spare

and other people got more than they could use

but they don't share

and some people got problems man

they got awful complications

other people got perfect situations

with no provocation

but don't we all, don't we just got to give a little time

maybe give a friend a call instead of making him confused...

Ingrid Michaelson- The Way I Am

If you were falling, then I would catch you

You need a light, I'd find a match

Cuz I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am

If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I'll make it better

Cuz I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am

I'd buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair
Sew on patches to all you tear

Cuz I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am
You take me the way I am
You take me the way I am

Today's music

She has some beautiful songs, this Natalie Merchant. Yup. She used to be the lead singer for 10,000 Maniacs, but took off on her own in '93

Listening to right now: Life is Sweet.

Another singer/songwriter I'm enjoying today is Tracy Chapman, who I first noticed when I heard Change.