Showing posts with label Vocals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vocals. Show all posts

Thursday, 4 November 2010

Mick Harvey - Intoxicated Man


Yes! An album I can post and get away with writing very little about. An album of Serge Gainsbourg covers by Bad Seed and all-round top man Mick Harvey. Terrific interpretations in a grooving, boozing, Bad Seed/Lee Hazelwood kind of style - hugely enjoyable. Also, check out his last solo album - 2007's Two Of Diamonds - it's rather good.

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Saturday, 27 March 2010

Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali - A Better Destiny

Stunning and spellbinding album by this group featuring two nephews of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The MO is the same: this is intensely religious music, and the goal is to reach a higher spiritual state, or get closer to god. I feel like a bit of an amateur describing that side of it - it's the music that interests me (and quite a lot of my favourite music is religious) and the transcendent qualities come across powerfully. The group comprises two lead vocalists who perform the ecstatic improvisiational passages, in between trading call and response lines with the backing chorus, backed by harmonium and tabla and driven along by the handclaps of the chorus. This is such a brilliant formula and is richly harmonic and glorious. The opening track 'Ay Sarwey Naz Neney Mun (Holy Friend)' would be a Desert Island Disc selection for me. It's truly beautiful, and there is a tempo/key change near the end that is mind-blowing. I saw this group at Womad a few years back, and it was pretty incredible.

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