The WAEVE - City Lights - VINYL LP

As is the case with so many 18th-century composers, Giuseppe Sarti (1727-1802) enjoyed fame in his lifetime to rival W. A. Mozart's but is scarcely known today. Some might remember him as the author of the aria InchCome un agnelloInch, borrowed by Mozart in Don Giovanni. After all, Sarti's arias were in his lifetime regarded as true models of Italian style. Even after his death, they were regularly performed in the salons of the nobility. But by about 1840 the memory of the man and his works had largely faded. In recent decades, however, there has been a renewed focus on Sarti; not only for his compositions, but also for his merits as a pedagogue and theorist. The 6 Sonate a Flauto Traversiero solo e Basso Continuo were published in Paris by Christophe Le Menu. The date of publication, 1772, can be deduced from an advertisement that appeared in a periodical late that year. It is a collection of sonatas definitely conceived for an audience at a more professional than amateur level, with writing decidedly suited to the instrumental peculiarities of the transverse flute, which, according to the taste of the time, took as it's model the singing qualities of the human voice. This allowed Sarti to take advantage of his skill at composing operas in order to write particularly touching, even dramatic melodies, with typically theatrical affects such as in the Largo and Cantabile of the First Sonata or the Andante of the Fourth Sonata, both in the key of G minor, which on the transverse flute is, with it's veiled timbre, delicately affectionate. In the context of what is one of the main characteristics of flute (and violin) writing by Italian composers, Sarti employs an articulation dominated by legato, clearly diversifying himself, as did the French composers, from the predominantly articulated style that prevailed with German composers. The remarkably flautistic writing, for

Wimps are at it again with City Lights, another slacker punk moshterpiece ready for the internet to gobble up. Lead singer and composer Rachel Ratner offers stark and playful wordage melding minimalist hooky riffage to cover such prescient topics as the rise of ubiquitous ai (Mind Reader); loneliness, growing inequality, and the loss of community and self (City Lights); a yearning for a return to a feral past (Animal); pollution and climate terrorism (Lake Washington), creating life (Mom) and promising a maybe undeliverable hope to that life during an unceasing pandemic (Morning), among other daily mundanity. Dave Ramm is the drummer and Matt NYCe plays bass. Indeed, wimps' City Lights may well stand as an artifact of humanity in a time of increasingly glossed and flawed expression. An imperfect, live, energetic, human statement made by 3 imperfect, mostly alive, yet rapidly deteriorating early 40s bit players of various Seattle who's and what's of a time long ago and soon to be forgotten. City Lights is a collection of solid classic wimps bops from stop to finish.

The Lights - A6 [VINYL LP] Explicit, Ltd Ed date 05/02/2025