Various Artists - Ocean Child: Songs Of Yoko Ono (Various Artists) - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Vinyl LP pressing, includes . We're Not Talking is the second album from The Goon Sax and their first on Wichita Recordings (Ride, Los Campesinos!, Froth). The album was recorded with James Cecil and Cameron Bird, respectively former/current members of Architecture In Helsinki. It demonstrates the bands progress as songwriters since their debut, taking the enthusiasms of youth and twisting them into darker, more sophisticated shapes. Strings, horns, even castanets sneak their way onto the album, but We're Not Talking isn't glossy throwaway pop. Sounds stick out at surprising angles, cow-bells become lead instruments and brief home-recorded fragments appear unexpectedly. This is a record made by restless artists, defying expectations as if hardly noticing, and it's complexity makes We're Not Talking even more of a marvel.

Only 20 years old, Johan Dalene has already been hailed as 'a musician of special sensibilities' (Gramophone) in possession of 'a rare fire' (Diapason), and his début disc, with the concertos of Tchaikovsky and Barber, was described as 'one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade' in the BBC Music Magazine. For his second album, the Swedish violinist has chosen repertoire closer to home, with works by six Nordic composers. This is music that lies equally well under the hands of his partner, the Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland, and together the two offer a program full of contrasts, and yet with a certain consistent sensibility. Nordic Rhapsody is bookended by two Norwegian composers, Christian Sinding and Edvard Grieg. What is interesting is that even though Sinding's Suite 'in the old style' was composed some 25 years after Grieg's Sonata No. 1, it is the latter work that is most forward-looking. Here the composer introd-uces elements of his national style, which in turn would contribute to the development of 'a Nordic style'. Following on the heels of Sinding is a Swedish-Finnish-Danish trio with personal ties - Wilhelm Stenhammar was a close friend of both Sibelius and Nielsen, whose music inspired him to free himself from Central European influences. His Romances and the three miniatures by Sibelius were composed during the 1910s, while Nielsen's Romance in D major is a youthful work offering Dalene - winner of the 2019 Nielsen Competition - the opportunity to send a greeting to the composer. Last but not least among these composers, Einojuhani Rautavaara represents a great leap in time. His music is often described as synonymous with a contemporary 'Nordic style', however, and the transition from Notturno e danza (1993) to Grieg's Sonata is as smooth as the ice on a Finnish lake in winter. Album Tracks 1. Suite Im Alten Stil, Op. 10 2. I.

Released in 1971, the album not only influenced the approach of other musicians for decades, it also sounds absolutely modern 44 years out, eternally fresh despite the forward march of time. Plastic Ono Band not only predicted the intersection of the avant-garde and rock that would take place in the second half of that decade, the album would sound right at home at where that intersection is happening today. Album Tracks 1. Why 2. Why Not 3. Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City 4. Aos 5. Touch Me 6. Paper Shoes