Life, don’t talk to me about life. Sing about it instead. Sing the blues, sing through, sing until your body rings with feeling of it.
If you’d like, post the songs that knock you down when you hear them, that hold you close, that leave you clear headed and comforted as the final notes fade away – songs you know so well, they feel like home.
So many to choose from. This was one that sprung immediately to mind.
Phosphorescent – Nothing Was Stolen [Love Me Foolishly]
Thank you, @Lemonhope. I was beginning to regret posting, thinking I’d completely misunderstood the AW demographic with this one – a bit of the cuff, but meant well. Just waiting for it to slink over the page line, maybe helped on its way by one of KFW’s monster posts.
I don’t know Phosphorescent, but I like what I hear – solid rhythm core and the piano playing seems to flow out of it in joyful, expressive waves.
This for me https://youtu.be/h8y45mAGJRA
Thanks, Lodestone – new to me, but I can see it’s very famous. Once I’d found the lyrics, it made more sense (his diction isn’t very distinct). On a sunny afternoon at Glastonbury, the gentle, easy-going meanderings must be very nourishing.
If I’ve got this right, your sister Catherine, is a bit down in the dumps and wants to be cheered up.
Here we go!
Brazilian reggae always works for me,
Thanks, KFD – no,it was just a silly pun on catharsis. But you knew that, didn’t you?
Yeah well. I may just have twigged on second read.
Time for some tootsing.
Today we’ve been saying farewell to this wonderful Jamaican star, Toots HIbbert. Gone far too early..
His music really firs your description.
And now, here is his namesake, Toots Thielemans with the immortal Elis Regina from Brazil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLfahSqSKlQ
An unexpected combination but clearly they both enjoyed playing together.
Yeah, looking at that thread, I think you’re right.
In a way, every thread is an opening to wax lyrical about our favorite songs. In reflecting on those who are finding life a struggle at the moment, I thought it would be interesting to specifically ask for examples of musical comfort food.
And why on earth not? It is always a joy to dust off a few tried and tested dishes of musical comfort.
Sara Isaksson and Anders Widmark band
Like ETBG
Or Michael Marra
Or this week’s birthday girl, Aimee,
Oh dear. All my feelgood songs are rather melancholic. But I could listen to all of them again and again.
I happen to think that the best comfort songs have melancholia at the heart of them. Own the pain, and come through it. That’s what catharthis is – the purification and purgation of emotions that results in renewal and restoration.
Like June Tabor
That June Tabor track is magnificent.
I was surprised by the rather jazzy arrangement. I wanted to know who is playing the piano.
As far as I can make out, it s Welsh musician Huw Warren
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huw_Warren
While researching that, I stumbled across this excellent review.
https://altrockchick.com/2013/05/02/classic-music-review-angel-tiger-by-june-tabor/
Here are June and Huw and others live. Magnificet.
Huw Warren has been June’s pianist for some time. The 2 Quercus cds, he, she and Ian Bellamy on saxes cds are fabulous. I believe he is also her current peni….., you know, Moosey stuff.
Not freely available on the YouTube, so, in spirit with the OP, the uplifting Linda version of her exes more cheerful ditties.
Wow! If you can name it through THAT and have a positive attitude to life, then catharsis is a remarkable, if purging experience. Mind you,there’s nothing like facing the harsh truth for giving a solid foundation to build from.
name=make
Moosey stuff? This is an outrage!
What a fantastic song! The bleakest lullaby ever written?
I think we need a few cathartic instrumentals to cheer us up.
Take it away Diblo!
From the album Letter from Home, here’s Postman Pat
Toumani Diabate’s meditative kora playing always hits the spot for me.
That last was beautiful – I could listen to that in a hammock all afternoon. The first, Diblo, is great to throw myself around to, but wouldn’t allow me to cathart to, I think. Please may I never have to listen to Pat Metheny ever again.
I always find this enormously uplifting.
He really persuades himself in the last 2 minutes. That sort of talking to yourself can really work.
Some deep cleansing courtesy of Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, and an old favourite from Pete Kember.
When that first one started playing, it made me realize I’d heard (of) this rather unique pairing before, but I’d forgotten how it sounds. OMG, it’s ravishing, so deep, the timbres of the two traditions harmonise so beautifully, separate and yet connected melodies and waves of sound weaving between each other. I love it.
At his best, like here, Sonic Boom can be sublime – the same song, but always different – from How Does It Feel? through Glide Divine to this. Not cathartic, but a beautiful cocoon.
Another bit of Richard and Linda for me…maybe a bit more catharsis than uplifting….especially in this performance…
This, however, is always spiritually uplifting….And You and I by The Yes has a similar effect, not quite as effective, though….
…and, by complete contrast, I’ve almost had this YouTube clip on repeat….it’s just been making me feel really good…
Thank you for your choices, @fitterstoke. They are great expressions of need, reflection and comfort
This is my cathartic one, having lost my mother at a young age I would often play this.
Haven’t needed to for years
Thanks, Hubert. Listening to it made me think of Roy Harper,for some reason. I don’t know why.
This one always works for me when I’m tense and need to chill.
A piece I can happily loose myself in. Mysterious, evocative, atmospheric: a soundtrack for your own private film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYvUyAlqpS0
In a similar vein, the late, great Lhasa de Sela.
*Struggles to restrain inner pedant. Fails*
It’s ‘lose’.
I rather like to “loose myself”. Especially in the hot weather.
*Hates himself for catnip distraction from thread, which generous posters have rescued from tumbleweed oblivion*
It’s an adjective.
You’ve never verbed an adjective?
Nor a noun neither
I’m sorry to have been so flip in my initial response to your post, KFD, because it’s my favourite contribution to this thread. I love the piano and advisor guitar interplay on the first track, and Lhasa – well, contralto is my favourite female voice and that blew me away. Never heard of her before, but an amazing life packed into 37 years. Definitely going to be checking her back catalogue out, if you know what I mean.
advisor=acoustic
@Kaisfatdad – the Lhasa de Sela song is gorgeous. I’d never heard of her before, clearly I need to find out more….
Very glad that you enjoyed Lhasa so much, Sal and Fitter. That’s what a thread liketis is all about.
She is a great favourite of both DuCool and myself. We were lucky enough to see her live once and she was stunning.
Her magnum opus is The Living Road.
One more from her!
And while we are in Canada, here’s Basia
and why not Feist?
Lhasa de Sela’s second album, “The Living Road”, is an unqualified masterpiece. I saw her live on that tour in 2005. It was a spiritual experience. She was in the first flush of brilliance. How cruel that she had less than five years left.
Here she is with the always wonderful Tindersticks, who can make magic out of minor keys
Lhasa and the ‘Sticks??
That was an exciting surprise.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/lhasa-de-sela-tindersticks-1.3570077
Stuart Staples could not bear to listen to Lhasa’s music For several years after her death.
I can understand that. I was totally gutted at the news and I had never even met her.
As DuCool says, her concerts were a quite transcendental experience. Such a sense of intimacy.
Thanks Retro, you made keen to revisit Tindersticks, who I was very keen ab out back in the day but have drifted away from.
They were sensational live and I can understand that that they were kindred souls with Lhasa.
Here’s an excellent interview with Nottingham’s finest glumsters:
https://thequietus.com/articles/08096-tindersticks-interview-2
No Treasure But Hope, their last, came out a year ago, or near as. Cracking stuff. I had tickets for them at Royal Festival Hall and Brum, both postponed to sometime next year.
This has inspired me to dig out my Tindersticks LPs….for which many thanks, retro….
This always brings me solace and peace.
Thanks, PS.
The first thing I notice is the high A flat- quite piercing. Then, the whole right hand notes – clear, phrased and calm – recognizable and playable on the keyboard, octave leaps that harmonize and refresh. Finally, there’s the left hand – that’s where the movement is, constant subtle variations, like restlessness under the surface. It would take a lot of listening for me to make sense of that.
But do you like it? How about this instead.
https://youtu.be/WuguPBbPeQc
I didn’t say, did I? I think I prefer it to the Sakamoto, because of the underlying turbulence – I like something to worry at. The Samamoto is very sedate and precise and unblemished.
I agree. I love both but the Frahm is the one I endlessly return to on almost a daily basis. I find myself listening to a lot of solo piano pieces nowadays.
Do you play, yourself? I’d really recommend it – simple notes can sound wonderful, even without a great deal of skill.
I paint. Trying to chase that down absorbs all my energy.
Nothing left over for anything else.
Better to be a master of one trade than a jack of all (none).
Poppy Ackroyd’s solo piano versions of tunes from the “Escapement”, “Feathers” and “Resolve” albums, “Sketches” is a particularly pleasant listen.
Remember the days when ten men and a dog was considered a small audience?
In the Era of Rule of Six, it is a gigantic, illegal mob.
I’m looking for my catharsis after midnight in a smoky, mysterious, crowded nightclub with Dona Dumitru Siminica..
Femmes fatales, KGB bigwigs, feral pimps, and morally suspect accordion players…It’s Balkan Noir at its best.
That was interesting….makes me think of fado, for some reason….I always wanted to play bass in a band that would let me wear a fez and cheap wayfarers, and a stained white suit…..
In fact, here’s another…..
Ah fitter the joy of the fez.
You wished to be Sabah Habas Mustapha.
https://youtu.be/cNm564afEk4
I’ve been listening to Les Triaboliques, who mix three well-travelled musicians, two from the 3M3 stable. Good stuff and I’ve ordered the CD, but this one takes one of those 3M3 and puts him with Jah Wobble – sweet melodies and warm bass
Triaboliques excellent choice, I’ve just ordered the new Lu Edmonds album as Blabbermouth.
Unfamiliar with Les Triaboliques, so toddling off to Discogs. Another Justin Adams project, Ghostland, also has some music apt for this slot, not least when he brings in old chums Sinead and Natacha from Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart.
Rivermudtwilight
I am also unfamiliar with Les Triaboliques.
Justin Adams is a talented chap.
I really enjoyed his collaboration with Juldeh Camara.
We can’t know everything, eh Retro? *wink*
TBH, I tried Ghostland and it left me cold – too much generic ambient electronica and not enough of the great Natacha/Sinead vocals or Justin guitars – as on Rising Above Bedlam.
Here’s a concert with the Triaboliques and Juldeh
The remixes are largely to blame for your tarring with the same doof doof. Mind you, me I quite like bit of doof doof.
You wanted to wear a fez in a band, Fitter? Clearly you are a kindred soul with our Hubert Rawlinson who is famed for his fez.
I am glad to see some fado getting posted here.
That reminded me of this wonderful band.
Wim Wenders is a big fan and made a whole movie inspired by their music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMNEMGpgnqE
And while we are in Lisbon, let’s have a listen to this fine combo: Delolinda.
Oops! I am badly out of touch, They broke up several years ago and their singer Ana now has a solo career.
I need to keep my finger nearer to the pulse.. I heard a rumour that Peter Gabriel as left Genesis. That can’t be true!
Ana Bacalhau. What a funny name….
Bacalhau is the national dish of Portugal. It’s dried and salted cod, which can be cooked in a number of interesting ways.
So it’s a bit like a Belgian singer being called Anna Moules Marinières avec Frites.
Or a British artist to be called Johny Spotted Dick.
There again, in India, Pranav Poppadum would have a certain ring to it.
Time for a little cathartic moonlight over the fjprds now….
Norwegian Radka Toneff with a timeless classic
And while we are in Oslo, here is Tuva Syertsen with Metallica’s One
I do like the way this thread has split off all over the place with music recommendations leading far from the original OP – it makes it much more interesting.
TBH, I’d like a regular thread, that just kept doing that – “you played that clip – have you tried this one?”
With the rule of one clip per post and you can’t post again until someone else has. Let’s call it the KFD clause…
The KFD clause indeed! You cheeky sausage.
Something completely different now, a song By Danish diva Oh Land that has wormed its way into my mental jukebox with a vengeance recently as it is the theme for Rita, a Danish soap on Netflix that Mrs KFD loves.
Very entertaining.
I knew you would take it in the spirit in which it was intended (and ignore it completely…)
I’ll listen to these later and give you my blunt opinion, if you like.
Rita is short for Ritalin, I am guessing?