CD Picks of the Week
Wednesday, January 07, 2009 - 12:41 PM
'DG Concerts - Shostakovich & Mosolov: In the Shadow of Stalin,'
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)
Shostakovich’s 1930 opera 'The Nose' is based on Gogol's short story of a civil servant whose nose leaves his face and develops a life of its own. As the composer at his most satirical, not surprisingly, it got him in hot water with the Soviet authorities. After sixteen performances, it wasn’t performed again in the Soviet Union until 1974. The Los Angeles Philharmonic has just released an orchestral suite from the opera exclusively on iTunes. As you’ll hear in this excerpt, it contains some of the composer’s most wild and colorful orchestrations. –-picked by Brian Wise
Bill Alves, 'Imbal-Imbalan, New Music for Gamelan (Spectral Harmonies)
Bill Alves is a California-based composer who thinks Americans are ready for a new type of chamber music. One built around the sounds of Indonesian gamelan instruments. In an unusual tuning. With occasional electronics or Japanese flute. Clearly Alves is a bit of a dreamer. But he also knows his way around the gamelan, and his chiming, richly textured works, often pairing the Indonesian percussion with western violin or cello, are easy to like. The album is called Imbal-Imbalan, which is a Javanese term for an interlocking rhythm pattern. The rhythms on this title track actually have more in common with Balinese music, and the melodies are Alves’s own. –-picked by John Schaefer [Amazon]
Various Artists, “Johnny Cash Remixed” (Compadre)
Our last pick of the week is the tribute CD, “Johnny Cash Remixed.” Yes, I said “Johnny Cash Remixed.” The man in black might not be the first artist many of us would tee up for a remix album. Especially one co-produced by rapper Snoop Dogg and Cash’s son, John Carter Cash. But mashups of dance music and Americana has worked before. Moby’s album “Play” comes to mind. “Johnny Cash Remixed” is a bit threadbare and gimmicky, … but it IS kind of fun. Weird fun. Case in point: Snoop Dogg raps alongside Cash, on the QDT Muzic remix of “I Walk the Line.” —picked by Joel Meyer [Amazon]
Comments [2]
I think the album was a great effort to expose dedicated johnny cash fans to production and engineering techniques of our modern time. Although the album may not be celebratory of johnny cash's original music, it gives a new take on the music which may expose many young people who have not listened to johnny cash to his greatness. I believe the cd has several awesome tracks that deserve a good review.
the Cash/Snoop Dog remix, from what I heard on your show, had the entertainment value of listening to Victor Mature sing the best of Miley Cyrus. John, how can you play such trash without a disclaimer.
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