The one hundred and thirty-fifth classical recording: #844 Oliver Messiaen - Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jesus
In the end, not all works will give me the emotions I need. As a work written in the final months of the German occupation of Paris in 1944, the tone of this work is sombre and sad in a way that hits at that same depressed point. While still a well played piece, with the listed performance by Yvonne Loriod sounding great, there's a delicate black cloud hanging over the piece that doesn't connect to me more deeply, like other pieces have tended to do.
The three hundred and eightieth album: #380 Wire - Pink Flag
Quick and hard, Pink Flag feels like the quintessential punk album: short tracks with just enough changes to make them stand out, an aggressive sound supported by its lyrics, acknowledgement of what came before but crystallizing into this style. Wire sticks around after this with a big post punk influence, but this already stands out as a good, inventive album that goes many more places than I would expect.
The three hundred and seventy-ninth album: #379 Steely Dan - Aja
One thing I wasn't preferred for on a Monday morning was a helping of jazz rock. For the most part, Aja goes for a milder, simpler tone with a lot more jazz sounds and feeling. From the jazz side, the rock instruments add much needed body to the work, with a direction that works better, while the jazz makes the rock calmer and probably better for a gentle introduction. The tracks go on a bit too long, but it generally works in context.
The one hundred and thirty-fourth classical recording: #33 Thomas Weelkes - Anthems
There's something listenable and accessible to Weelkes' Anthems that I haven't gotten before. Earlier choral works we listened to delighted in having a lot of building voices, thriving in complexity, but Weelkes keeps it simpler, focusing on fewer sounds and simpler compositions. While not as special, perhaps, it feels like it allows the music and songs to thrive more than the 'tricks'. Add to that a less sombre feeling to the works, where there's some fun to be had in some of them, and the various works come together really well.
The three hundred and seventy-eighth album: #378 David Bowie - Low
David Bowie does what he does best, avant garde pop that builds, in this time, on Brian Eno's more electronic and ambient work, mixing in more standard pop sounds with others that fade more. It's heavy on the instrumental areas compared to what I would have expected from Bowie's work, but here it just feels like another direction to go in rather than a complete change.
The three hundred and seventy-seventh album: #377 The Clash - The Clash
I put this album on and before I knew it I was four tracks in without noticing the difference. They're short punk songs, the guitar riffs sounding similar and everything going in hard. It's not that the sentiment is bad or there aren't nice touches in here, but it feels like it all gets overpowered by the wall of noise, which means you're basically holding out for the intros where the album sounds good. Beyond that, with the exception of the odd track where they try differently (standing out just for being different), for me it's an album that I'd put on to get some emotions out, but not for any nuance in my experience.
The one hundred and thirty-third classical recording: #90 Johann Sebastian Bach - Keyboard Partitas
There is a certain joy to the sound of the harpsichord and they seem to fit these partitas especially well. There's a lightness to the faster movements, where it feels like play, while still getting across some more sombre moments. There's a lot of pleasant music that's good to just enjoy and I'd happily have these on in the background again - they're just great to reset your mood.
The three hundred and seventy-sixth album: #376 The Stranglers - Rattus Norvegicus
Rattus Norvegicus is one of the biggest punk albums from its era and I feel I can see why. There's the anger and frustration in the lyrics that comes in with the work, the vulgarity that appeals on a base level, but it also stays accessible, a lot of it being the daily life 'concerns' - including partying, sex and arguments with (girl)friends - that would get people interested, but also with an observational style that now seems to comment on that lifestyle a bit - the fact that there's a track about Nostradamus' predictions for Toulouse indicates that depth and whether it's the accent or the music, the sarcasm seems heavy in places. Whether my reading is intentional or not, that reading combined with the deeper concepts that some tracks explore make the album worth a listen.
The ninety-sixth book: #76 Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Maturin
I felt repeatedly a step behind the novel when reading Melmoth the Wanderer. It delights in its stories within stories, interrupting them Arabian Nights style to diverge, but using a cast of characters that I had difficulty keeping track of. Perhaps it's because the core conceit that I thought we got first - an immortal figure wandering the earth - barely comes up, and instead there's a long diversion about monastery life that I mentally checked out off... but then finding out it felt like part of a longer story that I then got lost in when it started mixing in even more stories. With every story initially being a clean slate, with its own set of characters, and in this case a detailed world that I'm not familiar enough with to just get, it got disorienting, and I'll admit I'd lost interest soon enough hoping we'd get some bits that connected back to the original concept. When it happened, though, it never grabbed me and I found myself unwilling to invest the time needed to get to know the story better. It's too far removed from what's interesting to me that it just came down to whether the start of each story grabbed me.
The three hundred and seventy-fifth album: #375 Muddy Waters - Hard Again
Before starting this album, I was a bit worried about the effect a blues album would have and what I'd find with it. This album delivered more than I expected though, a decade or two of rock music infusing the blues to weirdly have a more upbeat feel - the message might still be there as well, but it builds on a more powerful and active tone that makes it a joy to listen to.
The one hundred and thirty-second classical recording: #455 Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnol
Still feeling rusty on my classical knowledge, I'm going to be brief and probably even less coherent than normal. Not entirely off the mark for a 16 minute piece, I suspect, that crams a lot in its fairly short duration. As an exploration of Spanish folk music, it goes through a lot of elements. There's not much recognition in it for me, but I love how it adapts some of the elements, with the castanets imitated by the percussion section being one stand out in a manic fifth and final movement. It doesn't leave you with a lot of room to breathe, the variations in the second movement feeling the most sedate, but the bursts of energy work to build these together.