1. **Kate Bush, “Pi”**. I’ve been waiting for this to show up in my shuffle for the FRT! Kate Bush, singing the digits of π!
2. **Suzanne Vega, “Knight Moves”**. This is an old favorite of mine. The lyrics have some
personal significance, but it’s a lovely song.
3. **Explosions in the Sky, “Have You Passed Through This Night?”**. Post rock, very much in the
vein of “Godspeed You Black Emperor”. Not as good as Godspeed, but still pretty good.
4. **New Grange, “Weetabix”**. Very nice bluegrass tune performed by a supergroup of sorts. For the
anniversary of the founding of Compass Records, they put together this band of the top Compass
artists. It’s quite a lineup. Allison Brown on banjo (of course; AB is the founder of Compass);
Tim O’Brien playing a guitar-style Bouzouki (a bouzouki is strung like a mandolin – four pairs of strings tuned in fifths), but it’s much lower, in the same range as the guitar); Mike Marshall
playing Mandolin; Darol Anger playing fiddle; Todd Phillips on bass; and Phillip Aaberg playing piano.
5. **Rachel’s, “Artemisia”**. Yet more post-rock, this time from the more classical side. Rachel’s is one of my favorite groups, just overall amazing, wonderful composers and performers. Listening to
Rachel’s is a little slice of heaven.
6. **Hugh Blumenfeld, “Longhaired Radical Socialist Jew”**. The only gospel song that I like! Hugh is a great singer/songwriter and english professor. This is a hysterically funny song. To give you a sense of what it’s like, here’s the first verse: “Well, Jesus was a homeless lad/With an unwed mother and an absent dad/And I really don’t think he would have gotten that far/If Newt, Pat and Jesse had followed that star/So let’s all sing out praises to/That longhaired radical socialist Jew.”
7. **Solas, “The Wiggly Jigs”**. Solas is a great traditional Irish band, led by an unbelievable multi-instrumentalist named Seamus Egan.
8. **Flook, “Asturian Way”**. A great tune from my favorite trad Irish band.
9. **Dirty Three, “Stellar”**. Another really wonderful classical-leaning post-rock band.
10. **King Crimson, “Eyes Wide Open”**. A brilliant piece off of Crimson’s latest.