1. Sonic Youth, “Or”: Very smooth for SY. But great. They’re an amazing band.
2. The Flower Kings, “Blue Planet”: A typical track from one of my favorite neo-progressive
   rock bands. For the Flower Kings, this is a short one at only 10 minutes.
3. The Clogs, “Lantern”: once again, one of my favorite classical-leaning post-rock bands. Slow,
   beautiful track, featuring steel drums and oboe, and even some light vocals.
4. Mariliion, “Fantastic Place”: one of my least favorite tracks from an amazing Marillion
   album. Overall, the “Marbles” album was fantastic, but this track just leaves me cold.
5. Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, “Higher Ground”: quite a change from the last
   couple. Very up-tempo jazzy string-ensemble cover of a Stevie Wonder tune.
6. The National, “Baby We’ll Be Fine”: The National are the alter ego of the Clogs; they’ve got
   nearly the same personnel. But the National is a slightly country-ish alt-rock band. This track
   has a great psuedo-minimalist melodic pulse under it. Very cool.
7. Naftule’s Dream, “Free Klez 1 & 2”: what happens when a group of really talented klezmer
   musicians try to an Ornette Coleman style free improv? Weird stuff.
8. Navan, “Thig an T-Eathor”: very traditional a-capella Irish songs. Not what you’d probably
   expect if you’re used to instrumental Irish; songs are a totally different form
9. Mark Knopfler, “Boom, Like That”: The guitar wizard of Dire Straights has been doing mostly
   solo work lately. This is a track from his latest solo album, about (of all people) Roy Kroc, founder
   of McDonalds. Good song, with a nice guitar hook.
10. Marillion, “Ocean Cloud”: another track from Marillion’s “Marbles” album – this one is an
    example of just why I like this album so much: it’s an 18 minute long opus, just terrific stuff.

1. **Marillion, “If My Heart Were a Ball It Would Roll Downhill”**: Very neat track from
one of my favorite neo-progressive bands. Catchy, but with lots of layers.
2. **Mandelbrot Set, “Constellation of Rings”**: math-geek postrock. What’s not to love?
3. **The Police, ;Every Breath You Take”**: I’ve always been a fan of the Police. But
what I like most about this song is how often it’s been used by clueless people. I’ve
heard this at multiple weddings, where the couple thought it was a beautiful romantic
song. If you listen to it, it’s anything but romantic. It’s actually a rather evil
little song about a stalker: “Every breath you take, every vow you break,
every smile you fake, I’ll be watching you… Oh can’t you see, you belong to me?”
How can anyone miss that?
4. **Naftule’s Dream, “Speed Klez”**: John Zorn-influenced klezmer mixed with
a bit of thrash. Insane, but very very cool. Thrash with a trombone line!
5. **Jonathan Coulton, “Todd the T1000″**: Sci-fi geek pop. It’s a catchy little pop
song about trading in your old robot for a new one which turns out to be a
psychopath.
6. **Hamster Theater, “Reddy”**: A short track from a great band. Hamster Theater
is a sort-of spin-off from Thought Plague. It’s a bit more traditional than
what you’d hear from TP; still very dissonant, sometimes atonal, but more often
closer to traditional tonality and song structure. This track is a short instrumental
featuring an accordion solo.
7. **Transatlantic, “Mystery Train”**: great little song. It’s a track by one of
those so-called supergroups; Transatlantic is a side-project formed by members of
Marillion (bassist Pete Travawas), Dream Theater (drummer Mike Portnoy), Spock’s Beard (singer Neil Morse), and the Flower Kings (guitarist Royne Stolt). In general, these
supergroups have a sort of shaky sound. These guys are *great* together; it sounds
like they’ve been playing together for years: they’re sharp, there’s a great interplay
between the different instruments, it’s all incredibly precise. I’ve heard that the
music was written in advance mainly by Morse, but even with polished music pre-written,
it’s got a great sound, and you can here the distinctive musical voices of each of the
musicians.
8. **Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “Antennas To Heaven”**: It’s Godspeed – which means
that it’s brilliant post-rock. This starts off with a very rough recording of a very
old-timey folkey tune, and uses it as a springboard into a very typical God-speed
texture.
9. **The Flower Kings, “Devil’s Playground”**: more neo-progressive stuff. This is an
incredibly long piece (25 minutes), very typical of Roine Stolt’s writing. It’s not
the sort of way-out-there kind of thing that you’d hear from, say, King Crimson; it’s
very structured, very melodic, but put together more in the structure of a symphony
(theme, development, restatement) than the typical ABACAB structure of a rock song.
10. **Porcupine Tree, “Sleep Together”**: a brilliant song by yet another neo-prog
band. Very odd… a strange electronic pulse drives the entire song; but it starts
off as a very quiet song with this electronic pulse giving it a tense feel. Then
the percussion comes in, and shifts your sense of the rhythm… And then it gets
to the chorus, which is big and loud, and features a full string section. Strange,
but wonderful.

1. **Thinking Plague: “The Aesthete”**: Thinking Plague is just plain *odd*. They’re
a hard-to-classify group. It’s got vocals, but instead of the vocals being the lead,
they treat voice as just another instrument. They’re often atonal, and when they’re
tonal, the chords are often very dissonant. They *sound* like they’re very influenced
by Robert Fripp’s guitar craft, and there’s a persistent rumour that their guitarist
is a crafty, but after the last time they came up in a FRT, he showed up in the
comments to say that he wasn’t. They’re definitely not a group that I’d recommend to
everyone, but if you’ve got the right kind of taste, they’re really quite remarkable.
2. **The Tap Room Trio, “The Blackberry Blossom/THe Ballina Lass”**: very traditional
Irish music by a trio including my favorite traditional flutist, the great Harry
Bradley. Very simple traditional arrangements of classic Irish tunes.
3. **Tortoise, “It’s All Around You”**: Tortoise is a very influential post-rock
band. Given how much I like post-rock, and how much of what I listen to is
supposedly influenced by Tortoise, I expected to really like them. I find this
to be incredibly dull – downright trite.
4. **Gentle Giant, “A Reunion”**: Progressive rock with strong madrigal influences.
GG is brilliant.
5. **Sigur Rós, “Andvari”**: Post-rock from a mellow Icelandic band. This is more like what postrock is supposed to be to me. It’s very mellow and subdued, but it’s got a
real depth and sophistication. Beautiful track.
6. **King Crimson, “The Howler”**: a track off of Beat, the second-album by Discipline-era KC. Very typical of the vocal tracks from that phase of KC: lots of
Fripp’s tape loops setting the structure of the track; Belew doing his crooning voice.
7. **Naftule’s Dream, “Something is There”**: Brilliant neo-Klezmer, for lack of a better word. Naftule’s Dream is named after Naftule Brandwine, the genius of Klezmer clarinet; they’re a modern band that plays stuff clearly inspired by Klezmer, but filtered
through a lens of modern jazz and some rock. There’s some Ornette Coleman and Some Robert Fripp in here, mixed with the klez. Highly recommended.
8. **Sonic Youth, “Mildred Pierce”**: If you know what Sonic Youth sounds like, this
is absolutely typical of their sound. If you don’t know, you should check it out.
They’re strange, harsh, loud, and very, very good.
9. **Dirty Three, “Dream Evie”**: one of my favorite postrock groups, playing in the
more classically inspired vein of PR; Dirty Three is always wonderful.
10. **Mogwai, “With Portfolio”**: another favorite PR band; this one comes from the more
rock-oriented side of things

1. Baka Beyond, “Baka Play Baka”: This is what happens when you take a bunch of great trad Irish musicians, and lock them into a room with a bunch of great African musicians from the Baka tribe in Cameroon. I don’t know quite how to describe this. It really doesn’t sound like anything else. You can tell that there’s Irish roots, and you can hear some African things that sound a little bit like M’balah, but mostly, it’s something different. Very cool stuff.
2. Flook, “Beehive”: Flook is, bar none, the greatest instrumental trad Irish band around. They’ve got the guy who I think is greatest tinwhistle player in the world, Brian Finnegan; Sarah Allen, who can somehow keep up with Brian while playing on a honking *huge* alto whistle while standing on one foot; John Joe Kelley, a man who somehow makes the Bodhran (a kind of drum which the scourge of sessions everywhere) into a delicate and expressive instrument (one of Flook’s album liner notes quotes a review that says something like “Saying John-Joe plays the Bohran is like saying Everest is a bit of a climb”); and last but not least, Ed Boyd, a rhythm guitarist who demonstrates just why being a rhythm guitar player can be an artistic calling. If you’ve never heard Flook, go out any buy their albums. All of them. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like Flook.
3. The Trey Gunn Band, “Gate of Dreams”: a track from the band led by former King Crimson stick player Trey Gunn. This is probably my favorite track by the TGB, which unfortunately isn’t saying that much. Trey is a brilliant player, but he’s rather dull as a composer. His band’s work tends to leave me very flat.
4. The Flower Kings, “Days Gone By”: This is very out of place in a shuffle. It’s not really it’s own song. It’s the ending of a long piece told from the point of view of a self-hating vampire.
5. Mouse on Mars, “Chartnok”: Noisy electronica, recommended to me by someone who thought that if I liked postrock, I’d like this. They were wrong. Ick.
6. Peter Hammill, “After the Show”: live recording of a song by one of the founders of progressive rock. It’s an incredibly sparse performance – Hammill on keyboards and vocals, plus an electric violin and bass. One of the most intense recordings I’ve ever heard. I get chills every time I hear this. I don’t know that I’d call in beautiful music; but it’s a brilliant piece of musical art which I love listening to.
7. Godspeed you! Black Emperor, “Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls”: Godspeed – the b est post-rock ensemble ever. Everything I’ve ever heard by them is amazing.
8. Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, “Fugue” from Bach’s “Prelude and Fugure No. 20”: Ordinally, I love just about anything Bela Fleck does. Not this. There’s nothing wrong, in principle, with playing with great classical music. Hell, I’ve heard ELP take on the Prelude and Fugure, and it was great. But this is a dreadful job of playing with it. Geez, Bela, what did Bach ever do to you to deserve this?
9. Tony Trischka, “Armando’s Children”: Amazing coincidence that this came up now. Just what I needed after hearing that train-wreck of Bela’s: Bela, along with his old Banjo teacher playing some brilliant newgrass. Now this is what I expect when I go listen to Bela – and it’s even better when it’s Bela playing along with one of the few people in the world who can keep up with – and even sometimes get a step or two ahead of him. Wow.
10. Solas, “The Crested Hens”: Solas is another dazzling traditional Irish band. Formed from a mixture of Irish and Irish-American musicians, led by the unbelievable Seamas Egan. This is a slow air featuring the wonderful violin playing of Winnifred Horan and low whistle by Seamus. Seeing them live back in March convinced me to go out and buy a low whistle. (I also have to say, after seeing them live, that I was very surprised by the violinist. On all of the photos on their album covers, she’s always got this pissed-off look on her face, so I was expecting her to be a very grumpy performer. Turned out to be an incredibly silly, happy, funny person whose energy was dazzling. You could just see how the energy of a song would change when her violin part came in.)

1. Rachel’s, “Even/Odd”: Rachel’s is a very classically-oriented post-rock
   ensemble – violin, bass, woodwinds. They’re absolutely brilliant. “Even/Odd” is a short, extremely rhythmic track with an interesting pulse with an almost siren-like string lead played over it. Very, very cool.
2. Rush, “Spindrift”: Rush is back! They released a new album this week. It’s a
   much better work than their last effort (which wasn’t bad, mind you, but it wasn’t as
   as good as it could have been). It actually sounds a lot more like older Rush than
   most of their other recent work. Really good. Not spectacular or anything, but definitely quite good. This track has a nice edge to it, dark chords, very classic
   Lifeson guitars, a strong Geddy Lee bass lead driving things. Peart is rather non-descript on this track – he’s got that almost inhumanly perfect timing as always, but he’s not
   doing a lot that catches my attention.
3. Marillion, “The Invisible Man”. The opening track off of Marillion’s last
   album. It’s an amazing song, one of the best they’ve ever done. I can’t listen to
   it without getting chills. Just the first 30 seconds of it is enough to start me
   shivering.
4. Porcupine Tree, “Fear of a Blank Planet”. Porcupine Tree also has a new album out in the last couple of weeks. It’s one of their best, which is really saying an awful
   lot when you realize how good their catalog is. This is the opening track from the album. Very typically PT: interesting rhythms, dark chords, interesting transitions, and a great contrast between very smooth soft vocals and hard-edged instrumental lines.
5. Lunasa, “Mean Fomhair”: would you believe, a bagpipe solo? Ok, so it’s not the awful scottish greatpipes that you probably think of when I say bagpipes – it’s the Irish Uillean pipes which have a much less grating sound to them. And it’s played by one of the worlds greatest Uillean piper’s, Cillean Vallely. But it is a bagpipe solo. And it’s great.
6. Edgar Meyer, “Concerto in D, 2nd Movement”. Edgar Meyer is one of those musicians that just make me sick. He plays this incredibly awkward instrument (the double-bass), and makes it look like it’s easier to play than a basic violin. And he can play anything on it – anything from Bluegrass to Rock to Jazz to Classical. He can play the Bach cello suites on his bass better than any cellist I’ve ever heard can play it on a cello. And he’s an amazing composer, who’s practically redefined the repertoire for
   the bass. This track is him performing the part of the Concerto for double bass that he wrote.
7. Moxy Fruvois, “Spiderman”. Interesting timing, given that the new Spiderman Movie is just coming out. This is Moxie Fruvous doing their incredibly silly version of the old theme from the Spiderman cartoon show. “Spidermans master plan, build his own little spider clan. In the woods, now they’re troops, fighting for special interest groups”. How can you not love a song making fun of low-budget superhero cartoon with lyrics like that?
8. Tony Trishka Band, “Woodpecker”. Tony is one of the most talented musicians
   I’ve ever gotten to know personally. He’s a banjo player who pioneered the Banjo
   as a serious Jazz instrument. (Bela Fleck is one of his students.) This is a track off of his first album with his own Jazz fusion band. It’s very typical of Tony’s playing. As much as I love Bela Fleck’s playing, he’s still got a lot to learn from Tony in terms of how to make Jazz really work on the banjo. Tony just pulls out all the stops – using some of the pentatonic rolling tricks Bela is known for, as well as some fitting some more traditional bluegrass rolls, and some single-string work.
9. Explosions in the Sky, “Catastrophe and the Cure”. Great rock-oriented post-rock.
10. Shirim Klezmer Orchestra, “Nokh A Gleyzl Vayn”. Klezmer/Jazz fusion. Yeah, really, I’m not joking. Shirim is an amazing bunch of players who can move seamlessly back and forth between very traditional Klezmer and Bebop – but they’re most at home playing something in between. This is a traditional Klezmer tune played Shirim style.
11. Miles Davis, “Deception”. What can I say about Miles Davis? One of the most
    amazing, influential musicians of the 20th century. One of the creators of an
    entirely new genre of Jazz. Every note he plays is virtually perfect. You could spend
    hours just listening to one little track by him, and still not absorb everything that
    he did to make it so perfect.

The shuffle generated interesting results this week.

1. Apothecary Hymns, “The Marigold”. Apothecary Hymns sounding extremely Tull-like. Good stuff.
2. Mogwai, “Katrien”. Mogwai is simply brilliant: one of the greatest post-rock groups out there. I keep getting more of their stuff, and I haven’t heard a single bit that I didn’t absolutely love. This one starts off nice and mellow, and builds into some more intense fuzz, and then settles back again. Overall, it’s got a mostly relaxed mood to it. Typical Mogwai – aka fantastic.
3. Marillion, “Thankyou Whoever you Are”. A very uninspired track from the latest album from Marilion.
4. Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings, “Chain of Fools”. Darol and friends doing a cool fiddle-heavy take on the classic song.
5. David Shifrin, “Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet” by Ellen Zwilich. 20th century classical chamber music focusing on the brilliant playing of my favorite clarinetist, David Shifrin. Shifrin is an absolutely wonderful clarinetist, and he seems most enthusiastic when playing modern music.
6. Bach, “Erkenne Mich, Mein Hueter” from “St. Matthew’s Passion”. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll wind up saying it again. I think Back was the greatest composer who ever lived, and the St. Matthews Passion is my favorite of his works. This is just a little slice of perfection.
7. Jonathan Coulton, “Todd the T1000”. Jonathon Coulton is a geek songwriter
   who I think is fantastic. Coulton writes catchy pop tunes with very geeky lyrics based on science, math, and SF: “Todd the T1000 Scares me, and I don’t think he knows I have a right to exist; and he’s sits in my favorite chair, and dares me, and when I look over he’s making a fist one finger at a time.”
8. Hugh Blumenfeld, “Hands and Feet”. Hugh is a singer/songwriter/college professor who I’ve met several times at folk music festivals. He writes amazing songs, with incredible lyrics. This song is typical of his songwriting – dark, beautiful, amazing lyrics.
9. Moxy Fruvous, “Bed and Breakfast”. A song from Moxy Fruvous’s second full-length album. Personally, I think this album is vastly under-rated by fans. Musically, it’s the best thing they ever did. Lyrically, it’s not as funny as some of their others stuff, but it’s definitely got its moments of humor.
10. Trout Fishing in America, “I Get Ideas”. Talking about funny music… Trout is a folk/bluegrass duo that does albums of music for adults, and albums of music for kids. A lot of the kids stuff is hysterically funny, like this one: “I see a jar of peanut butter, and it’s time to wash my hair… Something weird comes over me, I get ideas.” And musically, all of their songs are great.

I’ve been swamped lately, learning to manage my new commute, and being overwhelmed by my new job. So I’ve been a bit lax about the blog; I’ve missed three weeks in a row for the friday pathological programming; and I haven’t been posting my friday random tens. I don’t have time to do a FPP post today, but I can at least inflict my strange tastes in music on you. Friday pathological programming will return next week.

1. Navan, “Ma Labousig Ar C’hoad”: Navan is a wonderful traditional Irish
   a capella group. I caught them being interviewed on NPR the week before St. Patrick’s day, and immediately went home and tracked them down on iTunes. Beautiful stuff.
2. Explosions in the Sky, “Catastrophe and the Cure”: post-rock, in the “Mogwai” vein. Not as good as Mogwai, but they’re definitely worth listening to.
3. The Kells, “The Gander in the Prairie Hole”: Another traditional Irish band. This one I also discovered by accident. I recently bought myself a new tinwhistle – a beautiful low-D whistle. Everyone in the whistle community has been talking about the whistles being made by a guy named Michael Burke, so I was checking his whistles out. On his site, to show you what his whistles sound like, he has samples of recordings featuring people playing his whistles. For the Low-D whistle that I wanted, the sample was a clip from the Kells. I bought the whistle, and a Kells CD. They’re a really fantastic band, definitely highly recommended to anyone who likes Irish music. (And the whistle is an absolute delight – a good strong low-D, stable tone, just the right amount of backpressure, a really well-made tuning slide, and a brilliantly clever trick to make the lowest hole rotate, so that it’s easier to reach.)
4. Blackfield, “1,000 People”. A track from a band that’s a spin-off of one of my favorite neo-progressive bands, Porcupine Tree. Blackfield is, in general, a bit mellower than recent PT, but the overall sound is quite similar. Great track, from a great album.
5. Apothecary Hymn, “A Sailor Song”: Another NPR discovery. I was driving to New Jersey to visit my father in the hospital, and the New York NPR station had Apothecary Hymn in their studio performing live. They sounded like a fantastic cross between old Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, and King Crimson. So once again, I ordered their CD as soon as I got home. Overall, I think the King Crimson resemblance doesn’t come through so much on the CD as it did in the live performance, but the Gentle Giant/Jethro Tull comparison is pretty much dead-on. Very cool stuff.
6. Marillion, “The Other Half”: The opening track from Marillion’s new album. Rather a disappointment, I’m afraid. I’ve been a huge Marillion fan for longer than I care to admit, and I was really looking forward to this new album, because the last one was one of their best in a long time. It’s not bad, but it is rather lackluster overall.
7. Edgar Meyer, 3rd movement (Allegro) from Bottesini’s Concerto #2 for Double Bass: Edgar Meyer is one of those dazzling musicians who can do anything,
   and make it sound good. He’s primarily a classical musician, but he’s also known
   for performing bluegrass, jazz, fold, rock… and he’s brilliant at all of them. Hearing him play a piece like the Bottesini is amazing… Seeing him do it live is even more amazing. It’s hard to believe that that kind of speed and grace, could possibly be coming from this awkward, hulking instrument. That big heavy bow is just dancing all over the place like it’s a feature, his left hand is zipping up and down the next of the base, never missing a note.
8. Mogwai, “Stop Coming to My House”: A great track by one of my favorite post-rock bands. Mogwai is more in the rock-like side of the post-rock continuum. They’re always amazing.
9. A Silver Mt. Zion, “Ring Them Bells (Freedom has Come and Gone)”: more post-rock, this time from a spinoff of “Godspeed You Black Emperor”. Actually, on this
   album, they don’t really go by “A Silver Mt. Zion”; they go by “Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band”. Brilliant stuff, as you’d expect from a Godspeed spinoff. Unlike Godspeed, Mt. Zion tends to actually include lyrics, which can be interesting, but the singers voice isn’t particularly great. But still, overall, brilliant.
10. Tony Trischka, “Run Mountain”: Classic style bluegrass, played with brilliant style by my former teacher, Tony Trischka. Tony’s amazing; he’s another one of those
    musicians who can play anything he sets his mind to. He’s also just an all-around really
    nice guy. I love to play banjo, but I’m lousy at it. I’m not anywhere close to being what I would consider good enough to take lessons from someone like him. But I used to live quite near him in New Jersey, and someone convinced me to call him about taking Banjo lessons. Much to my surprise, he was willing to take me as a student: Tony’s willing to give lessons to anyone who’s interested. I learned a lot from him. I’m still a lousy banjo player, but not nearly as lousy as before – and he taught me a lot about learning music by ear.

1. Frameshift, “Walking through Genetic Space”: a track from an album inspired by the writings of Steven Jay Gould about genetics and evolution. The leader of the project is the lead singer of Dream Theater; the end result has a very DT like feeling to it. The album overall is quite good; bit this track is a slow ballad, and a ballad about genetics just doesn’t really work.
2. Robert Fripp and David Sylvian, “Jean the Birdman”: Fun, interesting piece of work, from a project that David Sylvian and Robert Fripp did a few years back. Sylvian’s usual crooning voice, over his and Fripp’s guitar work. Very cool.
3. King Crimson, “Starless and Bible Black”. A track from one of my all-time favorite albums – free improv from King Crimson in the “Red” days.
4. Gordian Knot, “Muttersprach”: instrumental neo-prog rock from Sean Malone and whoever he can get to work with him. This track features a solo by Steve Hackett, the guitarist from the early days of Genesis.
5. Jonathon Coulton, “Mandelbrot Set”: One of the greatest math geek songs of all time. What math geek could not love a rock song that literally includes the procedure for computing the mandelbrot set as part of the lyrics: “Take a point called Z in the complex plane/
   Let Z1 be Z squared plus C/
   And Z2 is Z1 squared plus C/
   And Z3 is Z2 squared plus C and so on/
   If the series of Z’s should always stay/
   Close to Z and never trend away/
   That point is in the Mandelbrot Set”
6. Väsen, “Slunken” Traditional Swedish music, prominently featuring the Nickelharpa – aka keyed violin. Väsen is absolutely amazin if you get a chance to hear them live.
7. Tony Trischka, “Doggy Salt”: a track off of Tony’s latest, which is mostly duets played with other banjo players, including Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, and Steve Martin. Pure fun – exuberant music played by amazing musicians having the time of their lives.
8. Tan Dun, “Water Passion after St. Matthew, 1st Movement”. A new operatic passion by the Chinese composer Tan Dun. Tan Dun is one of the finest composers working today, with a great range in his composing style. If you’ve seen the movie “Hero”, the soundtrack is also his work. The Water Passion is an extremely ambitious work, and damned if it isn’t completely successful. He manages to merge bits of traditional Chinese opera, modern semitone composition, and Bach-style fugues into a coherent and beatiful piece of music.
9. Mogwai, “Moses? I Amn’t”: You didn’t think you were going to get through one of my friday random tens without any post-rock, now did you?
10. Igor Stravinsky, “Concertino”: chamber music from Stravinsky, one of the musical geniuses of the 20th century. It’s very interesting listening to this shortly after Tan Dun; you can hear the influence that Stravinsky had.

1. Marillion, “Ocean Cloud”: Long, wonderful piece of neo-prog rock from my favorite prog band.
2. Mogwai, “Acid Food”: Mogwai is a brilliant post-rock group, leaning more towards
   the rock than the classical. This is a slow track with vocals, with a very dark sound
   to it. Very cool.
3. Trey Gunn Band, “Sozzle”: Eh. Trey Gunn is a brilliant touch guitar player, but
   as a composer, he’s really pretty dull.
4. Pain of Salvation, “Lilium Cruentus (Deus Nova)”: Another bit of neo-prog; PoS is a spinoff of the Flower Kings. This is off of a very strange album… It’s a very
   pretentious piece of work. I don’t think it’s as profound as it was intended to be. But I do like it.
5. Dirty Three, “I Really Should’ve Gone Out Last Night”: Dirty Three is one of the
   more-classical leaning post-rock ensembles; I’ve yet to find anything that they’re recorded that I think is less then brilliant.
6. Igor Stravinsky, “Praeludium” from the Shadow Dances: A very short piece; very distinctly Stravinsky. Beautiful, and haunting.
7. King Crimson, “People”: King Crimson from the double-trio days. Brilliant.
8. New Grange, “Goin’ to Boston”: New Grange is a sort of accidental super-band. They’re a group of artists that all record on Alison Brown’s Compass label. For
   an anniversary of Compass, they got together to do a concert, and ended up
   forming into a band for this album. Darol Anger, Alison Brown, Mike Marshall,
   Tim O’Brien. This is a thoroughly weird track. Basically, it starts
   off as a traditional old-time tune; then it goes off into a sort of almost rap
   about the city of Boston, done against the backdrop of Darol fiddling around with the old tune.
9. Tan Dun and the Kronos Quartet, “Earth Dance” from the Ghost Opera: Tan Dun is
   one of my favorite composers. He’s a Chinese composer, and a victim of the
   cultural revolution. His music tends to have strong influences from Chinese
   folk music blended with modern Western music. The Ghost Opera is based on
   a Chinese folk tradition where villages actually have mourning teams: when a wealthy person dies, the actually hire people to cry and scream in mourning. Villages compete to have the best mourning team.
10. Hugh Blumenfield, “Shoot the Moon”: Hugh is an English professor from Connecticut, who does folk music on the side. He’s a fantastic song-writer, and this is one of my favorites of his songs. I’ve met Hugh in person a couple of times, and I have to say that he is a thoroughly pleasant guy.

As an experiment, I decided to try making a iMix of the items in my FRT that are available via iTunes. Please let me know if you like this; it’s a bit of extra work for me which I don’t mind doing, as long as people use it… but if no one wants it, then I’d rather not spend the time setting it up.

1. Dirty Three, “I offered it up to the stars & the Night Sky”. As usual from my
   random lists, it’s a post-rock ensemble. Dirty Three are classical leaning; not quite so much as
   the Clogs, but still very much on the classical side. They tend to be slow and mellow, with
   a gradually building intensity. Great stuff.
2. Hamster Theatre, “Oye Comatose”. Wierd, but cool, from a “Thinking Plague” spinoff band. (Incidentally, I received an email this week from the TP guitarist letting me know that I was wrong that he was a
   GuitarCraft graduate. I’d heard this from the store I bought the CD at, and his playing sounds very crafty, but apparently the similarity in sound is just a coincidence that was turned into a rumour.)
3. Martin Hayes, “The Lark’s March/Kilfenora Jig/The Cliffs of Moher”. Beautiful traditional Irish music
   played by a violin virtuoso at speeds that you could actually dance to. Martin is one of my favorite trad Irish artists.
4. The Fiddlers 4, “Atchafalaya Pipeline”. An old-timey folk tune from one of Darol Anger’s latest projects. Darol is brilliant as always.
5. Gyorgi Ligeti, “Hamburg Concerto”. Very interesting modern classical. Definitely a piece of music with
   a learning curve, but well worth the effort. Take some time to learn to understand it; it’s a wonderful piece of music.
6. Lunasa, “The Dingle Berries”. A rollicking fun Irish jig from a brilliant band.
7. Dysrhythmia, “Appeared at First”. Very rock-oriented post rock. This was recommended to me
   by a friend who’s also into post rock. I can appreciate it on a technical level, but I’ve never
   really been able to enjoy listening to it; something about it just doesn’t work for me.

8. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: “Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven…”. My favorite Godspeed track. Godspeed was introduced do me by Orac, and I’m terribly hooked. One of the very best Post-Rock ensembles around.
9. Sonic Youth, “Rats”. Sonic Youth is a brilliantly strange band. This is from their most
   recent album. Overall, the album is less blatantly strange than some of their past work. It’s still full of weird guitar playing and microtones, but they’re done subtly. Great stuff.
10. The Clogs, “My Mister Never Ending Bliss”. Post-rock from one of the best neo-classical post-rock
    ensembles. This is off of “Stick Music” which is not one of their more accessible albums, but it is
    my favorite.