Day 4: March 21 - I Have No Reason To Leave My Bedroom, Do I?
Today’s playlist is all about the home, but comes from all over. From John Mayer to French salon music, London laptop to the Chinese Guqin.
John Mayer - 3x5
From his debut album, 3x5 a rather good take on the classic oh-I’m-a-touring-musician-and-life-is-hard-look-at-my-struggle song. It has the inventive guitar and delightful wordplay that characterized early John Mayer, before the blues-god/melancholic-hollywood personas took over.
Cecile Chaminade - Les Sylvains, Op. 60
An early 20th-century French composer, Cecile Chaminade was the first woman to receive the prestigious Legion of Honour from the French government. Her music, however, received the classic misogyny one-two: her chamber music was praised for it’s feminity (it’s virtousic af) and her large works were criticized for being ‘too masculine,’ which means she wrote a forte on some brass or something. However, I did choose Les Sylvians because it is tuneful and tasteful, though with many hidden techniques and tricks in the details which never loses touch with the architecture of the work. Much of her other works are confident and extraverted, delightfully so. This album is supposedly of her playing, but the quality is so nice I suspect, at best, this is from a piano roll she may have made which some boffins brought into this century for our enjoyment. Notice, though, the incredible touch and dexterity in her flourishes.
Traditional (Shuishan Yu) - Airs of the Fifteen States: Odes of Yong (Amid the Mulberries)
The guqin is a Chinese zither, sort of a plucked tabletop guitar. It has come up in my personal research, but I am not an expert! Articles I’ve read suggest that much music-making in early China, especially among the elites, was aimed at cultivating the inner-wellness of the performer and not necessarily for performing for others. Confucian thought sought to refine the sound after the notes as a parallel to the inner-self of the musician. This recordings highlights that well: notice the sounds of the fingers sliding along the strings, nuances in vibrato, and the changes in articulation. Played here by Shuishan Yu
James Blake - Unluck
James Blake began in a London bedroom with just his laptop and some mics. Unluck, from his self-titled debut in 2011, is a gem of the bedroom producer genre. Autotune-y vocals and glitchy, laidback back beats provide ample space for Blake to croon nonsense, climaxing with large brassy synths and heavy trem. Bedroom banger. (I could listen to that hi-hat track alone for hours.)
Nick Drake - From The Morning
The final track of his final studio album, British singer-songwriter Nick Drake would soon turn inward and become a recluse at his parents’ in Tanworth-in-Arden. This song, however, is a hopeful, peaceful images of growth, recession, and return. I can’t help but to focus on the bass pattern, which is bouncy and full of life, supporting Drakes confident fingerstyle but timid, intimate singing.