On The Record

There being no chance of exposing myself to any live music today, I fell back on the recorded variety. Since Noi is in Melaka for the weekend, checking on how Mak is doing and helping her out, I was able to play a few things at a satisfyingly reasonable volume.

In the interest of full disclosure, here's the list of what made it to the turntable (actually in order of appearance):

CD5 from the box of Beethoven's Complete Piano Sonatas, as hammered out by the excellent Daniel Barenboim. This happened to be the one with the most well-known 'named' sonatas - i.e., the Pathetique, the Moonlight and the Appassionata, and the only CD in the set that I really know myself from previous listening. But it was just a coincidence of my own sequencing that I put it on as I'm playing the full box in order for the second time and this is the point I'd reached;

Steven Wilson's Hand. Cannot. Erase. Tuneful & heartfelt - not terms one generally associates with the Prog community;

Bowie's Outsider, which is, I reckon, one of his most under-rated albums. Eno is all over it, always a good thing, and there's lots of Mick Garson's weird piano - ditto;

CD3 in Dylan's Triplicate - cunningly entitled Comin' Home Late. Even if you don't care for Dylan's voice - and I do! - the band and arrangements are just exceptionally exceptional (an example of my superlatives failing, but it's been a long day);

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp's The First Day. Actually the live album Damage is superior to the studio stuff, but this still cooks. On one of my early trips back to the UK, in the 1990s, I saw a Sylvian/Fripp concert advertised at the Manchester Apollo, and didn't think of going. Don't know why. Stupidity, I guess;

Peter Hammill's Singularity, P.H.'s post-heart attack and consequent near death experience album, and doesn't it show? Wonderfully, of course. Thank goodness he's still with us, not least for all the late Van der Graff albums.

And since the day is not yet over (though I'm thinking of an early night, what with work tomorrow) I reckon CD6 from the Beethoven box might just get a spin. I'd better prepare for a bit of a battering.