Music on in the background, while we cook, eat, drive, or run, (God forbid). It is something to stop a wondering mind, but rarely something to engage the mind. I am aiming to spend time regularly sitting and listening to a recording from start to end. To sit and actively listen. Over the next year or so I plan to work my way through my recordings from left to right. They are joyful disorganised, so it should be a nice cross section.
This past week:
Daniel Taylor: The voice of Bach.
– A bath left a fraction too long. Fine, nice, good, just not quite the ahh.
Dave Brubeck: Time Out
– Like being involved in a conversation already in full flow. Not outside it, not in the centre, nor the middle, but part of it. In the space. Wonderful.
Mingus Ah Um:
– Joy. Unmitigated.
JUAN ESQUIVEL – Missa Hortus Conclusus
– Rather stylish recording. Nice contrapuntal music, should have listened to it more already.
Barricades: Jean Rendeau and Thomas Dunford
– Without doubt my most played record of 2020, fresh exciting, exchanging, lots of colour, the Couperin which begins the record is fantastic, teasing, slower than many other recordings, but with such pace and feel for the narrative. It is often the command of silence which makes a recording such a consuming experience, and this does it superbly.
Ella Fitzgerald: Christmas
– The 1967 album. Warmth, love, style, comfort. A firm favourite of the week.
Boxfacts 