If anyone can take the cello deep into Appalachia and then transplant it back into Manhattan, it's this guy. If you have been following Erik Friedlander lately, you will have noticed how he's been getting in touch with his roots. In this case, the word "roots" is close to the word's intended meaning when people talk about roots music and Americana. If 2007's Block Ice & Propane was Friedlander taking a trip down memory lane -- along with every major American highway -- in his parents' camper every summer, Bonebridge highlights one of the...
I have spent the day sat outside in central Coventry, aurally assaulted by one of the worst bands I have ever heard. Like all sane people, I don't like John Denver's Country Roads at the best of times, but to hear the damage wrought upon it today was to weep. Or to laugh. Seriously, this may have been the worst attempt at harmony I have ever heard. If 16 strangers playing in separate countries who can't even hear each other can keep in tune, then I don't see why these chancers couldn't. Unfortunately [...]
Erik Friedlander's new album, Bonebridge, comes out June 14. The history of jazz cello is full of strings attached. Upright bass players — among them Oscar Pettiford, Percy Heath, Harry Babasin, Ray Brown and Ron Carter — have occasionally strayed. But their contributions to the diminutive violoncello are often overshadowed by their work on its bigger, heavier cousin. Read more »
The Comte de Lautreamont's Les Chants de Maldoror was the first great absurdist novel. Written in the 1860s, it came to be much loved by the surrealists, who famously appropriated the line "beautiful as the chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella." Later still, Nurse With Wound would nick the same line as the title for their debut album. It's a dark read, dense and febrile, and manages to keep its examination of evil interesting by including stuff about sex with sharks. That was what Erik [...]
I know exactly what you're wondering. You want to know what Erik Friedlander does when he's not part of the Masada String Trio. Don't ask how I know. It's uncanny. As luck would have it, I have the answer for you: he makes music exactly like this. Chanting is taken from his 2006 album Prowl , recorded with his band Topaz. It's got a swoony melody, African-influenced percussion, and progresses from dreamy to euphoric without you noticing. Lovely. Erik Friedlander - Chanting [...]
Got this out thanks to my trusty Verizon phone and my laptop. Nothing stops the Friday Mix, not even L'Auberge redlines! Black Lips – Bad Kids Why oh why do bands that suddenly spring up seemingly have such similar names? Why oh why would I decide to put two such bands on one Friday Mix? This and where Jimmy Hoffa is buried will be explained soon. Just kidding, I will only answer [...]
"When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying. But now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss about." – Ingmar Bergman (14.7.1918 - 30.7.2007) Here I'm quoting Ingmar's words again. This time I'm going to say: No, I'm so afraid of it. It has been around me. From the death of Ingmar Berman, Michelangelo Antonioni, Wen Xing Yu (a famous and beloved local actor here), Max Roach, good [...]
For this week's edition of The Daily Graboid I had to actually dig around a bit through the list of releases, because I honestly hadn't listened to hardly anything that came out yesterday. That of course is one of the reasons I love working on this every week because I always discover something new. This week is no different and I happened to come across a couple of albums that I really liked from the few songs I heard. Those being Nina Nastasia & Jim White's You Follow Me and Linda [...]
This weekend I was fortunate enough to pack into a small room and see some of the more talented musicians around. The Music Now festival was the scene. I spoke about it last week already . Bryce Dessner of The National was the co-curator for the event and I could not have been more impressed with what he put together. First let me set the atmosphere. The room was the equivalent of a black box that had been specially desinged and decorated for the event. Karl Jensen contributed some fantastic artwork to the show [...]
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