David Bowie - "Welcome to the Blackout (Live in London '78) 3 x Vinyl, 2018 (Parlophone)

If I can look into the fortune teller's crystal ball, I can safely predict that there will be many more live David Bowie albums in the coming years.   Which by the way, I'm not complaining.   "Welcome to the Blackout" was recorded on June 30, and July 1, 1978, and the last shows of this particular tour.  Oddly enough I do not have "Stage" in my collection, so I can't make the comparisons between the two live albums, which were both recorded on the same tour.  On the other hand, it's an exciting mix of musicians backing Bowie up.  There's the Station to Station lineup of George Murray, Carlos Alomar, and Dennis Davis - a powerful rhythm section with Alomar mostly on rhythm guitar. Then there is the arty side, which is Adrian Belew, Roger Powell (from Todd's Utopia), Sean Mayes, and violinist Simon House who played with Hawkwind.

If this were a sandwich, Murray/Alomar/Davis would be the meat, and the others are expensive dressings on those two pieces of bread.  It's a terrific band, but on record, I think I prefer the Station to Station group because it was more focused and had a more of an attack on the material.  The songs on this album are almost speeding metal versions, in that the pacing is upbeat, and goes quite quickly.  Bowie's vocals and pronunciations are perfectly pitched and entirely understandable.  The Ziggy Stardust side doesn't allow any space or silence between the songs.  It's one rush of a full-length melody that is effective.  Their version of "Ziggy Stardust" is very textured and exciting interplay between the electric violin and Belew's guitar.  

The material is very much Ziggy (all in one go) with a few songs from "Station to Station" and the rest from "Low" and "Heroes."  Oh, and there is an excellent Weill/Brecht song as well.  A must for the collection or completist, but is it essential?   Tony Visconti did the original recording of the album, and Bowie did finish this live album at the time, but forever reasons, was never released until now.  Perhaps Bowie himself is a completionist as well. 

Various - "Babylon Berlin" OST, 3 x Vinyl, 2 x CD, LP, Album, Germany, 2018 (BMG)

Only a few times in my old life have I been affected by a film/show where I needed to get the soundtrack of that work right away.  "Performance" and "A Clockwork Orange" comes to mind that I raced to the record store to get those OST albums after seeing those films in a theater.  "Babylon Berlin" is the third soundtrack album, where I was compelled due to the excellence of the show, and how important the recording was to the images that came on my TV set.  "Babylon Berlin is a German TV show based on a series of detective novels by Volker Kutscher that takes place in the Weimar Republic.  The program is a mixture of noir and the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.  The soundtrack is mostly composed by one of the show's directors Tom Tykwer and composer Johnny Kilmek.  This three disk set if you play from side one to the last,  is two hours long.   Along with the Tykwer/Kilmek music, you also get the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, with Ferry on vocals on two cuts, the Moka Efti Orchestra, one song by Tim Fischer, and blues performer/guitarist (& wonderfully named) Guitar Crusher.

Like the production of the show, this soundtrack is a form of perfection as well.   When I first heard it, I thought it sounded like electronic music, but as far as I can tell, this is real instruments in a large ensemble, playing very complexed pieces.  It sounds like music composed/made in Germany in the late 1920s, but in actuality, the work is very layered and contemporary, but with one foot in the past, and the other very much in present 21st-century music.    The album by its packaging and theme one would think it will be nostalgic music, but the work is very 'now,' and is very much music based on the past, but with overtures to that's post-modern in practice.  The Bryan Ferry Orchestra is a perfect example of re-thinking one's work (Ferry's songs for solo and Roxy Music)  and placing it in another era.  For Ferry, I think it was another way of bringing life to his melodies or framing it in a new position where one listens to the work in a new way.  Ironically it's remembrances are from the past, but it's old music presented in a new manner.  Tykwer and Kilmek use the same method, but it's modernism that is the engine that makes this music so appealing.  The key track is "Zu Asche, Zu Staub" which is one of the great end-of-credit songs ever.   Also music (video) showpiece for "Babylon Berlin," with a cross-dressing erotic presence of Severija.  The show looks like it cost Millions (and it did) but also the soundtrack sounds as expensive to produce as well. 

Some soundtracks bring up the images from the film/show when you play it, and the music does that when you listen to "Babylon Berlin," but the other aspect is that this is music that can exist by itself.  A vibrant soundtrack to a historically significant (and sad) culture is placed on the grooves of this work by Ferry, Tykwer, and Kilmek. 

Steve Reich - "Drumming/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ/Six Pianos" 3XVinyl Box Set, 1974 (Deutsche Grammophon)

The ultimate recording from Steve Reich.  Three albums of minimal persuasion and keyboard work that is maximum in scope and sound.   Reich's work is not meditative music, but one where the listener has to sit in front of the speakers and let this aural wash come and take you over. I have to presume that these three albums were released separately, but due to some marketing genius on the label has decided to make it into a Box-Set.  Going through all three albums in one sitting may be tough, not because of the work itself, but each piece is a demanding presence in one's life. For me, it has an exotic appeal, because I think of mallets coming from a foreign island in the Pacific.  Again, what do I know, but that is the visual image I get while listening to "Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices & Organ." 

All pieces by Reich strike me as a pattern.  When I hear this music, I see structures or things being attached to each other.  There is an architectural quality to Reich's compositions.  There's a foundation built, and then he adds textures on top of that landscape, and I feel he's building from the ground and then up to the sky.   I'm sure there is a spiritual aspect to Reich, but for me, it is more about the mechanics of life, as if it was a cycle.  The Four Seasons, Sunday through Saturday, the 24-hour day, I feel all of that is very much part of Reich's aesthetic.  So when you go into Reich's world, you have to surrender 'your' sense of time and be merged into the Reich world. 

Pablo Cassals -"Pablo Casals Conducts Bach: The Six Brandenburg Concertos; Orchestral Suites Nos. 2 and 3" 3 x Vinyl, LP, Album, 1965 (Columbia)

When I listen to this box set of Pablo Casals' recordings of the Six Brandenburg Concertos; Orchestral Suites Nos. 2 & 3, I think not of pictures, but shapes.  Bach's music is very circular, and one can enter and exit from that circle.  What I hear is not passion but an obsession of mathematical systems and the organized culture that is an orchestra or string section.  A perfect balance between the musicians and the give and take at a particular point in the music.

It's shocking to hear someone breathing or even singing along (Glenn Gould style) with the piano.  It's the series of moments where the human essence is felt and not the concept. This is the beauty of Bach's music performed.  It's a chemistry formula that has been tested through the ages and played well.   The other thing that comes to mind is that Bach's music is truly timeless. As I listen, I don't think of a specific age.  To me, it could have been written in the 21st century.   The precision of the idea and the practice of that craft makes Bach an essential experience.

Fred Astaire - "The Astaire Story, With The Stars of Jazz at the Philharmonic" 3xVinyl, LP, Reissue, 1953 (DRG Records)

A superb box set of three discs plus booklet.  A recording made in Los Angeles, December 1952, with Jazz musicians Oscar Peterson, Barney Kessel, Charlie Shavers, Flip Phillips, Ray Brown, and Alvin Stoller.   And our Fred Astaire as lead vocalist and tap dancer (or percussion for this album).  Astaire is an iconic dancer of films made from the Depression 1950s to the atomic age 1950s.  He is also an incredible vocalist, and in fact, Cole Porter has commented that Fred is his favorite singer of his songs.   This album exposes that sentiment as well as his role in modern Jazz.   

Astaire sings the classics that he's known for through his various film work, but for the first time, the setting is him being surrounded by Jazz players.  "The Astaire Story" is very much a jazz vocalist album with the additional highlights of him tap dancing as a percussionist of sorts.  What one would think this would have been an alien landscape for Astaire is actually a natural playground for him.  He sings like a great jazz vocalist, who due to his sense of rhythm, totally makes him one with the arrangements on this album.   The gentleman in hand is a sophisticated figure, and this album reeks of sophistication and style.  Brilliant package with an excellent booklet of photos and drawings done at the time of the session.