Top 8 for October 8, 2015

Haven't done this in quite a while, but it was a good music day.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Musica Ricecarata - II: Mesto, rigido e cerimoniale

from the György Ligeti Edition, Volume 3

You may know it as the that three note piano piece from Eyes Wide Shut, but it's hauntingly effective in its simplicity.

Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure

The title song from their second album, Brian Eno's presence is strongly felt, just before his absence was.

J. S. Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 

Top 7 for January 15, 2014

Not Dark Yet – Bob Dylan from Time out of Mind

...but it's getting there

When it came out, we were all like “that's about the end of his voice” and now 15 years later we're like “his voice still sounded good then, compared to his latest record.”

JS Bach: Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord & strings in A minor ('Triple'), BWV 1044 - I: Allegro

performed by Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert in 1984

Top 6 from December 3, 2013

[not a leftover list from 1995, I swear]

1952 Vincent Black Lightning – Richard Thompson from Rumor and Sigh

A short story in song. The type of song the gives its characters last names.

That's just what you are- Aimee Mann from I'm with Stupid

If only for the way the arrangement places Mann's voice between Difford's and Tillbrook's.

The Death of a Disco Dancer – The Smiths, from Strangeways, Here we come!

This goes out to Bibi from John and the S5+2. If you think peace is a common goal, it just goes to show how little you know.

Top 5 from October 16, 2013

Fort Tyron Park on the northern tip of Manhattan.

Get off the subway at 190^th street, learn from my mistake and take the elevator, although the neighborhood is nice, it's a long, steep, winding path up. A rocky, leafy, hilly park with many paths going up and down and around, with a spectacular view of the George Washington Bridge and the NJ Pallisades. All paths lead to the Cloisters, a fantastic little museum (now run by the Metropolitan) of medieval and renaissance and earlier art.

Annunciation Triptych (aka the Merode Altarpiece) by the workshop of Robert Campin, at the Cloisters

The reason we have abstract art today is because they were doing things like this in 1430. I remember talking about this painting in my college art history class. Amazing in its detail – the tiny angel delivering the cross to just conceived Jesus, the candle smoldering to life from the divine presence. The patron and his wife watching through the doorway on one side panel, Joseph working away not knowing what's about to hit him on the other. Tournai appears through the window rather than Nazareth. I leaned in far enough to set off the YOU'RE STANDING TOO CLOSE whistle and took an ipod photo after staring gob-smacked for about 15 minutes (as opposed to the guy who was walking through the galleries taking a picture of each object seemingly so he could look at it later at home on his computer).