Jan Dismas Zelenka: Officium Defunctorum

An hour-long live recording of Jan Dismas Zelenka's setting of the Office of the Dead:



Those who would like to hear the different parts of the Officium Defunctorum on separate videos can go here.

I have nothing to add, except that as much as I enjoy sacred music from the Baroque, I have a hard time listening to it in an actual liturgical setting.

H/T: The Western Confucian

Mumford & Sons - The Cave

This song - and the accompanying video - by Mumford & Sons first came to my attention when one of my housemates had a kind of binge, playing it over and over. My first comments were of gentle mockery for his obsession, but I have come rather to enjoy it. Was that an allusion to Book XII of the Odyssey (and do I catch some Republic as well) that I heard? In any event, I am keen to see another folk-rock band - making use of banjo, mandolin, dobro and accordion - making a splash.

And if you liked "The Cave," give a listen to "Winter Winds" or "Little Lion Man". (Warning: the chorus of the later does contains language which may not be appropriate for children.)

Fleet Foxes

This past summer, while living at Quincy and doing research at the National Archives, I had a chance to see the Fleet Foxes at the 9:30 Club. Who are the Fleet Foxes, you ask. A fair question. I described them to my family thus:

They're a high-energy alternative folk band featuring lots of harmonizing. (Four of the five guys in the band do vocals.) Imagine the Beech Boys had a folk conversion, grew beards and moved to West Virginia for a couple years. That would give you something of an approximation.

Let's be honest: concerts are loud. Too loud, in my opinion. But while the 9:30 Club's audio engineer kept the volume at its usual level, the effect was something different. The concert felt like being hit by a solid wall of harmony. Loud, yes, but far more than just noise. Aja Pecknold, sister of the band's front man, describes a similar experience:

The first time I heard “Boots of Spanish Leather,” it was as if all of the oxygen had been drained from the room, suddenly replaced with the wavering golden longing of this one song.

I've included a few YouTube videos, for your viewing pleasure. Above is "He Doesn't Know Why," from their self-titled album. Below is "Blue Ridge Mountains" from the same.



And then there's this one, "White Winter Hymnal," with some slightly scary claymation, but a really awesome song:

Of Archaeology and the Lakes of Canada

Have you ever been out in the midst of the wilds of nature and - in a moment of insight - seen it? The vastness, the stillness, the wonder of it all... There is a kind of clarity that can set in; one begins to see the cosmos as it truly is. And from there thoughts often turn to introspection. We start to see ourselves in a clearer light, somehow.

I spent a couple weeks of the summer of 2005 working on a dig of the Arizona Archaeological Society, north of the Mogollon Rim. I can keenly remember the experience of crawling out of my tent in the early morning, when temperatures were just above freezing. I hate the cold, and I'm not going to pretend that I enjoyed it, but it was one of those experiences of clarity. On those chilly mornings, alone in the woods but for a few fellow archaeologists, far beyond any cell phone coverage or paved roads, I experienced flashes of that kind of clarity.

A few days ago I discovered a husband and wife duo who have apparently had the same experience. In 1999 Karen and Don Peris, otherwise known as The Innocence Mission, released Birds of My Neighborhood, which included "The Lakes of Canada". It's a song that perfectly captures that experience of solitude and wonder and the clarity of spirit that it brings. Economy of words, clean instrumentation and Karen's beautiful voice nail the experience:

There's a sudden joy that's like
a fish, a moving light;
I thought I saw it
rowing on the lakes of Canada...

Walking in the circle of a flashlight
someone starts to sing, to join in.
Talk of loneliness in quiet voices
I am shy but you can reach me.
Rowing on the lakes of Canada...

There's something in her voice that just sounds like vast expanses of water, and evergreen shores and crisp air. You really have to hear it for yourself.

If you have ever looked for a song on YouTube, you know that there are a lot of cheesy slide shows which are not really videos at all, but a sequence of (usually low resolution) pictures, with the kind of transitions that were cool in middle school. I hate to say it, but the first video below is just such a thing. However, it includes the full cut of "The Lakes of Canada," as recorded by The Innocence Mission. (So just minimize the window or otherwise ignore the pictures and listen to the music.) The second video below is actually a real video, of Sufjan Stevens performing a cover.




(In point of fact, I think I saw the Sufjan cover some months ago, but though he does it well, it doesn't quite have the mesmerizing quality of the original, and it didn't stick with me in the same way.)

"The Lakes of Canada" was also released on a five-song EP of the same name in 1999. Since then, The Innocence Mission has released three more albums and another EP. Don Peris also produced friend Dension Witmer's latest album, Are You a Dreamer?. Karen and Don have employed lyrics from Gerard Manley Hopkins and have donated proceeds from one of their albums to the Catholic Relief Fund.

St. Patrick's Day

I suppose tomorrow is the one day everyone is Irish, so I'll share a couple of my favorite youtube videos of Irish music. Also, a few of you may be aware of my obsession with Irish music, so I'm taking opportunity of today to share some of that obsession.

The first video is of the Bothy Band playing a set of three reels. The Bothy Band was a short-lived but greatly influential band in Ireland. They were essentially responsible for rejuvenating Irish music by adding more modern harmonies and rhythms. They were only together from 1975 to 1979 and only made 4 albums, but their style is still very much alive. Also, after the band broke up, the individual members continued to make great music on their own or in new groups.

The second is a video of Seamus Ennis playing an ancient slow air, called "An Raibh tu ag an gCairrag?" Seamus Ennis was of the generation before the Bothy Band who kept the music alive until the revival in the 1970's. Here he is seen playing the distinctively Irish form of the bagpipes, the uillean pipes, in a much more traditional manner than the first video.

Enjoy, and happy St. Patrick's Day!

Erik Mongrain - Eon's Illusion

Maybe y'all already know about Erik Mongrain, but I only learned about him a few days ago when I saw this video. Amazing...

Special thanks to Eric Harnisch over at The Trifector for bringing this video to my attention.

La Llorona

For those looking forward to the new March of the Zapotec EP from Beirut next month, this video of the song "La Llorona" seems to be the only preview available. Hope you enjoy.



A separate EP, though they will be sold together, Beirut's Holland is also due out next month.

Sixteen Military Wives

For you fans of the Decemberists out there, here's one of their videos I came across:



Stephen Colbert described the Decemberists as "hyper-literate prog rock." I once mentioned that in a loud bar and someone thought I had said "hyper-lyric." It could be true; you would be hard pressed to find another musical act with music so full of rich vocabulary, esoteric allusions, dramatic twists and buckets of pathos. (I think pretty much any of their albums could safely be titled "Love and Death.") One of the fun things about their videos is that they do not content themselves with a few shots of the band playing, interspersed with fairly vague and generic scenes which probably have to do with the lyrical content of the song. No, they usually proceed to tell another story, similar to - but often different from - that told in the song. It is almost as though the song is simply the soundtrack for a film short, rather than the film simply being the image side of a music video. In any case, the result is a highly complex assemblage of instruments and vocals, words and images. Like their music generally, the Decemberists' music videos are probably considerably denser than our usual fare, but I think they are quite worth the added digestion.