Saturday, November 28, 2009
Painting Music - Top 10 Albums
Since discovering the iPod I now rarely listen to whole albums while I paint as I just create play lists to suit my mood. But some albums just play well all the way through so I still use them in the studio.
Here's Ten albums that have kept me company during the completion of a painting or two..
Here's Ten albums that have kept me company during the completion of a painting or two..
- Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate
Anything by Leonard is good to paint to though. - Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and the Johnsons
This self titled album is a beauty. Antony Hegarty sings like an angel. All his stuff is good. - The Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur
Lovely album.. how could you not love this? - Angus and Julia Stone - A Book Like This
Australian brother and sister duo. - Eddie Vedder - Music for the Motion Picture Into the Wild
For some reason, this album always makes me want to give away all my possessions and travel. Perhaps it's because I saw the movie. - Joan Valent - Insula Poetica
Beautifully haunting music.. yum. - Moby - Go: The Very Best of Moby
I sometimes need a lift in the studio. - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
This album has a habit of taking me back to darker times, so I'm careful how I use it. - Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions - Bavarian Fruit Bread
Her Mazzy Star albums are nice too. - PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
I no longer have a working version of this CD but that's because it used to live in my studio.
I really do like a lot of different types of music though. What are your TOP albums that you couldn't live without in the studio? I need some new tunes on my itunes.
¶ 7:02 AM
Dire Straits is one of my recent discoveries. It's very chill and mellow, but has a great beat. It can match almost any mood.
L. Cohen is at the top of my list for listening, and his lyrics make great titles: eg the Tower of Song, The night comes on etc.
Wow, I didn't know we shared a love of Hope Sandovals music Dion.. cool!
Although I go through music like burnt sienna here's some current faves for painting and Ipodville:
The Sea and the Cake - One Bedroom
Steely Dan - Aja
Tom Waits - Heart Attack and Vine
Nouvelle Vague - Bande A Part
The Go-Betweens - Bellavista Terrace (best of)
Bombay Dub Orchestra - (self titled)
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacia
Gare Du Nord - Kind of Cool
Bent - Programmed to Love
Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs for Drella
Although I go through music like burnt sienna here's some current faves for painting and Ipodville:
The Sea and the Cake - One Bedroom
Steely Dan - Aja
Tom Waits - Heart Attack and Vine
Nouvelle Vague - Bande A Part
The Go-Betweens - Bellavista Terrace (best of)
Bombay Dub Orchestra - (self titled)
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacia
Gare Du Nord - Kind of Cool
Bent - Programmed to Love
Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs for Drella
Here are some ambient, downtempo sounds. May give you nice background music for contemplation:
Arovane - atol scrap
Boards of Canada - music has the right to children
Alva Noto%Ryuichi Sakamoto - insen
Tycho - sunrise projector
Arovane - atol scrap
Boards of Canada - music has the right to children
Alva Noto%Ryuichi Sakamoto - insen
Tycho - sunrise projector
Aaaaah now Dion, ya shouldnt have gone there. As i have recently given up the silly idea of getting a new turntable(before your time) and started to refurbish my musical trove, here goes.
Always necessary, giving the focus and complexity of Euro classical musics but in our modern lives, with a rhythmic complexity far beyond Europes ability with their reliance on time signatures alone.
Everything by Miles Davis. Thats about 30 some studio albums, I got 12 total now. The Matisse of Modern Music, but listening to:
1. My Funny Valentine.
The ballads of the famous Lincoln birthday 1964 concert at the new Lincoln Center, to fundraise for southern voter registration. The best live CD ever, with its faster paced cuts from the concert, Four and More, also in cue.
2. Water Babies. When I heard this delayed release in 1976 when I was 17, I knew i had finally found what i was looking for. This is art. From the later freebop phase when Wayne Shorter joined the group that was above with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, the best quintet ever except for.....
3. Kind of Blue. The best selling jazz album of all time, at 30 million and growing at 30k a month, in a few dozen years will be the best selling CD of all time, as all the old Elvis and MJ lovers drop dead. Kids dont care, but they buy Miles from all over the world. It ended the beginning of Modern music, and started the second phase of modal instead of chord based Bebop and Hard bop changes. It consumated in the 1964 concert.
4. In A Silent Way. As these above two ended and started new approaches to music, it did also as the first partly electronic, and studio tape cut and paste, collage type piece of jazz music ever. Rockers tried to copy it, like Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, but lead to the fusion movement, which unfortunately also was the death rattle of Modern music. Some great stuff from Weather Report and Jaco and Herbie to come, but lesser talents availed its simpler structures and minimal fundamentals. Still an incredible, mesmerizing CD. Probably amazing when stoned, I wouldnt know. :)
5. John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, as my Judgment Chapel is based n its music, gotta keep it flowing. Huge seller in the 60s, all the hippies had it, and gave the instensity the Frisco folks wanted but in 1965, they could never come close it its power or technical virtuosity.
6. Other Coltrane albums of this time, Coltrane, Crescent, and Kulu Se Mama. Which is about the last great album he did, hear he may have been dropping acid, which would explain his from then on descent into turmoil and emotional imbalances. His great band left, and did spacey stuff like Instellar Space and Cosmos with lesser talentstil his death in 1967. With his previous 6 years of incredible work, he was the Picasso of music. After Miles Kind of Blue album(an archaic term for CD) he left that band and with his Giant Steps CD, and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come, in the great Year of 1959(my birth) brought the maturity and peak of creative genius Modern art had from 1906 on for the next two decades. Kind of Blue being the Demoiselles d'Avignon of music, though not shocking, it was in its new found freedom and perfect simplicity.
Always necessary, giving the focus and complexity of Euro classical musics but in our modern lives, with a rhythmic complexity far beyond Europes ability with their reliance on time signatures alone.
Everything by Miles Davis. Thats about 30 some studio albums, I got 12 total now. The Matisse of Modern Music, but listening to:
1. My Funny Valentine.
The ballads of the famous Lincoln birthday 1964 concert at the new Lincoln Center, to fundraise for southern voter registration. The best live CD ever, with its faster paced cuts from the concert, Four and More, also in cue.
2. Water Babies. When I heard this delayed release in 1976 when I was 17, I knew i had finally found what i was looking for. This is art. From the later freebop phase when Wayne Shorter joined the group that was above with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, the best quintet ever except for.....
3. Kind of Blue. The best selling jazz album of all time, at 30 million and growing at 30k a month, in a few dozen years will be the best selling CD of all time, as all the old Elvis and MJ lovers drop dead. Kids dont care, but they buy Miles from all over the world. It ended the beginning of Modern music, and started the second phase of modal instead of chord based Bebop and Hard bop changes. It consumated in the 1964 concert.
4. In A Silent Way. As these above two ended and started new approaches to music, it did also as the first partly electronic, and studio tape cut and paste, collage type piece of jazz music ever. Rockers tried to copy it, like Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, but lead to the fusion movement, which unfortunately also was the death rattle of Modern music. Some great stuff from Weather Report and Jaco and Herbie to come, but lesser talents availed its simpler structures and minimal fundamentals. Still an incredible, mesmerizing CD. Probably amazing when stoned, I wouldnt know. :)
5. John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, as my Judgment Chapel is based n its music, gotta keep it flowing. Huge seller in the 60s, all the hippies had it, and gave the instensity the Frisco folks wanted but in 1965, they could never come close it its power or technical virtuosity.
6. Other Coltrane albums of this time, Coltrane, Crescent, and Kulu Se Mama. Which is about the last great album he did, hear he may have been dropping acid, which would explain his from then on descent into turmoil and emotional imbalances. His great band left, and did spacey stuff like Instellar Space and Cosmos with lesser talentstil his death in 1967. With his previous 6 years of incredible work, he was the Picasso of music. After Miles Kind of Blue album(an archaic term for CD) he left that band and with his Giant Steps CD, and Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come, in the great Year of 1959(my birth) brought the maturity and peak of creative genius Modern art had from 1906 on for the next two decades. Kind of Blue being the Demoiselles d'Avignon of music, though not shocking, it was in its new found freedom and perfect simplicity.
for singers
9. New Moon Daughter, by Cassandra Wilson, from about 1997. Found a way to mix folk musics from around the world, though mostly the blues in the south, and folk tunes and latin musics, it used jazz and classical musics to make something new, yet old at the same time. All acoustic, her accordion accompanied, French and cajun style, Until, is absolutely, amazingly, heart breakingly beautiful.
10. My girl Tricia Tahara from the same year, with an great band of Wallace Roney and his wife Geri Allen on piano. He had a 8 record deal, was to be the new Miles, and could get what he wanted done. Tricia did an amazing job, her classical trained voice took on extraordinarily difficult pieces like Hancock's Butterfly and Shorter/Miles Footprints, didnt think a singer could handle it.
And a beautiful aria, with a freebop interlude by Wallace. Amazing, but out of print. Still trying to get her singing, but married a rich lil dud and taking art classes instead. What a waste.
Still can be heard and bought on Amazon though.
Tricia Tahara, Secrets
Told you you shouldnt have.
have a nice day.
art collegia delenda est
9. New Moon Daughter, by Cassandra Wilson, from about 1997. Found a way to mix folk musics from around the world, though mostly the blues in the south, and folk tunes and latin musics, it used jazz and classical musics to make something new, yet old at the same time. All acoustic, her accordion accompanied, French and cajun style, Until, is absolutely, amazingly, heart breakingly beautiful.
10. My girl Tricia Tahara from the same year, with an great band of Wallace Roney and his wife Geri Allen on piano. He had a 8 record deal, was to be the new Miles, and could get what he wanted done. Tricia did an amazing job, her classical trained voice took on extraordinarily difficult pieces like Hancock's Butterfly and Shorter/Miles Footprints, didnt think a singer could handle it.
And a beautiful aria, with a freebop interlude by Wallace. Amazing, but out of print. Still trying to get her singing, but married a rich lil dud and taking art classes instead. What a waste.
Still can be heard and bought on Amazon though.
Tricia Tahara, Secrets
Told you you shouldnt have.
have a nice day.
art collegia delenda est
Anything by:
Sonic Youth
The Replacements
Wilco
Old school reggae (i.e. Marley, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Clff, Lee "Scratch" Perry)
Buddy Holly
Coltrane's A Love Supreme (in agreement with Mr. Frazell)
Miles Davis Sketches of Spain
The Delfonics La-La Means I Love You: The Definitive Collection
And many more
Sonic Youth
The Replacements
Wilco
Old school reggae (i.e. Marley, Desmond Dekker, Jimmy Clff, Lee "Scratch" Perry)
Buddy Holly
Coltrane's A Love Supreme (in agreement with Mr. Frazell)
Miles Davis Sketches of Spain
The Delfonics La-La Means I Love You: The Definitive Collection
And many more
Babyshambles - Down in Albion
Morrissey - Bona Drag
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# (Infinity)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Aphex twin - Druqks
Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling
Joy Division - Heart and Soul (Box Set)
Bon Hiver - For Emma Forever Ago
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Tender Prey
Morrissey - Bona Drag
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# (Infinity)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Aphex twin - Druqks
Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling
Joy Division - Heart and Soul (Box Set)
Bon Hiver - For Emma Forever Ago
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Tender Prey
When doing a happier painting, I actually do a few of those, I play Stevie Wonder, mostly Talking Book, but also Innervisions.
Also, my wife got a compliation of African pop tunes, just called Africa. pretty cool stuff, and very appropriate for my middle panel which can be Yeshua, an angel, muhammed(but didnt hear that from me), or any other holy man like Buddha who is welcoming a soul into heaven. She loves the tune A-salaam Malaikum especially, she is such a good muslim girl. Euro and American pop have no sway outside of there and the far east, Latin America and Africa have completely different pop musics, more R and B influenced with a cross current back and forth with the blues, sambas and reggae too. India is completely different.
The panel has symbols of most remaining religions in it, mostly hidden, but couldnt fit Zoroastrians Ahura Mazda into it. That Persian religion influenced most to come, and the ideas of angels and demons and one supreme god where Judaism still had their god as the true but not only god still. Derived from the Egyptians Amon Re and Amarna style of King Tuts father. They freed the Jews from the Babylonian captivity because they counted YHWH as being in the good lower god camp.
Still need to get The Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East, its more blues than rock, but really does rock like mad, but swings as all blues and jazz do too. Whiping Post and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed are classics, the who damn double album is, Duane Allman the best rock/blues guitarist besides Hendrix by far.
Also, my wife got a compliation of African pop tunes, just called Africa. pretty cool stuff, and very appropriate for my middle panel which can be Yeshua, an angel, muhammed(but didnt hear that from me), or any other holy man like Buddha who is welcoming a soul into heaven. She loves the tune A-salaam Malaikum especially, she is such a good muslim girl. Euro and American pop have no sway outside of there and the far east, Latin America and Africa have completely different pop musics, more R and B influenced with a cross current back and forth with the blues, sambas and reggae too. India is completely different.
The panel has symbols of most remaining religions in it, mostly hidden, but couldnt fit Zoroastrians Ahura Mazda into it. That Persian religion influenced most to come, and the ideas of angels and demons and one supreme god where Judaism still had their god as the true but not only god still. Derived from the Egyptians Amon Re and Amarna style of King Tuts father. They freed the Jews from the Babylonian captivity because they counted YHWH as being in the good lower god camp.
Still need to get The Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East, its more blues than rock, but really does rock like mad, but swings as all blues and jazz do too. Whiping Post and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed are classics, the who damn double album is, Duane Allman the best rock/blues guitarist besides Hendrix by far.
Wow - someone who shares my Antony fetish! ("I'm a birdgirl, and birdgirls go to heaven....). Eddie Vedder "Unplugged" AND from "Into the wild" are also on high rotation on my ipod. Just talking about music puts me in a great mood!.
I love the soundtrack from the movie, "Once" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova especially "Falling Slowly". I also love Radiohead "the Bends" and Bjork (Unbelievable in concert!) without the screeching - both for their creativity which seems to inspire me to take more risks when painting! Thanks for this list!
I love the soundtrack from the movie, "Once" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova especially "Falling Slowly". I also love Radiohead "the Bends" and Bjork (Unbelievable in concert!) without the screeching - both for their creativity which seems to inspire me to take more risks when painting! Thanks for this list!
William Orbit's Strange Cargo 2 and Depeche Mode's Violator got me through art school.
Now, as a teacher, I find much inspiration from what my students bring to the studio. Some good, some bad, but always interesting.
Now, as a teacher, I find much inspiration from what my students bring to the studio. Some good, some bad, but always interesting.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# (Infinity) - I would have to second - anything by them is interesting to paint to.
Currently, for seated painting/drawing:
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Cat Power - anything
For standing work:
Franz Ferdinand - Tonight
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
My old standbys for painting are The Cure's Disintegration and Pornography and things by Joy Division.
Currently, for seated painting/drawing:
PJ Harvey - White Chalk
Cat Power - anything
For standing work:
Franz Ferdinand - Tonight
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
My old standbys for painting are The Cure's Disintegration and Pornography and things by Joy Division.
most of my painting music is brought to me by the models I paint... my biggest exceptions are:
Debussy - Children's music... (I actually get color flashes as I listen)
Edith Piaf
Keb Mo
Johnny Cash
Lila Downs
Nora Jones
And when I paint outside... I always have hardcore rap going on my ipod... not sure why, but the beats keep in time with that of the city!
Debussy - Children's music... (I actually get color flashes as I listen)
Edith Piaf
Keb Mo
Johnny Cash
Lila Downs
Nora Jones
And when I paint outside... I always have hardcore rap going on my ipod... not sure why, but the beats keep in time with that of the city!
I try not to overplay anything. But I usually reach for:
Cabaret Voltaire
Bill Nelson
Yello
Andrea Parker
Plasticland
Beatles
John Foxx
Clock DVA
Kraftwerk
Ryoji Ikeda
Sheila Chandra
Cabaret Voltaire
Bill Nelson
Yello
Andrea Parker
Plasticland
Beatles
John Foxx
Clock DVA
Kraftwerk
Ryoji Ikeda
Sheila Chandra
Cool post, thanks for sharing, Ludovico Einaudi does it for me from start to finish also like a bit of Quantic from time to time depending on the mood and the subject I'm painting. If I'm doing sunsets and seascapes its normally Einaudi or sometimes even Beethoven.
Anthony is great, he does an amazing version of If it be Your Will by Leonard Cohen - gives me goosebumps.
I'd add to the list Faithless, Nina Simone and Asian Dud Foundation.
I'd add to the list Faithless, Nina Simone and Asian Dud Foundation.
I always find inspiration in these albums when I'm painting:
To The Teeth by Ani DiFranco - it's not one of her angry chic albums. Her painterly poetry is infused with jazzier, swingin' elements.
Kid A by Radiohead - anything by Radiohead is filled with melodies, harmonies, and rhythms that inspire me to find the harmonies and rhythms in my work, but this album really helps me explore creativity.
Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tiersen - some good ol' instrumental music without getting too intellectual. Sometimes I find classical and jazz can be too intricate for me to focus on what is visual. This music helps my visual imagination run.
Already Free by Derek Trucks - when I need to rock out to something cheerful, heavy, lyrical, soulful, I turn to this talented slide guitar player.
To The Teeth by Ani DiFranco - it's not one of her angry chic albums. Her painterly poetry is infused with jazzier, swingin' elements.
Kid A by Radiohead - anything by Radiohead is filled with melodies, harmonies, and rhythms that inspire me to find the harmonies and rhythms in my work, but this album really helps me explore creativity.
Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tiersen - some good ol' instrumental music without getting too intellectual. Sometimes I find classical and jazz can be too intricate for me to focus on what is visual. This music helps my visual imagination run.
Already Free by Derek Trucks - when I need to rock out to something cheerful, heavy, lyrical, soulful, I turn to this talented slide guitar player.
Great list, I share your interest in Antony and the Johnsons. Its amazing how listening to certain music can change how you paint. The influence of art on art is fascinating to me. Nice post.
RADIOHEAD!! over and over again. Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief and Kid A.
also Marsvolta's Amputechture.
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also Marsvolta's Amputechture.
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