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1000 results for “buffyleigh”
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Fantastic discovery thanks to @buffyleigh also listed in the #1001otheralbums list. If #DiamandaGalas is ever looking for someone to carry her torch.....
#LinguaIgnota - Caligula dl 2019 on the marvelous #ProfoundLoreRecords
http://linguaignota.bandcamp.com/album/caligula -
Fantastic discovery thanks to @buffyleigh also listed in the #1001otheralbums list. If #DiamandaGalas is ever looking for someone to carry her torch.....
#LinguaIgnota - Caligula dl 2019 on the marvelous #ProfoundLoreRecords
http://linguaignota.bandcamp.com/album/caligula -
Wonderful discovery thanks to @buffyleigh and her contribution to the #1001OtherAlbums list..... experimental First Nations music by the #MedicineSingers - Medicine Singers cd on #StoneTapes #JoyfulNoiseRecordings 2022
http://medicinesingers.bandcamp.com/album/medicine-singers -
Wonderful discovery thanks to @buffyleigh and her contribution to the #1001OtherAlbums list..... experimental First Nations music by the #MedicineSingers - Medicine Singers cd on #StoneTapes #JoyfulNoiseRecordings 2022
http://medicinesingers.bandcamp.com/album/medicine-singers -
Wonderful discovery thanks to @buffyleigh and her contribution to the #1001OtherAlbums list..... experimental First Nations music by the #MedicineSingers - Medicine Singers cd on #StoneTapes #JoyfulNoiseRecordings 2022
http://medicinesingers.bandcamp.com/album/medicine-singers -
Wonderful discovery thanks to @buffyleigh and her contribution to the #1001OtherAlbums list..... experimental First Nations music by the #MedicineSingers - Medicine Singers cd on #StoneTapes #JoyfulNoiseRecordings 2022
http://medicinesingers.bandcamp.com/album/medicine-singers -
David Bowie - Earthling
When @buffyleigh was going through the entire Bowie discography and she came to this album I realized I had never really listened to it. Outside of the “hit” (I’m Afraid of Americans). So I listened to it once through on YouTube and knew I wanted it on vinyl.
I seem to remember it was sorta written off as Bowie trend hopping—NIN, Chemical Brothers, Prodigy. But Bowie has always been someone who has absorbed the zeitgeist and made it his own. This album has held up incredibly well. While you can hear those late 90s influences, it doesn’t sound dated at all.
#vinyl #vinylCollection #nowPlaying
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Still a day behind on @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. I made a playlist yesterday of live versions of all the songs on #Earthling (only 2 aren't on the various live albums found on Spotify). On the Earthling tour, David and Gail Ann Dorsey duetted on Under Pressure, and Gail sang lead on a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (linked).
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Still a day behind on @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. I made a playlist yesterday of live versions of all the songs on #Earthling (only 2 aren't on the various live albums found on Spotify). On the Earthling tour, David and Gail Ann Dorsey duetted on Under Pressure, and Gail sang lead on a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (linked).
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Still a day behind on @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. I made a playlist yesterday of live versions of all the songs on #Earthling (only 2 aren't on the various live albums found on Spotify). On the Earthling tour, David and Gail Ann Dorsey duetted on Under Pressure, and Gail sang lead on a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (linked).
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Still a day behind on @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. I made a playlist yesterday of live versions of all the songs on #Earthling (only 2 aren't on the various live albums found on Spotify). On the Earthling tour, David and Gail Ann Dorsey duetted on Under Pressure, and Gail sang lead on a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (linked).
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Still a day behind on @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. I made a playlist yesterday of live versions of all the songs on #Earthling (only 2 aren't on the various live albums found on Spotify). On the Earthling tour, David and Gail Ann Dorsey duetted on Under Pressure, and Gail sang lead on a cover of Laurie Anderson's O Superman (linked).
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I'm still a day behind with @buffyleigh's #BowieADay. The Outside album was the first DB album that had really excited me since Tin Machine 1, and it's still in heavy rotation. I saw the tour with Nine Inch Nails that year and was floored. I consider it pretty flawless, though Oxford Town and Architects Eyes are probably my favourite songs.
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#BowieADay log entry 24
Looking at the schedule @buffyleigh prepared for this journey I realized that the grand finale would be this Sunday. I take the liberty to be a bit early and finish this Friday, if that's ok for y'all?
Reality hit me hard. Bowie's Reality I mean. This album is fantastic, I was blown away really.
There are so many references to his very beginnings. And the song linked below might as well have been on The Man Who Sold The world.
I love it. I love #Bowie!
🎵 Try Some, Buy Some by #DavidBowie
💿 Reality, 2003
▶️ https://song.link/y/vNKabvzalC4 -
Hard to look at artwork but a very good album indeed @buffyleigh
Celestial Blues from #KingWoman -
Really cool.... thanks @buffyleigh
#SightlessPit – Grave Of A Dog cd on #ThrillJockey 2020
http://sightlesspit.bandcamp.com/album/grave-of-a-dog -
I wanted to show you my shirt.
@buffyleigh it reminded me of you!
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Our next spotlight is on number 254 on The List, which yours truly submitted (Mastodon handle: buffyleigh).
ESG (or, Emerald, Sapphire & Gold) is an iconic no wave/post-punk/art-funk band, founded in 1978 by three sisters from the South Bronx, Renee, Valerie, and Marie Scroggins. After recording 3 songs for their 1981 “You’re No Good” single with the infamous Martin Hannett for Factory Records, the single was expanded and released the same year on 99 Records as their self-titled EP. Both the single and EP contain what is perhaps their most well-known work, albeit indirectly – the instrumental “UFO” is one of the most sampled songs ever, used in at least 580 tracks by artists such as The Notorious B.I.G., MF Doom, Public Enemy, N.W.A, Beastie Boys, TLC, Nine Inch Nails, and even Miles Davis. “Moody”, the other song from their initial single, and the EP in general, was also a huge hit in clubs and the house music scene. The band played the opening night of The Haçienda, the legendary Manchester nightclub.
Come Away with ESG is the band’s first full-length, containing songs from their previous EPs (including an extended version of “Moody”) as well as some other great danceable tunes. For this album, the Scroggins’ sister Deborah also joined. As with the previous EPs, the sound is minimal, stripped-down, and funky, focusing on drums, bass, congas, and some vocals sprinkled here and there. While it would be nearly 10 years until their next release (partially due to 99 Records shutting down soon after Come Away with ESG), the band remained active into the 90s, and continues today.
And indeed, though the LP and band in general have been cited over the decades by numerous artists as being enormously influential, ESG has recently had a well-deserved resurgence in attention. The self-titled EP was revamped into a 2015 Record Store Day release called The Moody EP (which is how they came across my radar). Come Away with ESG (with new cover art) was reissued by Fire Records for its 35th anniversary in 2018, and a 33 1/3 volume dedicated to the LP was published in 2023. A documentary on the band, Are You Serious? The ESG Story, directed by Renee Scoggins, was just released in January, with screenings accompanying live shows.
If you’re looking into what New York City’s no wave genre/scene of the 70s and 80s entailed, make sure to include ESG in your playlist!
[Alt text for accompanying image: The artwork is a collage created by torn up black and white photos of hands, a boombox, someone smiling, and a fire hydrant. The top and bottom are bright orange, with the album title in the top right corner, and small photos of the band members in the bottom right corner.]
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/03/06/esg-come-away-with-esg-1983-us/
#1001OtherAlbums #1980s #ESG #FactoryRecords #funk #MartinHannett #noWave #postPunk #US
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Continuing our journey through the epic Fedi-sourced catalogue of must-hear albums, our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by buffyleigh (me). This is a live album from sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist Ian William Craig, recorded in a small Latvian church at the end of his tour nearly 10 years ago for the brilliant studio album Centres. With a couple of tracks stretching past 20 minutes in length, the live format lets Ian experiment to his heart's content, magically looping, delaying, distorting, and further manipulating tape through various faulty cassette machines, creating a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for his vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted.
Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at @1001otheralbums.com or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2026/03/25/ian-william-craig-durbe-2017-canada/
Want to skip straight to the music? Here's the Bandcamp: https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-durb
Happy listening!
#IanWilliamCraig #experimental #TapeLoops #electronic #ambient #soundscape #music #1001OtherAlbums
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Continuing our journey through the epic Fedi-sourced catalogue of must-hear albums, our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by buffyleigh (me). This is a live album from sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist Ian William Craig, recorded in a small Latvian church at the end of his tour nearly 10 years ago for the brilliant studio album Centres. With a couple of tracks stretching past 20 minutes in length, the live format lets Ian experiment to his heart's content, magically looping, delaying, distorting, and further manipulating tape through various faulty cassette machines, creating a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for his vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted.
Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at @1001otheralbums.com or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2026/03/25/ian-william-craig-durbe-2017-canada/
Want to skip straight to the music? Here's the Bandcamp: https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-durb
Happy listening!
#IanWilliamCraig #experimental #TapeLoops #electronic #ambient #soundscape #music #1001OtherAlbums
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Continuing our journey through the epic Fedi-sourced catalogue of must-hear albums, our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by buffyleigh (me). This is a live album from sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist Ian William Craig, recorded in a small Latvian church at the end of his tour nearly 10 years ago for the brilliant studio album Centres. With a couple of tracks stretching past 20 minutes in length, the live format lets Ian experiment to his heart's content, magically looping, delaying, distorting, and further manipulating tape through various faulty cassette machines, creating a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for his vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted.
Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at @1001otheralbums.com or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2026/03/25/ian-william-craig-durbe-2017-canada/
Want to skip straight to the music? Here's the Bandcamp: https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-durb
Happy listening!
#IanWilliamCraig #experimental #TapeLoops #electronic #ambient #soundscape #music #1001OtherAlbums
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Continuing our journey through the epic Fedi-sourced catalogue of must-hear albums, our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by buffyleigh (me). This is a live album from sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist Ian William Craig, recorded in a small Latvian church at the end of his tour nearly 10 years ago for the brilliant studio album Centres. With a couple of tracks stretching past 20 minutes in length, the live format lets Ian experiment to his heart's content, magically looping, delaying, distorting, and further manipulating tape through various faulty cassette machines, creating a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for his vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted.
Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at @1001otheralbums.com or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2026/03/25/ian-william-craig-durbe-2017-canada/
Want to skip straight to the music? Here's the Bandcamp: https://ianwilliamcraig.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-durb
Happy listening!
#IanWilliamCraig #experimental #TapeLoops #electronic #ambient #soundscape #music #1001OtherAlbums
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
A couple weeks ago I began a listening project where I’ll be going through all my old AOTY lists to see if they still hold up, listening to each album on those lists and re-ranking or removing as needed. By coincidence – as I already had this album picked for the next spotlight – the first AOTY list I re-evaluated was my 2016 list that included Centres, a brilliant studio album from the sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist we’re listening to today, Ian William Craig. And I sure am glad for that coincidence, as in revisiting that list I realized that (a) I somehow didn’t have Centres in my digital library (only on vinyl), (b) both Centres and Durbē have a couple of the same songs, and (c) Durbē – alternatively titled Live in Durbē – was recorded at a show (in August 2017) that was part of Ian’s tour for Centres (released July 2017).
In my defence, 2016/17 was during a bit of a (pre-pandemic-black-hole) black hole for me, and I was using a listening methodology to approach this artist/album that was rather different from my usual nerdy methodology (see Spotlight, Version B[1]). Also, I have a brain like a sieve, and, if an album only exists in my vinyl collection, it can unfortunately become forgotten. At any rate, my ignorance can perhaps be at least partially excused because one of the shared songs exists in a vastly different form on the live album – while the studio version of “The Nearness” came in at just under 8 minutes, on Durbē it stretches to over 21 glorious minutes. And perhaps this is why my brain latched onto Durbē much more strongly than Centres: the live format really allows Ian the space to do his thing, i.e., some sort of sorcery where tape is looped, delayed, distorted, and further manipulated through various faulty cassette machines, providing a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for Ian’s beautiful vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted. Without the time constraints of a physical album release, Ian is able to push his initial more controlled studio experiment to its limits and beyond, and to great effect. Indeed, the word “celestial” appears in a couple of the comments on Bandcamp, and, following the literal hundreds of times I have listened to this album, I have to agree with that description.
Anyway, all that is to say that I would highly recommend listening to both Durbē and Centres, in whatever order. For that matter, I would highly recommend listening to Ian’s entire discography. I for one will be revisiting most of it soon, as pretty much all of his releases have ended up both in my vinyl collection and on my AOTY lists.
- Spotlight, Version B
Have you ever gotten into an artist because of someone you know, to somehow understand someone you know? I once knew someone in Ian’s close personal circle, via someone in my close personal circle, though perhaps ‘I was once adjacent to’ might be a better phrase to describe our (non-)relationship. In the couple of decades I was adjacent to this person, I never managed to understand a single thing about them. But one of the ways I attempted to understand them (or at least to gain some insight into why I couldn’t understand them) was to take a listen to Ian’s work. For this person, though they talked about Ian’s work semi-frequently, had noted that they were unable to listen to Ian’s work, because it made them think too much, it stirred up too much. And so, to try and parse out what that could possibly mean, I bought an album of Ian’s, then another, then another, and felt that I ended up understanding Ian through his work much more than I understood this person I was adjacent to. I am no longer adjacent to that person and will never be again, but I am grateful for our past adjacent-ness simply because it introduced me to Ian’s work. ↩︎
- Spotlight, Version B
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
A couple weeks ago I began a listening project where I’ll be going through all my old AOTY lists to see if they still hold up, listening to each album on those lists and re-ranking or removing as needed. By coincidence – as I already had this album picked for the next spotlight – the first AOTY list I re-evaluated was my 2016 list that included Centres, a brilliant studio album from the sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist we’re listening to today, Ian William Craig. And I sure am glad for that coincidence, as in revisiting that list I realized that (a) I somehow didn’t have Centres in my digital library (only on vinyl), (b) both Centres and Durbē have a couple of the same songs, and (c) Durbē – alternatively titled Live in Durbē – was recorded at a show (in August 2017) that was part of Ian’s tour for Centres (released July 2017).
In my defence, 2016/17 was during a bit of a (pre-pandemic-black-hole) black hole for me, and I was using a listening methodology to approach this artist/album that was rather different from my usual nerdy methodology (see Spotlight, Version B[1]). Also, I have a brain like a sieve, and, if an album only exists in my vinyl collection, it can unfortunately become forgotten. At any rate, my ignorance can perhaps be at least partially excused because one of the shared songs exists in a vastly different form on the live album – while the studio version of “The Nearness” came in at just under 8 minutes, on Durbē it stretches to over 21 glorious minutes. And perhaps this is why my brain latched onto Durbē much more strongly than Centres: the live format really allows Ian the space to do his thing, i.e., some sort of sorcery where tape is looped, delayed, distorted, and further manipulated through various faulty cassette machines, providing a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for Ian’s beautiful vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted. Without the time constraints of a physical album release, Ian is able to push his initial more controlled studio experiment to its limits and beyond, and to great effect. Indeed, the word “celestial” appears in a couple of the comments on Bandcamp, and, following the literal hundreds of times I have listened to this album, I have to agree with that description.
Anyway, all that is to say that I would highly recommend listening to both Durbē and Centres, in whatever order. For that matter, I would highly recommend listening to Ian’s entire discography. I for one will be revisiting most of it soon, as pretty much all of his releases have ended up both in my vinyl collection and on my AOTY lists.
- Spotlight, Version B
Have you ever gotten into an artist because of someone you know, to somehow understand someone you know? I once knew someone in Ian’s close personal circle, via someone in my close personal circle, though perhaps ‘I was once adjacent to’ might be a better phrase to describe our (non-)relationship. In the couple of decades I was adjacent to this person, I never managed to understand a single thing about them. But one of the ways I attempted to understand them (or at least to gain some insight into why I couldn’t understand them) was to take a listen to Ian’s work. For this person, though they talked about Ian’s work semi-frequently, had noted that they were unable to listen to Ian’s work, because it made them think too much, it stirred up too much. And so, to try and parse out what that could possibly mean, I bought an album of Ian’s, then another, then another, and felt that I ended up understanding Ian through his work much more than I understood this person I was adjacent to. I am no longer adjacent to that person and will never be again, but I am grateful for our past adjacent-ness simply because it introduced me to Ian’s work. ↩︎
- Spotlight, Version B
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Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
A couple weeks ago I began a listening project where I’ll be going through all my old AOTY lists to see if they still hold up, listening to each album on those lists and re-ranking or removing as needed. By coincidence – as I already had this album picked for the next spotlight – the first AOTY list I re-evaluated was my 2016 list that included Centres, a brilliant studio album from the sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist we’re listening to today, Ian William Craig. And I sure am glad for that coincidence, as in revisiting that list I realized that (a) I somehow didn’t have Centres in my digital library (only on vinyl), (b) both Centres and Durbē have a couple of the same songs, and (c) Durbē – alternatively titled Live in Durbē – was recorded at a show (in August 2017) that was part of Ian’s tour for Centres (released July 2017).
In my defence, 2016/17 was during a bit of a (pre-pandemic-black-hole) black hole for me, and I was using a listening methodology to approach this artist/album that was rather different from my usual nerdy methodology (see Spotlight, Version B[1]). Also, I have a brain like a sieve, and, if an album only exists in my vinyl collection, it can unfortunately become forgotten. At any rate, my ignorance can perhaps be at least partially excused because one of the shared songs exists in a vastly different form on the live album – while the studio version of “The Nearness” came in at just under 8 minutes, on Durbē it stretches to over 21 glorious minutes. And perhaps this is why my brain latched onto Durbē much more strongly than Centres: the live format really allows Ian the space to do his thing, i.e., some sort of sorcery where tape is looped, delayed, distorted, and further manipulated through various faulty cassette machines, providing a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for Ian’s beautiful vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted. Without the time constraints of a physical album release, Ian is able to push his initial more controlled studio experiment to its limits and beyond, and to great effect. Indeed, the word “celestial” appears in a couple of the comments on Bandcamp, and, following the literal hundreds of times I have listened to this album, I have to agree with that description.
Anyway, all that is to say that I would highly recommend listening to both Durbē and Centres, in whatever order. For that matter, I would highly recommend listening to Ian’s entire discography. I for one will be revisiting most of it soon, as pretty much all of his releases have ended up both in my vinyl collection and on my AOTY lists.
- Spotlight, Version B
Have you ever gotten into an artist because of someone you know, to somehow understand someone you know? I once knew someone in Ian’s close personal circle, via someone in my close personal circle, though perhaps ‘I was once adjacent to’ might be a better phrase to describe our (non-)relationship. In the couple of decades I was adjacent to this person, I never managed to understand a single thing about them. But one of the ways I attempted to understand them (or at least to gain some insight into why I couldn’t understand them) was to take a listen to Ian’s work. For this person, though they talked about Ian’s work semi-frequently, had noted that they were unable to listen to Ian’s work, because it made them think too much, it stirred up too much. And so, to try and parse out what that could possibly mean, I bought an album of Ian’s, then another, then another, and felt that I ended up understanding Ian through his work much more than I understood this person I was adjacent to. I am no longer adjacent to that person and will never be again, but I am grateful for our past adjacent-ness simply because it introduced me to Ian’s work. ↩︎
- Spotlight, Version B
-
Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
A couple weeks ago I began a listening project where I’ll be going through all my old AOTY lists to see if they still hold up, listening to each album on those lists and re-ranking or removing as needed. By coincidence – as I already had this album picked for the next spotlight – the first AOTY list I re-evaluated was my 2016 list that included Centres, a brilliant studio album from the sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist we’re listening to today, Ian William Craig. And I sure am glad for that coincidence, as in revisiting that list I realized that (a) I somehow didn’t have Centres in my digital library (only on vinyl), (b) both Centres and Durbē have a couple of the same songs, and (c) Durbē – alternatively titled Live in Durbē – was recorded at a show (in August 2017) that was part of Ian’s tour for Centres (released July 2017).
In my defence, 2016/17 was during a bit of a (pre-pandemic-black-hole) black hole for me, and I was using a listening methodology to approach this artist/album that was rather different from my usual nerdy methodology (see Spotlight, Version B[1]). Also, I have a brain like a sieve, and, if an album only exists in my vinyl collection, it can unfortunately become forgotten. At any rate, my ignorance can perhaps be at least partially excused because one of the shared songs exists in a vastly different form on the live album – while the studio version of “The Nearness” came in at just under 8 minutes, on Durbē it stretches to over 21 glorious minutes. And perhaps this is why my brain latched onto Durbē much more strongly than Centres: the live format really allows Ian the space to do his thing, i.e., some sort of sorcery where tape is looped, delayed, distorted, and further manipulated through various faulty cassette machines, providing a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for Ian’s beautiful vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted. Without the time constraints of a physical album release, Ian is able to push his initial more controlled studio experiment to its limits and beyond, and to great effect. Indeed, the word “celestial” appears in a couple of the comments on Bandcamp, and, following the literal hundreds of times I have listened to this album, I have to agree with that description.
Anyway, all that is to say that I would highly recommend listening to both Durbē and Centres, in whatever order. For that matter, I would highly recommend listening to Ian’s entire discography. I for one will be revisiting most of it soon, as pretty much all of his releases have ended up both in my vinyl collection and on my AOTY lists.
- Spotlight, Version B
Have you ever gotten into an artist because of someone you know, to somehow understand someone you know? I once knew someone in Ian’s close personal circle, via someone in my close personal circle, though perhaps ‘I was once adjacent to’ might be a better phrase to describe our (non-)relationship. In the couple of decades I was adjacent to this person, I never managed to understand a single thing about them. But one of the ways I attempted to understand them (or at least to gain some insight into why I couldn’t understand them) was to take a listen to Ian’s work. For this person, though they talked about Ian’s work semi-frequently, had noted that they were unable to listen to Ian’s work, because it made them think too much, it stirred up too much. And so, to try and parse out what that could possibly mean, I bought an album of Ian’s, then another, then another, and felt that I ended up understanding Ian through his work much more than I understood this person I was adjacent to. I am no longer adjacent to that person and will never be again, but I am grateful for our past adjacent-ness simply because it introduced me to Ian’s work. ↩︎
- Spotlight, Version B
-
Ian William Craig – Durbē (2017, Canada)
Our next spotlight is on number 250 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh).
A couple weeks ago I began a listening project where I’ll be going through all my old AOTY lists to see if they still hold up, listening to each album on those lists and re-ranking or removing as needed. By coincidence – as I already had this album picked for the next spotlight – the first AOTY list I re-evaluated was my 2016 list that included Centres, a brilliant studio album from the sound artist, composer, and classically trained vocalist we’re listening to today, Ian William Craig. And I sure am glad for that coincidence, as in revisiting that list I realized that (a) I somehow didn’t have Centres in my digital library (only on vinyl), (b) both Centres and Durbē have a couple of the same songs, and (c) Durbē – alternatively titled Live in Durbē – was recorded at a show (in August 2017) that was part of Ian’s tour for Centres (released July 2017).
In my defence, 2016/17 was during a bit of a (pre-pandemic-black-hole) black hole for me, and I was using a listening methodology to approach this artist/album that was rather different from my usual nerdy methodology (see Spotlight, Version B[1]). Also, I have a brain like a sieve, and, if an album only exists in my vinyl collection, it can unfortunately become forgotten. At any rate, my ignorance can perhaps be at least partially excused because one of the shared songs exists in a vastly different form on the live album – while the studio version of “The Nearness” came in at just under 8 minutes, on Durbē it stretches to over 21 glorious minutes. And perhaps this is why my brain latched onto Durbē much more strongly than Centres: the live format really allows Ian the space to do his thing, i.e., some sort of sorcery where tape is looped, delayed, distorted, and further manipulated through various faulty cassette machines, providing a gorgeous bed of decaying, droning sounds for Ian’s beautiful vocals that are sometimes nearly operatic, sometimes also looped and distorted. Without the time constraints of a physical album release, Ian is able to push his initial more controlled studio experiment to its limits and beyond, and to great effect. Indeed, the word “celestial” appears in a couple of the comments on Bandcamp, and, following the literal hundreds of times I have listened to this album, I have to agree with that description.
Anyway, all that is to say that I would highly recommend listening to both Durbē and Centres, in whatever order. For that matter, I would highly recommend listening to Ian’s entire discography. I for one will be revisiting most of it soon, as pretty much all of his releases have ended up both in my vinyl collection and on my AOTY lists.
- Spotlight, Version B
Have you ever gotten into an artist because of someone you know, to somehow understand someone you know? I once knew someone in Ian’s close personal circle, via someone in my close personal circle, though perhaps ‘I was once adjacent to’ might be a better phrase to describe our (non-)relationship. In the couple of decades I was adjacent to this person, I never managed to understand a single thing about them. But one of the ways I attempted to understand them (or at least to gain some insight into why I couldn’t understand them) was to take a listen to Ian’s work. For this person, though they talked about Ian’s work semi-frequently, had noted that they were unable to listen to Ian’s work, because it made them think too much, it stirred up too much. And so, to try and parse out what that could possibly mean, I bought an album of Ian’s, then another, then another, and felt that I ended up understanding Ian through his work much more than I understood this person I was adjacent to. I am no longer adjacent to that person and will never be again, but I am grateful for our past adjacent-ness simply because it introduced me to Ian’s work. ↩︎
- Spotlight, Version B
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BIG|BRAVE just dropped a pre-release for their new record, “in grief or in hope.” If the first track is any indication of the rest, it should be great.
https://bigbrave.bandcamp.com/album/in-grief-or-in-hope
(CC @buffyleigh)
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Orchestra Harlow – Hommy (A Latin Opera) (1973, Puerto Rico/Cuba/US)
Continuing our journey through the epic Fedi-sourced catalogue of must-hear albums, our next spotlight is on number 1039 on The List, submitted by myself (buffyleigh). This spectacular Afro-Caribbean/salsa opera was inspired by The Who’s rock opera 'Tommy', with a similar narrative framework (the titular character is deaf and blind, and is a fantastic conga player) but all original songs, with lyrics by Puerto Rican composer and singer Genaro “Heny” Álvarez. Headed by American bandleader and producer Larry Harlow, over 60 Puerto Rican, Cuban, and American musicians were in this Fania-released production, including the fabulous Cuban singer who would later be known as the “Queen of Salsa”, Celia Cruz.
Want to read more? See the full spotlight on the Fediverse at https://linernotes.club/@1001otheralbu[email protected] or on the blog: https://1001otheralbums.com/2025/12/23/orchestra-harlow-hommy-a-latin-opera-1973-puerto-rico-cuba-us/
Want to skip straight to the music? Here's a Songlink: https://album.link/i/1464282074
Happy listening!
#OrchestraHarlow #OrquestaHarlow #CeliaCruz #TheWho #Fania #salsa #AfroCubanMusic #AfroCaribbeanMusic #LatinMusic #Cuba #PuertoRico #1970s #music #1001OtherAlbums
