The Los Angeles Times reports that Lesley Gore, the two-hit wonder, passed away today from cancer. She was 68. In her honor, here is the song that made her famous:
Music
[Video] Sergey Kuryokhin – Mystics
Sergey Kuryokhin was, by far, the most influential and most widely recognized avant-garde musician to come out of Russia in the 1980s. Both alone and with the Ensemble Pop-Mekhanika, he made music which was extreme even to American tastes. Here is an absurdist sample of his work.
[Video] Czesław Niemen – Bema Pamięci Rapsod Żałobny
Czesław Niemen was quite an interesting character. He wrote a song Marlene Dietrich would cover, as well as one of the greatest protest songs in the history of Polish rock (“Dziwny jest ten świat” [Strange Is This World]).
This particular piece almost counts as something resting between liturgical music and something akin to Queen, with an almost gospel-like vocal feel to it.
[Sample] J. Mascis – Fade Into You
J. Mascis, guitarist and singer of Dinosaur Jr., has a venerable tradition of covering songs in an incredibly pleasant, heartfelt way. For Valentine’s Day Eve, we present you with a rather tender cover of Mazzy Star’s sumptuous single.
[Video] Boreal Taiga & 3Music – Piap-Bai
Boreal Taiga is one of the most innovative ambient musicians based in the United States (though he worked out of Norway for some years). 3Music is Viktoriya Natoloka, herself an incredible composer. These two make a fine pairing, stretching the meaning of what ambient music is.
[Video] Kjartan Sveinsson – Credo
A gorgeous piece of minimalism with choir by former Sigur Rós multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson, who is off working on a couple of new projects of his own.
[Sample] Das Mädchen von Hongkong O.S.T.
I can’t get enough of cheese-ball Euro-trash soundtracks, so coming across a gem like this on Bandcamp made my day! It’s for Das Mädchen von Hongkong, a film from 1973, and Black Pearl Records deserves all credit for hipping the world to this digital album.
[Video] Ellý Vilhjálmsdóttir – Sveitin Milli Sanda
Long before Iceland gave the world Björk, they brought us Ellý Vilhjálmsdóttir. This haunting, wordless ditty was a massive hit for her in 1966.
[Article] Manna for fans: the history of the hidden track in music
How cool. I had no idea The Beatles were the (accidental) inventors of the secret track!
Here’s more, courtesy of Jude Rogers at The Guardian.
[Article] Gong founder Daevid Allen has six months to live
Very sad news to report, though it’s surely made its way throughout the progressive and pyschedelic rock communities. Daevid Allen, the beloved founder of Gong and member of Soft Machine, is suffering from neck cancer. He has decided to forego any more treatment, and has six months to live.
A strange factoid to pass on: when I worked at a local record shop in Los Angeles, the actor Sherman Hemsley (George Jefferson of ‘The Jeffersons‘ TV series) was a client of mine. He had the strangest and most interesting taste in music, and was particularly fond of progressive rock. I was told some years later that it was he who had spent a good sum of money to bring Daevid and company out to the United States for a tour.
What strange bedfellows those two made.
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 