Alabama Shakes “Hold On”

May 8, 2012 • Rachel Heussenstamm

Grease it up. Alabama Shakes kills it on “Hold On.”  They are taking me back to my clean-cut tweens of rocking out to the oldies radio in the car with mum and dad.  And they are making me want to walk down the street and hang out with all those twenty-something hipster kids that look like they just rolled out of a dumpster.   Yes, both these feelings.  AT THE SAME TIME.    Alabama Shakes is new to me, but they are probably on single 17 or something?   Two seconds of googling shows them selling out the Ryman and King Tuts.  Who knows?  I do know that this track is badass and I get the giggles every time she sings twenty-two.   Badass giggles.

 

Steve Reich “Violin Phase”

May 3, 2012 • Rachel Heussenstamm

My favorite part of listening to Steve Reich’s Phases is how they seem to come in and out of phase in many dimensions.  There are the intentions of the compositions themselves: where the piece is inherently in or out of phase.   Then there is my own personal interpretation of those phases.  Sometimes it seems that the piece falls out phase, and then as I pay more attention, or less attention, the piece seems to fix itself.   It’s like one minute I just don’t get it because I am listening too hard, so I relax a bit and something about my inner rhythms and sensebilities finds a new method of interpretation and there is another level of understanding that brings it perfectly in phase again.   It’s a big resolution: the personal, in-the-moment phases of the listener interacting with the meticulously planned and preformed phases of the piece.

The music truly has shapes and patterns, and Riech has a serious experiment in the properties and effects of alignment going on.  Choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker takes Steve Reich’s musical patterns into the visual realm in her work Fase: Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich.  She explains that way back in the 80′s “Steve’s music invited [her] to dance.”  And I’m sure it did, because the interaction between Anne and the music, and the shapes, and the movement, is both scientific and romantic.   I don’t really consciously feel these two worlds, science and romance, at the same time very often.   But the combination is successful and powerful, and I can not help but be reminded that all the great songs we get off on must have both these forces present.  Science and romance are probably colliding in the unconsciousness every time art rocks our world.  Sexy.

Shea Seger “Always” with Ron Sexsmith

February 18, 2012 • Rachel Heussenstamm

shea segerSometimes I hear a recording and it really makes me want to see and hear the song preformed live.   “Always” is a duet on Shea Seger’s album The May Street Project.  Ron Sexsmith takes the first verse.  It’s special.   Seger comes in.  And it’s a great shift in tone.  The recoding is way cool.  But  I want it to be late, in a dark club.  Bricks.  Heavy Curtains.  Underground.  It’s a small room.  It’s perfectly crowded.  It sounds good in there.   A four piece band and the two of them.   Their voices perfect and naked out in front of the band.   I want it to be one of those magic, selfish moments.   Live.

Paul Simon “Dazzling Blue”

February 7, 2012 • Rachel Heussenstamm

Well, I have been hankering down and missing in action for a couple of months.  On one level, I have been ridiculously spinning wheels with too much to do.  On another level, Lillie has been killing it and it’s as fun to watch as it is to play.  I think I might make a playlist out of Lillie’s breakup song list and party with it once a month, just to remind myself I am alive.   I am going to re-read Lillie’s 30th birthday post every birthday I have this decade, just to remind myself how insanely weird it was to turn thirty.  Maybe think about how it should really never have been as big a deal as the universe sets it up to be.  And maybe think about the simple sweet things in life, just like Lillie does.   Ah, music.  The best drug.  I was gifted “Dazzling Blue” by Paul Simon back in October and I rode it’s leisurely downstream pitter patter right through every intense moment of the holidays.  It gives life this mellow twilight feeling, and it reminds me of the evening Lillie describes.  Haha.  It’s February and I am still using “Dazzling Blue” to relax.

King Floyd “Groove Me”

January 26, 2012 • Lillie Fish

So, you know how sometimes, you need a song to put on when you are feeling sorry for yourself?  I love to announce when I’m feeling sorry for myself, as just saying that out loud is so ridiculous that I always feel at least a teeny bit better.  King Floyd’s “Groove Me” is a go-to song for when I have the blues.  It is so funky, so dance-inducing that by the end of the song, I typically feel about ready to take on the rest of the day.  (I also love that his name is written on his hat.)