Emmett Presents-
Forever Came Today: the best of 2013-2014
Book One (The Divine) (78 mb)
Book Two (The Heroic) (96 mb)
Book Three (The Human) (106 mb)
Book Four (Return) (132 mb)

It took me a minute to put the finishing touches on this, but here we have a three-hour megamix of some of my favorite new-to-me songs of the past two years. Each part is designed to be listened to in one sitting, and the four parts are designed to be heard in order. Email me for the tracklist or with any questions: artdecade1977 at gmail dot com.

And here commences a hopefully not terribly long hiatus (it could be six months or a year) as I will myself to focus on some work/life improvement for a spell, not to mention blog restructuring.

Thanks to all who have listened through the years. Don't dream it's over: A.D. will return... and in greater number!

Enjoy 2015 in the meantime.

Your friend,
Emmett

Happy New Year, party people. I am working on a couple of projects that will appear on this blog but won't be completed for another couple of weeks or so. In the meantime, please note that I've added some white-hot new links to the right of this page: "Podcasts" and the "Best Of" selections from 2011 and 2012. These links should function as portals of discovery for most.

Lastly, thanks to everyone who listened or commented or emailed in 2014 or before, and best wishes to everyone for a spacious and surprising 2015!

"I can't figure out, if it's the end or beginning..."

Shirley Collins & Davy Graham - Dearest Dear

Philip Catherine - Nairam

The triumphant return of Philip Catherine to these pages, and the triumphant return of "Nairam": I posted another version of this tune the other day. This version is probably better, but the band name on the earlier post was cooler, so it evens out.

And the only thing better than the sleeve pictured above is this sleeve:

Robert Fripp - Silent Night

The Phantom Band - Rolling

The triumphant return of Jaki Liebezeit (="Love Time"?), that supernaturally good drummer, to these pages. He's made recent appearances here and here.

David Stoughton - The Summer Had No Breeze

A lifetime doesn't last
And too much has already passed
It takes a while to realize that it's better to love than to despise
And too much of a lifetime is how long it takes to learn what lifetime is.

Right on, man. Right on. More cosmically, I'd like to add that the melodic motif that appears for the first time at 00:19 brings back pleasant memories of this.

Marcos Valle - Deixa o Mundo E o Sol Entrar

"A door at the end of a hallway... I come nearer... I must open it... It can't be... It is? Yes! A portal to a sea of stars, now spilling into the room. The sidereal tide rises... I must clutch tightly to my guitar."

The triumphant return of M. Valle to these pages. Reissues now going for cheap from Light in the Attic.

P.S. It's the suspended chord or whatever it is at 0:48 that makes this song for me. Oh, and the slight sputter in the double-tracked vocals at 2:09.

Justine and the Victorian Punks - Beautiful Dreamer

Slept on this when DFA reissued it in 2010, and when Thunderbals posted it in 2008, and when Colette released it in 1979, and when Stephen Foster wrote it in 1862.

I was hoping to find a version from pre-1920 to post alongside this, but couldn't. I did find this.

Stephen Foster, the author of "Oh! Susannah" and "My Old Kentucky Home", never lived in the South and visited it only once, in 1852. He died aged 37 in 1864, while residing in a hotel at 30 Bowery Street, about fifteen minutes on foot away from Electric Lady Studios, where Justine & co. recorded their version of "Beautiful Dreamer."

Angel Maimone Entreprise - Question Piège

Your guess is as good as mine on this one.

Michel Pagliaro -
Lovin' You Ain't Easy
Some Sing, Some Dance

Recorded at Apple Studios, London.

Love the labyrinthine bridge on Lovin' You Ain't Easy (the bit at 1:02 and following). Takes a few listens to be able to sing along with it. Is it even a bridge?

Gabriel Fauré - In Paradisum (from Requiem, op. 48)

Shiny Two Shiny - Waiting For Us (12" mix)

This was just reissued on Captured Tracks (thanks!), so I took the link down. Let's notice that the 12" mix places the snare drum on "1" and "3", with bass drums on "2" and "4", while the album version does not. In other words, the drumbeat is backwards. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one other song that does this, and there it happens only for a few bars (at the 2:12 mark).

Who can name some other songs that do this?

Tia Blake And Her Folk-Group - Turtle Dove

Hamilton Bohannon - Keep On Dancin'

Featuring Fernando Saunders on bass. Does he play any two-bar unit exactly the same, or is each one different, like snowflakes?

Paul McCartney - Rode All Night

Saturday Night Special

Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth For Christ Choir:
Ever Since
Nobody Knows

Now that my son is in full-day pre-K I had a minute to work on alphabetizing my CDs and actually listened to this full CD that I got four years ago. Dear me. Phil Upchurch on bass (didn't even realize he played bass?), the return of the twin-tambourine shamanistic attack, and arguably the greatest handclap sound ever committed to tape. Soultransfigured and soultransfiguring stuff here from Pastor Barrett and his flock.

Still available from Light In The Attic!

Noël Akchoté - Carlo Gesualdo: "Moro, lasso, al moi duolo"

"So a twenty-first century guitarist recorded all of Gesualdo's madrigals after transcribing them for five guitars? Huh. I'm still listening. But were they recorded on, you know, a cassette recorder, yielding quite a bit of background noise? And were they also recorded in, you know, like a zoo or whatever, so you can hear some kind of bird or something chattering away in the background, and also many cars driving by? They were? OK, cool. I'm in."

N.B. If memory serves this is the first we've heard of Renaissance music performed on modern guitars since this one, but there's myriad more on offer at Noël's bandcamp page.

Miaow - Belle Vue

Moments of harmelodic interest at 1:45 and ff. Mining a sophisto-amateur seam similar as this.

Carmen - Schlaraffenland
Die Doraus & Die Marinas - Tulpen Und Narzissen

In a pre-ANGST frenzy, a trawl through the bumrocks 2004 archive turned up this brace of washed-out heartless German teenwave winners.