SOUNDTRACK: BETH ORTON-Tiny Desk Concert #235 (August 6, 2012).
I’d published these posts without Soundtracks while I was reading the calendars. But I decided to add Tiny Desk Concerts to them when I realized that I’d love to post about all of the remaining 100 or shows and this was a good way to knock out 25 of them.
I loved Beth Orton’s album Trailer Park. The acoustic / electronic sound was new and interesting. I haven’t heard much from Orton since then, although I gather she has released a bunch and has been producing as well.
But I understand that she has more or less given up on the electronic sounds and focused mainly on acoustic guitar songwriting. So here she plays four songs. Three are new and sound quite different from the fourth one which is older.
Her voice is really raspy and raw on those first three songs, inclduing “Candles.” I actually don’t really remember what she sounded like on those earlier songs, but this sounds different to me. Very 70s folksinger (like Joni Mitchell, perhaps).
It’s very funny to hear her speak because her speaking voice is so different from her singing voice—so accented! She seems nervous introducing “Dawn Chorus” a song that she has barely played even for the band. It’s a lovely song and her voice sounds great on it I love the strumming style she employs for this song too.
“Poison Tree returns” to that 70s folksinger style again. The music is very pretty but I don’t care for the rawness of her voice in this setting.
She ends the set with an older song. She says he wants to tune her guitar for “prosperity and all.” Cute how nervous she is. She plays “Sweetest Decline,” a familiar song from her second album.
[READ: December 15, 2016] “Minus, His Heart”
Near the end of November, I found out about The Short Story Advent Calendar. Which is what exactly? Well…
The Short Story Advent Calendar returns, not a moment too soon, to spice up your holidays with another collection of 24 stories that readers open one by one on the mornings leading up to Christmas. This year’s stories once again come from some of your favourite writers across the continent—plus a couple of new crushes you haven’t met yet. Most of the stories have never appeared in a book before. Some have never been published, period.
I already had plans for what to post about in December, but since this arrived I’ve decided to post about every story on each day.
This was the first story in the collection that was just a huge puzzle to me. It was confusing from the start (which is fine), but it never really cleared itself up (which isn’t).
There’s a boy. His proxy father, Interminable Richard, is sitting on an electric voice box seeking a frequency to soothe his old wound.
The bell rings and it is Minus, the Neighborhood Wassailer, who comes inside and grabs the boy, calling his a thief. The boy says that Minus had fallen asleep on the escalator, so he, the boy, was going to steal his duffel. But someone had already stolen it.
The Wassailer inspects himself and says “You ejected my tape.”
The boy says he did steal Minus’ tape and he gave it to his sweet number. And so off they go in search of his sweet number.
They get to the playground and see Winsome Jenny at the leatherball court. Jenny is mad at him, I gather, and threatens to drop the stick. She says that she was his bona fide sweet number, so he still gets a lastly, but she gave the tape to Zooman Jubal, who is her sweet number now.
Minus drags the boy to the zoo where they meet Jubal. They take a boat ride and Minus says he will shoot Jubal if he won’t parley. Even stranger things happen and the boat goes over the waterfall.
This fever dream of a story has a final chapter which seems to tie things up, but never is any detail explained.
I have no idea if this is part of something else or if I’m supposed to find profound metaphor in this crazy story, but suffice it to say I didn’t. Unless it is simply a romance set in some kind of alternate universe?
Souad Massi has a fascinating story:
I didn’t know Exitmusic before this show. The band is a 4 piece and they make a really big sound . In fact, when I was only listening to the show I forgot that they were at a Tiny Desk. Their sound is not loud, but it’s enveloping. They have two keyboards a guitar and an electronic drum. The guitar is gauzy, playing high chords. But it’s the keyboards, and washes of sound that really create the whole show. Lead vocals are provided by Aleksa Palladino and her voice is stark and wavery, slightly scary and scared at the same time.
Since I first heard this Tiny Desk Concert, I have become a huge fan of Laura Marling. Her album Once I Was an Eagle is dynamite. Her voice is unique and beautiful. She sounds so mature and sophisticated in her singing style. It is astonishing to learn that she was only 22 when she recorded this (and she looks it).
Brandi Carlile has been making a lot of noise on WXPN this last year. She has a few song that I really like. But I didn’t realize that her background was in country music—it’s slightly apparent on her more recent music. But in this Tiny Desk, her whole country style really comes out. Well, I guess she’s more alternative country—it’s strange that she has a country twang in her voice since she is from Washington.
I know Kelly Hogan as an amazing back up singer. She sang with The Decemberists when I saw them live (and she was truly amazing). She also often sings with Neko Case.
Arborea is a totally captivating band.
Jolie Holland was the singer of The Be Good Tanyas, a band I know of but am not familiar with. Since that band disbanded, she has released six solo albums. She sings a kind of dusky folk music. Her voice isn’t gravelly, but it is somewhat gritty—with a kind of nonchalant slurring of words that is strangely enticing.
After all of these years there’s not much to say about Cowboy Junkies that hasn’t been said. They sound a certain way and only ever sound that way. Their songs are slow, “mournful and thoughtful,” relatively long (because they are so slow) and Margo Timmins has a beautiful voice which hasn’t changed in 25 yeas.
Kat Edmonson is a singer who is often associated with jazz (the word chanteuse is thrown around a lot), although for this Tiny Desk Concert it’s just her singing and Steve Elliot on acoustic guitar.
I Just Read About That... 