My Pod

An on-going list of some of my favourite music, just added as and when it occurs to me to add it.

Fantasia on Thomas Tallis - Vaughan Williams
Blew me away first time I heard it. I adore the string section when they’re on fire and this does the stuff.

Coldplay – Viva la Vida
Honestly, I couldn’t be arsed with Coldplay, I want some joy in my music so I basically ignored the dreary buggers. And then I heard this, and it’s joy personified. So I gave in.

Doves – Kingdom of Rust
A song I heard coming home in the car and was instantly smitten with. The vocals swoop around a lovely but brittle lyric as the strings soar and the rhythm before a suddenly heavy burst of guitar. Plus it has some of those notes that just jangle the nerves and send static charging through me. I would love to identify those notes.

Spiegel im Spiegel – Arvo Part
Feel the pressures ease away with the piano, before the entry of a husky voiced violin.

Diamond Music – Karl Jenkins
Persuasive, insistent violins climb with low tones towards their musical peak, rising to a glorious shimmering panorama of swooping strings. How Hannibal must have felt when he saw Rome after driving the elephants over the Alps.

Dr Mabuse – Propaganda
Could have been Fritz Lang’s long lost musical “Why does it hurt when my heart misses the beat?”

Leahkastin – Mari Boine
Amazing, alien, rhythmic and hypnotic music deeply embedded within Saami traditions.

No more tears – Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer
One of the most amazing dance singles ever recorded.

I feel love – Donna Summer
Ditto. Got to dance whenever you hear it. Love the 22 minute version.

Planet Drum – Mickey Hart
An amazing set of rhythms and sounds from around the world.

Libertango – Grace Jones
An insane mix of classic tango and eighties funk. It completely passed me by originally. Now it sends shivers up my spine.

Hyperactive – Thomas Dolby
While we’re on the 80s, I have to mention this. It was fabulous in 1984 and it’s fabulous now.

Faerie stories – Peatbog Faeries
Fabulous Scottish folk/dance mix

Love like blood – Killing Joke
Grabs you by the throat and spins you round with haunting, and somewhat wobbly synth, while the bass, drums and guitar rampage around. Still got no idea what the lyric is, but I don’t care. Turn it up loud!!!

The unforgettable fire – U2
I liked the War album (couldn’t afford to buy it, but I liked what I heard), and then one day this came through the speakers. Phenomenal. For me, this is their finest moment.

Aquarius
I love the song Aquarius, but the problem is, nobody’s recorded a decent version. They’re all very polite, or twee or just wrong. Somebody please point me in the right direction.

I will not be sad in this world – Djivan Gasparian
Beautiful. I first heard of Gasparian when he played with Brian May at the 46664 Arctic concert. I was captivated, and subsequently scunnered, because I’ve been unable to find the concert on DVD anywhere. Thank you for YouTube (and get that concert released!)

Stanze – Ludovico Einaudi
First heard on VH1 of all places, minimalist harp in all its spiky glory.

All mine – Tom Jones and The Divine Comedy
Scary and spinetingling

Seven Wonders Suite – Stuart Mitchell
Mysterious, sweeping strings

The Visitors – Abba
It feels like not many people know about this album, but I think it’s their best, often leading to lumpen throat and goosebumpen skin. There’s a darkness running throughout, and there’s not much to dance to, but the production remains huge and majestic, and the voices are, of course, stupendous. Stand out tracks: When all is said and done, Soldiers, I let the music speak, One of us, Slipping through my fingers, Like an angel passing through my room .

Night Porter – Japan
Piano based on Satie provide a spooky, fog drenched tale of love lost and ached for. Love at first hearing and got me into Satie too.

Overkill – Men at Work
A Luxembourg song. A late night AM radio song, complete with perfect lyric “I can’t get to sleep”

Seal – Seal
I love this entire album, but if I’d to pick a single track then it would probably be a face off between Future Love Paradise and Crazy. Crazy would probably win, just because of the lyric “In a sky full of people only some want to fly. Isn’t that crazy?” All too true.

Origin of Symmetry - Muse
Another stunning album, not a bad track on it, but Space Dementia sends shivers up the spine. Totally mad with full on piano, vicious guitar and throat ripping vocals that I just can’t reach.

Carmen Suite / L’Arlesienne Suite – Bizet
Music to grab your mind and your heart and your rhythm section and won’t let you go til it wants to.  Carmen is sexier. L’Arlesienne better behaved, but with undercurrents.

Bladerunner OST – Vangelis
It and the film match each other so beautifully in their own weird and wonderful ways. It’s not unobstrusive like some soundtracks, but makes itself known while being an essential element of the whole. And it’s got two of the best final tracks ever. End Titles is some of the most sublime driving music of all time, and Tears in Rain is a quiet glorious accompaniment to Rutger Hauer’s self-penned replicant death lyrics.

1492 – Vangelis
This one holds particularly special memories. We were on honeymoon walking through an arcade of shops and dropped into a gadget shop, decorated all in black and silver, where a reel-to-reel tape deck was playing the most amazing electronic/choral music. We went back a few more times, basically to hear the music and eventually asked what it was. I remember the bemused look on the owner’s face, telling us 1492. Huh? 1492, you know, the soundtrack? No. It’s Vanglis, the soundtrack to 1492. My husband sought it out and bought  it for my birthday a few weeks later. In later years, it soothed my children (and us) through sleepless nights.

Music for Airports – Bang on a Can
Actually composed by Brian Eno (as Ambient 1) specifically to be played as airport music. I wonder if any have ever tried it? Horizontal music to calm the nerves, with quiet piano and various calm percussives.

Deluge – Jocelyn Pook; Untold Things – Jocelyn Pook
Around 1997, there was a rather nice advert for Orange which used a rehashed recording of  “Blow the wind Southerly” by Kathleen Ferrier. At that time I was a member of Britannia Classical Music Club, which I loved for all the weird and world  stuff it used to promote. I lived for the sales when I could afford to take a chance on things I’d never heard – I kept all the magazines so I could refer back to the initial descriptors, I was that hooked – and was over the moon on eventually hearing the insane world of Deluge. A few years later I spotted Untold Things  and grabbed it. I love her voice, her sense of the world, her mix of all things aural. It’s indescribable.

Seventh Stranger – Duran Duran
I was a huge Duran fan. Hated the concerts because of all the screaming (some of us actually wanted to hear the music thank you). This is the last track on Seven and the Ragged Tiger, an album that was a huge disappointment for me. It doesn’t sound finished somehow; there’s lots of interesting bits but it doesn’t hang together as a whole. Duran were always slagged as a pretty boy band (before boy bands) but they could write. So what went wrong here? Difficult 3rd album syndrome? (should that not be 2nd?) I almost didn’t even play the second side, I couldn’t bear the let down, and then there it was. It starts with a quiet rainforest of percussion, followed by some gloriously insane lyrics (a Le Bon speciality) accompanied by gently meandering synths, and then as the chorus winds up, the guitar appears. Oh my god, the guitar. Simple, single cascading notes like angels floating from heaven. It’s not the perfect song by a long way, but once the verses are dropped, it’s one of the best things they ever did.

The Chauffeur – The Reasoning
A cover of the Duran track, with more nuances and much better guitars. Absolutely stunning on first listening. Could only download it from Amazon though. Can’t even remember how I found out about it

Furia OST – Brian May
I don’t like violence, so I’ve never seen the film, but the music is beautiful, especially the main theme which repeats throughout, perhaps most beautifully on Apparition, sung acapella by a slightly husky female voice (Emily May).

Angel – Massive Attack
First heard on The West Wing as the background music to a kidnap from a nightclub. Mesmerising.

Summertime – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
A lullaby for our children, particularly for our son. We walked for hours, singing along to Ella when our son was tiny because it soothed him. Good taste that boy. Now it makes me cry everytime I hear it because it brings back the pre-autism days, when wondering about his future brought smiles rather than than constant worries.