The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Thomas Dolby's A Map of the Floating City

"There is nothing new under the sun"

So, at least, Thomas Dolby claims at the outset of his first new studio album in two decades (it should be noted at the outset that Dolby is our uncle, earning this post a Shameless Plugs tag). Slightly tongue in cheek, no doubt, yet as he repeatedly shows in a little under an hour, he has plenty more to say.

The album is divided into three sections and much of the content will be familiar, if, that is, you're a hardcore fan. Over the past fifteen months Dolby has released two of the three as EPs, and while Urbanoia is genuinely new I heard at least one of the songs at a gig a couple of years ago.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Tchaikovsky's Pathetique from Charles Mackerras and the Philharmonia

It is about a year since the great Charles Mackerras died (read my tribute here). And, while concert halls and opera pits have certainly been quieter without him, it is difficult to say the same of the CD players and hi-fis, such has been the steady stream of new releases.

One, more than any other, was keenly awaited by me, his live recording of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony, The Pathetique, with the Philharmonia. The reason is simple: I was at the concert in question and it was quite something.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week: Electric Bath by The Don Ellis Orchestra

I've been thinking a lot this week about new music, about hearing things for the first time and about seeking out new things. It therefore seemed appropriate to do my first Album of the Week in a while and, more specifically, to pick out a disc first released over forty years ago and whose praises I've been meaning to sing for quite some while now.

At first glance, if you're not familiar with Electric Bath this may seem a little odd, but actually it makes perfect sense. I first heard the album a decade or so again when my brother, having heard a song on the radio, gave it to me for my birthday. I had never heard anything quite like it. Today, four decades after it was made, it still sounds fresh and new, its five tracks still seem to overflow with invention. It is also toe-tappingly good.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Thomas Dolby's Oceanea

This week's Album of the Week is even more of a misnomer than usual. In the first place, it's been far more than a week since I last did one (that much is normal), and in the second this isn't an album, but rather a three track EP; still, it's sufficiently great that it deserves inclusion all the same. It's also the work of Thomas Dolby, who happens to be my uncle, which earns this post a Shameless Plugs tag.

Dolby's last studio album, Astronauts and Heretics, was released nearly two decades ago, back in 1992, after which he spent his time working in technology in Silicon Valley, which meant a drought for those who love his music. A few years ago he moved back to the UK, more specifically to the stunningly bleak and beautiful Suffolk coast, and once again began working on music in an old lifeboat that sits in his back garden and which has been converted to a high tech, wind powered digital studio. (Which, at the very least, meant he no longer had to put up with me asking him when he might record something new whenever we met up at family gatherings.)

BBC Legends come to Spotify

In general, given the choice, I will almost always take a live recording over a studio one. Yes, it may not have quite the same immaculate sound (though there are plenty of studio recordings that disappoint in this regard), it may have mistakes, it may have coughing, clapping and other audience noise, but what it may also often have is a drama and a sense of occasion that you almost never get in the studio. Of course, I'm talking about real live recordings, the kind that preserve exactly a concert, not the "live" recordings of today that are in fact cobbled together from a string of concerts (take the Concertegbouw's live Sibelius 1st symphony - four concerts over four months), perhaps patched after or with rehearsal takes; these are a halfway house sometimes delivering the worst of both worlds (although there are many excellent examples too). Still, I wish more of the orchestra labels would be a little braver and release real live events. Given the enduring success of many older, real live recordings, it is puzzling.

For this reason, I'm a fan of the BBC Legends series, which mines the BBC's rich archive to serve up genuine live performances although (a little unfortunately in my view) generally not preserving complete concerts. Following on from my post about great orchestras earlier this week, my iPod listening at work has been drawn one piece at a time from a selection of British orchestras. Today I came to the Hallé and instead of Elder, whom I've been listening to a lot lately, I turned to their extraordinary partnership with glorious John Barbirolli. Scrolling through the many choices available, one jumped out at me: a BBC Legends disc of Bruckner's 9th symphony.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Terminal, by Peter Gregson

I realise it's been so long since I last did an Album of the Week that the very concept has taken on a massive dollop of irony; unfortunately, international festivals and the like have got in the way doing it as regularly as I had planned.  And, to be honest, this one is a bit of a cheat.  It's not Terminal isn't a superb album, it absolutely is; indeed it is one of the best I've heard this year and thoroughly deserves having the Album of the Week badge slapped on it.  However, normally in these posts I make a passionate argument for why I think an album is so special and pick out a few of the great things about it.

I'm not going to do that for the very simple reason that I already have.  Back in June, I wrote a review extolling its many virtues and rather than repeat myself, I'm simply going to suggest you read it if you haven't already.

What has changed since June is that Terminal is now widely available: as a lossless download from Bandcamp, from iTunes (if you prefer that sort of thing) and, most crucially from the point of view of this segment, on Spotify, meaning you can have a listen (though, as ever, if you find you love it, I'd urge you to buy it, as it's my understanding that the royalties paid by Spotify are pretty paltry).  In some ways it's a pity that Steve Reich's Cello Counterpoint, hasn't made it to these new releases of the album.  On the positive side it does mean the remaining six tracks are pure Gregson (with producer and co-composer Milton Mermikides).  The result makes for interesting listen - much more introspective and consistent in style.  The technically demanding and acrobatic Cello Counterpoint is a remarkable piece, and Gregson gave it a fine performance on the original (and one that deserves to see the light of day more widely), and yet one could strongly argue that Terminal is a better album without it, in the sense that it is a more artistically consistent statement; it has a little more of that sense of flow that makes for a really great album.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Jochum conducts Bach's B minor Mass

This is a special record for me; it is the record that won me over to this magnificent piece and convinced me of its greatness.  I had owned a recording for some years, that by John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists.  It was part of a multi disc box containing Bach's major choral works and I'd listened to them all but the Mass never grabbed me.

Then, a couple of years ago, I put on the Gramophone cover CD.  I seem to recall the thing I wanted to listen to was Giuseppe Sinopoli's live Dresden Mahler 4.  The exert was so small it wasn't possible to judge anything and before I knew it the CD had run on to one of the most magnificent things I had ever heard.  The kind of magnificent thing where you have to stop what you're doing and are frozen to the spot.  It was the Sanctus from the B minor Mass, as played and sung by Eugen Jochum and the Choir and Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio.

It was on the CD as the person at the back of the magazine who was picking their favourite music had mentioned it.  Actually, though, he hadn't mentioned the Jochum specifically, so perhaps that was just the favourite choice of someone at the magazine, or perhaps the mention was just edited out, or maybe it was random chance.

The Where's Runnicles Album of the Week - Regina Spektor's Begin to Hope

Last Saturday I was in HMV picking up a birthday present for someone. As I listened, the piped music was infuriatingly familiar, by which I mean that I recognised it but couldn't for the life of me place what it was or where I knew it from. A woman was singing and there was a piano. I could hear the refrain "I'm not the hero", but that was about it. Of course, a sensible person might, at this point, have asked the shop assistants what it was. Not me.

Instead, gifts bought, I went home and embarked on some intensive googling. Well, I say intensive, in point of fact I tracked the song down pretty swiftly: it turned out to be Hero by Regina Spektor and I knew it from the soundtrack to 500 Days of Summer (incidentally, I must at this point apologise to all those of you who aren't Spotify users and thus won't be able to access the links in this post - if anyone can point me out a similar US service on which I can set up links for those affected, let me know). Having listened to and enjoyed the song in full, I noticed that said soundtrack further benefitted from having an arguably even finer Spektor song in Us. This prompted me to put Spotify to good use and track down and listen to all the songs of hers that I could.

I was left with one overriding question: how on earth had it taken me so long to meet Spektor? Yesterday I tried to describe her to my brother: imagine, I suggested, a female Leonard Cohen, only with a prettier singing voice but not such a brilliant poet. I'm not sure that's a perfect description but I haven't come up with anything better. She also has no shortage of wit, has something endearingly quirky about her and comes across as extremely charismatic performer. Anyway, so much have I been listening to her this week that I felt a new segment was in order, that of Album of the Week. Actually, in choosing, I havered somewhat: Far is also a superb album, and in some ways an easier listen, but the strengths of the individual songs on Begin to Hope are such that it has to be the winner. I'm going to discuss a couple of these in an effort to explain just what I find so magical about Spektor.