Daniel Bautista - Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12

Hey, remember me?  It's been an awfully long time since I've posted here - more than a year, it seems, and even longer since I've posted regularly.  I think I just got overwhelmed with a lot of things in 2010, and blogging was something that had to go, despite a few attempts to get back into it.  However,  I had a wonderful time posting about Christmas music on my other blog last month, so I think I'm finally ready to start posting here again too.

The first album I want to share is Daniel Bautista's Symphony No. 1 in A minor, Op. 12.  If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you might recognize the name from a post I did about three years ago.  This new album has as its centerpiece an original symphony for guitars, drums, and bass.  It sounds like an extremely ambitious undertaking, but I think he pretty much nailed it.  Even though I was already familiar with his work, I still found myself pleasantly surprised by this album.  It's very heavy, complex, and melodic.  It's also very memorable - I have caught myself humming and whistling some of the themes from it on many occasions.  I really hope that the "No. 1" in the title is a sign of things to come - I would love to hear more symphonies from this amazingly talented musician.

After the four movements of the symphony have concluded, there are a few bonus tracks to round out the album, including a beautiful version of Satie's  "Gymnopedie No. 1" and a cool progressive metal track called "Free Guitars Forever".  All in all, I would highly recommend this album to any fans of classical or progressive metal music.

Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/104855

Girl Talk - All Day

Girl Talk's All Day is a mindblowing mash up of 374 different songs (seriously - you can see the whole list of sampled songs right here), overlapping and segueing seamlessly throughout the course of the album's 71 minutes.  The site states that the album "is intended to be listened to as a whole," and I would highly recommend doing so.  I tried listening to bits and pieces of it just to get a feel for it, but nothing about it really clicked for me.  At first, I thought that maybe it was because I don't seem to be familiar with the majority of the sampled music.  However, when I finally got a chance to listen to the entire album in one sitting, I found myself enjoying it more and more the longer it played.  By the middle of the album, where U2's "With Or Without You" is used as a backdrop for a couple of songs, including Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", I was already amazed by what I was hearing; when the "Layla" coda showed up a few minutes later, my mind was officially blown.

There are no breaks in the music at all, but it is structured in such a way that it builds and releases many times over the course of the album.  While I find that my favourite moments (such as the ones mentioned above) involve songs that I know and love, the sense of anticipation is also a hugely enjoyable part of this album.  Now that I've heard the whole thing a few times, I'm also having a lot of fun listening for bits and pieces of songs that I know are in there somewhere but still haven't managed to hear; the two Van Halen songs, in particular, are driving me nuts, as I still haven't recognized them anywhere on the album.

The album is available in both MP3 and FLAC formats, and as either separate tracks or one seamless file.  For the optimal experience, I would recommend grabbing one of the seamless files, especially if you don't have something that is capable if playing gapless audio; the nonstop flow of music really is one of the album's strong points.  One final thing to mention is this infographic detailing the start times of each of the samples; it's optimized for the separately tracked version of the album, but it's still a very cool resource (and if I don't hear those Van Halen songs in there soon, I'll definitely be taking a closer look at the infographic for some assistance!).  Happy listening!

URL:

http://illegal-art.net/allday/

Free Christmas Music 2010

Like every year at this time, I am currently listening exclusively to Christmas music and posting about my favourite free releases at my other blog, Free Christmas Music.  Unlike any other year, I have made it my goal to make one new post there every day until Christmas.  A crazy goal, perhaps, but I've managed to keep it up for the first 9 days, and I think I've managed to streamline the process enough that I should be okay the rest of the way.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to carry those habits over to this blog in the new year and at least try to get a weekly post up.  In the meantime, please enjoy the Christmas music, as that's all I'll be offering for another month or so. :)