Station To Station

On the occasions she would peruse my record collection, my sister would lament the absence of David Bowie albums. All I could do was point weakly at my CD copy of Hunky Dory and explain that Bowie LPs were just none too commonplace in the local charity shops. At length, I suggested that if she wanted to buy me one for my birthday or Christmas then it would be much appreciated.

It's thanks to her that I've since supplanted my Hunky Dory CD with an LP; and that I now also have vinyl copies of Low and Station To Station, all three in recent re-presses - with Station To Station being a 2017 issue. In the meantime I did manage to find a '70s copy of Aladdin Sane out in the wild (I vaguely recall having caught sight of Let's Dance and Tonight in the bins too, but I wasn't interested in acquiring those).

On hearing the title track I tend to begin asking myself "do I really like this?" during its opening minutes, only to end up convinced anew by the time it ends. 'Golden Years' strikes me as a near-perfect song: it's my favourite thing on the record. And I think 'Wild is the Wind' might be the best of his cover versions. Considering the addled state he was in when the album was made, it all holds together remarkably well!

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Complete String Quartets

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All Wrapped Up

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Ein Schattenspiel, etc.

Georg Friedrich Haas is a contemporary Austrian composer of "art music". "Haas's style recalls that of György Ligeti in its use of micropolyphony, microintervals and the exploitation of the overtone series; he is often characterized as a leading exponent of spectral music" says wikipedia. Only a relative few of his many compositions have been issued on CD - many more of them can be found on YouTube. On this 2020 disc are three of his works in which standard classical instrumentation is augmented and altered by "live electronics". Two are string quartets and one is for solo piano. Is a string quartet still really a quartet if there are meanwhile some other people with laptops busily twizzling the sound? There is a live performance video of the 'String Quartet No. 7', the first work on the disc, where the JACK Quartet are supplemented by a trio of sound boffins to realise the composition. Whether it's properly a quartet or a septet is neithe...

This is a Recording

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