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A different Deer Hunter
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David Scott is a musical hero of mine. A pocket/low budget Brian Wilson, with a healthy addition of Ennio Morricone and a great pop sensibility. I cannot fault his output as ‘The Pearlfishers’, just wish more people were aware of him.
Met him once at a show in Edinburgh and he came out to talk with me during the interval and at the end of the show. A true gent.
The Pearlfishers: ‘Love & Other Hopeless Things’ LIVE at The Riverside Rooms - YouTube
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Of Dario Castello little is known; even the dates of his birth and death are disputed. It seems clear that he was born in 1602 in Venice, as he was baptized on the 19th October of that year. There are contrasting accounts of his death, though. Most probably it seems that he fell victim to the Great Plague from 1630-31, but others report that he lived until 1644.
In 1624 he was appointed as violinist to the orchestra of St.Mark’s, at that time headed by Claudio Monteverdi who had notable influence on Castello’s two published volumes of sonatas for 1-4 solo interments and basso continuo. It is quite easy to identify Castello’s frequent use of stile concitato (agitated style), which is associated with Monteverdi.
There are not many albums dedicated to the music of Castello (one album is part of the collection of Jean Tubéry and Ensemble La Fenice I posted yesterday). This album by the eminent Italian baroque violinist Fabio Biondi and his Europa Galante is another one with great playing and very good sound production. It seems, though, that Tubéry may have the advantage of more appropriate instrumentation over Biondi. Castello in his manuscripts gave precise indications for instrumentation, and he makes frequent use of cornetto, sackbutt, trombone, shawm and other wind instruments.
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Yes, this one I knew already 
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It’s big, it’s bold, it’s beautiful and it’s 20 years old. Where has the time gone?
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Enjoyed listening to All is Dream. It really hit the spot tonight.
Thanks for posting Grizzly Bear. I had to follow suit with this.
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I got distracted and took a detour along another road.
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Mark Kozelek! Where do we start? His commercial musical suicide has been pretty drastic over recent years, not to mention the recent ‘alleged’ revelations regarding his private life.
Me and my wife saw him a couple of years ago…my wife hated it, but I thought he was fantastic! I guess I have more stamina for the spoken word stream of consciousness that constitutes his music nowadays.
This song came up on shuffle today and it reminded me of so many things that I enjoyed about his music, before Quality Control was relieved of it’s duties.
Part one - The Zeppelin movie references, I can totally applaud. So happy to hear a nod towards ‘Rain Song’ and ‘Bron-Yr- Aur.’ Fond memories as a teen watching this movie in a local cinema, before the days of VHS/Betamax.
The middle section is almost the starting point for all the rambling lyrics that are now par for the course. Okay to listen to once, then it’s like reading the same newspaper article over and over.
Part three - A really genuine appreciation for Ivo Watts Russell, the man who gave Mark his big break. He was the founder of 4AD records and also the creative force behind ‘This Mortal Coil’ and ‘The Hope Blister’
He sold his shares in 4AD in 1999 and moved to Santa Fe, after having mental health issues.
What comes next? Who knows 
I watched the film ‘The Song Remains the Same’
At the midnight movies when I was a kid
At a Canton, Oh mall with friends
One warm summer weekend
Jimmy Page stood tall on screen
I was mesmerized by everything
The Peter Grant and John Paul Jones dream sequence scenes
The close-up of the mahogany Double SG
And though I loved the sound of the roaring Les Paul
What spoke to me most was ‘Rain Song’ and ‘Bron-Yr-Aur’
And I loved the thunder of Jon Bonham’s drums
But even more I like ‘No Quarter’s Fender Rhodes’ hum
I don’t know what happened or what anyone did
From my earliest memories I was a very melancholic kid
When anything close to me at all in the world died
To my heart, forever, it would be tied
Like when my friend was thrown from his moped
When some kind of a big truck back-ended him
And when the girl who sat in front of me in remedial
Was killed in an accident one weekend and quickly forgot about at school
And when we got the call that my grandmother passed
The nervous tension I’d been feeling for months broke
And strangely I laughed
Then I went to my bedroom and I laid down
And in my tears and in the heaviness of everything I drowned
Though I kept to myself and for the most part was pretty coy
I once got baited and had to clock some underserving boy
Out on the elementary school playground
I threw a punch that caught him off-guard and knocked him down
And when I walked away the kids were cheering
And though I grinned deep inside, I was hurting
But not nearly as much as I hurt him
He stood up, his glassed broken and his face was red
And i was never a schoolyard bully
It was only one incident
And it has always eaten at me
I was never the young schoolyard bully
And wherever you are, that poor kid, I’m so sorry
And when I grew older I learned to play guitar
While everyone else was throwing around a football
Wearing bright colors the school issued them
Parroting passed down phrases and cheerleading
I got a recording contract in 1992
From there my name, my band and my audience grew
And since that time so much has happened to me
But I discovered I cannot shake melancholy
For 46 years now I cannot break the spell
I’ll carry it through my life and probably carry it down
I’ll go to my grave with my melancholy
And my ghost will echo my sentiments for all eternity
And now when I watch ‘The Song Remains the Same’
The same things speak to me that spoke to me then
Except that now the scenes with Peter Grant and Jon Bonham
Are different when I think of the deaths that fell upon them
I got a friend who lives in the desert outside Santa Fe
I’m going to visit him this Saturday
Between my travels and his divorce and our time not being what it was
It’s been 15 years since I last saw him
He’s the man who signed me back in 1992
And I’m going to go there and tell him face-to-face - ‘thank you’
For discovering my talent so early
For helping me along in this beautiful musical world I was meant to be in
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In for a Grizzly Bear penny, in for a Grizzly Bear pound (other currencies can be substituted).
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And this for me is why streaming will NEVER replace vinyl!
Just picked this up in a lrs here in Wisconsin.
How delightful!!
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Neither me. I was living in Dundee around the time of their genesis - Snooze Control, as we were fond of calling them!
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Giving this excellent release another spin.
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https://i.imgur.com/pdxWsyc.png
"With triumphant horns, a heavy slice of southern soul and a solid base, Nash produces a sublime, powerful album. A masterpiece.
To quote the album’s press release, Topaz is “Political and personal, Topaz is moody and vast, cohesive and compelling.”
Topaz is full of fat horns, gospel choruses, swagger, hope, and pain. The meaty rock foundation with touches of psychedelia and skylark folk that fans have come to love are still here, now with a soulful nod to Muscle Shoals and Memphis." ~HC [Building Our Own Nashville]
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This album is a treasure of superior musicianship and artistry, as well as sound recording and editing. It was recorded in 1992 at the Convent of Saint Dominic in Bologna, with wonderful sound engineering by Michel Bernstein, founder of the Valois, Astrée and Arcana labels.
This is Alessandrini’s first recording of Monteverdi’s Sesto Libro de Madrigali, with another more recent recording released in 2005 on Naïve. Both albums are excellent, but this earlier version is, as I said, a real treasure. Alessandrini at 32 years old was still at the start of his illustrious musical journey, and Concerto Italiano, founded in 1986, was just beginning its long and extremely successful recording career.
Cristina Miatello, soprano
Rossana Bertini, soprano
Bianca Simone, mezzo-soprano
Claudio Cavina, countertenor
Santo Naglia, tenor
Giuseppe Maletto, tenor
Daniele Carnovich, bass
Mara Galassi, double harp
Andrea Damiani, lute and theorbo
Rinaldo Alessandrini, harpsichord
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