Crotchety Man is operating in low power mode today. He picked up a nasty infection earlier in the week and his biochemical batteries are now completely drained. So, while this husk of a man soothes his shattered spirit and rests his weary bones, he invites you to watch this bleak but fascinating video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3bSgz8EXaI Bested…Read more Bested Bones
classical
Parnassius Apollo
Annie Lennox is a singer, right? She's also a songwriter, political activist and philanthropist, but to music fans it's her voice that stirs the emotions and captivates the heart. So an EP by Annie Lennox without her distinctive contralto singing, surely, has to be a disappointment. But she must have known she would be defying…Read more Parnassius Apollo
Waiting
According to Wikipedia, "Advent is a season observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting". It's the same in non-religious communities, too, because it's also when little children start waiting for a jovial old man with a long white beard, dressed in a bright red suit, to come down the chimney to deliver…Read more Waiting
Desperate for Your Love
There is no divide - no ditch, no fence, no wall separates the classical from the contemporary - and no band illustrates this better than Sky. All the members of Sky were classically trained musicians who chose to make pop/rock/classical cross-over music. The most high-profile member of the band was John Williams, who was already…Read more Desperate for Your Love
Landscapes
No other band sounds like Hidden Orchestra. Or so I believed. But perhaps the Crotchety Research Elves just hadn't mapped that part of the musical landscape thoroughly enough yet. Recruiting the Global Network of Discovery and Spotify as guides, Crotchety Man embarked on a journey of exploration. Those regions were not thought to be dangerous but…Read more Landscapes
Paper Earth
Crotchety Man has nothing to say this week. No words of his could possibly do justice to this spine-tingling performance by Bent Knee and the Boston Conservatory Percussion Ensemble. Just watch this video and be transported to a happier place for the next 30 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1834&v=LGNZePMJ8XM BENT KNEE - Paper Earth (Live 2018 / Full…Read more Paper Earth
Future Strings
Crotchety Man has been bingeing on prog rock recently so I thought it was time for something rather different. As luck would have it my Release Radar this week included an enchanting track called Listen to the Grass Grow by Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita. Now, I used a photo of Catrin Finch in an…Read more Future Strings
A Clutch of Collectives
collective adjective Done by people acting as a group. "a collective protest" noun A cooperative enterprise. "the anarchist collective and bookshop" What's the collective noun for 'collective'? Wiktionary defines a 'catch' of 'collective nouns' but is silent on 'collective' itself. I need to know because this week I want to bring to your attention two…Read more A Clutch of Collectives
The Black Rock
March came in with an icy blast here in the UK. We had 10 - 20 cm of snow, much of the country's transport system ground to a halt and some unfortunate motorists got stuck on a Scottish motorway for eight hours. It was all due to "the beast from the east" - a weather…Read more The Black Rock
The Fairie Round
An article in New Scientist about the Voyager 1 space craft caught the Crotchety eye the other day. It reports that the primary thrusters that keep Voyager's antenna pointing towards Earth are beginning to fail. Voyager does have backup thrusters but they had not been fired since 1980 so NASA's engineers did not know if they would…Read more The Fairie Round
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