Thin lines. Between genius and madness. Between success and failure. Between order and chaos. Is that what Thinium is about? Or is this the Immortal Onion's way of reminding us of the tissue paper layers in the vegetable that makes us cry? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNP5SIMf2_Q This Polish jazz trio has appeared here before - in February 2021…Read more Thinium
orchestral beats
Fleeting Future
A single mother and a married man enter into an affair with the understanding that their relationship is purely sexual. Though they agree the relationship has no future, they find themselves increasingly drawn into each other's company.Imdb The present is always fleeting. As soon as it has come, it has gone again. And yet it…Read more Fleeting Future
Monument
The al-Shaheed Monument, Baghdad Credit goes to my Spotify-curated Release Radar playlist for this week's topic. Item 28 in the list was a track by Portico Quartet called On the Light. It comes from Monument, the second album released this year by the band. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Eos6c-MPA Live at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, Camden, London. 3 February…Read more Monument
Radar Blips
My Release Radar this week included several interesting new pieces by not-so-new artists spanning a wide range of styles. I'm featuring them in another Spotify playlist this week. But before we get to that, I must pay tribute to Peter Green, who's death was announced yesterday. Rolling Stone placed the blues/rock guitarist born Peter Allen Greenbaum…Read more Radar Blips
Hidden Orchestra – Live
Sometimes the Fates deal us a difficult hand. Just recently it has not been enough for Crotchety Man to paddle his own canoe; he has been asked to paddle other people's canoes as well. That, of course, is flattering but this naturally nervous gentleman was never cut out to lead the paddlers' flotilla. Do I…Read more Hidden Orchestra – Live
Chalk and Coal
Here in the UK when we want to emphasise that two things are very different we might say, "They are like chalk and cheese". It's a snappy phrase but are chalk and cheese really so different? Wouldn't "chalk and coal" turn up the contrast in our mental imagery more effectively? Perhaps that's what they say…Read more Chalk and Coal
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
Feathers
As promised in the previous post, here is my review of Feathers, the 2014 album by Poppy Ackroyd. It will be brief, not because the music is dull but because no dictionary in Crotchety Man's extensive library has adequate words for the soothing, susurrating sounds that emanate from the hi-fi when it is commanded to…Read more Feathers
Bolek i Lolek
Nearly a year ago now Crotchety Man got very excited about a band/project called Hidden Orchestra. Regular readers will remember my review of the album Archipelago in which I introduced the term "orchestral beats" to describe the music of Joe Acheson and his collaborators. Since then there has been one other post in these pages…Read more Bolek i Lolek
Cantorum
This is the second instalment in my campaign to introduce a new term into the dictionary of musical styles: orchestral beats. That tag first appeared in my review of the Archipelago album by Hidden Orchestra in November of last year. Then last week's Release Radar included something that sounded very similar: Cantorum by Penguin Café. As far as…Read more Cantorum
Crotchety Man 