Not the Village People (2)

 

 

 Arka'n Asrofokor

 

 

 

Here are more artists who mix folk with rock and metal.  This isn’t straightforward: Folk music is not about innovation, it is about familiarity and comfort, and anyone can perform it.  Rock and metal are at their best when exploring new ground, and they only work when performed by top-notch musicians.  These bands have found a way to make it all work.

 

Eluveitie (Switzerland): The Call Of The Mountains

They’ve been around almost 20 years, and cover a wide range of styles, but always with this melding of folk and rock sounds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w2m-TeLi6I

 

Arka'n Asrafokor (Togo)

I find these guys mind-blowing, and I frankly can’t understand why they are not much bigger. Not really sure what else to say.  Like the rest of the world, they were under lock-down, so this is from a virtual music festival.  It’s a long clip and completely worth the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnCrC24stBY

 

 

Wagakki Band (Japan)

There may be no group in the world that does this better.  They are Jedi masters of their instruments, both Western and Japanese, and they sure know how to stage a show.  Oh, and I’m in love with the Shamisen player:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponTbDDMYjw

Great Voices (4): Patricia Janečková

I included a few clips from Patricia Janečková in previous entries, but I think she merits a post all to herself.  She is only 22 and is already regarded as one of the 3-4 best sopranos in the world.  Considering that most opera singers don’t hit their stride until their mid-30s, that is remarkable.  Even so, she is doing the smart thing: where many great talents burn themselves out pushing too hard, she is taking her time, and seems to be playing the long game.  For this post, I wanted to show her at various stages in her emergence.

 

 

2010:  Ennio Morricone:  “Once upon a time in the West”

Here is Janečková at age 12, in a talent contest (think “Slovakia’s Got Talent”), performing Morricone’s iconic movie theme song. She made it her signature piece early in her career.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geVBruZAWA4

 

 

Between 2012 and 2015, Janečková vanished, and there was speculation about whether she had quit.  Actually, she was in training, and when she came back, it was with a bang. Check out my earlier post, which includes two performances from shortly after her return: https://zapatosjam.blogspot.com/2020/06/ah-anna.html

 

 

2015:  “Once upon a time in the West”

Janečková reprises her old signature song, in one of her first recitals after coming back.  Here she is singing with a full orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5eQ9UTmDLo

 

 

2016:  Puccini: "Quando me´n vo´" (La bohème)

From one of the Big Three of Italian opera (the others being Verdi and Rossini)  Now she is really hitting her stride:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPVZZPQAJpo

 

 

2017:  W. A. Mozart - Laudate Dominum, KV 339

Every woman who is serious about being a classical vocalist will perform this at some point.  In my opinion, Janečková blasts it out of the park. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljvTwbxrylc

 

 

2019:  (with Titusz Tóbisz) Giuseppe Verdi - Libiamo ne´lieti calici (La Traviata)

From what is probably the biggest Italian opera of all.  Here they are doing a casual performance at an outdoor festival:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bfAwiSOejk

 

 

2021: Gioacchino Rossini: La Danza

This is the vocal equivalent of stunt work—you only try it in public if you have perfect control and unshakeable confidence.  She’s got both in spades:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-sqv2ACpjc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guitar Magic (5): More duets

Animals as Leaders

Polyphia:  LIT

Mostly instrumental band from Texas.  This is one of their earliest.  It shows them trying out bits and pieces of different styles of music, and playing with electronic effects. The core element of guitars playing off each other is already baked in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=per9Wz0N-QA

 

Polyphia:  “G.O.A.T.”

A few years later, and Polyphia are experimenting with time signatures, extreme syncopation, and various effects.  The whole thing should be undanceable but it makes you want to try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_gkpYORQLU

 

D-Drive

D-Drive: “Cassis Orange”

D-Drive are an instrumental band founded in 2009, whose special sauce is guitar harmonies and counterpoints that combine elements of jazz, rock and blues.  Here is a demo video they produced to recruit the rest of the band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_-P1L4ZVo

 

D-Drive: “Unkind Rain”

Fast forward to today, and like most of us, they are working remotely, in this case posting studio sessions.  Here is one of my favorites--listen for the contrast between the voices of the two guitars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5G3nXJtSzQ

 

 

Nemophila: “Raitei”

The entire piece floats on a dense layer of harmonized guitar leads, especially in the choruses.  The guitarists then uncork two solos that draw in middle-eastern scales, a key change and a shift in tempo, followed by a short harmonized shred.  Players this technical often get carried away; these two keep it short and sweet and make it serve the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh-dVLKP314

 

 

Animals as Leaders:  “Cafo”

The two guitarists play eight-strings, which lets them reach down into the bass registers, so they don’t need a bassist.  This piece is like a mini-symphony, with several movements that evoke completely different sensations.  (The first part also has a synth track playing under the guitars).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmfzWpp0hMc

 

More Power Ballads

 

If you didn’t see my earlier post on power ballads, here’s a way to think about them:  Have you ever sat in a 1968 Pontiac GTO with 350 hp under the hood, and the driver is only going 25mph?  You know there is power in reserve, you just don’t know when it will explode.  That’s sort of the feeling you get when a normally hard-driving band slows down to sing about lost or unrequited love.

 

Thanks to my brother Arun for his ongoing suggestions and recommendations, especially where rock bands are concerned.  He is a guitarist himself so he listens to all of this stuff with a musician’s ear.

 

 

Robin Trower:  “I can’t wait much longer”

Trower made his name as the lead guitarist for Procol Harum, one of the iconic bands of the late 60’s.  He left in 1971 to start a power trio, consciously modeled after Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.   He remains influential in the guitar world, and has given lessons to a number of established rock guitarists.  This song is from his first album.  The vocalist is the late James Dewar, who also played bass in the band (parallels to Jack Bruce—and Bruce would later record an album with Trower).

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7PJNALBmQ

 

 

The Scorpions: “Winds of Change”

One of the few European rock groups to break through in the U.S.  They released this in 1990 but had been doing hard rock since 1965.  (Consider that in 1965, the Beatles were still doing pop!)  The Scorpions influenced all the big rock and metal bands that followed.  This song is a meditation on the huge social changes happening in their home country of Germany around the time the Wall fell.  If you didn't follow the rock scene, you may not have known who did this song, but you have certainly heard it.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ

 

 

Nightwish: “The Dead Boy’s Poem”

Nightwish are one of the biggest metal bands in the world, and were also pioneers of symphonic rock.  They are little known in the U.S. but command huge followings in Europe, South America and Asia. They have been touring regularly for 25 years; with the retirement of their long-time bass player, Marco Heitala, it is unclear whether they will continue forward beyond 2021.   Here is a performance featuring their original lead singer, Tarja Turunen.

       

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPPJm65NVXI

 

 

Prince: “Purple Rain”

Prince makes pretty much every relevant “Best of” list.  Best songwriters.  Best bandleaders.  Best guitarists.  Best stage magicians.  He is on my list of “extraterrestrials”: artists so outrageously gifted that they must have come from another planet. His songs generally rocked pretty hard.  His most iconic piece, however, was a ballad.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnYmWpD_T8