[QuickTidal]

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 07 March 2021 - 06:33 PM

[Macros]

The last few weeks I've been mostly listening to The Hu

[Serenity]

New single from SCANDAL, the first release of their 15th anniversary celebrations.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Witch Camp (Ghana): I've Forgotten Now Who I Used To Be [...] – magical sound of the marginalised

[...]

"You could call this music the blues, in spirit if not in form"[...]

Sung in little-spoken Ghanaian dialects, these haunting, spontaneous songs by women accused of witchcraft are unlike anything you have ever heard

[...] In northern Ghana, witch hunts are more than a political metaphor. Even now, vulnerable women are accused of the dark arts because they have a mental illness, a physical disability or simply because their families want them out of the way. They are blamed for infertility, crop failure, bad weather, accidental deaths and much more besides. Lynchings and burnings still occur from time to time. That's what a witch hunt means.

While belief in witchcraft is not unique to Ghana, witch camps are. These small settlements, which still exist despite government efforts to shut them down, offer accused women safe haven, albeit within the same framework of belief that drove them from their homes: the chiefs claim to ask the local gods to neutralise their powers and render them harmless. Protection assumes guilt. "If we are here, then we must be witches," [...]

Perhaps you could call this music the blues, in spirit if not in form. While the women are technically free to leave, they have nowhere safe to go, so they are almost entirely insulated from external influences. Their spontaneously composed music is therefore distant not just from London or New York but from the Ghanaian capital, Accra, and obeys no formula. Tracks are as short as 36 seconds and as long as four minutes. Some are a cappella; others are pure percussion. Some have a lonesome austerity; others use antiphony and urgent rhythms to create a sense of community life. The voices can be clear and strong or parched and frail. Guitar-like sounds mingle with ad hoc instrumentation – tin cans, teapots, tree branches – and serendipitous interventions, such as the chirrup of birdsong that concludes We Are No Different Than You.

[...] The hypnotic overlapping voices on I Am a Beggar for a Home might be mistaken for looped and phased samples, while the shrill burble of I Have Lost All That I Love would seem to come from a synthesiser, if not an interplanetary broadcast, yet Brennan is a purist who doesn't even use overdubs. Strangest of all is the final track, whose hissing, bassy warble, akin to a haunted vocoder, is some of the most inexplicably unnerving music I've ever heard.

[...] Song collectors' obsession with undiluted authenticity (often equated with suffering) has always been problematic in the wrong hands but Brennan and Umuhoza are respectful listeners. Plunging you into lives unimaginably different from your own, I've Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be invites you not just to empathise with the women's surreal plight but to marvel at their ingenuity.'

https://www.theguard...he-marginalised





'On a brief track called "I Stand Accused," a woman in a remote part of Ghana intones and repeats the title phrase with the intensity of a global town crier. She's accompanied only by the sound of pieces of firewood being struck together.'

['I Stand Accused' and a few other tracks remind me a bit of sean-nós.]

'This singer is one of an estimated 1,000 women in northern Ghana who have fled their homes because of witchcraft accusations — and the fear that they will be physically attacked as a result. Reasons vary for such allegations: Some charges arise so that land they owned could be stolen. Other times women with mental or physical disabilities are condemned. Virulent sexism, ageism or personal jealousies are usually part of these accusations. Their livelihood can include chopping firewood for local chiefs and gathering discarded food for themselves. One track describes an especially harsh means of survival: "Abandoned (Forced Into A Life Of Prostitution).

[...] For Marilena Umuhoza Delli, who produced the Witch Camp album with her husband, [...] Brennan, their stories convey personal resonance. [...]

"My mother is from Rwanda and she's disabled, widowed, a three-time genocide survivor," [...] "I grew up poor in Italy in a conservative area, so it was impossible to look at these women's circumstances and not see my own mother. [...] as we have done in Tanzania, with genocide survivors in Rwanda and Cambodia, our objective is to provide a platform for these women who are otherwise censored or unheard."

Umuhoza Delli and Brennan have considerable experience in making such marginalized voices heard by encouraging them to turn their stories into songs. They produced the Zomba Prison Project album I Have No Everything Here, which features voices from a Malawian maximum security prison. For Witch Camp, Umuhoza Delli and Brennan traveled to three northern Ghanaian rural villages that house accused witches. (They did not name the villages out of concern for everyone's safety. Working with (and supported by) chieftains and translators who knew the local Mampruli and Dagbani language dialects [...]

The women wish to remain anonymous for their own safety, and, says Umuhoza Delli, "to let the songs speak for themselves."

"When they had the opportunity to sing, they were shocked and happy that there was such an interest in their lives," Umuhoza Delli says. "There was a positivity around this project, everyone participated actively and was very involved."

That energy comes across in "Love" and "Love, Please," with communal voices sounding almost ecstatic in response to the lead vocalist's pleas for love and acceptance. These exchanges also make the solo singers on most of the other tracks sound even more stark and piercing.

[...]

Within Ghana, belief in witches has permeated across social strata and appears as a plot point in television programs. But Ghanaian media has also called for an end to perpetuating the false belief in witchcraft and advocated for re-entering these accused women into general society. Last summer, after 90-year-old Akuah Denteh was murdered following such an accusation, an editorial in the Ghanaian Times declared, "The lynching of Akua Denteh though heartbreaking and condemnable provides us a unique opportunity to take the bold decision to close down all such places [camps], liberate all the women who have been branded witches and indeed say 'no more witches camps.'

Along with hoping for Ghanaian society to reintegrate the women from the witch camps, Umuhoza Delli advocates for a wider change of consciousness.

"It's distressing the high number of doctors, police, teachers who still believe in witchcraft," she says. "This is a problem that affects all of us. Ghana is a great nation, and like in any country, it is a few bad actors who cause such stress."

[...]

The hopes for everyone involved with I've Forgotten How I Used To Be is that this album will go far in galvanizing international consciousness.'

https://www.npr.org/...nd-their-dreams

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 March 2021 - 06:42 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Elon Musk is getting in on the NFT gold rush by selling a new electronic music track he's apparently produced as an NFT. Yes, you've heard that right — it's a song about non-fungible tokens, which Musk appears to have minted (or plans to mint) on the blockchain. Musk did not include a link to the NFT, so it's not clear if it's already live or if Musk plans to initiate the sale at a later date. It's also not clear on which platform Musk intends to sell the NFT.

[...] displays the words "Vanity Trophy" orbiting around a golden orb affixed to the top of a literal trophy reading "HODL," short for the phase "hold on for dear life."

The HODL acronym, though it's believed to have potentially originated as a drunken misspelling of the word "hold," is both online slang and a kind of rallying cry for the bitcoin community, because it ostensibly encourages crypto enthusiasts not to sell their tokens. It's worth noting here that Musk is a huge proponent of bitcoin.'

https://www.theverge...esla-technoking

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 16 March 2021 - 12:02 AM

[Serenity]

One of my favourite Japanese vocalists, R!N, has just released the MV for her song 'Get away', the first step of her Revival Project for her solo career, which has been on hold since 2019 when she became lead singer for the power metal band Aldious.




She is also known as Gemie and has provided vocals and/or lyrics for many, many anime songs and video game soundtracks. Here she is performing You See Big Girl/T:T from Attack On Titan:

[QuickTidal]

From NF's soon to be released new Mixtape...these tracks are both FIRE.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 17 March 2021 - 03:59 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Sean-nós singing is a highly ornamented style of solo, unaccompanied singing defined by [...] Ó Canainn as:

...a rather complex way of singing in Irish, confined mainly to some areas in the west and south of the country. It is unaccompanied and has a highly ornamented melodic line....Not all areas have the same type of ornamentation—one finds a very florid line in Connacht, contrasting with a somewhat less decorated one in the south, and, by comparison, a stark simplicity in the northern songs...

Ó Canainn also asserts that "...no aspect of Irish music can be fully understood without a deep appreciation of sean-nós singing. It is the key which opens every lock".

Alternatively, it is simply "the old, traditional style of singing" and therefore is not always ornamented. It varies very much from one part of the country to another[...]

Sean-nós songs can be relatively simple, though many are long, extremely stylised and melodically complex. A good performance classically involves substantial ornament and rhythmic variations from verse to verse.

Ó Canainn identifies most ornamentation as melismatic ornamentation. This is when a note is replaced or emphasised by a group of adjoining notes, unlike intervallic ornamentation, in which additional notes are used to fill up an interval between two notes.

[...] ornamentations[...] include:

Highly ornamented singing where the voice is placed near the top of the range
Nasalisation
A second form of nasalisation, used in the south, produces an "m", "n" or "ng" sound at the end of a phrase
Melisma (singing one syllable in a word to several notes)
Brief pauses initiated by glottal stops, "slides" or glissandi (predominantly when sung by women)
Very long extended phrases
A tendency to draw breath after a conjunction or linking words rather than at the end of a phrase
Ending some songs by speaking the finishing line instead of singing it
Varying the melody in each verse

[...]

The singer may occasionally adopt a position facing the corner of the room and away from the audience, with eyes closed, a position that has acoustic benefits, aids concentration for performing long intricate songs from memory, and perhaps has some additional ancient significance.

The listeners are not expected to be silent throughout and may participate in the performance through words of encouragement and commentary. Sometimes a listener will hold the performer's hand, and together they will move or "wind" their linked hands in the rhythm of the song. Such interactions do not disturb the flow of music, and the performer will often respond musically. (The Irish Gaelic verb cas means to turn or wind, and an idiomatic expression for singing is to turn/wind a song: cas amhrán.)

The performance of most songs is not restricted by gender, although the lyrics may imply a song is from a woman's or man's point of view.'

https://en.wikipedia...n-n%C3%B3s_song

'Sean-nós singing is at once the most loved and the most reviled, the least often heard and the least understood part of that body of music which is generally referred to as Irish Traditional Music … It is the least understood because, technically and emotionally, it is the most complex part of that body of music, and many of those who dislike it do so because the techniques of sean-nós singing are not the techniques which they have come to regard as the "proper" or "correct" ones.

[...] Sean-nós is deeply rooted in the rhythms of the Irish Language and in the meters and rhythms of the poetry of the language.

[...] A singer has to be persuaded into singing [...]

[...] Sean-nós singers often assume an air of detachment when performing. Some close their eyes; some others lower their heads or even turn away from the audience. Others again keep their eyes wide open, engaging specific audience members much as though they were narrating a story. Some singers prefer to sit while singing, others stand, and others take a drink after each verse.

[...] The singer is not usually demonstrative – hand gestures or body movement or facial expressiveness is rare. [...] Sean-nós singing can often be a very internal process for the singer. The singer must sync themselves into the world of the song. The idea of 'living' the song is very much alive. [...]

I put myself in the man's name that this particular song was written about. Am I suffering the labours he did, can I go through that or have that picture before me; if I can't follow that man, the journey he took, whether he was in bondage or slavery, I don't follow the song and I don't do it justice, and I don't know, I don't if I don't do that.

[...]

A common stylistic device is the use of the glottal stop. This is a normal feature of the style where there is a sudden stopping of the air flow in the throat in the middle of the song without caution. "The result was to break the smooth running of the songs metre with the abrupt ending of a note. It is a form of rhythmic decoration. The effect of the sudden stop is to emphasise either the note which has just been sung or the following one. The use of the glottal stop is quiet common in all regions."'

[...] It sometimes happens that the singer will only pause after the linking word in the text has been sung and the listener then knows that the remainder of the sentence has yet to come. The anticipation bridges the gap in the music sometimes on the word is/and or ach/but [...]

Samhradh buí ,earrach is geimhreadh
Is thugamar féin a' samhradh linn.
(Bright summer, spring and winter
And we'll take the summer with us.)

In this example we are presented with "is" this encourages the singer to refrain from taking a breath after geimhreadh'

https://grainnecampi...ging-tradition/

'Speaking of pitch reminds one that there is, of course, no standard pitch in Irish music, but this poses no problem for the solo performer. One finds a tendency among many female singers to pitch their songs very high. [...]

Microtonal changes in pitch are a normal part of a good traditional singer's technique and one finds in particular a tendency to slide up to an important note through an interval which may be greater or less than a semitone. The seventh degree of the scale with its varying pitch (either natural or sharp or between the two) often figures in such sliding.'

https://campus.digic...inging_Analysis

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 17 March 2021 - 05:11 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Cait McWhir, originally hailing from Ireland, draws her inspiration from almost 20 years of exploration with Indian, Balkan, Middle-Eastern & Celtic vocal styles. She has an incredible versatility allowing her to freely cross between conventional folklore to ancient Sanskrit chants, Vedic mantras to free improvisation in self-made languages.'



https://8dio.com/ins...en-voices-cait/

'According to some archaic sources, Irish literature introduced the rhyme to Early Medieval Europe, but that is a disputed claim. In the 7th century, the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection. The leonine verse is notable for introducing rhyme into High Medieval literature in the 12th century.

Rhyme entered European poetry in the High Middle Ages, in part under the influence of the Arabic language in Al Andalus (modern Spain). Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively from the first development of literary Arabic in the sixth century'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyme

'Certain it is that as early as the seventh century we find the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection, that is, centuries before most of the vernacular literatures of Europe knew anything at all about it. Nor are their rhymes only such as we are accustomed to in English, French, or German poetry, for they delighted not only in full rhymes, like these nations, but also in assonances, like the Spaniards, and they often thought more of a middle rhyme than of an end rhyme.'

Rapping in Irish:

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 17 March 2021 - 08:59 PM

[Serenity]

New band, DOLL PARTS, just about to release their first CD at the end of April. If it's all up to this standard, I'm in!

[Malankazooie]

[QuickTidal]

Well that's the tensest I've ever been watching a music video...holy shit. NF with the fire.

[Serenity]

This week I've mostly been listening to GLIM SPANKY

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

IDK why bagpipes are so much more popular than Uilleann pipes in the US, despite the Irish-American population being considerably larger than the Scottish-American. Just about everyone is familiar with bagpipes, but very few people have ever heard of Uilleann pipes or have any idea what they look like---though I imagine they've heard them at some point and assumed they were either bagpipes or flutes.




I love the pitch bends, and the tone... the drone is interesting, a bit entrancing, otherworldly, and reminds me a bit of Indian classical music ('in both the Hindustani and the Carnatic systems [the drone] plays an important role [...] by providing the base note (adharaswara) and by creating an aesthetic ambience on the stage.'

https://www.india-in...%20the%20stage.
)

'Sean nos [...] singing [...] is ancient [...] sometimes accompanied with uilleann pipe'

http://www.ndoylefin.../irishtrad.html

'Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish-language term píobaí uilleann (literally, "pipes of the elbow"), from their method of inflation.

[...]

The tone of the uilleann pipes is unlike that of many other forms of bagpipes. They have a different harmonic structure, sounding sweeter and quieter than many other bagpipes, such as the Great Irish warpipes, Great Highland bagpipes or the Italian zampognas. The uilleann pipes are often played indoors, and are almost always played sitting down.'

https://en.wikipedia.../Uilleann_pipes

Hmm, that could explain it---Scottish bagpipes can easily be played while marching around outdoors, so they're more parade-friendly. (But then why not Great Irish warpipes instead?...)

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

More microphones I've been considering:




I think I'd like the KU5A better with more low-end from the proximity effect.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 30 March 2021 - 05:54 PM

[QuickTidal]

New EVANESCENCE album THE BITTER PILL dropped (out of the blue for me) and it's pretty good...for a band that has not been overly relevant since 2003-2004 and certainly hasn't been on my radar since I branched out into other (better) symphonic rock/metal bands.

But yeah, I like this. It's not blowing my mind or anything, but it's a nice listen.

Here's one of the singles that was released in the summer last year.

[QuickTidal]

Oh and speaking of a band I loved...that is now defunct...DELAIN members all split off from Martin Westerholt (sounds like some shit went down?)...and lead vocalist Charlotte Wessels (who I've met and is awesome!) has started releasing solo work on her Patreon, and this is one of the tracks.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 30 March 2021 - 06:49 PM

[Serenity]

QuickTidal, on 30 March 2021 - 06:34 PM, said:

Oh and speaking of a band I loved...that is now defunct...DELAIN members all split off from Martin Westerholt (sounds like some shit went down?)...and lead vocalist Charlotte Wessels (who I've met and is awesome!) has started releasing solo work on her Patreon, and this is one of the tracks.

I was sad to hear they'd split. I've seen them a few times and they're a really great live band, and I'm forever grateful to them for bringing the magnificent Cellar Darling over for their first UK show.

[QuickTidal]

Serenity, on 31 March 2021 - 12:55 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 30 March 2021 - 06:34 PM, said:

Oh and speaking of a band I loved...that is now defunct...DELAIN members all split off from Martin Westerholt (sounds like some shit went down?)...and lead vocalist Charlotte Wessels (who I've met and is awesome!) has started releasing solo work on her Patreon, and this is one of the tracks.

I was sad to hear they'd split. I've seen them a few times and they're a really great live band, and I'm forever grateful to them for bringing the magnificent Cellar Darling over for their first UK show.

Yeah, I saw them 3 times I think total? All great shows. Met her at one tour with Xandria and she was super nice even though the wife and I were kinda sloshed.