Hui-a: Maori Fusion Music

My Maori friends Hui-a (made up of Jerome Kavanagh and Ben Mullon) have released their debut EP, Got To Live. Both artists are of Maori ancestry, and I had the good fortune to work with them in December of 2007, during my recording sessions at Abbey Road. They perform a haka and whakorero on the final track of my album, a Maori song called 'Kia Hora Te Marino'.

Also guesting on the EP is the singer Kevin Mark Trail of The Streets. The album's a great blend of traditional Maori chants and instruments, accompanied by contemporary beats. Anyone who's a fan of traditional music blended with modern instrumentation ought to give it a listen.

I quite like the title track 'Got To Live' myself. I think it would make great late-night driving music for the Los Angeles highways. It's amazing how some of those Taonga Puoro sound like wolf howls.

On Ensemble: Ume In The Middle

My friends the On Ensemble have released another album, called Ume In The Middle. It's pretty fantastic work. The On Ensemble is a neo-taiko (or taiko fusion, if you will) ensemble; they blend traditional Japanese taiko drumming with electronic beats, turntables, beat-boxing, Tuvan throat singing, and other fantastic sonic tricks.

Ordinarily taiko drumming suffers when translated to audio format. It's a very visual art form; almost a blend of martial arts and percussion. The On Ensemble overcomes this problem by compensating with some really cutting-edge record production. The guy behind the production in this case is my friend Shoji Kameda, or Kametron as he's known in liner notes.

You'll also get a chance to hear the On Ensemble on my album. They lay down taiko tracks on a number of songs, and are featured prominently in my Japanese song, Mado Kara Mieru.

Really quality stuff. Give it a listen!

Honda Odyssey "Respect The Van"

I love the music in this spot!

I happen to love humorous retro things.

(Music by HUM.)

Congrats to Gloria Cheng!

I'm very, very, very behind on blogging. The holidays rolled around, I traveled around Asia for three weeks, I got food poisoning...lots of things conspired to keep me from updating this blog. Consequently, there are lots of things to update, including recording sessions with Sussan Deyhim, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, and a trio of young Japanese pop stars. (Stay tuned for posts about those sessions, as well some more sneak peaks at my album.)

In the meantime, however, I thought I'd update the Grammy situation. As expected, I came NOWHERE close to winning anything whatsoever. I didn't even make the final five (I was beaten out by, oh...Peter Gabriel...Alan Menken...you may have heard of them.) But the good news is that my extraordinary pianist friend Gloria Cheng won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra) for her album Piano Music of Salonen, Stucky and Lutoslawski. The compositions may not be everyone's cup of tea (although I think they're fantastic), but there's no denying her extraordinary touch and skill. Here she is accepting her Grammy:

I've had the good fortune of having her record two of my piano pieces for me. One was my Nocturne No. 2 for the low-budget vampire romance movie The Insatiable:

The second is a lullaby called 'Night Sings Its Songs', written for the US theatrical premiere of celebrated Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse's play of the same name.

As you can tell, my pieces are quite different from Esa-Pekka Salonen, Steven Stucky and Witold Lutoslawski (far fewer notes!), but Gloria brings out the beauty of every piece she performs, whether it be modern and dissonant, or traditional and melodic.

Congrats, Gloria!

A Recommendation: Keren Ann

It’s been awhile since I’ve stumbled across something new and worthwhile, but this singer’s got me good. And the thing is, she’s really not all that new….I’ve just been in a cave, apparently.

Keren Ann is an Israeli-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter. She writes, among other things, acoustic guitar ballads: but not the clichéd whiny-coffee-shop-emo variety. She writes GOOD SONGS. This is the one that caught my attention…it’s called “I’m Not Going Anywhere”:

Here’s another one….check out the Lou Reed-inspired semi-spoken vocals (the classical term for this is singspiel…forgive me, but I’m in Professor Tin mode these days…):

“Lay Your Head Down” makes me feel like I’m listening to the Velvet Underground, and I don’t mean that in a derivative way; I mean that she’s very economical with all her musical gestures, which is something that I admire in musicians, and practice in my own writing. She gets straight to the point—no fussy intros, no long lead-ins. I believe strongly in that.

Here’s one more, called “Chelsea Burns.” just because I like to do things in threes:

UPDATE: It’s Tuesday evening, and I’ve been listening to “Not Going Anywhere” on repeat for the last 72 hours. That song has hit me in a soft spot. The chord changes, the phrase lengths, the performance…..I just love it!

More Imogen Heap: "Just For Now" Live

Still not out of the woods on my tuberculosis/cold/SARS/bird flu/whatever the heck my cousin gave me.

In the meantime, here's another very impressive bit of work by Imogen Heap.



She's using an Echoplex, or some other live loop player. The way it works is pretty obvious from the video; you record a track, then set where it loops. Then it plays back that track while you add another....and another, etc.

What's great about the way she's doing it, though, is that she still managed to put together a very musical arrangement. So often with this style of loop-based improv it's easy to fall into the trap of just piling layer upon layer of loops, without introducing section breaks or varying the arrangement in any way. She does a great job of keeping it fresh the whole time, and cutting out elements whenever not needed. The "Get me outta here" section at 3:30 is a great introduction of a new idea, as well.

Off to my Tylenol Cold Nighttime-induced haze....