New Year, New Music

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Mexican power trio The Warning have become one of my favourite bands of late. The three sisters from Monterrey, Mexico are quite effusive and proud to be Mexicans and here team with a Mexican singer who Wiki says specializes in regional Mexican music. Here, though, Carine Leon seems quite at home fronting the hard rocking sounds of The Warning. Dany Villareal of the band sounds fantastic, too. I believe this is the beginning of the run-up to a new Warning album. Looking forward to it.

 

Chuncho​

Yma Sumac​


Yma Sumac had a vocal range from bass to soprano, spanning more than four octaves (according to some analysts, five full octaves). A normal trained soprano commonly covers three octaves. Sumac’s vocal range reached from her lowest note on B2 to her highest on C#7. Examples of each of her notes are collected here.

Yma Sumac, whose name means “how beautiful” in the indigenous Andean language of Quechua, claimed to be a direct descendant of the last Incan Emperor, Atahualpa. Born in Peru in 1922, she grew up in the Andes where, she said, she would get up early in the morning and go outside to sing with the birds. Even though her musical talent was recognized as a child, there wasn’t enough money to send her to the conservatory, so Yma musically trained and educated herself.

 
:oops:

The Yma Sumac music in my last post is new to my ear in this new year however, given that the artist has passed - there is no brand-new material or compilations post-dating for 2026.

The latest release of Yma Sumac's music is the 2025 audiophile edition compilation The Ultimate Yma Sumac Collection (E) (released March 14, 2025, via Phonogram Recordings Ltd., available on Spotify/Apple Music as a 21-track remastered collection).
 
Yma was amazing. Dad was a fan back in the day so I learned about her through him (I did a short eulogy at his funeral about how he influenced my taste in, and love of, music)
 
"Unchain Utopia" by Dutch band Epica is one of my platonic ideals of symphonic metal. It debuted on the 2014 album The Quantum Enigma and features lyrics by vocalist Simone Simons set to music by guitarist Isaac Delahaye and the rest of the band. There's a ton of talent behind the music, too, with Dutch studio wiz Joost Van Den Broek engineering and working on the choral and orchestral parts. The song itself is a powerful anthem with incredible choral parts and powerful lyrics and lead vocals.

With all that talent and power, it's not an easy song to cover. Norwegian soprano Minniva proves up to the task, though. Wow. Just the mixing to have her as her own choir is impressive studio work.

 
I was introduced to the song by this video, part of a virtual show Epica put out during the pandemic. And wow, what a show they put on. A lot of virtual shows are fairly static (Nightwish's Live at the Islander Arms comes to mind) but they pulled out all the stops for this one. This is a great band hitting their peak fronted by one of the best voices in metal.

 
There is a tour going around Europe right now that I would die to be able to see. It features Dutch band Epica and Swedes Amaranthe as co-headliners with Dutch solo artist Charlotte Wessels as support. Yesterday, they played the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam and put out this wonderful performance. The song "Sirens of Blood and Water" debuted on an Epica EP in 2022, the band's 20th anniversary, and featured Epica lead Simone Simons sharing vocals with Charlotte and Danish singer Myrkur. For the tour, Elize Ryd of Amaranthe took over Myrkur's spot, which makes sense. But then it turns into a quartet as Canadian Alissa White-Gluz joins in. I am guessing that she was there as part of Charlotte's show since they are friends and have collaborated a number of times since Charlotte went solo in 2021. Four of the top female vocalists in metal sharing a stage and song is like a dream coming true. Some friends on another board were there and I am so jealous.

 
The song is a couple of years old, but I don’t think I’ve posted it. Prof is a satirical comedian, often, as well as a rapper and singer, and a painter - not everyone’s type of art or expression for sure but I appreciate him. He’s also from Minnesota. This one’s serious, and pretty relatable to many, I think. I’m feeling this.

 
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Imagine that as mystery ... still some authority will attempt to tell you all about things they do not have a clue about ... like the ultimate stretch of spatial time!

It is grand to come to the conclusion about limits ... regardless of what your 4 runners told you ... yet emotional volatility allows it ...
 
It sucks actually…when the limits are imposed, or stretched too far, by greater gods who haven’t been in your shoes. Emotional absence allows it, I think. Emotional volitily is often just an expression of that state of oppression.

At least he makes art when he’s depressed, and that art has resonated with others and that’s pulled him through.
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
It sucks actually…when the limits are imposed, or stretched too far, by greater gods who haven’t been in your shoes. Emotional absence allows it, I think. Emotional volitily is often just an expression of that state of oppression.

At least he makes art when he’s depressed, and that art has resonated with others and that’s pulled him through.
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Perhaps a neigh to humble as wolf whispers? There's a Fay Rae tale there ... quite flippant ... like emotions when they come to rest ... anything remain?

Roofs, rovers ... so it continues as the sun beats downers ... into essence! Dehydration or desiccation? Dizzy Cation ... there's a Caton Island here in NB that' is controversial ... notorious for their doctrine ...
 
I mentioned Danish singer-songwriter Myrkur above. She's a wonderful artist who leans to folk metal. "Touch My Love and Die" is going to be her entry in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix song competition, which in turn could lead to it becoming Denmark's Eurovision entry (assuming Eurovision doesn't implode over Israel's involvement). It's a fantastic song and likely too heavy to actually win Eurovision, which general hews to lighter, poppier material.


And from just North of her homeland, we've got one of the reigning champions of Swedish death and prog metal, Orbit Culture. They released a serious banger of an album titled Death Above Life last year from which this song is taken.

 
Been listening to these guys a lot this past week. Dark Tranquillity are one of the leading bands of Swedish melodic death metal and their vocalist, Mikael Stanne, is one of my favourite metal singers. His growls are as brutal as it get while also being quite melodic. On top of that, Mikael packs a smooth baritone clean voice, though he uses that quite sparingly in Dark Tranquillity. Here, though, dirty. Very dirty. This is a newly released live version of a song from their 2024 album Endtime Signals. It was filmed at Gothenburg Film Studios in the band's native Sweden (in fact, they started in Gothenburg).

 
Somehow missed this album when it came out a year ago, but the band is classed as technical death metal, a sub-genre I am less fond of. This band mixes tech death with prog metal, though, producing a sound that is more melodic than usual for tech death. Band is Obscura, a German band that I am now going to look into more. They cite Schopenhauer and Goethe as influences on their writing, pretty intellectual even for death metal which has a surprising amount of thoughtful, intellectual lyric writing.

 
For those looking for something more Valentine-ish, here is a new recording from Voce8. It's their full choir and orchestra rather than just the core octet. The song is a setting of "i carry your heart", an e.e. cummings poem, by composer Taylor Scott-Davis.

 
(It was a bit of an unfair, backhanded joke, though, I thought. I mean the punchline at the end of the content, not the literal story of the content. …she ends up mad and smashing the record, and looks more foolish - and he gets to keep on backhanded crooning more unsuspecting women with that song. Lucy and Ricky? Ethel and Fred? Too deep, it’s a joke, I know lol.)
 
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Kimmio Laughterlove said:
(It was a bit of an unfair, backhanded joke, though, I thought. I mean the punchline at the end of the content, not the literal story of the content. …she ends up mad and smashing the record, and looks more foolish - and he gets to keep on backhanded crooning more unsuspecting women with that song. Lucy and Ricky? Ethel and Fred? Too deep, it’s a joke, I know lol.)
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That woman has a whole channel built around making fun of old songs with questionable lyrics. Her Shorts used to come up a lot when I was doomscrolling through YouTube Shorts. I must have stopped paying attention because she hasn't come up in a while. This is actually one of the few really good songs she's done a video for (seriously, the Chet Baker cover is regarded as a jazz classic). Usually they are music hall stuff with lyrics that could almost go on my NSFW writing site.
 
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